Monday morning Blue

Actually it is Good Evening Now.................

but it really was Monday Morning Blue

Hope you are having a great Monday,

Mine has been busy, I pretty much got out of bed got old clothes

on, made a iced coffee, and prepared to paint the bathroom.

Talked and prayed with hubby on the phone, got the

paint poured and ready to go, then talked with my

daughter as she drove to work, so finally got started

about 8:30.

It is a small room so I was done by 10:00, hubby still

has to do the trim around the ceiling and the doorway.

I am a great roller, but not as great a trimmer, and

Jimmy is a great trimmer, but doesn't like rolling,

so we make a great pair.

I painted it what I call a "Robins Egg Blue"

(that's where the blue Monday comes in)

think I may have mentioned I have wanted a room

that color for quite awhile, and so I am thrilled

and can't wait to see both the water closet area

and the dressing room, the same color.

For me it is breathtaking, don't know what it is about

that color, but I just love it, love it!!

Remember last week we had to replace the wall, and

do the tile, well, we got all the tile done and grouted,

that was a fun job, ( I am being sarcastic here)

not the grouting so much, the clean up, it dried very quickly,

so it was really fun trying to get it off the tile, it was exhausting

to tell you the truth, and then the grout doesn't match the grout on

the same tile we have in the dressing area so we are gonna

have to redo that grout.

Course, I never really liked it that much anyway, and have

wanted to redo it for a long time. (It was our first attempt at tiling

and we mixed the grout and think we didn't mix it quite right

or something). I actually used a bleach pen on it awhile back

and it looked much better for awhile anyway.

Thankfully my husband has this neat lil dremel tool

that cuts the grout right out, so think I am gonna just

do a quadrant of the room at a time, then maybe

it want be such a big deal.

Forgot to say I love the new tile job and the grout,

hubby did another professional looking job,

he cut all the tile, and I assisted him and helped

with the grout clean up.

We have to finish tiling the shower first, so I may wait

till we finish that or do them simultaneously in the day

while hubby is working. I'll decide that once we get this

lil room under our belt. Tomorrow night hopefully, we will

install the new John. Then I can't touch the tile with water

for 5 more days. It still has some of that yukky residue

from the grout. So it will look much nicer once I can

mop it several times.

We are wiped after working on it all last week.

It has been a great distraction for us tho.

We have not been worrying over our son at all.

The Lord has answered our prayers and the

prayers of his people on our behalf, God is

just soooooooo good to us.

We have heard from him everyday still,

he said today was a great day for hiking

no rain so far. Hope it stayed that way,

cause the weather reports say it is suppose

to have rain all the way till June 22nd.

Then who knows after that!!

He is about 10 hrs. behind schedule so that

is not too bad for all the bad weather he has

incurred. He might have been soggy but

his spirits don't seem to be dampened.

We think he should get into the next

town by Wed or maybe Thursday, then

we will get to talk to him and find out

what has really been going on.

I can't wait!!

Well, I was gonna try and download

some pics of our progress, but for some

reason, it want go into the download

mode. Oh Well, better luck

tomorrow maybe!

Oh yea, I wanted to say something about

the opening mosaic picture. Isn't it fabulous!!

I went to this wonderful blog over the weekend and she has

a ton of these absolutely lovely pics,

they just make my heart sing, they are

such visions of loveliness. Go over and check

it out, if you like romantic decorating,

you are gonna love it.

http://www.romantichome.blogspot.com/

Have a cheery Evening,

Blessings and Hugs,

Nellie

Have a very Restful & Refreshing Sunday

Delight yourself in the Lord

and he will give you the desires

of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

Hope you have a Beautiful and Restful Sabbath Day!!

Love, Hugs, and Blessings,

Nellie

Update on bathroom renovations and son

Hello Sweet Encouragers,

and Happy Saturday to you!

Just a short note to say things are coming along great

in our bathroom. Hubby did a great job on the dry wall,

and I sealed it today, in fact I did the whole water closet area.

I was really impressed with what a great job he did because

he has never tried drywalling before, but you would

think a professional did it for sure. Can't wait to see it

painted "Robins egg blue", I have wanted a room that

color for a few years now, so I am very excited.

Hubby is still working on cutting the rest of the tile,

we laid all the big pcs. on Thursday, but didn't get to

work on it yesterday cause he was working all day, and

in the evening we went over to some

friends for pizza and cards, we had pizza and talked,

which was great with us, we love getting to know

people better, and a good conversation is the best

game in town as far as I am concerned.

Guess we will be laying the rest of the tile tonight,

then possibly grouting tomorrow or monday.

Gotta get my paint tomorrow so I can paint in

there Monday before we put the new toilet in.

We are delighted that the Lord has been so

gracious to us as to have been able to continue to

get text messages from our son. Yesterday he hiked

in the rain, today he said it was dry and sunny,

and he was doing fine.

We checked the weather report up there,

and there will be rain tonight and early Sunday morning,

and thunderstorms later in the day, and possibly

rain, Monday and Tuesday as well.

God has been good and we have not been worried,

but we are having a big rain and Thunderstorm

here and it is very ominous looking out, and we

are inside our warm cozy house, and my husband said,

oh, can you imagine being outside in this,

and I said No, and I can't think about it either.

I wish he wasn't getting all this rain, but I know

the Lord knows what he is doing and none of it

took him by surprise. Poor Joey too, thank the Lord

she is not afraid of thunder and lightning like

our other grand daughter dog Rosie. She is

absolutely terrified and so is our kitty Molly,

she is just afraid of rain!! I am concerned Joey will be

afraid of it when she returns, but maybe not.

Well, Hope you all have a Wonderful Weekend!!

Hugs and Blessings,

Nellie

Welcome to Thankful Thursday for June 11, 2009

Good Afternoon Lovlies

Hope your day is going Rosy.

And.................Welcome to Thankful Thursday!

I had already decided on Tuesday what my post for

today would be, but as much as I tried to get it posted,

nothing seemed to work, so I decided to take a lil nap,

and realized the Lord had other plans.

So................

I want you to know I am incredibly Thankful this

week for modern technology, especially cell phones

and texting!! Both of which I have always pretty

much taken for granted until now. I never use

texting myself, but I do use the cell phone mostly

when I am out, to call home, and mostly for talking

with my family.

But this week has been different, with my son

hiking the Appalachian trail, it has been an

exquisite gift and blessing to have been able

to receive 2 text messages from him, to let

us know he is AOK. What a thrill it has been

for not only me but his dad as well.

Today's message read:

Everything is going well, I stayed at (blank)

because of rain, and will be hiking to (blank) today.

I have met a lot of people so far.

(You are told in the books not to be giving itinerary

over the net. That is why I never say specifics, just

in case you were wondering.)

That was great to hear because I pictured

him out in the wilderness with no other

human around. So that was a relief .

We have a book that has all

the stopping places in it, so we know exactly

where he is at or where he is coming from and

where he is going to.

If it were not for texting and cell service

this would not be the case, so we are so

humbly indebted to the people who developed

these wonderful lil gadgets.

If your have a loved one, friend or neighbor

who sells or works with or develops cell phones

please give them a big hug for us,

and tell them what a great job they are

doing and how much it has blessed

our family and why.

I think so many times especially people

who work in fields like that, ( we know cause my

husband is an engineer) they don't get much

feedback on how their product is helping

others, so I can't help but think the Lord

knows there is someone out there wondering

if what they do matters.

If they are someone you know,

tell them it matters, and it matters very

much. It has brought extra peace and joy

to my family that is for sure, and of course,

we are able to text him back, so I am

sure it matters to our son as well.

I leave you with this verse from

Colossians 3:23

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,

as working for the Lord, not for men.

Thanks for checking in,

Have a great Evening..................

Hugs & Blessings,

Nellie

Back to our bathroom renovations

Good Afternoon Lovely Friends,

How your day is going well so far!

I slept till 10:15 this morning. Can't believe it, but it sure felt good,

course, we went to bed around 1:30, so are we crazy or what???

We can be nite owls but we usually aren't that bad.

Just received a text message from our son, so that was heaven

for us. He said " so far, so good, we are on schedule,

finally was able to get a signal to text. Love u guys!"

It was a sweet and unexpected surprise from the Lord.

We were in a good mood before, but we are in a

great mood now!! We really did not expect to hear from

him until about next Wed. Also, thanks for your

prayers......we are definitely feeling them.

You are being a real blessing as so many

other friends are too!!

Well, we began again on our bathroom renovations

yesterday afternoon. Got the toilet taken out and

the rest of the tile that was under it, and got the insulation

put in the wall, my hubby is putting the new drywall

in as I write. We are hoping to get the wall finished

and the floor tiled in the water closet area today,

so it can cure overnight and be grouted tomorrow

evening. Hopefully, we can put the new toilet

back in by Saturday, if all goes well.

We haven't worked in there for awhile cause we decided

it would probably be easier to tackle this with just the two of

us here. Once we get the floor tile done then we will start

retiling our shower area. I am excited because I know that

once we start to see some "pretty" progress it will spur us

on to finish. Somehow when you are just tearing things out

and it looks awful it is not very motivating to me anyway.

I have already taken the wallpaper down in that area,

but still need to remove it in the dressing room area

but think I am gonna wait until we either start or finish

tiling the shower. I looks nice right now, so am not

looking forward to that part. It will be nice when it

is finished tho, cause the wallpaper does not match

the bedroom at present.

I had not planned on redoing my bedroom until

we finished the bathroom, but I had already found

a nice new bedset last fall, because my old one was looking

pretty sad. Then when our son moved back in with us

just before Christmas, he and his dad went and got all his

stuff around New Years, so I had to move a lot of stuff out

of the guest bedroom to make room, and a lot of the

decorations would match with my new bedroom decor,

so decided I might as well get on with it, so I did.

One day next week I will add some pics to show you

what I did. I really love it and didn't have to paint my

walls so was happy about that. Didn't want to have to

tackle that with all the bathroom work we still had before us.

Here is a little preview........This is the top of my

armoire in the bedroom. My colors in there are

peacock blue, avacado and lime green, brown

golden ye and cream. It is leaning more toward green

than to blue, not exactly how I planned it,

but I really like it.

My daughter gave me the potpourri for Christmas, and the silver

vase to put it in, but I couldn't get the potpourri to look right,

so I had these golden ye mums, so I stuck that in there, and put

the potpourri on a green plate I had. My friend gave me the birdhouse

for christmas and it was perfect for the room, and I already had the

silver gray box (for my everyday earrings) and the yellow candle,

and I had bought the smile sign at Target on sale for $5.00 just because

I loved it. So I was quite happy with the outcome. I also had potpourri

leftover for some other areas of the room. Which You will see next week.

Well, hubby is mudding the drywall, and I just finished putting the tape on.

Mudding is the tricky part but I know he will do a great job,

he can do just about anything when he puts his mind to it, and it saves

us so much money! It is great to have a handy husband!!

Well, I will talk with you tomorrow,

gotta go see how the mudding is going.

thanks for coming by.

Hope you have a great evening,

Hugs and Blessings,

Nellie

Balmy breezy 80 degrees

Good Morning Sweet Friends,

It has been a balmy breezy 80 degrees on the porch this morning,

and so lovely I could just sit out there all day, but unfortunately

there are things to do, but I am very refreshed for the time

I did get to spend.

Well, we heard from our son yesterday about 6p.m, and he

made it fine, a few hrs later than expected, and with a few

unexpected bumps. The first one made him think he was

gonna have to call his dad and come back to get him.

He got a crate for Joey, with the dimensions they gave

him, which we thought was ridiculously small anyway,

and when he got there they said that it wouldn't do.

So they called all the A/Lines to see if anyone had one,

and nobody did, and finally they called United, and

they had 1 left, it was $70.00, but they got her in it

and he was running to the gate.

Also when he got his

backpack out of the luggage rack(he had put it in a

huge garbage bag, so that nothing would come lose

and get lost) they had gone thru it and it was a topsy

tervy mess, and he had to put it all back together

again, and he didn't think anything was missing,

we pray that is the case.

So they started their adventure today. Upon awaking

I was having some fearful thoughts and I got an email

from a sweet friend here and a comment from one of my sweet

blog friends. They were definitely heaven sent messages,

and really encouraged me, and now after my time on

the porch with the Lord, I am feeling full of faith

again. The enemy tends to always come to me

early in the morning just before I am awake to

plant negative seeds and thoughts. He is so

clever in his deception, but the Lord is always

infinitely wiser and better!!

I will be going out soon to mail our first of many

packages to my son (they are his food supply &

other supplies he needs)

This is the label from one of them. He has each one

labeled with the date to be shipped and how it is to

be shipped, and he left a list as well.

His organizational skills just amaze me,

especially for a guy.

And this is all the packages we will have to mail
if he tarries on his journey. Twenty to be exact!!
He has them all stacked according to date,
left open so we can add anything extra he might need,
and they are already addressed, so all we have to do is
add anything extra, and tape them shut,
and as you can see he even has a tape package
tape dispenser there, and he left $250.00 for the postage.
He has pretty much thought of everything it seems.



Guess you can't tell that I am proud of him or anything.
He really is a great young man, and has so many
wonderful qualities. He was not the least bit discouraged
over yesterdays happenings, he was just excited and
ready to start his journey. Good for him!!
Wish I was as excited about my journey thru
this time as much as he is!! ha



I do know the end result will be good, with the Lord
the best is always yet to come, but sometimes it is
a struggle to get there, and I can tell you I think
this is gonna be a daily struggle at least for awhile.
I can be fine one minute, and bombarded with
scary thoughts the next. Course, I know all those
what if's and vain imaginations are not from the
Lord, so I have to stand firm and call on my Lord
for help. So like I said the results will be good,
cause anything that makes us more dependent
on Jesus, is always Good in God's eyes.


Well Now, thanks for all your kind comments
on yesterdays post and for your prayers especially.

Have a truly Blessed and Cozy Day,
Nellie

Today is a bitter/sweet day for me!

This is my son and his lil adventure dog, in early spring,

checking out his new tent that just arrived, for this great

adventure in his life.

Happy Monday Morning to you all,

Well, this morning has been a bittersweet morning. Today is the day our son left for his Trek thru the Appalachian Mountain Trail. We are very happy and excited for him, because he is so excited about doing this and has been planning and reading about it for 4 months now, but of course we will miss him and of course, are concerned about his safety.

I have to say I am very impressed with what an amazing job he has done on the planning and execution of everything. Anything my husband and I or anyone would ask him about, did you think of this or do you have this or that item, the answer was always yes, I do. We asked because we know how easy it is to forget something when we are just packing for a weekend getaway, let alone a wilderness journey, where there is no where to buy anything most of the time. That is a scary thought to me, but I can't dwell upon it!!

My son is very capable and very ingenious about coming up with ways to do things, and ways to improvise, he gets that from his Dad and his Grampa's, and me too, I think!! Well, he was up and out by 7:30 a.m. and on the way to the airport with his daddy. I am so grateful my hubby took him, he had asked me, but I just didn't want to deal with it, I knew it would be hard to watch his lil dog have to go in that tiny cage, and I am a crier by nature, so thought it would be best for him and I, if daddy took him. I didn't want to literally rain on his parade, if you get my drift. I wanted to be excited for him, and I was........even if it was smilin' a bit thru a few tears, he knows me!! what more can I say, he would probably think there was something wrong with me, if I didn't shed a few tears cause you see I cry whether I am happy or sad.

He made tons of preparations, dehydrating all sorts of foods, putting food packets together,even made his own trail mix, and it is the best I have ever eaten, I might add. It has dehydrated strawberries, bananas, apples, and raisens with nuts and coconut and granola with a tinge of cinammon flavor to it, not additives of any kind. I told him he should see if he could sell it when he gets back, because it is seriously some of the best stuff I have ever seen, rather eaten!!

Here are some of his food packets he put together.

Some of them smell wonderful, I was wishing I had

the foresight to make some up for hurricane season,

cause I think they will taste pretty good.

At least if they taste as good as they smell.

and here is that yummy granola I was telling you about,

I just had some, can't be doing that too much tho, just

in case he needs more.

Plus he has been buying stuff off ebay that he can use for his

trip just like the tent above, and a small camera, and tiny cooking

stuff, and bed mats, and a carrier for Joey the adventure dog.

It has seemed like Christmas around here with packages coming

almost daily for awhile. I think he quite enjoyed that!! I think

the planning has been fun and exciting for him, at a time

when he certainly needed some fun and excitement.

Here he is with backpack and the dog carrier,this is my daughter's dog, Rosie, she only weights 8 pds, Joey weights 12 pds, but Rosie happened to be handy at the time. Unfortunately, it didn't work well for Joey sitting in it cause she is a lil longer than Rosie, so we had to reconifigure it some as you will see. Also, picture this backpack sticking out about 3-4 more inches, and about4-5" over the top of his head, it was about even with his head here. It weights over 40Pds, probably close to 45 pds. I would bet!!

We made it like a sling, so it goes around his neck

instead of being strapped to the front of him.

that way she can lay down. Then we also had

to come up with something to protect her feet,

because sometimes they will be hiking in rough

rocky terrain.

So at first he bought these little boots at the pet store

that have velcro, but they didn't stay on long at all.

2 mins. to be exact. When he put her down to walk

it was hysterical, wish we had a video of it, we would

surely have won a funniest home video award.

So then he tried baby socks and you know he used the handymans

secret weapon, duct tape!! That seemed to work okay, and he

was gonna put more duct tape on the bottom so it would be like

our shoes but of course, more limber. He was set to go with

that until yesterday. when his sister came over he was showing

her Joey in the socks and she managed to get some of them

off, and my daughter said, it almost seems like she needs

to have something go across her back that will hold them

up, and I said you know, I have thought the same thing

myself, so...........guess what we did all afternoon yesterday.

We had just the two straps across her but then had

to add the one across the chest. We are gonna call

them doggie garters!! this is our prototype model.

Doesn't she look stylish in her black and white. She is a trooper I am telling you!!

The thing down the back was still pinned, once I finished sewing it the white elastic

was no longer sticking up. He also added silicon to the bottom of her socks,

so that it would sort of be like tennis shoes. It seems to be working well here,

just hope it works well on the trail. He has some extra socks and a sewing

kit just in case he needs new sock feet.

Lest you think this dog is not up to the task, she is truly amazing and adventuresome,

the perfect dog for my son. She is a riot, and keeps us laughing most of the time.

She is a tough lil bugger, and can act as grumpy as can be, yet is really a sweet dog,

she just doesn't like you to know it.

Here she is working for my hubby, while he takes a coffee break!

Believe it or not, this white thing in my gardenia bush

is her, Joey in all her glory!! she tries to climb trees

as well, and I have found her sitting in my huge potted fern that

is in the back yard. She is a Jack Russell terrier,

and she is a tough lil girl!! And she adores my son,

and was so happy he was taking her this morning,

course, she has no idea where she is going, but I

can tell you when she find out she will be a happy

girl, cause she likes exploring, hiking and being

with her daddy!!

Well, as I just checked the clock they should be arriving

at their destination soon, but they will have a shuttle

to get to their hotel near the trail, and tomorrow

starts their big adventure, and ours.

He is gonna try to text us everyday, but we are

not expecting it to work, so if we get a message

before he gets to the next town that will be

Heaven!! If you feel led we would covet your

prayers for him and for us, that we will keep

our focus and remember that he & Joey are

not alone out there. Our son know the Lord

and Jesus goes wherever he goes, I just

have to keep reminding myself of that!

Well, thanks for dropping in, and hope you

enjoyed yourself, it has been an exciting

time for us as well as him. So I will

keep you updated on what is happening.

He is prepared to stay possibly 4 mos.,

but he will come back as soon as he has

had enough. Selfishly we, and his friends are

praying that it want be too long!! ha

Blessings and Love to you all,

Nellie