Flea Market Gardening Vintage Bike

I've been looking for a vintage bike for FOREVER to put in a certain area in my front yard.  I have a red vintage bike which I adore, but I ride around on it!  I've seen vintage bikes around here and there for over one hundred bucks...I don't THINK so, as Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women used to say (God rest Dixie Carter's soul....LOVE HER.)  Julia rants

I put the word out that I was looking for an old, broken-down bike for cheap or nothing.  Cheap is good, free is better, as a boss of mine used to say.  About a month later, a black, broken down bike with no gears was leaning against my front porch when I came home last week. The tires were flat, which suited me just fine because it doesn't need to go anywhere,

I painted it bright red (I should buy stock in Rustoleum) and found a basket for under $5 at Walmart.  It isn't a bike basket per se, but rather a wire basket that we attached to the handle bars with cable tie wraps.  I couldn't find a used bike basket anywhere and the cheapest I saw on line was $10 before shipping cost.  The pinwheels are from the Dollar Store.

This picture was a mistake as a put my cell phone in my pocket prior to the pinwheel addition .  When I looked at it, I kind of liked it.   The house you see is the Craftsman bungalow next door, which was once the mother-in-law's house for mine and was originally part of my property.

Rushing Over the Bridge

So the other day, I was riding as a passenger across this bridge and was impatient to be on my way to the Peninsula.  Surely this couldn't be Busch Gardens traffic.  We were nearly 40 miles away.  If it was Busch Gardens, we were in for a bumpy ride.  I was hungry for lunch, blah blah blah...

The traffic started up again and I remembered (feeling a little foolish) that this was a draw bridge and this hand to sail underneath with its tall mast:

How often do we do just what I did, only about less tangible things than draw bridges and boats?  When the job interview that seemed to go so well doesn't lead to a job, do we want to jump on ahead?  When a new relationship seems so right, only there's just this little thing about it that doesn't seem Biblical, do we want to rush on in and then feel a stab of disappointment when it ends?

God orders our days perfectly.  Since there is only NOW anyway, we must learn to be content, thankful, and joyful right where we are, lest we hurry on ahead and find the draw bridge open under our feet.

My times are in Your hands.

Psalm 31:15

The eternal God is your Refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. 

Deuteronomy 33:27

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord.  "Plans to prosper you...plans to give you a hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

Alexandria VA - Flowers and Exquisite Grounds

I love this brick pathway.  We are building a little one in the cottage garden.

I wish it had been a less hazy day last Saturday, but it was delightfully cool for walking.

Walking in Alexandria

Alexandria, Virginia is one amazing place...full of history and plenty to enjoy today.  When you visit Alexandria, you don't just get to see something about General Robert E.Lee, you see Robert E. Lee's father's house.  His name was Harry "Lighthorse" Lee.

Some rows are brick, some are wood frame

I'm not sure which I like better.

Here's a secluded porch right on the street, with some wonderful geraniums.

The shopping and residential areas are side by side, but each business has to conform to standards to "fit their architecture in."  I'm all over that.  We don't need a Wal-Mart here.

Some of the brick looks like it has been in place since the 1700's.

I can't figure out who would have used this tiny door - hobbits?

Walking Through My Friend, Sue's, Yard

This is my friend Sue's house.  Sue never met a stranger.  We met years and years ago when I was walking dogs who now live in heaven. We became friends when she was helping one of my offenders.  She is an amazing person who began a career as an artist after she turned 50.  Her house and property are magical.

She lives along Owens Creek, actually part of the same creek system that I live along, which feeds into the Elizabeth River.

This is a chippy blue green desk out in the backyard.

Some gorgeous hydrangeas growing along the fence.

Figs out in the backyard...Jesus doesn't need to curse these, they're being productive!

Summer 2014 Mantel

Saying Goodbye to Debbie

Yesterday I drove down to Winston-Salem, NC to say goodbye to Debbie.

You see, her husband, David, called me Wednesday night to tell me that Debbie had been moved to Hospice Care and was "in the beginning of the active stage of dying."  It was such an odd statement that I had to ask him to repeat himself twice.

I've known Debbie for about 14 years.  She used to live at 106 Constitution while I live at 256.  She and her husband had married later in life.  David has an inherited form of blindness, while Deb had lupus, an autoimmune disease.

Despite having to get around on a walker, she worked as an editor and was at the Red Cross with me as a paid employee.  She always beat me playing Scrabble, even  after she went blind from medication complications. Scrabble has braille tile covers that fit over the letters. We'd often share a cup of tea at her house afterwards.  She had an exquisitely beautiful cat named Mischief.

Debbie never lost her sense of humor despite the blindness, the surgeries, and nearly dying.  She kept her puns and her humor at the ready after she was confined to a wheelchair, and then to bed.

Once, after she could no longer work, I stopped by at our usual time to see her.  I noticed that the electricity was out and it hadn't been back at work, a mile away.  The microwave was beeping and the house was dark.

"Hey its me, " I called out.  "When did the lights go out?"  She quipped, "About two years ago..."

Debbie had lost sensation in her hands to the extent that they didn't think she could learn braille. She did learn.  We went shopping because she liked my taste in clothes and later, we put on braille labels. She loved the feeling of one soft, fleece shirt and had me help her put on the new garment in the fitting room.

Later, we went out to our favorite Kelly's for dinner.  "Hey," she said to the waitress, "Does it say anything like "Re-Elect Bush" on my shirt?".  She is a liberal and I a conservative.

Debbie and David moved back to her native NC a number of years ago, but we kept in touch.  She had adaptive software and a computer which allowed her to continue writing emails and editing manuscripts.  She "read" the latest books and we talked about them, sharing a delight in reading.  I read with my eyes and she heard books via the Library of Congress, which has excellent services for the blind.

I knew that Deb's health was declining, but I was in no way prepared for that phone call.  I was devastated.

All the way down to NC, I kept thinking about an abandoned house.  The one in the picture above.  And in the pic below.

I was worried about what to say, but I shouldn't have.  She was in the most beautiful Hospice House.  The nurse advised, "Be careful with the door, there's a cat in there."  And indeed there was. Melchizideck, curled up on a window seat.

Debbie is surrounded by care and love.  Her beautiful voice was just the same, a cultured sort of a drawl, and the same piercing blue eyes, blind, but looking just the same.  What do you say to someone who has very little time left?
.
You pray.  You hold her hand.  You tell her you love her.  You try to ignore the lump in your throat. You hold the foam cup of sweet iced tea and bend the straw so she can drink. She is too weak to hold it herself. You laugh about the lime jello at Thanksgiving in 2004.  You try to offer comfort to her family.

"I can't believe you guys came down here.  It is an 8 hour round trip,."
"Debbie, if things were reversed, you would do it for me."
"That's true," she said in a strong voice,

Lupus is a horrible destructive disease.  I hate it.  Debbie's body may finally be losing its battle, but her spirit has never given in.

":Anne, " she said, holding up her hand, slightly gnarled from the disease. "I thought that when it finally came to the point when I couldn't type, I would give up.  I can't type anymore, but I was just thinking that if I could get someone to sit here with me and let me dictate and then type it up, I could finish my book."  Her spirit is so alive.

She was tiring from conversation, so we prayed prior to leaving.  "I'm not sure about what heaven is," she said when we finished. "But this right here, right now...this is sacred space."  Amen.

I couldn't figure out why I kept thinking of that old, abandoned house until I thought about this picture.

St. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

Debbie's housing on earth is being destroyed inch by inch by lupus, much like this old abandoned house. Once beautiful and strong, age and neglect have rendered the house nearly useless.  But one day soon, like this picture, Debbie's spirit will fly through a broken window into joy, beauty, and freedom, straight to the throne of God.  And then she will truly see.  

Flea Market Gardening - Potting Bench

I've been obsessed with all the gardening and potting shed pics on Flea Market Garden and Pinterest.  In particular, I've loved the different assembled potting benches I've seen.  Love them, love them, love them!

http://www.fleamarketgardening.org/2014/03/29/perfectly-possible-recycled-potting-benches/

I was driving the scenic route home through Olde Towne and saw the little cabinet that you see as the back of the "bench."  It was at the curb for trash pic up.  It smelled weird and was all white (with stains).  Here it is after I got the doors off:

I put it in the back seat and considered my other options.  About 12 years ago, my friend, Tanya, came over with an old kitchen counter someone had discarded at the curb.  It was fabulously 1950's and in perfect condition.

I spray painted the inside of the shelf white and the doors bright red.  I could tell you that I wanted some balance in color, but the truth is that I wasn't sure if I had enough red spray paint for the whole thing.

I moved my little Herb Garden box around and added some fun tin buckets from the dollar store.

At Nancy's on Scotts Creek

Wow, Friday was such a crazy day that it took until today to process it fully.  On Thursday, Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, VA staged an Active Shooter drill starting at 9 a.m.  Just after 8:30 a.m. Friday, a Navy ET (Bruce's rate in the Navy, an electronic technician) stabbed a young Master At Arms (Navy police officer) 8 times at the Navy Exchange.

The Hospital went to Code White, the highest alert level and the base was locked down trying to catch the bad guy.  My police radio was active with calls for the State Police to respond.  By the time I traveled back from dropping paperwork off at my office and seeing an offender, Portsmouth was teeming with police, FBI, Homeland Security, lights, sirens, news teams, and craziness.  I couldn't get to my next appointments because streets were blocked off.

And yet...1/2 a mile away in my own neighborhood, all was calm.  As I often do when troubled, I stopped at my friend, Nancy's, house.  This is the view from her yard...peaceful, lovely, with Cooper's Hawks swooping down from overhead and egrets feeding in the Creek.

Our hearts broke for this young Master at Arms, who was in surgery while we waited.  Channel 10 told us that he was a new father with a tiny baby shown off on his Facebook page.  His wife was devastated. Please pray for this young family.  God is so good, Justin Powell had surgery on Friday and his most recent condition report stated that he was doing well.  He does have a long road to recovery, though.  Pray especially for the total healing of his voice box; he was stabbed in the throat.

Please pray also for the young man who did such a horrendous thing.  He was apprehended at about 5:30 p.m.  At what point in our development as a society did we reach the stage when we face extremists at home and abroad, but sailors are attacking their own?  People say it is a lot of things; PTSD from battle, mental illness, side effects of the vaccines service members received before deploying overseas, depression, anxiety, the list could go on for paragraphs.

I believe that our efforts to remove God from our society have led to this point.  We have a generation of largely un-churched young people with broken homes who have no center to their lives.

Was my heart troubled for a time?  Of course, one can hardly stand in a friend's yard with helicopters searching overhead looking for an attempted murderer and not have the heart grieve in such a situation.  But, God is faithful.  I instinctively went beside the still waters and prayed.

Come unto Me all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.  Matthew 11:28

Savor the Olive

We had breakfast out this morning and did some shopping in the Ghent area of Norfolk, Virginia.  Savor the Olive is a small, specialty gourmet shop that sells olive oils from many different countries and from various types of olives.  

The gates you see above originally came from a chateau in France. They're gorgeous with a rusted, old world charm.

Today I purchased one oil that had been pressed with Persian limes and another which was pressed with Blood Oranges.  These flavored oils are sublime in a summer salad. 

The store also sells gourmet salt, various varieties of balsamic vinegar, including one that is infused with chocolate.  Yes, please!

Spring Garden

I've been working on my garden areas for over a month and not yet posted about it!  Every time I tweak or plant something, I take a picture. Then I think that I'll just do one more thing before I post.  I'm stopping today to show you what I've been working on

I love spray paint.  I should buy stock in Rustoleum.  All the red items were spray painted and were acquired for free.

The cabinet was a curbside find following a neighbor's kitchen remodeling.  The "herb box" was fashioned from another curbside find. The table came from an abandoned house which was torn down...left out for the trash trucks.  At the very top of the cabinet is a sign with our family name made from old license plates  The little watering cans that are hanging on the door came from the Dollar Store and the flowers seem to be doing just fine in them.  I punched some drainage holes in the bottom.

Here's another planting area closer to the house.  I found the box hanging on the fence down in the basement. The ladder back chair was a curbside find, the two little red chairs were from thrift shops.  At the top of the picture is a red-trimmed vintage bucket hanging on the storm door.  It has an orange lantana plant inside.

Here's the front door area.  I found these fun "planters" at Walgreen's.  They were intended for icing down beverages.

More soon, if I don't post now I never will.

XXOO

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and, uh cilantro

Last year, on a fine day in November, we went over to Hampton, VA. Hampton has a long history and a very old military base, Fort Monroe, which was closed two years ago.  We lived at Fort Monroe during the Vietnam era.   The base is so old that it has a working moat. Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, was imprisoned there.  But I digress.

We were walking in a historical neighborhood when I found the box above.  I don't know what it was used for, except that it was battered, gray, and left out for the trash.  It has cool metal handles on the two shorter sides.

It sat on the front porch from the day I put it in the car, a week before Thanksgiving, until last week.  I painted it red and my neighbor stenciled it for me.  Lauren is that kind of girl. I was bemoaning my poor stenciling skills the night before. When I came home from work, Lauren was stenciling it over on her porch.

The only thing is that I didn't put any rosemary in it. I use cilantro a lot more.  How "un-Scarborough Fair" of me. Are You Going to Scarborough Fair? When I was a teenager, there was a popular newscaster on Channel 4, WNBC, named Chuck Scarborough.  We used to sing a riff on that song, "Are you combing Chuck Scarborough's hair?"

He's still there doing the news.  I interviewed him in high school.  I can't imagine doing one job for so long.  I think it must be 40 years.

Chuck Scarborough

Some Psalm 55 Action

This sweet little mama mourning dove decided to put her nest in the geranium plant hanging on my porch.  She's a little hard to see, but her tail is under the geranium blossom on the far right.

Here are her two babies:

Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then I would fly away, and be at rest.  Psalm 55:6

I Have Come That You May Have Life in Abundance

So there are lots of mallard ducks here in my neighborhood.  This time of year, they are starting their little duck families, choosing their 'hood. This is where one mallard couple could live in high style.  Scotts Creek is a tidal estuary of the Elizabeth River.  The Elizabeth River ends up in the even more expansive Chesapeake Bay.  The possibilities for a beautiful life are limitless.

Is this where they live?  No, they live here right now, in a deep puddle near my front yard.

I shook my head when I saw this, but then they got me to thinking. What an amazing metaphor of the cautious, drab Christian life! "I'm afraid to to this, this makes me nervous.  I can't go there because it is too hard.  I don't feel comfortable talking about my faith.  I can't.  I won't.  I'm afraid.  I'm nervous.  Blah, blah, blah."

John 10:10 says that Jesus came to bring the abundant life.  God showers his unmerited favor, his grace upon our shoulders.  He has big plans for us.  Jabez prayed that God would enlarge his borders.  We should pray for the same thing.  Otherwise, we are like these ducks, sitting near a big puddle,

Which picture looks better?

I’m Gonna Lay my Burden Down, Down by the Riverside

Scripture relates that the Lord visits the sins of the “father” on the next generations.  Since we now are able to enjoy the grace that Jesus brings, my understanding of the Hebrew Scripture is a little different in regard to what the “sins of the father” actually means.  I am not responsible for the sins of other generations, but it is possible that I can be affected by them when I do not make the choice to walk in grace.

In my formative past, I was deeply affected by an unreliable family member who let me down because s/he had not accessed Jesus’ grace in his/her own life.  Due to that behavior, I have struggled in my own adulthood with phone calls which are not made or returned, feeling ignored, and feeling unimportant.  Both being late and having others keep me waiting unduly or failing to meet deadlines and commitments frustrates and upsets me.

Today I was stressed and anxious because of a particular friend who often brings memories of this past hurtful behavior into my current life. I have tried for years to help this friend understand how this affects me to no avail.

I went outside to bring the recyclables to the trash and it occurred to me that I had exhausted myself fretting about it during the day.  My thought was “that stupid so and so…%$*& him/her.” My friend is oblivious, but I’ve chosen to internalize the issue personally and bring the sins of one generation into my life which is under grace.  The result is hurt, anger, and fatigue.  Why?  Because I have forgotten God’s grace.

I stood there on the sidewalk, holding a bag of empty Fresca cans, flattened cardboard, and toilet paper tubes, frozen in place.  Frozen because of the temperature and by my thoughts.  First, my friend is clearly not stupid.  S/he has advanced degrees and many talents. 

I realized that I had denied God’s grace in my life and tried to mask my hurt by mentally calling him/her names and thinking about that family member from the past.  For me, anger has often been useful in hiding what is actually hurt underneath.  I have been mentally “cursing” myself by how I’ve been handling this situation.

In mentoring underprivileged children, I’ve taught them about mindfulness by teaching them to use all of their five senses in the present moment.  Often, if they were fussing amongst each other, I would say “Ssssssh…listen.  Tell me everything you can hear.”  We would identify all the sounds and their combativeness would turn to competitiveness as they struggled to hear and describe the most sounds.  We would go on to colors, smells, and things that they could feel such as the breeze on their skin.  Soon, all I would have to say during the next fussing was, “Sssssh…” and they would start the game independently.

This evening, I played the game by myself.  I set the recyclables down and stood there…listening, observing. I looked at the sculptural beauty of leafless trees set against the amazing colors of the sky at that moment just after sundown and just before the dusk.  I heard the crunch of the snow underfoot as others passed by.  I smelled wood smoke and felt the pain in my shoulder from hunching them all day. I considered the sins of the previous generations which I chose to bring into my life today and my resulting blindness to the beauty all around me.  Just like I set down the recyclables, I decide to lay my burden down…that burden that I have carried from elementary school.

My friend isn’t stupid and isn’t purposely hurting me.  His/her personal chaos spills over into my life. His/her life is not under grace yet, but through prayer, I know it can be. S/he isn’t here to make up for my past hurts.

However, for now, I need to back off from the friendship.  While I take ownership over the deep level of hurt I chose to have, I have communicated that I found this behavior disrespectful.  I hope that there comes a time when s/he is able to hear me and include my boundaries in our relationship.  Right now, I understand that s/he is not in a place in his/her journey where this is currently possible. 

However it IS possible for me to walk in the kind of grace in which I can acknowledge the hurt without anger and move forward in Jesus’s healing.

Did I ever mention that I live along a tributary of the Elizabeth River?

I'm gonna lay down my burden, down by the riverside,

Down by the riverside, down by the riverside

I'm gonna lay down my burden, down by the riverside

New Year's Breakfast

I used to struggle with finding healthy, yet tasty breakfast foods.  The traditional cereal, toast, muffins, etc. are too high of a carb load for me. Hard-boiled eggs and an apple used to work, but this wasn't a particularly delicious breakfast.  On Mondays, especially rainy ones, hard boiled eggs felt especially grim.  In fact, this breakfast made me think of the kid in Oliver Twist who dared to ask for more porridge in the dining hall. However, in my case it would have been  (insert British accent here), "Please Suh, may I have something else?"

A few months back, I read this interesting blog entry from Pioneer Woman about a low-carb breakfast she ordered from room service in a New York City hotel. I was inspired!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/10/carb-buster-breakfast/comment-page-2/

Her dish started with a base of mixed roasted vegetables with two poached eggs on top. I saute vegetables instead.  Sometimes I use fresh stir fry vegetables. Or I might use leftover vegetables from dinner the night before.

The base for this morning's eggs was an odd, yet entirely delicious combination of leftover carrots and parsnips from last night's dinner and leftover quinoa (a very healthy low-glycemic grain) sauteed with onions and tomatoes and a tiny lump of goat cheese.

Bruce sauteed the perfect eggs you see above.  My eggs would not look like that, trust me. He can break the eggs and put them in the pan with one hand.  Show off.  The combination of a just barely liquid, almost solid egg yolk broken over the stir fry makes me want to swoon as yellow goodness combines with the veggies.  If you want to try this, make sure to grind some peppercorns over the eggs.

We rang in the New Year with some dear friends last night.  Rebecca brought the salad.  Instead of throwing in whatever she prepared into one bowl, she very thoughtfully brought a salad bar with a base of lettuce and all the trimmings in little bowls...avocado, crunchy onions, raw onions, goat cheese, cucumbers, shredded carrots, nuts, cherry tomatoes....sublime.

Knowing my mania for vintage china, she brought all the salad fixings in saucers in the Colonial Homestead pattern by Royal China.  I had never seen this pattern from the 1950's before.

Here's a link to the Eleventy blog which discusses this unusual pattern:
http://www.eleventytheblog.com/2011/01/colonial-homestead-vintage-dinnerware.html

After dinner,we listed all the things we wished to leave behind in 2013. We talked about some of them together and kept the ones too close to our hearts private.  Then we crumpled all our papers, put them in an old enameled bucket, and burned them to ashes.  As we prayed over 2014, I thought of the burnt offerings made to God in the Old Testament.

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13 and 14.

Have a blessed new year filled with joy!

Burlap et Francais

Living on Grace Street

I finally, after many years of following Christ, have understood the nature of grace.  I've learned, at long last, that I don't have to pummel my day into submission, making sure that every single thing goes just exactly my way and every person does just what I want.  No, that notion serves only to totally frustrate me and annoy everyone else.  I have to constantly remind myself of my state of grace.  When I am living in that, I don't have to get perturbed by minor annoyances and the perpetually snarled travel in my area.

This morning the gray skies came back!  However, I reminded myself that I lived in the grace of God and the gray was okay.  I started doing paperwork at home, a privilege if there ever was one, and then was called into the office.  Rain + Downtown Tunnel = frustration and delays, but after grumbling a little, I returned to calm.

I called the office to advise that I hadn't moved in 20 minutes and was turning around to take an alternate route down Military Highway and over the Gilmerton Bridge.  When I arrived there, traffic on the Gilmerton didn't move at all for, you guessed it, 20 minutes.

This time someone called me.  Thinking that it was someone questioning how long it was taking for me to come in, I tensed up.  Grace again, this time in the guise of a colleague who said, "Don't worry, I've got you covered,"

I went back to my original plan for the day, which was to see how Mr. B. was doing and verify that he was in compliance with his legal requirements.  I listened to Bible teaching on the way over.  I prayed that I would be a blessing.

Mr. B. was pretty despondent and it seemed that I had arrived at exactly the correct time.  If I had gotten in to the office, I would have been bogged down with taking care of issues there.  I wouldn't have made it to Mr. B's house for several hours later.

When I tell folks what I do, they think that I have a very difficult, dangerous job.  I have to admit that about 10% of the people I deal with are both difficult and dangerous.  Mr. B's not one of them.  He is someone who has a mental illness.  He has had a very hard life and was grief stricken over personal  losses  as well as his past mistakes.

I think I might have felt overwhelmed by his deep pain a year ago.  However, now that I live on Grace Street, I know (really know deep down) that God's grace is sufficient for me.  Grace is further with me in that I can share Christ on the job in so many ways without breaking any rules.

The folks I am privileged to work with are the lepers of 2013.  Society covers them with a label, decides that they are beyond redemption, and basically considers them throw-away people.  They are not.  And I know that if Jesus walked the earth today, he would be among them with love and not condemnation.

I left Mr. B. after a half hour.  We dug out the large print Bible a pastor had given him.  He looked up at me, using my title, and said "Please recommend where I should start reading today."  I answer a lot of questions all day, but this was the best question EVER.

Last Friday, I met with a man who had been in prison for many years.  He was developmentally delayed and had schizophrenia.  While in prison he somehow fell (in circumstances which are probably best not thought about), broke his neck, and severed his spinal cord.

The Department of Corrections released him to a nursing home.   He still has to fulfill statutory requirements, I explained everything I was doing for him in the simplest way possible, as I took fingerprints and a picture.. When I was leaving his room, he smiled a big toothless grin at me and managed to say, "Thanks."  He doesn't talk a lot, but showed me grace in the effort it took for him to say that.

Grace Street...it is where I want to live all the time.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Matthew 25:35 -40

Here in VA we are seeing our first glimpse of sun in about a week.  Talk about 50 shades of gray...that's all we've been seeing for days:  pearly gray, slate gray, charcoal gray, gray skies, grey -looking water in all the creeks and rivers all around just, um, gray.

If Hampton Roads (or Tidewater depending on what you call it) Virginia was a color card at Benjamin Moore last week, it would look like this:

All week long.  Alllllll weeeeeeeeeek looooooooooooooooong.

Today, partly cloudy is lookin' pretty good!