It's Been a Month???? Really???

I CAN. NOT. BELIEVE it's been a month since I posted.  Wow. Shame on me.  Well, I'm sorry, but it can't be helped right now.  Life has been busy, family has become of utmost importance to me - namely, my sister Lisa.  She's actually feeling pretty well right now.  She went without her chemo for nearly 3 weeks because her "numbers" on her blood, etc., were too low.  The Dr. kick-started her and gave her some treatments to build her blood counts back up and she was able to take her chemo last Friday. Tomorrow, she'll have it again.

However, we've been able to spend some time together.  Our families met up in Terrell to help Daddy celebrate his birthday.  We had a great dinner.  Then Lisa's husband brought her to Mom & Dad's house and then she came and spent a couple of days with me.  We had such a good time, just visiting, drinking coffee on the deck, listening to the birds, putting up green beans, and just being together.  She is so precious to me - I can't even explain it to you... I covet your continued prayers for her and I thank you from the bottom of my heart!!!

It's that time of year for the garden to start giving forth its bounty. (Actually, we're about a month behind this year, but no matter...)  I've been putting up green beans in the freezer and pulled up my plants just yesterday. I will be planting something else there in a day or so. Blueberries are about ripe, grapes are growing, tomatoes are coming on as are the squash. I have pintos and cukes and purple hull peas, too. And a little corn. June promises to be SO busy.  Bad news is that the late cold snaps got most of the fruit trees around here - the peaches are going to be sparse and my plum tree suffered, too.

Adam did a concert down here at our annual Lakefest and it was wonderful!  His single "There's A Girl Out There" is now on the radio and you can call and request his song on your local country station I imagine. We are hearing it on our local station now!  Take a listen to his new single!

On YouTube here's a link to his awesome VIDEO ---  http://youtu.be/oW1J7Zi6RmY

Sell Music online at ReverbNation.com

You can also download it from iTunes, too!  Adam Fears "There's A Girl Out There".  Also check out his new soon to be released single "Golden Graven Road", also on iTunes.  It's a tear-jerker so get your tissues ready! I love it, too!  I have it here on ReverbNation --- http://www.reverbnation.com/adamfearsmusic

BLOGGER MEET-UP!!!

Of His Pasture - Debbie (and a sweet friend of hers, Mona) and the other Debbie - Wisdom -  welp - we all met up in Jefferson, TX - quaint little victorian town with shops, B&B's, eateries, complete with a bayou boat ride with alligators and cypress trees AND a sweet carriage ride all through the historic part of town!  Good food and new friends!  We've been friends for several years now, but I'd never gotten to meet Debbie (Of His Pasture).  "Wisdom" and I have met up several times and we were thrilled that those two gals drove all the way down to Texas.  Of His Pasture has written about our trip so I won't repeat all that. But I will say that it was SO good to meet Debbie (OHP) and her friend Mona.  It was a wonderful day!

 

L-R Debbie (Wisdom), Mona, Vickie (me) and Debbie (Of  His Pasture)

 

Our very fancy carriage ride!

 

 LOVE LOVE LOVE Horses!

 

Coupla pics of cute victorian houses - I think this 'un was French styled...

 

Notice the sign on the golf cart...  "Bleed Maroon"  (Gig 'Em, Aggies!)

Well, gotta close now.  It's getting late and I've got to hit the floor running in the morning. Hope things are going gangbusters with all y'all.  I'll be back soon!  Take care and I'll get by to visit before long!

And Keep Yer Dress Down!

Merry Christmas!

Just taking a minute to check on all my wonderful blogfriends and tell you Merry Christmas!  Things have been hectic this past weekend with two of my kids coming in and us all squeezing into our tiny farmhouse, including 3 dogs - Bug under the Christmas tree, Gypsy the farm dog, and...

TANK (or the Tankster as we are wont to call him) or the Big Galoot or Doofus or ... or ... Tank is my daughter's dog - he keeps her company in college and they have all kinds of fun together. I was lucky to get a picture of him without two strings of drool hanging from the corners of his mouth!  Gotta love Labs!

Anyway, it's a tight squeeze. I've given up on trying to keep any semblance of order in our house until the melee of Christmasing is over with.  I've decided NOT to stress over it, just go with it, have fun with it, and clean up the mess and doghair when the holidlays are over with. (there'll be enough doghair to stuff a small pillow...)  To top it off, I was in the midst of preparing supper yesterday evening and my mom and dad were coming over, and OUR WATER WENT OFF.  Oh JOY TO THE WORLD!  The wonderful things that happen in the country!!!  So we just loaded up all the food and went to Mom's house!  I threw everything into a laundry basket and off we went!  It's back on now...Good - we can flush.

The guys in my family are doing the "guy thing" of chopping down dead trees, of which we have many after the drought we've had in the last couple of years.  It's dangerous to walk in the woods when there's any wind.  We've had several trees fall, and branches are falling daily. Luckily the weather's been nice the last few days - expecting a few storms tonight and cooler temps the rest of the week...

Adam runs the chain saw, Dad does the scooping and putting wood on the burn pile, and Tony does most of the grunt work.  My daddy LOVES to get on the tractor, so Tony is so sweet and lets him do that.

In other news, my Kiwi kids, back a few months from New Zealand, decided  that their next big adventure was to move to Denver.  They found a 3-week house-sitting job in a nice lodge home in the mountains overlooking Denver, went up and found jobs and moved up there over the Thanksgiving holiday.  They both love skiing, snow and their latest activity as of yesterday --- dogsledding!  These two  kids are SO adventurous - they were made for each other!  Dogsledding pictures to come soon!

THIS is what I've been working on for the last couple of months.  A sawmill blade 30" across for a friend at church.  His teenage son asked me to paint a train engine from Union Pacific at the Mineola TX depot on this blade for his dad.  His dad was raised in Mineola and has worked for UP for 30 years.  It was a big job because of the surface of the blade and one I do not care to repeat EVER.  But I was pleased with how it turned out and more importantly - THE SON was pleased.  Glad that's over with!

Well, my friends, I pray that you all have a Merry Christmas with your families, friends and loved ones and that the Lord may bless you richly with wonderful new memories now and in the coming year!  May the beauty and awe of this most holiest of nights scatter your stress and mess and draw you unto Him and His unfailing patience and love. 

Sending warmest wishes from Sand Flat Farm!

BACK TO THE FUTURE! Josh & Lindsey are HOME!

THE KIWIS HAVE LANDED!!!

Our Kiwi Kids, Josh and Lindsey, are home safe and sound after a 22 hour journey from Wellington, New Zealand.  Thank the Lord they had a safe trip and are fine and dandy!  We picked them up from DFW last night and probably everyone got to bed around 1:30 or 2:00 a.m.  

We couldn't stop kissing and hugging them!  They were probably thinking, "OK, that's good - 'nuff hugs and kisses for now..." 

"Back to the Future" - they left New Zealand on Tuesday and arrived in Texas on Tuesday - they went back across the International Date Line and got here on Tuesday!  Isn't that wild???

They were exhausted after that long trip, but all smiles and happy, and there were lots of tears from both sets of parents.  Lindsey was a little teary, too, tho - she was tired and SO happy to see her family!

And happy tears are the BEST!

Lindsey's sweet sister and her two little precious boys, and her parents were thrilled to see their "baby girl"!

Her mom had American flags and red/white/blue leis for the kids and we all welcomed them back to the good ole U S of A (and especially to the Great State of TEXAS :)!!!

I imagine they'll be sleeping and resting today (and maybe tomorrow!), but I know that we'll be spending some fun times together here in the next few days.  We've got LOTS of catching up to do!

(and more hugging and kissing!)

And seeing what's next on the radar for Josh and Lindey's next Big Adventure!

Keep yer dress down!

Memorial Day!

Whatever you do, wherever you are, spending time with your family, working, vacationing...

Remember today especially those men and women who've given ALL for you and me and all of us, who've protected us, who've defended our borders and tried to help make our world safe.  Thank you is just not adequate.  But thank you anyway...

MEMORIAL DAY

HOORAY for my little kitchen!

Hooray for me!  Rhonda Hetzel of Down to Earth blog in Australia was featuring a series of posts about "you, me, and the kitchen sink" over the last few months.  She selected MY little farmhouse kitchen at Sand Flat Farm to be featured today!  I sent some pictures in of mine not knowing if they'd ever have a chance at getting noticed - She's got thousands of readers.  I'm so excited!  You'll have to go see her post HERE!

I didn't know about it being featured until Becky at Hospitality Lane let me know! Thank you Becky!

Rhonda has such a neat blog - it's all about being self-sufficient and making do and gardening and thrifting and it's always so informative!  She is a wonderful resource for cooking, mending, green cleaning, slowing down, keeping poultry, and just plain ole being mindful and thankful. I've been keeping up with her blog for quite awhile now and she is my GO-TO blog when there's something I need to find out - anywhere from soap-making to composting & worms!

I have been thinking lately about doing another post about my little farmhouse and kitchen because when I first posted pictures, it was way back at the beginning of my blog over 2 years ago and only 1 or 2 people read it.

Here's the main farmhouse and I've used this pic for my banner photo several times. Will probably go back to this picture at some point.  The farm was handed down to us through my husband's family and we've had it for about 3 years now. It was in complete disrepair. Here's a picture of the farmhouse after we refinished

everything. This farm is about 78 acres. It used to have Indians here, then it became a rose field, next it grew crops, then the last few years, its been raising cattle as well as growing hay for sale.  The house is about 75 years old which is not ancient, but it was all hand- built, as well as a couple of the pieces of furniture - my pie safe and another little cabinet.

It's still needing the porch rails painted and some landscaping done. We had to get the house leveled, took out the gas and put in central AC/heat, re-wired and re-plumbed most of the house, had new floors put in, new appliances (all others were gas), pulled walls down and floors down completely due to some rot, I personally caulked, sanded, Kilz-ed, and painted the entire house with some help from my daughter especially, and my husband. Oh yeah, we had siding & new windows put on the house, too.

Couple more shots of the kitchen which I love so much and feel so old-fashioned cooking in. No dishwasher - just washing up (like Rhonda says)  I guess the microwave is not old-fashioned, but just play like you don't see that. Most of my dishes came from hand-me-downs from grandmothers and mom, and the other stuff came from garage sales, etc.

A little bit of the laundry room (which is quite large) and the back door in the pic above.

Here's my living room. Sorry about the lace curtains in the window - makes it hard to see. I've done alot more in the house since these pics were taken. Will have to update you sometime!

Here's mine and Tony's room. My dad welded two pieces of iron fence together to make the headboard, and I found that neat white floor lamp in the dumpster at my office!

This is the pink room - my daughter's. She did most of this room. We only have two bedrooms, so if you stay as a guest, you'll be surrounded by PINK!

Last shot for today. This was in the fall of '07. This little farm has been such a blessing directly from the Lord to my husband and myself. It just fell into our laps. We've tried buying 2-3 other places during the course of our marriage but they just didn't work out. Now I know why - the Lord had something even BETTER for us!  Just being there and working in the garden, spending time with family and friends cooking out or hanging out, whatever we're doing is relaxing and has de-stressed us so much. It's our little get-away! Our great plan is to move out there one of these days soon. We're just biding our time until our last kid is out of college. 

Again, Rhonda, thanks for the feature, and thank you all my bloggie friends for looking at my house again!  I'll have to show you a few more pics next time!  Hugs and kisses to you all!

Random skies...

Good morning fellow bloggers and friends... Hope all is well with you.  Things are clicking along here in East Texas perty good I suppose.  We had some really nice mild temps the last few days, but today it's a balmy hazy foggy morning and we're supposed to get rain again today.  Texas and other parts had some flooding last week, then it cleared, and I think we're in for some more showers/storms during this week.

I took a couple of photos lookin off to the north amidst the fog and dampness that had settled on the farm during the night. Everything was wet. Not from rain, just SO bloomin humid.

We've had some wierd weather lately. Today, it's s'pose to get back up into the mid to upper 80's, then tomorrow cool again, then back up higher.  Enough to make everyone sick. Speakin of which - I need to go find a place that's giving flu shots.  I went twice yesterday to the chain pharmacies here and they were either already out or did not get any flu vaccine.  I need to let my fingers do the walking today.

After our last big rains we had a couple of weeks ago, we had a double rainbow in the skies. It took me 2 photos to get it all. Out at Sand Flat Farm with the open pastures, you could see the beginnings on either end of it. Look closely and see if you can see both of the rainbows...

Ok, here's the right side -

It WAS beautiful in person. You can barely make out in the photo the double rainbow especially on the left side.  Ok, here's a Halloween photo for you...

This was the last full moon we had - sorta creepy huh? I love it.  I love to be out at the farm on moonlit nights. The landscape and pasture are all lit up, you don't need any flashlights to take a stroll around the farm after your eyes get used to the dark. Very romantic, too, for my sweetie and me. We like to stroll and visit and talk and go over our day and the kids and the parents, etc., and sometimes we like to just be quiet and soak up the moonlight. It's almost like I can't open my eyes wide enough to take it all in!

Here's an interesting shot - or it was to me - I thought I was very lucky to have my camera in hand at the time.  The sun had gone down behind the trees in the west, all was in shadow, but there was a single ray of sunshine that was bouncing off this pumpjack. Now that old pumpjack across the road from us is almost black - really dark old green color.  But just look how that sunray makes it look like pure GOLD.  It made me think about how our lives can be stained black with sin but when the grace and love and forgiveness of God & His SON shines down upon us, we are cleansed and become purer than GOLD!

I pulled over to the side of the road in town a few nights ago after heavy rains. I had to get this shot off, even with the ugly traffic.  It's unexplainable to me how bright the light of our Lord is.  I can only compare it to the light of the sun.  You can't tell from the photo, but just this little bit of sun peeking through the clouds was so bright I couldn't look right at it. I just turned my camera that way and shot the picture. There were colors in the sky that no artist's brush could match.  Sometimes when I see something like this, it makes me want to just cry with its beauty.

Here's another shot a few minutes later. I was transfixed for about 10 minutes there, taking pictures out my car window and traffic zooming by. Don't care if anyone watched or not - had to get these shots to share with all of you my dear friends!  Have a wonderful blessed day!

New RED Tractor Barn

We went with RED. On the tractor barn, that is. This is from my post on what color to do the barn in. See here. It's actually a more rusty red, but looks closer to barn red than fire engine red.

Tony can drive his tractor and stuff straight thru. On the other half of the inside he's putting his shop, welding, hoist, & all that junk. It has an area for a bathroom and a little office area if needed. Ok, now, he's looking for the tractor - trying to decide on John Deere or Kubota. Anybody out there got any opinions on tractors? I'd love to hear -

Princess is safely ensconced in her new college apartment and seems to have a real sweet roomie. I just hope Meghan, her roommate will like Hayley's dog - she's a yapper. The school year has begun and we're getting back into our routine. My middle son is at home going to college here, and hopefully this will be his last year.

I've been swamped at work. Next weekend the 28, 29, I am helping my cousins have an estate sale at my aunt & uncle's house (who passed away a couple of weeks ago) so that's going to keep us busy for a few days. Everyone tried to get them not to be in such a hurry, but they all live several hours away, and they wanted to get all the details taken care of. There is a large company in the area of the house and they are possibly interested in buying the house and land to expand. That is our prayer - the house still had a substantive mortgage on it, and my cousins couldn't pay for it. The Lord has worked throughout this whole ordeal with them and I know that He'll do what's best for them. He will provide a way.

Take care, dear friends. I don't get to post as often as I'd like to, but I do want to say that I take a few minutes to read your posts nearly every day. I appreciate all your comments and your encouragement and your prayers, and please know that you are all prayed for and given thanks for quite often. Be back soon ---

We Interrupt Our Broadcast for this Important Announcement...

MY LIFE HAS CHANGED!!!

I've been on a blogging hiatus as you can see... I had cardiac catheter ablation last week for my tachycardia and the Dr. says that I am CURED! GOD HAS ANSWERED MY PRAYERS!!! It was the easiest procedure I've ever had done, albeit a little more risky. But my Russian, Jewish, New York BRAIN of a Dr. - Stanislov Weiner, has successfully ablated the extra electrical pathway inside my heart which was causing me to have racing spells and causing me all kinds of problems and wreaking havoc in my life (and the lives of my family) since I was 11 years old.

It was getting worse - it was getting restrictive - I was afraid to travel, especially outside of the country - outside of our hometown, even. I had to carry my medicines with me at all times, & my cellphone. I would not lock doors at home or at my office when I was alone (I work alone). I did not want to stay by myself. I was so paranoid that something was going to happen. It was completely debilitating. I never knew if my medicine was going to stop it or I would have to call EMS. I couldn't have a stomach virus or get too hot outside for fear of getting the least bit dehydrated because my heart would take off racing.

It all came up kind of suddenly. I went for my regular cardio appt. with my cardiologist in February, and we talked about this option again. We tried it 11 years ago with no success. But with a different Dr. and new technology, it appears that I am cured! I've had so many people praying for me here. God is so good!

I cannot begin to tell you all how this will change my life. Not only will I be freed from this burden, but I can enjoy things that I've done without since my early 20's. 30 years of NO Caffeine, no coffee, no tea, no chocolate, no concentrated sweets, no cokes. In the hospital last week, the evening after my procedure, my friends and family members brought me goody bags of all kinds of chocolates, flavored coffees & cocoas, teas, fruits, a chocolate pie and soft drinks. I ate a HUGE Hershey bar and drank a real live COKE and savored every single second!

I have since begun drinking coffee and sweet tea. My dear sweet husband warns me of indulging too much, of course, but I have alot to catch up on!!!

I can travel! I can continue to go on Mission trips to Mexico with our medical teams! (I have often thought about what would happen if I'd had to go to a Mexican hospital...) I don't have to carry my meds around in my back pocket anymore. I can be alone. I can lock my doors. I can be without my cellphone!

Dr. Weiner is nationally recognized, http://www.tylercvc.com/weiner.htm grew up in Russia, studied there, and graduated cum laude from Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx as well as studied Medicine in Russia. He has an interesting acccent to say the least. His Grandfather was one of the Russian scientists that put the Sputnik in space. He comes from some purty smart stock, to be sure. I can't say enough good about this guy. And the technology has come so FAR in how they map out your heart and the electrical pathways.

I would be remiss if I didn't tell you all that if you or anyone you know has a problem with arrythmia, please check into the ablation. You can read all about it on the internet and there are even videos on YouTube you can watch to know more about it. It has saved my life. Thank God for giving me the desire of my heart!!!