Journal of My Days: To Be Continued...

Saturday:  We went to small group last night.  All the way over to Warner Robins, John and I were busy killing ants that had gotten in the car.  I'll bet we killed 200 between us.   They were everywhere, including on the ceiling.  They kept crawling onto or dropping down on us.  

I dropped John off at the church and went around the corner to get some ant spray.  I drove back to the church, let the windows down and sprayed that car down.  We've been fighting ants for two months now.  It happens when it rains that they move into the car.  There's not a food source there.  It's just high ground, but once they move in, getting them to move on is impossible.

I'm happy to report that on the ride home we had no ants.  Thank goodness!

John and I talked about it this morning, and I told him I've almost made up my mind to have the pest control man spray my car.  John laughed but I was more than half serious.  

John was up a bit early this morning. I stayed abed until my alarm went off at 7:30. Even so we had plenty of time to have a leisurely coffee before we had breakfast and somehow, though we left on time, we ended up being early to the Outreach venue.  We were both puzzled about that, lol.  

John got set up and did a quick practice, then he went outside to mingle with the rest of the volunteers.  I saw a need to help today since there were fewer volunteers than usual and made myself useful.   Things went really well today.  The pastor's sermon was on point and the room was completely quiet as the people who'd come to the Outreach listened attentively.   Several people asked for prayer and at least one accepted Christ as their savior.  

We took a slightly longer route home.  We had to fill the car with gasoline.  I needed to go to the UPS store to return a package to Amazon.  We went by to pick up some lunch and doughnuts since UPS is conveniently next door to Dunkin Donuts.  

We drove home.  It was so sunny (and hot!) outdoors.  I've barely seen any golden rod blooming.  It's there, up and budded and almost, just almost blooming, but not yet.   I looked ahead at the forecast and we're back into the mid-90's for several days.  And it all starts the day Fall begins!  

I reminded myself that last year we had to turn on the heat before October was half done last year.  And November got downright cold...Those cold days are getting close and while I'd like to hurry cooler weather along, I guess I can stop being so impatient for cooler weather to come along.  But could we just sit somewhere down in the 80's and not feel like summer?

I should be up working but I don't feel much like it.  I took time last night to walk through the house and be sure that everything looked nice, and stuff was all put away where it belonged.  That was my gift to myself today.  Not to leave the house a mess. I went right through it again this morning, too, to make sure it was just as neat when we started to leave home.   So yes, there are things I might do, but then again...I don't have to.  I can however make lists for the work in days ahead

Meals:  Bagel/Croissant

KFC (we got 2pcs with mashed potatoes), doughnut for dessert

I had shrimp, a tomato salad.  John wanted a peanut butter and cheese sandwich.  

Sunday: Off to church this morning and then we hurried home.  No, we didn't.  We stopped over at Publix to pick up bread, ham, half and half.   I know we got a six pack of Powerade and some honeydew melon.  And John grabbed a bottle of Starbucks cold brew coffee because he said, "It's got to be cheaper than buying those little bottles of ready mix..." and it was.  The big bottle of cold brewed coffee was $5.  I can flavor to my liking which is to have it unsweetened.   I'm sure we picked up more but as I'm now writing this on Friday, I can't tell you just what all I did buy.  It truly wasn't much though, because I knew we'd be buying groceries on Tuesday.

At home, I made up lunch of leftovers and we kept supper fairly simple.  We stripped the bed and bath this morning and John did laundry.  I ran a load of dishes and when they had dried, I put them away.  And we packed.  Yes, we were readying ourselves for that vacation at last!  

To be continued...

Monday:  We left home finally at around 11am.  That is far later than I personally choose to leave home when a vacation is in the offing, but John was not geared towards moving very fast about anything.  I danced circles around him, getting things packed, making a picnic lunch, taking off trash, partially loading the car.  And John...sigh.  I was practically a frustrated pretzel by the time he finally loaded up the heavy stuff...and then I had to wait some more.

All too naught because before we left town, I reached in my purse to get my blood pressure medicine and there was NONE.  I'd left it home.  So we turned around and came back home and John wanted to do a couple of more things before we left since we were here once more.

We finally stopped for a rather late picnic lunch at about 3:30. We stopped in a tiny little place called LuLu and ate at the recreation center pavilion which by the way is a really nice community spot with restrooms and grills and picnic tables, a playground and ball field.  A man approached us there but politely kept his distance.  He just wanted to talk, and he did talk.  He shook his head over politics and shook his head over the trouble his son got into and shook his head over the state of the country in general. 

He told us that he was one of 12 children...and that his mom and dad had taken in all the children they knew who needed a home, a total of 29 in addition to their own 12.  "Some of them were nieces and nephews or grandchildren but if a kid needed help my folks were there.  But don't think they were softies.  If Mama told you to duck, you'd better duck."  

We left our picnic uplifted and restored, ready to take on the rest of our journey.  

The most disappointing part of our journey came around Mill Creek.  The last time we were through it was getting very 'grown up' as we say when a lot of building has gone on.  Well, it exploded in the year since we were there.  Construction was everywhere.  If it wasn't apartments and shopping centers, it was new roadways.  Traffic was thick as could be.  John kept saying, "This used to be country!  It just used to be a crossroads and a shopping center in the middle of nowhere...and where is all this traffic coming from?"

And then we came to a big sign saying that the entrance to I-95 was shut down.  As it happened, the sign lied.  It was open.  But we did panic because we didn't have alternate routes to take where we could get to them handily.  If you're going to say, but Google maps, or Way maps, etc., there was a cell phone tower nearby which means I get no reception at all within a mile of it...

We arrived at last.  John told me, "This wasn't fun.  This last part is why I don't want to do this anymore."   And I get it.  At that point of the trip we're tired, we've been on the road for six hours and we're being pounded with traffic and sudden stops and multiples of newly installed stop lights.  It's not fun.  I suggested we look for alternative routes but soothed John by telling him I'd brought steaks for supper and there was whisky and coke for a mixed drink on the balcony if he'd like.  

Meals:  John got sausage biscuits at the local diner on our second trip out of town.

Ham and Cheese sandwiches, macaroni salad, honey dew melon.

Steak, Potatoes, Salad.

Tuesday:  Hot wasn't the word for Florida.  Humidity readings were 96% which is even higher than in Georgia and it was in the 90's.   Ugh.  We went to the grocery today to get a few bits of food for meals the rest of this week.  We were wringing wet before we'd gotten from the car into the grocery.  Ugh.

We drive down to Palm Coast to go to Publix.  There's one nearer the condo but the truth is, we like the store in Palm Coast.  We were greeted by every department and every clerk.  And then we met Jason.  Jason talked like a robot.  He told us he was proud to work at Publix for two years and he'd been specially trained.  He was such a happy positive person.  And when John commented on how nice it was to meet someone who had such a pleasant personality as his, every clerk within 18 feet grinned with pleasure.  It was obvious that Jason was special in more ways than one.  How awesome!

The groceries I bought this day do not count as part of our monthly grocery budget.  I always set aside money especially for vacation groceries because we want to enjoy ourselves.  We bought things we'd normally not buy.  Like fresh raspberries for me and pancake mix and ice cream for John.  I got two slices of cheesecake.  We opted for burgers, frozen Chinese and a pizza.  John wanted biscuits, I wanted pears.  In the end, I spent about what I'd set aside.  

I cook most all of our meals when we're on vacation.  I used to say, but I stopped saying it, that vacation was just the same old thing for me as being home.  I cooked, I cleaned.  The view out of the window was just different.  We(I) do those things to save money.  

John asked if we could just stay at the condo and go nowhere this trip.  As hot as it was, I wasn't about to push going too far from the AC.  

 The rest of the day was spent relaxing, making meals, cleaning up behind us, etc.

Meals:  Eggs, Ham, Toast, Hash browns (using leftover potatoes)

??? Can't recall.  It was fast and simple I remember only that much.

Pork Chops, Crispy Roasted Potatoes, Broccoli in Cheese sauce.  

Never again will I spend the money for broccoli in cheese sauce.  I got a good name brand.  There was barely enough broccoli for two and most of it was stem end pieces.  For the same price I could have bought a pound of broccoli fresh and had enough for two meals with the stems left to add to salad or something.

Wednesday:  John watched the news last night before coming to bed and came into the bedroom in a panic over Hurricane Helene.  I'd heard of the thing and knew it was under development but the forecasts for St. Augustine were mild.  It was 11:30pm.  We weren't going to be driving home in the dark.  John wanted me to make a decision.  I told him I wasn't feeling one way or the other. That if he wanted to go home, I'd go home.  If he wanted to stay, I'd stay.  We came to an impasse and agreed to pray about it and sleep on it.

In the morning light, watching the latest forecasts, we found the projected path was not coming to St. Augustine.  It was coming straight for our home in Georgia... A quieter, calmer man (one who'd had a decent night's sleep) decided that we'd stay in St. Augustine and just ride out whatever happened.  

We went to lunch.  That was our only meal out the whole trip.  It was a delicious meal. I had a beautifully fried piece of Haddock.  So good.  I had haddock because when I stalled trying to make a decision the waitress quietly whispered, "Get the haddock.  You want the haddock."  She was perfectly right!  It was a nice meaty piece of fish and just what I wanted.

We went back to our condo and sat on the balcony and admired the ocean.  We watched babies and dogs.  We're always most amused by their reactions to the water.  Some love it.  Some don't.  

Forecasts for Thursday stated it would rain off and on, all day long.  We agreed we'd spend the day reading.

Meals:  ???  Boy some of these meals were less than memorable...Oh yes, I made canned biscuits but what did we have with them?

Out to lunch.  I ate fish, John had a burger. We both had salads.

Frozen Pizza.

Thursday:  Very scattered showers today.  Hours between light misting rain.  As the evening went on the wind did get heavier, but we've honestly seen far worse in Florida.  People continued to go out for walks on the beach but stayed out of the heavy waves.  By 10pm the wind had died down.  And that was our experience of Hurricane Helene.

Meals: Pancakes and Sausage for John.  I had Sausage Balls, Orange Juice and a piece of toast with blueberry jam.

Shrimp and steak salad with pizza 'croutons'.  

Cheeseburgers, chips.

Friday:  We left the beach by an alternative route that led us out through backroads, similar to those we live off on in our county.  We saw some leaves on the road and a few broken branches but nothing major until we reached Lake Butler.  There we found electric crews working hard, saw some trees that had been cleared from the road.  A tree had smashed the Lake Butler hospital sign.   We saw nothing major until we came to Lake City.

Lake City is big.  There are lots of stop lights...and the electricity was off all over the area.  This is where I was moved more than I can say.  It is a heavily trafficked town, that's why there are so many stop lights.  People came to a stop light and stopped.  If there was anyone waiting in the cross traffic they were waved on and then the other side would go.  No one honked, raced, acted impatient.  Everyone just moved sedately through, coming to a stop, letting others go ahead and then moving on.  I kept saying to John, "It's so civilized..." and I said it with a sense of wonder because let's face it the world is not a nice place these days.  But today I saw a much better said of people and I'm proud to know it still exists.

We saw a good many trees down in Lake City along the route we were driving.  When we hit I-75 we saw more destruction, but it wasn't a solid path. It was in stretches.  From Lake City to Valdosta and then Tifton, we saw those waves of damage.  The electricity was out in many of those areas.

We'd already spoken with Katie and Sam.  Everyone said "We slept through it all..."  I contacted JD and he was all right in Kingsland but said that Waycross had been harder hit.  Our trip home was fine.  The closer we got to home, the less damage we saw.  Flooding we did see a bit of, but nothing alarming.  

At home everything looks well.  Sassy has taken leave of us again, but hopefully she will return soon.  Apparently, this is her MO... she ups and disappears and then returns.  

I am preparing supper.  Bags are mostly unpacked, laundry is done.  We are home and it's wonderful being here.

Meals:  Cereal, Bagels, Banana

Stopped at Dairy Queen.  John wanted a mocha milkshake.

Orange Chicken, Chicken Fried Rice, Egg Rolls (all frozen).

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