Boarded up

Hi Folks ~ Thank you so much for your prayers and words of encouragement. I am exhausted this afternoon, almost 4 p.m. Worked for three hours with two nice guys from church putting up my plywood. It was HOT and very humid, and we were out there from around 10-1, right now it is 91 and feels like it is 104. It’s awful! We were sweating buckets. They did a thorough job with screwing it all down tight. I asked them their favorite cookie and both said peanut butter and I said with chocolate chips? They said yes, so they will both be getting a batch of these.  Before they left the three of us took hands and prayed, which was very nice.

After they left I cleaned up a bit to go to the grocery store for cat food and litter, and got some larger bottles of Fuji artisan water, the only water they had, 4 for $5. The store was packed with buyers but no water on the shelves. Although, I did see people going out with 5 gal. jugs. I wouldn’t have been able to handle those at any rate.  After hurricanes Francis, Jeanne and Wilma in 2004 and 2005 we still had water. With Wilma, we lost electricity for 13 days. Only God knows what will happen with this storm.

Continue to keep Florida and other areas in the path of this storm in your prayers. The last hurricane we had here was Wilma in Oct. 2005 and it was very scary. We’re praying that Irma will turn northward and stay out off land. Time will tell. I-75, I-95 and the turnpike are bumper to bumper with people leaving.

Here are three pics. My Dear Husband cut hearts into the plywood, to let in a little light and we could see out a little also. The two guys thought that was really a sweet thing to do, and I think so too. These plywood pieces have seen better days, but still doing the job.

Tomorrow would have been our 48th anniversary. I sure do miss my ‘one of a kind’ man.

Below is a picture of a watercolor I painted many, many years ago. Drawn free hand and I’m no portrait painter, but I love the quirkyness of the painting. I love the twinkle in my DH’s eyes. Painted from a photo. Painting was given to an eccentric wealthy artist who collected paintings from people for an art museum down south of here. He in turn let us pick out a couple of pieces of artwork in trade. DH painted a painting also, if I find the photo we took of it, I’ll post it later.

We were much younger then.

Ok, I’ve got more prep work to do, so that’s it for now.

Love & hugs ~ FlowerLady

I will close with the following from Grace Gems.

"Cast your burden upon the Lord--and He will sustain you." Psalm 55:22

The promise is not that the Lord will remove the load we cast upon Him, nor that He will carry it for us--but that He will sustain us so that we may carry it.
He does not free us from the duty--but He strengthens us for it.
He does not deliver us from the conflict--but He enables us to overcome.
He does not withhold or withdraw the trial from us--but He helps us in trial to be submissive and victorious, and makes it a blessing to us.
He does not mitigate the hardness or severity of our circumstances, taking away the difficult elements, removing the thorns, making life easy for us--but He puts Divine grace into our hearts, so that we can live sweetly in all the hard, adverse circumstances.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!" Philippians 4:13