I had a little fun with nature this morning as I found these two birds in the flower bed. They seemed quite friendly or maybe they were just scared or perhaps a nest is near by but I do hope they’re not hurt or sick. They would not fly away so I grabbed my camera and got really close to them.

I also noticed a butterfly in my newly planted flowers and just had to get his picture too.

Our steel pier crew has arrived and the guys (6 of them to be exact) are out there diligently working.

Digging the holes

Getting all set up

Drilling the piers into the ground

Ready, set

Go

A birds eye view of 3 of the 14 holes on this end of the house.

The Sky

The foreman told us this morning that the job would be finished today. Not so sure with the continued rain. And not even a min after the sky picture was taken; it started to downpour so everything got covered…

Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.

~ Daniel Joseph Boorstin

This really spoke to me as I was reading from my favorite quotes on freedom. I’m so thankful for our free country and feel blessed that this is ‘My’ home sweet home. But I’m also so thankful for my own personal freedom.

From the time we got married (1999), we basically moved away from home. Far, far away from home. We moved to South Korea for 2 & ½ years. During that time I was blessed to have many Korean and American friends and we had scheduled outings each week (I took an Asian floral arranging class once a week, met for coffee and then lunch with the girls once a week…). Then when we moved to TX (5) years ago, I sort of went inward and had a hard time finding myself. About 4 years ago I discovered pottery and it has been my passion ever since.

I’m so thankful for the gifts God has given and feel so blessed that I have the freedom to be what I never thought I would be. Thank you God for your blessings each day because it is YOU that has made me what I am.

Bobby’s trip to Florida was originally supposed to be a 3 day ordeal. Due to our weather (heavy rains) here in TX, his trip turned into a full 5 day work week in FL as flights were canceled. The beauty of Bobby’s flight last night is that he was bumped to First Class! They had to give him the last seat on the plane and it turned out to be The BEST! On the down side, they waited for two hours on the plane to take off as the weather in Dallas was horrible. He didn’t seem to mind though as he kept busy on his computer relaxing in his rather large comfy seat. He was served a chicken dish and said it was actually pretty good. He wasn’t complaining as the other passengers on the flight were not served a meal. I’m so glad he got a meal as he arrived so late and I had already eaten too.

He had business at Pratt the first of the week. Then when his flight was canceled, he spent his time with my parents at their store. As some of you recall, my parents closed their place of business in Downtown Stuart after being there for 18 years. They wrapped up sales two weeks ago and have spent these last two weeks getting the rest of the place cleaned out. Bobby was a big help providing whatever assistance he could to help make the load lighter.

I’m so glad he was able to help my parents and God worked in mysterious ways causing his flight to be delayed. Mom keeps thanking us over and over for our help. The beauty of this is, when we do all we can do to help, we are the ones receiving the blessing. Happy semi retirement mom and dad, we love you and wish you the very best!

There are more heavy clouds in the sky, the grass is green and my heart leaps for joy this beautiful day. Bobby is due to come home this evening and I pray for his safe flight home.

I was able to get the yard all nice and manicured yesterday even though much of the time I worked in the rain and the ground was saturated in water. We have rain in the forecast each day for yet another week. It’s so hard to believe that areas in other regions are so dry when we’ve had nothing but rain and more rain the last two months.

The Ground Saturated In Water

Last Friday I took it upon myself to dig up this little baby oak tree that’s just over 5’ tall. The baby started growing right next to another oak on our property sometime last year so I made other arrangements for him. I dug him up and carefully transplanted it to this other area in the yard. I for one know nothing about transplanting trees so I figured all would be just dandy. By that evening every single leaf on the tree had completely wilted and I just knew I killed the tree. All the leaves then shriveled to an awful brown color, leaving no green in sight.

We already have 41 oak trees on the property but I still like the thought of more. I was not ready to give up on this little fella so I continued to visit him each day. I didn’t have to water him as we’ve been getting heavy rains non stop for days and the ground is marsh. Quite frankly he looked pathetic but yesterday I noticed this little bit of green (pictured below) with these happy little leaves and to me it’s a sign. I sure hope his little heart beats and grows to be a full size oak one of these days.

A Good Sign

My plans with Bobby didn’t go as we intended. His flight was canceled tonight and the earliest flight he can get is Friday evening. There were so many cancellations all day at the airport due to the weather and all flights for tomorrow are booked. Looks like I have a couple more nights here alone.

On the bright side, I have a nice clean house and the laundry and ironing are complete. I’ll have the yard all nice and manicured tomorrow (if it stops raining) and everything will be ship shape by the time Bobby gets home.

After learning Bobby’s flight was canceled, I jumped into my pj’s, called Papa John’s (misery loves company) and ordered my favorite pizza and had it delivered. And that pretty much wraps up how I dealt with it. When plans go awry, it’s good to have a back up plan.

Days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months and before long, the months have shot right by. Lauren just wrapped up just over 2 months with us and has decided that it’s time to go home. She’s ready to see friends and do some cool summer stuff before college this fall.

She spent the last several weeks studying and taking CLEP tests and passed all of them. Which means, she’s tested out of one full college semester (or 16 credits) in a matter of weeks, pretty cool stuff!

The house is empty, no more teenager giggles and jokes or long serious afternoon talks. She’s on her way home and I’m left in my tranquil cocoon.

Bobby left this afternoon for West Palm on business for a few days. If we would have known Lauren was leaving too, I would have been able to go with my dearest on this trip. So as it stands, I’m in for some alone time the next few days, just me, myself and I.

Working outside has been one of my favorite things to do ever since I can remember. And I just finished spending 5 hours gardening and cutting the grass. Thanks to Bobby, my mower worked like a charm with my new wheels this week!

I just planted some heat seeking flowers that thrive in the Texas HOT summer months. They will continue to blossom in our 100 degree temperatures all summer long and they don’t require any work at all, or so I was told, we’ll see. Those are the kinds of flowers I love.

Dallas Red Lantana’s, and Pink & Yellow Verdolaga’s

And

You look just like your mother and I’ve been told that mom and I look so much like my Grandma. I think my dark hair comes from my pop though. During my visit with my parents I was even mistaken for my mother. People have even been known to say that we could pass for twins at different ages. So while I was at mom’s I took it upon myself to scan some very precious old pictures of the family. I will share more later but here we are in our younger years.

Bobby and I took off this morning towards the Dallas area to pick up a couple wheels for my lawn mower. Little did I know my mower was in bad shape but Bobby noticed problems with it while I was away in FL. Bobby used my mower while Lauren used his mower and Bobby quickly learned I had problems. The back left wheel is nearly broken and the automatic has not been working on that side for who knows how long. Silly me thought that it was power driven on just the right side. He plans to get that all fixed up for me and I’ll be full steam ahead this next week.

I’m not sure if you remember me talking about ruining the blower several weeks ago? Well, several weeks ago, I added 100% gasoline to the blower tank instead of using the gas/oil combo. The blower worked fine the first week. The next week I added 100% more gas to the tank and then is when the blower started acting up so I decided to turn it off. I could smell nasty fumes which really did smell like I blew it up. And the motor was going a little wacko. When I told Bobby about the blower incident, His first question was, “what kind of gas did you use?” Go figure; I used the wrong stuff and we thought that was the end of the blower.

Bobby didn’t give up so quickly on our dear blower as he worked on it yesterday and poured the gasoline out of the tank and doctored the “I don’t know what” (basically the guts) with the gas/oil combination. Then he poured the gas/oil combination into the tank and it fired right up and it runs beautifully. He’s genius!

On our way home from getting the tires for my lawn mower, we just had to stop for lunch. I love these kinds of dates and we enjoyed a wonderful lunch together just the two of us at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

Now Bobby’s off with Lauren to do daddy daughter stuff and I’m getting ready to go have my nails done. I plan to do a Home Depot run and a grocery store run at some point this afternoon. It’s a great weekend of getting many things accomplished.

• It’s been a great day filled with yard work. The perks are I’m getting quite a workout just getting all that power equipment started, not to mention putting that stuff to good use.
• Bobby took us out for dinner to one of our favorite BBQ restaurants. We enjoyed some fabulous brisket, fried okra, slaw and homemade peach (for me) and apple cobbler (for Bobby and Lauren). I figured with all that extra exercise, surely things will balance out on the scale in the morning, right?
• Bobby and Lauren are off to their weekly tango class which they enjoy so much. It’s hard to believe their 6 weeks of lesson’s have come to a close.
• Oh, by the way, I got that package of cookies out to ma this week, no problems. My secret was to hide extra cookies in the event we had a little problem. When I pulled my little stash of cookies out this morning, Bobby was thrilled to see more. I gave him a few for his lunch and Lauren polished off the rest today. The cookies are officially down the hatch. Adieu!

Making Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies for Grandma, proves to be a colossal task. Hubby and Sis set out to make ma some cookies while I was away. The cookies were made with lots of love and care and placed into the Tupperware container for shipping. The cookies were made to perfection but evaporated out of that container before they even had time to reach the Post Office!

After I returned home, Hubby and Sis were in the mood for another round of cookies so the three of us made cookies together and I agreed to make ma’s cookies Monday (yesterday). Well, don’t ya know, Sunday’s cookies were polished off with some milk by 3 cookie monsters and I set out yesterday to make cookies for ma.

I mixed ma’s batch of cookies and even had a few left over for us. I boxed them in the container and placed the card from Sis to ma in there. Low and behold our little cookie monster ‘Sis’ got into those cookies during the night and I will be making yet another batch today.

When Hubby heard the exciting news that a monster had been into the cookies during the night, his eyes lit up! I put a little baggie in his lunch box so that he could enjoy them for the day.

The good news, I was asked to make a double batch of cookies so that we can surely get ma’s cookies in the mail without a hitch. I promised to make that double batch but asked that this be the LAST of the cookies in this house for a VERY long time.

I had a wonderful stay with my parents from Wednesday May 30th through Saturday June 9th. Mom is improving daily and seems to be feeling better although she’s still taking stuff for pain. Her dark bruises were almost all gone by the time I got there but the aches have a way of letting her know who’s boss and she still has a knot on her forehead. She has two more doctor appointments this week and we hope for more good results.

I helped out in the store every day and was able to help move things around as she directed. I changed display areas several times, vacuumed and tried to keep up with the things that are hard for her to do. Her last day of business is this Saturday, June 16th and they are looking forward to the next chapter.

I didn’t work the whole time though as you will see in the pictures below. We went to Dave and Pam’s one evening for dinner and games and we met them for dinner out one evening. Dave and I also enjoyed a nice cup of coffee one morning and I really enjoyed my time with family.

We had a wonderful evening at Dave and Pam’s and I captured a few pictures of ‘some’ of their pets as they have 8 rabbits, 2 hedgehogs 3 genie pigs and 1 very sweet dog named Buddy.

Ashley and Buddy and Jenny and cute Mr. Rabbit

And

Dad and Mr. Hedgehog and Ryan and Buddy

Lunch with Linda is always in order in FL or TX. Linda and I (the gal I’m sitting next to) used to work together for 8 years and her daughter (sitting across from us) Donna and I became friends a long time ago. I called Linda mom all those years ago and still do to this day. She has a son who lives near Dallas so when she flies to my neck of the woods we try to get together too.

And

I spent an evening at the beach and enjoyed a wonderful conversation with my hubby while taking in this gorgeous view. I got all situated under the covered pavillion and rested on a picnic table.

We’ve been looking for flights for me to go see my momma. In all seriousness, she’s not feeling herself and just not feeling all that good. It’s not like us to hear her complain so when I hear her say she doesn’t feel well, I know she doesn’t feel good. She describes the way she feels as yucky and doesn’t know just how to describe the way she feels other than that. If all she was dealing with were the outward sores and scrapes, that would be a breeze, but it’s the way her body feels inside with aches, pains and whatnot.

Here are some pictures of her face one taken hours after the accident and the other taken a couple days later.

My parents have approximately 5 more weeks left in their place of business as they are in the process of going out of business and ending that chapter in their lives. They’re doing well but I know they could use an extra hand. So it looks like I’ll be flying out as soon as I can get a reasonable ticket and plan to stay for a week or so.

I Love Our Life

I Love You

Some of the words on the front of my B-Day card from my dearest Bobby.

What a great birthday present I received from my dearest. I’ve been looking at this scrapbooking program (Scrapbook Factory Deluxe Version 3.0) for a few weeks now and just recently decided this was the program I wanted. Bobby surprised me with it this evening. I love it and am having so much fun with it already.

Bobby also knew that I wanted a taste of my favorite peanut butter and chocolate fudge this coming Saturday evening when we go out to celebrate again. Well, my dearest surprised me again with a complete birthday fudge cake (pictured above) from my favorite fudge company in Fort Worth. The guy at the fudge store was shocked with Bobby’s huge order and Bobby had to explain that this was going to be his wife’s birthday cake. The peanut butter fudge is the bottom layer and the chocolate is the top layer. Bobby toped it off with the candles representing 39. He also declared that we can continue to use those candles each year to celebrate my 39th birthday hence forth and forever more. Like he said “Twenty years from now, we’ll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of your 39th birthday”. Works for me! They could also work for 93, but lets not go there!

Special Birthday wishes did abound this morning as Bobby woke early this morning wishing me a Happy Birthday. I’m saying goodbye to my 30’s this year and looking forward to my upcoming big 40 next year. I’m feeling pretty smug as Lauren thought I was 33 so by the time I’m 40, maybe I’ll be lookin’ even a little younger. We plan to celebrate Saturday evening by going to my favorite place in the Stock Yards for dinner, then to my favorite place for chocolate peanut butter fudge, then to Billy Bobs to dance.

Lauren and I are going out to lunch today otherwise it will be a pretty quiet day. I came downstairs this morning to find this beautiful bouquet (pictured above) of flowers and card from Lauren. She’s quite a thoughtful young lady.

Pops beat me to our birthday wishes this year as he called me first. We kinda have this race thing going on where we try to beat the other one but he won today.

I talked to mom briefly and she’s having a little trouble with her vision from her accident Tuesday. She just started seeing flashes and hairs so she’s off to the ER this morning. She thinks it could be a displaced retina and knows if that’s the case, it can be fixed. I just hope and pray it’s nothing serious.