12/16/2014 Shopping, Shopping, Shopping

(Arizona City, AZ)

As I’ve mentioned in past posts I have been collecting money from the residents here in Quail Run to help a family that consists of grandparents and four grandchildren who came to them unexpectedly.  And Quail Run gave.  And they gave big.  $670.00 worth of big.

Yesterday I had a chance to talk to the school nurse who is the coordinator for the Angel Tree program.  I asked a lot of questions and got a lot of information back.  I found that the family was getting help from other sources as well as what we had planned.  This changes the whole ball game now.  We can do so much more now.  I went through all the slips from the school and made note of what parents were asking for in addition to the toys and clothes for their children.  I took notice that all of them were asking for hygiene products in addition to other special requests.  They asked for shampoo, toothpaste, lotion, toothbrushes, soap, toilet paper and the list goes on.  These things are not covered under the food stamp program.
 
The special requests included a space heater, pots and pans and water to name a few.
 
So today, Bonnie L., Jodee and I went shopping.

Our first stop was Sam’s Club and we bought a space heater for the family that doesn’t have heat.  Next stop was Walmart to buy pots and pans.  While there we bought towels and pillows for a family of six.  On to Big Lots and we bought gallons of water for the family that has to haul their water.  Something you and I certainly take for granted.
 
Our next stop was at the Dollar Store.  We cleared the shelves of toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, soap and lotions.  We then moved on to dish detergent and laundry detergent.  We spent just over $300 in the Dollar Store.

These are all our carts.


 
We fllled the cars and headed back to Quail Run.

We unloaded the vehicles and started lining up the stuff we bought so that it would be easy to fill the bags when the time came.

Lucky for us Kim was walking by and asked if we needed help unloading.  Needless to say we took her up on that.

 

Now on top of all this I’m getting sick.  It started over the weekend with a sore throat and now its moved to my chest.  I’m having a hard time breathing.  I don’t need pneumonia now.

More money to spend tomorrow!

12/14/2014 Christmas Shopping….Again

(Arizona City, AZ)

Today Bonnie and I went shopping …..again. 

I had my little Angel Tree boy to finish up and I now had a 10 year old to buy for.  A Quail Run resident who isn't in the park yet sent me a check for $100.00 to help out when I put the request out for help.  Well, the residents are being so generous, over $500.00 so far, that I went to the Angel Tree to pick one of the slips that was still hanging.  The boy needed clothes as he had just gone up a size and there was no money for new clothes.  His mom wrote that he is a good boy and never asks for anything.  So I used my 30% off at Kohl’s and bought things on sale and was able to get him 3 pairs of pants, 4 shirts, sneakers and socks.  I think every kids needs some fun gifts at Christmas so I got him Yahtzee, Sorry, Uno card game and another one that I forget the name of right now.  I hope he’ll be a happy boy on Christmas morning.

Our tree is starting to fill as the residents do their shopping and get their purchases wrapped.

I spent part of the afternoon wrapping gifts for our kids and grandkids.  I only got a few done as I was getting interrupted, in a most delightful way, by people dropping by to give money for the family in need.   The envelope is getting very thick!

12/13/2014 Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen Luncheon

(Arizona City, AZ)

Today the ladies in park celebrated the date.

12/13/14

Forty two women signed up to attend a luncheon at Olive Garden in Casa Grande at noon.

Actually, due to illness, other things that came up unexpectedly and one who just forgot, we had closer to thirty but boy did we have fun!

 

The waitresses we had were outstanding!  All orders came out as ordered and were timely.  This included serving I don’t know how many different wines and how many bottles we went through.

The best part, separate checks and they were all correct! 

During lunch it was decided that we would do this again next month.  The reason?  Just Because.  That’s right, Just Because.  Just because we can.

So next month I will make up a sign up sheet we shall gather again to feast on all things Italian and we’ll love every minute of it.

We asked our wait staff, Ashley and Paola, if they would do this again for us and they agreed wholeheartedly to serve us again,  I think we have some pretty good tippers in our bunch too.

Ashley with our separate checks.  By the way, we didn’t even ask for separate checks, she just did it.

12/10–12/12/2014 Amazing People!

(Arizona City, AZ)

The decking of the halls has started.  Christmas trees are being put up in different places around the main building.

I couldn’t stay all the way to the end so I didn’t get pics of the finished trees today.

I’ve found a new game I just love to play!  Have you ever played Bunco?

Every Sunday, up to 24 of us play this face paced dice game in the card room in the Oasis.

If you ever get the chance to play I strongly suggest you do.   I won $9.00 the first time I played this year.

Bob has played golf a couple of times and spends his afternoons sitting outside with the guys in the neighborhood.  They drink their beer and solve all the world’s problems.  I hear an awful lot of laughing going on over there so I don’t know exactly know how many problems are really getting solved.

The fundraising is going gangbusters.  Residents are knocking on the door and handing over twenty dollar bills.  During the line dance class I made an announcement that whoever wanted me to stop buy later in the day to pick up their donation should color in their space on a map of the park I provided.  Needless to say spaces were colored in.

Later in the day, my neighbor Jodee, and I went riding slowly around the park to make the collection.  People who saw us go by their places soon came chasing us in their golf carts to give us money.  Twenties.  Nearly everyone is giving twenties.  We were handed one envelope and when we opened it we were shocked.  Not one twenty, six of them!  A $120.00 donation!  Another envelope held $50.00.  I was getting way more money than I expected.  Didn’t I tell you Quail Runners were generous?

A group of us went to Tumblweeds again to have dinner and to listen to Bunky sing.  This sure is an active season so far.

12/9/2014 Riders in the Sky

(Arizona City, AZ)

This evening Bob and I joined 19 other couples from Quail Run at the Pence Center for Visual and Performing Arts.  This is located at the Signal Peak campus of Central Arizona College.

We enjoyed the performance by Riders in the Sky.  We went to see their Cowboy Christmas Show.  It was very, very good and we really enjoyed.  Lots of songs we knew, lots of comedy, a good time for sure.

During intermission one I got up to stretch my legs and to see what others from our park thought of the show.  We didn’t have assigned seats so we were pretty much spread all over.

While visiting with two friends from the park, one’s wife walked up and told her husband to give me some money for the family we were collecting for.  He opened his wallet and pulled out a twenty.  Following suit, the other fellow also handed me a twenty.  A few rows up on the second level another park resident watched what going on but couldn’t see the denominations of the bills I’m sure.  He walked down to the railing and leaned over to call my name.  He said he wanted to take care of his donation while it was on his mind.  Yep, another twenty.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was asking for fives but these caring, generous people were handing me twenties.

I nearly floated back to my seat when the house lights blinked.  This project certainly was starting out on a good note!

12/8/2014 An Idea Forms

(Arizona City, AZ)

I sat at the dining room table playing Candy Crush, a game I play on Facebook, but I couldn’t concentrate on my game.  I kept getting the picture of the Angel Tree slips in my mind’s eye.  Not the side where we found boy or girl, their age and wants.  No, the flip side.  This is where the parents wrote needs for the family.  Towels, pillows, blankets, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, a heater and water.  My mind kept drifting back to those sides of the Angel Tree slips.  Not all of them had it, a dozen or so at most.  I couldn’t stop thinking about them.  Basic human needs.  Blankets, towels, hygiene products.  Things you and I don’t even give a second thought to.

There was one family I heard about in particular.  A set of grandparents who unexpectedly got custody of four grandchildren.  Four grandchildren they were ill-prepared to receive and to take care of.  This was the family that was asking for pillows, towels, blankets and hygiene products and food.

I knew I had to do something to help.  Ideas and thoughts kept tumbling through my mind on the how I was going to do this.  I knew I couldn’t fill this need on my own.  Bob and I have our kids and grandkids we wanted to give Christmas gifts to and we have our own bills just like everyone else.  I also know that I live in a very giving community of people.  I would turn to our family in Quail Run.

I am one of three administrators on the Quail Run Facebook page.  I write the majority of the posts on the page and used that as my platform to reach out to the community.  I would ask each Quail Runner to donate $5.00.  Certainly doable and a request I knew our community would embrace.

So I set things in motion.  I wrote up the plea for the needed funds and posted it.  Now I just had to wait to see who would respond.  I know they won’t let me down.

If you’d like to see what goes on in our park you can check out our Facebook page.  Just type Quail Run RV Park in the search box on your Facebook page.  If you don’t have your own page just Google Quail Run RV Park Facebook Page or follow this LINK.  Be sure to click on the one that says Arizona City if you Google it.

12/1-12/7/2014 December Already!

(Arizona City, AZ)

December.  Last month of the year.  Christmas. Shopping.  Wrapping.  Shipping.  Baking. Parties.

All of the above is going on but normal everyday and weekly things are going on too.

Playing horseshoes for instance.  We had a new player this week.  Her name is Kim and she lives in the 5th wheel that backs up to ours.  Kim has never played horseshoes before.  Never.  Until today.  Now when Kim first started out she didn’t know where to stand or even how to hold the horseshoe.  She stood still and threw, walked up like she was on a bowling lane and threw, she stood near the edge and stood way back.  One time she threw completely over the pit.  We all ducked on that one. 

Then she changed sides and she hit her mark.  She started getting the shoes inside the pit and even close to the pole.  And then…..she got a ringer!


Oh yes she did!  She threw the second shoe.  We watched it sail through the air.  It seemed to be in slow motion.  CLANG!  Another ringer!  A six-pack!



Pretty as you please, two ringers.  All the rest of us got very excited for her and were yelling, “She got a six-pack!”  She looked at us and said, “What did I get?”  It had to be explained.

She was so proud of herself and rightly so.  I didn’t throw so well but that’s a story for another day.  Congratulations Kim!  (There goes my medal in our Winter Olympics)

Bingo also started this week.  Bonnie L. and run the bingo on Thursday nights.  It was planned that we would start in January when more people would be in the park but the ladies here were anxious to get started.  A list was made of all the ones who would play so that we made sure we would have enough to play and not lose money.


We have this rule that if you win three times in one night that that is grounds for a dunking in the pool.  Well, we had a three time winner.  We’re not showing her face here for her own safety.



This week we had the Craft Fair/Bake Sale and Luncheon.  It went very well with a great turn out.

Lots of jewelry, lots of knitted and crocheted items and these….fake cactus plants!


I’m hoping at the next one this lady is back because I didn’t have any money with me this time.  Sure, I could have gone home and gotten some but I’m keeping in mind that I have packages to ship in a few weeks and shipping isn’t cheap!  If I’m meant to have one of these she’ll be here again at the next one,  They sure were pretty and the best part is I can’t kill it!  I have no luck with cactus.


 One of the ladies in our park even wrote a cookbook.



Also this week our Angel Tree was put up.  The names of local children were provided by the local school district.  The surrounding area has some very poor sections and this gives the children a chance to get something for Christmas because its very likely they won’t otherwise.

Each slip tells you if it’s a boy or a girl, their age, what they would like to have and their sizes.

I picked out a little boy, three years old, who wants anything to do with Thomas the Train.  I have to admit, I know nothing about Thomas the Train but how hard can it be?

I looked at all the slips and was surprised that some of them, older kids, 15 & 16 were asking for IPads and computers.  Nah, that’s not gonna happen.  Those slips will hang there a long time I’m thinking.

Bob has been keeping busy around the house, and golfing, and going to the driving range, playing cards two nights a week and making weekly visits to the VFW club.