Front garden

It's been a very mild summer so far. Very little of the typical June gloom this year. July brought the monsoonal flows as they are called meaning it was muggier than usual but still very comfortable. The flowers have really benefited from the milder weather and the front yard's summer flowers are all blooming. The camellias are setting flowers for the winter. Around back all the grasses are flowering. The bunnies are helping themselves to the alstroemeria and the grass. The families of bunnies have been keeping us entertained all summer. Not too many sightings of quail families this year so far. The giant blue heron are back - they must be nesting somewhere. It's lots of fun living in an Audobon Signature Habitat!

The last month and a half

When I left off last posting, it was our 41st wedding anniversary. Interestingly, we still know where most of these people are! Later that day I tried a new recipe for chocolate ganache mini macaroons - yummy - I've made them again a couple of times!

Brother M and sister-in-law O came for a visit. They had been vacationing at the Grand Canyon and when they got back to Las Vegas, they rented a car and drove here for a few days arriving on M's birthday. Made chocolate peanut butter cake that served as dessert for 2 dinners and all the lunches! I guess they liked it.

We took a trip to Solvang, visited the emu farm, had dinner with the cousins. It was a great visit. They came with me for a couple of days to the new free lunch program for the children in Nipomo. In conjunction with the Food Bank, we gave lunches to about 110 kids for seven weeks. M and O arrived during the first week and I was getting all the teams set up so they came along. O and I worked out at our little gym every day before we headed out for the day's activities. Their last evening the cousins came for dinner and we had a great time catching up.

After not making bread pudding for nearly 6 years, I made two pans of it for one of the church's fellowship hours. They church has started asking each of the committees and groups to host a Sunday's fellowship hour. This is when being involved in a number of committees is not a good thing. Anyway, the bread pudding was just as popular as it was when I made it at St. James's for Loaves and Fishes. I think they are still making it once a month for the feeding program there. On June 22, we had a blackout with almost the entire county and parts of Santa Barbara county losing power for a couple of hours. We were lucky as it came back early on. There was no real reason given for the outages unlike on the east coast when outages are often caused by some kind of storm. Fortunately it's mild here and we didn't have to cope with heat problems. I was cooking for the senior luncheon the next day and was a little concerned it wouldn't come back on in time to cook. We had a comfort food meal planned - macaroni and cheese, baked ham, salad and home made brownies.

In the middle of July the Golf Course erected this enormous tent which looks semi permanent. They often need space to host events associated with golf tournaments and sometimes the Pavilion is already booked for another event. This gives them an alternative site.

July 16 there was a fire in Oceano on the dunes. This is only about 2 miles from our place. We heard helicopters flying back and forth all afternoon and wondered where they were getting water. Turns out they were getting it from our little lake. I hope they know that the water is recycled water from the homes and golf course used to water the golf course. Our development agreed to recycle all waste water from the development. It goes through a water treatment plant on the grounds and then runs through 4 different lakes along the way.

That's about it for this posting.

May and early June 2013

We started off the month with a volunteer appreciation dinner for the Arroyo Grande volunteers. Tom volunteers for the AG police department and he got an award for the many hours he donated last year. He has developed a database to use for billing of alarms that they didn't have before and he has helped recover a few thousand in fees. The next day we attended a concert in Santa Barbara at the Granada Theater for a Bernadette Peters concert. She was amazing. She sang so many of her broadway hits and many of them Sondheim ones. There were a number of famous people but the one closest to us was Carol Burnett. Bernadette called her out and thanked her for coming and for all her help during her formative years. Our church had an infestation of termites. We had to wait for the dry season to start. Although it was pretty dry through our wet season, they recommended we wait until the beginning of May. The recommended method to get rid of termites is to "tent" the facility. It was an amazing site The tour of California took place place the middle of May and went right by the end of one of the streets near us. It was great not to have to fight the crowds at the segment finish line in Avila The May senior luncheon menu was quiche (lorraine) salad, rolls and chocolate cake. It was held on memorial day and we had a smaller crowd than usual but it was a clean plate club just the same and all the food went. The May Food Distribution took place the next day and it was an absolute mad house. The team of about 30 people were amazing. The amount of food was over 4 tones of food and may have been our largest yet. It certainly was the one with the most curve balls - when we arrived, the cafeteria was being used by an art project and they left all the artwork on the stage to dry so we couldn't use that space. - Shortly after we arrived about 1:30 a Food Bank truck arrived with a wonderful "extra" delivery of fresh produce and just donated bread from Trader Joes all coming from the Oceano Food Bank. That was off loaded before the main unloading volunteers even arrived but before the volunteers arrived! - We finally got the cafeteria available to us at about 1:45 and hurried to tape down the tarps and get all our things into the cafeteria and set up to start receiving volunteers. - at 2:10 PM the "regular" truck from Paso Robles arrived with tons of food including 1,800 lbs of frozen pork patties - that's 10 lbs per family and it all had to be bagged and apportioned. - We received 50 lb bags of loose potatoes which needed to be carefully counted and bagged evenly as it was part of the USDA food - We received a couple of the items that were omitted last month. When I say a couple that means there were nearly 200 of each extra item! - With the end of school fast approaching all our materials had to be removed from the school yesterday - Our school contact had an enormous clothing giveaway from a combination of lost and found items and other donations, all of which had to sorted and laid out in the picnic area - Starting at 6:15 there was a huge free Zumba class starting in the cafeteria and we had to vacate the cafeteria and move all our stuff into the parking lot. Fortunately a few people stayed to help sort and load into vehicles to take to one of our volunteer's place for storage for the summer! Enough about the curve balls! The distribution was exciting, gratifying and completed pretty much on time and without a hitch. We have the most amazing team of volunteers and our hats are off to you all. This summer we figured out a way to do distributions and will be doing them in June and July. I also started a summer lunch program for children in that neighborhood. During the summer many children don't eat because they usually get their breakfast and lunch at school. Working with the FoodBank, I was able to put together a 7 week program to have lunches at the school. I gathered a team of 20 people dividing up the days of the week among them. Here's keeping my fingers crossed that it will all work smoothly. I started taking Zumba and cardio Kick boxing at our gym. The new owner encouraged me to try them out and I said that if she would let me do the classes on the mini trampoline I would give it a try. Turns out it works great and I'm loving it and so are my knees and ankles. There's a new venue for concerts in Paso Robles called Vena Robles and we have tickets to see Steve Martin (and Edie Brickell) and the Steep Canyon Rangers in the fall. Today is our 41st wedding anniversary and for a trip down vintage lane here is a picture from way back then.

March and April 2013

Well, I haven't been very dedicated about this blog. Facebook feels easier but it doesn't let me share in the same way. So I'll try to go back through my calendar and facebook posts to see what my life has been like. At first look, it seems like a pretty ordinary couple of months. First up are the food distributions in Nipomo. We did one at the end of February, and one on March 26 and the most recent one on April 23. We've stayed with our count at 180 although we have run out of food we are only short about 6 families. In the fall we'll reassess whether we go up to 192. We have to go up by counts of 12 because it is determined by the number of items in a case (usually divisible by 12). Meanwhile our leadership group has a debrief meeting after each distribution to iron out any glitches (there are fewer and fewer each time) and generally pat ourselves on the back and sit back and appreciate what we have accomplished. Each month we have received, unloaded, sorted, bagged and distributed between 3 1/2 tons to 4 tons of food. It is interesting how many of the recipients decline help with the bags and later realize that 35 to 40 lbs of food is a lot to carry from the school cafeteria back to their cars which have to be parked a block or two away! We wonder if they think it's a mistake and don't want to lose out on all the food if we change our minds - LOL! That was someone's thought. I think it's a pride thing and folks have a hard enough time coming to ask for food let alone then having to ask for assistance. I made a presentation to the Nipomo Rotary Club about the food distribution to see if we could get any interest in starting a second site in Nipomo at the middle of the month. I think the Rotarians and the Lions Club may end up taking on the second location. Next up is the senior lunches at the church. For a while our numbers were declining not because of a lack of interest so much as a loss of members to death. We have put out a concerted effort to recruit more of our seniors to come for a free lunch on the last Monday of the month. The counts for February, March and April have increased steadily to the low 50s. I always make enough for 60 people so we can give away take home boxes. February we had chicken enchiladas (cheese only for vegetarians), rice and refried beans, Mexican salad and chocolate chip cookies. March we had bowtie pasta primavera with turkey bacon (or without) with a fettucini type of sauce, green salad, garlic bread and chocolate tunnel cakes. And for April there was chicken salad on a mixed green salad, fruit salad, rolls and carrot cake. The seniors have been so appreciative. It's been hard to get them to accept a "free lunch" but they are getting the idea. I am working on getting lunches for the children during the summer and getting the food distribution to continue through the summer. We're narrowing in on how to get this done and will be recruiting helpers soon. Ladies Who Lunch is entering its fourth year. Back in March of 2010 D and I wanted to support the Grill and get it some new business. We started meeting there for lunch and started spreading the word. Soon it became a weekly meeting thing that we would have lunch at the Grill once a week and whoever wanted to join in was welcome. Over the last 3 years we have had people come and go. Many came for a few times or just once. Some have become regulars coming anywhere from once to two or three times a month. We have made new friends and many folks have found a source of getting much needed information eg. what plumber we've used, what do we think of certain trades people, referrals for doctors etc. Womenade is a non-profit I'm involved in out here. We are due for our next potluck dinner on May 8. There are nearly 30 rsvp'd already which is a good sign. P&S and we have decided to try to meet at a local Chinese restaurant called Mei's once a month so that we see each other at least that often. There are months that we get so busy we lose touch. Not so this past month. Last night T and I went to a concert by Bernadette Peters in Santa Barbara. We met friends E and B in Santa Barbara. They have a boat that they vacation on and it's docked in the marina there. It was cinco de maio weekend so we ended up in Montecito for dinner. E gave us a great tour of Montecito and at dinner we had a number of celebrity sitings. At the theater Bernadette Peters gave a shout out to Carol Burnett who was in the audience.

February 2013

We had another very successful food distribution project in January. Every month the leaders of the project get together and debrief. We've become much more efficient and are unloading, packing and distributing over 3 tons of food each month. For the last three years I have served on the church's vestry. This past year has really been the most productive. The first year we were in a building mode. The church Sunday school had dwindled to nothing and I remember saying that if we didn't do something to attract new families the church we'd be dead by 2025! Something clicked, and we have steadily been attracting those new families and are up to a steady 25 children in Sunday school with enrollment of about 40. This past year I was focused on getting the church more visible on line. One of the younger parishioners stepped up and volunteered to work with me to create the new website. I did the design and content and she got it programmed and up and running. We also started a facebook page for the church and the thrift shop. Still only about 40 friends on facebook but there are a number of non-members who have friended us so it's working. We also downloaded a QR - quick response code to post around the church entrances and on all publications so people can quickly get directed to our website. My three year term expired at the annual meeting. We held what's become our annual Chinese New Year party on February 10, 2013 the first day of the Chinese New Year. We were a party of 15 and the menu included pot stickers, scallion pancakes, peking duck, sweet and sour black bean spare ribs, mooshu chicken, stickly rice, pan fried noodles, green beans with ham and a peanut butter silk cake for dessert. After a Christmas and New Year hiatus the "Ladies Who Lunch" group reconvened at the Grill in the Pro Shop. The food has been deteriorating of late so I did a survey using an on line tool called MonkeySurvey. Feedback was that we would prefer to stay here if we could get the food to improve. Serendipity stepped in and while we were discussing the results of the survey one of the golf course managers was serving our food. We told her what the problem was and she said to send our suggestions to her and she would get it to the right people. Since then we have been treated very well and she has had a special for the ladies every week. On February 12 we had our quarterly Womenade potluck dinner. 33 women attended raising over $1,000 and making many new connections and doing so much good in the county. All the money raised (over $250,000 since 2004) stays in the county serving the needs of those who slip between the cracks. http://www.jimcurrymusic.com/ On February 16 we went to see a performance at the Clark Center of Jim Curry with a tribute to John Denver. The guy sounds like Denver and has even styled himself to look like him. Our realtor and his wife are big fans and it gave us an opportunity to visit with them and have a fun evening with dinner at our place before the show.

A new year

Well, December flew by with lots of happenings. After our great open house things calmed down for a short while. T and I started to wind down our involvement with the Clark Center. We've been ushers and usher captains for nearly 5 years and it was no longer fun. When you're retired we think we should have fun doing what we do since we're not being paid so we have stepped down as of the end of the month. Tom has ratcheted up his police volunteer work and has put in countless hours mostly in the office. We did usher/captain two shows in December for the Clark Center and said goodbye to the many volunteers. We'll see them around town and at various events that we will attend. I attended a couple of holiday parties and tried to limit the calorie creep. One of the events was a "giving tea" where we were asked to bring some items from a list of needed things for local foster children who have aged out and will be starting out on their own. There was so much stuff that it wouldn't all fit into one vehicle! One of the people from the organization was a former foster child and had gone through the various programs. She is 21 now and after a few stumbles she is working for the sponsoring organization and going to college part time. K came for a 5 day holiday in the middle of the month. We had a terrific time making dishes she learned how to prepare and take the recipes home with her. She and I made a communal birthday cake as we celebrated hers, T's, mine and cousin P and S's all from October to December. We also celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, visited the ostrich ranch and fed the ostriches, toured Solvang, and ate out at one of the restaurants right over the water in Avila. The gym held a couple of special yoga classes the Sunday before Christmas and New Year. It was a perfect time to spend 1 1/2 hours stretching and then relaxing. I can never remember all the different types of yoga but these were especially relaxing and not terribly difficult. The gym is now offering Zumba 5 times a week. After all those years of running I can no longer do repetitive lateral moves as my knees object seriously. The instructor said I could try doing the Zumba on the mini-trampoline and it was fabulous. Since the first day I tried it a couple of others have pulled out the trampolines and are taking part too. Cousins P and S hosted Christmas the 23, 24 and 25. Cousins K and C and their kids came down. They managed to rent a Vacation Rental by Owner VRBO just around the corner from cousin P's house. The first night we had a hot pot dinner and son B roasted a donated turducken which was absolutely delicious rounded out with lemon cake with generous servings of lemon curd and whipped cream. The next night, Christmas eve we had wonderful Chinese dinner and with our contribution of Jamaican meat pies. Christmas day we had a slow cooked prime rib that was perfectly roasted. I brought popovers and a chocolate ding dong cake for dessert. A good time was had by all. The food distribution program that I started in Nipomo in conjunction with the local Womenade group and the local Food Bank was held early on December 11 to accommodate the Christmas break which started here on December 14. We had 10 lbs of frozen chicken for each family along with two huge bags of dry foods and produce. We gave away all the food and fed 168 families (always in multiples of 12 because of the cases of shelf stable foods). We ran out and have increased our numbers to 180 families for January. The average family has 5 to 6 people so we are helping nearly 1,000 people. It's an awesome program. The church's senior luncheon was put on by the youth forum and an adult leader. He and they learned how to make lasagna. They served a wonderful meal of rolls, salad, lasagna and ice cream and cookies for dessert. They set the tables, cleared and washed and wiped. Awesome! I prepared some hors d'oeurves left over from our open house and those were gobbled up during the meet and greet time between 11:30 and noon when the luncheon was served. Hopefully I'll be more regular or at least monthly at updating this blog.

Where did the month go?

Looking back over the month I'm sure there were many things that kept me from my blog but the details are not at my fingertips. There were the usual activities of gym workouts, walks, spin classes, working at the Thrift Shop, church etc. Ah yes, in the middle of the month I made a quick 2 day trip to Washington DC to do some business. Interestingly I saw my cousin K and C at the San Francisco airport and we were on the same flight. When we got to DC they offered me a ride to the hotel with a segue to dinner at cousin K's favorite Japanese restaurant - Tachibanas. At the airport we met the newly re-elected congressman Mike Honda who knew both K and C. Mike Honda represents the San Jose, Mountain View, Cupertino and many of the technology cities in that area. Our neighborhood gym was sold on November 1 to a young energetic 30 year old woman. She has added equipment and changed and added classes including Zumba, Combat boxing, new cross training and strengthening classes while keeping many of the old standbys- spinning, yoga, pilates, circuit training. It has been fun to have some new excitement and new faces showing up at the gym. Thanksgiving was a small family affair at P&S's. We had a delicious boned stuffed turkey, Chinese rice stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, carrot souffle, bacon wrapped scallops, clam dip and cranberry sauce. We celebrated DT's birthday which actually fell on Thanksgiving day. BK came by after dinner. Traffic for us was very light in both directions. The Sunday after Thanksgiving was T's birthday and we had a very delicious and wonderful evening at the Sea Venture complements of my brother and sister-in-law. The last Monday of the month was the Senior luncheon at church. There were a few more people this month bringing the numbers up to 45. We've lost a few regular attendees to death, illness and moves out of the area. The group is going strong and they are most appreciative. Our menu included rolls and butter, chicken tetrazzini, fruit salad and carrot cake. Everyone who wanted a take home box was able to get one. I always cook for 60 so those needing left overs can have them. I worked on a number of advertizing items for the church including and Advent board, posters and postcards for the Lessons and Carols on December 9, the Christmas ad for the deanery churches in the county. My time on the vestry is winding down. I'm not sure if I'll continue doing the marketing at this point. The fourth Tuesday of each month is our food distribution in partnership with Womenade, the Food Bank and Nipomo Elementary School. This month we had about 25 volunteers and we increased our distribution from 144 to 168 families (multiples of 12 because of number of items in a case of food). The processing is always quite and adventure. We received nearly 2 tons of food or about 25 lbs of food per family. They received fresh ground beef, a couple of large cans of chicken, rice, black beans, canned vegetables, canned fruit, dried fruit, cereal, fresh sour dough bread. For produce this month there were sweet potatoes, onions, scallions, apples, oranges, cabbage, romaine lettuce. We gave away all the food! Since vacation here starts on December 14, we are having our December distribution on December 11 only two weeks later - yikes! December 1 marked our fifth anniversary of our emigrating to California so we held an Open House and invited about 70 people - relatives and friends. We had to limit the list to people we've done things as we've met so many people since we came here. As it was we had over 50 people who came. We had a blast! I can't believe how fast the five years have flown and what a great decision it was.