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A Fun and Practical Upcycling

I finally figured out what to do with my wedding veil that has been "collecting dust" in a closet. I made my own veil for my wedding with fabric that I already had, but many people buy their veils which costs money, and you only wear it once for a few hours.  People generally don't have as much money as they used to due to the times we are living in with the costs of everything sky high.  I put the top and bottom layer of my veil on each side of our wedding portrait.  A fun, homemade swag in getting more use out of the veil.

CONGRATULATIONS JOSEPH!

This post is dedicated to my God given husband.  Every year he grows in studying God's word to become an even better husband, and I'm super proud of him.  I've heard some people say that you don't fall in love, but you grow in love, and that is soooo true.  He works very hard to provide a good life for me more so than ever this year.  His tree has beautiful blooms.  :-)  I love seeing him grow as a man, and that he is doing it to please God.  I can see more than ever how God gave me Joseph.  It's never too late to better yourself.  Same goes for me and everyone.  When he finished high school, he chose to join the army instead of college.  I think he really needed that then, and I'm glad that he did.  A perk to being married to a veteran is the military discounts.  :-)  However, for the past couple of years, many, many, many years after high school, he has been working diligently on furthering his education while working full-time, and he finally finished his first leg and got his certificate just this past year.  It was a hard class while juggling full time work, but his tuition was worth every penny.  I'm so proud of him.  He had an overall B+ average when he graduated.  Marriage is great as it promotes growth and service to each other, and as a couple out to others.  I'm very happy for Joseph.  Though it's not a fancy PHD, he set a goal and acheived it.  You're never too old to learn new things and to better your life.  He still has more classes with more tests to take in furthering his education even more, but God comes first in our lives, and it's already battle enough to maintain that in how busy life is these days, and we both believe that furthering education in Bible study and living that way of life learned is what we're judged on in life, so I guess he will work on finishing up his class education after taking a break this year from tests and quizzes.

Joseph has a great job with his current job at DOT foods, and plans to stay there...it is such great company with great growth potential and benefits, and great bosses, that it would be unwise to not stay there....if something ain't broke, don't fix it......he really loves going to work at DOT every work day...and has been in the warehouse logistics business for years and years, and plans to continue in that, but it is always good to educate yourself in case you ever need a Plan B to fall back on.  I always say, if God had to have a plan b, then so should we. Here are the fruits of his labor:

Yard Sale ALERT!!!

 We are going to have a yard or both in person and online hopefully within the next 2 weeks...here in March.

We have so many things...and that is exactly what they are things....The older that I've gotten, the less attached to physical things I've become.  I think my husband feels the same way.  We have bought so many things that we have needed since being in Georgia while we were staying in a rental home while we were looking for land to buy and actually going through the process of having the manufactured home built, that once we moved into our new home, and had our things from Chicago brought down by the movers that Joseph hired, that we ended up having double of a lot of things.  We have too much stuff.  Electronics, household goods, clothes, shoes, an entire nice cookware set, and more.  Stay tuned; yard sale coming VERY soon, I may post things for sale online here on this blog, and on online marketplaces and host a physical yard sale.  

Welcome Basket Fun

 A special shout-out to our lovely neighbors who got together, knocked on our door one afternoon, and presented us with this welcome to the neighborhood basket.  We know we are in a great neighborhood with neighbors like this.  This kind of thing happens in the movies and apparently in our new neighborhood.  It brought a smile to our faces, and actually came in really handy.  Thank you!  Living is giving, so we will have to give back.

Our Abode in Story

 Here are some pics of our abode.  Most people buy readymade manufactured homes, but we customized this manufactured home, and had it built from scratch and placed on land that Joseph bought.  This is everything that I wanted in a home and my great husband let me pick the design.

A blessing that we were very thankful for was that the home was completely finished, and we were given the house key the day before Thanksgiving.  We were VERY grateful for this timing.

BELOW:  The photo story of our home from land to home....

ABOVE:  Choosing cabinetry. The one that we chose....

BELOW:  The land that Joseph purchased...how it looked when purchased

The Tree Company taking down trees and clearing the land..this pic is about 3 months later from above pic....

BELOW:  The land cleared of trees that were in the way and leveled off for the home.

BELOW:  Working on home..this pic is a few months later....

home done, now it's time for Joseph to make a gravel driveway...country living!

BELOW:  I love this pic, it looks like Joseph is thinking of all of the work ahead of us to create the driveway.

No sense in just looking, we went straight to work.  I jokingly say he was the stronger beast of burden, and I was his helper engineer designer.

This is my dream kitchen!  Built in bar with a barndoor, stainless steel sink that is deep and without the middle bar divider....walk-in pantry.  Physical things come and go according to God's will, but this sure is fun to use right now.

Hurricane Helene!

 My husband and I were deep into sleep in the middle of the night, or some would say real early in the morning around 3 or 4 AM when we heard loud noises outside and strong winds.  We got up and realized that a very bad storm that sounded like what I know as a tornado was happening.  We heard trees crashing around the rental home we were staying in, and other loud noises.  Joseph, my husband, prayed for our protection, the protection of our rental home, the protection of our neighbor's property, and for the protection of the manufactured home that we were having built that was still under the final construction phase.  We went to the safest part of the rental house and waited out the storm.  When the sun rose, and the storm had passed we realized it had been a real, live hurricane that we had been in.  When we went outside, we realized how God has protected us as power lines were down everywhere, a tree had fell in our neighbor's yard and was on top of one of their vehicles, another tree had fallen in their backyard and had missed falling onto their home by inches.  Other neighbors further down the street had trees that had actually fallen on their homes and powerlines were down everywhere.  After we got over the initial shock of what had actually happened, we noticed no trees had fallen in our rental home yard, and that our vehicle and rental home had no damage besides that two rocking chairs on the porch and the bistro table and chairs had blown off to the side of the house.  We were very thankful for God's protection.  All praises went and still go to him.  We decided to drive to the land where the home we were having built was to see how it had fared hoping for God's protection there as well.....Here is more of this story in pictures that I took.

BELOW:  pictures of our rental home...you can see the blown over rocking chair, bistro table and chairs.  Other than that, no damage to the rental property which stops at the fence line.

BELOW:  Our neighbor's tree that fell on one of their vehicles but missed their house by inches as you can see.  Later on, that day, we found out that miraculously, the tree that was on their car left their car unscratched.  Wow, other people had cars crushed all over town, so this was a definite miracle.  Answered prayer for sure.

BELOW:  Joseph gathering the rocking chair to put it back on porch while waving at a neighbor.  This morning was very community building.  People gathering together not only to survey damage but helped each other like neighbors use to do in the old days before our time.  It was beautiful!

BELOW:  Joseph and I decided to try to get in the car and try to drive around to see how our home being built had fared, and to see how his workplace had fared.  Little did we know how blessed we had been in our neighborhood as we drove around that saw much more damage around town.  Below you will see how bad the hurricane was in other nearby areas......My husband was in the army years earlier, perhaps he felt like he was driving in a war zone as power lines were down, we had to dodge, trees that were in the road, ETC.

BELOW:  Finally, after driving through the war zone we reached our land and manufactured home.  Was our home okay.....Whew!...God had protected it greatly.  Absolutely no visible damage!  Other homes in the vicinity of the same kind had trees down, trees going through their roof, siding ripped off, damaged and exposed roofs, but our little blessing was standing just fine and there was not even a tree down in the yard...nothing...It didn't even look like that storm had happened in our little land sanctuary.  Thanks be to God!  We noticed that our neighbors right next door had minimal damage too.  We were happy for him as well!  It was like the hurricane lifted up and passed our land by.  A few weeks later, one of the house trimming men were inside the house working and Joseph and I stopped by to see his progress...he asked if our home had been standing during the hurricane because he saw no damage inside or out in our yard.  We told him yes, it was standing...He was so shocked.  This was motivation for us to do better in our lives in pleasing God as he surely protected us all around.

BELOW:  Once we could see that the outside was okay, Joseph went inside first checking for damage and there was none.  We were so relieved.  It didn't make us just thankful, nor make us feel like we're doing okay, but it encouraged us to do even better.

ABOVE:  My favorite room, the kitchen!

I learned in all of this what a great employer God has blessed my husband with.  Go DOT FOODS!  Not only is it a great company with DC's around the country, but they really care about their employees.  They gave many care packages to their employees because the power was down for about 2 weeks in the area.  (Some people roughed it with generators...Joseph and I tried to rough it, but it was so hot we drove up 2 hours toward Macon...towards Atlanta...the closest area that had power still and stayed in a hotel.  Joseph commuted 2 hours one way to work and then 2 hours one way back from work everyday!...That's 4 hours per day on the road....but he did it!)  Anyway, going back to his great employer that were so great; before we decided to book a hotel; Dot Foods allowed me to come to work one day with him and just sit quietly in the break room to have A/C and electricity as they had generators.  They gave water, care packages, toilet paper, paper towels, and many more perks to their employees to show their appreciation and to help employees out that weren't as fortunate as us.  I'll promote DOT Foods any day, anywhere to all.  Great company!

BELOW:  Some of the care packages from DOT Foods given to their employees.

Celebrating Wedding Anniversary

We decided to see more of Savannah, Georgia for our wedding anniversary, so Joseph used some of his vacation days, and we went on what most would call a romantic trip.  We both love touring historical cities.  Savannah has a lot of Civil War history and even has revolutionary history.  We had a blast!

PHOTO:  On the evening of our anniversary, we decided to book a paint and sip venue called Tipsy Hues.  We booked the whole place to ourselves and had a private painting session and were served by our gracious venue host sparkling wine, cheesecake, and chocolates provided there.  Below are the paintings that we created.  If you're ever in the Savannah, Georgia area, this is one of Savannah's top paint and sip venues.

BELOW:  After fun with wine, chocolate, and painting champagne toasts, we went on a fun day time cruise via Savannah Riverboat Cruises Georgia Queen.  We had a blast and saw a lot of historical scenery along the way.  They have a nighttime Dinner Riverboat Cruise as well.  Perhaps, we can do that next time.

Charleston, South Carolina Adventures!

 Joseph and I went to Charleston, South Carolina to explore this famous city.  We enjoyed visiting there just as much as we enjoy Savannah, Georgia!  Charleston, South Carolina is Savannah, Georgia's sister city, but it is the older city.  We learned a lot.  Like both Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina have a lot of history including Civil War history.  We had a blast!  We learned that Charleston is named after King Charles of England who moved to America after being exiled from England, and that the city was founded by him as a "eat, drink, and be merry" city...that is actually where this saying comes from.  I didn't know that!  It is known to have some of the best elevated culinary experiences in the states.  We found this to be very true.  If you like history and are a foodie, check out Charleston, SC.  You just might like it!  :-)

BELOW:  When we got to our hotel, we were surprised to see my husband's name displayed at the hotel front desk as the "guest of the day".  Made us feel special, and for our entire stay, the front desk staff treated us like royalty.  We loved it, and tried to give joy back to them.  We stayed at the Cambria hotel.  We would totally stay there again.  Very upscale and unique hotel.

BELOW:  First stop was Fort Sumpter, where the first shot of the Civil War was shot.  We've read about this in school books, but never would we have thought that we'd be given the opportunity to see it with our own eyes.  Here are a few Fort Sumpter pictures that we took while there.

Next stop was to Patriot's Point a few miles from Fort Sumpter.  This is not Civil War history, but rather WWII and Vietnam history.  It is a battleship that sunk during a battle that was raised and turned into a museum for tourist.  It has old war planes, and even old rockets that actually were in space.  Joseph and I both love our country of America, are totally patriotic, so we loved this excursion.  We would totally go back again!  How cool!

BELOW:  Enjoy photos from our Patriot's Point excursion

below is a fun "paid photo" that we took at the Yorktown

BELOW:  Next stop on our trip in Charleston, South Carolina was to the Charleston Tea Garden....one of the only tea gardens left in the USA that grows, produces, and sells American grown tea!  Joseph and I both love tea, so we loved visiting the tea garden.  It's kind of like visiting a wine vineyard, only it's visiting a tea garden, literally.  We were greeted by a super kind staff who showed us an open tea bar where you can taste many different teas, both hot and iced that they offer.  If you are a tea lover, this is your place.  I bought a "TEA Shirt" from their gift shop.  :-)  Their website link is:  www.charlestonteagarden.com

Check out our Charleston Tea Garden Photos if you wish!

The next morning, we went to a fun place in downtown Charleston called Tijon!  They sell fine perfumes and colognes.  They also offer fine perfume and cologne making classes.  They teach you how to make a custom scent of your own, and then they actually keep "your recipe" and you can buy it online on their site when you want to restock.  How cool is that.  It is a great date experience for couples, or a great fun experience for a group of friends.  We loved it.  We made three scents and chose two each.  It was a fun good smelling time!

Their website link is:  www.tijon.com

BELOW are pics from our fun experience there!

ABOVE:  Awww....Joseph named one of his custom-made scents after.  How sweet!

BELOW:  After our fun filled day, we had a special date planned to try one of Charleston's finest starred restaurants, The Charleston Grill.  It was great and exceeded our expectations.  We told the chef our dietary restrictions; food allergies and let him choose our course meal.  We were glad he did.  He "whipped up" all kinds of neat and creatives things for our date evening.  Below are pictures of our culinary experience there.

Meeting and thanking our chef.

They had nice live jazz music playing with a dance floor.  Joseph and I danced a dance to their lovely live music.  We both are not dancers because we haven't had formal lessons, so I like to say we "pump water" to music.  We do want to take ball room dancing to learn, but he works so much these days, there isn't time.  So much fun though!

We also went on a horse and carriage ride to tour Charleston such as we had done in Savannah.  However, I was so enthused by the ride that I forgot to take any photos.

We also went to Boone Hall Plantation, one of the few surviving plantations from before the Civil War era.  This plantation has been used to shoot many movies, and even parts of the movie, The Notebook from 2002, and many more notable movies.  I like looking at old architecture.  I have taken a few college classes in the past on architecture, so this was great!  BELOW:  Enjoy photos from this adventure if you wish!

BELOW:  The slave cabins still stand on this plantation.  Apparently, according to our tour guide, the brick making (masonry) was their main job on this plantation which explains the brick quarters.  Many of the buildings and streets in downtown Charleston were built here by bricks made on this plantation by slave labor.  Interesting fact.  My husband and I are not hostile about the past as slavery was and still is wrong, but the Civil War has been fought, over, and won for years.  It is the history that fascinates us and look how far many of the slave's descendants have come now.  Joseph and I always say, no use in dwelling in the past, you cannot change what's happened, just move forward, you can control that as long as God allows.

A glimpse inside the slave cabins

below is a health tip learned

Indigo is a big crop in Charleston.

After we left Boone Hall Plantation, Joseph and I wanted to experience another Charleston culinary adventure, so we went to the swanky Circa 1886.  It is located at an old downtown mansion.  We had another great evening of food fun, but this spot is also a great spot to take photos.  BELOW:  You can tour our Circa 1886 date evening.

BELOW:  Chocolate....I'm blessed.... everyday my husband and I grow more and more in love and grow closer.  The first year of marriage is the hardest as I was told that before marriage which is very unlike the movies that show the first year being all romance.  Real life is not like that.  You grow in love more as your marriage progresses, and you both overcome and learn things, and growth brings more joy.  Thank you to my wonderful God given husband, Joseph, for having these delivered to our hotel for me.  Awwww....chocolate is one of the keys to many gals hearts.  :-)  I was touched by the message on the note on top of the chocolates.  Joseph surprises me.  He was in the service in his younger days, and can be as I call it" lovingly militaristic", but then randomly I get love notes, gifts, chocolates from his civilian side when I least expect.  :-)  I love that.