A worthwhile morning

Sometimes the sunrises summon me from my bed to grab the camera, and some do not. This one today did!

This evening's sunset presented less dramatically but lovely nonetheless...

I like being Pampered!

What a lovely evening I had tonight at a Pampered Chef party! Normally not a 'kitchen person', these parties never cease to amaze and almost entice me. Our hostess was Kerri H., a friend from GS and then Victory. Part of the 'getting to know you' game we played was telling which product was our favorite from Pampered Chef (PC). When it was my turn, I reported liking the jar of cherry almond topping the best. I think she was actually looking for a piece of equipment or a gadget but that's what I came to buy!
                                            

I knew where Kerri lived but used the GPS on my phone to help me anyway. When I pulled up, the street looked nearly deserted, no extra cars parked anywhere. Hmmm.....The house had a For Sale sign in front of it, a Realtors' lock-box on the knob, and a Private Property sign in the window. My guess is, they don't live here any more! I called Anne who was riding over with Stephanie to find out where to go.

It seems they had moved last year but only a block or two from this home. Stephanie pulled up in front of the old house and then led me to the new house. What a sweetheart! 

Besides Anne, she also brought Susanne, a newer member at Victory. Susanne is the mom of my friend, Judy H., who now lives in Knoxville, TN. Her husband, Wayne, was in Bible study yesterday but not Susanne as she was not feeling well. Nice nice lady. Her hubby and she bring much to the table when they are in class. They are transplants from Green Bay where Susanne had the privilege of caring for some of the Packer players teeth! "Official Dental Assistant of the Green Bay Packers"!

The consultant and Kerri made a bbq chicken pizza which was then cooked on the grille. The sauce used a sweet flavor with beer in it and the pizza was just delicious. Never thought I would like chicken on a pizza! Kerri also made various tart treats including one that tasted like a S'mores. Yummy!

I ended up ordering a jar of the cherry almond topping, a muffin pan designed for making individual brownies (with Justin in mind), and some pinch bowls. I think those teeny bowls will come in very handy, not necessarily for meal prep but for ketchup or other dips when just a dab will do ya'!!                             

Car Craziness

This morning I got a phone call reporting that my car was ready to be picked up from the body shop. Wow! Only yesterday a different guy told me it might be later Thursday or even Friday before it was ready, so I extended the rental on my car.  I think that lady at Budget got quite tired hearing my voice on the other end before this was all over!

Therefore, since my car was ready, I had to make arrangements to somehow return the rental car and get mine picked up, before close of business for each enterprise. Hmmm....If I'd used Enterprise, it would not be such a huge problem with getting the cars swapped out, but alas, I used a one-person shop at Budget. Enterprise offers the pick-up service so they could have driven me to the car repair place.

After Bible study at Victory, another enriching class, I figured I could stop at the repair shop and settle up with them, with plans to go back later to get the car when Justin was done working. I had to pay the deductible for the repair, minus the amount of the tire depreciation the fellow got for me. Nice!

That taken care of, I went home with hopes of getting some pool time. Not to be, as the sun was hiding behind the clouds most of the day. Rats! Perhaps by the weekend the water will finally be warmed enough to enjoy even if the sun is not around, though I usually don't enjoy one without the other.

The church newsletter is written as far as it can be as I wait, almost patiently, for the requested input to come in. I know the preschool info will be submitted, as Miss Lisa is so good about that, but the rest will be like pulling teeth. A reminder can be sent to the fellows to please get me information. It's all about the communication and information sharing!

                                                  

I got an e-mail from church, the entire congregation did, requesting our presence for painting the fellowship hall on Saturday. Sort of short a notice and I do hope that some folks show up for this. The hall must be fairly close to ready when it comes time for Vacation Bible School though the flooring might not be put down yet. Things always take so long, it seems.

This Sunday I was planning to go to Palm Coast to see my niece, as she asked me to come down for a visit. Tina asked me to come instead the following week which will work. We have a special guest coming to church again (he was there a couple weeks ago) to present a session about planned giving. I won't sit through that again as I have done so in the past. Judy and Michael got a sneak preview on Tuesday night as he presented to them at their house. She was impressed with what he had to say and might take some of his advice.

When poolside on Wednesday (too cold for me to go in!) we had a birthday party for Randy, who is now 77 years old. We are called his harem, as he is the sole man in the water aerobics class. About ten of us ordered our meals and dined al fresco, at times dodging rain drops, and then basking in the sun. Strange day! Marlena picked up a cute little book which we all signed for him, called "Looking for Mr. Right" as his last name is Wright. Cute!

                                                 

After the lunch, I went over to Winn Dixie to get some soda and other things. I shopped like a rock star, taking advantage of their deal where if I bought two Tombstone pizzas, I would get free jalepeno poppers, garlic bread, Italian Ice, and a bottle of soda. Sweet! Justin will eat the poppers while the garlic bread will be good with our dinners next week. The flavor of Italian ice I chose was blue raspberry and I am sure they will be wonderfully refreshing. All of this for $14.98!

At lunch, Mary Lew was back from her travels, and asked me about my summer plans. She knows I usually have some company and I told her that there are four kids coming from Rocky Mountain Lutheran High School to stay for 10 days. I went on to report to the table how Justin and I are going to have to struggle getting room for three girls in my spare room because his stuff has taken over. One lady suggested I get a small storage unit, and another one asked if we don't have storage space here at The Palace. Hmmm....

Maggie O. piped up with a brilliant idea---since our mutual friend, Ellen, is rarely at home here, staying at the beach condo instead, she suggested I ask Ellen if we could store some of Justin's stuff in her front bedroom for a couple weeks. YES! Brilliant! I asked Ellen and, of course, she said that would be fine with her. As Maggie said, Ellen LOVES to help people. Justin is not all that wild about having to relocate his stuff but three girls in one room are going to need every available inch of space!

We have three girls coming, plus one boy, so the boy will stay in Justin's room and Justin will bunk in my room. The young people will be gone most of the time so Justin will still have access to his room until it becomes bedtime. 

Okay, back to my car craziness---I had to gas up the rental to take it back full, so did that. Then, when Justin got home from work, shortly before 5:00 pm, he showered quickly and off we went to get my car. I had to return the rental car before 6:00 so we drove up Blanding Blvd. north of I-295 to grab my car. He drove my freshly repaired car back up (or down, as the case might be) Blanding toward the plaza, formerly known as Michael's Plaza, to return the rental car. Whew! Traffic at this time of the day is horrendous and being in a time crunch was, well, horrendous!

                                                

I got the car back with 15 minutes to spare and got settled up there. The lady who was taking care of things, single-handedly, was glad to see me bring the keys back, especially after I explained I had two keys. "Yes," she said, "we always give you two keys." It was odd because one was for my rental car, and the other for a Jeep Patriot!! Oops! She was relieved to see the 'lost' key, expressing how glad she was that they had at least one key to use. Yikes! That cannot be good!!!

Justin and I went back home again, so he could unwind after his busy and tiring day of yard work. For dinner, he ate my leftovers from Carrabba's where he and I joined Judy C. for dinner Wednesday night. She still had a gift card to use from last year's party! I did not have to be back at church again until 7:30 pm for BIC and was glad to sit back and relax, having this car craziness behind me. My car has the smell of fresh paint now and I love that! I am so appreciate having my own car back in my possession again, crazy as it is!

I know it's a long ride...

....but it is so incredibly the best investment of time, gas, and effort to be at Victory for Bible Information Class. I sure did miss this class when I was in WI, and it is so wonderful to be back in the thick of things. Last week we had no class because there was VBS during the day, occupying every available inch of classroom space. 

Allowing extra time for traffic, I got there about 20 before class, parking in an empty lot. There was some homework to be done from the previous class so I filled in as many blanks as I could without having a Bible to reference. My Bible and my phone charger were left in the car which is in the shop, or I would have used the phone to look up the passages.

At last, Erica pulled in next to me, without her beau, Justin, along. He had something else going on so would miss the class. A bit later, another car pulled in with a young man at the wheel. Not sure of his age, but he is the manager of three local chicken restaurants.

                                           

Brett was glad to see other people parked there, since last week he came but no one else showed up. Oops!  When Pastor came rolling in, with two minutes to spare before class, we all went into the church. He had everything already set up  and while he got the computer booted up, he explained that there were two accidents on his street and the entrance ramp (or was it exit?) which held him up. I know how that it, and he is excused for being nearly late.

We first reviewed the homework from last time which brought about some interesting discussion in regard to heaven. I had one False/True answer of which I was unsure, and had circled the word in the statement which gave me pause. Pastor said to look up a passage in II Peter or somewhere and Brett asked him, as we looked it up, if Pastor knows that stuff off the top of his head. It really is uncanny how he can do that. Pastor said he has the advantage of working on Bible studies and sermons enough to commit those 'chapter and verse' references to memory. 

Brett asked a few other questions taking us to into discussion not off topic but outside the booklet. I just love that! Erica shared a few things about what it's like to try to do customer service when people call in and just go off on her. 

                                               

This brought back my remembrances of Sprint and the rough calls I had to handle gracefully. Brett, in the people managing and serving business, will often find himself challenged to keep his emotions in check despite what is being thrown at him, so to speak. Pastor reminded us that we might be the only Christ-like exposure a person might encounter that day. Wow, no pressure, right?

I just so very much enjoy this class, this comprehensive study of the Word as an introduction to Christianity. Oh, another thing we were talking about was the origin of the names of God, and listing His characteristics. We discussed how the Old Testament was written in Hebrew while the New Testament was written in the 'language of the people', koine Greek. 

Pastor mentioned how English is the most commonly used language and Erica said that more people speak Mandarin Chinese, because they have so many people! The discussion evolved to Brett telling us how his mom is learning to speak Mandarin, because he has four siblings who are Chinese. His family, in NC, had adopted these little ones, now nearing or in their teens, when his mom felt it was her mission in life to be a parent to these abandoned girls. So sad!

Pastor had several questions about this for Brett, and he shared about the sad beginnings these babies had, one left on steps of City Hall in China somewhere, Brett got a bit choked up. He loves his family and his mom for doing this for these girls. 

There is a family at Victory who adopted four kids from different Korean families, and all of them have some sort of physical malady. Brett was giving Pastor the contact information for his mom, who will share this with the Victory family so they can benefit from their medical experiences and contacts. Isn't that great? This came to pass simply through the passing remark about the language of the people, and that language is love!

Tuesday already?

This weekend went by so quickly without really a whole lot going on. Saturday, Justin and I had gone to Grumpy's for breakfast before he went Father's Day shopping. I did spend some time poolside, about 5 hours, according to Justin's calculations. Lee and I kept each other company as Fran and Rick joined for a bit. The water was not conducive to swimming but the breezes were so wonderful.

When Lee left, some more friends had come out to enjoy the pool so my stay was extended to chat with them. Eventually I had to come back in and have some leftovers with Justin, whose plans for the evening failed to solidify. 

Sunday was Bible study, worship with Michael as the leader and "Jerusalem the Golden" bringing me tears. Justin and I joined our lunch bunch at Sam's St. Johns Seafood for a delightful start to the afternoon. 

He had to prepare a portion of his strawberry torte before going to his father's house. Every time I opened the fridge, the delicious aroma of the crust struck me, long after it had left my home. Mmmm.....The remains of the torte came back with him, but sort of melted from being in his car for a while when he went to Jesse's house. Oops! The crust got a bit soggy but the cream cheese portion was still delicious.

I had spent time at the pool with Mary, Randy and Carol as they ate their lunches, and had the drink of the day, Tequila Sunrise. Oh my, so refreshing! I suggested to Marlena that they make up a batch of  those drinks and walk around the pool with them. Just seeing one makes a person want one. And it's healthy---orange juice and cherry juice (grenadine) with tequila. Tequila is made from the agave plant, so there you go!

Instead of putting my nightie on for the night, I had to get fully clothed to attend a meeting of the Board for the condo. Representatives from the engineering firm were coming to tell us about the plans and specs, etc. needed for a job like ours. Gulp! They can tell us everything except firm numbers until they start the demo work, to see how far they have to tear down the sundeck. AND, a contractor who does leak detection will be hired to seek out our leaking situation. Yay!!!

Monday morning I was awake before 5 a.m. because I was so concerned about oversleeping. Since I was taking my car in for the body work, arrangements had been made for the rental car to use in the meanwhile. The website indicated that the rental place offered free pick up but the guy told me he was alone in the office and could not pick me up. Plan B was to ask Michael for a ride, and he was willing to do so.

I was still in my room that morning and realized as the minutes clicked by, I heard nothing from Justin's end of the house. It was getting to be time for him to leave so I went to his room and knocked on the door. He was still in bed, fast asleep. Oh my! I told him he'd better text his boss and let him know he overslept. Apparently he had not reset the alarm over the weekend so his mom was the alarm clock!

It turned out he was 'only' 15 minutes late and I think he met his boss at one of the jobs here in OP. It was a 12 hour day for him regardless so he was exhausted when he got home. They had not eaten lunch until 4:00 pm so even though I had dinner made for us, 7:30 was too soon for him to eat. I made meatballs in mushroom sauce, baked potatoes, and a batch of what I will call Linda's cole slaw. A bag of slaw and a jar of Marzetti's dressing. Oh my!

                                             

Since I had eaten half my potato, he took the other half and covered it with cole slaw. He was so glad to try that, claiming he now has a new favorite baked potato topping. When Justin and I lived on the lake and entertained nearly every weekend, I made that same slaw. After moving here, I had not made it again, it seems. Now that I had some at Linda's, I am back at it!

                                                

This a.m. was started early with Connie doing water testing on the floors above mine, to see if she could recreate the leak. The first test showed nothing and she was going to have to wait until the afternoon to do the second one. That was the one where it showed up, a sliding glass door in a unit on the 5th floor. The water leaked into Misty's river room but never made it to mine. Now to fix it!

After water aerobics class I went to get my hair cut. It was so bushy and of course, many folks complimented me on how nice it looked. Murphy's Law! Barb said, "Oh, you must be in the pool..." because the highlights are back. It is the funniest thing, how the colors I usually remove are so attractive sometimes!

Thinking back...

  Judy C., gave me this photo of us taken on Amber's baptism day. 

In looking at this photo, it brought to mind a couple of things, not the least of which is how old that top is I am wearing. Not that it's a problem wearing clothes with some miles on them...

I can remember when I bought this top, how about that? Mom and Lynn were visiting here, which means it could have been when I lived at the lake house. We were at Dillard's at the Orange Park Mall and discovered one of my former co-workers as the sales clerk in the women's department. Susan used to give me a ride to work when we were at Sprint early in our careers there, already in training she was my driver.

There are photos of me wearing this top on the cruise in 2007 when I met my friend, Judy R. One actually appears on the front page of my blog! A top such as this does not get worn every day so has stood up nicely over the years and I love the memories it stirred for me.

"...forever and forever are clad in robes of white..."

Today at church, before leaving for lunch, I wished the fellows whom I knew had children a happy Father's Day. I gave Paul a nice hug and wished him this as well, but the others mostly got my verbal greeting. It was notable to me how much more low-key Father's Day is celebrated compared to Mother's Day. 

                                       

When I worked at Sprint Long Distance, our busiest day of the year would be Mother's Day, with kids of all ages trying to call their moms collect or needing help with calling card processing. My memory does not recall how many such calls were processed on Father's Day. Now that most people use cell phones, operator-assisted calls have gone the way of buggy whips. Glad to have had that job, though, which I began 21 years ago. What?

                                             

Jim B. lead our Bible study this a.m., looking at the life of Job. It moved along fairly quickly and when it ended, some of us sat around to visit for a while. Suddenly, it occurred to me that worship begins at 10:00 now so we had to hustle up to the church before all the good seats were taken. Whew, plenty of room left when we got there. Mike C. lead the worship and did a fine job of it, with Robbie providing the music for our service.

As the service was beginning, I was in the back marking the attendance. Michael announced a hymn change from what was listed in the service folder. Robbie "The Maestro" was seated alongside of me at the organ and struck up the hymn. The substitution was "Jerusalem the Golden" from the Supplement. Oh my! I softly gasped, and Robbie sort of smiled, knowing how this hymn affects me. 

I grabbed a Supplement from one of the pews and started to sing. With so few people singing, it is important to be strong. Somehow I managed to get through the first stanza nicely but on the second one, I had drop out. "...Jesus in mercy bring us to that dear land of rest..." On the 3rd stanza, I managed to come back in but was not strong. What a beautiful picture of our heavenly home!

                                            

When we sang the choral version of this hymn a couple years ago, Emily was still in the choir, and had to carry much of the soprano because I cried every single rehearsal. When it came the day to sing it for worship, I held together nicely, having probably cried it out the weeks before, I suppose. The reason I could get through the first stanza today, I believe, is because I did not have a chance to think about it beforehand. Love starting a worship service in tears!

Terri T. had invited me to lunch the night before, having not seen each other since before I left for WI. Justin knew someone had asked me to lunch but not who...he was wondering if he could come along. Of course! I assumed he'd be tied up with his father but that was not until later in the day. Judy and Gretchen had decided to go to Sam's St. John Seafood so Terri and I adjusted our plans to match theirs and off we went. 

Because of getting out of church earlier, we did not have to wait for a table. We did have to wait for Michael who had a quick Council meeting after church. Judy ordered for him and his plate was waiting as he came in the door. I had the pollack sandwich which was a very nice portion. The bun, lettuce, and tomato were left behind but I ate all the fish plus a couple fries. 

Gretchen and I had the same lunch except she chose butter beans as her side dish. Justin ordered the buffalo shrimp with cheesy grits. When he began eating, he said, "You want one, Mom?" which made everyone bust out laughing. He liked the shrimp but wished the heads were off of them. Terri T. loves the fried shrimp from this place so everyone was happy.

With no Bible studies at church, I wasn't going to see Judy C. again before she left on Thursday morning for the LWMS Convention. We hugged good-bye and I told her I was envious of the adventure she was going to have. She is sharing a room with Kim T., who is Terri's sister. 

Another lady from down state is riding up with Judy, coming this far and then jumping into Judy's car for the nearly 8 hour drive to NC. Carolyn will ride back with Judy, too, as well as Jennifer R., who used to be a member of GS. Her husband is a pastor at Merritt Island so I see her maybe once or twice a year at LWMS events. So, when Judy gets there, she will have Kim with her as well as spending time with Jennifer. 

When Terri and Kim's dad died a couple years ago, Jennifer came up for the funeral service, having visited Gordy only a few weeks prior to his passing away. She and I sat together, helping each other sing. We used to sing together in the choir and it was great singing with her again, especially at such a significant event as Gordy's funeral. 

It's funny how our lives intersect, how those two families knew each other well before coming to GS. I envy Judy that group of ladies but not that long drive!!