RVing With a Purpose

Sunday, April 15, 2018

It was still raining this morning. It was still raining when we went to church. It finally stopped raining sometime during Sunday School. And it got cold! The sun actually came out for a time early afternoon but by the time we got back to Tuscaloosa, the clouds were thick again and the wind was howling. As we unloaded the car back into FRED, it was so cold and windy. We immediately turned on the heat pump and fire place. Hope we didn’t leave too many cool weather clothes back to Blount County.

Max had to walk out the drive to check for downed limbs and to see how badly the drive had washed over night, before we got ready for church. We had a lot of rain and the drive will take some work but no large limbs or trees were down and we could still get out in the car so no major problems. It was so good to get to worship at Lester today. Barry’s message was from 1 John 3:1-10. He told us that John is clear, being a Christian is a matter of identity. We are Children of God! We were reminded that we must be careful not to trade our distinctiveness as God’s children for worldly applause. People should see the resemblance of our Father when they see us. We are so blessed to have a pastor who preaches the Word.

After church and Sunday school we had a fund raising dinner for the Philippine mission team.  Taco salad and it was good!  We have a great team going to minister in the Philippines and we will be continuing to pray for them as they prepare to leave next month.  It was then back to the rehab center to visit with Aunt Helen and Aunt Jean. Jean was still sleeping but we visited with Helen until she went to the dining hall for lunch. We then visited with Jean and helped her with her lunch. She is still very weak. We visited with Helen until time for her to go to church this afternoon and then headed home to load the car. We stopped by the assisted living and checked Jean’s mail and visited with some of the staff. They are all so concerned about Jean and really want her to return. The staff and residents sent Jean the sweetest card. Don’t think she realizes how many friends she has there. We had an uneventful drive back to Tuscaloosa and found no storm related problems with FRED or Mama Ruby’s house for which we are thankful. We had a quiet evening, watched a Christmas movie and enjoyed some hot chocolate. Thought we had enjoyed our last of that for this winter a few weeks ago but looks like we will have another night or two where the temperatures will be right for a few more cups. Low tonight in Tuscaloosa predicted to be 39 and 37 at home. Maybe this is blackberry winter. Are the blackberry’s blooming? Oh well, hope you have a good Monday. Stay warm.

Saturday, April 14, 2018

The forecasters were on target regarding the rain today. It rained and rained and is still raining. We did go under a tornado warning in Tuscaloosa, but by then we were in Blount County. Early this morning we turtled up FRED (brought in all the slides and awnings) and said goodbye to him, leaving him in Tuscaloosa. We headed for higher ground (Pine Mountain). FRED is courageous and braved the storms where he was. Hopefully he has weathered the storms unscathed. Actually, the tornado warning was brief because about the time it was issued the storms started falling apart and rather than the severe storms we have just gotten all the rain that was predicted.

We spent most of the day watching the weather (in “weather mode” as Anne says); on the road, on Pine Mountain and at the rehab center in Oneonta visiting with Aunt Helen and Aunt Jean. Aunt Helen seems to be doing well although the dementia is definitely advancing. Aunt Jean did not appear to have made much progress in regaining strength this week. We will need to talk to the therapists next week. So now we are back at the sticks and bricks for the night and are looking forward to worshiping with our friends at Lester Memorial UMC tomorrow. Please keep us in your prayers as we try to provide the best care for our LOLs.

Friday, April 13, 2018

It’s five days in a row of very nice weather. Tomorrow is suppose to be totally different but we enjoyed today. We got our walking in, a little over 3 miles, and sat outside just enjoying the evening for a while tonight.

We didn’t do anything very exciting today. We watched the Blue Angels again. We just love to see all they can make those planes do. Some people complain about the noise, but we just say it’s the sound of freedom. Love it!

Also worked some more in Mama Ruby’s house cleaning out some of her things. Still can only do that for relatively short periods of time then need to work on something else. Since we got the tax id number for the estate this week Anne and her brother Sonny went to the bank to open an estate checking account. We thought that would be a quick and painless process, but not so. It took over an hour to open a simple account and we didn’t even bother to count the number of pages of paper they handed us when we left with all the bank rules and regulations. Yep, more government requirements. Makes us glad we own pine trees. Use more paper. We will grow more trees. Rant over. Yes, we know part of the aggravation was probably related to grief.

Otherwise, we continued to work on accounting for all the LOLs and some of our own.  Also seems we have lots of filing to do right now. Too much paperwork! We continue to enjoy the irises we brought from the sticks and bricks. They have held up well and continue to bloom out. We are planning to go back to Blount County some time this weekend, so we can go to our church on Sunday. If they don’t get too damaged by the approaching storms we might bring some more back to FRED when we return. Hope you all have a great weekend. Stay safe and remember to be in prayer for Sunday services. Your pastors need your prayers.

In case you are interested in what is happening on the NOMADS Disaster Rebuild project in Baton Rouge, our friends who are now leading the project posted an update on the NOMADS website. Click here to read it.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

If you want to know how nice the weather is just look at every other day this week. Another awesome day. We are enjoying sitting outside in the afternoons after our walks.

We started the day with a nice walk. Then we continued to work down the to do list. We made good progress today. Unfortunately, other things were added to the list. Still we are pleased that the list is a little shorter this evening than it was this morning. Another LOL tax return was completed, more bills paid, reports submitted, orders placed. We have a new toy on the way. More about that later. We heard jets at 10:00 and remembered the air show is this weekend. We stepped outside and as expected we saw the Blue Angels arriving for the air show. They were flying in formation as they approached the airport. A few hours later they returned to the sky practicing for the show. We saw their homecoming show in 2014 when we were in Pensacola working the Gulf Breeze disaster rebuild. The Angels have done several shows here in Tuscaloosa and they usually make some runs right over Mom’s house. They flew over a number of times but none as low as they have done in the past. Wonder if they have new restrictions in place now. It will be interesting to see what they do tomorrow and then the days of the shows. Mom’s house really isn’t that close to the airport but we still got a nice show today.

 

While we were out taking photos of the Angels our next door neighbor on the other side came out with her twin boys. We had a nice visit. We took another nice walk on the greenway this evening and then enjoyed sitting outside reading. We just saw on the blog statistics that we have one viewer from China today. Wonder who that might be. Interesting. Thank you, God, for another good day to spend together.