Monday, December 31, 2007

A Little Bit of Christmas and Getting Ready to Leave

I know it has been a while since I posted. It is really hard to find something new to write when we don't leave the grounds. It would be pretty boring to keep telling you I cooked and visited with the residents. Although we have not been bored ourselves, folks reading the blog may well get tired of hearing of our everyday chores. So, I have waited till I have something different to tell you all.
Ed and Hazel left on the 16th, and it was terribly hard to say good-bye to them. They called us on Christmas night, and we were so pleasantly surprised. The Christmas Eve party was marvelous. Everyone had such a good time. Miss Kitty read the Christmas story, we sang carols, and played some cute games. Barbara and Jack Wade played some music for us, and Evie played her harmonica. Evie is visiting Jo and Fred Durham. She is blind, like Jo, and the 2 guide dogs would have loved some of the treats available. Everyone ate the great candies and cookies and other goodies made by all of us volunteers. The residents were all so happy we were willing to do it. Little do they know that we get more out of the doing than they get from us doing it.
Tomorrow is New Years' Day. We are having a special brunch and early supper. One of the repeat volunteers stepped up and came up with the idea. Everyone was in favor of the change in schedule. We'll have eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit, juice, coffee, and all the fixings. Then at supper we will have turkey soup. We have frozen all the leftovers from Christmas, and it will all be cooked up into a great soup by Roy. Tom and I are on call all day. It's not recommended we do anything else while we are on call. We do have a few little things we need to do before we sit by the phone. All of us work really well together, so all will get done.
Today we did laundry. Lots of laundry!!!!We had 6 loads of wash to do. Then 7 dryer loads. Next came the Wal-Mart run. Just getting stuff for the trip west. We will be leaving here on Thursday morning. It will be a sad day. Saying good-bye will be very hard. So many of these precious folks may not be here when we come back. We will be back!!!! Then again some will have no memory of us at all. Like my 2 friends Miss Ellie and Miss Helen. Thanks to Miss Elie I will always be even-steven. (a kiss on each cheek) We'll go over for breakfast and then get going. We have been packing up things for a couple of days now. The tree is down and sowed under the bed. All of the Christmas things are put away. Now we are in count-down mode. We have one more day in the kitchen(Wed.), which is our last job.
We are headed for San Antonio. We will stop at the town of Brenham, where they make Blue Bell ice cream. We want to take the tour, of course. What happens after that is anyone's guess. We are so excited to be tourists. Now that we will be on the move, I will be sure to keep up with the blog so you all can all follow us around. Happy New Year to all.
Here's some Holiday Pictures. Better late than never.
http://picasaweb.google.com/tnank101/CARESPartyForResidents
http://picasaweb.google.com/tnank101/XmasEveAtCARE
http://picasaweb.google.com/tnank101/XmasDayAtCARE

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