Richard is still unwell and spent the day resting. If he hasn't improved by morning, he has agreed to see a doctor. I pray he is back to good health soon; I hate to see him suffer.

As for me, I raked leaves today. We have a huge live oak tree in our front yard and across the street, our good neighbors have one, too. I love these trees, but they put a whole lot of leaves on the ground. I raked our yard and three of our neighbors' yards as well as the street, and now I have some well earned blisters. Altogether, I raked for about four hours. The activity was good for me.

Some time back, Athena and Brian told us about a movie favorite of theirs, "Blade Runner." It was on AMC tonight and I watched it. As is the norm for me, I couldn't keep track of the story line. I did enjoy the mood and the 40's feel of the film which is actually set in a future time. The musical score was also intriguing, especially suited to the setting.

The little TV here in the office is on, tuned to a football game Richard had been watching as he played Pogo games earlier. One of the players has been injured and the obvious pain distorts his face. I am not a fan of any sport -- the games just don't interest me-- but I really dislike football, boxing, wrestling and hockey. The violence bothers me and I don't want to watch. I don't condemn those who enjoy these sports. It's certainly not my place to make such a judgment, but I do find it incredible that they are so popular.

Our storage rooms are almost complete. Only some finish work remains to be done and the addition of two shelves. We will wait until Richard is well before setting it up and moving things into it. I am extremely pleased at the prospect of getting things organized and safely stored. It will save money, too... no more storage unit rent to pay!

First of all, Happy New Year! See my New Year page with info and links, even to free graphics. I know, it's a bit late, but you might enjoy them anyway.

God has granted us with another year of life... By His grace, we have survived 2006! I had great New Year's resolutions for 2006. I just reread them at http://ionanet.com/blog/archives/2005_12_01_archive.htm

I guess I'll just stick with them and add the following...

1. I will make a real effort to blog each day, even if it's only one sentence. Also, I will be more candid in my blog/journal.

2. I will join a health club (Well Care, my health insurance, pays for it!) and work out regularly.

3. I will use my planner and other strategies like Morning List, Housework List, Red and Blue stickers, etc.

4. I will go back to planning menus and real cooking.

I could go on but want to keep it simple and real, something I can truly commit to.

Richard is working tonight but has the next two days off. He needs some rest and recuperation time, but he wants to unload the rented storage unit and move the stuff to our new storage rooms. The carpenters are almost finished. The shelves they put in are a work of art... heavy duty but crafted like I've never seen before. I am so impressed, and really blessed.

I attended church where Claude the carpenter goes and I was quite blessed there. They meet in a school and are hoping to put up a building right next door to where we live! They already own the land and are saving for the building. Well, I just wonder if God might have had a plan for us when he brought us so close to this upcoming church building. It'll be exciting to see what He does with that.

Our storage "shed" is almost finished. All walls are up and really all that's left to do is the siding and the door. They are going to add wide shelves to one wall and we'll decide later about storage options for the other walls. It's nice that it looks like part of the house, not a shed, and I like it that there are two real rooms to it. Lots of wall space.

This new storage area will free up cupboard space in the kitchen since we are going to put a tall pantry in the storage addition for canned goods and hurricane supplies. The closets will lose their well-stuffed look as much clutter will be given away, thrown away or packed away in plastic containers and stored neatly in our "shed." Amazing how the thought of "shedding the clutter" lightens my spirits.

The same could be said of our lives... our thought lives as well as our active lives. We can get so full of clutter that the real treasures get buried. Give pause for a little thought on that before reading further....... Now, along with me, ask the Lord to show you the clutter and help you decide if it needs dumped or simply cleaned up and neatly stored. Hmmmm Most of mine ought to be trashed.

On another note, Richard works all night tonight and tomorrow night. His cold is better but he still sounds bad. If I got on a bus and the driver sounded like that, I'd turn around and get right back off! God has shielded me (the person who catches every bug that comes along) and I am still fine.

Tomorrow we go to the church the carpenter told us about. It meets in a school nearby and we are excited about seeing if God chooses it for our new church home. We've been vagabonds long enough, traveling from church to church. But we will wait on the Lord until we hear His clear leading. There is a reason He has had us at each church we've been to since coming to Florida.

My Honey is sick. He rarely catches even a small cold but now has a real humdinger. I continue to pray for him and for the people who ride his bus! He and I have different views about sick people working, especially in public. I pray for quick healing for Richard, for his sake as well as those he might infect. So far, I am fine... God is good!

Today, a man came by to talk with us about an addition we want to have done to our storage room. He and his carpenters began work on the enlargement right away. They claim it will be finished by Monday. It will enable us to get rid of closet crowding and terminal clutter.

Better than the extra room is the fact that this man saw my open Bible on the lunch counter which led to talk of Jesus and soon I asked where my new friend worshipped. We will attend there Sunday. I just love God's economy! We've continued to pray for to lead us to the local church family where He wants us to be, and this may be it... we'll be waiting for His lead.

For now, I'll get some rest and try to do my part to build up my defenses against the cold bugs. After all, God expects me to do my part.

It has been a VERY long time since I posted anything. That's not good for a blog or journal... And this is supposed to be both. I seem to go through these dry spells every now and then. The tide of life and duties of the day well up and wash me out into a sea of mental fatigue. Once in that state, I feel incapable of writing anything humankind would want to read. I may have a solution, see the last paragraph.

This time of silence was brought when I bit off more than I could chew, to whit the "Christmas Project" that consumed me for weeks, nay months. I was working on compiling a portion of our family history and gathering genealogy information then combing the family history with a printout of each person's direct line as far back as I have it traced (1500's). These sheets, printed on both sides, I then punched and bound (with plastic "Punch & Bind binders) into a personalized book for each of my children and adult grandchildren.

Needless to say, the project, which had seemed simple in the planning stage, proved to be monumental complex in its execution. My printer doesn't approve of two-sided printing and I wasted much ink and endless sheets of 24-pound acid free paper trying to force the issue. Since each book was personalized and had ancestors listed and linked to the recipient, I could not have copies made commercially.

I decided to also do books for my nieces and nephew and any grown children they have, and my brother and some cousins... You already see my problem with a lot of things. I never know when or where to stop. For Christmas dinner, we had turkey and ham because I couldn't decide which to get. Same thing with potatoes and sweet potatoes, pies, cakes, baklava... we had it all. And we still have a bunch of it!

Today I have been trying to make a doctor's appointment. I have been trying to find a local neurologist who will treat out of state Workmen's Comp patients but to no avail. Today was telephone tag with the lawyer and doctor and I still have no appointment. I moved here in June! I flew to California for care at first, but now even my California neurologist is unavailable since he has retired and closed his practice. I get so frustrated with this... but then I recall that God is in control and all He asks is I trust Him. He has been so tolerant with me because quite frankly, I feel like throwing a tantrum!

Okay, I promised a possible solution for long blog/journal dry spells. On days I feel too swamped to write, I'll jot a short note, even if it's just one sentence.

I HATE WHITE CARPET! Who would ever put white carpet in a house? We have it because it was put in by the previous owner so came with the house. We have two bulldogs and they are droolers, so our carpet gets dirty quickly. I was actually ashamed of how awful the dining room carpet looked. Believe me, this carpet looked bad. I was unsure it would come even close to clean, but when I shampooed it the other day, it looked almost new.

We bought a very nice area rug today and the dining room looks great! The rug will help keep our freshly cleaned carpet from getting grimy so fast, and the colors perfectly match the drapes I hung a month or so ago. I also dressed the table with contrasting formal table cloths and... Finally! The kitchen and dining room are clean and mostly organized! The lunch bar is cleared off and ready to use for dining rather than computing.

But back to the white carpet blues... We have a blue area rug in the living room and it doesn't even look a little bit soiled yet the white carpet all around it looks grey. That is the next room I'm "deep" cleaning... carpet, upholstery, everything. But it will have to wait a bit because I need to get our Christmas letter out and finish a special gift project first. At least now I have a clean office where I can focus on my work a bit better.

It has been a wonderful day and I feel like I've accomplished much even though many of my "to do" items are not checked off. Funny how a finished room can make me feel like I really did something, even if it took all day. Indeed, it has taken me six months to put it all together.

I am bonding with this house and it's beginning to feel more like home. God has blessed us so much!

I didn't go to the ladies monthly breakfast outing this morning. I had another engagement... by invitation only. I had reservations to see a special performance of Finding Nemo - The Musical open only to Walt Disney World annual passholders. Not even Richard could go even though his cast member ID card gets him into almost anything Disney.

The show was delightful with dancing and singing delivered while performers were suspended (by wires) 15 or so feet in the air. The stage effects were ingenious and the performances a joy. The theater was fairly full but there was no waiting and I certainly didn't feel as if I were in a crowd. Each one there was made to feel special as they were escorted in. But not everyone was invited...

You had to be a passholder. You had to have a reservation with your name on it. It was a "By Invitation Only" event, but to participate, you had to confirm your reservation.

I have reservations at an even more important event, the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. That is a promised but greatly misunderstood heavenly celebration, a party beyond our imagination. Check it out here: http://jerrismunchies.com/wed.htm

A few days ago, my laptop fell out of favor with the wireless waves connecting it to the wide, wide world of the web. The Mac was still online via ethernet, but I wasn't happy with that so began trying various fixes that had worked in the past.

In the midst of all that, we were in the process of creating an actual office out of the junk room that housed all my nerdy notions and the varied media wherein live the details of our lives, like checkbook balances and birth certificates.

I had gutted the room and all its contents were in piles all over the house.

It is in that atmosphere that I got on my Mac to tinker with my account details on the service provider's website. I enjoyed a bright but brief period of success and, when all was said and done, and I hit the "Apply" button, I lost it all. I then had no wireless connection, no ethernet connection and not even a TV signal...

Oops!

My hubby who thinks of the internet as some sort of giant crapshoot said, "Just leave it alone for a while and maybe it'll come back on its own."

Yeah, right!

Then he had a better idea. "Let's pray about it, then go on and finish the office before you panic."

So, we prayed, I more fervently than he. I forced myself not to fret over it as we bought and built a desk and two lateral files. We even got two office chairs and an area rug. Then we set up the computers, printers, speakers and other add-ons. The office looks great!

Of course the piles are still all over the house, but we've made progress, AND when we fired up the computers, we had internet! So, we tried the TV. Yup, cable is back on, too. God is good! NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!!

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We've lived here about five months now and I still can't seem to organize the place and finish unpacking. I've had enough of that! An end to clutter and confusion, I say!

So today we went shopping for furniture solutions. We wanted an office wall rack or something to house printers, scanners, art printer (big), computer books, in and out baskets, and other office/techie space hogs.

We came home with a CD rack... a small CD rack.

Oh well.

I think I'll gut the place and start over. I can't find anything in there, anyway. Actually, most of the house is good, but the office is undeniably chaotic. I am at the kitchen counter with the laptop. I can't write in the office now. Too much of too much in there.

God has been gracious to provide us with some unexpected money and we are going to "fix" that office with it. Soon, I hope! I have some important work to do in there before Christmas.

Okay, this was deep. I, the woman who hates to shop, spent all day not finding what I want, but God blessed the day. Here's one lesson...

We were stopped at a light and noticed a well dressed woman on a bicycle loaded down with plastic shopping bags and a holding a large white piece of rolled felt. Riding one-handed and not looking at all, she turned into traffic and ran into a fairly new pickup leaving a nasty scrape all down the side. In doing so, she dropped much of her stuff. Now she's in the middle of a busy three-lane thoroughfare picking up her things, obviously unhurt.

The driver of the pickup is amazed. He first asks if she's alright and she nods, then he surveys the damage to his truck. The cyclist is unconcerned, riding out into traffic again with no hesitation at all. The pickup man stared, mouth agape, then shook his head and with a tolerent smile got in his truck and looked carefully before pulling out into traffic.

That man was wronged but didn't make a big deal of it. The woman was either completely uncaring or unable to grasp the situation. My guess is she had no idea of her own danger or her danger to others.

A lot of people are that way. Sometimes I am one of them. It's my mouth that is the problem, not a bicycle. I venture boldly into areas I should not enter, at least not without a cautious look and a prayer first. My words sometimes cause damage that I may not even know has happened.

I pray I will be more like the pickup man... he reminded me a lot of Jesus.