The Sea Heals

Hello there friends and family........

Yesterday some of my family arrived, those that were able to come this year and I'm missing those that couldn't.... We spent some time at my house in the morning and then I headed down later on in the day to their condo. I took some photos and a short video to share with you. The photos I took were taken from the condo which is ocean front but on the bottom floor. It was a last minute booking so they couldn't get the condo on the third floor they usually stay in but this one is just as nice with the same beautiful view..

I don't know about you but I always find the sea healing in so many ways. For me, it always lifts my mind and heart directly to God. I find much peace just sitting on the beach or anywhere watching the water and listening to the waves crash into the sand. Feeling the warm water on my feet and the sand between my toes. 

Last night was exceptionally beautiful at the beach. The sun dipped down around seven thirty and there was a gorgeous breeze so it was a beautiful night to be there...

On a side note, I am sorry I haven't been to your blogs yesterday or today but with family in town it's a little hard to find the time but I promise I will make a visit soon. I hope you all understand..

Checking In

Well hello there friends and family.. I hope you're all well and healthy.

I haven't written in my Corona Diaries series in a while and thought I'd check in and share some thoughts and opinions. If you're the 'sensitive' type you may want to skip this post. Those of you who have followed me on my social media platforms know I don't pull any punches and I speak what's on my mind. I am not from the "politically correct' era and I never will be. So having said that, let's move on..

My first question is, how are you all doing?

As for me and mine, we are .....doing... In the beginning of all this I was like most were and sadly some still are. Scared, wiping down everything, staying home as much as possible and in general freaking out.. Then...things changed for me...

What changed? My spirit, my emotions, my thoughts.. I stopped freaking out.. I turned to the Lord and now I can share with you. Here is how I am looking at this virus itself. Most of you know that my doctors are almost positive I had this virus in January which lasted until approximately mid March. I can also tell you that yes, it exists and kills people. I can tell you that I was so sick I thought I would be one of those people. I can tell you I had my husband get my life insurance out just in case. That, is how sick I was. If you would like to me to tell you about my experience with this let me know in the comments and I will make a post about it..

Here's what I also know. No one can tell us if we can be infected again and no one can tell us when we will die or what we will die of. And that there is my whole point of this post. 

Many months ago I gave all my anxieties and fears over to the Lord. I handed my life over to him completely. Every single area of my life I gave to Him. In return he helped me to understand that even before this virus my life has always been in his hands from the moment I was created. He knows when and what I will die from. As humans we all think we have control over everything when in reality we don't have control over much of anything. 

So how I live each day is, I don't worry. I pray each morning to keep my loved ones and myself safe.. I take some, precautions and I live my day knowing that no matter what happens in this life, the Lord will be there to see me through whether that means in this life or He decides to lead me to the next. Now does that mean I want to die? Of course it doesn't... What it does mean is I trust Him completely and depend on Him for everything. He is in control. Anxiety and fear do not come from God. Once we learn to let things go that we have absolutely no control over and trust Him with everything we are free and so I am free. Does that mean I do not have some concern for my loved ones and myself? Of course it doesn't but knowing He is there and handles everything brings great peace and freedom. 

I watch people run around in a panic since this began, scolding others for what "they think" is correct, worrying about every, single, little thing and I realize they live like this because they have no faith. You can't possibly have faith and still live like this and so I pity them and pray for them...

Hurricane Update and More

Well hello there friends and family.....

Just wanted to pop on real quick this Tuesday morning and give ya'll an update. It seems God, being the good and merciful God He is decided to spare us. Thank you Lord. Hurricane Isaias for us was really nothing more than a long rain storm with a few major gusts of wind here and there. I think even our local weatherman is surprised at how docile this hurricane came in and went. In fact it was so mild I turned the light off in my bedroom and went to sleep at ten thirty pm, never heard the rain, never heard the wind, nothing.. We didn't even lose power. The electricity flipped on and off a few times but that was it. Now I know in other parts of my county and state there were many people who lost power for quite a while but I believe as of nine am this morning everyone's power across the state had been restored. God blessed us very much..

I slept until five forty five this morning. Mr fell asleep on the couch last night so he was still sleeping and so were all the dogs. I love the silence in the early morning hours because in my house that's really the only time I get any. I made some eggs and coffee around six thirty am and afterwards I spent some time reading the daily scripture reading and writing in my journal.

Mr had his three month follow up appointment with his pain doctor so while he was out I fed the dogs, washed the dishes, finished and put away the laundry I began yesterday, changed the sheets on the bed. Don't you just love fresh sheets on the bed? If I had the energy and enough sheets I'd change them every day but I guess once a week will have to suffice. I cleaned out one of our junk drawers in the dining room hutch and made myself a big batch of home made egg drop soup. See the picture above.

For the rest of the day I think I am just going to take it easy. My family comes in tomorrow morning and I think I am dealing with a sinus infection for the gazzilionth time so I may do an online visit with the doctor this afternoon. I think that's why I've been so dang tired lately and wanting to go to bed at eight pm every night...

Hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday! 

Hurricane's A Comin'........

I just love (eyeroll) waking up to this on my phone first thing in the morning but, it's hurricane season here in South Carolina on the coast and it's part of living here.  Our local weather guy who is a very nice man as well has been saying he doesn't think it will be much higher than a category one hurricane but you know, in the annals of my mind I remember those same words back in 2016 with hurricane Matthew. Same scenario. Was supposed to be just a little stronger than a tropical storm and not really do much damage. 

Well, in less than twenty four hours Matthew decided to slam directly into the Myrtle Beach area as a category two hurricane. It ripped roofs off homes, ours included, ripped an ocean pier to pieces (they JUST re-opened a few weeks ago), massive storm surge, thousands and thousands were without power, some people lost power for two weeks. We were blessed in that we were only out for four days. The flooding was absolutely catastrophic. Half of my town and county was under water. Many, many people lost their homes and all they possessed in the floods and many are still rebuilding four years and another hurricane (Florence) later. So when it comes to hurricanes, my thinking is, the experts can predict what they want, a storm like that will do as it pleases when it pleases and it's better to be prepared than not. So let me show you what we've been up too today.

This morning my friend Deb came over, she comes every Monday to help keep my house clean because I can't do the heavy cleaning anymore. Our relationship started out as one of employee, employer but over the years has grown into a wonderful friendship. I have never met a more loving, honest, generous, caring and just straight down to earth friend in my life as her. The cleaning bit aside I truly cherish our friendship and always will. 

While Deb and I were inside, my Mr was outside putting the finishing touches on the new generator. He had to hook up and exhaust hose to run outside of the generator housing for fumes and heat. It took all morning because he didn't have exactly what he needed but because God has blessed him with knowledge and skill he was able to take what he had and make it work. So now, the generator is completely set to go should we need it. This in itself takes so much off my mind when it comes to power outages. I have spent many days with no electric, praying my food doesn't go bad, lugging bags and bags of frozen food down to our friends Bill and Lindas house to store in their freezer because they had a generator, using all the gas in my car to keep it running to charge cell phones and computers so we had communication with family. Let me tell, you, it's no picnic but now, thanks to Gods grace, my husbands skills as a carpenter and all around handy man and love of friends, we no longer have that worry...

After Mr came in and Deb left for the day I went outside to start gathering the deck furniture together and I wanted to take the umbrella down. We have these tiny little frogs here, I call them rain frogs because as small as they are they are VERY loud when it's going to rain. Well they like to hangout inside my deck umbrella and this morning when I went to open it a few fell out but these two little guys decided they were not leaving no matter what I did and I didn't want to hurt them by trying to move them so I have left them for now hoping they will move off on their own..

The guy here closer in the photo is a pretty good size for these little rain frogs but that other one up there is so tiny he's just a baby! So because of that I pray they move on later so I can take the umbrella down. They're super cute but I don't want them in my house...

My Mr took a shower when he came in, I checked the freezer to make sure I had left overs packed away just in case and if we should lose power for any length of time the generator will enable me to use one stove burner for cooking plus we have our gas grill outside with a new propane tank and if worse came to worse we can always cook in the fireplace which, yea, I have done that in the past. I do believe we are ready.. 

Keep all of us down here in your prayers that the storm isn't so bad and moves out as quick as it comes in. 

Alexa! Turn Off 2020 !

My goodness it's been a busy few days which is why my blog has been silent. 

It has been incredibly, incredibly hot here in South Carolina on the coast. Temps in the high nineties (36C) with heat indexes of one hundred and five or more. Yesterday's heat index was one hundred and eight degrees. (42C). The humidity level has been so high it's hard to breath outside and forget about hair. My hair has been looking like I put my finger in a light socket for weeks now.

Thursday my Mr had his six month follow up with his cardiologist and it was hot and of course you had to wear a mask. I ended up going back in the car because first I did not want to sit in the waiting office with other people and two I can not stand these masks. I find them very hard to breath in. As to the people thing, I've always been like this when it comes to doctors office or hospitals. Everyone is always hacking or sneezing or something so I've never liked being in these waiting rooms, it isn't something new for me and yes, I've always been a germaphobe my whole life. 

So Thursday after the doctor hubby was out in the horrible heat finishing up with the generator house while I was inside doing some laundry and the things around my home that I needed to tend too. One of which was preparing the over run of banana peppers and shishito peppers to go into the dehydrator. 

Friday I placed a pickup order with Walmart for Saturday morning and then I got the brilliant idea to hit Costco at three thirty in the afternoon, on a Friday, during tourist season. I do this at least once a year and every year I say to myself, what were you thinking!! The ONE highway I have to take to get there is always like a parking lot in ninety eight degree heat full of tourists going to Myrtle Beach. Costco is loaded with tourists stocking up for their stay including the gas station but, at least this time I did have good reason for going at the time I did. 

Saturday morning I left here around eight thirty am. I stopped at Walgreens to pick up a prescription for my Mr, then I decided to go to CVS and check out some makeup by E.L.F. that I've been hearing good things about then onto Walmart to pick up the groceries. 

For those who don't know (look it up) we are in a canned goods shortage and not because there isn't any food. It IS because we don't even make our own metal here in the United States Of America! No, we get it from... wait for it..... you guessed it.. China! And so, we are having a hard time getting metal which means a hard time producing cans. I decided to add to my small stock of canned goods because with the way this year is going who knows what will be happening a month from now. 

I made sure to pick up lots of soup for my Mr because he just loves the Campbell's Chicken Noodle. I also made sure to grab what I could of canned vegetables because while I was able to get some frozen vegetables, the frozen ones have been scarce in my area for months as far as variety. I also stocked up on some essentials between Walmart and Costco. I think we are all finished now. We have at least a few months of food in the house plus left overs that I vacuum seal and freeze as well. 

I spent four hours in my kitchen yesterday putting things away, processing strawberries and blueberries for the freezer, extra bagels, tomatoes and lettuce. I was exhausted by the time I was done and in a ton of pain in every joint and muscle in my body. I took a shower when I was finished, made hamburgers for the Mr for dinner and I fell asleep by ten pm.

This morning I woke up at four forty five am which was early but I had been sleeping seven or so hours. It also gave me more time this morning to spend with Jesus in the Scriptures and prayer. I made my green energy juice for the week in our Vitamix and at ten am I headed over to my parish. I spent some time with Jesus in Adoration, afterwards I went to confession and came home. Still have to balance the checkbook and get the bills ready to be paid this week and that is it! I am one tired lady.

Oh yeah, we have hurricane Isais or however you spell it supposedly hitting into us on Monday night into Tuesday morning. I can not tell you how thankful I am for our new generator and the house for it my Mr built. He had the generator all up and running this morning. Worked beautifully so that's one last thing to worry about. Please send up some prayers this storm won't be too bad. We have had catastrophic flooding in 2015, 2017 and 2018. We don't need anymore damage or water and I have some family coming in this coming Wednesday for a week and a half..

My Favorite Palette ! Beauty Product Review

Today I wanted to share something a little different than my usual posts...

Let's talk about makeup shall we? I used to be heavily into makeup and then.... the plandemic hit and my love for makeup has kind of worn off. Don't get me wrong, I still like it but I am just not as crazy over it as I once was but, every once in a while a beautiful eye shadow pallet will come across my view and I'm hooked. 

That's what happened with this gorgeous palette by TooFaced cosmetics. I have always like eye shadows by Too Faced. I find them to be creamy, highly pigmented and incredibly easy to blend out and this one did not disappoint! There can be a little bit of fallout but that happens with almost every powder shadow and if the quality is good enough I can ignore that.

Can we just talk about that packaging for a moment? Its made from a heavy plastic and what feels like a metal frame. The art work on the front of the palette is beautiful and so delicate and would you look at that little puffed heart closure... Yes, I'm a sucker for good packaging and this one has it all....

The shadow colors themselves are simply gorgeous! It has four mattes and five shimmers.
The matte colors are : 
Heaven
Cashmere Bunny
Sexpresso
Strip Poker
The shimmers are :
Silk Teddy
Push Up
Erotica
Honey Pot
Chocolate Martini

No, I'm not a big fan of the names of some of the shadows but I can overlook that because of the quality and simplicity of this palette.

There is everything you need to make an everyday eye look from the simplest look to a deep smokey eye for evening if that's what you choose. You simply can not go wrong with this palette.

Life And Tomato Chips !

Life surely can get in the way of your plans.

I just checked and my last post was four days ago!... I don't like being away from my blog for that long anymore but, life does get in the way sometimes doesn't it?

Last week was a bit busy and this weekend I was just downright tired. July in South Carolina is hot and if you have a vegetable garden it's busy. Tending the garden, harvesting the fruit, putting up that fruit for long term storage, cooking etc. 

Then of course in the middle of all that one my dogs, my baby girl Sarah....

decides to go and sprain her foot. So it was a trip to the vet and since all this hysteria has begun with this virus a trip to the vet is now an all together new thing. No longer can you bring your animals into the office. You have to sit in your car, call them when you get there and wait for them to come out and get your pet. Well I don't know what's happened but it seems that not only does this virus make you sick it also makes you slow as paint drying on a humid day!... I had to wait a little more than an HOUR! for them to just come outside and get her. Believe me, I was not happy and neither was Sarah. I felt bad for her having to sit in the car with me all that time. She was nervous to begin with. I was so not happy about this. 

And of course after waiting an hour then waiting for them to look at her they call me on my cell as I am STILL outside and tell me they can't find anything wrong with her. They sent her home with some pain pills and said she just needs to rest. Well, I could of done that!. After having raised fourteen dogs in twenty two years you learn to keep certain medications etc on hand. But I guess it was best she was looked at anyway I just was so not pleased about how long it took. There was no reason on earth it should have taken that long. 

I rested most of the weekend and did a lot of reading. Yesterday, Monday, I did laundry all day and this morning I've been outside to water the garden, put up some egg plants we grew, some blueberries and for the first time I am trying to make tomato garlic basil chips in the oven. 

I"ll let you know how they come out. 

Picking Thyme

Wake up came early for us this morning. 

I set my alarm every day , even on the weekends for six am. I am a structured schedule kind of person and without it I am completely all over the map. This morning however my stomach was my alarm and it went off at four thirty am. I thought maybe I'd have some water and go back to sleep but my brain had other ideas. My husband had gotten up a few minutes earlier for a bathroom run and I guess he decided he would stay up as well because he went into the den and popped on the computer. I laid in bed with some of the dogs until about five thirty am watching the news but not really watching the news. I just like to see what the weather will be for the day. 

I usually begin to pray the moment my eyes open in the morning, watch the weather for the day,  scroll through my social media for a bit, play a game or two of bingo and then get up and make the coffee and do my morning stuff.

Mr went outside by six thirty am to begin working on the generator shelter house again which is almost completed. While he was doing that I went outside and looked at the garden, checked all the vegetable plants and seeing if they needed water. After that I came in made our bed and cleaned up the bedroom. Fed the four legged kids breakfast, made our coffee, washed the dishes and then decided to make some hard boiled eggs for the dogs to put on their food and some for egg salad for my Mr. Then I moved onto the our small guest bathroom and washed the walls. 

A little while later I sat down at the dining room table and started to crumble the dried herbs that I had picked from the garden last week. I have a dehydrator but this time I wanted to try just letting them dry on some parchment paper. The basil and lemon thyme did well. The rosemary, not so much. That must be dried either in the dehydrator or the sun. While doing this I watched a very informative video on Berkey Water Filters. They are expensive but I think I'd like to get one. 

It's now after ten am and I'm getting tired so I think I will finish this blog post, wash up the dishes from the eggs and Mr's breakfast and then sit down and visit some of you all on your blogs. I think it's going to be an early nap day for me. 

I have No Value?

According to Google, I have no value. 

Yep, that's what they tell me. The other day I went to see if I could reactivate my Ad Sense account for my blog. Yes I know, Ad Sense is like so ten years ago but hey, I'm still trying to get my blog up and running better so I'm a little old school. 

Anywho, I sent in my blog for 'their approval" and was told, "my content has no value"... so I'm guessing it's one of three things. My writing really doesn't have value to other people?

Goggle denied me because I write about my faith and or google denied me because I do not buy into their 'narrative' of how things 'should be'.

At first it kind of made me feel bad and 'less than' because maybe they're right. Maybe my content doesn't have value to others but then I thought hmm, no value to google... This, may just be a good thing!.. What do you think? 

It's Been A Day

I don't know about others but since this whole virus thing started it seems over time the days all keep running into one another.

Now truth is my brain does seem to lose a day here and there like when I think it's Friday and it's only say, Monday? Ahh the joys of getting older. But lately each day feels the same and now that I think about it maybe that's not such a bad thing?

I love that tree up there. That's a pear tree in my back yard. It does put out fruit every year but unfortunately the tree is sick with what I don't know but I don't have the finances to call in a 'tree doctor' to find out. So each year I watch it give rotten fruit. Kinna drives me nuts but tree doctors are expensive. 

The last few days have been particularly hard on me physically. Most of you know I have RA but well, let me put it this way, I am fifty years old and my body is going through some, umm, changes? So the last two days I've pretty much been sitting on my bed, in my bed, sleeping, reading blogs and blogging.

Mr however has been a busy boy. He has a building project which is he just loves although the heat is really hindering him. It's been in the mid nineties with heat indexes up to and over one hundred and five so he's only able to get out there and work from about six thirty in the morning until maybe eight thirty or nine in the morning and then the heat and humidity is just too much.

He's building a small housing shelter for the generator we bought. Here in the South on the coast we deal with hurricanes. We have had historic flooding and two years ago we had what you could call biblical flooding. Tragically people lost their lives, their homes and everything they own. Some are still trying to rebuild two years later and, hurricane season is already here. So far the Atlantic has been quite. I pray it stays that way.

But when you live in the South, air conditioning and a good working generator are needs not wants. Insurance companies will pay for damage but they don't pay for hundreds of dollars lost in food. I've spent many days in a row with no electric, toting huge bags of food over to my neighbors to store in their freezers for us because they do have a generator and I didn't want to have to go through that again if we get a storm this year. It's been too quite here hurricane wise and I have the feeling we will have one this year. Please pray I am wrong. If I'm not, I want us to be as ready as we can. Tomorrow my Mr has to go get more lumber so it will be a non working day for him and he's hoping to have it completed by the weekend. We will see. I will share photos of it when it's complete. This is what he's done so far..

It's coming along. 

He Taught Me A Lesson

Not a very attractive picture is it? This is what happens when your garden plants become choked by weeds. It bears rotten fruit.

Late this afternoon we got a much needed thunderstorm with heavy down pouring rain. Our temperatures today soared into the high nineties with a heat index of close to one hundred and eight degrees. It was hot!

After the rain began to subside I said to myself, "self, this would be a great time to get out into that vegetable garden you spend so much money and time on and pick out those darn weeds before they kill your harvest." Here's the problem with that. I usually can not do it. My rheumatoid arthritis makes it so hard and incredibly painful to pull weeds but my Mr is in no condition these days to do it either and it was either I try or watch our food go to waste and waste is something I can not stand..

So I do what I always do when I am attempting something I know I really should't. I prayed. I asked Jesus to please protect my body and give me His strength to pull those weeds before His garden is destroyed by them. With my trust in Him I put on a tank top, jeans, socks and my mud boots and headed out. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees, the humidity dropped for the moment, the sun wasn't out and there was a beautiful breeze. I grabbed my tools and my kneeling / sitting pad and headed into the garden.

As I was sitting on the pad getting my butt wet and my clothes muddy the weeds for the most part were coming out easy because the dirt was wet so made for somewhat easy removal. I began thinking of God and His word and he taught me something sitting there pulling those weeds. 

Gods love and words are the fresh, ripe vegetables and beautiful plants. The weeds are the cruelty towards others (especially on social media) and sins we allow into our life. These weeds in our life if left unchecked, will grow up and choke the love and goodness of God inside us and we will be left with only rotten fruit inside of us and to give to others. 

My friends, we must pull the weeds in our lives. We must discard anything that will lead to the weeds around us in this world from infecting us and choking our fruits so as to create in us every day a good and healthy harvest filled with the love of and desire for God.

Oh and by the way. The sun began to come out just as I had only a few more plants to weed. I barely broke a sweat, I wasn't in agonizing pain during the weeding or when I came in and my energy was not completely zapped out of me like it usually is. You see, God hears the prayers of His children and responds when we allow Him to work in our lives. 

A Warning...Please Heed It....

I am giving you fair warning and a heads up and I pray you will heed it....

Friends, 
From time to time I like to pass on knowledge that I have in hopes of helping you. This is one of those times. For those new to my blog and maybe some not so new please understand that I am 'not' a conspiracy nut. I am a common sense nut.

Since this Pandemic (which by the way the CDC has or is getting ready to drop the pandemic status) began we have seen massive changes in the way we have to live. Isolation being one of them and supply chain shortages being another one. As you all are aware around March or April ( I can't even remember anymore) people were panic buying food , paper towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, medical masks and the like. People were scrambling because stock had run out and wasn't being replenished. 

As for myself, I was not a panic buyer then or now and I wasn't 'scrambling' too badly. We have pretty much what we needed for a few weeks to hold us over because I have been preparing since last year for a huge event which, I thought would be another hurricane. (that could still happen) so we were in pretty good shape.

Over the last few weeks in my area anyway, things are slowly being restocked but, paper towel is till hard to come by, cleaning wipes are non existent so far , rubber gloves are also hard to find anywhere, bottled cleaners are also out pretty much everywhere still as well. We have toilet paper again and while meat is still limited to two packages per shopping trip, the meat has begun to roll back in again along with canned goods, flour and yeast is once again available. So what is the point?

DO NOT GET COMFORTABLE!

Covid-19 no matter where you stand on the issues surrounding it , IS a real illness. (yes I know infection rate and death numbers are being padded but they are still happening). Cases are spiking through the roof in most southern and western states. As of today in Florida Miami - Dade ICU's are working at 107%. You can check that out here at this link  . In my state of South Carolina we are being 'told' our hospitals are reaching capacity. If this is true or not, I honestly do not know but better to err on the side of caution.

And whether people realize it or not there is still a shortage of Pasta, Rice, Canned goods, Flour, Soda, and Canned Soups. See the article here . Society has fallen into the bowels of hell, police officers are walking off the job or not responding to calls (I don't blame them), anarchist are ruling our city streets with murder and destruction left unchecked, our houses of worship are being vandalized and desecrated, history being wiped out before eyes with the blessings of those who are supposed to protect it.

We have a presidential election coming up in four months and no matter who occupies that seat come January 2021 I can tell you with great confidence things are not going to get better. They are going to get worse on all fronts. 

If you haven't been prepping, stocking your pantries etc the time to do so is NOW.. Not tomorrow, not two months from now.... Do it now.. I see another round of lock downs coming. I see more food shortages coming. It will be a rinse an repeat of the first three months of this year. Do not get caught with your proverbial pants down again. Take whatever money you have an invest it in your needs not your wants. This way when the SHTF yet again you can rest easy knowing you and your family will be able to survive it.

On a personal note, I have spent a lot of money in the last few months, much more than I wanted too and I have gone without wants for longer. To be honest, I hate living like this. I'm sure most people do but this is where we are at in this country. This week I made a second trip to Costco along with Walmart to add to my stock and I thought I'd show you what I added to my stock to maybe give you some ideas on what to pick up. Also keep in mind, 
do not stock up on food items you or your family don't like or you know you will not eat. If you do that you may as well just go in the back yard and burn your money.

Months back I had some friends and family think I was blowing smoke when I told them to go out and stock up on meat. Some did and some didn't. Within two weeks of me telling others this, news hit there was a meat shortage. Limited quantities and the price of meat has also skyrocketed. Back then I filled my big upright freezer with all the meat it would hold. Those who blew me off are still scrambling to build a meat stock pile and they are paying high prices for one cut of meat now.

I know this post was long and I apologize for that I just had a lot to say and I have more to say which I will be posting about in the coming days. Please heed my advice and get what you can now.