A little less sore this morning and hopeful of getting over this spell of back pain.

I was faced with an interesting challenge: bringing cookies to the Kenney Ridge Christmas dinner without any eggs. And without overdoing so as to bother my back. I made delicious pancakes with the one egg we got Saturday. Then I mixed the dough for Jam Kolaches (no eggs).

We headed to UUFA, riding with Dan. Ray taught Sunday school, with no voice, and I sat in the pews. It was one of my very favorite services ever, with some awesome music, about God, strangely enough, and questioning his existence. One of the songs was "Dear God," which ends with "I don't believe in You," a clever and moving song. After the service, there was the annual meeting, a real trial sometimes. We had to approve the budget and changes to the bylaws, as well as hear a report from the Goal-Setting committee. The usual suspects (Jane and Wilma, for instance) raised questions that had to be responded to, but everything was approved unanimously.

Ray was feeling very bad by this time and didn't say a word all the way home. He went straight to bed without eating anything. I had some lovely leftovers and continued on my quest. I rolled out the jam cookies and put them in the oven while I was talking to Molli. When I hung up, I found I was supposed to put jam in them and fold them over before I baked them! Oh, dear. I didn't have much to offer and now I had screwed even that up. I put little circles of jam in the middle of the cookies. Then I had time to mix up one more thing that didn't use eggs, an interesting apricot bar with coconut and a rich crust. It took a little longer than I would have liked. The day was clouding over and getting cooler. While it was baking, I put up the chickens and changed my clothes, brought in the laundry, and got ready to go to the party.

Ray got up as I was leaving and seemed much better. He wanted to come with me, but we decided he really shouldn't. I put everything in the car and drove to the community center. I brought my cookies (some still warm) in, and a bottle of white wine I put in the fridge. Then I walked over to Karen's to feed the pigs, who were happy to see me and my scraps. I snuck in Karen's house and changed out of my jeans and dirty shoes, grabbing an empty plastic bag for them from her counter. Then I walked over to Steve and Shannon's house for the appetizer course. Most of the snacks were gone, but I had some wine (the same red Acorna that we drink at home). The house was small and crowded, but lovely. You have to walk up some very steep stairs to get to the master bedroom, which is like a secret lair. Downstairs, there is one main room, a small bedroom, and a lovely bath. The kitchen is wonderful; Paul made the rustic custom cabinets.

After a bit, I walked along to the community center, where people were starting to gather, but no one had begun eating. I spent some time with my favorite little girl, Adah with the bright eyes, playing a card game we invented as we went along, with Mike Conroy, and having a lovely time. We got to eat after a bit, turkey among other things. I was pretty restrained in terms of carbs, so I could have a little pie: blueberry and squash plus cherry crisp, with homemade organic whipped cream. The cookies were very well received, and there were plenty of other desserts, of course. I left pretty early to come home and see how Ray was doing. He had especially enjoyed the apricot bars! He was doing pretty well and had worked up an appetite. After a couple game shows, I went to bed and to sleep by 10 ish. Then we got up at 4 or some ungodly hour. Of course, he had not slept well, since he had slept so much during the day. Oh, well.