September Odds and Ends

 My dad expressed interest in learning pickleball so my brother Jo and I started playing with him twice a week at a court a couple of minutes from my house.  This is a picture of our first gathering with Josh making up the foursome.  Matt has also joined us several times.  It's been a fun thing for me to pick it up again since I don't play with my workout lady friends anymore and I have missed it.

We are still playing in November with close to freezing temps some mornings and having to clean leaves off the court before we start.  I think we will go until they take the nets down.

One of my favorite corsage/boutonniere sets I did the week 4 high schools in the valley decided to simultaneously have Homecoming!

We did almost 250 orders that week which definitely was a record!

Andy and Matt did a little overnighter trip up north to the Teton area.

Andy had heard about Delta Lake and wanted to experience it and Matt is always up for an adventure :)

One of the first Institute events of the school year was a devotional at the Logan Tabernacle at which John Bytheway would be speaking.

It was kind of nostalgic for me since I remember attending a similar event for youth in the valley where he spoke when I was a young teenager.  He was quite the name at the time and now the YSAs pretty much  only know him because of his association and podcast with Hank Smith.  

It was great and the students loved it!

They packed the house!

(Looking forward to having our new building done soon so we have a place that this many students can gather comfortably.  There were a few hundred students not pictured here that were in an overflow room downstairs)

After he spoke we had about 200 pizzas out on the lawn to feed the masses.

It was a great and well attended event!

September Cookies

 I was asked to do a cookie class for a Relief Society group in a ward about 30 minutes away.  I had never taught a class before but decided it might be a good experience for me.  I agreed to do it and designed a couple of cookies that focused on a few different techniques I wanted to teach.  I was told by my contact two different times leading up to the event that there were 12 ladies signed up.  She was willing to bake the cookies for me which was helpful and then I prepared all the icing.  With the different colors and consistencies needed, I prepped about 80 little bags of icing.  I purchased some tools that everyone would need and did several sets of demos so I could plan and time about how long we would need to finish both cookies.

The day came and I arrived at the church and found the room where I would be teaching.  There were only 9 seats set up around the tables.  I texted the woman that I had been communicating with and asked her if only 9 were coming now and she responded that that was all that had signed up.  Okay....I don't know why I had been told 12 twice before then.  At the time I was thinking 'I wish I would have known so I wouldn't have had to prep 20 extra bags of icing'.  

I set everything up and prepped the cookies.

The time for my class came and I was super nervous and hoping I wouldn't make a fool of myself!  

I was ready and waiting with the woman who would be introducing me and the woman I had been communicating with.  We waited for several minutes before one of them said "I wonder where everyone is" and left the room.  A couple of minutes later 3 ladies entered and sat down.  We went ahead and started at that point and about 5 minutes into the class 2 more ladies walked in and joined us at the table.  During the hour I think all but one of the ladies mentioned they hadn't signed up for the class and I think the one that didn't say anything was just being sensitive to the situation.  I'm a little slow but I realized when all was said and done, that when the woman left the room before we started, she went and rounded up anyone who was willing and felt enough pity for me, to come and take the class even though they hadn't been interested enough to sign up for it initially.

It was incredibly frustrating and humbling.  

I regretted going to all that work and worry and putting in at least 10 hours of time for no reason.  Also, I didn't know why I had been led to believe there was so much interest when, clearly, there was not.

Needless to say, I don't think that I will ever agree to do anything like that again!

(I took a couple of pictures of some of the finished cookies after the ladies left to go to lunch)

I felt sorry for myself the rest of the day but by the evening I had decided to invite my flower lady friends over since I had so many supplies that I didn't want to just throw away.

As we had been working on dance flowers the few days prior to the event I had told them I would be teaching this class and they had all reacted very positively...one of them even asking if she could come :)

When I reached out saying I had extras and would like to invite them to come to my house for a class that coming week they all said they would love to.  We couldn't find a time when they could all come together so we did two separate nights and it was so much fun!

I also had some baby shower cookies that month for a woman I minister to who is 51 and expecting!

I always love a good bee theme of course :)