Quarterly Report – Q1 2021

Taking A Look

Q. What is your favorite thing about Spring?

A.  It isn’t winter!

That little joke is dedicated to my friend Anita in Arizona. She thought it was funny so I’m hoping you do too!

Here, in Upstate South Carolina, winter was 365 days long. It came in cold and wet, and it crawled out wrapped in a blanket, shivering. We are ready for sunshine and warm temperatures. Today, as I create this post, we are expecting an 81 degree afternoon. YAY!

January

January began with a fun evening at our friend Patti’s house. She wanted us to meet her new friend and the four of us welcomed in 2021. I can’t believe I stayed up until midnight. We spent the night and the fun continued on New Years Day. Patti is a wonderful host with the most! We had a big breakfast and the day continued well – we even watched a movie together. Such fun. (Below is a picture from that weekend!)

January was a fairly reg’ler month. We took short car rides on the weekends. We did living room church. I worked. Lowell cut gems in his workshop. We prayed for a miraculous turn-around of the election mess. The weather matched our mood: cold, wet, depressing. This sentence from my planner/journal sums it up…

Show me Your path, Lord, and keep my mouth shut.

Selah.

Covid kept raising its ugly head and took the life of our friend’s 36-year old daughter. And, put another friend in the hospital.

Work was insanely busy. Days were insanely cold and wet. Two favorite people celebrated birthdays, our daughter-in-love and our grand-daughter. We caved and bought a 40″ television set for wall mounting. My journal tells me I had many “no electronics” days – to quiet my mind and feed my soul. I managed to catch a 24-hour stomach bug. Our tiny house kitchen was kept busy making nutritious meals – cook once, eat twice!

The month ended with rain – of course!

February

Our weather continued cold and wet. On the 6th, we had two inches of snow! And, it was a beautiful snow.

Best of Hope Heart Home was published the first week of February – I do love the cover!

We lost a friend and comrade this month as we said goodbye to Rush Limbaugh. A sad day for us.

Most of you know our love language is “road trip,” and February was no exception – we took lots of them on the weekend! The month was quiet for us. Work for me was slowing down a bit. I did a lot of reading. Lowell cut rocks and stayed busy. A lot of good meals were cooked and we kind of laid low. Until Lowell’s birthday weekend and we loaded up Gracee and went to Huntington Beach State Park on the coast. We traveled in the rain but the closer we got to the shore, the sun began to shine and God blessed us with a picture-perfect weekend.

We traveled home on Sunday, enjoyed the southbound ride on Highway 17 admiring the Low Country and old sweetgrass basket huts along the way. Hubs said, “Best birthday ever!”

The sunny weather at the end of February teased us and we had doors open and did some outdoor housekeeping – but it didn’t last long! Cold and rain returned.

March

In like a lion. A wet lion that is. Rain and cold temperatures. WHEN WILL IT END!

March was an emotional roller-coaster. Have you ever heard the saying, “You’re only as happy as your saddest child?” Well – it expresses many March days. I find listening to movie soundtracks on Pandora a most pleasant past time. It’s actually playing right now as I type.

My mom’s birthday is in March and I honor her special day with yellow roses and this year I watched her all-time favorite movie, “Out of Africa.” Mark, my middle child, oldest son came for a weekend visit – it was his first time here. We had a super great two full days with him. We took him sightseeing on Sunday and went to two of our favorite places, Pretty Place and Grafitti Rock.

I swear I’m shrinking! We had such a good time that day. Before we left tiny house that Sunday morning I used my Instant Pot as a crockpot and left a big turkey breast cooking – man, that was a successful experiment – it was delicious! Monday, Mark hung out with Lowell while I worked. He left for South Florida and home early, very early Tuesday morning.

March did bring more sunny days and we began to get hopeful for Spring. The first day of Spring we traveled to LaGrange, Georgia with our neighbors to experience the Biblical History Center. It was a cold, beautiful day and we thoroughly enjoyed the Center and our time with friends – Amanda and Greg and we have a super time together!

We made a trip to Statesville to visit daughter, son-in-love, and grandson… Simon is almost 18 and is at least 6 ft 5 inches. He’s a giant!

Lowell’s Mom got an unexpected diagnosis and we made a spur-of-the-moment trip to Florida on March 24th. My mother-in-law is going to be 96 in August and she is spry, strong, with no memory issues at all – we had not been able to see her on two previous trips to Florida in 2020 due to Covid but this time we insisted and we are so very glad we did. We stayed with my sis and hubs and pussy cat, Squeaky. The trip to see Mom is only one hour directly west of sister’s. We are glad we made this trip and we are expecting good results from Mom’s treatments. Pray for her, ok?

Meet Squeaky – the Queen of 265 Starr Lane!

Home again on the 28th and back to work and living.

We continue to love our tiny house and with warmer weather on the horizon, we are beginning to plant some new things in our yard and spruce up our porch and back deck. The Bald Eagle has flown over us and the lake, the Hawks are courting in mid-air, the Bluebirds are checking out their box and yesterday (April 5th) we saw our first hummingbird of the season.

We are determined to enjoy our life in spite of so many negative things in our country and world. We know God has a plan and we are part of it – I have made a vow to be Steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the Lord’s Work. 1 Corinthians 15.58.

How was your first quarter of 2021? Do tell.