From the Bottom of My Heart…
I thank each and every one of you for your prayers for my Mama. She had her first appointment regarding her back and she doesn’t have to have surgery! She can’t lift anything, including my Grandmother anymore but she’s not going to have to have surgery at this point. This is such a blessing and an answer to our prayers.
Now, she just has to get through the heart cath later around the middle of this month. Please, please keep her in your prayers. There’s so much power in prayer and my strong Christian friends and family mean the world to me.
Thank you, again, from the bottom of my heart. ((((hugs)))))
xoxoxox,
Rhonda
Thank You + Garden Beginnings
Thank you all so very much for the wonderfully kind comments and private emails. My heart is touched by your concern and your prayers for my mother. I’ve shed many a tear by your words – overwhelmingly happy tears. She’s doing ok so far and really just waiting for her appointments. In the meantime, she has a positive outlook and is in really good spirits. Her first visit regarding her back is coming up soon. I’ll keep you posted and thank you so much my dear and wonderful friends.
Before all of the issues with Mama’s health came to be, Charles and I had been working diligently on our very first garden. Last weekend, he tilled the area (and ended up with some horrible blisters!) and I had taken some pictures of the before and after.
Here’s the area in our back yard before:
and after:
I’m not sure if this looks large to you or not but this garden has 19 rows! Already planted in it are onions, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, and pole beans (green beans). Still to be planted are cucumbers, corn, peanuts, peas, tomatoes and okra. WHEW!
Plus we have this little second garden:
Inside this are strawberries and I think I’ll also have some herbs there. It’s just off our patio so things would be easy to harvest from there.
We can hardly wait not only to grow things but to share them with our neighbors, friends and family. I can’t wait until I want a salad and I just go to the back yard to make one!
Prayer Request
My dear friends and family who read my blog:
Please, please pray for my Mama. For over 20 years she’s had some very serious health troubles. She had a follow up visit to her doctor today and has learned that she will have to have two different visits to specialists. One is regarding her back. She has a vertebrae that is dangerously close to entering her spinal cord. If this happens, she will become paralyzed.
The other is her heart. She’s had two heart attacks in the past. There’s plaque buildup in her arteries and she must undergo a heart cath. Pretty routine usually, except for the fact that she was born with small arteries. Her regular Cardiologist has done this before to her but is sending her to a larger city to a specialist because he fears they may collapse. This specialist is supposed to be someone who can take care of her if they do collapse.
These are two very serious, frighteningly scary procedures she’s facing next month.
Please keep her in your prayers. I’m so thankful to have all of you out there to help me with this. I am truly worried. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Uncle Harold
So many friends and family read my little blog that I really just talk about almost anything that’s going on in my life. While I try to keep my posts mostly positive, I feel it’s only fitting to tell you about things when times are hard, too.
My Uncle Harold passed away last Sunday, December 21st. Because of Christmas and his family living all over the US, the funeral wasn’t held until yesterday. He was 83 years old.
Daddy is one of 11 children. My grandparents, H.E. and Lucille, had 11 children. Can you imagine? WOW! My paternal aunts and uncles (in chronological order) are Harold, Juanita, John, Jo, Allene, Gerald, Larry, Bobby, Billy, Charles and Ronald (Ronald’s my daddy, thus my name). My Granddaddy passed away in 1979 and my Grandmother passed away in 2004 (she was 96 years old). My Aunt Jo passed away in 2005. Now, my Uncle Harold in 2008.
My family is huge and I’m so thankful for that. Almost all of them live within a few miles of each other here in Tennessee. I am so very proud of my family and each time we lose someone, it really breaks my heart. Each of these people are such wonderful, strong, compassionate people and I am so very proud to be a part of it.
With lots of love and many blessings to my family during this difficult time,
Rhonda
The Bad News + Good News (Really Good News!)
Currently I am working with my cottage industry full time. It’s a long story as to how that came to be, and I do still have a little bit of outside work but on a very part-time basis. Some of the changes occurred without warning (like so many people have experienced this year) and some of the changes I have chosen.
Since I hadn’t posted in a few days, I thought I should get on here and let you all know what is going on in my life. Things were upside down for a bit but now I’m definitely on the upswing. Through prayer, I know that everything is going to be just fine.
At any rate, I am feeling more creative than ever! I’ll be adding new lines of goods to my etsy shop that I’m so very excited about. Of course, they will make their debut right here! I hope you are excited – I know I am!
And, here’s a little sneak peek of the early stages of something I’m working on:
Happy Sunday!
Thankful and Prayerful Thanksgiving
I cannot believe that Thanksgiving is Thursday. There’s so much to be thankful for and so many things to be so prayerful about. Through this year, I have had quite a few rough patches and have had quite alot of good things happen, too. Lately, I have been reflecting alot so I thought it would be a perfect time to sit down and write all of the prayerful things and thankful things I have on my heart at this particular time.
I’m thankful for:
- My discovery of etsy
- The wonderful friends I have – online and not online
- Opening my shop on etsy
- Kind words said by others
- Friendships that are tried and true
- My wonderful, thoughtful husband
- My parents – they are the best Mama and Daddy that a girl could ever dream of having
- My brother – he’s always there when times are tough and can always make me laugh
- My extended family who I know are just a phone call away
- My faith, which gets me through so many hard times and helps me to see clearly
- Our house. While it’s slowly getting renovated to our vision, it’s our safe haven. Our little piece of comfort. Our home.
- That I was born into this wonderful country.
- Being able to do something that I love and share it with others.
Things that I am prayerful for:
- Our wonderful country and all the issues we face.
- Making my etsy shop my full time job.
- The economy.
- The President and his family.
- People who have wronged me.
- Soldiers and their families.
- Sick and hurting people, known and unknown.
- Loss.
- Peace.
- Hope.
- Love.
My Day Today…
Sometimes someone you THINK is a friend really ends up not being a friend at all. And, it breaks your heart.
Very Disappointing News
First thing this morning, I read some very disturbing news. My very favorite magazine – the one I look forward to getting every month with so much anticipation, the one who puts out special publications available only on the newstand that I anxiously go from store to store to find, the one I get my very best ideas from, and the one that inspires our home – is coming to an end. Not only this, but even the website (www.cottageliving.com) will be shutting down. There are so many wonderful things about that site. You can talk to others who own cottages and get wonderful decorating tips and ideas, as well as view a library of photos of cottages. So inspiring and such a happy place to be.
This is very sad to me. The November/December issue out right now is the last one according to the horrible news I read.
Farewell my sweet Cottage Living magazine. I am probably silly to think that maybe it won’t happen. Maybe these news stories are incorrect. Just maybe…
**sniff**
Rememberance
I wanted to take a moment to remember all of those who lost their lives during the attack on our nation on September 11, 2001 which is unbelievably 7 years ago. It seems like it was just yesterday.
My heart hurts to think about it. My prayers are with those families who lost a loved one. My prayers are with those who deal with the stress of the aftermath and the trauma they must have endured. My prayers are with our wonderful United States of America.
May God Bless Us All…
Sad Update On Our Kitty
Anyway, for any of you who might have read my entry on Sunday and helped us pray for her, I thank you for listening to my thoughts and for caring.
Thought you might like to see a picture of her. This was taken a few months ago when she was feeling great and high on catnip! She’s lying on our floor exhausted staring at her catnip ball. We had soooooo much fun with catnip and that little kitty cat!My Heavy Heart Therapy
Tonight I write this wish such a heavy heart. It seems as though my husband and I are about to lose our sweet little angel kitty cat. She’s been with us as long as he and I have been together and she was with him long before that. She’s 19 years old, which is a LONG life for a cat, I know. Back around Thanksgiving, she showed the first sign of trouble with some neurological problems and walking in circles. A visit to the vet took care of that and she was better until January. January found her retinas becoming detached and she became completely blind. Then, she started experiencing cycles of rapid breathing. Another visit to the vet and some near death spells, we thought she was getting better. Until yesterday afternoon. Since that time she has been in a cycle of walking into things and she has now, done the worst…quit eating and drinking. Our little girl isn’t herself and is just lying down kicking her feet now. So, from everything we’ve read, we have to have her put to sleep because without eating and drinking, she will be in tremendous pain. Supposedly, it is the kindest thing we can do for her. Tears fill my eyes as I try to type this all out. My head feels like it weighs a ton. We were up almost all night last night with her. So, basically, we have had little sleep and we’ve cried off and on (mostly on). Though we know it’s the end of her life here with us, we hurt for her and for our loss.
I’ll tell you a little bit about her….
Her name is China and she’s part Blue Himalayan and part Siamese. She is a BEAUTIFUL GORGEOUS long haired cat with the sweetest disposition you have ever seen in a cat. Anytime since I’ve known her, she’s always been there for me. When I’ve been sick with the flu or some other illness, she sensed it and would get on the bed with me and snuggle up close to me. That little girl always made me feel better because she cared so much. Anytime I have been sad, she comforts me. When I come home, she’s at the door waiting. If I’m sitting somewhere, she wants to be what we call our “lap kitty”.
Now, I write this with her lying on her side consistently moving her little paws back and forth in a repetitive motion like she’s walking or swimming. I cannot stand to think that this time tomorrow night, she won’t be here. It’s absolutely breaking my heart.
Maybe it’s worse because we don’t have children. It’s just always been the three of us. Anyway, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve broken down during this post and I really don’t know whether or not it helped me to write about it. At any rate, thanks for listening and I’m sorry to write such a depressing and painful post.
