A Bunch of Random Things

Today’s post will not be a theme, but just random things going on and what is going on in my noggin.

Lately too much time has been spent on financial things or those related to aging and fully retiring. My brain rejects all things like this. It has no natural inclination to delve into such matters. My brain screams, “Run!” These things don’t bring me anything but stress. I turn 65 this September and decided I should start thinking about signing up for Medicare and social security. I am sure some of you are thinking, she is just now doing this… Yep! I didn’t get as far as I would have liked with it last week, but maybe next week since I am in Auburn this week and I am relaxing my brain! 

Jeff and I have decided to do a few home improvement things and that has been the focus of things lately. One of which is a fence to enclose a portion of the back yard in Auburn. This way when it is 30 degrees outside in the middle of the night and Gus needs to potty, I can just let him out and wait in the warm house.  Also when we are all here as a family that means 4 dogs who are hanging out with us on the side yard won’t be constantly trying to escape the front.

We priced this a long time ago and I think the guy quoted us a wrought iron fence which does line part of the front and side yard. It was an astronomical price so we let it go. Then while we were up here at New Year’s our neighbor had switched her picket fence to this….

this…

So we added one to match. It is much cheaper, but will do the trick.

It it not my best photography but now a large portion of the side yard is fenced in.

Then we decided to have the windows washed at our main home which led to more as it always does. The windows look amazing even for 40 year old windows. The upside besides having washed windows was we are now able to see what was really grime or broken seals. I think we need to replace 3 window panes,  but they are not in real visible locations so we can take our time on that.

 

Here is the living room before the screens were put back on, but even with the screens they look amazing. An interesting thing is all of the windows in the home used to have these pop in things that looked like window panes. I popped them out right after we moved in to clean one day and we decided we liked the look without them.

The other thing we did was have the house washed and the gutters cleaned out since the pines would no longer be clogging them up with straw. There were 2 places I was constantly digging pine straw out and the gutters had gotten so dirty.

This corner was always clogged with straw. It is going to be super nice not to be digging that out.

We also got the decks and stone cleaned. The downstairs was bad and I think Jeff just felt overwhelmed by it all. This was surprisingly not nearly as expensive as I thought it would be, so I will be handing his off again when it becomes more than I can manage. They did a great job and had it all done in 2 days. 

Jeff has been working hard on decluttering the garage and it is looking great. That is a more manageable task that he can handle in small spurts.

On to other random topics… I love orange and this room is so pretty.

Jeff says it looks like the Tennessee Volunteers, but I don’t agree:)

If you are wondering where it is -it is at our church. We teach an 8 week class for those that are new to faith or returning. It is a place to ask questions …we do have an amazing curriculum and Jeff is a fantastic leader. I am the hostess figure. We once did it twice a year, but we finally got another couple to do it one of the times it is offered and now we lead once and they lead once.  Anyway, you can see mine and Jeff’s spots for leading this group. 

The group has been just about everything you can imagine or maybe you can’t imagine. Years ago, I felt it was people who just had bad church experiences in their younger days, but not nearly as much the case these days. Many have ended up here with someone that liked or admired or were at the end of their rope and know nothing about faith in Jesus. Nothing. It always makes me humble and Jeff loves doing it. I have learned so much from it and in my prayer journal I have a list that I still pray for. One guy never showed up, but I had corresponded with him about it. A whole year later I get a text from him. I remembered because of the odder name. He was living in Pensacola. We had about an hour long texting conversation. You just never know. I gave him some advice at the end to seek out. All I can do is pray he chose to seek out the answers he needed. So yea. That is a biggie 8 weeks out of the year. 

I am fully ready for spring, but it is back to cool this week. My pansies are showing off, but I am impatient  for more. The spring like beginning of February made it too hard to accept cold, but I must.

So my last piece of randomness is my biscuits that I learned to make with Einkorn flour. It took a while but I mastered them. I basically used the same ingredients as always with biscuits but the Einkorn flour is much softer and can make for a stickier dough. I used more baking powder than I  do with regular flour. The reason for learning is that I had heard this flour was good for gluten intolerant people. I have loved them and done well eating them. Here is a link for the flour I am talking about. https://jovialfoods.com/einkorn/flour/

You will have to forgive all the typing mistakes as I did this entire post pecking out on my iPad. I didn’t bring my computer for our few days away.

Stay warm and let’s pool out energy for spring shall we?

Home Improvements

I didn't plan to be away this long. My days are never the same and this routine loving girl doesn't always like the "never know what my day is going to be like." However, I am very blessed and so I keep moving forward.

I haven't had nearly as much time to stitch on Little Valerie's name, but I do have the V and am over halfway on A, so I will share V. The linen is one I have used for Christmas ornaments and has a little lustre to it. I tried to match the letters' color to the wall. I came up with Classic Color Works Tennessee Red Clay as the floss color.

I have my plans for the stitch -just need time and not to make mistakes. I seem to be having trouble there, and honestly I think my mind is just cluttered.

Moving on... the pine trees are gone. We as a family struggled to see them go...probably for different reasons. For me, I hated to remove such majestic pines and the perch for so many amazing birds. I have seen an osprey and a heron eat a fish sitting on its branches. There has been an owl who likes to get at the tip top and hoot in the early evenings. I also knew they had to be very old, but.....

The first picture was taken at the end of January. We said it would be the last picture taken of the sunrise with the pines filtering the sunlight coming up.

That has been such a view etched in my mind for a very long time. We wondered what it would look like when they were gone. Now we know. 

The weather has been so warm that it has been mostly foggy in the mornings, so I have not been able to capture a pretty colorful sunrise like the one above. Praise Him for the warm start to February. I am loving it.

I will capture the beauty of the new view one morning, but Jeff and I have both decided it is ...

Not Better or Worse; just different. It is definitely a more open view. The water seems bigger like we have rounded that point up there, and it is the bay and not just down the bayou.

I will share more later. Lately, it has been warm, but foggy or cloudy for the most part. 

The view from the inside changed too. I took this one day to share the old look.

And then--- they are gone. I will share this one again too when I get a sunnier day. Now, this may change how warm it is going to be on this side of the house...

Once we made the decision to have them cut which WAS Really NOT OUR DECISION- (they are on the edge of the neighbor's property), we had to just not fret anymore. 

They had to actually make the decision, but we paid half when they agreed. They just wanted more sunshine on their dock. Here I was fretting over the loss of habitat for the birds and the loss of something that old. The largest on of the three had a diameter of 39 inches. I estimated it was between 80 and 100 years old. There had been so much erosion that they were no longer on land but standing in the water for three fourths of the year. A hurricane like Michael and they would destroy our house. The birds are still coming well except for the owl. I haven't heard him, but he wasn't there all the time anyway. They have adapted to the other trees. 

It was sad and yet enticing to watch them cut them down. 

Valerie is growing and here are some of the pictures of her and her brother.

She is two weeks here.

Valerie is 3 weeks old today and is more alert and looking around each day and growing.

Seeing how busy I am I decided to hire someone to wash my windows on the outside. I have always been able to keep up, but I got behind when Mom fell that summer and then selling her house. He comes today to give me  a quote, but I am pretty sure unless it is just astronomical I am deeming it worth my money and time and well being.

Enjoying this spring like weather and have plenty of things to keep Miles and me busy.

History Was Made

 Historical. Unbelievable. Bizarre. Surreal. Exciting.

Those are just a few of the words that could be used to describe January 21st and 22nd. 

I have never in my 64 years EVER seen anything like this. I know there will people from other parts of the country and even the world who will read this and just wonder how can this be such an important event, but folks I am telling the truth... The Gulf Coast of the Panhandle of Florida witnessed an historical event.

I have been super busy since Friday, but I feel like I have to document all of this as it is still fresh on my brain.

Snow was predicted for the Gulf Coast and like everyone else around here, it was a little hard to believe. Jeff said he would believe it when he saw it. He never could have dreamt this one up.

School was canceled in the expectation of it and it was being hyped on all the local news sources, but still could what they said was coming really happen.

On Tuesday, I fell in love with Facebook. I have never been a fan, but it was so fun seeing all my cousins and high school friends from Brewton sharing pictures. But then... we were seeing it everywhere but here. Sadness tried to creep in for our family. The radar was saying we were getting a wintery mix, but no we were not outside our windows.

That little oval purple blob was not showing up anywhere near us. It must have been up in the atmosphere. WE were all seeing nothing despite the radar. I was seeing pictures from Brewton and Atmore where family and friends live. Pensacola was snowing.

Then around 2:45 yesterday it began. Snow ---not ice, but real snow started coming down hard. Hip hip hoorays started going up from everywhere. It continued until almost 10:00 PM and gave us 6 inches. Y'all I have never seen that much snow in my life. 

I honestly realized I had seen ice and a dusting of snow with maybe and inch in Auburn back in the 80's, but not genuine powdery snow such as this. Can you believe it?

I am going to share the pictures that don't do it justice at all. 6 inches here and 8 inches in Brewton. You can see it on the above map. The old record was in 1895 with 3 inches recorded in Pensacola and Mobile.

By the way, with such an event I put on real winter clothing and embraced it. I went out multiple times and took walks yesterday and today in it.  

This picture was my first trip out with Gus. About 4:00 yesterday.

I walked out of my cul-de-sac to look down the road.

This was looking back to the house.

Down by the water... even snow all the way to the water.

One thing I loved about Facebook was all the pictures from everywhere. You couldn't tell snow from our sugar white beach sands. CRAZY!

This morning... I took more. Why not?! This is history here.

Spanish moss mixed with snow.

The little cottage two doors down.

Out my front door this morning before I went out.

Down on the deck...

From my bedroom window of the downstairs.

It is all just incredible. Real snow ----people----real snow! On the Gulf Coast of Florida. That is the Choctawhatchee Bay people. Do you understand how rare and odd this is?

Here are pictures of the kiddos? Who by the way have had the time of their lives. I wish you could read my family's texts messages from the adult children who have never seen this.

Lindsay and family in Destin. BTW, we couldn't go see either kid because the bridges were closed. I have to cross bridges to get to both.

The much too large gloves are compliments of Paw Paw who made it to Target before all of this started and got what they had. 

Paul Allen and family in Shalimar. Yes, that is little Valerie for a quick trip outside to get her picture taken in the snow. 5 days old.

This one was yesterday when it was coming down.

WOW ---truly amazing. I needed this recorded.

The other big news is that sweet baby girl up there who came Friday morning early and was safely home before the crazy cold came.

7 pounds and 5 ounces with a perfect birth. Mommy and baby are doing great. Her head is covered in jet black hair. Valerie Layne (I spelled it wrong in the last post).

Lindsay, Tyler and the boys made it over to see her on Monday before the snow.

Palmer is so smitten with her. Miles could probably be fine with her going back:)

I will stop there, but will be back soon with just other stuff. It seems I have lots to share. I had my cousin take a picture this morning of the little church in my sidebar and a source of inspiration for one of my stitched samplers. It is my family's church in the woods. All of my cousins live around it on the little dirt road. I texted my cousin to take a picture of it for me this morning,

Just beautiful!

I am closing for now, but I will catch up tomorrow with everyone. I have my small group coming in a few hours. I didn't think anyone would get out since the roads are going to be an icy mess tonight, but most said they were coming. 

Be back soon....from the snow capped flat lands of the beach...

Sandy

She Is Here

Each and every time I write I a blog post, it seems that I open myself up to a possible chain reaction of unforuntate events. I can count on not being able to keep up with reading or mingling with friends. The mingling with friends is as hard in person as it is in BlogLand. When I left off last, I said I was hoping Mama wouldn't come down with the flu. It happened and from that moment on I have had trouble staying on top of anything but the basic necessities.

Said flu really caused an unnecessary hospital stay. A doctor's visit would have been much nicer, but she awoke to not being able to catch her breath good which sends her into panic. It would anyone, but I can usually calm her down and we move forward, but she hit her button and the facility was ready to call an ambulance. I will spare all the other details ---let's just say the week was taken up with all of that. 

Miles was sick first with the flu and then an ear infection. Honestly, both Paul Allen and Katie were worn down from being pregnant and so much sickness, but what a difference a new baby can bring.

Valerie Lane Palmer arrived early this morning at 3:30 AM. She is healthy and Mama is doing great. They come home tomorrow and we are keeping Miles and letting him recover to see his new sister. FaceTime is amazing. 

Blessings followed a very chaotic week. I have held my latest little one... a girl. Three grand boys are so excited about a girl -even the cousins. I am pretty sure Palmer is the most excited since he asked Santa for a baby this year and was not happy with the stuffed dog with puppies.

When I left off last I was sharing things that I have done past tense...nothing new here - just trying to catch up on sharing.

The Florida Lighthouse stitch was in holding. It did get moved. Not so much because I didn't like it where I had placed it, but that I liked what I had removed to put it there. With a few days to think about it, I landed on a new place to hang it that is sticking.

It is now in the hallway that is traveled by everyone who enters our home. The garage to kitchen hallway. Very heavy traffic!!! I replaced a chalkboard with a similar shaped frame. I had no real attachment to the chalkboard. 

Here is the new location from both directions. I am pleased with the new home for it.

In one other bit of old news I made a change in the guest room (aka - Lindsay's old bedroom). I haven't loved the bedspread in there. Didn't hate it, but more than anything I just didn't like the bulkiness of it and how it laid. I have tried to come up with a color to use in there and finally one day I was looking at the 2 large pieces of artwork in there...one some colorful birds which matched the old bedspread and the other the Swiss Alps painting that has been with me since my babyhood purchased overseas in the early 1960's. I swapped the location of them and took a cue from the greens in the painting and purchased an ultra cheap spread to see how I would like it. 

I think it works for me. I found a throw with matching colors to put at the end and I am calling it a win. The pillow at the top is from the old bedspread which I am holding onto for now.

One morning this week I walked out on the lower deck and took a picture of the full moon. It looked like the sunrise, but it was the moon and notice the reflection in the water. So pretty.

That is it for this week and I am praying for a calmer next week. Of course, they are predicting possible snow in north Florida. I doubt it will make it to the coast, but I do think the state will get some. Tucker has prayed for it too. I am not looking forward to the cold at all. We are predicted to have 4 nights to hit below freezing. Can't even imagine the deep freeze some of you are in.

Stay warm,

Sandy

Plotting My Comeback

  

I started out strong after Christmas. I got all my decorations put away and with my time I started thinking about all the things that I had put off like hanging stitching. I was planning and moving and grooving. We went to Auburn and I thought I had recharged. I came home and busily started cleaning and decorating ---not so much decluttering. Then along came last week when I knew I would have the boys because work started back for the parents but not all schools and daycares were open. 

AND....one of those little boys brought me the flu. I haven't had that in at least 15 years. I honestly think I felt as bad for him as myself. To think he hurt all over like I did broke my heart. As of now, it has taken me, Palmer, Tyler, and possibly Miles as its victims. I am praying really hard no more especially Katie and Paul Allen since the baby is due on the 20th. Of course, I worry about Mama with anything like this at her age.

I was reading blogs and commenting and just really having a good start to the new year when this hit me like a ton of bricks. 30 hours of intense body aches and 6 more of a nasty headache and now just extreme fatigue.

When I finally got over the headache and realized all I could do was sit around I pulled out some videos to watch. I really didn't even want to commit to a TV show. My mind wasn't that strong. I pulled up a YouTube video and the girl had been sick with pneumonia. She said she had used her rest time to plot her comeback...hence, the title. 

That is about all I have the energy for ---thinking about what I might do once I am over this awfulness. I haven't really been able to think too clearly yet, so mostly I am laying around wishing I could get up and do something productive. I will share some of the things I did before I got bulldozed.

I finally started to think about where to hang the latest 2 stitches that I had framed. No, they were still not hung which shows that it was going to be an issue.

After Christmas each year, I always want to lighten the look. I love Christmas and I know everyone always wants to leave up the lights to counter the darkness of winter and I get that, but for me I just like the clean of a new year and always find myself pulling things off of shelves and counters and making it a little less.

That notion hit me with the walls this year. Not good when you have new stitches to hang. 

I did come up with some solutions. My ideas have changed on some things. I should know never to post what I plan because my plans always change. 

I ended up scrapping my Florida wall. It just wasn't coming together. All of the stitches were pretty but they didn't go together and were looking too cluttered. After 2 days of moving things around and laying them together I just decided on another route all together. So let's take a look at what remained and what got moved and what is still being thought out.

This wall in the bedroom got a redo. I had 3 stitches up where the 2 are now. The books of the Bible on the right was one of the three. It was moved back to where it once hung. The Springer Spaniel stitch that was hanging on that wall got moved to the kitchen hallway where it looks great.

              

I moved the Surely Goodness and Mercy stitch off this wall and added the Florida Sampler. Now, 2 of my most favorite projects ever are together. The Thirsty Hart where I added the church I grew up in and the initials of my ancestors buried there in the church graveyard. 

The amount of things there is pleasing to my eye. This is going to sound bad, but when I tried to hang too many there all I could think of was it looked like a cross stitch store with framed pieces on display. I love all the gallery walls I see on social media, but in my own home it made me stir crazy.

Sometimes I think it is more than a gallery wall, but how are the stitches related and the frame choices. Something I didn't think through and I am not sad about that because I loved all the stitching.

Where did Surely Goodness and Mercy go? It went to the Auburn house where I originally intended it to go, but when I finished I wanted it to stay here a while. 

It looks good for now in the Auburn downstairs bedroom wall.

There is is on the top right. All of those changes seem right. I don't think it needs anymore stitches.

Now that leaves one more --- The Pensacola Lighthouse. It is still to be determined. I am trying it out in the guest bathroom. I am not sure it will stay here mostly because of the coloring, but I have lots of thoughts running through my brain now, so I am plotting on that while I recover.

I will stop there with all that and share some of the other things I did in the home in that little bit of time in my next post. 

Katie has finished the baby's room. I have started stitching the name. I can't wait to show the color choices I made and some of my progress in the next post. 

For now, I am trying to learn to rest. I pretty much don't have a choice about it, so I will keep dreaming and planning.

Oh and my great plans for strength training that I had all printed out and was raring to go got held up too. Plans well made but on hold until I have some actual strength to do anything. I didn't even complain about the cold. Can you believe it? It is very cold. Jack Frost has visited and the bayou had some ice early this morning. Those are all not my thing at all. Bring on Spring, but I think the month of January is planning on being cold.

Anyway, I am here and grateful to be over the worst part. 

Be back soon I hope:)