Cheers!

Greetings from the lovely and sometimes sunny Isle of Wight. We're into our second week here and things are still going at breakneck speed. Our second wedding (aka "blessing") and third reception is this Saturday. All of Martin's family from Liverpool will be there as well as everyone Martin has ever know. I think there will be around 100 guests there. So, the wedding dress gets a second round! I think I'll be ready to sell it after that.

Anyway-- I don't want to tease you with a short blog, but it's coming up on midnight here and out-of-town guests are arriving tomorrow, so I have to go.

After our wedding, there will be a wonderful 10-day honeymoon in Spain, given to us as a wedding gift. So, no blogging for a couple of weeks, but I promise to post more details and photos of our new life here soon. Here's one to start you off...the front of our house!

More coming in a coupla weeks, hang tight!

Martin (aka Mardy)

Here he is! My fiancee', my future husband, the man who is stuck with me for the REST OF HIS LIFE! Our new life together begins on April 15th at 6:30... please make our joy complete by joining us. Can you tell that I've been looking at wedding invitations? If I don't blog much between now and the wedding, please forgive me.

My plan is to blog like a blogging fool once I move to the Isle of Wight. Until then, keep me in your prayers because figuring out how to change everything in my life is keeping me more than occupied and a little bit frazzled.

Love to all!

Just when you thought I would never post anything new

I'm the worst blogger in the world. I know this. I've accepted it. BUT things may change because I got a brand new, spiffy, ever-so-tiny digital camera today. Early Christmas from sisters and Mom. I think this will help me tell my story in pictures rather than words. So, brace yourself for some new, exciting posts. And thank you for not giving up on me.

Mom and Katrina

Update on Mom and her whereabouts after Hurricane Katrina. She and her husband, Dan, were able to stay in their home in a rural area of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Their home suffered no severe damage. Praise God! However, since my mom and Dan both work in casinos that were wiped out in the storm (Mom is a restaurant manager and Dan is a blackjack dealer).... they had no jobs. Just this week, they found new jobs in Baton Rouge at a casino there. They are grateful for new jobs but feeling out of sorts that they have to leave their home and move to a new area.

And in Baton Rouge, my friends there report that the population has doubled. My friend, Laura, said that instead of taking 10 minutes to get to her local Target, it takes 30 minutes because of the traffic. I'm bracing myself for what it will be like the next time I visit Louisiana.

My sister, Michel, and her family are settling back into their home in New Orleans. They also suffered no major damage to their home. Their kids are back in school and Michel is able to commute to her job in Baton Rouge, which used to be in downtown New Orleans.

I still have not absorbed the enormity of the situation. As I watch footage on TV, all I feel I can do from thousands of miles away is to pray. Thank you for your prayers for my family too.

they got me

My friends are pretty clever. Alisa and Mo are in town visiting from Virginia and I thought we were just popping in for a visit with a friend, but it turned out to be a surprise birthday party for me.

Can I tell you, I was clueless! I knew NOTHING!

What a great time it was, having so many of my favorite people in one place at the same time!





Look, even Pastor Chris was there! And Jason! And Amy! Annie was a sneaky planner!
















My first pair of Rainbow sandals!
One can never have too many pairs of flip flops.












Hanging out at the jacuzzi.

Lay Counseling

I'm not so good at blogging, I've found. I have alot going on, but not many pictures to accompany my life. So since I'm a visual person, I feel bad not including a picture so I don't blog.

Except for right now. I have 8 minutes before my Thursday night class starts. It's a 30-week class, every Thursday from 630-930. It's a Lay Counseling class and it's provided for free through the Saddleback Pastoral Care ministry.

Tonight's my third week and we're learning about Honesty. If you have any questions about that topic, I'll be happy to answer them after 930 tonight. (pacific standard time, of course).

Family Update

The last I heard was that Mom and Dan are going to stay with my sister in Memphis. There is no way for them to stay at their house any longer without water. Food is unavailable, even at the stores that are open.

My other sister, Michel, and her family will be making their way towards Covington. This is a town just north of New Orleans. It's likely that this will be where they live permanently. Schools in New Orleans are gone, so her daughters will most likely be enrolled at school in Covington.

Mom and Dan were both employed by casinos, so we'll have to see where they end up getting new jobs.

Mom is safe

I can breathe. We've gotten word that Mom is safe, in a dry home, with a generator. Praise God! The last 24 hours has been very hard....not knowing, not hearing, only seeing photos online of the devastation. Grandma is accounted for as well. We've heard from all of my family members in that area, so hopefully I will get some sleep now.

What a nightmare this whole thing is. Keep praying!

Kiln, MS

Still no word from Mom. I found a small clip on MSNBC of aerial footage of Bay St. Louis, MS which is a town just a few miles from Mom. It's completely wiped out. It's where I attended jr. high and high school. Gone! The reporter said that the eye of the storm passed directly over Bay St. Louis. My mom lives just a few minutes north of this town in a place called Kiln, MS. I did a Google search to see if ANY info came up and found this quote from Brett Favre (of the Green Bay Packers), whose hometown is Kiln, MS. It wasn't good news, but at least it was news. I'll take what I can get.

"Earlier telephone calls from relatives informed Favre that several trees near his mother's house had been flattened by winds and that police were stopping attempts to visit the area some 50 miles from her home with indications it might be weeks before people were allowed into the area.
"I hope they are OK but with each minute that passes I worry," Favre said. "I would hope they could get to a phone but I know there are other issues. Everywhere is flooded. They don't have electricity. It's 100 degrees."
"In my gut I feel they are OK but in my mind I begin to wonder.".

My sister, Michel, will be making her way from Baton Rouge in that direction tomorrow or the next day. We've heard from the sheriff's dept that the roads are impassable in "the Kiln". But she will do what she can to get there in the next couple of days.

Katrina

It's a strange thing to see your hometown on the news being ripped apart and drowned from a catastrophic hurricane. Being in California, I feel so helpless to do anything. But I've been praying hard.

My mother, Germaine, lives on the southern coast of Mississippi. She and her husband, Dan, drove north to Vicksburg to try to evacuate but couldn't find a vacancy in a hotel, so drove back home. Nobody has heard from her yet. The eye of the storm would have passed almost directly over her home. I'm choosing to believe that she is just unable to make contact with anyone due to lack of electricity and phone lines. But it's really, really hard to not know if she's OK. My grandmother, Vera, is also unaccounted for. She is in a nursing home in the same area as my mom.

My sister, Michel, evacuated with her family from New Orleans to Shreveport and they are all fine. They've been told that their home is OK as well.

My other sister, Jeane, lives in Memphis and went through the weakened storm last night and lost electricity but that's all.

Friends in Baton Rouge are all accounted for, praise God!

Prayers for my mom and grandma would be very much appreciated! Will try to keep you updated on this blog.

New Post

Annie said that I needed to create a new post. Since I'm not real sure of what I'm doing with the blog anyway, I decided I should do as I'm told.

So, here's my new post....

Update on doggy - I named him George. Why? Because he is a George. If you ever have the pleasure of meeting him in person, you will probably agree with me. Although Annie has just been calling him "black dog" and Jake's still calling him "stupidhead".

Condo purchasing - Whoda thunk that I would even consider purchasing a condo in Orange County? It's not cheap, ya know. Apparently, the lender looks at 3 things when they lend you money... your credit, your income and a down payment. I don't have any of those. Let's see what kind of miracle needs to happen for anyone to lend me hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Match?

I'm thinking of adopting this dog as a friend for Jake. Jake has a blast at the dog park chasing and wrestling with other dogs. So, we think he needs a permanent buddy. What do you think of this dog? His name is "Match". I won't get them confused, since he's black and Jake is white.

And he's scruffy. I like scruffy.

I wish I knew

Blogging - this is new. Wish I knew what I was doing. Or, what this means, now that I blog.

I blog now.