Hot, House and Hilarious

Well,, we made it to Tampa, a little late on Friday night. Rick had gone to Atlanta, waking up at 4:45 am to go to the VA about his knee surgery. He spoke with the surgeon, got all of the lab work and chest x-ray and is scheduled for knee surgery this Wed. (June 24). It is a big deal for him to go through with this, especially as our house addition needs him, our gardening, chickens and cows are in their fullness and we are trying to deal with getting Dustin a new house in Orlando. Rick has been waiting on God to heal him and has great faith in that area. Right now though it looks as though he needs to have the surgery especially with our president wanting to cut out veteran benefits. They wonder how he even walks on his knee with no meds etc but on the other hand they try to talk you out of it as the new knee only lasts 10-15 years. It is a bit weird as would you rather be more active now at age 59 for the next 10-15 years or would you rather wait unil you are 75??? As for me, I would rather move now and rock in the rocking chair in 15 years.

Please keep Rick and myself in prayer this week. It will be VERY busy with 190 people coming for the program at the church, in which we work, as well as being a children's week. That means lots of family issues generationally will be trying to manifest at any given time. His surgery is on Wed, I have to teach Thurs night and then again on Friday, along with ministry and then somehow be with him, possibly bring him home on Friday and then help him with 3 months of intensive rehab.Thank goodness for prayers and God's strength! "We can do ALL things in Christ Jesus who strengthens us". That is my Bible verse for the next few weeks. Fortunatley we have wonderful friends who will be staying in our cabins that are always a huge support to us.

Oh yeah, back to why we got to Tampa late. The morning, while Rick was at the VA and I was at work, we got a call that one of our cows who lives at the neighbors house got out. Fortunately we got a call later that morning that our neighbor had found them and put him in his pasture. Perfect we think. We will pick them up before we go to Tampa even though we are very amateur in the rodeo scene. Well, that proved to be quite correct as I am out there with a bucket of sweetfeed (cows favorite) trying to get them simply walk into the trailor. One problem was that our cows are not particularly used to sweetfeed and are young and skittish. Meanwhile I have the neighbor's cows, goats and donkey thinking that "hey this lady has my favorite food". I wish we had pictures as I had 2 giant cows, 2 goats and a donkey trying to get what I had. I was trying to preserve the precious bucket of feed when the donkey nipped my leg. How dare him - can you believe that? Fortunately the goats did not butt me with thier long horns.

About this time the man's wife came home. It is 100 degrees as we are doing this and I am stressing that we need to get on the road to Tampa. Her very nice and experienced husband agreed to help us with the cows on Monday when he would be around. He will get a handosme tip as far as I am concerned!!

Oh yeah, back to the blog about Dustin---- we got there late Friday about 9pm, fed him some cheesecake which our awesome neighbors sent (along with salmon, homemade potato salad and squash) and headed to the motel whipped for the day.


Today we got up and headed to Sanford (North Orlando) to look for more houses for Dustin. Yeah - I think we found a wonderful 4 bedroom 2 bath house on a nice shady lot. We will probably put an offer on it after we get a few pictures for Dustin. Of course we forgot and left the camera in the car so will ask the realtor to help us a bit on this.

We returned to Tampa and found Dustin in pain but wanting to eat. We fed him from our buffet, read some fun chapters on creative writing, shaved, brushed teeth and kissed him good night. He has gotten the casst off his one arm and having more feeling.

His aunt (Rick's sister) wil be visiting July 4th weekend on her Harley for a big ride for the Veterans, followed by a visit from his best friend as a child from Roanoke VA, a visit by his Dad, a visit from Nerina and then hopefully I will get there in between all of this. I of course have to take care of my "6'5" baby" as well. Life is never dull. Off to bed to go visit Dustin in the morning and then back home to GA.

thanks to all for your prayers,
mary pat