Tues Aug 12, Summer day 73

This morning, Larry & Savannah left bright & early for the Beanfest.  What is a Beanfest you ask?  (I'm sure you were asking that question, right?)  Well, the Beanfest is an annual event that Larry does with our church's youth group.  He is the outreach pastor & therefore coordinates members of the church with various outreach/mission projects.  Some are local, some are far away.  This one is right here in town.  The youth (who can be awakened from their summertime slumber!) gather at the church in the early morning hours & make the trip to a local food pantry our church supports.  They spend their morning bagging up dry beans for needy families, creating hundreds of small 1or 2 pound bags from the giant vats of beans.  Afterward, Larry takes them to eat lunch somewhere & returns to the church for their parents to pick them up.  That, my friend, is the Beanfest.

After the Beanfest, I was going to head to the church to pick up Savannah & let Larry finish his workday, but plans went awry.  Somehow during the time with the youth, Larry had a muscle spasm in his back that made it impossible for him to drive the vanload of kids back to the church.  A quick phone call to one of the other pastors fixed the problem.  Larry came home afterward (thank you Bo!!!) and took a muscle relaxer to get the muscle to release.  After a few hours of laying down to rest, he's almost completely better.  Thank you for the phone calls.  Quite a few of you found out about this somehow & called to check on Larry.  Wow!  Word travels fast, huh?

Tonight, I made these yummy things & put them with some veggies.  Everyone LOVED them & boy did they go QUICK!

Beef Stuffed Crescents

1 lb. ground beef (I used turkey.)

1 can (4 oz.) chopped green chilies

1 pkg (8 oz.) cream cheese, cubed

1/4 tsp. ground cumin

1/4 tsp. chili powder

3 cans of crescent rolls

 

Brown the meat, then stir in the chilies & spices.  Add the cream cheese & stir until it's fully melted & blended in.

 

Separate the dough into 24 individual triangles.  Place about 1 tablespoon of the meat mixture on each triangle & carefully roll up to enclose the meat.  (It took me a few tries to get the fold just right to really enclose it so that it wouldn't leak out all over the place.)

 

Place the folded side down on a cookie sheet & bake at 375 for 11-14 minutes, until the rolls are golden brown.

 

YUMMMYYYYY!!!

 

When everyone finished eating & it was clear that Larry could direct their bedtime routine from his recliner in the living room, I departed for an evening of fun-filled shopping.  Well, I'm not sure how "fun filled" it really was, but you get the idea.  Back in the Spring, my class gave me a gift card to Target for a large sum of money. 

 

 

I went shopping at that time & found some denim capris & a shirt, a book that I was anxious to read and a CD.  I was left with about $40 & planned to go back later to spend it.  Tonight was that night!  With a couple of short weekend trips coming up, I wanted to see if I could find 1 more outfit with the remaining money.  I told a friend on the phone tonight that I was in hunt of an outfit that would make me look like a toothpick. 

 

 

While my hunt for that outfit was unsuccessful, I think I procured an outfit that will at least make me look like a small breadstick.  And for that, I am grateful.  ha ha! 

 

 

Let me just say, while I do love Target for most things, clothing for ME is not one of those things I love about the store!  You see, if you are not an itty-bitty person (I am not), the clothing options are drastically reduced.  This is not true in all stores, but in our local Target store, it definately is!  There is a vast array of clothing for the under-size-12 ladies, but anyone who crosses that line is in for a surprise.  While there is something like 900 racks of 'regular' sized clothing, there are only about 5 racks of plus-sized stuff.  Ugh.  Oh well.  I ended up locating 2 pairs of capris at Target (one navy, one chocolate brown).  I sorted through racks of tank tops & Tshirts (no thanks, I was hoping for something a little less casual) but never found anything resembling a button-up shirt or for that matter, anything that wasn't made of cotton knit.  And so, the 2 pairs of capris were my big purchase at Target.  Knowing that my whole purpose for shopping was to find an OUTFIT for my upcoming travels, I decided to drive next door & see if I could find a shirt to go with at least 1 of the pairs of capris.  Hooray!  I did!  While I still don't have a shirt for the second pair, I am OK with that.  At least 1 new complete outfit was found.  I'm sure I'll figure out something else to go w/ the other pair of pants!

 

I left to come home as a happy shopper.  It took me 2 stores & a few dollars in addition to the gift card to make my purchase, but I did it!  :)

 

 

And oh...........a biggie!  We got some RAIN last night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

And it wasn't just a little rain!  It was a TON of rain!  After a couple of months without any rain, it was so very welcome!  Tonight on the news, it said that yesterday we were 1 inch under the average for the whole year.  As of today, we're over 5 inches ABOVE the average rainfall for the year!  Wow!  We were awakened about 4:30 this morning by Savannah crawling into bed with us.  The giant amount of thunder & lightening had woke her up & she was a little nervous about the rain, so she came to snuggle with me.  The funny thing is...both of the other kids slept right through it & barely knew that it had rained at all!  It's usually the other way around!

 

And because of that...I'm sleepy & headed to bed really soon!  Goodnight!