GARAGE SALE FINDS

Only had time for one garage sale today but it was a good one--and a benefit for the elephant sanctuary as well. :) I found this awesome little cookbook from 1963...it's Betty Crocker's Cooky Book and it's in excellent condition. And it was a buck.

I distinctly remember oogling this book at the library when I was a in grade school. The pictures in it are fabulous. And the recipes...

The other "find" was a boat-load of National Geographic magazines. Those are like gold for home schooling and pre-k people who like to make collages.

Continuing the vacation story, Joal's company had their annual do-something-fun-on-Saturday-night-after-the-big-meeting shindig at the Dallas World Aquarium. It's always neat to hang out with people from all over the country who do what Joal does and get to know them and their families. That's one of the things I love most about this company--they are very familial.

One of Joal's counterparts for NWYC in the Northeast is a man who came here from Nigeria more than 20 years ago. He one of the top salesmen and I had the pleasure of meeting he and his wife on the first cruise. Fast forward to early in the summer, and we got word that B had taken some time off to take his family to Nigeria for a visit--the first time he'd been back. And then later we got word that he had been detained in Nigeria and while his family was allowed to return to the states, he was being hassled about some paperwork. According to the Nigerian system, the paperwork they claimed he needed in order to return to the states would take 8 month to a year to process. The Nigerians confiscated his passport and told him to wait.

Being active and vocal in our government is what NWYC encourages all Americans to do...and it's what the home office team did on behalf of B, with efficiency and dedication. The president of the company and the team in Washington DC started contacting people in places who could get this fixed and within a few weeks B was back on American soil. NWYC people were praying and working on his behalf and God used them to make this happen.

On Sunday, we picked up the boys from my parents and drove home to TN.

Some of you may not know that my husband is a classically-trained, degreed musician and his real job gets in the way of his passion most of the time. He loves NWYC (and has for all his 9 years), but he loves music too. He writes and sings and plays guitar. I have come to refer to his music as "thinking-man's folk music". The stuff he writes is not brainless fluff--it's thoughtful--you have to pay attention to get it. If I had to compare him to someone it would be David Wilcox. Very observational and of course, guitar driven.

Joal recorded two inde albums while we were in college...many many moons ago. (Guess who did the cover art?)

So why am I telling you this? Yesterday was a big day. He finally got to spend a few hours in a studio laying down 14 songs. It's so stinking cool to have his newest stuff on disc...and on my computer now too! It's quite raw and gritty and I love it.