Wedding trip!

Micah, Sully and I will be driving down to Minneapolis tomorrow. We'll spend the night there and go to the airport on Wednesday morning to fly to the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. We'll be gone until Tuesday the 27th. It's a long time for Micah to be away from her girls and hubby, but she seems excited to get to go to her big brother's wedding. Hubby Adam seems confident in his ability to wrangle that herd of girls until she returns. :)

Between Wednesday and Friday we'll sneak in a car trip down to Angleton (south of Houston) to visit my step-dad, Glenn. On the way down we'll stop off and visit with my "little" brother, Mark. It will just be a cup of coffee and a short visit, but we couldn't just drive by so close without seeing him. I think it's been about 37 years since I've seen him in person! We keep in touch via email and phone.

Brother Mark. He told me he'd just come out of his chrysalis. :)

Micah wants to see the ocean, so I think we'll spend Thursday at the beach. Maybe we'll go to Galveston. Of course, we'll have Glenn in tow for lots of good visiting and sightseeing. In the evening we'll try to get in a visit with some of the cousins and my Aunt Dixie at Glenn's house. Haven't seen them in a hundred years, either!

Friday we'll head back up to Ft. Worth where we'll catch up with my two boys,  Jordan and Josh, and their respective sweethearts. Josh and Jess are flying in from Kentucky and I think my step-son, Bob, will be there from Colorado. We'll see if his wife, Tiffany, can make it. I think that's all of our family that can make it. Brooke has family coming from Oregon.

Saturday night there will be a family BBQ and time for everyone to visit and get acquainted with Brooke's family. Sunday morning will be the rehearsal, and the wedding will be at 4 in the afternoon.

The happy couple-Brooke and Jordan. I'm SO EXCITED for them! Jordan was raised a country boy, but boy do they love Fort Worth!

We fly back to Minneapolis on Monday morning, then we will spend yet another night there. On Tuesday morning we'll hop across the border into Wisconsin where Sully has an appointment with a pediatric dentist. We suspect he is "tongue-tied" and will need a quick surgery to snip the little membrane under his tongue. This may be why he's been losing weight. He can't nurse properly and get enough milk. Anyway, we'll find out if that's the case. After that, we'll drive home! Whew!

Prayers for safe travel are much appreciated! I'll see you when we get back! :)
Shalom to all!

A new lease on life!

Well, I'll get to the "new lease on life" part in a minute. First of all, I'm enjoying a day of reading, watching videos and baking cookies.

Reading: mostly Facebook and articles linked from there.

I've also been doing a little proofreading over at Distributed Proofreaders, which is dedicated to "Preserving history one page at a time." If you love old books you might consider being a volunteer proofreader!

Baking cookies: Peanut butter. Betty Crocker mix. That's complicated enough for a day off. ;)

MK and I have been enjoying this video today. I think this idea is pretty cool! You can find some actual "slow" videos on YouTube.

The swamp willows next door (at our old place) are getting their new foliage and it's a sunny, windy day. My favorite kind!

Earlier I made an appointment for an oil change. That's one item ticked off the list. That will be on Thursday. My car's been telling me I needed one for the last 600 miles! Now maybe it will be quiet! (I checked with my Ford guy earlier and he said it was safe to ignore that warning since my car wasn't due yet.)

Just bought this book for my Kindle. I loved Bill Powers' book New Slow City, and this should be good!

The "new lease on life" moment has to do with finding out about my widow's benefits. (It's weird some of the personal info we share on our blogs, but I think this is encouraging and I don't care who knows!) I've been wondering for quite some time just how widow's benefits work and when I should apply, etc. I had been told to go in 6 weeks before my 60th birthday, which is about 1-1/2 years from now. The nice lady at the SS office took all my info and gave me an estimate of my benefits at age 60 and age 66 (full retirement age). The benefits at 60 are enough that I could semi-retire, find a little job that I enjoy, and that won't exhaust me, and be comfortable. Working at my present job until age 66 isn't an option and there are no other jobs around here that I could do and afford to pay bills. I'm allowed to earn quite a bit on top of the benefits, so I look forward to being able to give more to causes I support. Anyway, it was encouraging to know what's down the road. I'm praising God for His provision!

Now I'm going to spend some time reading MK's book. The suspense is building!

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Against-Dark-M-K-Christiansen-ebook/dp/B007CL9E1G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1430854700&sr=8-1&keywords=three+against+the+dark

And now I will take my brother Mark's advice. He told me to make the world a better place on my day off. That sounded like a lot of work! But, no. He explained that making the world a better place meant drinking a glass of iced tea on the front porch. Enlightened brother! :)

A good day to all! Shalom, friends and family.

Recovery and discovery...

Came down with a cold Thursday night. Sore throat and achy all over. I felt a little better yesterday, but I'm glad to have the weekend to recover. Still headachy and my throat is the slightest bit sore. I'm taking it easy, drinking lots of tea and watching, of all things, videos about Cornish mines! These are beautiful old ruins and I find them fascinating. And I now know what an engine house is and what it was used for. Here, have a look.
http://www.wildlifeincornwall.com/cornish-engine-houses/pascoes-shaft/
The link above will take you to the website where there are multiple videos to watch. Here's one to begin with. I feel like I've been on a trip to Cornwall. Beautiful!


Otherwise, I'm trying to do some house cleaning and planning for my meeting with the realtors on Monday. Yes, my house may not draw any interested buyers, but on the other hand, it may! There are so many things to plan. Lists! Make lists! :) 

But, with all of this, I am trying to rest. Here's to another cup of tea and more videos. Maybe something uplifting and entertaining?

Micah and Adam are making a journey to Fargo today (90 miles) with the three little ones. Micah posted on Facebook that Hazel was sitting in the back seat with a pouty face and she said, "I'm not happy. I'm sad." Micah asked, "Why are you sad?", to which Hazel responded, "I want Grandma!" Ha ha! This tells me that Hazel was getting impatient with all that car travel and knew that if only she could get to Grandma there would be treats and she could play with forbidden toys stored on the high shelf. Mwahaha.

You may not have noticed, but my blogging was just interrupted by a phone call from my baby brother, Mark. His calls are usually fairly short and just about daily happenings. I enjoy it because it makes me feel like we live just down the block from each other, instead of 1,000 miles apart. He's fun to talk to. We're just getting to know each other after many years of not being in touch.

We're having beautiful weather, though we could sure use some rain. I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend full of God's shalom. :)

ATC's and family callers...

What a nice evening it's been. I spent a few minutes visiting with my little brother, Mark, from Texas. Just small talk and a few chuckles. As soon as we hung up my other phone rang and it was son Josh. He wanted to give me a heads up that they may be moving back to the area because his wife, Jess, plans to go back to school for her RN or LPN degree and the best school for her would be about 1-1/2 hours from here. We would be so excited to have them so near! (They live in Kentucky right now.)

Other than family news I've worked on tax stuff a bit (just gathering forms), sorted and planned some photo album pages, worked on an ATC, and did a little computerizing. Here's the first of four ATC's I'm doing for a Bible Verse swap. It's the second one I've done with this verse. Deja vu!

 

Time for a cup of tea and maybe I'll do some knitting and watch something on TV. God bless you all and shalom!