What a nightmare!

Today was supposed to be simple fix, and a new bathroom vanity with sink in place. Or so we thought! Butch assured me I should go to Bible study, that he could handle it, etc. and I knew he could. He is THE MAN when it comes to the plumbing in this building, even though he is not technically a plumber or electrician. He is a handiman who can do about anything. When I left he was removing the ceramic tile from around the vanity top. On the way out I spoke to Connie about getting a key for Gus's unit as he was in CO, since the cut-off valve for the 'stack' with my unit is in his foyer. Who knew?? We all do, but Connie had to get the key from Hugh. As I walked away, I said to Connie, "I am sorry for making extra work for you...." and she said it was no problem. Little did we know!

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During Bible study at Victory, I got a phone call from Maggie. I stepped into the narthex to take the call. She said, "Are you at home?" and I said I was at Bible study. "Did anyone tell you what happened?" Nope! It seems that Butch had shut off the water in Gus's unit for our stack as well as shutting off the main. Hugh was with him when he did this. Butch went upstairs to remove the offending valve and pop!, the pipe snapped and water was shooting everywhere. It seems there was yet another cut-off valve in Gus's unit which no one else knew about until today. Meanwhile, water is flowing into my guest bedroom, where Lynn just stayed, and also down the inside of the wall to the units below mine. I am so glad that I do not live on the 5th floor!

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By the time I got home, folks were busily mopping, sopping, hustling, wet vacuuming in all three units to try to get the water up. Tracy's, just below mine, got the worst of it, with inches of water on her hardwood floors in nearly every room, and water running out her doors. I feel sick just writing about it. It was great the way everyone pitched in to help, and I even sent Justin a text asking him to come over. He was helpful with the heavy lifting and such, and giving hugs to highly distraught mama!

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On the way home, I had the presence of mind to call my friend, Aaron, who does water remediation and he was geared up to get over here and start working. In about an hour he had fans and blowers and dehumidifiers going in the units. Conversations and such have taken place with the various insurance companies and now we wait and see how the floors and such respond to the dehumidifiers. Tracy and Cassidy are staying at the Holiday Inn, since their house is non-habitable right now, with all the fans and such running, and their kitchen torn apart. They can certainly use my kitchen for cooking and their insurance pays for the hotel.

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There is so much more to tell but I am incredibly tired and hurt all over from hauling boxes and bins, more work than I do in an entire year. Tracy insisted on us going to La Napolera for margaritas and dinner, and I grabbed the bill. After all, it's the least I can do after this terrible ordeal. I am so tired, must go to sleep. Please ask the Lord to allow Tracy's floors to be okay for the most part and say a prayer of thanksgiving for my wonderful, helpful neighbors who came to the rescue today, and for Connie, too!

More photos coming your way

Here are some of the photos taken the day after Lynn and Linda arrived, last Thursday. We had fewer folks for this dinner due to schedule conflicts with the dinner at church the next night. Somehow the dinner turned out fabulous with only seven around the table! Plenty of leftovers, too!

From left is Lynn, Janet, Linda, Judy C., and Judy J. Martie is absent from the photo but came later. We had Smithfield ham, macaroni and cheese, Southern baked beans, and key lime pie. Judy J. made us a cream puff ice cream sandwich with chocolate sauce over the top. Yummo!

This is another view of our table, showing the delicious food on the table. For the benefit of my guests, I had turned on the A/C, which I am sure made them so much more comfortable!

Linda had to tackle the wine bottle that Martie brought since I did not know how to use my fancy, schmancy Pampered Chef cork screw. It put up a terrible battle, but Linda beat the bottle!

Martie looks so lovely in her turquoise top with scarf! Oh, such laughing we did that night, and later she said she cannot remember when she's laughed so hard. We had to sit on towels!

Linda seems to be off on some kind of mission, heading away from the table. As you can see, it still bright outside and we are ready for dessert! The fun went on until nearly 10:00 pm, long after our pie and cream puffs were consumed!

Mystery Dinner

Friday night at church, the Fellowship group put on a Mystery Dinner. No, not with a murder or other crime to solve. Instead, the diners had to try to cipher what the menu items were and order food for three courses. The Mystery portion was the vague descriptions of the menu selections and hope that eventually food would be served! If a person ordered incorrectly, they might get three types of food but nothing to eat it with, or dessert with green beans and only a knife. It was an absolute hoot and the food, well, out of this world!

Lonnie ordered from his menu, thinking he would beat the game. The good news is that got his silverware, but the bad news was he had to turn it in before the next course was served! He had to 'bribe' his server for another fork, but at least he got food from the 2nd course forward!

The kitchen gang played a trick on Jim B. as he was presented with this giant ham bone! At least he had a fork and green beans to hold him over. Eventually, he did received his "heart stopper" ham, but not until we all had a good chuckle! The Scheetz's took the bone home for their dog.

(Click on the photo to make it large enough to read the menu)

Oops! Jayne also ordered wisely and ended up with only silverware for her first course, which was removed before the 2nd course arrived. Guess she had to pony up to her server in order to get a fork or spoon to eat with. Next to her is a copy of the menu which has vague descriptions of what the foods are, such as 'golf balls' for the deep fried mac 'n cheese balls, 'hunter's tool' for a knife, and so on. Cute!

Lynn is yukking it up with John and Suzanne at the table before we began eating. Folks were still getting settled in, as you can see in the back, righthand corner, Linda is working the room, saying "Hi!" to folks.

Suzanne and John sat with us, but later, John moved to the table behind us to sit with the guys. No problem because then Carol had room to join our group of ladies. At one point, Carol misordered and ended up eating her course, including green beans (catepillers), with her knife!!!

At the next table sat Donna, Bonnie, Ellen, and Lynn K., with Twila and Jean across from them. Judy is walking in the background.

Linda is enjoying her apple dessert with her scalloped potatoes. The dessert and other foods were all mixed up on the menu so some were able to live life to the full, with dessert being served first! Such great fun and a wonderful social event. I tried to post a photo of the two Mikes who did the majority of the cooking but the photos kept coming out sideways when I posted them! Oooops!

Biding our time

We ladies are watching Fox and Friends before getting ready for Bible study. In about an hour we will be leaving for church, where we are studying "IDing Worldviews" or something similar in name. This will be our third week in this topic, but only our second in a row. Sometimes it is hard to get a rhythm going in such a study. Hopefully we will manage to do so but I believe next week is the Pastor's Conference so we will lose our rhythm again.

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Wow, lots has happened since I began this posting! We went to Bible study, stopping at Sonic for Route 44s for Lynn and me, and a water for Linda. The class was great, with a new attendee, Joseph, who used to be in the Bible information class with some of us on Tuesday nights. Apparently a job took him away from us at night, so now he is coming on Monday a.m.'s! In the class we talked about the worldviews of naturalism and tapped the surface of Darwinism. All these 'isms' are hard to keep straight.

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Joseph asked me to drop him off at Publix so we did just that on our way to Longhorn. We had 9 at the table today and all enjoyed our time together. Jackie and Gretchen got their hugs delivered and sent some back with Lynn for Mom. Lynn and Linda enjoyed the seafood chowder and salad lunch special while I had my usual chicken tenders. From Longhorn we went home to go to the pool as the temperatures were expected to be about 92 today. 

It was warm but not insufferably humid, however, the water still had too much shadow and was chilly to me. Somehow we managed to enjoy it and especially more when Maggie O. showed up! I am so glad Lynn and Linda finally got to meet her, having read so much about her. Maggie had brought lunch for Ellen and she which they shared at a table in the shade. 

We had a good visit with all the ladies at the pool and even managed to secure a few sodas and a water when Danny came down to the cabana to set up for a private party. Maggie the Younger came down from the condo (Ellen's daughter) and joined Jessica and Beckham at the pool. Such a handsome boy Beckham is! The two ladies had been at Beckham's baby shower and now got to see him in the flesh. People came and went, and eventually it ended up being L, L, E, and me around the table. And then Justin came!!!! He had to say his farewells to the two houseguests, saying he will see them in December. That seems a long way off, does it not? Not!

Where is the time going?

Saturday went by so quickly and yet, not so fast. Hmmm.....Might be because the ladies had bad night's sleep due in part to their sunburns and not being able to get comfortable . Linda's case is worse than Lynn's and had lathered themselves with aloe lotion to ease the heat. But what fun we had!

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Lynn reminded me that we were having breakfast at Grumpy's that morning so we got ready quickly to head over there. She treated us, with Lynn and Linda having apple pancakes, and me, my usual of a fried egg with rye toast and crispy bacon. I did not care for my toast somehow but the bacon and egg were good. Kathy B. and Brian came in and met her daughter and son-in-law, Kelly and Kevin. Kathy and Brian were not at the dinner on Friday night even though they signed up but I did not inquire as to why. She did remark about my interesting highlights in my hair, some put there by the sun and some by old age. It will be weird when I return to using the silver remover when summer is over to see if folks notice that!

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As we drove to church to set up for Holy Communion, I assured the ladies that the kitchen would be cleaned up from the dinner but as we walked into the Fellowship Hall, there was Judy C. doing the wet mopping! I told her we would wait and I would do the church stuff setting up first and in the meantime, she put the communion-ware into the Fellowship Hall for us. Lynn helped me get things ready and we enjoyed chatting with Judy while doing so. That Mystery Dinner was an absolute hoot and Linda is planning to take the idea home with her to use at First German for a fund raiser or just plain fun, like this one was! Jim B. sitting there with that giant ham bone on his plate was hysterical!

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Once that opportunity to serve was completed, we went to Chamblain's Book Mine near Roosevelt Mall to check it out. Mary Lew, my muse from water aerobics, had told me all about it and since my two guests are such readers, well.....WOW, what a place! If there is one book, there had to be 100,000, even display on ledges over door ways! Early on in our visit, I had found a book of the history of the Jacksonville fire which was in 1901 but once I figured out the pricing, it was not such a deal after all, still $40. It would have been great to page through and look at the photographs of what once was, and then pass it along to Brenda N., a Jax native who soaks up the history. She suggested recently that the two of us visit the 18 churches written about in the book, Saints Dunstan and John. It is a great idea, of course, but I wonder if I could pin her down for the entire day!

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Only Linda bought a book and then we went to Steinmart. We all found something there to buy, with me finding this great purple/gold/ruby Aztec print jacket, lightweight fabric for winter. Here the ladies have ruby sunburns and are looking at winter clothing! I also picked up a box of CHRISTmas cards already, half-price, and absolutely lovely. Why not? It is time to make decisions regarding our Ladies' Advent Service while the temperatures are still in the high 80's!

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When we arrived back home, Linda in quite a lot of misery from her sunburn and from walking, we changed clothes and went to the pool. When asked if they preferred staying in, Lynn declared, "I did not come to Florida to sit in the house!" so good, off we went. Linda took her book and remained in the shade while Lynn cooled her burn in the cooler waters of the pool water. More folks were out there than I expected and we had great visits with other bathers. Our lunch was enjoyable from the cabana and before 4:00 pm, we were back upstairs! We found the Badger game to watch at first and then turned on something else to entertain. For dinner I reheated our leftovers from Thursday's feast, which amused my neighbors who were at the pool. When they asked where we were going for dinner, I told them we were eating in and they laughingly asked, "Are you using your kitchen????" Leftovers, hello?

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For our evening entertainment we watched "The Lake House" which made us cry, I had forgotten the twists and turns of the movie and then I went to bed. I had had a good night's sleep but was weary nonetheless. I pray the ladies do too so we are fresh for church and Clark's afterward!