You’ve probably heard the expression, “Time is to keep everything from happening at once.” This last week, it felt like everything did happen at once!

Sunday, the 3rd, Mark and I went to my church, Door of Life Christian Church, and picked apples from a tree that grows next to the parking lot. They are the tastiest apples I’ve ever eaten, if you can get past the worms and the bird pecks. We picked a whole bushel basket, and when we got it home, we put them in the sink and 2 buckets to soak. We didn’t actually get to prepare them until I got off work on Monday. Mark and I set up an assembly line where he sliced them and I cut the bad parts out and put them in 2 big kettles to make applesauce. Even at that, there was another bucket of apples we didn’t get to cook that day.

Tuesday morning, Mark left to spend several days in Sheboygan. A couple of Heroes (abused kids who have survived) were going to be in court testifying against their abuser, and Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA) was there in the courtroom to support them and give them courage. Mark was one of those, and when Mark heard that the family felt unsafe from the abuser’s friends, he parked across the street from their hotel and patrolled off and on throughout the night.

Tuesday, I was called by our concierge from Renewal By Anderson to say that they were ready to install the new windows we had ordered for our house, and they could come on Wednesday. They said they would be there before I left for work and they would wait until I got home to walk me through how to operate the windows. I said OK, but I was already feeling like I was in over my head, because I was going out of town Wednesday afternoon. Another thing I did before leaving for work was jar up the applesauce Mark and I made and cook the rest of the apples.

On Tuesday, I also got a call from Pastor Adam in Tucson. He and I had talked about me going through the process of becoming ordained in my church, Northwest Community Friends Church. Originally, he had said that there would be a couple of classes I’d need to take, and then there would be some other parts of the process to do before I could be ordained. He checked into it recently because I was getting antsy about the classes coming up, and he told me that the Friends annual meeting has changed their requirements for being ordained. I no longer need to take the classes, but there is paperwork I will need to fill out, and paperwork my church will need to fill out, and then I will be interviewed and commissioned by my church. At that point, I will be officially ordained as a minister, unlike when I got the quicky ordination online last December when I married my friend and her fiance. That was what got this whole thing started, and I am so excited!

Around 5:00 on Wednesday morning, I woke up to lightning and thunder. I got up early because I had much to do to get ready for my trip. I got dressed and packed, made my lunch, ate breakfast, and sometime during all this, I got a call from the guys who were supposed to install our windows. It was pouring down rain and they asked if I still wanted them to come, and I said that actually, I would be relieved if we could put it off. I got a call later from our concierge and she rescheduled for Friday.

When I got to work at the Door County North Welcome Center, I was going through my emails and saw one from my boss saying that Rowley’s Bay Resort had burned down the previous day. What a shocker! Rowley’s Bay Resort has been a family-owned hotel since the 1960s. I know the owner, Jewel Ouradnik Peterson, who was also the sister of Wanda Mango for whom I do the fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Association every year. Today, Sunday the 10th, I finally drove down to look at the damage.

Of course, the fire made the front page of our local paper, The Pulse. According to the article, Jewel and an employee discovered flames shooting out of the basement windows and Jewel raised the alarm. Everyone was evacuated, so there were no injuries, but it took every fire department in Door County, including the one from Washington Island, and 2 fire departments from Brown County and Kewaunee County to put the fire out. The community was wonderful! As soon as word got out that the resort was on fire, other hotels called and offered to take in the guests and employees who had to leave, and other businesses hired the employees on the spot so they wouldn’t have to lose any pay. Quoting Jewel, the paper said that she was grateful for all the offers of assistance and that she plans to rebuild and open back up next spring. Still, Jewel grew up there and raised her own children there, so it has to be disheartening to her to see it all go up in flames. For those of you who pray, please pray for strength for her.

When I got home from work on Wednesday, I briefly went home to get my stuff, and then I went to pick up one of my quilt guild members, Linda, so that we could carpool down to Madison for the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show. The hardest part was that I had just discovered that my bank card had some suspicious activity on it so the bank froze my card. I had gotten paid on Monday and had plenty of money, but no access to it for my trip. I worked it out with the bank that as soon as I could get to an ATM, I would call them and they would unfreeze my account for 5 minutes while I drew out some cash for the trip. Mark had no problem with his bank card, so he had access the whole time he was in Sheboygan.

Thursday morning, Linda and I headed over to the Alliant Energy Center in Madison where the quilt show was being held. I had an 8:30 class, so Linda gave me a couple of granola bars to tide me over. My first class was on Schmetz needles and how to know which one to use for which project. I have never fully understood the needles for my sewing machine, so I was really glad to get to learn about them. Then I took a class on how to organize my sewing space, a class on all the kinds of batting and what they are for, a class on Quilt As You Go which is a kind a batting with quilt patterns printed on it so you can quilt all 3 layers together on your machine, and finally, a class on scissors and the benefit of getting them professionally sharpened. By that time, it was 3:30 and I hadn’t had lunch yet. Linda had a class at 4:00 and the show ended for the day at 5:00, so I found a hot dog I could buy and then ran up and down the aisles looking at what all the vendors were selling and didn’t have time for a full run through of the more than 200 quilts on display at the show. The quilt show was going to run from Thursday through Saturday, but my only day off was Thursday, so I had to pack in everything I could in that one day, then Linda and I made the 4-hour drive back home, with stops, and got home at 10:30. Fortunately, Mark was back from Sheboygan, but we were both exhausted and went to bed.

Friday morning, before I even had a chance to get dressed, the window installers arrived to put in our new windows. These are double-paned windows with a new kind of window screen that you can see through as though they weren’t there. The frames are vinyl as opposed to the wood frames we had before. I got pictures after they were installed.

Friday night, Mark and I had tickets to a play at the Peninsula Players Theater. The play was Baskerville, a take-off on Arthur Conan Doyle’s book, The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was okay, but they made a sort of comedy out of it and it didn’t feel like it fit the mystery.

Yesterday, Saturday, I had my booth at the final Vintage Market at the Liberty Grove Historical Society (LGHS). I raised another $77 for the Alzheimer’s Association and I also gave a $10 donation from the sale of one of my Christmas pillows to the LGHS. Mark was gone most of the day for another BACA event, so when he got home that evening, we had to go back and pick up the tent and one of the tables that I wasn’t able to bring home with me. Then today, he went back down for the monthly BACA meeting in Green Bay. He’s home now but there will be another court hearing coming up this week. I sometimes think we should move down to southern Door County so he wouldn’t have so far to go for all the things BACA has going on.

I had a chance to talk with my sister and son on a conference call this afternoon. It was good to have an opportunity to swap stories with them. My nephew, Nate, started his first week of student teaching last week, and Rob is teaching band at another school this year. Lauryn is working with a new band teacher at her school who is a friend of theirs. She and Rob just went to Hawaii before the school year started. Jamey shared about some things that are going on at work.

By the time most of you get this blog, it will be my mother’s 94th birthday, September 11th. Happy birthday, Mom!