NEW PAIR OF WINGS

Hello friends!  It’s been a long time since my last post, at least 3 months. Just about the whole summer! But there’s been a lot going on in our little lives! Some of it good and joyful, and some sad and overwhelming.

In mid June Mum decided to take a leap and she purchased a fixer upper beach house!   Even though we went through the inspection process before the sale, there were still some issues with the house that we didn’t know about.  And really when you buy something that has been neglected for a long time you can probably expect that it’s got deeper issues than what you can see even with the inspection process.  You can’t break down walls and open things up to see what’s going on inside, so when we got into the house and we opened up walls inside and out, we found some big issues! And there were some things that we really couldn’t handle on our own.   For two women who are used to doing things under their own steam it was overwhelming to have to find good help in an area unknown to us, and be reliant on people that we didn’t know. Lets face it, these days some people are just dishonest and looking to take advantage, and we found some of those people, and we found some very honorable and honest, kind, hard-working people too!  We’re very grateful that through all of the anxiety and the stress that we were feeling that our Heavenly Father offered us not only emotional comfort and support, but He also answered our prayers with practical help, so that we were able to get the exact help we needed to get the things done that that we couldn’t do ourselves.

We also lost two kitties this summer, Simon and Charlie.  On our travels to the beach house, we we took our fur kids with us and in one accidental moment, one careless moment, we lost our little boys.  I can’t tell you how heartbroken and devastated we were, and ashamed too for not taking better care of our babies.  We couldn’t even talk about it, and we did our best not to think about it too. We just tried to keep doing the everyday necessary things. Our joy was gone.

Every week when we travelled through, we called and searched the wooded rest area where they disappeared, we stalked the local shelters and Internet and facebook sites, and we kept praying.  But after 6 weeks with no sign we had given up hope of seeing them again.

And then, on our last trip up a couple of weeks ago, everything miraculously came together and we felt God’s hand in the whole thing! We weren’t planning on stopping at the rest stop, but I needed to use the bathroom and it would be another 20 minutes to the next potty.  As I came out of the bathroom, Simon was there right in front of me! I called his name and he came towards me, but on the other side of a split rail femce. He was talking to me, but not coming close enough for me to pick him up. I was afraid of spooking him, so I prayed for help and moved away from the fence towards the building. Simon came through the fence and stopped about 6 feet away. I came up and grabbed him up into my arms and held on as gently/tightly as I could!! He didn’t fight to get away! He knew us and he was ready to come home!!

It’s truly a miracle that this little 15 year old boy survived 6 weeks in the wild! No food, except the kindness of strangers. No shelter except the closeness of the rest area buildings.  Mountain lions, racoons and other wild things could have eaten him up. He could have gotten run over or lost on the highway nearby. Such a wonderful miracle!  And he’s a little thinner and has a new kink in his tail, but we know our prayers were answered and that God kept him safe until we could find him again!!

We haven’t yet found our sweet Charlie, but we have hope.  And for now we’ll keep searching and stopping at the rest stop, and praying for his safe return.

In our shelter searches we found a little girl kitty.  She’s a little tabby with big Green eyes and she’s 9 years young. She’d been at the shelter for about 2 and a half months. She was tiny, and very thin and she needed us and we needed her too, so we adopted our new baby girl, her name is Lucy and she is named after Ms.Craftberrybush!  She’s been with us about a month now. She’s gained some weight and muscle, but most important she’s happy and healthy and just a little feisty!  She’s a cuddle bug and she’s got several names already, Lucy, Lucy bug, lady bug and Lulu.

We’ve learned so much this summer, new DIY skills, new technological skills and we’ve learned new things about human nature.  We’ve learned to be more careful with our little ones and we’ve learned new ways to simplify. We do our best and then trust that God will take care of the rest of everything. We’ve learned to concentrate on taking care of and loving what we have, because you never know when it might disappear into the forest. But mostly we feel so grateful, to be so blessed and loved by God!!

I hope never to be away from you dear friends for this long ever again! I’ve got some pretty new autumn decor and some new free ideas to freshen up our homes with paint and natural decor, that I think you’ll have so much fun with, and I can’t wait to share them with you over the next few weeks!

I hope y’all had a great summer and I hope that if you needed it you found comfort and hope and help at just the right time!

Take care sweet friends and I’ll see you soon!!

M