Catching Up on Awards, My Sweet Chicks!!

I received this award while away on vacation and just had the time to respond. I'm so apologetic, Alison!! Now I nominate 7 blogging chicks to receive this award. I think I'm gonna have to go find some new blogs! :-) Now that just breaks my heart!!! Okay, I nominate the following:

This lady: peta-prettyinpink
Elizabeth of the shabby romantic
Tracie of my petite maison
Constance of rochambeau
Jill of at home in the country
Dana of the stone rabbit
This sweet chick: bella enchanted

Now, I have never seen these blogs before so I plan on visiting with them. I need to "stretch", my little chicks, so I'm streeeeeeeeetching!!!
~*~

My next award is from Deb of debs country kisses and is a very sweet and spiritual Alabama little chickadee!! She is lavish in her praise of me! Trust me on that one! Yikes, I have a reputation to live up to now, don't I?!?! I nominate these chicks:

Fairie Window
PamWardenArt
Posy
Carolsgarden
Raisedincotton
PetticoatJunction
Roselittlethings

A Testimony and Other Stuff!

I'm getting way too far behind on awards given to me so this is another post for thursday that I'm writing on thursday morning actually. I need to share many things today - especially some awards that have been given to me and to which I truly need to respond. The trip to Calif. has set me back a bit, plus just regular things I want to do.

First of all I want to show you our new concrete curbing around part of our front yard. Squeeeeeeealing with deeeeeelight!! Isn't it pretty? Still not dry but it "defines" those areas we've wanted "highlighted." We've sprayed Round-up and the weeds/grasses are dying and it looks horrid. It'll look better in a few weeks. I threw in a few snapshots of the roses. What's a day without looking at the most exquisite of flowers, hmmmm?!?!?!

This is my office window. I am in this room a good part of any given day!

This is my new neighbor's house. It's a rental. It's a couple with 2 children. They had a huge groups of friends over saturday for a BBQ! I didn't hear a PEEP out of that household the whole time - very quiet. You'd have never known there was a party going on.... splishin' and asplashin'!!! My kinda neighbors!!! I think I'm in love with them. We'll see.......

~*~

Now for a few stories on testimony. Here is mine, so click and go read it: Testimony. Now for a few "blessings" we've gotten from this principle.

Hubs once was contemplating on how to do something that he'd never done before and it just kept alluding him. He was fretting over it and in a dream one night it came to him. Now, this is NOT something he would have thought of, although, we is a genius at fixing anything. So the next day he went about doing it and it worked! It's a very specialized thing he was doing but I won't go into details about it. We simply knew our tithing helped him accomplish it.

Another time when we had just moved to Idaho (read the testimony for clarification) we needed $2,600.00 to make payments on a bill for our little store. We didn't have it in our little business. Hubs prayed about it that night. The next morning some people from a small church in town came in and wanted new carpeting put in their church. Yep, to the tune of a deposit of $2,600.00!! It helped us immensely that day. Tithing.

I'm on what they call "level pay" with my utilities - gas and electric. It's averaged out over a year and they let us pay on the average. Mine was about $55.00 for gas and $50.00 for electric. Now, this was for the house we had before we moved her 3 years ago. That was a 5,000 sq.ft. house and no one believed I had such a low utility bill, but, of course, I could prove it, but why would I lie about it anyway?!?! When we moved here it went up a bit but I'm still paying less than $140.00 a month average for gas and electric. That's quite low by many standards. Well, about a year ago the gas company had about $800.00 extra in my account. I thought that was silly for them to keep my money so requested $700.00 be given back to me and keep a "cushion" of $100.00 in there. They did and I'm still in good shape. How many people get money back from their utility company, hmmmmmm????

I've also had my house payment lowered 2 times in the 3 years we've lived here. Taxes I suppose. But how many people have gotten their taxes lowered twice in the last 2 years. (The Lord works in mysterious ways, I tell ya!!)

Income taxes?!?! Yep. The first year we moved to Idaho from California we were astounded. Remember we had sold a home in Calif. and had given up high paying jobs. Well, we owed the IRS $43,000.00!! You do NOT want to mess with the IRS!! Trust me. They seized our bank accounts because they thought we might skip the country!!! Yessssssssss........how silly is that??!! Hubs is a retired Marine with a pension! But they thought because we had passports and had traveled out of the country a lot that we were "at risk"!! DUH.......I love my country and would never ever consider living anywhere else!!!!!!! (HOWEVER, those who bash this wonderful land and threaten to move away if certain people are elected are invited to make good on their "threats", but funny how they never do it!!) But it got straightened out just in the nick of time. But if I hadn't had a few dollars in my wallet we couldn't have even gotten bread or milk. Soooooo now, since joining the church and becoming full tithe payers we've always gotten money back from the IRS. It's my money to begin with, chickees. But that's what happened after we paid tithing.

We have 2 cars - one our kids bought us as a present/gift, a Mitsubishi Montero - and my Toyota Camry. Both have well over 100,000 miles on them and run great! Hubs has 140,000+ on his and it's still going strong. Of course, we keep all our things in tip-top shape. I'm very careful about that. And a few days ago I received a check in the mail from out mortgage company for overage in our escrow account. That check paid for the new curbing almost to the penny!!!

I have a year's supply of food. This is something our church encourages us to do - have a year's supply. When we started trying to get it all I'd buy things on sale in small bulk for the 2 of us. It took me just about 4-6 months to do this. During that time the money was "just there"! I can't explain it but my checking account just never ran out of money! It was a miracle. When I say "year's supply" I'm talking everything: food, laundry detergent, soap, bleach, frozen food, dried foods, "EVERYTHING"! It was incredibly easy to trust the Lord in this. He has promised that if we do this and our food is destroyed in a catastrophe we need not worry (Remember the story of Moses and his band of people roaming the desert and "manna"?) Well, ours was destroyed in a basement flood about 5 years ago. It's been replaced since then. Cartons of dry foods, pastas, cereals, etc. that we had to throw out because of contamination from a sewer backup in the house before this one. It was a mess and sad to see all that food destroyed. The Lord kept his promise though and we were able to replace it in a very short period of time.

Love Bunny's mother died about 4 years ago and his dad died about one year ago. Now, hubs comes from a family of 9 - 7 sisters and 1 brother and himself. They were poor growing up. We all knew there was nothing to be left. The house was - well, let's just say it was VERY humble. All the brothers and sisters thought we'd be paying something to the state because his dad was in a nursing home the last several months of his life. Well, imagine our surprise when we got an email from hubs' brother informing us that we're all - 9 kids - getting thousands of dollars from his estate. The Lord blessed us with a buyer for that home and piece of property to the tune of money we never ever expected to see! THAT was a miracle, I tell ya!! We were speechless.

Being retired form the U.S. military has one of the hugest blessings in the form of health care I've ever seen. Years ago when he was an active Marine we didn't realize how much of a blessing this was going to be, but we DO NOW! We pay almost nothing for our healthcare. We pay for Medicare what every other person over 65 pays and that's less than $95.00 a month for each person having Medicare. Our co-insurance is our retired military health care. I pay maybe a couple of dollars for a doctor's visit. I cannot tell you how little I pay for our health care. I don't think I pay even 10% of the total cost and doctors write off most of it! If you or your child is in the U.S. military this will be a true blessing when he or she retires and worth it to stay in the military.

Now I realize this is long but please keep reading.

My hubby's brother is a retired Marine who teaches at the War College in Carlisle in Pennsylvania. He is the world expert on mines - not gold mines, but the deadly kind. He was a speechwriter for the previous administration's secretary of state and travels all over the world giving talks on it. He is a gentle, kind, loving man and the best brother-in-law someone could have. He is of our religion also. Only hubs and his brother share our religion. He has lived in many different countries, but this story involves him when he lived in Italy. I'll let his words tell you this powerful story of how Heavenly Father turned the international currency on its head! Click here to read it: Glenn's Story.

Okay that's enough for right now. I've probably bent your ear/eyeballs to the point of deaf and blindness at this point. AND I have to get spiffied up to go visiting teaching to my special ladies. I'll be back later with the awards part! Sorry for the length. Ohmygosh, another serious post!! I'll have to get funny this afternoon, my sweet cherubs!!

Musing on Things Today

First of all, my little cherubs, I want to show you some darling night lights I got from a friend in my group, Bertie, who has some of the loveliest things in her boutique and wonderful prices also. Go give her some business!!

This one was supposed to go in the guest bath but the plug is too close to the wall so I have to either change the wall plug or put it in the kitchen. Well, hubs loved it and said he didn't particularly want to change the plug so here it is.

This one is in the living room. Isn't it gorgeous??? Enlarge the photo to look at it.

Here are the chairs finished - primed and painted. They'll be even cuter when I get the decals on them.

Today was one of those days I was just thinking while doing chores. The concrete curbing guys called and asked if they could come since they cancelled yesterday. Of course, I agreed. I just wanna get it over with, chicks! Then on to the minor remodeling of the pass-through wall.

Then I had a malfunction in my external hard drive. Could things go worse? I was really afraid to ask! I called the HD people and they told me to call Apple since it sounded like their expertise. Well, isn't that special?!?!?! You make the HD why can't you tell me?? And I'm pretty computer savvy. But I called Apple, who have the absolutely friendliest, most knowledgeable and patient support team ever on the face of this earth. I've called Apple through the years many, many times and only once was I ever charged!! I can "sweet talk" just about anyone but these guys and gals are terrific!

So I eventually had to erase my external HD and back up again. No problem but it takes several hours to do it when you erase it. So I'm patiently sitting here preparing my next post, which I'll be putting on thursday even though I'm drafting it on wednesday.

Sooooo some thought and musings...............

I always say, "I have to do dishes" but do I really do them?? Nuuuuuuu, I toss them into a dishwasher, add soap and voilà they're washed.

I say, "I have to wash clothes", but I pop them into my washer, add soap and voilà it does the job for me.

I say, "I have to wash the car", but I take it to the car wash and let the machine do it for me. Voilà - clean car.

I say many things during a day or week that doesn't actually involve much work! Then I think of our ancestors who had NONE of the conveniences we have today. How in the world did they do it? I'm so grateful for being born in this meridian of time with all the things that make my life so much easier and more enjoyable. Think about it.

Also, I want to talk about "tithing" if you're a church goer. I am an active member of my church. I pay 10% of every single dollar we get in this home. I cannot tell you the blessings we get from that. Blessings are predicated on your faithfulness to a particular principle. I have a testimony of tithing that you would NOT believe. Money has simply flowed into our lives because of it. I'm definitely not perfect in everything but I'm exceptional in some things! I give my tithing to the Lord and He blesses me beyond measure! I could tell you of the blessings we've received but I'll wait for another post to let you know and I think you'll be astounded. It boggles my mind sometimes how I can be so blessed. Another time, sweet blogging chicks!! Sometimes I'm serious and this is one of those times. ;-)

Hubs Has Struck Again!

We're supposed to start our remodel of the wall separating the kitchen from the living room probably next week. I can hardly contain myself!! Suuuuuure....... I am so NOT looking forward to a week or two of dust, taking everything off the plant shelves, walls, covering everything with dust cloths and having my home in dissssssssssaray!! Yep, it just makes me wanna quiver with excitement and anticipation, chicks!

Caution! This is NOT a pretty story!! Has this ever happened to you?

We contracted with a concrete curbing company to come and put some edging around certain areas of our front yard. We had to turn off the automatic sprinklers for 2 days so it would be dry for them when they came. Now, that might not sound like a big deal but in this desert heat it can definitely burst your bubble! They were to come today at about 1 pm.

I spent the morning being busy as usual - running to post office, bank, WM and then ironing. When I got home the company called and said they wouldn't be able to do it because of the rain. RAIN?!?!?! It sprinkled in my back yard.....sprinkled - maybe 5 drops!! Well, nothing to do but adjust and accept it.

I've been antsy to prime and paint the little wood chairs I picked up at World Market about 3 weeks ago but didn't have time. So after dinner I decide to go out back while hubs is blowing the leaves off the front porch and then washing the tables out there. We had a lot of dust with the wind blowing today. I set up the chair on a table that I had covered with my drop cloth and started spraying the oil-based primer and it's looking pretty danged good, chicks. I'm puffing up proud!

Then I come in to check on Love Bunny and he's in his model train room in the garage. I don't think much about it and turned around to come back in and look outside and the back sprinklers are spraying all over my just primed chair!!! I scream for him to turn the water off. He says, "What were you doing spraying in the wind?" I tell him I just wanted to get something going on those chairs and didn't care about the wind. He asked what I thought he was doing under the model RR train layout. I said I didn't know! He's always under there. He said he was turning the sprinklers back on. He gets excited and I'm telling him he needs to lighten up and chuckle more. I'm not upset about the chair. Water won't KILL it for crying out loud! I seldom get upset about things like that. I just smile and take it in stride. Now, other things might upset me a lot but not this. So he tells me to bring it under the patio cover. I go out into the yard and pick it up under the seat because that's the only spot I didn't paint and gently carry it to the patio. As you can see from the photo below it looks fine and I doubt we'll have any problem, but what a shock to see water spraying all over the chair I had primed just 2 minutes before! And he didn't even help me put it down!!!!!!

My S**y Love Bunny!

I'm probably gonna get all kinds of lookers with that title but he is my s**y man!! Not bad for almost 70 years old, huh?!?!

Anyways, hubs is planting a star jasmine I got saturday while out spending money! I went to Greenhurst Nursery on Happy Valley Road (isn't that a cute name for a road and this nursery is absolutely outstanding!) and they were having a 50% off sale on the 2 things I wanted!!! Squeeeeeeeal.......I could NOT believe it. (I told you I am sooooo truly blessed I can hardly take it all in!) I got another star jasmine to "balance" out the patio and a bougainvillea for the front. My patio is soooooo pathetic looking right now with hubs' bicycle on it, more chairs than I need on that 10 x 10 patio and the grease drippings from the bbq. Oh, well, THE MAN is working on getting it beautiful!

Here he has it in the hole that took 2 days to dig because the dirt is so hard.

Here is the bougainvillea I got also. I love them and they remind me of Mexico and just so pretty to behold. I'm going to try this in this desert but it may not survive a harsh winter. I put it out front under an eave where it might get a bit of protection. Why do I say "I" because it's truly Love Bunny who does all this. I touch it, it dies, chickee! They can see me coming!

This was before he got it in the ground.

Is he cute or what?!?!?! Not bad for an old dude! He can bring down just about anyone that messes with him. He did several years ago in Calif. when he chased a guy out of our house and tackled him till police got there. You don't wanna mess with a Marine, my sweet cherubs!

Our apple tree in its 3rd year. We think all the apples have a bug in them. He did everything the nursery told him - pre-emergence but apparently didn't do it enough. Next time he WILL......... ;-)

Sorry about the blurry photo but that's our first cucumber! I'm so excited that our little pathetic garden is producing! Whoooooooo.........

You probably recognize this as a watermelon! Our first!

Now for the "good part"!!

I painted a little lid for a cute jar this morning and then started making some faux desserts. Yesssssssss, my little chuckling chickadees, I'm gonna do a giveaway in a new days!! Since I've won 2 absolutely astounding and beautiful giveaways today I have to give something back to someone. Here is the start of some faux pastries and little "cookie drops" or whatever you want to call them. I'll "ice" them tomorrow and add decorations and then alert you to the giveaway.

Oooooh, and that little bowl in the background holding my glue sticks??? Someone doesn't know it yet, but she'll be the recipient of that little bowl! I got it in California at an antique shop and just have to pack it up tonight and send it to this lovely sweet and shabby chick! ;-)