Sunday, January 24, 2010

Coffeehouse Without Grandma

I wish I had some pictures to show you from last night's Coffeehouse, but we were so busy trying to make sure we didn't forget anything that I forgot to take my camera. Grandma takes care of getting the fellowship hall at church ready for coffeehouse -- it normally looks something like this:



And it looked like that last night except that the centerpieces were a little bit different because that picture was taken at one of our first coffeehouses and also, thanks to Flamingo Joe's efforts and the generosity of the people who show up for Coffeehouse, we have light bars and a new sound board and new lights that make us all look like rock stars. He's got some other ideas to enhance the space, but he'll probably have to hold off on some of those. So far, the church has been very supportive of this ministry, but I think they'll draw the line at a fog machine.

Grandma Elsie normally takes care of setting the tables just so and setting up the coffee and cookies, sugars, creamers, etc. on the long table over there on the left. So with her being out of town this week, it was up to Dez and I to get things done. We had planned on doing all the baking on Thursday and Friday nights, but I think Grandma was afraid we'd just plain forget to do it, so she baked all the cookies and froze them before she left. Then she was worried that she had offended me by doing the baking for me. Silly Grandma.

We managed to get the room set up on Friday night with some help from a couple of other people on the women's ministry planning team and only had to call Grandma once to ask her which coffee pots we were supposed to use. The long table, after we'd set it all up, did not look nearly as nice as when Grandma does it, but everything was there. On Saturday, we remembered to bring the cookies over and we even remembered to turn the coffee pots on half an hour before Coffeehouse started. At the last minute, we remembered to heat the hot water, so Dez had to put it in the pump carafe about two mintes before we were supposed to start. She left out the spout, though, so someone trying to get hot water for tea figured that one out pretty quick.

I announced during Coffeehouse that we were missing Grandma, so people stayed to help clean up and we got it done lickety split, but I'm pretty sure there are things put back in bags or boxes that don't go there and poor Grandma will spend hours looking for what she needs next weekend when she's trying to set up.

We have not yet even attempted to take care of that little problem we were going to take care of while Grandma was away. If you can't remember what I'm talking about, maybe this picture will jog your memory:



We have not attempted to take the BoBo away. He wears the headphones around the house, by the way, so that he can ask you, "Can hear me?" For some reason he thinks his wearing the headphones means the rest of us can't hear. Though I am making progress on the potty-training front. Today marked Step 1 of potty training: Set Up The Bribe. This step entails enticing your child to take advantage of a golden opportunity to enhance his Hot Wheels Car and Truck Collection if he will go to the bathroom in the toilet. The key to this step is the set up -- for one or two days, every time you change the child's diaper, you say, "You know, if you will go tee-tee in the potty, mommy will buy you a new Hot Wheels car at the store . . ." or, if the diaper is of the dirty variety, you say, "You know, if you will go poopy in the potty next time, mommy will buy you a new truck at the store." Your child's eyes will get very bright and wide and he will ask to go to the store that very minute to get his new car or truck, so you will say to him again, "Not now -- only after you go tee-tee or poopy in the potty." This may go on for several days before the lure of the new car or truck wins out over his innate desire to sit in his own poo for hours. So the good news is that he might be potty-trained by the time he goes to kindergarten. The bad news, though, is that he'll still have his BoBo.

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