Christmas Fever

Well, it officially hit this morning.

Now, I realize that the big day is still 3 months away, but in Crafter Universe 3 months may as well be 3 minutes and I'm officially behind!!

Last week Kimmie called me and asked if I started my christmas cards yet. I'm pretty sure I full-on laughed out loud.

But Heather wanted to scrapbook today and picked my brain about her Christmas cards and it inspired me to get a head start on my own. This is take one, and I love it so this will be 08's card. I'm going to use a slightly different cardstock because this is Bazzil Bling and it's too pricey for my taste.

The Celebrate is stamped with individual letter stamps that are new from Heidi Swapp, I'm in love with them and they may be her greatest product EVER. Although, I'm pretty psyched about her flourish corner and the inside stamp is also HKS. Hey, the girl's got a great line! I am considering adding a big flourish stamp inside, maybe pink tone on tone. We'll see. :)

Now I just need Hobby Lobby to un-flood and restock so I can get cracking on mass production. I'm thinking this year we may need 120. Also, I will be taking a new family photo, I want to send one of my work, more recent and definitely in a black and white to go with the total ensemble.


Also, this kitty box Sarah made last year and I've been meaning to photograph it. I happened to see it and have the camera out simultaneously, so today it got done. yay! Is this not the cutest kitty of all time??

Life Is Good

This morning I am enjoying my first kid-free day in since 3 days before Ike. On Wednesday it will be three weeks. Wow. That sounds like a really ungrateful thing to say, and I don't mean to be ungrateful. I adore my kids, but we all do better if we get a little space from one another once in a while and 3 weeks was too many. :) I did manage to sneak away for two photo shoots and one scrapbook store run, but that's not much in 3 weeks.

So of course, I have a giant docket today. First and foremost, I'm making Pastor his belated surprise birthday cake for our staff meeting tonight. Our house is filled with the yummy smell of carrot cake baking. Next, I'm blogging, because it's been absolutely forever. Then I'm working on editing the engagement shoot from last Saturday. Somewhere in all that too, I need to get my house company ready. :) Oh, and there are always a few loads of laundry that need washed.

But it's so quiet. Well, except for me blaring Relient K during my shower this morning, and Sondre Lerche while I was mixing up the cake. details. I love that I can do whatever I want uninterrupted.

But truth be told, by the time they wrap their sticky little hands around my neck and shower me with hugs and kisses at t 3pm, I'll be missing them. :)


The following are photos of Eli's first GATE project. His assignment was to make a diorama of a place that served the community. He chose the hospital. It was a good choice for him because we visited a family friend there just a week ago. We had lots of giggles over the word 'diorama' though - Daddy liked to say it like it was another word. te hee.

Here he is working on it. I helped him with the overall design concept - neither of us had done a diorama before. The internet proved to be a great resource, as usual. I also helped with the pillows and beds, the stapling got a little tricky.

Here is the outside of his hospital. It is red brick in real life, with big plate glass windows.


This is the list of ways the hospital helps the community. Isn't his handwriting neat for a second grader? I just love this kid! He amazes me.
Here is our proud second grader with completed project.
Here is him holding it open so you can see inside the room. Notice the cast on the little boy's arm - that was his idea. Grandma is sick and the little boy broke his arm, they wanted to be in the same room. :) Also, his idea.
He did a great job of remembering the details of the hospital room, right down to the IV and the white board. And or course, the tv is on Fox News - notice the ticker below the news anchor?Overall, we had a blast doing it, and Sarah actually left us alone long enough to concentrate on it. When I put him to bed last night his high for the day was 'making the diorama (giggle giggle) with Mommy.' awww... Me too kiddo, me too.

Not Quite Done Yet

I got a bee in my bonnet to work on Sarah's room. It was the last room in our house still in that horrible primer and I just couldn't take it any longer. Besides, I had bought the paint months ago when I bought Eli's paint, it had been on sale. It was just sitting in the garage, which is never a good thing. So I got cracking on it. The inspiration came from a vintage sheet that I found at a garage sale a few months back, I'm working on making it into curtains hopefully today. But here are some beginning pictures for you. They aren't brilliant, but you get the idea.

Oh, and an 'a' is missing in Sarah because she played with them before I hung them on the wall and now I cannot find it for anything. Also, that's a reflection of the flash off the mirror on the wall with the princesses, the walls are all a cozy shade of pale pink. She LOVES it so far.

Being Neighborly

Doug and Heather, Rob and I helped our neighbor, Cordelia, with a downed tree today. This is a project that we've been tackling since last Thursday. I was surpemely annoyed when I went over to assist Corelia last Thursday and she told me that our HOA had sent her a letter about removing the tree from the sidewalk. Her insurance adjuster wouldn't even come out to Baytown because it 'wasn't safe' yet so she couldn't even begin the process of getting a check to pay for the removal. So I told her I'd ask around and see if we could get our hands on a chainsaw to help her out. We found more than that! Doug and Heather were awesome, just jumping on in there. It was good to work hard, side by side. And I'm glad to get to know our neighbor!

And yep, all of that debris we moved there. It was ridiculous.

Around Town

This is a house in our neighborhood, with a quite typical sized pile.
This is a street in our neighborhood. Realize that this is after daily trips through for debris.
This is a local car repair place on Alexander Avenue.
It's just unreal.
This is on our route home every day.
A backyard on the backside of our subdivision. This is pretty typical fence damage. I saw one totally still intact fence today. I had seen them put it up a few weeks back. Everyone else's is a mess like ours.
This is a local business near our church. The crazy part is that it's open. Also, my preferred Krogers is absolutely closed. And it stinks to high heaven. whew.
A debris pile on the church's side of town. It's seriously probably 3 stories high.

This maintainer was up on top of the pile.
This is my hair shop. So strange to see the places we know and love boarded up. Normally that green awning is all across the shops in this mall.

Nesting

(picture heavy - finally)


I'm not sure if it's just compiled from being away for a week or pure thankfulness to come home to a still intact 'home', but the past two days I've been cleaning like a mad woman.

I started in the yard on Thursday morning, picking up all the shingles. I filled an entire 40 gallon rubbermaid tub with the tiles that had jumped ship from our roof. Then I set about to picking up the big branches, next the smallers and finally trying to sweep up some of the tons of leaves that our tree and the neighbors just dropped. It will definitely be a sad fall this year, since most of our leaves have already withered or fallen from the sheer force of the wind. Eli was a tremendous help to me with the cleanup. We are mostly done, except for the leaves that can only be raked. I have yet to find a rake in Baytown, but I'll be on the hunt again tomorrow.

Then I moved inside, starting in the kitchen. Between today and yesterday I basically scrubbed the kitchen from the cabinets down. We did have some water blow in from the back door, and though it had all evaporated, the floor was incredibly sticky and gross. I also tackled the kids rooms and they both look worlds better. Right before we left in the middle of the night last week I had taken a video of our home for insurance purposes. Man, I will never show that video to anyone, our house looked so bad!! Inspired me for some deep cleaning. :) I've been doing laundry all day today and I'm finally caught up, just a bit to put away now. Yay! I've also been really good about making all of our meals this week, and that's encouraging. I've forgotten how great it is to be a homaker, it's just been really hard with all the craziness over the past summer and I'm thankful to take some time to get back to my roots.

I also got all of our bills paid today, save one we haven't received yet and I'm truly thankful because I didn't know how badly our unexpected trip North was going to hit us and I think after this pay period we will be through and back on to our Financial Peace plan. yay. It's been a good day but I'm absolutely beat. I hate to admit how much my thighs hurt from all those up and downs cleaning the yard. It's like I'm almost 30 or something. ;)

Ok, so these are the past weeks photos in reverse order. I don't have a lot of Baytown photos since I have not left my block since we returned home late Wednesday night. I will go out tomorrow - to visit a family friend in the hospital and go to the grocery store. I plan on bringing my camera.

Our neighbors tree. I've enjoyed this weeping willow since we first moved in and I'm so sad to see it gone. It literally uprooted, it's hard to tell from the photo, but there's an 8 foot diameter hole in the ground where it had been. Took out all of her fence on two sides. I've never even seen the side of that house before because it's usually that big. Finally got to meet the neighbor though, the kids and I helped her clean for a while yesterday afternoon.


The front of our house, you can see the shingles on the ground and all the leaves ripped from our rosebushes. They were in full bloom when we left on Wednesday. Also, a patch of shingles missing on the roof. All the patches look small in these photos, but remember it's my ground-looking-up perspective. There was 6 inches deep of debris in our entryway.
The biggest patch of missing shingles are on the back of the house and sides.
This is our fence down in the back. Totally changed the view out of my back windows.
These fence panels are six or eight feet long and 6 feet high. The posts just snapped off at the ground like twigs.
This is Eli at Grandma Ginny's. He was working on jewelry with her. The other photo with Grammy did not turn out at all. I wish I had gotten out my camera more. I was really in a funk most of the week and it was hard to think creatively. That's the trouble with being an artist, your product is greatly affected by your current mood!
Some beautiful flowers in Mom's yard, a little under exposed, but I was going for an artistic effect for a worship slide for Rob.
Eli playing ball with his dad. a difficult shot in full sun. I was playing around in manual with a new lens, so that was fun.
Rob looking Sith-like.
Love this shot, with me in the reflection of his glasses. It's so him.
Sarah was going wild in the yard. It was so cool and dry in AR that day. I was downright cold. She was thrilled. My new lens is manual focus and I had a very hard time getting the shot because she just moved too fast for my manual fingers. :)
but I did get this shot and it's a beauty, so indicitive of her joyous and fun personality. She's been incredibly entertaning lately - notice the lilt in her shoulders? she's dancing. te hee.
Me and the kids and my wonderful Aunt Char. It was such a treat to get loved on by her. I'm so glad we had the time. She was exactly what we needed when I was trying so hard not to fall apart. This woman has been a rock in my life all of my 29 years and I thank God every time I think of her. It is so amazing to me that she has been even more of a blessing to me as an adult than she was when I was a child. Amazing only because she was so influential on my personality, and now continues to be so. Love her. Everyone should have a role model like her.

No Longer An Evacuee

It's been a long week but we've been blessed to spend time with family across the middle of our great country. We returned home this evening, holding our breath as to what we would find. Our home is blessedly in good shape, no internal damage save for a square foot or two or water damage in the corner of one south facing window. We did lose about four ten foot sections of our fence in the back and probably 5-6 good-sized chunks of our shingles on the roof, but thankfully the tar paper held up and there is no damage to the ceiling or even the attic. I emptied out our fridge and freezers of all the food :( but that's a very small loss compared to everything else we've seen so far. It was absolutely eerie driving through Houston with giant dark patches. It was difficult to know exactly where we were without the familiar landmarks lit up. Also, we saw huge trees ripped up from the roots. Billboards from 40 miles north to home were just metal skeletons, all the ads have been ripped off. Lots of downed signs and several lost roofs. We will see what the light of day brings.

I'm ready to wake up and begin the clean up process. Rob's going into the office in the morning, but I think I'll stay home and start dealing with the yard and the insurance people. I'll also be posting some photos.

PS - the weather guy just said the humidity here is very low today - 57%. yep. we're home.

Heading Home

We spoke with our County Emergency Manager friend yesterday and he encouraged us to come home now. The town website still lists Baytown as 'unsafe' and we are still under a boil order, but we are anxious to get back into our home and eventually return to our normal life. So, once again I ask you to pray for us because rumors have it that gas and groceries are in great demand. We are planning on filling up in Dallas and getting groceries in a cooler and topping off along the way as far in as we can. Not sure if we'll have power/internet when we get there, so don't freak if you don't hear from us right away. Shoot, maybe I'll post via the phone and Lori in Iowa if need be. :)

God is so Good.

Thank you all for your prayers. One of our church family was able to walk to our house today and inspect the grounds. We are missing a few shingles and our fence (no shock there) and our lemon tree uprooted. She couldn't see inside because I have all the blinds drawn, but she didn't seem to think it flooded at all. Praise God! Hopefully no rain came in from the lost shingles, but we'll see when we get home.

That may be a bit though, we aren't prepared to go home until the power is back on. Baytown is still 'unsafe' according to the city's website and they are heavily encouraging people to remain evacuated for the time being. The water isn't potable and the gas stations either aren't open or are out of gas. A friend of mine traveled to LA to get gas today. Also, Walmart was totaled and none of the other grocery stores are open yet. The cell service is touch and go because the network is overun, phone lines are down. Sounds like a terrible mess. And as much as I want to get home and survey the damage, I'm just not ready to deal with that and two kids. We don't have a generator and certainly aren't in a position to buy one! Rob was really concerned that there wouldn't be anything to eat! :)

So we have really enjoyed our time here with my Aunt and Uncle, but now we will be moving east to Rob's mom's house in Springdale, AR. We were very reluctant to go there first because the storm was headed that way and we didn't know when we'd be driving back home. I don't think either of us ever thought we'd be away this long. In fact, I only packed 3 days worth of clothing for each of us.

I am so thankful that our home is ok. I'm more thankful that if it hadn't been, my God would be enough for me and He's big enough to provide for my every need.

I also, now understand firsthand the urgency of an Emergency Fund with 3-6 months living expenses in it. As soon as we've recovered from this (insurance deductibles and extra gas and whatnot) I am extremely motivated to get saving!! Dave Ramsey, here we come!!

Also, being here and spending time with my Aunt has been such a blessing. She's such an amazing woman of God, I've learned a lot from her. She's been so good with my children, so patient and involved. I've watched her take her time to incorporate them into everything she did, rather than just move about on her own agenda like I so often do. I realized that there are a lot of opportunities for me to work with them that I am not taking. For example, Sarah and I made the fruit salad for supper last night and we've set the table several times now. We've picked up Uno as a family game. Sarah beat us all twice this evening and all her cards were on the table! We went for walks and just sat around and talked. It was really lovely. I know I need to be more mindful of the gift that my kids are, rather than just dragging them along on my 'to-do' lists.

At one point she said to me that raising children was a noble task and it's ok if it's time consuming, it's the important work of life. She also talked about a person we both know who pursued career goals but in Aunt Char's words "would have made a lovely housewife or PTA mom or a fantastic committee chair person". She said all of those things with respect like you or I would have for a president or nobleman and I realized that she truly sees mothering as a high calling. I really need to refocus on that. wow. I think God used our time here in an awesome way and I am so thankful to my Aunt and Uncle for their hospitality. I hope to return the favor one day.

Baytown Coverage

There has not been much, but here's the two videos I found...

the Waiting Game

Well, Hurricane Ike has been on his way beyond Baytown for almost 24 hours. We've heard from a lot of friends and church family and PRAISE GOD everyone seems to be ok. Sounds like a ton of damage though. Basically, Baytown is completely without power. Our energy provider, CenterPoint, claimed 100% of their customers had outages by yesterday afternoon. We've seen a bit of footage from Baytown and it looks extremely grim. Some of our friends have damage to their homes, everyone's lost their fence. We have not hear anything about our home and that becomes increasingly difficult with each passing hour. This is a time when I am heavily depending on the Lord. I know that our God is big and He will sustain us through anything. And I remind myself that a little over a year ago, we didn't have a home at all, so I need to be grateful for everything we have, especially that my beautiful family is safe. I'm extremely grateful for my Aunt and Uncle for opening their home to us. Right now Baytown is closed, meaning they will not allow anyone back in, so going home is not a possibility. And it sounds like you can't get through the streets to even get to our home to see what has happened.

The possiblities of damage are endless, but my main concerns are flooding, broken through windows, blown through garage doors and damage to the ceiling that water could leak into the house. Then you start to think about looting and animals... The sad thing is that another decent sized rain storm just passed through the area again. With damaged homes and businesses any more rain is a bad thing. Also, I heard this morning that they are opening Walmarts again in Houston, but Baytown was not on that list.

Please continue your prayers. It must be miserable there with no power, no phone lines. Remember, it's still summer in Texas.

An Evacuee on September 11th

Hi everyone! I've tried hard to keep in contact with most everyone pretty well, but if not hopefully this will reach the stragglers. :)

We decided to evacuate in the middle of the night on Wednesday because the latest projections were putting Ike in our backyard. Literally. If you look at the map of the storm, the little bay it's sweeping up into is Trinity Bay and the northern edge of that bay is Baytown. The storm surge alone could wipe us off the map. Rob and I really thought it through for about 3 hours and then decided to leave and get a head start. We thought everyone would evacuate and we'd have another Rita on our hands. I understand the many, many people are staying and my prayers are with them. Rob and I are not seasoned hurricane survivors, and the 'dirty' side of this storm will be in Baytown, we just weren't ready to deal with that. Besides that and the fact that our home is built in a former rice patty field, it's a good excuse to come to OKC and love on my aunt and uncle!

We drove all night and then spent the day with my aunt, cooking and just generally enjoying each other's company. I fell in to bed at 6:30 last night and slept until 6:30am this morning. Guess I was a little wiped out, right? The good news? My ear is feeling tremendously better. I'm wondering if all of our crazy pressure changes in the Gulf these past few weeks was the culprit. The further north we drove, the better my head felt, a dramatic difference even in Dallas! I had the best night of sleep last night that I've experienced in weeks! Pain-free!

So now the waiting begins, as we watch this tremendous storm move into our home. I have no idea what we will come home to. That was a little freaky, packing your things and not knowing what condition things will be in when we return. I'm far more concerned about our friends and church family that chose to stay behind. Maybe my little Iowa brain is over-reacting, but I just don't think this storm is something to mess with. In fact now they are saying that this is the time to get out, if you haven't yet, leave now. I'm glad we are somewhere safe and that my kids aren't having to ride this one out.

I'll be checking back in and logging on to facebbook. If you have any Baytown updates, please let us know. We are praying for everyone in that area! We love you all!

Speaking In Faith

Today has been a great day. First of all, the love of my life turned 31 today. :) We were in the office today for our staff meeting and we got have lunch with Pastor and the office staff had a cake built for him. It was really fun. And other then my blinding headache, I really enjoyed the entire day. Got virtually nothing accomplished, but I think Rob felt loved. At least I hope so. I am just so incredibly thankful for him and the relationship we have shared these past almost twelve years. He's just grown so much (we both have) and I'm more amazed by him all the time.

Anyhoo, our meeting was super productive and I am once again in awe of the great people I get to work with in and out on a daily basis. God is so good and I'm so thankful for where He's placed us.

And tonight, we were eating supper - a true labor of love because I sincerely wanted to go to bed and hide under my covers until my head stopped hurting - and during supper - the ache just subsided. My ears seem to be popping a bit and I'm hoping and praying and believing that this is the light at the end of my tunnel! Wouldn't that be great?? I'm just dying to pick up my camera and be me again!! Let it be Lord!

In other faith news... Rob and I have decided to put our house up for sale. Not because we don't love it - it's actually more us than it's ever been! It's not that we are dissatisfied with it or are looking to upgrade. We are just really tired of the drive from church to home. We sat down last week and figured it out and realized that we spend TWELVE hours a week in the car in any given week. No wonder my housekeeping skills seem to be in question!! (JK)

So we are going to try to sell by owner and move to the south side of town. Our goal is to be 5 minutes from the church. We feel like we will be giving ourselves some free time and saving ourselves $100's of dollars a month in gas. If you would pray for us in this endeavor, that would be greatly appreciated. We by no means 'need to sell', we've just decided that it would make our life a lot easier. And at this point, easier sounds a lot better.

Well, off to hopefully sleep pain free for the first time in over a week! Nighty-night!

checking in again

I know my blog has been lacking lately. I'm still really struggling with this ear problem and it's been pretty much all I can do lately to get through my daily responsibilities, not anything extra. By about now (9:18pm) I'm in about as much pain with these ears as I can handle and I'm ready to go to bed and call it a day. Oh, and the last two afternoons I've tuckered out midway through and just laid down for 45 minutes rest.

I have an appointment with the ear nose and throat doctor for October 2nd. I was trying to stretch it out for insurance purposes, but I think I'll be calling tomorrow to move it forward.

We really are doing really well though, despite this interference with my ears. (hey, let's call it what it is)

We had a blast this evening hanging out with Dan and Tiff and Aaron and Amber. We all met (kidless) at Murphy's Deli for an early dinner and wound up talking till they closed the deli, stood outside and talked for another hour. It was such a blast. Tiff and I really click (pardon the pun) on photography, so that's been a lot of fun to discuss together. Speaking of photography, I just got a new lens the other day and my head has been too achey to really play with it. Like I said, I'm just getting through the daily necessities at this point.

With that being said, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is Rob's 31st birthday and I'm hoping to be feeling a bit better!

DUDE, I'm so EXCITED!

well, my head still hurts, but I'm so psyched about our class tonight. Things are stirring in my brain, in Rob's brain, and we are totally on board. I can't wait to see what the next 90 days bring.


Change is good people.

Embrace it.

New Pages

Feeling kind of dumb snceI said I was having a hard time accomplishing anything. But know that these two pages took me all of last night and and a good chunk of this morning. :) I'm trying to stay on top of my scrapbooking lately so that I have plenty of fodder for Expo reviews. If I've used 20 products recently, it's a lot easier to review them, kwim?

anyhoo, these pages are from Sare's party. She loved the first one, said "Mommy, thank you for making me that scrapbook page! It's so pretty!!"

Gotta love comments like that, don't you??

Oh, and I don't know what funky thing I did with the lighting in here. I probably had my white balance set wrong, but my head hurts too bad to go back and try again.

So I'm telling myself my head won't really explode.

I don't know what the deal is.

It started like any sinus infection I normally get, just minus the sore throat. If you know me, you probably know that I've had chronic sinus infections for the past 6 years or so. (wow, it's been that long!) And by chronic, I mean 6+ a year. Well, that number jumped severely when we moved to Texas a little over a year ago. I think the constant changing pressure from the Gulf is probably a lot of the culprit, in conjunction with the ever-present mold because of our wet climate and lack of frozen tundra in the winter. :)

Anyhoo sinus infections, as much as they stink, are a natural part of my existence. I usually fight them off on my own, I hate to take antibiotics and it's just too costly to trouble the doctor six or more times a year.

I thought I caught this one early. I immediately stopped any dairy intake and starting using the much recommended Neti-Pot, keeping up my continual Claritin as usual. Actually, truth be told, I doubled up, now that I think about it. A little trick my dad told me his dr had recommended in the really bad August allergy season.

So all's clear in the sinuses. But my ears started aching on Saturday. Like pressure, deep in them. It's just gotten worse and worse and worse. My jaw hurts, the inside of my head like a pressure drilling in towards my throat. I've barely slept since Saturday because it hurts worse to lay down.

The worst is that I can hardly accomplish anything. All the things that I normally do; paying bills, studying photography books, reading, making any kind of cognitive decision, it's just way harder than it should be! In fact, I just missed a lunch appointment because I've been so out of it I haven't even checked my date book THIS WEEK! What a way to run a business, eh? In fact, I've struggled even typing, simple spelling is more than my feeble brain can handle right now.

The good news is I've made a doctor appointment. The bad news is that it's tomorrow. And I'm too cheap to go to urgent care. :) Oh well, I've survived this long, surely I can make it until tomorrow morning, right?

It stinks though. I've got all kinds of plans for what I'd like to do. I just have no stamina to do it. grr.

it's been too long...

So I got knocked out by a sinus infection. Or something. Not even sure what exactly. I've been wondering now if it's an ear infection really. My head has been hurting so badly the past 4 days. But today has been a lot better than the last few, so I'm thankful for that.

Yesterday was tough. I struggled to even get myself to church, woozy in the car the entire ride there. But Rob prayed with me right before we left and I felt a lot better suddenly when I walked into the sanctuary. We did a skit, so I was really trying to pull it together for that. The plot was pretty simple - me sleeping in on a Saturday and Rob trying to wake me for the Fall Fest Planning breakfast. It was humorous though, especially since I'm generally the one dragging Rob out of bed to meet our commitments. :) The crowd seemed to enjoy it and the whole 'bedraggled' look worked for me, considering how down and out I was yesterday. I didn't even make it to prayer last night, the idea of corralling two children through individual/corporate prayer service was more than I could manage. We stayed home in pajamas. I went to bed early and slept in this morning. I love Labor Day.

So tomorrow we tackle another a week. I'm trying hard to work through some photography books and that's going pretty well. I've also spent some time today reworking our family budget. It's been a little out of kilter because of my photography expenses and I'm really not comfy with that, I'm excited to do better with it. Grocery gaming has been too far off my radar as of lately too, so I really need to get clicking. I did spend a good hour on the phone with Lori this afternoon clipping coupons, now I just need to sort and get my lists going. I'm very excited to get our financial life corralled again. We are enrolled in a Dave Ramsey course that starts on Thursday, and I'm super psyched about that.

I also massively cleaned house today. All that's really left is the kids room (insert horror music here) and our master bath. Oh, and I really need to steam clean the carpets. hmmm. I'm feeling a lot better about things in general though, just having gotten on top of our paper work and household chores. I finally got my kitchen floor scrubbed today, and man, that felt good!

I really do love our life.

God is so good.