TRYING TO CREATE A MAGIC MOMENT

Have been working like crazy to help make a dream come true for a gentleman who lives in our facility. He worked at a plant that manufactured parts for the Apollo spacecrafts and has wanted to meet someone who flew in a craft he helped to create. Captain Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 fame has consented to meet with him briefly and get a picture taken while he is here on business in April. However, the few minutes he would be able to do this are at the discretion of the person he is meeting with for business, and he has not agreed, yet. Need some prayers. This would be one of the highlights of my friend's life. He is a WWII Vet, in extremely poor health and 86 yr old. Will keep you posted.

PATIENCE PAYS OFF!

Hi Friends! Number 1 Son came Saturday and we bottled 61 bottles of wine! 31 bottles of a gorgeous amber Almond and 30 bottles of Blackberry Merlot. The Blackberry was an Island Mist kit and the Almond is a wild. It was born on September 16, 2008 and it was finally time to bottle. It is still a little gamey but should improve greatly by Christmas 2010. We have another carboy (6 gallons) of the Almond in the closet, along with a carboy of Citrus Storm and one carboy of Pear Honey. They are all wilds so they take much longer to develop and mature than the kits. Also have two gallons of Pineapple that we threw together to see how they would taste. In all still have 20 gallons "cooking". Number 1 Son is starting a kit of Raspberry so should have 15 bottles to add to the collection in about 6 weeks. We like the Island Mist kits- they are pretty failure free. We fortified 5 bottles of Almond with 1/4 cup amaretto just to see how the flavor would improve. Took Son to the airport this a.m. in Wichita. He flew out to Dayton, OH for work and will return Wednesday night. Having a Super Bowl party at the building where I work this evening so need to get a move on. Hope your team wins tonight! !!! (Go Colts!)

Working on a new activity- or at least new to most of our current clientle. Have secured a huge box of sweaters from a local thrift store ( they are stained, stretched, or other wise not able to be sold) and we are cutting them into small pieces and unraveling them. In just a little bit we will have a mountain of "stuffing" material. We are then making small "tooth fairy" pillows and stuffing them with the unraveled sweater material. Makes so much sense to the folks I care for- they were great re-cyclers in their day, and the cute pillows will be sweet gifts for their great grandchildren- something they will keep because great grandmother "made" it. Win-win. Another cute thing that I made - probably 10 years ago- from the sweaters- I cut the white, green and red ones into 1" squares and the folks on my Alzheimers unit then strung them on yarn with a plastic needle and made the neatest Christmas "swags" for trees, fireplaces or just about anywhere. Some of them had a bead between each square and some were strung so close together that they were very heavy- but they were really neat and the family members who received them as gifts from mom or dad still have and use them at Christmastime. Suppose if you wanted to take the time you could cut teeny hearts and string them for valentine's day.

QUILTING PROJECT FOR WORK

Have had this project on the table for a while but had put it aside during the holidays because of all the other activities at work. It is a poem written by a resident where I work. She is 91 and an amazing talent. She has self published a couple of books of poetry and wrote this particular poem when she was visited by someone in the community who treated her as if she had no comprehension/hearing/vision/ etc. In essence it says "please do not assume that because we live here that all intelligence is gone- treat us the way you would want to be treated-don't be condescending-" a real lesson for people who come in and say, " Oh these little people are so cute! I just love them!" The quilt is about 30" long and 20" wide- . Just glad to have it finished and hanging in our commons area. Be nice to move on to something else.