Friday, July 31, 2009

The first of over 200 Vacation pics!


On the boat tour at Wakulla Springs: Jessalyn, Deanna, and a squinty eye'd Jacob (Arrrgh! I'll be rippin' yur limbs to feed them 'gators if ya's continue your picture takin! arrrgh..)

Cause she said so!

(from Will)

With my wife I usually have the last words. They're usually "Yes Dear" or "Sorry Dear"....

Anyway, She mandated this morning that I needed to "blog". She was right of course, but I'm going to have to make this short. Too much to do and too little time. You all have lives - so I know YOU know what I'm talking about. Still, you're important to us, so you deserve something.

I imagine that a lot of the up coming posts will be about our two week vacation and I will be posting lots of pictures. I hope to be opening a photo bucket type account to place these pics and then I'll hand out passwords to those interested if I can. If you have any experience with these sites and would like to make some suggestions I would love to hear 'em!

I just worked my first two days after my vacation and it took some getting used to. I have decided I really was built to be independently wealthy. I'm basically lazy until there is the prospect of spending lots of money to make me or someone else happy. Obviously, someone somewhere has made a mistake and given my lifestyle to some poor hardworking soul who is suffering untold luxury when he should have had my lifestyle instead. Oh well, we take what we are dealt!

I know that by a lot of standards I AM independently wealthy and I do give thanks for that everyday but the last two weeks were perfectly luxurious and decadent and I really could become accustomed to it; I'd at least like to try!

Thanks again to all my friends and family that made that possible! You will be hearing more on that (and them) in the future!

Anyway, after working two days I have the weekend off (yeah I know, I've got it tough) So I get to boss the kids around while we try to catch up on two weeks of chores. The nice thing about the grass being ridiculously tall is it hides the way the fence and siding need repair...

Deanna had a pleasant surprise yesterday. She was out trying to find our garden plot in the tall grass. She found the remnants of the garden fence and deduced the plot must have been inside. We never got around to planting anything despite our best laid plans but God had intervened. She found several squash plants growing all by themselves! In fact, she found a couple large plants with squash pre-ripe outside the garden where we've never planted any! I was telling this to one of my co-workers and he agreed with me that often our best garden turns out to be whats growing out of our compost pile! These plants weren't in our compost pile (this time) but I liked the symbolism:

We plan, we work, we contrive and scheme to cause a garden to grow and then God shows how easy it is for Him to do so much better. Yes God, you do good work.

Well, that's all I have time for today, remember more pics and vacation stories to come! (you poor souls) (insert maniacal laughter here)

Lord willing and the Saints don't rise that is!
Will

Monday, July 27, 2009

Weeeeeee're Baaaaack!

...Did you miss us?
We left Florida around 12:30pm central time and made it home roughly 24 hours later. Our new (to us) van has a neat feature that lets it keep track of driving hours. It took 19 hours driving to get down to Florida and 22 hours driving to get back yet both trips took 24 hours each. I guess we stopped more on the way down than we did on the way back and took our time more when we did stop.

We did have a couple of interesting moments on the way back when we encountered a sudden and violent storm. I have to admit it was a little scary. Our new van did it's job admirably and carried all of us and our luggage comfortably and got good gas mileage along the way but it's still a van and the wind was rocking us and blowing us all over the place!

I had been watching the lightening in the sky for close to fifty miles. The wind was calm and the sun had already gone down so it was quite the entertaining show for me. Dea and the kids were sleeping. No rain. No wind. Just lightning. It was like this as I said for 50 miles when it all came on at once. It was like hitting a wall of rain while suddenly having a wall of wind hit you from the side. Within a minute the rain was mixing with hail and I knew I had to get off the interstate.

I took the next exit and began to wonder if perhaps I should have stayed on the interstate.

There were leaves and branches blown across the road. No gas stations; no convenience stores; no lights; nothing. Except another turn off that was really dark. I kept going looking for a place to pull over that wouldn't get me stuck, but was abruptly sent across a narrow bridge. I don't remember the sign for the river that flowed underneath just that at the moment I wasn't crazy about being on a bridge when it was all I could do to keep the van on the road.
Right after the bridge was what seemed like a tree canopied road. It was so dark it probably wasn't, but the way the leaves and branches were falling and the look of the road I just stopped. I backed up to a little dirt area that would let me drop the back wheels of my front-wheel-drive van off the pavement long enough to make a three point turn around and then headed back across the bridge. By this time Deanna was awake and looking at the map for an alternate route but there was only one other way to go. I turned down the dark little road and again, just stopped. There was a little dirt and gravel pull off for boaters. I just didn't trust the van not to get stuck and the sign ahead said: "narrow bridge". I thought the last bridge I went over (twice!) was narrow and they said nothing about that one!

I. Am. Not. Going. Over. This. One.

So as the van rocked I parked with two wheels on the road and two off with the back of the van towards the wind to try to keep us from being blown over and we waited. Listening to my emergency flashers blinking noisily we scanned the radio for information about any tornadoes or severe thunderstorms and got....nothing.

Evidently there was a 30% chance of showers.

I noticed lights behind me and checked my rear view mirrors. I could see both the exits and entrances for the interstate and in just a couple of minutes time I had been joined by three cars and three tractor trailer rigs. I actually felt a lot better knowing there was a group of us all sitting by the road waiting for this fast moving storm to just ....go...away.

Which it did. Because we were stopped and not traveling at 55 mph (don't get me started on construction zones arrgh!) the storm took a little longer to leave than it did to arrive but eventually my storm buddies started pulling away and so did we. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.

We'll post more about our vacation later.

"Lord willing and The Church doesn't rise" that is!

Will.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

I guess they have chickens in Florida....

We are all running around like chickens with our heads cut off here, but it's been great. The 50th wedding anniversary party turned out great and I think that they were really happy with the results. We have gone to Wakulla Springs and have seen Alligators in their natural habitat. We even saw a manatee there with her calf as she swam under the boat. I will try to post pictures.

Yesterday was a day for the beach. We went to St. George Island and enjoyed our day on the beach. It was so cool... the weather was perfect...the sun was not too hot and the water was just wonderful. To cap the day off the dolphins came and swam near us twice! There were about 10 of them and we got to see them cavorting in the water. It was about perfect. Throw in feeding a couple thousand sea gulls from our lunch basket and it was a great day.

Today the men are all at the Car Museum and I hope they have a great time! Jessalyn stepped wrong on the boardwalk to the beach yesterday and got a huge sliver in her foot. Last night we could not get it out of her foot. Tonight we will try again. If not, I will call a good friend of ours and have her take it out in her clinic.

Jessalyn and I and whoever else wants to go today will be eating lunch at a great chinese restaurant. We will also be heading to a new Publix grocery store that they have here. Maybe a trip to Bradley's country store too. I hope to spend tomorrow and Thursday in Wakulla County with my Aunt and other friends, looking at old things and parts of my past. We head home on Friday at some point. We're not sure how long it will take us to get home or what route we will be taking to get there.

Everyone have a great day.
dea

Friday, July 10, 2009

I'm done with work, but now the work begins?

I finished my last day at the office for a little over 2 weeks. I am ready for a break. It has been an extremely hard week. The stress level was way off the charts. Now it's done. I'm giving up riding in a car all day to "ride in a car all day". Somehow, I won't mind riding all day in the van though, it's mighty comfy. Throw in the new DVD player that we bought (2 kids = 2 DVD players). That will keep the kids happy in the night and when they get tired and don't want to look out the window, although I must say that both kids are very good about watching for things out in the countryside. Jake watches for cars and motorcycles while Jessalyn watches for and counts water towers and horses. I watch for hawks and eagles. Will watches for crazy drivers. It's a good system.

Now that I'm done with work, I can really begin the work at home. Tonight I started packing for real. Tomorrow it's errands, bill paying, shopping for dog and cat food, going to the library for comedy CD's for Will to listen to while we sleep and many other little things. Sunday is potluck and final packing. In there somewhere I need to wash, wax and vacuum the van, clean the house and do paperwork. Prayerfully, it will all get done.

I also need to "wash that gray right out of my hair". I refuse to look like Bea Arthur at the age of 44. I will go gray when the kids are done with school. Most people ask why not, but what they don't realize is that it is not a gradual thing for me like most people. My hair is already gray. Entirely gray. If I let it go naturally there will be no in between. I will go from looking like this to gramma Walton real quick. My mother has been pretty much all gray since her early 30's and she passed it down to me. Of course my choice was my Mom's gray hair and my Dad's fat cheeks OR my Mom's thinner face and my Dad's bald head. I chose to have fat cheeks and my Mom's gray hair. I'm not complaining, but I'm not giving in yet either.

Life goes on here and God continues to bless us. I don't always understand the plan or the system, but truthfully, that's probably for the better.

Time to get back to work. Have a great day.
dea

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

A mind of it's own.

Yesterday was one of those days. You know them...you've had them. Everything you pick up - you drop. When you try to do something - you get sidetracked. You finish one thing on your list and it creates 3 new things to add to the list. I should have known. I should have crawled back into the bed, pulled the covers over my head and shut out the world, but NO, I ventured forth into the world. Then it hit...the stupid things rule....

After finally getting out onto my route, after dealing with all sorts of weird stuff at the office...I was out driving in the country. Went to turn a sharp corner and heard a terrible thump, followed by a screech and the whole car fell down in the front left. Great. Just what I need. I know what's happened. The ball joint broke on the car as I went around a corner. My left front tire had a mind of it's own and did not want to turn with the car. It was going sideways. Just what I need.

I call the car shop. They send the wrecker. Someone from work came to get me and we finished the day out. That may sound simple, but the truth is that it was about 20 phone calls in the making and took over an hour. I should have been done almost 2 hours before we actually finished. I could have got mad. I could have moped. I could have done lots of stuff, but God was working even then and I did not realize it.

You see first of all, I had just been out on a major highway near a military base and with spring training, I had convoys of soldiers all over. I could have had major problems if the car had done that while I was going 55 and turning on that highway. Instead I was going about 10 mph. Better yet, I was in a car with a girl that I have been slowly trying to get come to church and we have talked about the Lord, but it's a very careful thing with her. If I had thrown a fit when Will called to find out how it was going, or been ugly to anyone...just think of what she would have thought. Instead it was fine. Hopefully, it made her think because I was not "Oh woe is me" about the whole thing. I just told Will while she was listening that nothing that happened today was a surprise to God and that everything would be fine. Hopefully, it had some effect.

Although my poor hubby. Bless his heart. He called me hoping I would tell him something great was happening to me because his day was frustrating. Instead he gets.....well, the good thing is that I am not hurt and no one else is either...the bad news is.... He handled it well, but I could tell that after our conversation he felt worse.

I will say this though... with everything that is going wrong in our lives...this is a huge opportunity for us. All things work together for good and everything that is going on right now is leading up to something great! We might not be able to be happy about the junk that's going on, BUT we can trust God and KNOW that He is able and is working for our good. He is not going to let us fall. The greatest thing in all of this is that He does not rely on us to hold His hand, He holds ours. That way even if we let go, He never does.

I can be frustrated by what seems to be daily attacks from the other side (sometimes the attacks come hourly it seems), but I can and do hold fast to God and know that He is going to take care of all of this. He knows what our struggles are. He knows how hard things are, BUT He knows the answer. He knows the end of the book. I'm just going to trust him to work things out, supply needs, supply wisdom, supply answers and supply a way to deal with this stupid things rule....I know I have no other hope.

Have a great day!
dea

Monday, July 06, 2009

How to live a week in 3 days.

This past weekend has been one of the most difficult yet wonderful weekends we have had in awhile. It all started months ago when I started sorting for a garage sale. My parents were too and we put most of it together starting Thursday at the garage sale. We did very well. I had sorted out over 20 storage containers full of stuff. It is now down to less than 4. Since we could not get all of it done for this one, we are planning another one in a month or two. That should give us plenty of time to sort some more, which is good because I got home and remembered 2 that I did not take in. Before you start thinking that we made huge gobs of money. I priced everything cheap, so that it would sell. Mainly we have the enjoyment of less clutter.

We packed up the garage sale Saturday afternoon and headed out for a well deserved ice cream cone. Both Will and I have been watching what we eat, but after all of that work, we splurged. In Tomah there is a cheese house that has hand packed ice cream in waffle cones. We all got the regular 2 scoop cones, but Jacob had to have 3 scoops. The cone was almost as big as his head. The sad thing is that he had almost finished it before everyone else did. The cones were so huge that Will had to finish over half of mine. I am not a big icecream fan, so next time I will get a single scoop or regular cone while the rest eat those big honkers.

Saturday night was our fireworks here in town. With Warrens being so small you would think that our fireworks display would be little too, but not here in our town. What a great fire department we have! They work all of Cranfest selling brats, steaks and beer in their station which serves as the beer tent for the festival. The proceeds go towards the fireworks. With contributions from local business people and a large one from Cranfest, they put on a huge wonderful display. It's great and it's wonderful to get home 10 minutes after it's done.

Sunday morning one of our great worship team singers was out of town, so I filled it for her. It was fun. I love singing with my cousins. I'm sure it was not as easy for them, because they are such a great team, but it was nice filling in and praising God at the same time. I don't want to do it full time, because I have too many irons in the fire, but I am more than willing to fill in and love it when I get to. To me, that's better than ice cream cones!

I am trying to find music to sing in Florida. I've been singing so long that my tapes have worn out and trying to find a new and meaningful "story" song these days is not easy. Especially with a range like mine. I'm kind of a strange vocal sort. I have a low voice range in my normal voice. The older I get the lower it tends to be. So many of the songs these days while effective in their own ways, do not tell a story for a "soloist". You need a different type of lyric for that and they are few and far between. I'm working on it though.

Jake starts summer school to finish up a few things on his Nova Net studies before next year. Then on Wednesday they both leave for Lifest. They are both excited. Last year they went to the music festival and came back with one of the speakers being their favorite part. I'm hoping for some life changing insight in the kids that are going. It would have been great if more of them had gone, but everyone has vacations and jobs to deal with.

The kids come home on Sunday from the festival in time for potluck at church and then it's home for showers and washing the remaining clothes. They will be exhausted, but I hope to keep them awake until it's time to leave to pick Will up from work that afternoon. We pick him up and head out to Florida and I'm hoping that they will be tired enough to sleep a good bit of the way that first evening and night. That way they will be pretty much caught up by the time we get to Grammy and Grampy's house. Grumpy children are not in the plans!

In the meantime, we are packing for the festival and packing for Florida at the same time. I have lists of my lists to keep track of everything. I'm trying to get the house sorted out "post garage sale" and make sure that everything is set here for our friend Vicki to house/animal sit for us while we are gone. I plan on "cleaning my way out of the house on Sunday". I like to come home to a clean house, so I try to get it done on the last day as a final step.

We are really, really looking forward to seeing family and friends in Tally. I still have an Aunt down there that is one of my favorite people and I have not seen her in forever. I have loads of friends to see that I have "found" on facebook and through other means. Many of them I had been close to for so long before moving. It has been like finding a missing part of "me" by finding them. I know that sounds strange but, friends and family are very important to me and I find that the older I get, the more they mean to me.

Well, dishes are going in the dishwasher. I'd better get the rest of them done and my second load of laundry needs to be folded. Have a great day.
dea

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Declaration of Independence.

It's been a long, long time since I read the whole thing. Since we are near to the 4th, I thought that it would be a perfect time to read it again AND I'm sharing it with you. Please read, remember and notice today's situations and how some sound very familiar when you read this.

God Bless America.
dea




Declaration of Independence
Here is the complete text of the Declaration of Independence.The original spelling and capitalization have been retained. (Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776)
The Unanimous Declarationof the Thirteen United States of America


When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Can you believe it's July 1rst?

I am not done with the stuff for March and here it is July. What a bummer. Things are so busy right now that I cannot seem to remember what day it is.

The kids are really getting excited about going to Lifest. They love it and it's a chance to be away from every day life for them. They don't even mind the primitive camping or hot weather. I'm just hoping they have good weather for it.

We are still in the middle of sorting, pricing and setting out of garage sale stuff. Today is the day to get it all out there. Tomorrow morning we open up and I need all the time I can get between now and then. Pray that it all sells.

The weather has been absolutely beautiful here. In the 70's and breezy. We needed it to be able to do all of this sorting etc. I have loved being on the route. It is a joy each and every day to be out in the fresh air.

I now have 6 days of work left before we leave and when Will gets done today he will too. It will be nice to have the last couple of days before the trip at home without children. I might be able to get stuff done. Sometimes, it's hard to accomplish anything, when I am pulled different directions by other people's needs. This time. I can really set my mind to it and do it.

Friday night is a gospel sing here at the church and our group will be debuting 5 new songs. Hard songs to sing. It's great being able to put these intricate harmonies together and really try to produce a good sound. That we are doing it for God is the biggest blessing.

Hope your day goes great!
dea