Friday's Fave Five #140

Hello!  It's great to have a spare minute to participate in Susanne's meme, "Friday's Fave Five."  On Fridays, we all link up at her blog, Living to Tell the Story, and share about 5 highlights that brightened our week.

Due to circumstances, I've missed almost a month of joining in this uplifting exercise, so I thought I would quickly share a few things.

1.  New "daring" manincure:

LOL, I just wanted to show you my new manicure - french tips with a silver line.  I feel so rad with my nails done this way.  By the way, that is a cake pop I am holding.  We were experimenting and although we didn't make it beautiful, we made it yummy!

2. Eating out with my favorite young married couple:

We had a wonderful visit with Janae and Daniel.  The best part was they managed to get back home to Oklahoma before the tornado hit in Joplin, MO.  They travel close to Joplin to get home, and I'm so thankful they are safe!

3.  My three cuties on the night of Malia's graduation:

I have to admit, though, I am NOT taking it well with having my last chickie leave the nest and be finished with high school.  How did this happen???

4.  Safety - This Thursday night, our area was predicted to have severe storms, possibly even 9 different cells that could spawn tornadoes!  Although, a couple areas were hit with major damage, our little neck of the woods escaped damage.  Praise the Lord!

5.  As I've mentioned, we are doing a lot of remodeling since the flood damaged our home.  I figure I might as well really change things up.  Below is my new wall color for my kitchen, "Baked Bahama" from ValSpar paints at Lowes.  Now, imagine white beadboard and white chair rail covering those open studs.  We had to open up all the sheet rock and take out the insulation and spray bleach water inside to kill mold. Oh yeah, imagine a laminate floor there, too! And after 35 years of having a butcher block countertop, I am getting some kind of black marbly countertop.  I haven't made the final decision yet.

 

Well that's Jerralea's world for the end of May.  I hope all of you have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, and do remember all those who have sacrificed for our freedoms, both national and spiritual.

We'll be celebrating the birth of a very special young lady, our first daughter, Elissa, this weekend.  God has blessed us!

Thankful Thursday - Memorial Day

It's been awhile since I've participated in Thankful Thursday, but I felt since God has blessed me so much through this time of trial, I would be amiss without stopping to give thanks.

This month's Thankful Thursday hostess is Laurie at Women Taking a Stand.  She did an excellent job of reminding us to be thankful for those who have sacrificed for us, both for our national freedoms and for our spiritual freedoms.  Please take a moment to go read Laurie's thoughts, you'll be glad you did.

Since she already mentioned those making sacrifices for freedom, I thought I would go a different direction.  I want to remember the times the Lord delivered us and make that a memorial.

As a memorial, I use pictures to remind myself of God's goodness. This is a picture of my Dad after he accepted the Lord as His savior, a prayer that I had prayed my whole life as a child and was answered when I was 17.

Then I prayed for God's will in finding a husband.  When I was 20, I moved to the midwest and married my sweetie.  We've been together ever since!

The next big thing I prayed for deliverance in my life was infertility.  My husband and I believed the Lord for children for ten years.  Now we have three:

Elissa

Janae and Malia

And now, I even have a son-in-law:

Daniel and Janae

As the years went by, I found that I needed a job but I wanted a job doing something meaningful. God led me into being a church secretary, first at a wonderful church, later into working for a second church. Over the years, I see now that this is the perfect career for me, and it exactly uses the gifts God has given me.  Here I am holding my certification diploma:

These pictures help me remember how God has blessed.  Now I'm a flood survivor. (not a victim as I previously stated.  Thanks, Lisa, for that gentle reminder!)  I do have much to be thankful for, such as no one was hurt during the flood, we were able to save all our clothes, most of our pictures, and a lot of household furnishings. Even though the house needs so much remodeling inside, we are thankful to have the basic frame of the house to build upon.  Those that have went through the tornadoes have nothing to start over with, some even lost family members.  I cannot complain a bit!

Later on, I will post pictures of the remodeled rooms so that I may remember how once again, God delivered me.

God is good, all the time!

If you'd like to link up and share your thankful heart, click here.

I Am A Flood Victim

I never wanted riverfront property!

We have owned our little piece of property for over 30 years.  We never thought we'd ever have to say, "I am a flood victim."  However, the unthinkable happened and flood waters invaded our little home.

I realized the other day that I had not blogged since right before we had to abandon our home at 2 in the morning on a Monday. We do have a place to stay due to the kind mercies of my aunt.

I shared an update with some friends regarding our situation, and since I have limited internet access at the present time, I thought I would just post the same information for any readers I might still have left.

I will blog again.

Life is change.  When I can get back to blogging regularly, I expect that my blogging may take a different direction.  One thing for sure, you never know what is around the corner! 

Thank you to the readers who have contacted me and have prayed for me that our family was safe!

And now, my update:

As you may know, there is extensive flooding around the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.  In my part of the country, the flood was disastrous. The county I live in sustained heavy damages. My house ended up having 12 inches of water in it instead of just the 6 inches we had originally thought. We must be terrible estimators! When we got back in and measured the line where the water was, it was 12 inches.



We have packed up everything and moved out all our furniture, storing it in our Pastor's 2-car garage and my aunt's basement. Jim has now ripped up all the carpeting and one subfloor (in our bedroom) will have to be replaced. Next week, a contractor friend of ours will rip out about 2 feet of drywall all around the house. Then bleach water will have to be sprayed in there, then it will have to dry out several days. Also next week, another friend has volunteered to pull out our cabinets so that the drywall behind them can get the same treatment. Then he will clean up the cabinets and put them back. We will have to have a new countertop, since the old one will have to be taken apart in order to get the cabinets out.


Next, new drywall will have to be added to the bottom of all walls. In order to not have to patch and paint the drywall, we are going to put up white pre-painted beadboard (or wainscoting) over it. We will do some repainting in the bedrooms (and possibly the kitchen) and install white chair rail all around the beadboard.


After that, carpet can be put down in the living room and bedrooms, and laminate in the kitchen. I haven't made up my mind about the bathroom. Wish I had a relative that could do ceramic tile in there!


We have promises of donated labor, but not sure how all that will work out. We may have to hire someone, but finding someone who has time may be a challenge. However, I'm positive God will provide. He will walk each step of the way with us. If all goes as planned, our house will look much nicer inside than before the flood. We really needed new carpet anyway, we just did not want to be forced into it! As for the outside of the house ... well that needed a lot of help before the flood anyhow ... somehow something always happens to keep us from fixing that. Maybe God's way of keeping us humble, LOL.


In the midst of all this disaster, somehow both Elissa and I developed poison ivy while filling sandbags and had to go to the doctors. Mine was on my ankle, and the day we went into our house and stood in flood water for 2 hours to rescue our belongings really made it worse. You should see my legs now! No, actually you would not want to. I have been to the doctor twice and am now on stronger meds, but it is taking a long time to get better. This is curtailing my cleanup activity immensely!

Since we are basically homeless right now, we have been staying at my aunt's house. Bless her heart, she called the day we were flooded saying if we were welcome to stay with her if we needed to. I didn't take her seriously because I was so sure that all our sandbagging efforts would pay off! Then at 2 in the morning the flood waters started coming up to the door and we had to call her and ask if we could come then. I bet she never thought we would have to end up staying with her this long ... She seems to be fine with us staying but I feel awful about it ...



Now for family update:  Janae and Daniel will be home from Oklahoma and we are all meeting at Lambert's in Sikeston for dinner! I'm so excited to see them. Malia is coming too! Then tomorrow will be Malia's graduation. I'm hoping and praying that everyone will have a wonderful time during these two events.


Well, that's been Jerri's world for the month of May! Please keep us in your prayers, and I want you to know that I love all of you and pray for you as well.