What a beautiful Monday.  This is a very busy week for me.  The first thing that happened this morning was I received a phone call from an old friend.  She is involved with the Relay for Life event for the American Cancer Society.  They would like to have Merci and Grace come and entertain at Fountain Park in June.  After checking my schedule we decided we could make it.  I have no idea what this is going to turn into.  Through our conversation she told me that her daughter had been a professional clown for 12 years.  So I asked her that the next time she comes for a visit perhaps we could meet.  Merci and I are just beginning our clown career and we really could use all the advice we could get.  This ministry is growing so quickly that we can hardly keep up.  On Wednesday night of this week we are going to be performing a skit that Merci wrote for another group of children at a church.  Merci has found that he can write poetry.  It is a hoot.  We will keep you posted about various places we are visiting and take photos for the photo page.  Well I am off on another adventure.   Marvelous!!!  

Oh my, Oh Me!   I just love Sunday.  This is my favorite day of the week.  We get to go and worship GOD with our church family.  You can meet some of the most unusual characters in church.  Aunt Sally is one of those special friends.  Now you will be hearing a lot about Aunt Sally and our adventures together.  She is a real honest to goodness artist.  On occasion I have even tried to learn a little about oil painting from her.  Sally Geething just does wonderful work.  I recently bought a painting of the front of her home.  We are going to get another frame for it.  Hopefully we will go to Fort Wayne Indiana and have  another friend help us find the frame and go on an adventure in that city.  Right now Aunt Sally has allowed me to turn her into a big yellow bunny.  She is the head of the Hippity Dippity Dop Family.  I am working on a story to connect our make-believe Blessed City with Delphos and Lima Ohio.  This is a work in process.  Part of the money we raise from this book will help to provide things for the children's department of the Delphos Library and the part from Lima will help with their Lima Children Garden endowment program.  What a nice way to show love for others through stories for children.  Aunt Sally and I have a mutual friend which we are planting seeds for her to become one of the illustrators for the Hippity Dippity Dop series of stories.  That is in GOD's hands now.  It is exciting to see where this idea will go.

Oh my, Oh me!  Another Arbor day adventure.  This year our city became a Tree City USA again.  Many years ago we had that title but were not able to keep up the requirements and it was dropped.  It is so good to know that we are now able to once again have that distinction.  This year the city decided to honor the Master Gardener program.  While I was at the arbor day program I had a conversation with our current mayor.  I showed Mayor Farmer the storybook/activity book that we are selling to raise money for the Petals and Feathers Garden.  These books really turned out cute.  We sell them for $5.   If any of you would like to help us give me an e-mail and we will talk.   Anyways, I have been telling Mayor Farmer about the children's series I am starting to write.  I call Van Wert , THE BLESSED CITY, in my books.  He wanted to know if we needed a city council meeting to change the name of our city.  I told him in my world it was just fine.  So we held our own little imaginary city council and proclaimed our community in this imaginary world to be known as THE BLESSED CITY.  So friends it is official we are now THE BLESSED CITY.
Everybody is getting a kick out of this idea.  I'll share more with you later.  

Saturday was also our Master Gardener plant sale.  We really had a lot of fun.  One of our gardening friends invited two of us to visit her garden and give her ideas.  Janice and I told Connie that as long as she wanted to spend money we would be glad to help her.
Aren't friends wonderful.  I think she is going to end up making a special tea room under some unusual branched trees for her grandchildren.  I think it will be wonderful.  Maybe Grace will have to go there and have tea with them.  Creating interesting things and ideas for children makes the kid in all of us come out.

What a day!!!  Oh my, Oh me!   One of the many hats I wear is that of a person who helps older folks vote at nursing homes and retirement centers.  I feel truly blessed by meeting and becoming acquainted with such interesting folks.  You know we can all learn a thing or two from just listening to the stories of the lives of our seniors.  It was such a pleasure to be able to see the way that 29 of our young folks from the local vocational school came to help these folks.  The Vantage Vocational School has an ambassador program for their teens.  In this program they go out into the community and do things that benefit various folks in our community.  On this particular day they were helping the seniors at Homestead Village Senior Apartments with various Spring housecleaning tasks, just visiting and reading.  The kids who were in the cosmetology department were sharing their talents by giving the seniors manicures and helping to give some new doo's  as they would say.  All in all it is a great experience for the entire group.
It is wonderful that GOD gives each of us talents that we can share with others. 

     Speaking of sharing, I came across a very interesting idea the other day.  A friend of mine told me about witnessing this event at one of our local restaurants.  Somebody had paid a food bill for a table and had a note sent over to them when the bill came.  On the note it said, "It's my turn  to pay.  Have a nice day!"  Wouldn't the whole world be a nicer place if we would each bless another person with some type of kindness and not let them know who did it.   It would not necessarily have to be a monetary blessing.  Just mow somebody else's yard while they were gone or if you see they needed some extra care just do it.  I know this would be appreciated by the receiver as well as the giver.  Many times we see opportunities every day where we could help but do not want to embarrass another person or make them feel like it is just charity.  So I for one will try to do more for the world in the future.  We have a new minister at our church who is really trying to get all of us to step out of our comfort zones and just do something.   We definitely are doing more outreach projects.  Next weekend we are going to have a Saturday to help widows and single mothers get their oil changed in their cars.  Having been a widow one time in my life already, I can really appreciate that type of ministry.  When you are left to handle things by yourself there are just so many decisions to be made.  This will help many people out with just one area of their life.  We will have other single parents and widows to help to just talk and offer ideas to those participating in the project.  Perhaps we may have had a similar experience and can share a small piece of our lives with somebody else.    My friends, being asked to stretch in our faith  is part of the reason that this clown ministry is taking off in a lot of different directions.  We are trying to think more out of the box now and are trying to listen to the quiet voice of GOD.   Both Merci and I have been so blessed in so many ways.  It is time to start giving back to others.  Think about how you can give back also.  HAVE a GREAT DAY!!

Took a little trip to the Cincinnati Flower Show yesterday!  What a fun day.  I met so many interesting people.  Each time I met somebody new I learned so much about life and different parts of the country.  One lady I met yesterday was a Christian lady who is seeking a way to serve GOD.   Nancy Shelton is from Kyle Tx.  She is part of a music ministry.  As a way to just make ends meet she has come up with a very interesting type of stand which you put clay pots on in a row.  Since I love gardening I was quite amused with this idea.  I bought two of these devices and was not sure whether they were going to come home with me or go into our new Petals and Feathers Childrens Garden.  Right now I think they may go to our home.  The childrens garden in Van Wert is under a lot of mud right now.  We haven't even begun to grade that particular part of the complex yet.  I will keep you up to date on future developments in this special garden.  We will be starting a new page called special friends where you can find out more about people like Nancy.

April 20, 2007...Just getting started and have a long way to go.  Merci & Grace are growing and learning more and more about themselves.  I stayed up last night working on a new book that I'll share with everyone later.  A friend visited last night and really helped us understand more about the computer and what we need to do.  Our new email address is clownsforgod@hotmail.com  Coming up we will be appearing at the United Brethren in Christ Church here in Van Wert.  We'll be praying that this will honor God.