Hi all,

What a day. I worked at the church from 11:00 A.M. - 3:00 P.M. We were having a huge rummage sale. Half of the proceeds go to help finance our mission trip to the Dominican Republic in March. We raised close to $1,000 in the last two days. Even though half of it goes to the choir we still did pretty darn "good", considering our airline tickets are already paid for (there's nine of us from our church). We will use this money to buy supplies after we get there. During this trip, I will either be helping teach sewing and household skills, helping with construction projects, or assisting a medical team. This is my first mission trip so I'm not sure what to expect. I'm looking forward to it though.

This evening my husband and I went to Jim's Steakhouse in Pittsburg for dinner. My favorite steakhouse. I ate a two "fancy smancy" steak place in Denver while I was at the tech conference a couple of weeks ago and neither can hold a candle to Jim's.

Oh, before I sign off, I want to share a really helpful household tip. I've discovered how to get grease and baked-on gunk off of your pots and pans.  Fill you sink with hot water and dishsoap as usual, but to that add two or three tablespoons of dishwasher detergent. Let your pan soak for ten to fifteen minutes and WAH LA!! the gunk and grease comes right off. I almost always put a little dishwashing detergent in with my regular dishwater anyway because it cuts the grease so well and really makes dishes cleaner. Of course, if you use a dishwasher all the time.....Never Mind!

More later. I may even have to share some of my favorite quotes.
pgm

Yipee!!! the weekend is finally here. It's not that I don't like my job. I love teaching, but this has been a long week. I've been gone every night either playing bridge or keeping score for middle school girls basketball. Anyway, Friday nights are my favorite.

My husband goes out to eat with the guys, I go to Mothers and we either go out and eat or I get take-out and we eat at her house.

Mom's totally blind, 87 years old, has had cancer for five years, and still lives by herself. Hopefully, she will be able to continue to live by herself until the end. However, she still enjoys life and that's what is important. My sister, a family friend and I check on Mom and do whatever needs to be done daily. She still is able to get out, just not as much or as often as she used to. Here's a picture of Mom with one of her great grandson's (my grandson).

Marshall and Granny Meck














Here's another picture with
Marshall with his other Great Grandma.
(Grandma Marshall) He really likes his great grannies.






Marshall and Great Grandma Marshall

Ok, OK, this is the last picture for awhile. But I couldn't resist. this is Marshall at the chapel at William Jewel College in Liberty, MO.

I'm quitting for today. Will write more tomorrow. I haven't been to school for a week so I'll have to let you all know how my day goes tomorrow. Think the kids will still know me???? Ha Ha.
Later
pgm

Grandma Peggy and Marshall at the lake.

Good Morning,
Just thought I'd share a picture of my family. You'll probably be subjected to another one after this Christmas. We have a new grandbaby on the way. My oldest daughter and her husband are expecting another one on 11/17. Be warned you will probably be seeing a lot of family pictures. I'm a proud Grandma!!!
We don't know if it's a boy or girl either, so the suspense is building.
Gotta go to church. If I get a chance and think of something really interesting I will blog more later.
pgm

This is my very first entry in my blog. I'm not sure what to write so I guess I'll start with my latest adventure. I just got home from a national technology conference for school board members, administrators, and educators in Denver, Colorado. It was a good conference. However, I didn't particularly enjoy the 12 hours it took to get there nor the 12 hours to get home. Oh well, I survived.

I can't believe the technology we have available to us today. I listened to Neil Gershenfeld of MIT talk about how it is very likely possible that, in the not so distant future, people will have machines in the home that will be able to make "almost anything". I know that sounds really far out, but it wasn't but about 25 years ago that we thought the majority of people in our society owning a personal computer was way too far out to even consider....

I was also impressed with the second keynote speaker, Tiffany Shlain. She is the founder of the Webby Awards (the leading national honors for web sites) and the on-air internet expert for Good Morning America. She is very passionate about the postive impact the internet can have on society. She also showed us some pretty cool looking web sites. I have yet to visit them all, but hopefully I will in the next few days and let you know.

During the conference I also attended a couple of workshops and mini lessons on the use of iMovie and Dreamweaver software. I know just enough about those programs to know that I need to know a lot more. And the best way to know more is just to plow in and start using them. I guess I'll figure it out as I go. I hope I win the drawing for free tuition to the Digital Media Academy at Stanford University. That would be a week of intensive training on one of the media software programs I mentioned earlier.

I know I'm really rambling, but I needed to get down in black and white at least a little bit about this conference so if I'm asked to go before the school board and report I can refer to my blog for informaton. I didn't write about this anywhere else.

Ok, that's enough for my first posting.

pgm