It's been 2 months since my last post. But life goes on. It's been especially tough for Toby who lost his best friend, but that stray cat we took in a year ago has become exactly what we had hoped - a companion to ease his way. Pepper adores Toby, but Toby has his limits some days. Cats like to head bump each other; Toby, not so much, however he tolerates it more than I would have expected. When in the house she uses his old dog bed that's on top of his crate. We've actually reached the point where we'll leave her inside the house with him when we're gone. We never go for more than a couple of hours and they just sleep, knowing they are there for each other and not alone. I don't know what we'll do if we ever decide to go on a much needed vacation! We could take him with us, but not her.. But we recently ran into an old friend of Danny's that does pet sitting in your home. It may become our best option. I'll wait to dwell on that when I actually see 'Vacation' on my calendar ;)
A few months ago a friend invited me to join a singing group with the goal of singing rock and roll songs at nursing homes. We have a variety of songs including "Wild Horses," "The Rose," "Dust in the Wind," and "Proud Mary." We have two awesome guitar players making the music and Laurie has the best voice and I add harmony on a lot of the songs. It's been ever so much fun and we hope to jog some old memories for the nursing home residents we meet.
The weather has been hot and crazy here. Even the animals don't want to go outside! The humidity is so thick it's like walking through thick soup! Our garden has suffered terribly with the tomatoes waving their rolled up leaves in the wind. The peppers look bedraggled and thin, but the okra is bearing a small crop for Danny so he's happy. We tried weaving bamboo poles to hold up the tomatoes but after awaking one morning to the weaves settled to the bottom of the verticals we pulled them up and just readd uprights as needed.
The figs apparently love this weather because we have a bumper crop
As for the few flowers I tried to have for the first time in years the dried up $1.98 Impatien I got at HD exploded with a little care.
Danny has just recently gone on his tangent and started making apple pies again. He said this one was ugly. My grandmother always said ugly cakes tasted the best (even as she threw a lot of them into the woods before we could stop her). I'm sure that adage also applies to apple pies so if it's ugly it tastes awesome!
For a long time we tried to go to a church that was simply too far away to work for us. It checked so many boxes for us... it was small and they used King James Version Bibles to teach from. Ever since we were invited to attend over a year ago that church was on my mind every day and even in the middle of the night simply because I saw it as an opportunity to participate. I'm a doer, not a perpetual visitor. I want to serve. Occassionally, I sang with my friend and the choir several times, but things never quite worked out the way it was supposed to. Twice I was supposed to play the piano for their services and twice something beyond my control happened to prevent it. When this happened the second time I recognized that this church wasn't where we were supposed to be and suddenly God gave me peace of mind; all the mental ponderings I'd been experiencing stopped. We're not quite ready to try another church right now and will go back to our Sunday 'home prayer meeting.'
We had new windows put into the guest house as well as a new U-shaped window air conditioner which was promptly under a recall the same week we bought it. We got the fix-it kit and it's been a champ ever since!. When my FL kids came a few weeks later they were thrilled with the quietness in the building from the windows and AC. It was great having M & R here after all the sadness we've been through over Abby. We went out for a "cheap steak" night, at a local restaurant that has steak happy hour with 2-for-1 pricing. It was too hot to do much outside so we binged on Oak Island, trying to get them caught up since they don't have access to earlier episodes. I think we've created a new tradition of going to 3 Amigos for lunch before the kids back home. It was one last party for the road, as it were!
No more bears lately, but we've had plenty of deer running through the yard as well as a flock of young turkeys making the rounds, picking up bugs for breakfast.
In case you thought I was kidding about it being hot here:
