Exhausted by corn

First off, the steps to my front door rotted through at the platform.

So, we called Richard in to build me a new set. I got the opportunity to request a wider platform and more shallow steps. So happy with my new set of stairs!

 Pics of my old and new steps, and the wood spirit face that features at the bottom of my railing post!

Freaky, huh?

Now, on to the corniness of the weekend. . .
Julie and I got the privilege of bringing the rest of the corn crates down to our festival site on Sunday morning. Upon starting to go down the sidewalk I heard Julie say from behind me "Oh, oh, oh no. . .no. . .Jamie . .Oh man!" and I turned around and saw this. . .they fell down off that cart exactly like you see in the picture.

Here's a couple more candid shots from our booth. . .

 And, to tie it up. . .I bought the first and really thought about buying the second. . .or maybe making it myself!

Air plant hanging for my swing

Old gas can bird house

WOW. . .long time no see

So. . .yeah. . .

Been a while.

Haven't really felt like writing in the last few months.

Been pretty busy.

Well, that's not completely true.

Never did finish up the last blog about Costa Rica. Needless to say, it was a great trip.

Had another great mission trip after that to Hayesville, NC. Painted another mural.

Vacation Bible School came after that.
Great times.
Great t-shirt design if I do say so myself (I admit to a personal bias as the designer).

Couldn't have been any better.
Oh wait, yeah it could have.
I could have not fallen backwards out of a pool deck lounge chair at the City of Winter Garden pool.
Fallen backwards, down a concrete wall, onto a concrete sidewalk, on my head.

I was laughing at Matt, and the predicament above that he found himself in. In fact, the chair fell backwards at the precise moment I laughed at his girlish scream of "you're pulling my chest hair!"

The next week, nothing happened.
The week after that, nothing happened.
The week after that, Youth Week, lots happened. And it ended with me playing Putt Putt Golf.
Second hole, tripped, lost my balance, and snapped my left pinky at the knuckle.

I don't have a picture of the event. This pic was taken right before my turn. The aftermath is all a blur, I know that I fainted, I know that they called an ambulance. I also know that they had to take me out on a sitting stretcher, because I could not walk without fainting again.

Did I receive a simple cast and get sent on my way?
No.
I got three nights in the hospital, lots of pain killers, and oh yeah. . .
SURGERY. . .A PLATE AND FIVE SCREWS!

 

That happened in August. The second week of August. It is now October 31st, and I still can't straighten out my finger. I'm still on pain meds.

Oh. . .I almost forgot. . .

Russ, Lana, and Leya got to come down to see us twice within the past five months! YAAAAYYY!
The first time was a birthday surprise for mom.

The second was for Leya's first birthday.

 

I also got a dog. . .Toby. . .so. . . .

Everything's great!

Leviticus 19:9

As found in the Message version of the Bible:

 ^9-10 "When you harvest your land, don't harvest right up to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings from the harvest. Don't strip your vineyard bare or go back and pick up the fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am God, your God.

Julie clipping Poncans

Have you ever heard of the Society of St. Andrew? 

Neither had I until about five years ago. That was when our youth director decided to sign up our group,
Teens N Touch, for a gleaning slot.

Gleaning is defined as the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest.  In Florida this applies to many types of fruits and vegetables. 

Emily and Richard with their haul.

Our group gleans citrus from local area trees. These trees are normally neighborhood or backyard trees. Occasionally we get the opportunity to glean whole groves, but that can be a daunting task for a youth group. 

The group at House #1

This year we were assigned three different locations. Our first stop had only one grapefruit tree.  For a group of seventeen mainly inexperienced fruit pickers, that one tree was thoroughly harvested. We ended up with twenty-one bags from it.

At House #2

The second stop was at my best friend Julie’s in-law’s house.  They had about eight trees of several different varieties, including blood orange and grapefruit.  From here we picked about seventy-five bags.

House #3

The third stop had about twelve trees, all of which were pretty scraggily. There were even two trees, an orange and lemon, that had begun cross pollinating and creating what we called “omens”. Not sure how those will taste. Other fruits included Honeybells and grapefruit. We picked fifty-one bags here.

Delivering the goods!

We took the fruit to St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, where the Society of St. Andrew had set up a drop off location. All in all we gleaned about 

1,300 lbs. of citrus. 

Great day of service in His name!

A brief glimpse of what my week before Christmas looked like.

Well technically, a week and a half. I have to make that distinction because the craziness began Friday, December 16^th (consequently that was my grandmother Opal’s 100^th birthday if she was still alive). 

I got a phone call from Danny, the youth pastor at my church in the midst of having lunch with my Aunt Joyce and Bumpa, who’d come over to visit with my parents.  Danny wanted to discuss having the youth Christmas party/get together at my house.  I agreed that this sounded like a good idea, mainly because we were running out of time, and I’d been wanting to have the group out to my place anyways.

As wonderful as this sounded in theory, it also meant a lot of work leading up to the event. Beyond straightening up the interior of my house, I had to do a lot of work organizing my yard. There is a big reason for this and that is: I live in a house trailer, and there’s really not enough room inside for 20 teenagers. So the party had to take place in my yard. Which was fine, but it meant I had to do some work on it.  I had plants that needed to be weeded, pots that needed to be moved, weed-eating that just about killed my arms, and lots of raking and sweeping. Now though, I’m so glad I had the impetus to get it all done, ‘cause I just love wandering around my yard and enjoying my new plants and the general cleanliness of it all!

I also had an Adirondack chair sitting in the middle of my living room waiting to be painted. I made this another paragraph so I could explain to you why the chair is sitting there. Danny and my friend Richard gave me three chairs as a housewarming gift a year and a half ago. Two were regular chairs and one was a rocker. I actually painted and gave back the rocker to Richard because I knew he’d enjoy it more. The other two I planned to paint in a truly artistic fashion and enjoy them myself. Well, I got one painted. It’s in my yard, and it looks great. The other, it’s STILL sitting in my living room, and I’m writing this after the party and after Christmas. HOWEVER, it is A LOT closer to being finished then it was before the party. Before the party it had nothing on it, not even primer. Now it’s got primer, paint, and a design started on it! I’m only slightly proud of myself on that. It really should be finished by now, but it takes a lot out of me physically, and plus. . .well, I’m just lazy. . .Oh well. 

Richard's finished rocker (The Bahamian flag
is the base design. The smaller scene is
that of logger-head sea turtles)

My one finished chair.
It's a basic color theme design
with my own white flourish on top.

This next part, well it’s just absolutely ridiculous, but I still get a little thrill about it.

I moved into my place last May. This is after my friend Julie and I worked on it for six months, doing small repairs, cleaning, and painting every room. However, there were a few things that just did not get done in the midst of everything else. One of those things was replacing the toilet seat in my bathroom. 

Now, to describe my bathroom, it’s small, so every little detail stands out pretty blatantly. For some reason when this trailer was designed, somebody had the bright idea to install a mustard yellow toilet and bathtub. Do you know how hard it is to match any desirable color scheme with mustard yellow anything? But I persevered, and came up with a blue and brown combination. Somehow I managed to find a shower curtain that included blue, brown, white, and a green that it is very close in color to my odd ball fixtures. 

The toilet seat however was mauve. I ask you why would it be mauve? I have no idea.

Anyways, it was damaged slightly in that one of the little bumpers that allow it to sit on top of the seat part was broken in half. This made it scratch the surface of the seat. The seat itself was not damaged in anyway except that it looked unappealing. So I’ve lived with it for a year. Well, I’ve lived with it for a year because every time I go to the store to get a replacement, I can’t remember whether it’s a long seat or a short rounded one. . .go ahead, judge me, but it’s the truth.

Well, this time I made a concerted effort to remember that it was short and round. I went to the store, bought an off-white toilet seat, took it home and replaced it. 

And loved it. I just love walking in and looking at it, knowing that I figured out what I needed and fixed it.

Plus it looks a whole lot better than that odd pink thing that was on it before.

As such, I ended up having the party at my house, in the yard.  The kids came out on the church bus. We played trivia and question games while we all sat in camp chairs around the fire pit (Just so you know, this was Friday, December 23^rd, and it was 80 degrees outside. There was absolutely no need for the fire). Then Danny read through a devotional about the Christmas Peace during WWI.  Dinner was Ziti and garlic bread and chocolate bark that Julie had made. The kids even managed to get one of the ball sets from my Ladderball game stuck in my oak tree. Wouldn’t be a youth meeting without that! 

We had a blast, and I had tons of food and drink left over. Danny’s already talking about having the party at my house again. I think I’d like that.