Monday Monday!

Good Monday Morning!! I hope this morning finds you all bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go! LOL.  At 6:00 a.m. I am about as bright eyed as a new born kitten who hasn't opened its eyes yet, but little by little I'm getting there...LOL.

So the last time I spoke with you on Saturday HERE, it was a foggy morning and we were looking forward to a visit with our dear friend Linda (from Simply Linda)and her hubby Dave.  And we were also anticipating the completion of our new floor in our house...and so here below you see both events combined:

Yep, that's the four of us, checking out the new floor! LOL.

Here's a topside picture of Linda and me...and yes, the wind was blowing my hair, adding to my already bad hair day...I should have taken a cue from Linda and wore a hat!  (btw, overdue haircut is happening this coming Thursday, Lord willing and the creek don't rise again...it was supposed to happen last Thursday, when "Hurricane Nicole" breezed through and thus the appointment was cancelled).

Anyway, back to the story.  We had a wonderful visit with Linda and Dave, even though a bit chaotic at our house.  The men were still finishing up the floors and the furniture was all in disarray, and we even had some excitement when a fire broke out in their trailer, which was parked out in front of the house right next to the front porch, where all the scraps and old carpet, etc., were being thrown to take to the dump...apparently one of the workers had taken a smoking break and inadvertently threw his cigarette butt into the open trailer of trash and all of a sudden I saw smoke rising and rapidly growing! Of course someone had moved our fire extinguisher away from the front door where it would have been easily accessible, but after a quick run (by me) to the water faucet (which happens to be on the back side of the house and under the porch, which then connects to a hose that runs under the house to the front yard), the fire was out before it became a conflagration. Praise God! That was a close one!

So after all the excitement and confusion, Linda and Dave were finally able to pick up their roll-top desk that they had purchased from Dixie Cottage and that had been stored in our shed until they could move into their new house, and they were on their way back home (they live about an hour away from us)...and the men finally totally completed the new floor and put all the furniture back into place (thankfully...what a blessing they did all the heavy stuff for us!)...and then we had the joyous task of putting things back together, like making the bed so we could collapse into it that night:

Now, there's a story about that too.  We are learning how to adapt to these lovely new "luxury vinyl plank floors". BTW, the name of our flooring color is "Hazelnut Maple"....sort of sounds like some kind of gourmet coffee, doesn't it?  Anyway, I digress...When I went to make the bed, I leaned against the bed and it started moving across the floor.  Our bed frame has wheels on it, and there was nothing for them to grip since there was no longer any carpet.  So, hubby and I had to figure out someway of giving them some traction or we'd possibly wake up to find ourselves flying on our bed into the next county! LOL.

I finally had to cut some little pieces of rug with a rubber backing on it and we had to lift the bed and place the pieces under each wheel...which was a challenge in itself...but we finally managed to do it well enough to stop the bed from moving.

The next issue was those lovely throw rugs you see above beside the bed.  I had purchased them in anticipation of this event.  The only thing I didn't realize was that they had a fringe tied in knots all the way across the two ends of the rug.  Hubby took one step on the rug and of course his foot landed on the knots, and he declared that would never do for bare feet in the night. So I thought about taking them back to the store, but I liked the color, etc., and so decided to just cut off all the knotted fringes.  The only thing is the rugs will probably now start unraveling from each end and eventually there will be no rug left...but we'll deal with that issue when the time comes. They were cheap enough at Ollie's so when they ravel away I will just get something else. For now we needed rugs by the bed! LOL.

This morning we woke up to a chill in the air, and so it felt nice and cozy in here with the "fire" in the fireplace...  

I still have a LOT to do to unpack all the knicknacks and paddywhacks, but hopefully I will get the majority of it done before Thanksgiving...which yes, will be here at our house with some of our extended Florida family as per our usual tradition...

But meanwhile, in my moments of rest and recuperation from this monumental event we have just undertaken, I have been enjoying reading this book...  My NH and Maine friends will know what I am talking about...Mrs. T from Across My Kitchen Table, and Vee, from "A Haven for Vee" and I discussed this story about the lady known as "Messannie Wilkins, the Last of the Saddle Tramps" recently.  I wanted to get her original autobiography, but alas the only copies were quite expensive, so this biography written by Elizabeth Letts is quite good and was much much more affordable.  It's a story of one woman's determination to not give up living when told she should just go live in a charity home until she died...but she decided to get on her horse and pick up her doggy and head for the Pacific Ocean from her home in Maine....this was back in the 1950's...and is quite a story!   It makes for some interesting and enjoyable reading when I am resting from my labors.

Okay, friends...I hope by now you've had your coffee and/or tea, and are ready to pick up whatever challenge you may be facing today and move ahead.

Philippians 3:12-14

12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 

13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 

14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

 

Amen!

Foggy Saturday Morning

Good Foggy Saturday Morning to you!  This foggy view of Still Waters Pond is a lot like my brain this morning...LOL.  Didn't sleep well because of various reasons...too much going on here in the house with this flooring job...body aches and pains...typical stuff that keeps a mind awake when it should be sleeping...

So as I started typing this I looked back outside at the fog on the pond and thought to myself that it looks like it is even getting foggier. So I decided to go take another picture...and again, God's timing is always perfect:

You can just barely see them in this picture above...Mr. and Mrs. Sand Hill Crane were taking off from the marsh island to head out for the day's explorations elsewhere!  I am so glad I kept snapping pictures:

Because if I hadn't have gone out there at that precise moment, I would have missed this!!! I didn't even know they were still out there! There were being perfectly quiet, which is something for Sand Hill Cranes!

So, this lovely event has helped to awaken my foggy brain and get me up and at 'em, because today is going to be another busy, but happy day!

Like Mr. and Mrs. Sand Hill Crane, we must be up up and away!  The floor installers will be arriving around 8 a.m. to hopefully finish up the floors today. However, last night we realized we are running short of the flooring material, and one box was damaged, so with a last minute before the store closes phone call to see if they still have more of this particular product (thank the Lord, they do!), it was determined that we would drive into town (15 miles) to pick up extra and exchange the damaged one so the men can keep working.  

These are the scenes from yesterday's work in our great room

And here is how it was left last night when they left at 9:00 p.m.:

Today they will tackle my "Room With A View", where I am presently sitting typing this post to you. As soon as I hit "publish", I must disconnect the computer and get a move on!  Oh, and don't forget, our friend Linda and her hubby Dave are coming today and we will have lunch with them!  I had hoped to be able to show her a finished floor project, but I'm afraid that won't be quite the story yet...

So, without further delay, I must say good day!

Oh, here is where we've been spending our waiting hours...in the guest room, watching TV. That's my little "bear bear" watching with us. He was a gift from hubby when I had surgery last year, and he has become a sweet sleeping companion ever since. LOL.

And this was the sunset last night:

Psalm 113 says it best:

1 Praise the Lord!

Praise, O servants of the Lord,

Praise the name of the Lord!

2 Blessed be the name of the Lord

From this time forth and forevermore!

3 From the rising of the sun to its going down

The Lord’s name is to be praised.

4 The Lord is high above all nations,

His glory above the heavens.

5 Who is like the Lord our God,

Who dwells on high,

6 Who humbles Himself to behold

The things that are in the heavens and in the earth?

7 He raises the poor out of the dust,

And lifts the needy out of the ash heap,

8 That He may seat him with princes—

With the princes of His people.

9 He grants the barren woman a home,

Like a joyful mother of children.

Praise the Lord!

 

Thankful Thursday ~Strange Things Happening In Our Land...

It's Thursday, and I must say I am very very thankful...Yes, "strange things ARE happening in our land"...A Hurricane/Tropical Storm hitting our state in November is very strange.  The winds and rain have been very powerful...much more so here than they were in September for Hurricane Ian! We listened to the wind and rain hitting against our house all night long last night, and just prayed that God would protect our home and our family and friends from any harm.  Thus far, as far as we know, He has truly answered that prayer, and we are extremely grateful.

These pictures are really nothing...I should have taken them this morning when it was really blowing and raining, but it was too dark to get a good picture.  Just trust me when I say it has been a steady, blustery, brutal day...but we are still very thankful for no damage and no power outages (yet). It's not completely over yet, so I don't want to be too exuberant.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those along the coast who are again experiencing much flooding and beach erosion and severe damages. Many had not even had a chance to repair the damages from the September storm (Ian). So this is like adding insult to injury for them. My heart truly goes out to them.

Yes, we are very thankful indeed.

We've had another kind of "storm" this week in our nation...the mid-term elections have taken place and the outcome is still not completely certain. Many are perplexed, some are giddy, and many are thoughtful and prayerful. We know it isn't over until God says it is over.  We continue to pray for God's will to be done in our land.  We know that He is still in control, no matter what the outcome. And we will put our trust in Him no matter what.

Here's some thoughts from God's Word...written by a mighty king many centuries ago...as he gave praise and honor to the Mighty King, Almighty God:

Praise to God in His Holiness and Majesty

A Psalm of David.

Psalm 29

 1 "Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones,

Give unto the Lord glory and strength.

2 Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name;

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

3 The voice of the Lord is over the waters;

The God of glory thunders;

The Lord is over many waters.

4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;

The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

5 The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars,

Yes, the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon.

6 He makes them also skip like a calf,

Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire.

8 The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;

The Lord shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.

9 The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth,

And strips the forests bare;

And in His temple everyone says, “Glory!”

10 The Lord sat enthroned at the Flood,

And the Lord sits as King forever.

11 The Lord will give strength to His people;

The Lord will bless His people with peace."

Amen.

Now, switching gears a bit, I know some of you may be anxious to know how the saga of our new floors is coming along...Well, let's just say it is a real saga...and it continues...slowly, but hopefully surely...The work that was supposed to get started sometime on Monday didn't really begin in earnest until Wednesday...(yesterday).  They started off with good intentions and ran into a few "issues" that needed to be corrected as they went along...by the time the men left our house last night around 7:00 p.m., they had only completed the first room, our bedroom, and even that still is not totally complete.  They had very good intentions of returning at 8:00 this morning to work all day, but Tropical Storm Nicole changed their plans. One of the men had a major roof leak develop overnight, and so of course that was more important than working on our floors...and then the wind and rain was so bad this morning that  it would have been a futile effort to try and keep working when they would need to go in and out to cut the pieces of flooring, and even with our covered porch they would have been drenched.  So....hopefully tomorrow they will be able to get an early start and work all day again...and I expect they will still need to come back on Saturday to finish the job. (Hopefully, "Lord willing and the creek don't rise..." literally!)  

So here's a few pictures so you can see what progress has been made:

There's our floor! LOL.  The "before" picture...

Here is our bedroom, work in progress, but an issue developed. Where you see the two pieces of black felt on the floor, they are on either side of the seam that runs down the middle of our house because this is a manufactured home. When they started laying the flooring, they realized that the floor was not real level where that seam is.  So they had to install the felt on either side of the seam to help fill in the gap so the floor tiles (vinyl planks) would be able to lay evenly over it. After working with it, it seems to be doing the trick, so they were able to continue working...

In order to move some of our very heavy dressers, they needed to take out some drawers...one is my nightgown and undie drawer, of course, exposed for all the world to see...

Well, while the drawers were out in the open, they also needed to do some sanding on the plywood subfloor to smooth out some places, and never thought to cover the open drawers...and of course I never realized it either until it was too late and the damage was done...and so now I will need to wash everything in those drawers once this job is done.  Not to mention the very fine layer of sawdust that is all over everything in that room and yes, even out into the living room...and probably in our nostrils and lungs, because we were sitting in there watching TV while they worked and didn't realize what was happening until it was too late.

But even with all the "issues" and setbacks and delays...I do love what I see and I know it will be worth it all when it is done...and hopefully that will be soon!   

Oh, today, because of the storm, our kids decided to close Dixie Cottage for the day and they invited us to come over to their house for lunch (they only live a mile away, so it wasn't a dangerous trip).  Rose had cooked a Boston butt for pulled pork and so we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw for lunch and played Dominoes! What a blessing that was! Then we came home and took a much needed nap, because last night we slept in the guest room for the first time and even though the bed was comfy and cozy, the storm outside was howling, and my hubby was uncomfortable because he had to put his 6'2" body in a small double bed instead of our usual queen size bed.  I reminded him that he never seemed to mind the double bed we had when we were newlyweds 53 years ago...LOL.  Of course we were both quite a bit thinner and lighter back then...

And so, with that I will bid you good night.

P.S. Oh, we will be at Dixie Cottage all day tomorrow because it is Rose and Benton's 5th anniversary, and they hope to be able to do something fun, depending on the weather.  So while the men are working here at home we will have a place to stay out of the way of the noise and dust.  And then on Saturday we are expecting some very special company to come meet us and go to lunch...some of you may know her as Simply Linda.  A couple of months ago she and her hubby purchased a piece of furniture from Dixie Cottage, but couldn't take it with them because they were still waiting to move into their new house, and if you follow Linda, you already know all about that story!  So now that they are moved in they hope to come pick up the desk from our shed.  I hope this strange weather doesn't change their plans, but we shall see what develops. Hopefully we will remember to take some pictures to share with you!  Okay, now I'm done.  Good night for real!

Friday Foto Friends and a Dirty Little Secret

Good Friday Morning Everyone!  I skipped yesterday as I had some business to take care of, which I will explain as we move along here today.

When I last wrote you on Tuesday HERE, I was anticipating that this week I would begin to exchange my October decorations for the November and Thanksgiving decorations of Pilgrims and turkeys and such.  But we've had a little change of plans.

You may think I am planning a Tea Party, by the looks of all those teacups and teapots stacked up on the counter.  That would certainly be lovely, but that is not what's happening.  

No, instead, we are taking care of a "dirty little secret" that has been bugging me for quite sometime. I usually make sure to crop this ugly thing out of the pictures that I share with you so you won't see it, but I can't hide it anymore! I've had enough!!!  See the photo below and I am sure you will "get the picture".

Yes, we have awful, wrinkled, terrible carpet in this house, and it is driving me crazy!

It goes throughout the great room (living & dining), the little den that is "My Room with a view", 

And even into our master bedroom, which is visible from the great room.

When we bought this house a little over 3 years ago, the carpet was new, so we opted to leave it in place even though we would have preferred hard floors, but we had so many other necessities that needed to be repaired or upgraded in the house at that time and we just didn't have the money to go ahead and change the floors then. What we didn't know was that the carpet, although new, was very cheap, and that also it was not properly installed so that in time it began to stretch and wrinkle and show wear patterns much too soon.  Of course, once the furniture is in place, it is very difficult to do anything about that.

So anyway, to make a long story short, we have been discussing this situation for some time. I was at the point of wanting to just rip up the carpet and pull it out from under the furniture and live with bare plywood floors until something could be done. The carpet was becoming hazardous to my mental health as well as my physical health, because I have a tendency to trip over the ripples in my path if I don't consciously remember to pick up my feet.  And so, my hubby finally got tired of hearing me complain about this ugly carpet and the fact that I don't even want to invite people over because of it, blah, blah blah...and he, being the frugal one, was finally convinced that sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do and find a way to make it work.

And so we called a person who advertised that he installed flooring and invited him over to discuss this subject.  After being in sticker shock over his initial quote for the labor and me proclaiming that would be impossible for us...we never dreamed it would be so much and me practically starting to break down into tears in front of this fellow...he pulled out his calculator and started reworking his figures and finally after a lot of calculations he came up with a much better figure. But then we had to also find out the cost of the flooring itself...much to my chagrin, the one I had picked out some time ago had practically doubled in price...and also this man said he didn't particularly like that product and preferred another from a different store, blah blah blah...So here we go again...Anyway, to try and make this long story short (I'm not doing a very good job of that, am I?) we ended up going to the other big box home improvement store and actually found a different product at a lower price and yes they had enough of it in stock and it could be picked up on the selected date, which happens to be this coming Monday...and this man and his crew happen to be available next week to do this...and SO, guess what I am doing?

Yes, that is why all the teapots and teacups, etc. were stacked up on the kitchen counter...we have to pack up all of the "stuff" in all these rooms so they can move the furniture around to install the new flooring beginning on Tuesday morning! 

So here we go!  This is as far as I've gotten so far...

I still have all of this...

and this...

And Pamela's Victorian Cottage and friends...

And this...

and this...

 

and this...

Not to mention all of the stuff in our bedroom on top of the dressers and vanity, etc....

Yeah, we might as well be moving! LOL. But no, thank you. That would be MUCH more!

And so, if you don't hear from me for a week, you will know why...we will be packing up all this stuff and then as they complete the flooring in one room we can begin to put things back in place, but we will be camping out in our son's old bedroom ; no change that...we will be camping out in the "Guest Room", and storing boxes of stuff in our son's old bedroom for a few days until the dust settles and we can move back into our own room. And speaking of dust settling...I am counting on there being a lot less dust in the house once that nasty carpet is out of here.  Carpet holds dust and sand and dirt that no vacuum cleaner can ever get out...and so I am hoping for a much more dust free environment once this is all said and done!

Oh, one more thing...I wanted to mention God's perfect timing in all of this.  Several weeks ago our kids had decided to take a few days off from Dixie Cottage and have a little "vacation". They have a friend who fills in for them occasionally at the store and she was willing to work for a few more days so they could get away.  We had originally talked about taking a little trip together for a few days, but then decided not to do that due to cost, etc., and so the kids are just going to do some little day trips and also celebrate their 5th anniversary, which is next week, and we don't have to work at the store since the other lady is taking care of it, and therefore we are free to take on this project next week!  The man doing the work also had a break in his other projects and next week was perfect for him...

And there you have it!

  

Romans 8:28 

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

I truly believe that when it is time to take care of something, God helps all the pieces fall into place to work it all out for our best.  He knows our needs...and even though this may seem frivolous to some, I can assure you it isn't...it needs to be done, and it is going to take a lot of work to make it happen, but I thank God for giving us the strength and the means to go ahead and get it done...even before the holidays! That was an added bonus!  I had to pack away my extra fall decorations to make room for the other things, but that doesn't mean we are packing away our gratitude and thankfulness!

We give thanks to God for all blessings that He so kindly provides.

Amen.

Hopefully the next time I write I can show you pictures of the finished product. Until then, I'll be busy packing and unpacking...and my computer will have to be disconnected at some point as well!  Have a blessed and wonderful week everyone!!!