TREE CUTTING DAY AND BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING

Another early start to another busy day. G-son was here at 7:30 this morning as both mom and dad are working today.
We are having some trees took down and the tree cutters arrived shortly after. I did chores while they got set up and then g-son of course was not about to stay inside with all this excitement outside.
Notice he's the 4th man here as the plans develop ,of course it helps when he knows our associate pastor who is the one with his hand up.

Pastor C has been at our place several times taking trees down and it is always so nice to have someone who I totally trust doing this job.

I have nothing but awe that these guys climb so high up these trees.

With my fear of heights it almost makes me sick just seeing them up so high.

They do their jobs with such ease.

And yes they are in my chicken lot and the limbs they need to cut are across my fence.

Impressively they got the 5 large limbs that were pulling this tree toward our house all cut off and down without any damage to the fence. ( or the chickens!! )
By the way the man on the ground is pastor C's younger brother and they work together well.

This is g-son's best impression of climbing out on the limbs.

G-son's main job was to keep Annie away from the falling limbs and it looks like they both were enjoying each other.

He also got in some jeep riding on this beautiful warm morning.

All the trees and limbs were cut and on the ground by lunch time . After they were gone and daughter came in from her black Friday shopping we all headed back out to Lowes to get my washer and dryer. I got a super deal, getting the $999 each machines for $564 each !! We also went to Home Depot for daughter a storm door and then to Tractor Supply for Hubbie an air compressor that was on sale. Daughter this morning got me a storage cabinet and a new computer which I will try to get her help me hook up on Sunday maybe. We all got all the black Friday bargains we had picked out so it was a successful shopping day.
D-in-love picked up g-son and took him to the movies.
Daughter went home to bake and hubbie and I headed up to work at church.
We got home in time to clean up enough brush to open up our circular drive and get the phone line hooked back up on the side of the house before it got too dark to see.
We had left overs for supper and my cousin Mike came by and had supper with us. I'm glad to have some help cleaning up the left overs.
#1 son brought g-son back over here as he wanted to spend the night with us so he could go to the Christmas open house at market tomorrow.
Daughter brought her baked goods by on her way to her dog sitting job.
While hubbie and g-son watched TV I iced 6 caramel ,2 chocolate and 2 coconut cakes.
I have several orders for tomorrow so hopefully we'll have another good day.
It is almost midnight I'm the only one still up as usual.
Yawn !!! I'm tired and ready for a hot bath and bed for sure.
Thankful tonight for the blessings I receive and for the safety of all the young men this morning during their tree climbing.
Good Night and God Bless.

THANKFUL ON THIS THANKSGIVING DAY 2011

Please click on this poem, it expresses my feelings perfectly on this beautiful 68 degree sunny Thanksgiving day 2011.
Hope all my blog friends have had a very happy Thanksgiving also.
Good Night and God Bless.

COMMUNITY THANKSGIVING MEAL DAY

I was surprised this morning when I checked the rain gauge to only find about 6/10 of an inch. I guess the whipping wind made the rain sound alot worse than it really was last night.
After chores and breakfast I took a short walk, it wasn't very good walking weather with the wind still gusting hard enough to take my breath away at times. The temperature was mid 40's but it felt much cooler.The sun was desperately trying to make an appearance through the clouds as they blew across the sky in the hard wind.

The water in the creek was murky and higher than usual telling me it must have rained more upstream than it did here.

When I first saw these birds I thought they were the Starlings that usually pass through here this time of year.But as I got closer and heard their cawing I realized these were Crows. I watched them challenge the wind as they swooped and floated as if having a grand time.
And just as I headed back to the house the blue skies were winning and the clouds were pushed away just that quickly.I decided to clean down stairs today because we are probably going to need a fire in the wood stove down there tonight and I have things all around it that might catch on fire if a spark escaped.
I finished that room and moved on out to the big room which I almost got done before chore time.
Hubbie and I had fresh broccoli from our winter garden tonight,yummy.
Tonight is our church Thanksgiving meal for the community and after we ate we headed up there to help.
About 125 folks showed up to enjoy the free Thanksgiving meal and all had a good time.
We all cleaned up and we got home around 8:15.
I lucked out and traded my raw thawing turkey with the neighbor who smoked 18 turkeys for the dinner so now my turkey is cooked for tomorrow all I have to do is warm it up,thanks David !!!
I baked cakes tonight,I have no idea what our Christmas celebration will be like Saturday so I made 44 more layers for cakes along with pound cakes. I still have an order of blackberry wine cakes to bake in the morning as it is 12:30 now and I just turned off the last oven.
I made my blueberry jello so I can prepare my mother's old recipe for Thanksgiving dessert tomorrow.

Thankful tonight for all the wonderful blessings I have received from my precious Lord and for His unselfish love.
Good Night , God Bless and Happy Thanksgiving.

BUSY TUESDAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING MARKET DAY

Up early to begin what I hope will be a busy day. It is still unseasonably warm this morning with the temperature in the mid 50's. We got about 1/4 inch of rain during that little spring storm we had yesterday.
When I got to market I was concerned because the parking lot was empty and no one was even shopping inside.
I got set up and got all my orders carried in before I was bombarded with customers. At one point I looked up and there was a line all the way across the isle,whew!!!
I had several burst like that of customers all day and other times it was totally dead in the entire market.
I sold very good,but didn't sell out and had 1 customer postpone picking up her order until Saturday and had a large order from a very familiar customer not get picked up.
I hope nothings wrong in her family and she just got busy and forgot,I'm sure I will hear from her before Thanksgiving Day.
I hurried home from market to meet with a security system estimator for our house and daughters. However when he gave the estimate on ours we didn't bother going to daughters. He did give me an idea that will do what we want to do without spending $1000 !!
I got the van unpacked and things put away then put together a new shelf I bought yesterday. I am sweating with the door open, this is not good to be this hot,70, and humid at this time of the year.
I did evening chores and hubby and I had a salad supper before we headed back to town to do my shopping for Saturday baking plus get some things for my Thanksgiving dinner.
I don't like driving at night and especially in the rain and tonight was an excellent example of why I shouldn't be doing that. As we were coming home it started raining and as I rounded a curve just across the bridge from our house I dropped off the road and almost hit a huge rock bank. Whew, thank you Jesus I was able to avoid a collision and made it safely home.
I just played lazy tonight and snuggled on the couch with my 4-legged kids and listened to the rain outside.
At times tonight the rain has been very hard and tornado warnings are issued for areas just east of us. The wind has been gusting along with the hard rain to make for a really nasty night.Thankfully it is a narrow band of storms and is moving pretty fast.
Tomorrow I will be fusing at myself for not doing some baking tonight but oh well it'll get done !!!
Thanking God for a very blessed day and for His undying love.
Good Night and God Bless.

LOTS OF CAKE ORDERS FOR TOMORROW

G-son arrived early and with Hubbie working today because his shop is closing down Friday it was just him and me today. On the way to his school we had to turn around and take another road because of an accident on the road we usually travel. I walked him in because we were a couple minutes late and he went in telling his teachers all about the accident. He is getting so big !!
I came home and did chores before icing 6 caramel cakes. I got my boots out to go walking and remembered and Avon order I needed to pack up so I could drop it by the post office on my way to pick up g-son. By the time I got it ready to ship it was too late for a walk this morning.
I picked up g-son and we stopped by Sam's Club to do some shopping and have lunch.
We got home and unloaded as the clouds began to boil just like when we get summer storms. It feels like summer actually with the 70 degree temperature this afternoon after a low in the mid 50's this morning.
I was going to work downstairs but when I got just one shelf cleaned off ,g-son came down and asked if we could go outside and swing.
This is one of those times I've talked about before when I just take time to enjoy g-son while the dust waits !!Although our time outside was cut short by a sudden clap of thunder and a rain shower we had a few minutes of swing time.

With the rain and wind we spent the rest of the afternoon inside playing.
After he left with his mom I went back downstairs to work. I am changing my laundry room around while I don't have a washer and dryer in there.
I spent some time researching brands last night and have decided to go with the Samsung pair Lowes has on sale unless something else is just at a too good to pass up price !!
When hubbie came in from work we did evening chores early so he could go help daughter pick up 30 Thanksgiving baskets full of dinner fixins for the needy kids at the school she works at. One of the small local churches fixes these baskets and then donates 30 turkeys to go with them tomorrow when the parents come pick up their students they take home a complete ready to cook Thanksgiving meal. They took my van and her jeep so they would only have to make one trip.
I had to stay home and ice cakes to fill my orders tomorrow. I have 18 orders and daughter has 9 so she will be busy tonight also when she gets home.
It is a good thing I started when I did because I finished at almost midnight,whew!
Thanking God tonight for the strength He gives me each day .
Good Night and God Bless.

BUSY SUNDAY

With all my operation Christmas child boxes in hand this morning I made it to church on time. A good friend helped me get all 7 boxes into the church without dropping them in the parking lot.
There were 5 people Baptized this morning,glory be to God.
I still can't shake this uneasy feeling about what is going on in our church so it has taken some of the sweetness out of Sunday morning for me. I'm still praying for God to help me resolve these feelings. It doesn't help when I'm bombarded with questions from my church family about what is going on and why I'm giving up my job there. Then they voice their disgust with what is going on,that just seems to add fuel to these burning misgivings I have in my heart.
After church we had #1 son,d-in-love, g-son and daughter for lunch, #2 son was taking his only day off to play some golf with a friend in S.C.
After lunch d-in-love left for a photo shoot and the rest of us moved my washer and dryer over to daughter's house. Which should have been a simple thing as we stopped by Lowes on the way to pick up some hoses for the washer. But when we got to her house the dryer plug was different so she had to make a trip back to Lowes for another plug, then #1 son wired it wrong and had to redo it.
We finally made it home around 7:00, all the animals were surely wondering if we had forgotten them I'm sure.
After getting the chores done by flashlight we had a snack supper.
Then I had to bake cakes on this one Sunday of the year that it's necessary in order to get all the orders iced and ready for Tuesday. It just reminds me why I don't go to market on Tuesdays every week.
As I watched the news tonight and they talked about yesterday's Christmas parade in downtown Asheville I noticed that Santa has changed from the traditional red suit to a more elegant looking robe ????
And this next picture,well someone is going to have to explain to me what in the world this guy is doing in a Christmas parade.I can't really tell if he has on the santa hat or if the guy behind him has it on, either way this is scary !!! I'm just saying !!!!!!!

Each day I become more thankful that we have a loving Lord who is watching over His children, carrying us when the road gets to tough for us to walk along beside Him, and guiding us back into the light when we find ourselves straying into the dark corners of this world.
Good Night and God Bless.

FAMILY THANKSGIVING DINNER

A little colder this morning than yesterday, we are slowly going to start warming back up now to get back above normal for a while. Pretty soon normal is going to be a forgotten thing because we won't remember what it's like to be normal.
Market was extremely slow for the Saturday before Thanksgiving today. Everyone was scratching their heads because there were very few customers. Daughter helped most of the day and we were thankful for what we did sell and the several more orders we got for Tuesday.
This was the day of the yearly toy run. Hundreds of motorcycle riders get together to deliver toys to the Henderson County courthouse steps to be given to the needy children of the county.The streets are blocked as they ride into town and don't get seperated by the red lights.

This is different !!!!! I hope they didn't leave that pig on the courthouse steps !!

That's a lot of toys to brighten Christmas morning for a lot of kids. This is a great charity event for the children of our county,thanks to all who participated.

I came straight home after market to get the food ready to take over to our family Thanksgiving tonight. I had the 7-layer salad I made last night and I added deviled eggs, sundried tomato pesto flavored couscous, a wine cake for dessert and a couple drinks.There was plenty of good food as usual. This year we had the traditional turkey and ham with all the fixins plus some !!! Yumyum !!There was good family fellowship,fun and even a wrestling match. (that's g-son on top!)
We always have this get together in sis-in-law's niece's restaurant because there is so much more room.

This is the newest addition to the family finishing his Thanksgiving meal, my great nephew baby E.

These oreo turkeys were made by one of the younger mothers and were a big hit with the kids.
Hubbie and I made #2 son a plate and dropped it by his house on our way,he had just gotten home from work and didn't make it to the dinner.
We got home around 8:00 and crashed to watch TV.
As I blog I just remembered I need to finish my operation Christmas child boxes to take to church tomorrow morning so I'll sign off now and do my charity event for today !!
Thankful to God for all His blessings today and for a wonderful family.
Good Night and God Bless.