WELCOME BACK, DORI ~ I remember you ... glad that you decided to come back and visit us; hope you stick around for awhile too ...

MANDY ~ thanks for the profile about yourself and your life; am sending up some ^prayers^ that you find a position that you like. on finishing your business course; that will come in handy somewhere, I'm sure ...


We just had a quiet day at home; did a we bit of shopping for our lunches next week, and some laundry catch-up as well. Had a nice chicken breast dinner with lots of veggies; good and healthy.

We got some more done on our cottage this week; my DAD is showing DH and I how to do many things at once, relying on my memory to recall the instructions after they return home. We'll do our best. It is so nice to finally see the building part started!

Through His Word, GOD gave me a promise some years ago about this dream of ours; and a winter rainbow as a sign (no rain either). Well, on the way home on Saturday night, I looked up and would you believe beaming down all by itself was a rainbow. Once again, there wasn't any rain that day at all; and that rainbow was with us all the way home. As we got out of our car, there in front of us, was that same rainbow just hanging there all by itself in the sky ... OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!

Hope you all have a wonderful week coming up ... Rosebud

I think I am off work tomorrow so I will catch up then.

Prayers for all ~ Gary

Hi Gals


Well the week-end of company~pizza~bbq is over and I didn't gain from Thursday's high off 188 somethin'-somethin'...but I didn't lose either.

Not that I expected to of course.

At least we won't be partying again until next week-end....

That will be camping...no problem for me staying away from the smores...but all that lawn chair sitting and beer I am going to take will not help anything....

maybe it won't be so bad....my adult children/spouses and nephews have big plans for baseball-football-bean bag toss etc....Angie has big plans for hiking...maybe...just maybe I will burn a few calories.

The menu won't be too bad either....brother/sister and their spouses/families are doing ribs one night...Angie and I are on duty for all 20+ for lunch one day...probably hot dogs and salads....then my kids/spouse/nephew are on for carne asada for our last dinner....breakfasts we are all on our own.

Got 6 miles in over the week-end and a quick 3 this morning with the mutts before kids hit the streets for school....dogs have their fleas junk on them for this coming week-end of camping and I didn't wan't the kids petting them and not cleaning their hands.

My goldens get a lot of attention...stinky or not...and am I ever mad at them! I got home today from some errands and they had dug a swimming pool in the yard looking for a gopher!

MANDY I am not really sure where your area is becuase I don't believe we ever went south of Bloomington/Normal...we would fly into Chicago then drive or fly down to Bloomington. The last time I was ther was 4 years ago, since then my mom and grandma have passed on and only my uncle is still there. Thanks for sharing your story with us.

ROSEBUD Way cool on the dream! Great job on the cottage too!

LADYBUG Hello!

Be back soon....

HI PEOPLE ~ had a lovely day out at our lot; this was cleaning day for me -- spiffing up our camper inside while DH and my DAD did stuff outdoors. It was another hot day, but thankfully, some nice whispy clouds came in with a breeze in the late afternoon to cool things off for us. By the time we arrived, those rascals had already done some work on the cottage; they were up with the birds ...

We had to pick up some nails and price the doors & windows; geepers, they are sure expensive!!! Will be resorting to plan B (buying only as we go along becuz of the prices) -- we already have more than half what we need in the windows and one large door, so we are ahead of the game in that respect. My DAD isn't staying up as long as we thought, so we will be on our own shortly, but we'll do what we can.

It is really nice to have the camper as we can get out of the elements and away from the buggies, which are here in full force now. Yesterday, there was a wonderful breeze which kept them at bay. The trick is to go outdoors when they aren't around so much, like the early AM. The worst time to go outdoors in the country is in the early evening ... eeks!

We got home a bit late, but we still had a nice cool dinner with some Vanilla Yogurt Ice Cream with strawberries on top for dessert (DH had a cone). Have been doing better on the plan and getting some exercise by clipping grass and watering my trees. My drum garden is doing great here at home; should take a picture of that.

Speaking of pics, just as we were leaving a beautiful fox came sauntering across the road in front of us and laid down on some freshing mown lawn just 2 doors down from our lot. What a pretty fox and amazingly, it wasn't even afraid of us (or the camera), so we slowly turned around and went back so I could take some pictures below ...

fox lounging 4acw.JPGFox lounging 2auw.JPGfox upclose 1acw.JPG

Hey everyone. It's been a rough food week for me, but I've kind of just accepted it as such and tried to make the best of the bad choices I've been given. I didn't make the greatest choices early in the week, and my sister is in from North Carolina for the weekend so we will be hitting all the places she wants to eat over the weekend... But it's all over Sunday and all start fresh, I look for this to be my first week I gain since I started this in January

Beautiful pictures of the fox Rosebud. I too live in the country and love to sit outside and take in all of the wonderful creatures. We have a pretty large garden and lots of bird feeders. I love to sit and watch the birds, that front porch just sucks me when I go sit out there.

HELLO FRIENDS ~ Thank you so much for your prayers for my Uncle TOM S. over the last 3 years or so; it has been so appreciated and we saw the results of GOD's grace in their lives.

TOM's health took a turn for the worse recently when he caught a very bad flu which weakened him terribly and he was unable to regain his strength. GOD was merciful, and TOM passed on very peacefully in his sleep late this afternoon. Our LORD is a compassionate GOD and we are very thankful and grateful.

Please pray for his wife and daughter, plus his siblings who need GOD's loving and comforting embrace tonight. Once again, thank you so much for your love and support through all this time -- it was so kind of you all to take time out of your busy lives to pray for TOM and his family; and they are very, very grateful too ...

I am so sorry for Tom's family ROSEBUD....continued prayers.

THANKS, GARY ...

HI EVERYONE ~ last week, we were able to buy some good windows and doors second-hand for a very nice price (less than the price of one window) from someone who changed their windows recently (to fancy winders). They also gave us some inside doors for free as well; this is a wonderful blessing and will save us lots of $$$. Along with the ones my Uncle G gave us, we should almost have enuff for the whole place.

We had lovely weather today so we went for a nice drive out to nice lake this afternoon. My DAD and SM made it home safe today; he just called. DH and my DAD managed to finish off the porch; DH will continue to do a bit more of the floor over the next while as he can, but that is much easier and won't be too hard for him (he will use drills for that). WE have to go pick up the rest of the doors this week too so we will be busy again.

Hope you all have a wonderful week coming up ... Rosebud

HI GALS

I figured I better get in here and help out a bit before I get kicked out for loitering

We had a great time camping last week-end. 17 of us all together. It has been ages since my brother/sister and our families have done something together outside of our "home" bbq's and parties. Everyone wants to do it again

Went to the dentist today for a cleaning...have a cavity...well, a small chip off of a filling on a front tooth that I will get taken care of Monday.

Angie is enjoying her time off for summer but between camping, teaching yoga classes and doing 2 on-line classes, she isn't having much free time

Well I better get back to figuring out a plan to lose there extra 10 pounds....yeah right....

Prayers for all ~ Gary

GEEPERS, I didn't realize that it had been so long since I posted in here -- we went up to our lot on Monday (two trips to pick up the rest of the doors and windows) and man, was it ; then shopping on Tuesday (walked my tired feet off); then did my Wednesday weeding, and planted some more seed in our side gardens (more green beans, lettuces, radishes, and summer turnips).

Today, we stayed home so that I could have a complete rest day as I overdid it a bit I guess; I woke up with a bit of a cold this morning and that peri-menopause stuff is acting up again. As the day went on, I started to feel better though, thanks!

Uncle Tom's funeral service is tomorrow AM at 10:30; hope all goes smoothly there -- thanks for your prayers for the family too.

P/R ~ My SIL dropped by yesterday to tell us that our BIL, TOM M. was in the hospital too as he had some bad chest pains the other day when he was helping with some outdoor work. She thinks he will be OK; they couldn't really do much for him, but she was very concerned nevertheless (will put a prayer request in for them in the Prayer Warrior's Thread too).

We had a cooler day today, but the did peek out since the late afternoon which was nice. We had fish, homefries, and salad for dinner tonight; nice & easy for me. I heard that there were some storms and supposed to have been some tremors here, but we have lots of road work going on near our place so it was hard to tell ...

Hope you all have a great week out there ... Rosebud

Rosebud I hope the funeral for Tom is a blessing for those in need of it being one.

Why didn't you invite me to dinner...fish and fries...oh my!

Later ~ Gary

OH BOOTSIE ~ you sure have your troubles, don't you? Last year drought, and this year ... grasshoppers. Wonder what the bible says about them -- will definitely send up some prayers for help; maybe you can google that and see what you come up with???

Well BOOTSIE we have prayed for rain in Texas for ya...can't see why we can't pray for grasshoopers...or lack of them....for you!