Surprise at the bottom!!

We've had such a busy summer and then a 3 week vacation. We were blessed to be in Virginia, Vermont and then Florida before returning home from a super nice trip. By the time we arrived in Florida I was craving fresh fruit and that's definitely a great place to get fresh fruit! After we arrived home I made up a fresh fruit bowl that we enjoyed so much.

All good things do eventually come to an end and so did the beautiful fruit. Last week I was cleaning out the fruit bowl and when I lifted out the bunch of grapes, this is what I saw at the bottom:

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E grapes! I was totally surprised and grabbed my phone to get a pic of this cute little thing staring up at me :) A surprise at the bottom of the bowl!

Hope your day has a very pleasant surprise in it -- and much better than Mickey Mouse grapes :) Have a wonderful autumn day!

Love,


.

What ? ? ?

I was opening mail at the office this morning and ran across this envelope in the stack . . . . .

Uhh . . . were they practicing thriftiness -- cleaning out their desk -- out of money --- What ???

(Note: I folded back the sending organization's address to hide it and torn the address label off as well.)

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Love,

Sherry

A masterpiece ???!@#@#!!

Wow! I cannot believe that my last post was on February 1! Quite a bit has "passed under the bridge" over that past 23 days. I will spare you the details but I have been so busy and it has kept me away from my computer.

As I have shared with you before, I teach a young adult Sunday School class. Most weeks I try to prepare a morning snack type food to go along with our every-Sunday-morning -cup-of-coffee. Well, last Sunday morning I prepared a "Sock It To Me" cake. It is a sour cream cake with brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans in the center. I planned it to come out of the oven just before I left for class so that it would be nice and warm.

Everything seemed to be going well. . . however, I should have got a clue when the top of the cake began to brown extra quickly. This cake bakes for 1 hour -- so after 15 - 20 minutes had passed, I went to check on it and a bit of smoke was coming from the oven door -- just a little -- and it had the smell of almost burnt . . I opened the oven door and was shocked to see a dark, dark brown color on top of the cake! I placed aluminum foil over it to prevent it from browning any further - which didn't work this time :)

Finally, the 1 hour baking time was complete and the timer went off. I checked the cake for doneness and it seemed fine -- maybe a little moist, but it looked fully cooked. Since this was in a bundt pan, the blackened top would become the bottom, so I decided to cut off the burnt part before turning the cake out of the pan.

Here is the beautiful browned/blackened part I cut off.

YUCK!

And now the beautiful masterpiece I had to offer my class!

This was supposed to be a beautifully formed bundt shaped cake! I normally consider myself a fairly good cook -- so how in the world did this not test out as RAW BATTER?@#@!! The dark stuff is the pecans, cinnamon and brown sugar mixed with cake batter.

I quickly grabbed my phone to take pictures so the class would know that I tried to bring them something good to eat. Also -- I just happened . . to run into a few church board members on the way to class . . . with proof of the need for a new oven. :)

Guess what! We will be getting a NEW OVEN! The oven at the parsonage (church owned) has been there since the 1980's when the house was built! We have repaired it twice so we are not going to mess with it any more.

I would love to hear your recommedations as to brand, type, etc and your experience with ovens. I am going to measure and see if we can put in double ovens -- badly needed in a parsonage! I look forward to hearing your comments -- that is -- if you are still out there reading this blog :)

Love, Sherry

7 inches of snow

Oklahoma experienced another winter storm last Thursday and Friday. Thursday was the dreaded ice storm (1/2 - 1") which caused our power to go out for about 12 short hours -- not days. It went off around 9 PM was back on around 9 AM. Since was was primarily while we were sleeping, it wasn't a big issue.

Without electricity, we did got a little board so, I enterained us by playing the piano. Candlelight wasn't bright enough so hubs sat in his easy chair and shined a flashlight on my music. Before long, he begain saying that his arm was getting tired -- pitiful , pitiful-- a very small price to pay for such great entertainment =)

Friday, I shot the above picture of the pond by our house. The snow was only about 1 1/2 inches in this shot. About 5 hours later, there was 7 inches on the ground.

We went to a friend's house to play some games and enjoy the snow. The snow was deep and as we began to drive off, hubs totally missed the driveway and we got stuck in the deep snow. We tried several things to get it out but in the end called our son who has 4-wheel drive to pick us up. They went back today to try to pull it out but could not find a safe place to hook up to the car, so it is still there. A man in our church had a car dealership and he knows where to hook to it so they will go Monday to get the car. We have another vehicle so it's not a big deal to be short one for a couple days.

I drove to our friend's house, and am I ever GLAD that I was not driving when we left! =) He would have teased me unmercifully and the whole church would have heard about it! I thinking . . . I'm thinking . . . do I want to exercise the golden rule here? What would you do?

♥
Sherry

Only in America . . . .

Only in America . . .

• Can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.


• Are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.


• Do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a Diet Coke.


• Do banks leave both doors to the vault open and then chain the pens to the counters.


• Do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.


• Do we use answering machines to so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place.

And it's all because we can -- and I pray we can continue to have this freedom to do dumb things if we want to. :)

Have a great evening!

Love,

Sherry

Don't give up!

Hi there!

For the three or four of you who have been visiting my blog this summer -- don't give up on me. I'm still around. This has been such an unusual summer and blogging has had to be put on the back burner.

We are preparing to go on vacation and I plan on leaving posts so that you can "come along" with me again this year. I have one week to do this so . . . I'd better "light a fire" under me and get it done :) I just about have everything at the office completed. My house looks like an explosion in a chinese laundry -- no joke -- however the clothing (Hub's) is folded -- for the most part.

These pictures show what I mean:

I am doing hubs first, then I will work on mine. We will be in a cool climate so we will need to layer clothing and still keep it all within the airline's weight limit -- that's difficult for me.

I even have some of his clothing hanging on the kitchen cabinets!

You may be wondering why the clothes are all over the house and not just in the bedroom -- well the parsonage is small and the bedroom is covered with partially packed suitcases, too.

Traveling is fun, but I am always so releaved whenever the packing is complete and the suitcases are closed!

How has your summer been? I hope that the majority of you have had a restful and fun summer. Did you get to take a vacation yet? If so, where did you go?

Till later,

Sherry

Not a good idea

It never pays to get in a hurry, does it? And . . most certainly, it's never a good idea to try to do something when one really DOESN'T have the time to do the job -- correctly -- or -- even at all.

Here's what happened last night:

All week I had been trying to polish my fingernails. So last night I had two or three extra minutes (that alone should have sent off some alarms) before leaving for church, so I thought I would get the job done. (The stirring wheel is a great place to let nail polish dry.) Anyway, . . . . . . the polish bottle slipped out of my hand and polish went all over the bathroom floor, the wall, the leg of my jeans, my shoe and on the bathmat! My NEW bathmat!

I quickly grabbed the polish remover and began cleaning the floor and wall. Next was my shoe then my jeans (which still bore hint of polish). Now, I'm standing there looking at white polish on my blue bathmat. (White because I was going to do a a quick french tip.) I didn't have time to clean the bathmat so I grabbed the mat and put it in the sink to soaked in water, which turned out to be overnight.

This morning I put the mat in the washing machine to spin out the excess water so I could see what was left to clean. Some of the polish actually did come out but I still had more to clean. You can still see some of the polish in the picture. It looked much worse last night.

I'm to say proud that I did get all of the polish out of the rug, off the floor, off the baseboard , off my shoe, and out of my jeans! No evidence of the incident visible. Whew!!

I am very tempted to call myself stupid - - however, I've started the Bible study, "Me, Myself, & Lies" by Jennifer Rothchild. (It's about self talk.) So I guess I'd better restrain myself and not give in to the temptation!

Note to self: Sweet thing, don't do that again!

Love,

Need some boredom? Read this.

You are about to embark upon the most boring post out in bloggyland! Ready? Here goes.

Among other happenings this past week, we have been in Vacation Bible School at church. I really have an easy job; I'm the computer operator/projectionist. The theme this year is "Studio Go". It is all centered around a game show. If you go to the link you can hear some of the music. In fact, we just love their music every year!

This afternoon I will be going to Michael's or Hobby Lobby to see if I can find a cake pan that will be the right size for B's baseball glove cake. My DIL bought a baseball cake pan but it 's not big enough to several the number of guests for the party. So, I will be making a baseball glove to sit the ball on. (Ooops, I ended the sentence with a preposition -- sorry.) In proportion, I'm hoping for it to look something like this. (They used a molded pan for this cake, but mine will be larger and there is not a pan that size I will have to cut the cake in the shape of the glove. Wish me luck!)



See, I told you it would be boring but thanks for reading anyway! :) Now you may get back to your exciting life!

Love,

Catch'n up

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I posted. My reason: I have been away from home three nights a week since March 27, facilitated two twelve-week Bible studies that ended just this week and I won't even go into the rest of it, however, I will say LIFE IS JUST TOO BUSY!

Tuesday night I hosted our ladies group at my home. Of course that means food, clean house and yard, etc. After that was over, I called my hubs who was visiting with several of his family members that were here from out of town for a couple days to see if they still visiting. He said yes and I told him I would be there soon.

He said "Bring food!" to which I quickly responded "How about you coming here so I won't have to lug all the food with me." So they did. Thus began party #2 for the night!

I did something last night that I don't ever recall doing: I stayed home from church . . . and . . was not sick! I desparately needed to be able to begin putting together my outline for Sunday morning on Jonah 2. It was a blissful evening!

As soon as I finish this post I am leaving again and won't be back until Saturday night. We are just about to finish preparing a house (purchased in March) for rental. I've encountered a lot of wifi but all are password protected so that's why I haven't been able to post. Then, when I have returned home I honestly haven't had the time.

My schedule is soon to get back to normal -- whatever that is! :) I will have a post up tomorrow for my scripture memory challenge.

Til next week, take care sweet bloggers!

Love,

Checking in . . .

Good Sunday morning my sweet bloggy friends! I'm just checking in as I fly through town . . . again.

We had a wonderful time at retreat. It was on Iron Mountain in Mena, Arkansas. It is so hard to discribe how they minister to pastors and their spouses, but they do a marvelous job of refreshing, edifying, encouraging and just lifting us up. We are so blessed to have CMA'ers in are church that "sponsor" us to the retreat. I will share more about this later.

We arrived home for two hours on Friday and then when to close on a house (rental property) Friday afternoon than we stayed in the house (yes is was clean :) ), to do some deeper cleaning and begin getting it ready to rent. We came home last night. We have a special guest that will be speaking in both services today and Monday night.

I will end here. It's time for me to go teach my Sunday School class. Have a wonderful Sunday!

Love,

? ? ? ?

I'm sitting here staring at the computer screen trying to think of something worth blogging about. (I think my creativity has gone on early vacation.) I've been gone a lot lately which explains my lack of posting. I wish I had a camera small enough to fit comfortably in my purse. If I did I would have pictures of several places and things I've done over the past week.

Since I last posted, we sold my parent's home (that I inherited) and bought another one closer to where we are. The process of doing that is very time consuming. The next step is getting it ready to rent. The major work on the outside is change the color of the paint . (Teal green just doesn't quite thrill us.) The inside only needs to be wiped down , swept and I will shampoo the carpet just so I know it will be fresh. There's some yard work to do to clean it up a little and take out a fountain in the backyard. It is actually in excellent condition.

We have half way through the Daniel Bible study and it is getting better each week. We are now in week sever: the study of eschatology. The first time I did this study was in the Fall of 2006. What a different world we live in today than then!

Tonight we had dinner with some friends who just returned from spending several years as missionaries in Japan. It was so nice to see then again! We took them out to eat then came back to our house for visiting and dessert. We could have talked the night away! There are friendships that just pick up where it left off -- that's the way this one is!

Now that I have bored you to tears, I'll close and hopefully have something more interesting to post about tomorrow :)

Love,

Since my last post . . .

I have taken an unplanned break from blogging to focus on some other things. Here's a few things that have transpired since I last posted ( I just love bullets -- they make things simple):

*We celebrated a dear lady's 90th birthday.

*We celebrated another lady's 50th birthday.

*One of my best friends received very bad news. The doctors feared she had ovarian cancer. They said there was a tumor on each ovary and one was the size a a cantaloupe!

*I sat with my friend's family during her surgery. To their amazement, it WAS NOT cancer! The large tumor was basically like a water balloon. There was no tumor on the other ovary. This is EXACTLY what we prayer would happen!

*I have been "babying" my knee :)

*Because I am "babying" my knee, I have hired a housekeeper :)

Girls, I AM MILKING this thing for all it's worth!

*I have facilitated 4 more Bible study sessions (a total of 8 in February)

*I have hosted a ladies meeting and annual planning session.

*I should have attended a funeral, but no one told me until it was over!

*I have been living a wonderful -- but crazy -- life!

I have been trying to get some things in order and bring some peace into my life (I'm most talking about the peace that only God can give) but peace that having projects finished and closet clutter and cabinet clutter cleaned out and organized can bring.

In the following clip, Lucy is collecting items for the ladies bazaar, but Ricky thinks shes a kleptomaniac. So while Lucy is cluttering her closets with items for the bazaar, I'm working at keeping mine cleaned out.

Enjoy!

♥

This and that

This has been such a busy week. I won't bore you with the details. It's 8:30 P.M. and I have been home just a short while.

I had some shopping to do for the office -- a new fax machine and supplies. There were several other errands to tend to. One of my errands was to exchange one of these mugs at Cracker Barrel. It had a hairline fracture in the bottom. While I was there, I noticed they had two more with different words on them. The complete set of four is "Love", "Faith", "Courage" and "Believe".

Here's a close up of the mugs.

They are a Tuscan style and just the size that Hubs likes. I simply thought they were pretty.

Also I had to finish shopping for my sweet Valentines --all four of them! (It's so fun being a wife, mom and a Grammie! )

This is for our little grandson.

And this for our granddaugther.
The van is a part of the accessories for her doll house we gave her for Christmas.

I got Hubs and our son and DIL the same thing.
The "Fireproof" DVD (they didn't have it in blueray) and
chocolate almond m & m's.

Tah, Dah!
They're finished and ready to go!

On Wednesday, I keep my grandchildren. My granddaughter has discovered how to make hearts. She has been cranking out ♥s like there was no tomorrow. She can do crafts for the longest! I love it when her creative juices get to flowing!

Here's some of her work. EVERYONE received a "card". She's four and does a great job of writing. If you click on the pictures you can see the ones she wrote on.

Our grandson had his creative juices flowing, too -- literally :)
While his sister was doing crafts, he was brushing up on his musical skills.
See, he's discovered a new way to play the flute.

Sunday afternoon there will be a birthday party at the church for a dear lady who will turn 90 years old. She still lives alone and drives! Her mind is very clear and sharp. She is my mother-in-law's best friend. They are so cute together. They are out and about as much a 7 days a week. One of my stops tonight was to pick up a card for her. I was so surprised when I found a card for the 90th birthday!

Well, I guess that should be enough to put you to sleep.
Good night!

♥

and the results are . .

I had an appointment with the doctor yesterday to have him check my knee. I experienced very good results from the shot and medication (both just for inflammation). He actually released me! He said that I inevitably would be having surgery due to the damaged cartilage. He told me to "baby" the knee -- no kneeling (Oh well, I didn't like to kneel to pray anyway - prefer sitting or standing.) or squating, blah, blah, blah. I can still exercise as long as it doesn't hurt. I was very thrilled and thankful!

Hmmm. . . can you imagine how much mileage I might be able to get out of this "baby the knee" thing ?!! :0

♥

I've lost it!

No. . . . I haven't lost it mentally :) (Some days my husband might like to debate that with you.)

So what did I lose? The pictures of our Bible study groups. :( For some reason, my card has been "dropping" pictures -- at various times. I have more than one card, so I guess I'll have to pitch the bad one.

This has been a crazy week. We are in the process of selling a house (about 2 hours away) and looking for another one to buy. This can be very time consuming but fun.

Also, I received a telephone call from a dear lady in our church (T) who is facing surgery very soon. She has a very large tumor on her ovary. Her husband remembers the doctor saying it was 15 cm. and she remembers him saying 13 cm. No matter which it is -- that's HUGE! (Remember, girlfriends, 10 cm is the measurement we are so desperately waiting for when we give birth.)

The doctor tells her that he believes it is malignant. I don't want to even go there. I gave her several scriptures to "stand on" and told her I would be praying that the doctors would be surprised when they tested the tumor during surgery and found it to be benign . There was some good news for her in the midst of this nightmare; her liver levels are normal; and the CA125 test results were normal. (That means if it is cancer, it has not spread.)

Thursday night, myself, another friend (C) and T met for dinner then we went to T's house to help her get it in order so that she could feel ready for surgery. There were still 2 rooms that needed attention, so I went back on Friday night and helped her finish up. Her entire family was coming on Saturday to celebrate her birthday. So, having a clean house made her feel much better. Especially since she's having some pain and nausea at times. So, please, if you would, pray for her and her family.

I go back to the doctor for my knee tomorrow. I had mentioned a few months ago that it was giving me trouble. I went to see a specialist in January. He have me a shot in the knee (BTW, that did not hurt.) I have some damaged cartilage but I also had 100 lbs. of luggage fall on the side/back of the knee coming home from vacation. Anyway, it's doing much better -- at least until I moved some furniture at T's house. It's a little swollen today. I will have to explain -- big time -- that it really is doing great! Do you think he will believe me?

I have no pictures of my adventurous week. (Even if I did take some, my card would have deleted them!)

However, my son emailed me this one from his phone this morning (during church - bad, bad, Grammie). They were playing in their playroom when he took this. Little B is sport'n his new wheels :) Big sister loves him so-o-o much! I thought it was CUTE! ♥ them so much!


♥

Elephants DO have a good memories!

I received this in an email and thought that you might like to see this!

The Mfuwe Lodge in Zambia was built on the path for an annual migration of a herd of 10 elephants. This path leads them to their favorite food, mangos, and next to the lodge is their favorite mango tree. Even though the lodge sits right on their path, they still choose to make their way to the tree each November when the fruit ripens, inspite of the fact that they must march through the lodge! When they returned one year and found the luxury accommodation in the way, they simply walked through the reception area!

An elephant wanders through Mfuwe Lodge in the south Luangwa National Park

They gorge on mangos up to four times a day.

Living in the 5,000 square mile nationa park, the ten-strong elephant herd are
led to the lodge each day by Wonky Tusk the matriarc of the herd.

The migration path leads to their favorite mango tree.


It is very unusual for elephants to get so close to humans. They are wild and can be dangerous, but thus far the 150 staff members and management of the lodge are happy to report that there have been no incidents involving the elephants to date.
The elephants do get reasonably close to the staff but the guests are not allowed to get too close. For their safety, they are kept behind walls and barriers when the elephants come marching through.


This is their favorite tree.

These are gentle giants, but the management takes care not to do anything to tempt or provoke them. It's a totally natural phenomenon, the elephants come here of their own accord and it is certainly a rare but magnificent sight.

So . . . . I guess it's true, elephants do have great memories!

Of course they do. Their creator does all things well and takes care of them, giving them what they need! When I watch the animals and study nature, my faith is once again strengthened and I'm reminded of how capable God is . . . more than capable to handle my each and every day and what it holds.

If God can lead the elephants to the ripened mangos, even though obstacles are in their path, how much more does He desire to lead me down the path of righteousness and deliver me safely to my eternal home! And yes, I'm sure there will be mangos!

Love,

Sherry

Pioneer Women

Sometimes people talk about the good old days and how simple life was back then. Have you ever really thought about how hard their lives were without the conveniences that we have today? I'm not very good at making bread (without a bread machine) besides all of the other "manual" things they had to do. I can't imagine sitting still long enough to churn butter. And chicken dinners! I'm afraid we wouldn't have chicken on the table very many times, if at all, if it were up to me to catch one and wring it's neck, plus all the other stuff that has to be done to turn it into a chicken dinner! I do remember my mother and grandmother doing this on the farm when I was very small. By the time I was old enough to help, they just bought them at the store.

My brother had an organic garden at one time. I told my SIL that I'm sure she must be enjoying the fresh vegetables, especially the tomatoes. She said "Yes, they're good, but they cost about $28/lb.!" :)

I am thankful for the time in which I am living. A pioneer woman I'm not. Obvisously, Lucy and Ethel weren't either.

Enjoy!

Love,

P.S. Blogger wouldn't allow me to break this post into paragraphs. Sorry that it is all run together.

Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty?

I'm not a big cat lover. I really prefer dogs. However, they can be so cute and cuddly, right? Most cats are but . . . how would you like to be sitting in your kitchen with your small children sitting of the floor playing when you look out of the patio door and see this watching your children? ? ! !

This is a mountain lion.

Oh my goodness!
Scary, but beautiful!

These were not taken at my house, but . . .

I don't think I would be taking the trash out until morning - - and even then
I would be very leery!


Oooooo! Look at those teeth!

These were taken in Watonga, OK.
I wonder how long this "kitty" stayed on the patio?

Love,

Back in the loop!

Whoa! I can hardly believe that I have not posted since Nov. 23! It has been due to a crazy schedule and my wireless Internet is not working properly -- have to hook up direct -- must share with hubs -- bla, bla, bla!

Seriously, I have been overloaded for the past two weeks:

• We've had guests to entertain
• We had a Thanksgiving Banquet at church
• I had a routine bone scan (45 min. drive each way)
• Dental appointment (6 month checkup)
• I shopped and shopped and shopped (Thanksgiving, Hanging of the Greens and Christmas Tea)
• I fixed Thanksgiving for the two of us
• Decorated piano, big mirror, dining room table and kitchen for Christmas
• Put up the Christmas tree and lights - no ornaments at this point
• I prepared a meal for Thanksgiving dinner for 30 of hub's family members (no dishes contributed by others - they live too far away)
• Decorated our Christmas tree
• Two days later (Sunday) we had hanging of the greens service at church (I am in charge of getting this all together )
• Monday Dec. 1 was my birthday - slept in and worked on some detail for the Ladies' Christmas Tea
• Tuesday, Dec. 2 - Ladies Christmas Tea (my responsibility) I did have some help in the set up and clean up. We had place settings for 48 this year. (I have pics)
• I scheduled a Christmas Cello/piano concert for the Tea - very good! (I have a video)
• Wed., Dec. 3 I kept my grandchildren. After they left I headed to the church for Toddlers' Class

Oh, did I mention that I twisted my knee and have been doing all of the this with a semi-swollen knee! I really love doing these things but having a physical ailment sore knee was a handicap on my speed ;)

So now you know why I have not posted since forever!

I will be sharing some pics and if I can put a video on here (I've never attempted to do that) I will share some of our Christmas Tea concert with you.

ALSO, Nancy at Olive Leaf Ministries is having a Christmas give away that ends at 5:00 p.m. today. Go visit her blog for some fun stuff!

Til later,

"This is NOT a drill!"

There are times when I read someone else's post and it gives me and idea of something I can post about. This is one of those times.

We like to take our vacations aboard cruise ships. I always feel like the cruise officially begins when the lifeboat drill and the unpacking is finished. The drills are very informative and are important for your survival should an emergency arrive. In case of a real emergency, you are instructed to dress in warm clothing, put on your life jacket, then head to your muster station. The crew members do several types of drills throughout a cruise and from time to time the Captain's voice can be heard over the intercom saying, "Crew, this is a drill. This is a drill."

On one of our vacations (our first Panama canal cruise to be exact) we had spent the day in Aruba and were on our way to Jamaica. We had retired for the night and were snug in our bed, when around 1:30 a.m. someone pounded on our door (very unusual). My hubs got up and peeked through the peephole and saw that it was a crew member. He opened the door and was standing face-to-face with the silhouette of a man standing in the hallway that was full . . . of smoke! The man was an officer and urged us to leave our stateroom asap because there was a fire!

Note: Fire is known as a ship's worse enemy!

Hubs got me up and told me to get dressed; to grab what I thought was important out of the safe, and be quick about it. Usually, I'm an up-and-at'm girl, but for some reason, I could not get it together. (I think my mind was in shock and couldn't fully process what I was hearing.)

The officer knocked on our door two or three times and in a very strained voice, asked us to leave our room . . . please! We finally got dressed and left the room and were instructed to go to the staircase and wait for further instructions! While we were sitting on the steps, the Captain's voice came over the intercom giving instructions to the crew, but, his last words were chilling:

"THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

There are no words to express what was racing through my mind at that moment! It was so surreal! I'm pretty sure that at some point, the Titanic crossed my mind :)

We were then instructed to go to our muster (lifeboat) station. We made our way to the appointed meeting place and waited to meet up with our friends. Soon they arrived dressed warmly with their life jackets on.

Hubs and I started laughing . . . at ourselves.

We were dressed in SHORTS, NO LIFE JACKETS (they were still in the closet of our stateroom). I can remember trying to decide what to get from the safe and finally decided on my wedding rings and a few choice pieces of jewelry . . . . that wouldn't weight me down . . . . while I was treading water ! ? ? ?! No passports, no money, no credit cards, no warm clothes, no life jackets ! ! ! I never even once thought about the lifeboats!!??? I guess I was just going to jump overboard at the "appropriate" time! What was I thinking? Obviously, I wasn't thinking! I was still asleep!

My hubs, also dressed for HOT WEATHER, had grabbed what was important to him . . . . his comb!

At least we were dressed. Some were in their pj's. Needless to say, we felt pretty stupid when sitting there with our well equipped and well dressed friends!

As it turned out, it was an electrical fire . . . three doors down from our stateroom. We were out of our room for the rest of the night. We sat and talked one-on-one with the Captain for a while. They provided all kinds of food, blankets and pillows. They also gave us credit on our account for not be able to use our room that night :)

The door to our stateroom was sealed so well that the room did not smell of smoke in the least. I just knew all of our clothing would stink like burnt electrical wires.

This past vacation (another Panama Canal cruise) we were awakened around 2:30 a.m. with our smoke alarm blaring . . LOUDLY! (Boy, there just seems to something about the Caribbean side of that cruise that creates incidents!)

I just want you to know that this time I was ready! I already had our "wardrobes" planned, complete with life jackets, my tote bag ready to EMPTY the entire contents of the safe and I fully expected to ride in a lifeboat instead of treading water! :)

This time there was no fire. A turbine (there are more than one and they generate electricity) went down for about 15 minutes. That caused an orderless fume to set off the very, very sensitive smoke alarms - LOUD smoke alarms. We had to take the battery out to stop the deafening noise. We could here other alarms going off in rooms up and down the hall.

We were thankful that there was no emergency this time, but you'd better believe that this gal was READY! I may have failed the first test, but I was ready to ace this one.

However, there is a more important test I plan on acing. I am making sure I am clothed in the proper attire for this one, too. This time, the reward is not just gaining life here on earth, but instead, eternal life with the Prince of Peace and the Lord of Lords! When the trumpet sounds, it won't be sounding off for a drill, it will be the real and final thing! It will NOT be a drill! Are you ready?

Love,