Moving Right Along! FCS, Mollie Dawahare

Has it really been two weeks since the last blog?!?  It feels like I just sat down to write my last one.  The past few weeks have been pretty eventful.  Last week my grandmother passed away so I spent the bulk of my time with the family, in and out of the hospital.  My extension office was extremely understanding with it all. I feel so blessed to be a part of such a loving community.  During my time at the office, I planned for the YMCA nutrition classes and then presented them during the afternoons.  Attendance was a little low because of vacations and simply good weather, but those that did show up seemed to be interested in what we had to say.  I think it is going to become a weekly class, which will allow for more practice, building confidence and relationships with the community leaders.  Today, we made plans to go teach a few weekly classes to their summer campers in July.

Last Friday we had our intern evaluation director, Sherry Smith, here to do evaluations.  We met her at Bob Evans for a delicious lunch, and then went back to the office where she got a little tour of our facility and chatted about the experince.  I only had great reviews for her so it was a short but sweet visit.

Saturday morning was spent at the Diabetes Run where I volunteered passing out water to those poor runners at the turn around during the 5K.  It was such a warm run, I don't know if I would've been able to run the whole time! They all did their best, for sure.  There were many awards distributed and smiles flashed.  What better way to spend your morning than going on a run and visiting with friends at the farmer's market?!

This week has been quite busy as well! Monday night we launched our first cooking school at the Baptist Church.  The class of about 12 learned how to make tasty white bean and feta pitas. For a little dessert we did a Kentucky Proud Very Berry Salsa served with homemade high fiber cinnamon and sugar pita chips.  Now that was something else.  Visit Kyproud.com/recipes for the salsa recipe! 

This week was also spent at the final 4-H camp training.  I'm looking more and more forward to camp with each training session.  The teens are really great kids and have such a contagious passion for those campers!  During this past training, we talked about what to do for various problems at camp.  They are going to make the best counselors--so well trained :)  I am teamed up with a few of the other adult counselors for leading a fun foods class!  We were able to organzie and plan for that a little during the training.  We decided to have a nutrition component along with the snack so that the kids learn how to make nutritious snacks.

The Farmer's Market was Wednesday!  It is growing; we had a total of 3 farmers. However, we have honey and soap producers that were not there this week.  The farmers were so nice and generous with their produce.  I'm looking forward to starting up the cooking demos and  lessons in July!  We're hopeful that the classes will draw more of the community to the market.  I learned how to make fried green tomatoes yesterday, so maybe that could be one of the demos? It was messy, but fun :)

Today has been spent at the YMCA and in the kitchen learning to make soupbeans and cornbread!  They were both mouth watering.  Looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend.  Wish the same to you all!