Hello Again!

After a lengthy hiatus from blogging, I am BACK BABY!
Where have I been all these weeks?

I had the awesome priviledge and humbling honor of speaking at Willow Park Church's Women's Retreat at Gardom Lake Camp last weekend. There were 110 women, all of them beautiful and amazing. I have done a fair bit of public speaking but never a retreat before (so that meant 4 x 30 minute talks in one weekend). The preparation was a HUGE challenge for me and it was really time consuming so that has been my focus for the last while. When people ask, "So how did it go" it's really hard for me to know how to answer. All I can go on is the response and feedback from the women who were there and they were incredibly affirming... so, I guess it went well :-)

The women at WPC are a great group.. I really appreciated the time to hang out with them. I know a few and met a few more this weekend, as well as met up with some old friends who I had not seen for a long time.

Now that that is out of the way, I am faced with a few other "To Do's" that have been neglected over the last month or so...
1) my house... like some detailed cleaning.
2) my house... as in, the fact that my basement is nearing the end of being finished and I have to make decisions on things like Carpet (yesterday) Paint (today) Trim (tomorrow) Tile (Yesterday) Doorknobs, cabinets, furniture, lighting, towel bars, blah, blah ,blah....
3) my house... as in painting that basement. I went down there yesterday to help my dad who was cutting in the priming. I rolled primer for an hour or two and mentioned that I didn't mind painting, I jsut wasn't very good at it. My dad then inspected my work and politely offered to finish up (as he gently took the roller out of my hands and tried to fix what i had done) Poor guy hates painting, but his desire for a job-well-done seems to override that. So, I think I might be off painting duty... pays to not do things well in some situations :-)
4) SunRidge for Women Dinner tomorrow night... we have 25 girls who are going house to house for several courses of dinner... I'm hosting the salad stop... really looking forward to that but have a little work to do there yet
5) FoodBank Dinner... every December our church puts on a nice dinner for the patrons of the westbank foodbank... this is our 4th year I think. WE also do gift bags for every child and every adult. Some friends and I are responsible for putting the adult gift bags together so that all needs to get finished this weekend. These friends are coming for dinner on Sunday and then we'll pack the bags after that. The bags have things like good quality coffe, chocolates, Christmas napkins, beautiful handmade Christmas ornaments, and a Tim Hortons gift certificate. The generous people at SunRidge have been donating all the items and our job is just to pack them up pretty! If you ever need a good place to buy funky giftbags or boxes... Interior Retail Supply on Kirschner is excellent.
6) Memories & More... we have 3 special days coming up in the next 4 weeks so I have a little coordinating yet to do there as well. I love special events days... and I think we've got some pretty great stuff lined up, thanks to the uber talented staff at M & M!
7) Christmas Details... (ok, now this is just becoming an on-line to-do list for myself!) We need to figure out if we're heading to Spokane between Christmas and new years or not... Joel's Grandma is turning 100 in January but we won't be able to go for her party so we might head down over the holiday with Joel's Brother from Edmonton who are contemplating the same visit. Neither of our families will be able to go at the end of January when everyone else is going for her party because....
8) Vacation stuff!! We are heading to LA and then MEXICO to meet up with Patti & Nathan and Brad & Carmen (brothers & cousins) for a little vacation! Our kids have no idea about any of it!! I have booked almost everything.. .just need to figure out the car rental situation and the park tickets and then it's all done!

SO, if you've been wondering where I"ve been or where I'm going... there you have it!!

Loooking foward to keeping in better touch with you guys again!
love,
Dawn