Anchors Away! (and other stuff)

Hey guys - I promised you a picture of my Navy nephew so here he is.  We had a great time going out to eat Mexican food with the grandparents and my sister and my hubby.  Clay is my buddy. He's always been my buddy.  He kept hugging me like he was never gonna see me again!  Which I just ate right up!

He's a good nephew and a good son to his mother. For some reason I didn't get a picture of his mom and him.   Hmmm, I think my sis was supposed to send me some pics, but I haven't gotten them yet.  Shout out to MY SISTER!!!  ARE YOU LISTENING, SIS???  Clay will be going back out to sea and back to the middle east in a few weeks. He's heading back to California in a few days and I'm so glad I got to see him.

This is what we woke up to, I think it was Saturday morning after the storms rolling through the southeastern states.  We got some thunder, lightening and a few showers, but the bad stuff missed us.  Thank the Lord.

Looks like sunbeams from heaven, don't it?   Sorry I've been gone for a few days. My mother in law went back to her nursing facility.  She is doing remarkably well for an 80 year old woman. Hip surgery was the only surgery she's ever had in her life.  The nurse said she couldn't believe how strong MIL is.  Kathryn is up and walking around - she's using her walker, but half the time she forgets. I hope she doesn't fall again, but she's puttering around pretty well.

We spent alot of time out at the farm and my daughter came home over the weekend, too.  We've been busy to say the least.  My garden is doing well and so are the flowers. That little rain just really brought them out.  I'm trying to install perennials wherever possible, so I won't have to keep buying flowers every year. Of course, I'll need some annuals for fillers, but it'd be nice to have a constant garden without having to keep planting.  I've moved stuff around and built some new beds this year - still have at least 2-3 beds more to go around the farmhouse.  It's slow going but oh so fun!

PS - my daughter did well on her speech.  She didn't faint, didn't die of embarrassment or stutter.  So I'd say it was a great success.  We're waiting to hear whether she got into nursing school for the fall semester. We know she'll be in for the spring, but we're hoping for fall.  Keep your fingers crossed for us if you don't mind. She's always wanted to be a nurse.  She wants to be a traveling nurse or work on Mercy Ships or something.

Gotta run, my friends.  I have a hungry man coming in a bit, and he'll be expecting some grub on the table. Let me go see what I can scrounge up.  Hmmm... We've been eating lots of venison lately - it's so lean.  He grilled some backstrap and some steaks Saturday over a mesquite fire.  They were SO good and so tender - I can't think of anything I like better!  YUM.  We had broccoli from the garden and a big ole baked potato.  We're getting some green onions that are pretty good size now, and I saw this weekend that there are a bunch of baby squash - yellow and zucchini.  The purple hull peas and green beans are up and so's the corn.  The tomatoes have blooms all over them.  I'm so ready for summer tomatoes!

Take care - keep your gown down!  Lemme hear from ya!

Freaking OUT! Hoofprints, and Nephew

Hi peeps! Hope your day is going well! 

Are you great at giving speeches and getting up in front of a classroom or a group of people to speak publicly. NOT ME.  Not my daughter either.  We totally freak out!  Speaking before other people gives us a reason to call in sick, to feign incurable illnesses, to stay in bed with the covers over our heads, suffer from insomnia, to have diarrhea, a nervous stomach, to throw up occasionally, to walk through life with glazed over eyes in a zombie-like state.  It's SO scary. My husband has no problems with it at all, nor my sons.  Unfortunately, my daughter is like me in this respect.  This post is about her - kind of a special request.

She had a speech to do Monday morning at 9 in her college classroom.  She fretted, walked the floor, wrung her hands, pulled wads of hair out of her head (not really), called me 2,017 times over the weekend, wrote and re-wrote, prepared her Power Point presentation and took pictures of herself in her demented state. The following are some of those---- Caution - you are now entering the No-Spin Zone! Images are not for the fainthearted...

One can plainly see the progression of the downward spiral of insanity of the mind that has taken over this young woman's psyche.  Recovery is slim at best.  Only after the speech is given and the appropriate visual aids have been dispensed to her audience will sanity once again return to said female subject.  Then, heart rate will return to normal as well as eating/digestion processes.  UNTIL the next time....

Her brother Josh was so helpful in cheering her up and encouraging her.  He sent her this stupid video from You-Tube, and told her not to worry about cuz people wouldn't be listening anyway. Thanks Josh. You can start this video if you want, but it's too long, and you'll only want to watch about may 8-10 seconds of it. It'll make your day and make you glad you have dogs instead of teenagers.  Actually, it did remind me a little of my daughter when she was much younger.... glad she outgrew that!

Now, on to other matters.

One of my neighbor's cows got out sometime yesterday and ran amock through my garden and all around the house.  Do you know what a several hundred lb cow can do to a garden?  Do you know how deeply their hooves can sink into the soft damp sand (it rained a little Sunday)?  Do you know what those heavy feet can do to a poor onion?  I followed the hoofprints all around the house and out the back of our place yesterday afternoon.  Tried to straighten the poor onions up and tamp down the dirt around them. Thank goodness that was about it.  There were no prints in my tomatos or peas.  Dumb cow.  Sorry I didnt have my camera with me.  I know you're so sad you don't get to see hoofprints in my garden.

Well, better run - husband will be here to eat lunch with me any minute.  Oh yeah, I'm getting to see my nephew this evening (and my sister).  He's been in the Navy for the past 18 months or so, and for the last 9 months he's been in the Persian Gulf and all around the world. I'm looking forward to seeing him. He left a 6'3" beanpole and is coming home the Incredible Hulk!  I'll have pictures!!!!  See ya!

Around the Farm

I'm kinda tired these days with the Mother in Law and work and kids and such, so today I'm just showing you some photos around the farm.  We spent the night out there Monday evening - love it this time of year. I'm working in my vegetable garden and re-doing some flower beds and getting things cleaned up and planted for this year.  I got up a little before 7 Tuesday morning - early morning is my favorite time of the day at the farm.  The birds are singing, the air is still a little crisp, and there's always a breeze blowing at Sand Flat Farm. It was invigorating!

I have a whole bunch of iris.  I picked some up free that somebody was giving away at a garage sale. This one is gold, not yellow, and I have some purple and white, too.

Can you see me in this previous picture?

This flower bed with iris and hydrangeas is one that I moved. The hydrangeas were not well established yet in another location that was just too hot.  I've always heard that hydrangeas do best on the north side of the house. But I thought I knew better, of course, and could magically make them grow where I wanted. Nope, should have listened to the farmers & gardeners. So I made this flower bed with my own two little hands. Dug it all up, worked in some good planting mixture, arranged the edging, collected the rocks, etc.  I'll plant some annuals in the front section of the bed.  Our big oak tree stands over this bed to shade it all day. It gets early morning and late evening sun, so I hope it will thrive here.  Do you like my rock edging? I do, I think it's sort of cottage-y...

I'm adding another flower bed this year - an azalea bed with some big fuschia colored formosa azaleas and also some white mixed in.  They're supposed to do really well in our sandy soil here so I'm looking forward to next spring when they'll make their first showy appearance!  They still have a few unopened blossoms on them now. I waited to buy some until I could see them blooming.  I've bought them before just taking the word of the gardener as to what color they were and they turned out to be a different color. Sometimes even if they're tagged, they'll be MIS-tagged.  You just never know!

My little tin garage in the early morning light. I've already got petunias in the box, the lillies are coming up, the dianthus are beginning to bloom, and all my roses are about ready to POP!  My plumbago didn't make it through the snow this winter so I'm trying to decide what to fill in this bed with....  got any ideas?  I could always do annuals, but I'm really trying to establish some perennials here.

Here's my new morning glory that I've got to find a place for. It's an annual, but it re-seeds, so I need to find a kind of permanent place for it.  It's really a dark blue, and not purple like it looks here.  I also picked up these couple of old iron fence pieces that I will put in my flower gardens somewhere. I was wondering if I should paint them white first and let the white wear off?  Rust is nice, too, tho.

Well, my friends, I hope you are having a wonderful day, a beautiful springtime, and that you're getting your hands dirty like I am.  My husband fusses cuz I love to go barefoot while working in the garden (actually I go barefoot most of the year).  My heels are brown. Yuck.  I hate wearing hot shoes when the turned up dirt is so nice and cool!  And when I'm watering and it's hot, I love to spray my feet.  My feet are my temperature control for my body.  Does that make sense? And at this point in my life with being either constantly hot or having a cold shiver, it's all about comfort, right?  RIGHT!

Mr. Bunny wishes you a Hoppy Day!!!

GRESHAM BARN SALE Time!!!

GRESHAM BARN SALE!  It's time again - twice a year in April and again in October, there is the most fabulous little place to go for all things vintage, antique, quaint and desireable.  You simply MUST go if your in the Tyler/East Texas area!!!  Check out this link for pictures, details & location   --->  http://greshambarnsale.blogspot.com/   !!!

I wish I had some pictures of my own to show you, but there are plenty on the Gresham Barn Sale blog.  They have this huge old barn filled to overflowing just full of anything and everything!  So full they had to start using a ginormous tent in addition to the barn to house everything!  I've gone for a few years now -  you'll love all the gals that are having the sale - to name a few - Jodi & her mom, Glo, and you probably know Margo from Margo's Junkin' Journal    , contributor to Flea Market Style Magazine.  There are others, too, and I'm sorry I don't know all their names as they have several different vendors at the sale.  They scour the countryside unearthing treasures and junk from all kinds of places and gather it all together just for YOU!

If you visit Tyler this weekend, you'll be able to still catch the azaleas blooming.  This is going to be the PEAK week for them. Altho the Azalea Trails are officially over, they bloomed late this year with the snow and cold we had.  So, here's a doubly great reason to visit Tyler this coming weekend.  Plus, all the garage sales, estate sales & yard sales are in full swing.  You can't go wrong!

So if you're looking for that one of a kind item or just hoping to happen up on something new and fresh that you didn't even know that you wanted, the Gresham Barn Sale is the PLACE TO BE THIS WEEK!  Proceeds from the Wednesday night preview sale go directly to the Rockin' C Ranch, a children's benefit. 

See you there!

Mema

Ok, let's see where I can go with today's post... hmmmm.... Been doin' some visitin' around, but it's been crazy busy at our house with MIL in the hospital. Mema was moved to rehab yesterday. Threw a fit and they had to call my husband to talk to her.  I think she'll actually like the rehab place alot more than the hospital. It's quieter, she'll have the same nurse and aide every day, therapy twice a day - which she's NOT going to like. 

I met her caregivers yesterday, and they seemed so kind and sweet and caring.  I stayed long enough and so did my husband to observe how gentle they handled her.  The hospital folks are so overworked and busy, they just didn't have the time for any extra spoiling except to do their job.  Plus, these new caregivers get to know their patients - they are assigned to certain ones and just those few.  Change is so hard with Alzheimers, as most of you know. And bless her heart, she's had to change SO much during this past year.

She's getting quieter. She doesn't talk nearly as much as she used to. She's content most of the time, or WAS in her Memory Care Facility. She enjoys her family even if she's quiet and she doesn't like to be out of her apartment even to come to our house for very long. I have to say tho that she loves going to church with us.   She keeps to herself, doesn't much like being around the other people in her facility. Most of them are even worse off than she is and she senses that there is a difference. She likes to stay in her apartment, watch the country music station (she says she's waiting on my son to appear on there), do a few crossword puzzles or read her Bible and sleep.  We see her everyday.

Here's my sweet mother in law and me at a recent activity they had at her facility.  There are different church groups around town that go the nursing homes and sing & play music, and my mother's church choir group came and sang this particular day. So we went to listen.  Even my daughter came.

                         

I have to say that I've had the sweetest mother in law that you could ever have. Both my in-laws have been such a blessing in my life and in the lives of my children.  She adores them.  Mema and Bepa had no other grandkids but mine and so they fairly doted on them.  It's been so wonderful, as I've said before, to have positive reinforcement on raising Christian children in the form of grandparents, including my parents, too. My kids have had that Christian influence on both sides, and we never had to worry about babysitters.  The Lord has really blessed our family.

I've often wondered what it would be like to not have family. My husband has a woman about my age that works at his office. Her parents are gone, she has no husband, no siblings - NO ONE. How sad is that? She doesn't have a church family either for she is not a religious person.  How in the world can one get by in this life without God, first of all, but without a family?  How lonely that must feel.  I've had this heavy weight on my heart lately for these folks that are without.  I know there must be plenty.

We as Christians who have a physical family, a loving Father and a church family need to reach out to these people.  They CAN have a heavenly Father who will love them more than any earthly father can, and they CAN have a church family to be there for encouragement, love and support and to take away the lonliness that they sometimes must feel. I know most churches now have singles ministries, but what can we do on a daily basis to help these folks to feel loved & valued?

OK, I'm preaching to myself today. I'm guilty of thinking of these things and then letting the time go by and not actually doing anything.  Shame on me. I remind myself that if I do these things unto the least of my brethren then I'm doing it for Him.  My daughter is learning to step out of her comfort zone - I've got to step out of mine.

Hillsong

May I share something with you?  My daughter has become a major fan of this Christian music group - Hillsong, and she shared her CD with me.  Beautiful music and this particular song gives us both chills. Just thought  you might wanna check it out - you'll love it too!!!

Update on Mother in Law

Just an update.  Mother in Law came through her surgery well and she's going to be in the hospital for 2-3 days.  She is having some pain but they are trying to manage that with morphine.  They'll be getting her up and about tomorrow I think.  Now we'll have to regroup and make some new plans as to where she'll be staying.  We should know more in a day or two I hope.  Thank you so much for all your thoughts, prayers and well-wishes. It means so much to me (and my husband) - much more than you know!!!

We Serve A Risen Saviour!!!

Happy Easter Sunday to you all. I hope that you are all celebrating the resurrection of Christ our Saviour, and spending time with loved ones today.

Keep us in your prayers - we went to my mother-in-law's this morning to get her ready for Easter Sunday services, and we found her on the floor in her room.  She had fallen and broken her hip.  We had to cancel all plans for Easter with the family and kids and call an ambulance to take her to the hospital.  Xrays confirmed a broken hip, and she will be having surgery later on this evening.  She will then probably go to a rehab facility, and if she heals well, will return to her Alz. care home.  If not, then I guess we'll be looking for a nursing home.  Tough times ahead.  I'm so glad that God is in charge of our lives and that we have a Spirit who intercedes for us when times get hard.  Blessings to you all dear friends...

The Ragman

You simply MUST go visit the Lady Farmer at Lady Farmer Parables as soon as possible!!!  She tells the beautiful story of the Ragman - it's an Easter story - and you have to go by and read it - get your tissues handy!!!  I'd never heard it before, but it's one of the most lovely Easter stories that I've ever read!