Three Posts in One

Sorry that it has been awhile since I have updated this blog, all you blog readers. Working FT, taking a Spanish class, getting my parents moved, and being involved in too many other things has been catching up with me and I haven't been doing a good job of keeping you all informed. So in an attempt to get somewhat caught up, this post will talk about three different activities - the Michiana Mennonite Relief Sale, a Steven Curtis Chapman concert, and the Oriental Rug Sale at Ten Thousand Villages Goshen.

RELIEF SALE
The Michiana Relief Sale is held every year at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds in Goshen on the last weekend of September. I jokingly call it "gluttony for the poor." Seriously, there are MANY good food options to try, and it's all for the good cause of MCC. They also sell more expensive things like quilts and antiques, but I wasn't in the market for any of those this year. It is a great place to go and see lots of familiar faces and friends.

Here is the food that I ate just on Friday night (I also was there on Saturday).

I started with apple fritters because my friend Susie told me I need to eat some for her (she is living overseas) and I was happy to oblige. Yummo. I got some before the line got really long later in the evening.

Next up was pork fried rice.

Then rosettes.

Then homemade pizza.

I finished it off with some strawberry shortcake. As you can see, I did a good job of supporting MCC!

A few other Relief Sale pictures:

Lots of people eating outside the main food tent on Friday evening. It was a beautiful evening!

At the quilt auction on Saturday morning.

Me with some dried flowers that I bought for my office.

STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN CONCERT

The next weekend Denise and I went to a SCC concert in Fort Wayne. It was the A Night With the Chapmans tour, so the evening started out with Caleb Chapman's band, then SCC sang, and Mary Beth Chapman also talked about her new book. Unfortunately the booking agent had scheduled everything a little too closely and SCC was late coming from his Women of Faith gig in Milwaukee so Geoff Moore came out and sang a few songs until SCC got there. This family has been through a lot in the past two years and it was inspiring to hear their story.

Caleb Chapman

Steven Curtis Chapman

Mary Beth Chapman

TEN THOUSAND VILLAGES GOSHEN ORIENTAL RUG EVENT
Once the year the Villages store in Goshen holds a special oriental rug sale. Villages works with rug artisans in Pakistan and has several year-round "rug rooms" in other stores. They also take a traveling exhibit to various other stores who hold a special event to sell rugs. The Goshen store used to have their sale in April but this year moved it to October.

Overall, it was a very successful event for the store this year. They sold a record amount of rugs and made more the double the profit we had been projecting.

Here are a few pictures of the teardown, which I was involved in.

All the rugs have to be rolled before they are loaded onto the trailer.

Stacks of rolled rugs.

A blue rug before it was rolled.

And that is the end of this long post.
Next post: In the midst of all this busy-ness, I helped my parents move! Details on that coming soon, but don't hold your breath.