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!