Purses from Etsy, basketball, a dead dishwasher

It was another busy week full of meetings and basketball games. I went to Goshen College basketball games on Tuesday and Saturday and had an early morning board meeting on Tuesday, a lunch meeting on Thursday, and a meeting on Friday right before lunch. Now I am trying to get some things done around the house before going to a friend's house a little later for a Super Bowl party.

One exciting thing that I did last week was order some handmade purses on Etsy.com. Etsy is a place where you can buy (and sell) handmade items. I discovered it through a Facebook friend last year but hadn't bought anything yet. It is a little overwhelming because there are so many people selling so many cool things. I was tired of my purse for this winter and instead of just going to Kohl's, WalMart or another department store, I decided to see if I could find a purse I liked at Etsy instead. Here are the two I ended up buying (after LOTS of looking)

My "winter" purse, made by a lady in Toledo.

My "spring" purse, made by a lady in Lombard, IL.

Another not-so-exciting thing that happened recently was that my dishwasher died. The dishwasher was old when I moved into this house 10 years ago, and it finally gave up the ghost. Now comes the fun of shopping for a new dishwasher and then buying one and getting it installed. We found a nice Whirlpool we liked that is affordable and energy efficient, so we will probably end up with that one. In the meantime, we have been washing a lot more dishes by hand. My friend Penny washed up a sinkload of dishes last week, and I always marvel at her ability to stack everything. I swear she got a whole dishwasher load worth of dishes into our small drying rack.


I came home for a meeting recently to see a full moon at the end of the driveway. Of course the picture isn't as good as seeing it in real life, but it was beautiful!

My friend Susie and I at the Goshen College basketball game vs Grace last Tuesday.

Denise had to do book for the GC men's game yesterday because the lady who usually does it was sick. Here she is before the game getting ready. She did a good job!