A crystal-clear deal

When we were in Michigan a couple of weeks ago with the family, we walked into a charity resale shop by Tower Hill and I saw crystal wine glasses that I was pretty sure were my crystal pattern. Then I saw the $20 price tag. I can buy them for $20 each on eBay so I walked away. Last weekend, Andy and I stopped in the same shop to see if they were still there. They were - it was a sign! They had a $20 price tag on several of them, but not all of them. I asked the cashier, is this $20 a stem? He said it's $20 for the set. The set? I said, there's eight on the shelf so it's $20 for all eight? He said yes and I said take my money.

What an unbelievable deal! Less than $3 a glass? Now if one breaks I won't cry ... as much. I just need to rearrange a few things in the china cabinet to fit them in. And the crazy thing is that this is the same store where I found my china pattern several years ago while we were at church camp. Maybe one day I'll find my fancy flatware.

Leaving camp and a Nazi talk

Not much happens at camp on Sunday. We have breakfast, a short church service, then pack up and leave.

Our detour on the way home was a stop at the Albanese candy factory in Merriville, Ind. Andy bought a big bag of gummy candy. Should last him a while.

Heading into the city with low clouds. Not a good day for sightseeing from the Sears (Willis) Tower.

Back at home we went to the museum for a author/former OPRF history teacher talking about his new book, "Our Nazi." The book is about an OPRF High School custodian who was discovered to have been a Nazi guard. Andy worked for the school's athletic department and is pretty sure he knew of the guy. Eventually, the man was deported back to Germany... with his full school pension and never went to prison. The museum was packed.

Andy bought the book but didn't have the author sign it. We had grocery shopping to do and the line was pretty long.

Saturday at camp

It's always fun to see what's new at camp and this map was something I noticed this year, It's right outside of the dining hall.After breakfast we had some fellowship time talking about nature and discussing photos people brought along.

We had some free time before lunch so Andy and I walked to the beach.

It was windy!

Lots of waves on the lake. The water was cold but we waded in. Other people were there but no one was swimming.

After lunch, our friend Leslie gave a geology talk about the Great Lakes area. Here people are looking at a collection of rocks.

More free time so we went into Sawyer and bought some apples and mini pumpkins. I was very tempted to buy a brown and a green pumpkin but the squirrels would destroy them in record time.

We also stopped at the New Buffalo Train Museum.

Andy liked the model train.

From the upstairs of the depot part of the museum you can enter these three cars.

The box car had a display on area veterans.

The Pullman car was set up with seats and bunks for soldiers with a separate area for the officer.

This was the inside of the third car, a caboose.

Back at camp, we took a group picture after dinner. We had around 40 people at camp. We played a fun game (in a really loud room) then it was time for a campfire.

Tonight's fire had a larger crowd and no wind. Kind of fun to watch the kids light their marshmallows on fire.

To Tower Hill

Andy and I left around noon today to drive to Tower Hill for our annual church retreat. We detoured through Michigan City, Ind., and went to the St. Stanislaus resale shop. Four floors of items. Walking around we realized it was a former convent (its full name has convent included but I guess that didn't initially register in my mind). This was a super creepy attic space. Interesting stop but we didn't find anything.

Another detour was the Beer Church in New Buffalo.

And then to camp!

Our cabin. We went to dinner at the Stray Dog back in New Buffalo with our cabin mates.

A deer. On our way back from dinner traffic was stopped on Red Arrow Highway while about eight turkeys crossed the somewhat busy road. We saw quite a dew deer over the weekend. Not very afraid of us campers.

Andy built a fire outside our cabin.

Nice conversation but the wind kept shifting and we had to keep moving to keep the smoke away from us.

Andy tends to the fire.

No cord is safe

Does he look like a bad cat? Does he look remorseful? I usually keep my iPad charging cord hidden under a pillow but left one out the other day and August chewed right through it. I ordered a pack of five chargers from Amazon and used this one once, had it sitting by a chair (not where I usually keep a cord) and thought it would be OK. Wrong. August chewed through it overnight. It was so new I never even took the twistie tie off. Grrr.

Uh oh

I was headed into work the other day and noticed the Coach tag was sitting in my passenger seat. The gold chain is gone. This is the purse Andy just got me for my birthday this year. I told L that T will need to get me a new chain. He has a job at the Coach store in Orlando.

Cat puzzle from Michigan

Found this in a thrift/antique store on our recent Michigan trip with the family. It didn't have a price on it so the cashier asked what I wanted to pay. I said $1 because ...

I would have to take it apart before I could put it together. Grrr. He gave it to me for $1. It better be complete.

It's all there! I am a little disturbed by how stereotypical it is of aomeone who does puzzles with the wine glass and crossword puzzle book nearby. I do the occasional crossword too.

The creative process

It's interesting how many revisions go into most printed things. Fortunately, I'm always open to changes as more minds usually make things better. This was my initial draft for a Chamber of Commerce email blast. We were going to use the blast for just the cemetery walk but then thought we could see if they could incorporate more of our events into a single email.

Our second revision put descriptions on each photo. We were hoping those descriptions would be "buttons" to link to our website. This is also the copy I sent the Chamber with a lengthy explanation of what we were hoping to create.

A few more emails back and forth and their graphic artist worked his magic. It turned out so well! I especially like the blue trim.

Busy Sunday

Sunday's anniversary activity at church was a Jim Gill concert. The concert was open to the community and turnout was good. We were happy we planned an indoor concert as it rained the entire day. I think it was our first rain in September so it was much needed.

He's a very well-known hometown children's entertainer and he puts on a great show. He managed to energize the kids and adults alike and everyone was dancing.

Andy and I stayed for a bit then went to Goldyburgers to watch some of the Bears game (they ended up losing) and have a "lunch" of cheeseballs and onion rings.

Then we stopped by the museum where they had a variety of building stations and I took a few pictures to post eventually on Facebook. The church and preschool, the museum, and One Lake Brewing came together to offer events in the first Children's Day on Lake Street. Might be a one-and-done event or could become an annual event. We'll see.

E spent the weekend in Nebraska where she initiated a new sorority chapter at the University of Nebraska. She flew into Kansas City then rented a car and drove to Omaha. One side trip was this quilt shop (she was very excited).

Back in Kansas City before her flight home, she spent the morning at Worlds of Fun (a Cedar Point/Six Flags park). This was her third roller coaster of the day. D isn't a roller coaster guy so she was happy to do them traveling solo.

And L picked up a shift at Boardwalk and loved it. She said they have a private staff break room with a snack station and espresso machine.

Switch plate and Oktoberfest

Andy worked donuts yesterday morning, went golfing and then came home and replaced the switch plate so it matches the new switches. I can now sleep soundly.

He deserved a treat after that so we went to Berwyn's Oktoberfest ...

and met up with Claude. He recently bought a self-driving system for his Tesla so he said he needs to pick us up and go for a drive soon.

Light switches don’t last forever?

Our kitchen light switch has felt "soft" for awhile. It is 20 years old. We went to Home Depot the other night to get a new switch but they didn't have what we wanted. We were able to order it from them and it was delivered yesterday. Andy shut off the electricity and got to work.

This is the point when I'd call in an electrician. Andy did get it to work and it dims the lights like it's supposed to so we're all good - no fire, smoke or shock.

We ordered a "light almond" switch but maybe the switch plate is "almond"? The online colors were horrible. Now that we know the switch is light almond we can order a light almond switch plate so at least the switch will match the plate. Leaving it like this will drive me batty.