Accomplishments

This is just a short blog to get everyone’s interest. In the past two weeks, a new Hargitt sister found us and I pulled off a wonderful retirement party for my dear, sweet husband Bruce. So, I am amazed at my ever changing life and still in awe of how awesome God is! I’ll post more details later in regards to the newest sibling.   Stay tuned.

It’s a busy life sometimes.

A dear friend of mine since 1971, Linda Goeppinger, emailed me some time ago and asked me why I had not blogged in awhile.  So in my own feeble way, I’m going to attempt to justify what has been keeping me so busy all this time.

In the Fall when everything starts getting cranked up at church for the new year, we found ourselves not only singing in the traditional choir but also singing the the “Praise Ensemble”.  Both of these groups practice every week so we found ourselves driving back to Holland on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  We both also play in our instrumental group, Bruce the coronet and me, the clarinet, which plays maybe every 4-6 weeks and practices on Saturdays a couple of times before we perform.  Then I was approached about playing in the bell choir, as they had two new openings.  Fortunately, bell choir practices on Wednesday before Choir so I was not adding another evening out.  At times, all of this music participation can be overwhelming, but when it’s all done, I feel so full of the Holy Spirit that I have to remind myself that part of my worship is through music.  So I will continue to make a joyful noise onto t he Lord.  Bruce and I sang a duet today, “Draw Me Close to You” which was sort of sprung onto us Tuesday night.  While practicing at home and my attempt to find the alto part for harmony, there were many times that the joyful noise sounded more like two cats in heat!  We made it through the song but I vow not to have anymore songs sprung on me without ample practice.  Bell choir also performed two songs today that were just awsome.

Off the music subject and now into even more current events and that is planning Bruce’s retirment party.  My sister-in-law put together  a really neat invitaiton that I’m having printed off at Office Max in post card size.  My friend that I was hoping would cater is not available that weekend 4/25/09 so I am going to do it with help from 3 other friends.  We will be serving just snacks, punch and cake as the party is more like an open house for dropping and wishing Bruce good luck.  We are having it at our church, so I don’t even have to clean house.

Next main event, is our trip to Floriday 5/23-5/26/09 over the Memorial Day weekend.  We are staying at our timeshare in Orlando and will do Disney one day, Blizzard Beach and try to squeeze in some grandson time. 

Then on to the ultimate for this year.  Our trip to Europe!  I’ll blog more about that later but we plan to leave on Friday night 10/9 and stay until around the 22nd.  London and Paris for sure and maybe Switzerland and/or Amsterdam.  We will see how that unfolds. 

I think that’s enough for now….or at least to let everyone who reads this, that I’m still alive.

Another Cook laid to rest…..and then there was one!

It has been far too long since I have sat down to put some thoughts on my blog.  Why?  Life is so busy with church activities, work and family.  Today, we gathered together in the Holland Cemetery to remember my mom’s sister, Mary, who passed at age 81 a couple of weeks ago.  Suffice it to say, she did not age well.  In fact, she was one of those cranky old women that we pray we don’t become.  She was quick to tell everyone what was on her mind and how she felt about you (my mom was blessed with all the tact).  She was that way all of her life but later in life she seemed to take even more liberties.  I wonder when she arrived at the pearly gates if she had to answer why she said things to some and how she treated them?  I’m sure she did.

There were six in mom’s family (mom was the youngest) …Tom, Rod, Joe, Duncan, Mary & Martha…all two years apart.  They all died from lung cancer – emphysema in Aunt Mary’s case – except for Uncle Rod who is still hanging in.  He turned 89 this year.

I am thankful that my health is good and that I have the wonderful family that I do.  I’m thankful that I have a job in this tough economy especially since Michigan is #1 with the highest unemployment.  I’m thankful that I had Jesus in my life and that I share that with my friends, family and co-workers.  As we say goodbye to loved ones and we realize our own mortality, I think we need to give thanks everyday for what we have and share it with everyone.  God bless!

Labor Day Weekend

I love reading my friends posts and yet, I fill my time up with “stuff” that I rarely sit and write anything.  I guess I figure “who cares”?  I have to admit, I have been pretty stressed out recently with way too many committments right now and not getting organized early enough.  Now, I feel like I’m down to the wire and running out of time.  Why do people procrastinate?  Is it because we think we work better under pressure?  Not me.  I had a melt down this weekend because of my procrastination.  And so a friend said to me, actually more than one friend has said that I should prioritize my life…..get rid of some of the committments I have.  Where would I begin?  Do I tell my Red Hat Ladies that I go out to dinner with once a month that I don’t have time for them?  What about my monthly dinner out with Frankie and Alice?  Then there is church.  I have several committments that involve music in the church.  I hate to give up that part of my life because I feel closest to God when I’m singing.  I know…..I just need to quit my job.  That’s the one committment that I enjoy the least and takes up 40 hours a week out of my life.  Well dear friends, I do plan to retire at the end of 2012 and it will be here before you know it. 

My weekend has been filled up with family.  Helped Derrick and wife, Beth move to a new apartment.  Well, lets say I was there, I don’t know how much help I was.  Aimee, Mike and girls were here Saturday overnight.  We went to the beach and KC went swimming for the first time ever!  He was so cute and with his new hair cut he was “wash and dry”. 

Well, I guess I’ll sign off for now.  I’m multi tasking and not doing very well.  I’m on skype with two friends, watching my plurk.com and trying to do this.  So until next time…..God bless your day!

CFO (Camp Farthest Out)

Good morning to all.  Yes, I know, it’s been a long long time since I’ve sat at my computer and blogged.  I’m sorry to say that life has been way too busy for me.  Let me begin by sharing some of my time at Traverse City at CFO.  We attended camp 7  years ago for the 25th anniversary.  Needless to say, they are still going strong and we were reunited with some fellow christians that we met in 2001.  We had an awsome time and I hope to be able to post some pictures that I took.  They had two very good speakers this year.  Jenz from Colon, Germany and Ruth West from Pennsylvania.  They had wonderful witness talks to share with everyone and more than once I shed a few tears.  We sang some wonderful music that was very inspiring and spiritually lifting and we also did some soul searching through creative writing. 

Every morning they do “Rythms” usually some sort of low key excercise to music.  This year we experienced Yoga.  I discovered that I am not able to stand on one leg and balance myself very easily.  They also expected us to make ourselves into human pretzels at times.  That was very interesting also. 

We took naps in the afternoon and I got some serious knitting time….woo hoo.  Of course, I took plenty of projects with me in case I miraculously finished one or two of them and some books to read.  The only reading I accomplished was reading Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s new book “Things I Learned from Knitting”.  I even shared it with my husband who roared with laughter as he recognized me in several places in her book.

I now have to turn my attention to writing my Rollo for Cursillo (Reunion Groups) for this Fall and then prepare a presentation on “Are you a Martha or a Mary?” for our church women’s day retreat the Saturday before Cursillo.  I’m feeling the pressure to get these presentations done so I can relax and not feel overwhelmed.  

I hope I have caught everyone up on at least last week’s adventures and I’ll post some pictures of Sean’s visit the first part of the month as well as new pictures of the grands.  Hugs to all.

Plurk timeline

Plurk.com

Plurk timeline

Plurk.com

California here we are!

Greetings to all my friends from San Francisco, California.  We are on day three of our vacation.  Yesterday we spent the entire day in Napa Valley wine tasting.  We had a wonderful time, had some good wine, had a wonderful picnic lunch with a bottle of wine and enjoyed the gorgeous weather and countryside.  Today we are going over to the coast to visit Louis and Tim’s kindergarden teacher who lives in California now.  I don’t know her but I’m sure she is delightful.

Louis flies out this evening to Germany to see his client and returns Friday.  Tim arrives today from Denver around 4pm after being a delegate at the Libertarian National Convention.  We don’t have any definite plans yet for the rest of the week except for my visit Wednesday night to Nine Rubies Knitting shop in San Matao, where I plan to meet a Raverly friend who lives in the area.  We haven’t personally met but we have corresponded by email.  It should be fun.  She is going to show me around the shop and introduce me to her friends and also show me yarn that a friend of hers sells in the shop.  I am anxious to go. 

I brought socks to knit and my afghan of the month square so I”m enjoying the leisurly knitting I am able to do.  Weather is between 65 and 75 degrees.  A little chilly this morning.  Until next time…hugs to all.

Packed and ready to go!

Moving day is tomorrow, Saturday 5/17/08 and everything is ready to go.  I moved my computer Tuesday to our new house and even if I had it still in Holland I wouldn’t have time to post anything.  So tonight, I’m planning on finishing up some cleaning and then packing myself in a box and traveling north to Jenison in the morning.  Bruce, bless his heart, has moved every box that we packed so that all that is left now is the larger furniture (the piano wouldn’t fit in his Escort) and the shed stuff.  We are both excited to be moving to this lovely home that we can stretch out in and sit on our nice 3 season room and watch the geese and ducks.  I’ll post pictures as soon as I can.  Pray for good weather!  Hugs to all.

New Beginnings

I want to begin by saying I had a marvelous time at the “Knit Away” day that Marie and Cherrie hosted at the American Bear Cottage in Glenn.  There were about 20 people there on and off all day, many prizes given out, great food shared and lots of laughter.  Kudos to you girls for thinking up the idea and promising the Second Annual for next year.

Exciting news on the home front.  We have been looking for an apartment to rent in Grand Rapids, with rising gas cost and the treacherous winter roads and actually found one really liked.  God had other plans for us, though.  A business card that I had from last year when we looked at modular homes fell off my desk, which, when I picked it up, reminded me that this may also be a possibility.  So, I set up an appointment with them on Wednesday last week, we viewed about six homes in the community and found two that we liked.  We explained to them that everything hinged on whether we could trade our single wide mobile home in for the new home.  That evening…….they called and asked to look at our home that night and much to our surprise….are you ready for this?……they offered to pay off our home in exchange for buying theirs.  That’s right!  No negative equity involved to tack onto the new mortgage.  So we are in the process of getting financing squared away and we should be moving soon.  Oh, yes, we still have our rented home in Allegan but that will eventually sell or be paid off.  Not sure which one will come first, but it will work out!  Praise God for the many blessings he bestows upon us.

Now the next new beginning concerns my son Derrick and his bride-to-be.  They have decided to forgo the wedding and are being married by a judge in Holland on Wed. May 14th.  No, she’s not……(I know what you are thinking).  They are so cute together- like two peas in a pod.  So life is good at the Campbell house but it always is……I wouldn’t expect anything less.  So, I’m off to watch Desparate Housewives and then off to bed.  Hugs to all.