Monday Monday!

 Okay friends...This is Monday, and it's not like any other Monday!! Not only is it my oldest son's birthday!!!, but we are also getting prepared for a big ugly hurricane that is headed our way in the next 48 hours.  So if you don't hear from me for a while, it may be because we either got blown away (trusting God that won't really happen!) or we may lose power for a few days and that would make life miserable...but better than being blown away!!  So if I am able to update you after the storm passes by, I will as soon as possible.   Thankfully we live pretty far inland, about and hour or more from either coast, but the predicted path of the storm goes right up and over our area...unless something shifts here in the next few hours.  So your prayers are certainly welcome and appreciated!!  We've been out this morning cleaning up stuff in the yard and making sure there are no "projectiles", and then we just stocked up on bread and water and other essentials...(toilet paper!)  We haven't been ordered to evacuate this area yet, so we are hoping we can just stay put like we normally do for a hurricane.  If not, we may go over to our son's house as they live in a concrete block home as opposed to our manufactured home.  Time will tell...we are about as ready as we can be...so just trying to relax and pray.

Meanwhile, thankfully we did all our "celebrating" of birthdays over the weekend and we don't have to worry about people traveling and gathering, etc. now.  If you are not a Facebook friend, you probably haven't already seen these pictures...and if you have already seen them, then you are free to move on to something else. LOL.  Thank you for all your kind words and Happy Birthday greetings for our son.  It's hard to believe he is 52, and that I am even old enough to have a son so old! LOL.  Something must be wrong...maybe he's really only 25 and we got the numbers backwards. LOL.  

We ended up with cupcakes because we had taken a LOT of cupcakes with us on Saturday for the family gathering, and they didn't all get eaten, so rather than waste them and make more, we were smart and had them on Sunday too.  Some of them were pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting! Yes, it's that time again...pumpkin this and pumpkin that...LOL

Of course my mouth is open saying something...or maybe I was singing...anyway, we had a good time.

This was yesterday, after church, and after we had a nice grilled steak dinner, thanks to Rose buying the steaks and Scott doing the grilling.  It was a wonderful treat.

As I told you in last week's Tuesday 4 POST HERE, we had planned to travel an hour or so to a restaurant on Saturday to meet up with our extended Florida family to celebrate August birthdays and anniversaries, etc.  And so we did...and here we are:

This is both sides of our family...my hubby's brother Bill and wife Peggy and their two kids Shannon (and her boyfriend Tristan) and Nicholaus, and my sister Doris and her hubby Art and their two kids David and Debbie (and her hubby and son Jack), plus our kids Benton and Rose. The only one not able to attend was our son Scott, as he had to work.  We were quite a happy big gang of people!

Peggy and Bill were celebrating their 25th anniversary!

Debbie and Darrell had already celebrated their anniversary earlier in the month, but we also celebrated Debbie's birthday, which is this week.

And their handsome son Jack is turning 18 in another week, so we celebrated his birthday too!

And then of course our son Benton and wife Rose celebrating his birthday...

And Billy and Peggy's son Nicholaus is also celebrating his birthday today, on the same day as our son Benton.  He is now 21, but still hates to have his picture taken!  Oh, and he is starting his Junior year at UCF (Univ. of Central Florida), having just graduated with his AA degree from Seminole State Community College. So we are very proud of Nick.  

And this is Nick's sister Shannon and her boyfriend Tristan. She is also attending Seminole State Community College.  

It's not my birthday yet, but my sister in law Peggy gave me this "Squishmallow" pillow as an early birthday gift (later in September), because she will be out of town on my birthday and wanted me to have it now.  I didn't know these special pillows had names and personalities....She picked this one for me because it's name is "Pama",  and her description says that "Pama reads so many books that there are stacks of them everywhere in her home! Pama prefers classic novels and short stories, but she will read anything if you recommend it. This "Mallow" even has a collection of encyclopedias she will sometimes open up and read just for fun!"   LOL.  That's pretty funny! I do love to read, and right now I have a stack of library books I am working through. I used to have encyclopedias that we enjoyed reading, but they became too outdated and are long gone...so now I just look things up on "Wikipedia" when I want to know something.  So this description was pretty appropriate for me...LOL.

And because it was Peggy and Bill's 25th anniversary, we wanted to give them something silver. I actually sent Benton out on a mission the other day while I was having my stem cell procedure done and he was killing time waiting for me to get done (Rose couldn't go with him because she wasn't feeling well that day sadly), so he went shopping and couldn't find anything silver that was appropriate (or affordable).  However, he did find these really cute little trinket dishes with what appears to be the ocean inside and little "silver" sea turtles swimming out to sea.  This was perfect for Peggy and Billy as their home is decorated with a coastal theme!  

She loved them!  (So did Billy, but probably not as much as Peggy. LOL).

Oh, and I wanted to thank all of you for your kind thoughts regarding my procedure that I had the other day.  I am feeling much better, but still it will be a while before my arm is completely healed. I am trusting God for healing and taking it easy and carefully one day at a time. I still have to wear the tummy pressure belt for another week, which is a bit uncomfortable, kind of like a girdle...remember those, ladies?  Does anyone wear girdles anymore??? LOL.  Anyway, little by little things are improving and I am very thankful. You are all the greatest cheerleaders, by the way. I thank God for you!

Well, as I sit here writing this, I have been hearing thunder. It's still too soon for Idalia to make her appearance, so this must be from that other storm out in the Atlantic.  Anyway, it is a warning of things to come, and a reminder that things could be getting crazy around here in a little while. So I will sign off for now and if I can get back to write again in the next couple of days, I will. But don't worry about us if you don't hear anything...just pray...especially for those closer to the coast who may experience much worse weather than we will.  We will hopefully be able to communicate again soon.

"Til the Storm passes by...."

In the dark of the midnight have I oft hid my face

While the storm howls above me, and there's no hiding place

'Mid the crash of the thunder, Precious Lord, hear my cry

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more

Till the clouds roll forever from the sky

Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Many times Satan whispered

There is no use to try

For there's no end of sorrow, there's no hope by and by

But I know Thou art with me, and tomorrow I'll rise

Where the storms never darken the skies

Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more

Till the clouds roll forever from the sky

Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Waiting on the Storm to Pass By

Today has been a day of waiting and preparation for Hurricane Ian to arrive.

The outer rain bands have been gradually building throughout the day, along with the winds.

The real storm has not arrived here as of yet. It only made landfall this afternoon way down on the southwest Gulf Coast near Ft. Myers, as a Category 4 (almost 5) hurricane. It is a huge storm, but thankfully is beginning to gradually weaken in strength as it slowly works its way north east across our state. We are on the northern edge of its projected path and the impact will not be nearly as great here as it is further south, for which we are very thankful. However, I fear there will be much damage to those who are closer to its eyewall. 

I woke up this morning around 5 a.m. in hyper hurricane mode. My adrenaline kicks in when there is impending danger of any kind, and my main thought was to try and get as much done as possible today before we lose power...which is most likely inevitable possibly sometime tomorrow or tomorrow night, but I keep praying it won't.

For those of you who remember our sweet "Lily Grace", this is quite an adventure for her...Her first hurricane! But sadly I've been too preoccupied to help her write her own posts lately...however, she is very concerned about this storm and is watching all of the news/weather updates with us.  Her puppy Bailey keeps her company.

So some of the things I did today were:

1. Three loads of laundry, including our bedsheets.

2.  Cooked beef stew in the crock pot all day.

3. Baked a meatloaf to have for tomorrow's meal/sandwiches.

4.  Searched until I found the power cord for the generator, which was lost behind a shelving unit in our shed...It had slipped down behind the shelves and it took some praying and seeking God's help to direct me to find it.  Now we just need someone to come and hook it up when and if we need it if the power goes out. We do not know how to do that.  It requires someone with more electrical expertise than we have to do it correctly. I'm still praying we won't need it.

5.  I baked biscuits to go with our beef stew for supper. Our son Benton came over to join us as his sweet wife Rose is still visiting her family in Minnesota.

We have some biscuits leftover for breakfast tomorrow.  Maybe with applesauce?

As most of you know, I am looking forward to going to a special "tea party" this coming Saturday..., but now that is up in the air depending upon what is going on with this hurricane by then. It should be further on up the coast and away from us, but if we are without power then of course they will have to postpone it.  Already one of my friends who was planning to attend with me is not going to be able to come because they've been away on vacation and can't get back into the state because of the storm.  The southbound lanes of the major highways have been closed to southbound traffic so that people can evacuate to the north and get out of harm's way.  I am hoping that if they do have to cancel it for this weekend they will reschedule sometime in the near future.  And with that in mind I decided to work on my hat design today while I still had power to operate the hot glue gun.  Here is how it looks...

So my hat and gloves and little purse and fan are all ready to go...let's just hope it will still happen in the near future.

In the meantime, here's a song that is going through my mind that expresses my prayers and thoughts as we wait for the storm to pass by...

Till the Storm Passes By

sung by the Gaither Vocal Band

In the dark of the midnight have I oft hid my face,

While the storm howls above me, and there's no hiding place.

'Mid the crash of the thunder, Precious Lord, hear my cry,

Keep me safe till the storm passes by.

Refrain:

Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more,

Till the clouds roll forever from the sky;

Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand,

Keep me safe till the storm passes by.

Many times Satan whispered, "There is no need to try,

For there's no end of sorrow, there's no hope by and by"

But I know Thou art with me, and tomorrow I'll rise

Where the storms never darken the skies.

Refrain

When the long night has ended and the storms come no more,

Let me stand in Thy presence on the bright peaceful shore;

In that land where the tempest, never comes, Lord, may I

Dwell with Thee when the storm passes by.

Refrain

Music and Lyrics by Mosie Lister (1958)

I will try to keep in touch as I am able, but if the power goes off it may be a while before it is restored since as of right now there are already almost a million people in the state without power, and they can't do anything to repair it until the storm is over.  So we will just stay as safe as we can and pray.  God is with us and we are very very thankful.  Thank you for all of the prayers for our people in this state...there are quite a few of us bloggers here and all of us will be affected in one way or another by this storm.  Praying for each and everyone to be safe.  

Wednesday Treasures~A Busy Day

Yesterday was a rather stormy day, with pop up thunderstorms scattered throughout the whole day, from morning until night.  These two pictures were taken last night, while the sunset was shrouded in storm clouds:

Even in its darkness it was still quite beautiful and interesting, don't you think?

God paints the most beautiful masterpieces in His heavens for us to enjoy, even in the midst of a storm...He's always there!

First of all, I want to thank you all who took the time to comment on my post yesterday HERE.  I always love to read your comments, and I also love to read your blog posts, but yesterday was a busy day and I haven't had time yet to get caught up. Maybe today will slow down a bit so I can catch my breath. But thank you for sharing your thoughts with us...I always look forward to hearing from you.

So, yesterday started out first of all, with hubby having a follow up Dr. appointment to go over his labs from his last visit.  Thankfully all was good...even better than expected in some areas. So that was wonderful news!

From there we went over to the new Dixie Cottage store, which is still "under construction", to test out our keys that we had made copies of so we each have a set.  The previous day I had gotten the new set made, and one key didn't work, so we had to take it back to ACE and have them redo it, and this time it worked fine.  "If at first you don't succeed, try try again!"

So here I am...

And here is hubby...

We were also checking out the fact that the landlord has been true to her word that the building is being pressure-washed and primed and ready for painting on the outside. So far so good.

This is just a quick glimpse from inside, where the kids are starting to bring in items to prepare the store for the grand opening, which is scheduled for August 2nd. They are still working in the St. Augustine store until July 23rd, and then they will pack everything up and move it over here during the following week. They have a LOT to do!

Yesterday afternoon they had a meeting with prospective vendors who are interested in setting up booths in the store to sell their particular craft/art/designs. The space is limited to only about 5 or 6 different booths, (in addition to all the items Dixie Cottage already sells) but it sounds like there will be a nice variety of items from homemade organic soaps and lotions to stained glass, wreaths, custom signs/shirts/mugs, jewelry, etc. I can't wait to see just what all there will be! It's going to be a fun place when all is ready!

So meanwhile, back at the home front and in between thunderstorms, well, even during the storms,

we had our old friend "George of the Jungle" doing some tree work for us:

(click that link for pictures from the last time he was here 2 years ago)

He brought his family along to help with the clean up:

Yes, that's his little 4 year old son and wife helping out.

And yes, he's barefooted. He's been that way since he could walk...right there helping his daddy with the trees.  George says that's how he started out with his daddy.  Of course I worried about his stepping on something sharp and hurting himself...but I was assured his feet were tough as leather...

And he's quite strong too.

Meanwhile, across the street a dump truck brought in a load of clay to put down for a foundation under a new home that we keep waiting to see when it will appear. Looks like the truck about burned up its motor, but I guess not. He drove away just fine...

After trimming back the branches of our huge live oak trees in front of the house that were getting too close to the house, he then went to cut down that tree by the fence that is dying and needed to come down:

No big lift truck or heavy equipment for George of the Jungle.  Just a guy with his trusty chain saw and lots of skill and experience.  We weren't too sure how he was going to cut that tree down and not hit our fence, but he did it:

And then the rains came:

But that didn't stop them.  The little guy had lots of fun running back and forth in the rain helping out and finding some puddles to play in as well:

It didn't take them long at all to get that tree cut up and loaded in the wagon and hauled away.

And this is what's left. I guess we should have asked him to cut it down to the ground, but who knows, maybe it will grow back even better.  This part of the trunk didn't look too dead if you ask me.

Maybe I'll get creative and put something on top of it.

Well, folks, that's my Wednesday "treasures" for today. Nothing much on the schedule yet for today. Maybe some more storms rolling in by this afternoon.

 Frankly, I think I need a day of rest.  LOL.

Here's a favorite old song about the storms of life:

"Til The Storm Passes By"

In the dark of the midnight have I oft hid my face

While the storm howls above me, and there's no hiding place

'Mid the crash of the thunder, Precious Lord, hear my cry

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more

Till the clouds roll forever from the sky

Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Many times Satan whispered

There is no use to try

For there's no end of sorrow, there's no hope by and by

But I know Thou art with me, and tomorrow I'll rise

Where the storms never darken the skies

Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more

Till the clouds roll forever from the sky

Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Hope you are safe from any "storms" in your life right now...

Have a blessed and beautiful day my friends.