Homecoming 2010

Here is a picture of my husband and me walking with his cross country team in the Homecoming parade on Thursday.  We're the "old" people wearing the shorts. The building in the background is the County Courthouse and it is a beautiful building.

Picture provided by K. Allsup of Oskynews.org - Thanks K. Allsup!!

It was a gorgeous evening.  I'm smiling because I get a big kick out of walking around the town square in a parade in a small town.  You wouldn't see anyone doing this in my hometown back in New York!

It's Homecoming!!



My husband and son - Cross Country Rocks!!!



If you live in a small town in Iowa, when Homecoming comes around you might as well put all other plans aside as it is a really big deal.  I grew up in a city in Western New York and although we had homecoming, I don't ever remember it being as big as it is in the Midwest. 

Our youngest son is the President of Student Council and the Student Council organizes the Homecoming Parade which takes place tonight.  There has been a whirlwind of activity at our house this week while he along with his committee get ready for this event.  Of course, after the parade there is the crowning of the Homecoming King and Queen.  Last night was a late night in getting the gifts ready for the Homecoming Court and then getting the parade line up ready, judges instructions and other details finalized.  I finally sent him off to bed close to 11:00 p.m.  He did all the work and he only asked me to put the gifts in the gift bags as he wasn't really great with the tissue paper and making them look good. 

That is what has been going on this week in his life.  As for me, I have been working every spare moment in our back yard on the "infamous" fence.  Last Saturday we started to construct a shed and even though we had always picked this one piece of ground in our backyard to place a shed, we didn't think one thing through.  We constructed or should I say, partially contructed, the shed near a tree.  Then I realized that while it was half done that the birch tree was the wrong place to put the shed near.  In our Iowa winters, if we get a really, really bad storm, the birch tree gets covered with snow, the snow weighs the branches down and the branches bend clear to the ground.  If we kept the shed in that location and we received a bad snow storm, it is very likely that a birch branch would crash through the roof of the shed.

We had marked out the dimensions of the shed, but had forgot about the heighth.  Sooo... after the Homecoming Parade tonight, our neighbors, a few football players from the local college are coming over to help us move the shed.  Since we only have the walls up and the platform that it sits on, it shouldn't take too much work to move it about 30 feet across the yard.  At least, let's hope so. 

As a side note, when you see college football players moving in next door to you, you wonder what kind of parties and such they will be having and what kind of neighbors they will be.  Well, they have lived next door to us for 1 year and they are wonderful guys.  The only loud noise we ever heard coming from their place was an argument over who was supposed to wash the dishes that week.  I send cookies over to their house and we let them borrow our lawn mower.  They are a great bunch of guys.  I plan to send a couple of pasta casseroles over to their house tomorrow for supper in preparation for their big homecoming football game on Saturday. 

Back to our day.  My DH is picking up a load of dirt during his lunch hour at noon and dumping it in the spot where the shed will now be located.  We need some dirt to level the ground.  He wears casual business clothes to work so he will have to come home, change clothes, get the load of dirt, unload it and level the ground, wash up and change back into his work clothes.  In the meantime I have to paint the fence that the shed will be against, about a 12 foot piece of fence.  Also, I am to bake 8 dozen cinnamon rolls for tomorrow's cross country practice.  Why did I ever start the tradition of the coach's wife baking for the team?  Then after that is done, I am to be at the homcoming parade line up by 6:00 p.m. to walk with the team through the homecoming parade and then I will head back home to finish cinnamon roll baking.

At least we bought tickets to the Rotary Club's BBQ dinner, so I don't have to worry about dinner.  They have a drive thru set up near one of the grocery stores and you simply drive up to the picnic tables, show them your tickets and they package everything up and hand it to you.  I love convenience, especially today.

So here is how my day is lining up:  paint a fence, help hubby get dirt off his pickup truck to level the ground, bake cinnamon rolls, pick up our BBQ supper from the Rotary, walk in the Homecoming Parade and then finish the cinnamon rolls.  Sounds simple enough.  I know that somewhere in between there will be a homecoming parade emergency that the Student Council will have to deal with and may include my having to have on hand any duck tape for float troubles and more.

There is no question in my mind - that these are the best years of our lives.  

Back to School Time!!!

I love Back to School time but not for the reason some of you may think.  Okay, it is nice to get the kids back to school and into a routine, but I love "Back to School Time" for one reason alone - school supplies are on sale.  It takes me back to when I was in grade school and I used to get a new pencil box each year for school.  I remember in second grade getting a plastic pencil box that had a picture of the United States on the front and the capitol of each state was listed.  I memorized those capitols from looking at that pencil box over and over.  Ah, happy times.

I stock up on baking supplies during the holidays and I stock up on pens, pencils, post it notes, paper, and notebooks during " Back to School Time."  Better yet, wait up to two weeks after school has started and those supplies go on clearance.  Every household needs these supplies so I always make sure I buy a year's supply for our household and also for our son's school needs. 

This time of year is almost like the beginning of a new calendar year.  I feel like getting organized, I feel like tackling some projects and I just feel happy.  I'm happier this year as my son is a Senior and he doesn't have to take math this year.  Yippee!!!