In Our Local News…

This article was in today’s local paper…thought you might find it ‘interesting’:

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS: (AP)

Amsterdam police say 15 camels, 2 zebras and an undetermined number of llamas and potbellied pigs briefly escaped from a traveling Dutch circus after a giraffe kicked a hole in their cage. Police spokesman Arnout Aben says the animals wandered in a group through a nearby neighborhood for several hours after their 5:30 a.m. breakout. The animals were back at the circus later Monday after being rounded up by police and circus workers with the assistance of dogs. Aben says neighbors fed some of the animals…which he said was a bad idea…but they were tame and nobody was hurt. Says Aben: “You have to imagine somebody rubbing his eyes first thing in the morning and saying :”Am I seeing things or is that 15 camels walking past?”

Could prove to be an ‘interesting’ morning, for sure!

Hugs;

Pammie

Just thought you might like to know…

According to one of the knit shops in Lansing (MI) it was officially 6 months (yesterday) until Christmas! (Oh joy!) Just thought you might like to know!

Merry Christmas (a little early!) Hugs; Pammie

Scenes from a Summer’s Day

WordPress, my blog site, has changed some of their ‘ways of posting photos’ and I’ve yet to figure it all out…however…a very nice gentleman named Nick in “Support” helped me to arrange the post below so that it’s in a better order than I had after attempting to learn the ‘new way’ to post photos! THANKS, NICK!!!

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What do you do on a fine summer’s day when you find lovely flowers blooming in your yard, like these?

You could admire the flowers-OR-you could read a good book to your Uncle while using your Uncle as a chair!

Hoping you’re having a lovely ‘week before the holiday 4th of July’-
Enjoy the gorgeous summer weather and all the flowers in bloom!

Hugs;
Pammie

“Technical Difficulties”

This is a short post to inform you that my host site, WordPress, seems to be having some problems with allowing us to upload photos and then writing, as well. I will attempt, soon, to submit another post WITH PHOTOS AND writing, but we’ll see. I went to WordPress, only to discover that this change occurred yesterday and that 85 people were ahead of me in line, all complaining about the same thing (so I’m not alone!). We’re all hoping WordPress will work out the bugs and give us back our ‘photo icon’ so that we can all go back to our merry little ways of doing things ‘the old way’ (although I really am not that naive to think that they will…sigh.)

Just didn’t want any of you to think I’d forgotten about you…just having “Technical Difficulties”!

Hugs;

Pammie

What I Did on My 60th Birthday

June 18th, 2008

Today started out with a phone call from my cousin, Doug, who’s vacationing in Nova Scotia with his wife; they’re going out ‘Whale Watching’ today! Doug and I have been close all our lives, although he lives several states away. You see, our parents decided that they would go on my parents honeymoon together and Doug & I are the results! Doug is officially 2 weeks older than I am, so every year when the time arrives we tease each other by asking “How’s it feel to be XXX age?” (first I tease him, they he gets me back 2 weeks later).

I thought I’d share another photo of my dear grandson, since I’m babysitting him today. He’s going to be two in less than a week; it’s hard to believe the time has gone by so quickly.

My youngest told me that I had to bake a cake today, as ‘it’s tradition!’ Not sure if I’ll do that today or not-we’ll see.

I had lunch with a certain entertaining ‘almost two’ year old; we dined on ‘hot dog, mac-cheez’!

After my dear grandson went home for the day (around 4:45 p.m.), it was time to get a quick dinner ready, drive my youngest to his friend’s house to go to their evening church, then go to my special needs adults Bible Study, called “Friends Group”. Below is a photo of most of our group, taken last fall. We are now totaling something like 54 ’students’; we meet from 7-8:30 on Wednesday evenings and I truly love every minute with them. (I’m way over to the right)

After Friends Group, I quickly stopped at a local drug store and bought a quart of Stroh’s ‘Chocolate Marshmallow’ ice cream and a 3 pack of Spunkmeyer’s chocolate chip muffins and we had a small feast of ice cream and chocolate muffins (cut in half to feed everyone). My oldest son stopped over to bring me his present of a new Mary Higgins Clark novel (which I hadn’t read). All in all, it was a busy but fun filled birthday!

Hope you enjoy YOUR day!

Hugs;

Pammie

Not Much Lately, How ‘Bout You?

It’s now a balmy 90-something degrees out here in Michigan and very HUMID! Like most of the Mid-West states, we had a huge, very nasty storm blow through here last night. Right now (3:20 p.m.), we’re under another Severe Thunderstorm Watch until 8 p.m.After reading the morning paper, some say it was a tornado, some say ‘tornado-like’ winds…either way, lots of trees down, a lot of damage, and in other parts of the state people died. What were WE doing during that? My family ‘rode it out’, lost power for about 2 hours and, to quote my youngest son: “It was the biggest winds I’d ever seen-the weeds were lying FLAT!” Where was I, you ask? Why, doing my usual Sunday evening choir duty, but this time we ended up holding part of choir practice in the hallway, after they dragged the piano out to us-we were under a tornado watch, also but the area where our church is didn’t suffer much damage (thank Heavens!) My oldest son’s area is without power, even today, so he brought the entire contents of his fridge & freezer to our house and gave my grandson a bath here last night. I drove through his area today and, being that it is in one of the older sections of the city, there was a very large amount of downed tree branches, and even some uprooted trees. That’s what’s been ’shakin’ around here.

Also, just thought I might share a few of the ‘what I’ve been working on’ photos: These are three of the next shipment of afghans with the ‘teeny beanie baby’ toys in the pockets. Click on the photos to enlarge.

(check out the ‘love’ square, top right)

That’s what’s been happening around here for the last week or so, lots of nasty thunderstorms & lots of afghan assembly! Hope you’re staying dry and enjoying some NICE summer weather!

Hugs;

Pammie

Pammie goes “High Tech”…sort of

Most/much of the world has already “arrived”…and then there are the people like me. What people, you ask? Those stalwart beings who steadfastly hold to the ‘old ways’…like writing paper checks instead of having those cute little plastic cards! I’m learning that the older I get, the more entrenched in my ways I becoming…but I’m trying to change, little by little. For years my sons have told me: “Mom! You need to get a debit card! They’re SO MUCH easier than writing checks!” (and, being Scots and stubborn, for many years I resisted)………until now. What, you might ask, caused this change? The sky-high prices of gas! For many, many years I’ve been a strong supporter of our local Meijer gas station mainly because they take checks (and also are in a safe location, have clean facilities, etc…those little things women notice). Last week, with my tank on ‘almost breathing fumes’, I pulled in to my favorite haunt only to be stopped in my tracks by $4.19 per gallon for the CHEAPEST gas! Believe me, this took great determination and consideration on my part…”Do I REALLY need gas THAT bad?” (yes)…but Do I REALLY want to pay THAT price? (NO!)…so I dug to the bottom of my purse for the paultry amount of ‘emergency money’ I keep there and drove to a $4.06 location to get as much of said petroleum product as my little tank would hold for the meager amount of monies. World, my name is FRUGALITY!!! After this jaunt, it set my mind to thinking about those dreaded words: Debit Card. Two of my sons own them and think they’re just the best. My problem, for all these years, was keeping track of the monies spent using that card. Call it crazy (or eccentric) but if I were to use one of those cards and only had the paper receipt (which I’d misplace), I could very easily withdraw more money that was in the account; this worried me greatly. Saturday I had a discussion about this very thing with a friend who made a great suggestion: “When you use your debit card, write it down in your check register…date/Debit Card and the place you used it, and the amount…then you’ll have it on paper like you wanted!” Went to the bank today to arrange this feat and gave the lady behind the counter great reason to chuckle and smile a little at my ’senility’.  When I told her I wanted to apply for a debit card on my checking account, she looked up the account and stated: “You already HAVE a debit card on that account!” I looked at her askance and checked in my purse for the little plastic card I use to withdraw cash when I absolutely need it (I don’t like carrying cash)…what to my wondering eyes doth appear but those two little words: DEBIT CARD at the bottom! Both she and my eldest son had huge grins on their faces (and, I’m sure a few guffaws behind my back)…yep, gettin’ old can be amazing at times! Look out, gas stations…here I come!!! I saw a station on the way to church yesterday that was offering gas for $3.99 for cash purchases! Wow…around here, that’s great! (Yes, I do know that using plastic isn’t a cash purchase).

I will now close with those eternal words from one of the major credit card companies (keeping in mind my above experience): “What’s in YOUR wallet?”

Hugs;

Pammie

What This Means to Others…

Hana Getachew (patient, Corle Bu Hospital/ Accra, Ghana)

I recently received an email from the ‘head nurse’ on the Ghana Project and felt that it would be nice to share this with you. As I mentioned in the previous post, the head nurse is a very busy woman with many, many duties. One of her chosen duties is to escourt some of the children who have received spinal surgeries to correct their spinal deformities, back to their home country. These children come from Ghana (where the hospital is located), as well as Sierra Leone and Ethiopia. While the children are at the hospital in Ghana they do not have family or toys or possessions with them for comfort. These are life-saving, MAJOR surgeries which are also life-threatening. The recovery time for this is usually 2-3 months in hospital. The idea for providing a comfort to them was totally the idea of the head nurse, Bettye Wright (not the nurse in the photo).

Bettye Wright, RN.

I am grateful to be able to offer a solution to this need for a ’security blanket/afghan’ for these children through “The Ghana Project.”

Here, in her email, is a brief explanation of “What it means to others” and why I continue knitting and constructing the afghans:

“Thank you so much, you cannot know how much these afghans mean to these patients, especially the ones that come to Ghana from other countries, without parents or anything familiar, the language is different, the food is different and we are all strangers, and to have something to cuddle with, that is all theirs, is very special. When I took Hanna back to Ethiopia she traveled via Ethiopian airlines with hers, all of the flight attendants loved the story about you and your group. God will bless you richly for the service you are doing.”

Hugs;

Pammie

Trying to Catch Up

Sorry I haven’t written more or sooner; it’s been a rather rushed week or more. The Ghana Project afghans are going out tomorrow (34 completed this trip!) and I’ve been hurriedly trying to get them all done and packaged. I made the drive (1/2 hour one way) to deliver them last Friday, only to find that the doctor’s office was closed (early for the holidays, I’m guessing), so now I will have to make another trip tomorrow. The ‘good’ thing about that is that the head nurse who takes these to Ghana will be stopping by at the office to collect them tomorrow, so perhaps I’ll get a chance to say Hi. She has retired from working at this doctor’s office and now devotes her time fully to the care, organization, implementation, etc. of all things having to do with the Orthofocos (see web site) trips to Ghana, so catching up with her is kind of a treat as she’s one BUSY lady! I spent part of last week trying to just FIND her! She was in Michigan, then back to New York, then in between…thank heavens for email!

Along with all the afghan organizing has been another of my ‘pet projects’: Campbell’s Soup “Labels for Education” program for my special needs group. For at least 8-9 years we have been saving labels in hopes of earning a 17 passenger minivan. Let me ‘fill in the blanks’ a little here: Campbell’s company has a wonderful program for groups to be able to earn items by sending in soup labels. The total label value for the minivan originally (back 8-9 years ago) was 1,400,000. It has since grown in required labels and also shrunk the mini van to a 7 passenger. Needed labels now? 1,600,000. Yes, you read that right: One Million, Six HUNDRED THOUSAND labels! Where is my group in relation to all that? Oh we’re somewhere around 36,000 labels saved. We are a small group and I’m (once again) the only one organizing the project. It was decided that, at this rate, we’re not going to be meeting our goal anytime in the near future (and, our need for this van has diminished, as well). Therefore, it was decided that this will be the LAST shipment of labels and we will view their on-line catalog to see what items we COULD use for the group, instead. I say all that to end up with: I’ve been knee-deep in label cutting for the past 2 days! I’m guessing we have, this time, somewhere around 800 labels to mail in. I don’t mind doing this, but recently Campbell’s has changed their policy on what is ‘needed’ to be sent in. In the past it was only the FRONT of the label, now they only want the UPCs. Do you know how hard it is to count little tiny UPCs? They’re light-weight and tend to either stick to each other or blow off the table! Frustrating….(could be why I’ve kind of dragged my heels on the counting part); I’ve reserved that for later today (oh, joy!). (grand total of count: 2,599)

Labels and afghans-both needed counting…is that telling me something? Who knows……

Well friends, it’s Memorial Day! That usually means cooking or grilling out for most people. In a few minutes I have to drive my middle son to his job then join lots of other folk who decided it’s a day to go GROCERY shopping! (another oh, joy!). IF I have the energy after that, I ‘might’ make potato salad to go along with the steak I’d planned on grilling…maybe…maybe not, we’ll see.

Enjoy your holiday today and remember to THANK A VET for what they’ve done for our country, our freedom and our liberty. That also counts for young men and women who are currently serving our country; thanks is a small price to pay for all they’ve done for us.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

Hugs;

Pammie

Sometimes You Just Have To…

There are times in our lives when we are confronted with a situation and forced to think and react quickly; this evening was one of those times. I was on my way to my knit group and realized that I’d forgotten the attendance sheet (I’m the coordinator) so I quickly turned around and went home. As I was about to drive down our driveway, a sight I’ve never seen before in all my almost 29 years of living here met my eyes: a momma Mallard duck and 9 tiny baby ducks, all walking in a row down our sidewalk! This might not seem to be an unusual sight until you realize that I live in the city, on a MAJOR road (4 lanes and a turn lane, 45 MPH speed limit, and this was during RUSH HOUR traffic!) I was totally surprised and mesmerized by the sight! The momma walked, the babies followed until suddenly the momma veered to the left and decided that they needed to cross our street! We’re talking RUSH HOUR here! I totally freaked, looking both ways and determining that there was no traffic directly in the lanes they were about to cross, so I used my car to block both West-bound lanes while she escourted them into the turn lane. There was traffic in the East bound lanes and she politely waited for them to go by before starting into those lanes. Meanwhile, I’m freaking again because I’m seeing traffic coming directly towards them! I
had stopped my car and began honking my horn and waiving my arms at the traffic, hoping they would look down and see them…with God’s direction (and my crazy waiving arms), they did…both lanes stopped and allowed the 10 ducks to complete their trek to the other side of the street (and the lake that lies about 50 feet ahead). By this time I was in tears, very grateful that they successfully ‘made it’ and that none were lost in the process.

Afterwards I was sharing my experience with my knit ladies and they were all saying: “Pam, do you realize YOU could have been seriously hurt in doing that?” I suppose I could have, but as my title says: “Sometimes you just HAVE to!”

Hugs;

Pammie