Auctions...Part II Herman Mille 4H Program

Last Saturday night Larry and I attend an auction to benefit the Herman Miller 4H Park. Our friends Dave and Dawn Johnson have been a part of 4H since their children were young and even though their children are now grown, they continue to support the 4H program.

Each year an auction is held to raise money to complete the buildings and grounds. The Northwest Washington Fair Expo Building in Lynden was filled with rows of tables filled with items that started at a $1.00. A live auction would follow later in the evening.

Larry and I opted to have a chili dog and soda for dinner before we got down to the business of checking out the tables. We found a spot at the back of the room where we could later have a good view of who we might be bidding against if we found something we wanted to bid on.

Our friends Brian and Nita who are both involved with the 4H program were there, also. Nita was planning on bidding on a Harley coat in the live auction. (Yes she won.)

We placed our bidding number on several items in the silent auction and then sat back down and splurged by splitting a piece of two layer chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. The size of the cake slice could have fed four people.

The live auction was about to begin and we had checked out the items, circled the items we were interested in and we were ready to bid. We lost a couple, let several go, but in the end we think we had the best items of the evening, at least to us.

We were the high bidders on the silent auction table for a gift certificate we will use for dog food; Nothing for the cat, but maybe Ally won’t notice.

Larry won the auction for a one half hour parachute plane ride over Whatcom County when the weather warms up. He has already talked to the gentleman who donated the ride and Larry is excited as he has never done this before.

The second item we won is an all day guided fishing trip for two on either the Skagit River or the Snohomish River. The gentleman donating this trip even offered a third option to Canada fishing. Larry takes a one week fishing trip each year and since we got married that has been the extent of his fishing. This auction item will be a real treat for him.

The fourth item we won is from Devine Gardens. Starting in mid May we will pick up a 30-40 pound box of vegetables at the Ferndale Farmers Market each Saturday through mid October. This was the first year that this item had been offered and I thought it was just amazing. We doubled checked that this was not a typo and really was 30-40 pounds each week. We won. Larry looked at me and reminded me that he doesn’t even really like vegetables. I told him he would learn to love them. Vegetable soup, sautéed, steamed, grilled, etc. Of course we will share with Michael and Ryan and Larry’s mom. If we are out of town on a Saturday, we will need the boys to pick up the vegetables or, as a back up, ask someone from our small group to pick them up and share. I can hardly wait until the market opens and we see what our first box holds as a surprise for us.

We wrote a check, collected our winning sheets and thanked our friends for telling us about the auction. The winning bidders not only took home a prize but helped a very worthwhile project that helps children have a safe place to ride their horses.

http://hermanmiller4-h.blogspot.com/

A New Computer

My husband Larry is co-chair of the local Communities In Schools http://www.whatcomcounty.ciswa.org/ for Whatcom County. On Saturday March 21st, CIS held their Inaugural Friend and Fund Raiser for Education with an auction and Improv performance by local high school students. The event was held at The Leopold Hotel in the Crystal Ballroom.

The Leopold Hotel in Bellingham Washington was built in 1899 and was originally called The Byron Hotel. Leopold Schmidt was a brew master who established the Bellingham Bay Brewery and bought the hotel in 1910. The hotel was then named after him upon his death. The Leopold Hotel is on both the National and Local Historic Registry and is presently used for retirement apartments. During the 1940’s the hotel was a getaway for famous movie stars to relax in style.

There were a large number of auction items up for bid but I had my heart set on winning a new computer that co-chair Mark Knittel was donating from his business, Data Doctors in Bellingham. I was the successful the bidder and on Tuesday March 31st Larry and I met Mark for lunch at Busara, a Thai restaurant in Sehome Village and we talked about what I had on my current computer, what I needed to have on a new computer, and what I wanted to have on my new computer.

I want a speedy computer. I want to be able to have multiple web pages open, several photo programs open for editing my art, and word documents if I am writing poems or articles. Mark made several suggestions for operating systems, browsers, security software and computer back up recovery systems.

The pieces and parts have been ordered and Mark gave me the option of helping build my own computer when everything arrives next week. I know my limitations! I can use bits and pieces of almost anything to create art in my studio and I can use the more basic photo editing programs to help create my art, but much more than turning my computer on and I am lost. I decided that talking with Mark about what I wanted for a new computer was as close as I wanted to be in building it. I do want my computer to work when it’s built, so I will leave the technical details to the experts. I will bring Mark my old computer drive, my back up drive, and software; then they can synchronize, combine, merge, and mingle everything into one brand new, speedy, zip and zoom computer and then I can bring it home play.

Days! Just a few more days and I can kiss this noisy, slow computer good-bye.