Friday Meanderings

November 30, 2018 by KTgreen

Yikes! Another crazy busy but fun week!

And tomorrow is the first day of December. Time to get the house decorated, the baking started, and the Christmas music playing!

Probably ought to do some shopping, too! Speaking of shopping, did you do the whole Black Friday fun stuff? Okay. Black Friday is the opposite of fun to me.

But I couldn’t resist checking things out on the Internet. The packages are still arriving. (All for me. I haven’t done any Christmas Shopping yet! I like to save that for the last possible moment. I work better under pressure!)

So what’s going on????

Had the “Volunteer Appreciation Dinner” for the festival volunteers on Tuesday. Over 70 volunteers at the festival. Can not do the festival without them!

I have been fortunate enough to see Terry do many talks at conferences before he retired. He was a very charismatic speaker. (I know, charismatic no longer has a good connotation.) He always knew the subject, the audience, and made it interesting. Even though he was usually talking about concrete or concrete trucks. (Warning, don’t ever call concrete CEMENT)

And he was that guy at the dinner. Just a really brief talk but it started out the party out on a great note.

Then Connie took the stage. Definitely another charismatic person.

We had some gifts to give out and she volunteered to do the giveaway. She asked for volunteers to give out the goodies and Paul Ritli jumped up. They were a good team.

That’s the one I wanted! But gotta say that Sheila deserved it!

That’s Lynn. Paul’s wife. Saying I got bbq spices. And handing them back to him. What? You’re the chef. What? Okay. They are the folks behind our favorite breakfast and lunch spot, 2 Pops Shop!

Almost everyone won something. I won a keychain. Terry got a fishing t-shirt. (Terry usually gives whatever he wins back to the pot to be regifted but I had threatened him that he best not do that again. And hey, that fishing t-shirt was just my size!!!!!!)

Food was great. Company was great. GREAT DINNER!!!!!

Then Wednesday the Homosassa Ukers got together. 19 Ukers. OMG! Our little ukulele group started out with friends Connie and Laurel and I wanting to learn ukulele. Seems that there are a LOT of people in our little community that want to learn how to play ukulele!

Once again I want to shout out to our volunteers for the Uke group. Anita is teaching the beginners. Torrey is the Homosassa Ukers leader. Anita also teaches the kids ukulele in the after-school music enrichment program. And there is one volunteer per child. That’s what you need to keep 6 to 9 year olds to hold still and learn. Anita also feeds them before we start. And during. And after. This week it was French fries. Anita is amazing!

And then today was the Sew Cool! Workshop. Okay. You might not thinking that sewing is fun. But with us it is.

I’ve got to know so many wonderful people through all these activities.

And that’s what it is all about. The Homosassa Civic Club is turning into a true community center. All these people are coming together and making a community.

It’s so cool for me to be part of this change!

Have a GREAT weekend!

Kathy

Friday Meanderings

November 23, 2018 by KTgreen

Happy Friday!

I’m still trying to get over the Homosassa Arts, Crafts, and Seafood Festival. It was such a great event again this year. But it really wears me down. So much planning goes into every little detail!

I want to make a big SHOUT OUT to all of the volunteers. There is no way that this festival could be run as efficiently and as cost effectively as it is without the volunteers. Everywhere you look, orange shirts. And I ran out of shirts this year so we had a few people incognito!

Terry and I tried to put a list together of all of the volunteers because we have a dinner every year to celebrate their efforts. Our list went to well over 70 people! Pretty good for a small community with only 110 members in the Homosassa Civic Club that sponsors the event.

Terry with Clyde, two of our over 70 volunteers!

Now….let me tell you about the festival. I do the photography (and the t-shirts, website, and social media). So on Saturday morning I was snapping photos for the judging. This guy got best of show. I think he got it last year, too.

The Homosassa Arts, Crafts, and Seafood Festival is run by the Homosassa Civic Club and it is always the second weekend in November. All proceeds go back to the community–scholarships, youth groups, veterans, and more. Terry and I started volunteering for the festival in 2015. He became chairperson in 2016. We’ve come a long way since then!

There were a lot of complaints about the quality of the vendors going down back in 2015 when we first started volunteering. Also the food was all deep fried. It was a nightmare for the arts and crafts vendors to set up and tear down. The arts and crafts committee now juries all the entries. While there is still deep fried food, there are also healthy alternatives. Now there are volunteers that take the vendors to their spot when they first arrive and parking people to direct traffic for the tear down.

We first started having musical entertainment in 2015 with two bands each day. This year we have a professional musician who volunteered to run the entertainment. It was non-stop music from 10 am to closing both days.

And we allowed pets in this year!

Homosassa Arts, Crafts, and Seafood Festival

entertainment — Hey, look! There’s Myrna and Kevin!

Homosassa Arts, Crafts, and Seafood Festival

We’ve got the volunteer dinner scheduled and we are getting ready for next year!

Dogs in the Hood

November 16, 2018 by KTgreen

The Advertisement Committee (okay, that’s just one person) did not put “NO PETS” on the poster. So, we went with it. First time in decades that pets were allowed.

OMG! So many dogs. A lot of BIG MASSIVE HUGE DOGS WITH SHARP POINTY TEETH.

I didn’t take pictures of those particular pooches because I have a minor fear of gaping wounds on my body.

But here are some…..