A Trip Postponed

As many of you know I had planned to leave for Puerto Rico on Monday, but because of an appointment regarding a financial matter, I decided to postpone my trip. It has been a very interesting week. Lots of gardening and yard upkeep, lots of shopping with my friend Maria, long phone calls with friends till late at night, and lots of picking up the house, have been of what this week has been full. It is so strange, God is so present to me these days, when I take it slow. Everything seems to have more meaning and significance. Significance in that nothing seems to be coincidental. Like walking into the bank last Saturday and requesting a loan to help me finance my roof, which thank God doesn't leak but needs to be repaired because of hurricane damage. Later in the week, my fax machine failed me and I had to use the one at work, and as I went to retrieve my fax message I ran into the principal at my school, who said she had been thinking about me the night before and received an affirmation from her. How strange. So I thought I had postponed my trip just for a financial reason, it turns out that that decision gave me time to do so many other things that needed to be done, like cleaning, weeding, shopping, laughing, crying, or something as simple as conversing with God about the people I love and those that I need to love, that perhaps I would not have been able to do outside the quietness of my home or have other conversations that were just as important to be available for in that same quietness of spirit. Thank you God for those things postponed and those that were not.

Close up of the front of the church. I am new to putting pictures up on my blog and you will best understand these pictures if you start from the bottom up. I repeated the butterfy picture, oops. Enjoy. I did... 

See balcony above. Slaves sat behind that. It was sort of stadium sitting in the pews since the floor was slanted. 

A very old church in Boykin with dates back to the 1770's. It was open so Rosa and I went in. Slaves worshipped here also but upstairs. See next pictures. 

Boykin broom makers building. I bought a colorful handmade broom which is a work of art and some mill ground grits; South Carolina snow... 

Beautiful country road next to the church. It was as peaceful and cool as it looks. 

This is the old church Rosa attended when she was little 

Here's the farm near Camden, Rosa and I visited. We walked around, bought some enormous fragrant onions, yellow squash, and a huge head of cabbage. I made some Caldo Gallego with it yesterday. Isn't this down right country? 

Up close corn husk 

Old rusty farm equipment 

Flowers everywhere 

Close up 

Beautiful flowers in a North Carolina welcome center, aren't they gorgeous? 

A view of the marsh in Charleston from Lydia's house 

Rosa standing on a trail at the Park 

Kings Mountain Military Park 

Butterfly  

Butterfly opening its wings 

Settling in Cane Pole Court

Its been a year since I moved into this house on Cane Pole Court and frankly for this whole year I was thinking about moving out, too. In fact, I haven't been the only one. My next door neighbors who helped me move in moved the following month to Clermont, BH (before the hurricanes). Some of my nicest neighbors, who lived on the left of my house, the ones that helped me so much when we had the hurricanes, moved out around November, AH (After the hurricanes), to return to their family and safety in Georgia. My front door neighbors, Greg and his wife, Rachel, are thinking about moving, too. At school, things seemed so unsettled, that I thought of leaving, too, but after having my 3 hour "Jonah" experience at school recently. I have sort of settled down. I am in no mood to move, unless the Lord moves me. It is so strange but I am really trusting God about this. Since I realized I will be here for a while. Could be a year or more, who knows... I have now felt free to start doing some things around the house which in my indecision had me paralyzed. On Monday, I trimmed some of my outdoor trees (some of these are just across from the back porch) that were encrouching on the walk space there and I just had enough of that, and started trimming them back. It was quite an event, sweat and all included. I don't sweat easily (tell me I just didn't say that)but it must have been the fact that it was 90 degrees and very humid that made look like a wet tomato. My face gets red, too. To tackle the job, I used some big clippers, a tree saw and trimmer, and an electric bush trimmer. Believe me, it was a lot of work. In fact, it took four jam packed trash cans to pick up all the branches. Today, before nine I cleaned up the mess (which I am often prone to postpone) and the trash people hauled it away. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. And I am only getting started... I feel such a sense of accomplishment now that I have finally started to take authority and possession over my property!!! Next is the kitchen, then the garage, onto the car, and who knows where else it will lead me... I might end up with an orderly house... wow, the thought of it gives me goose bumps, haha...