What I’ve Been Up To (with photos)

Long time, no see, eh? Well. Here is where I’ve been, in a nutshell. Erm. Eggshell.

Yes. Eggshell.

Because this happened.

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know if the eggs were fertile, and I wanted to make sure the eggs had chicks inside first. 😅 And then I wanted to make sure they were happy and healthy before giving an update, and now they are almost three months old and so big. I guess you all can expect a lot of chicken photos over the next while…

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And then a lot of time has gone into gardening:

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Aaaaand then I also met this kitten, fostered her for four days, and found her a lovely woman who wanted to take her home:

…and I found out recently that the kitten is actually a boy. XD The woman who adopted him works at my vet, so whenever I go to get meds for my pets, I also get updates on how the little guy is doing. 😀

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Also, I’ve had days where I wasn’t up for doing much so on those days I read a lot. XD

This is my current reading stack, but if you want to see what I’ve been reading this year, here is my 2020 reading challenge page where they are all listed: https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/20906860

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So I’ve had a lot on my plate. I’m aiming to ease back into blogging this month! 🙂 But next month is NaNoWriMo and I plan to write the first draft of a 50K novel so we’ll see how blogging goes that month. XD I hope you all had a good summer – or as good of a summer you can have with covid around. 🙂

El Camino – The Way (storm damage photos)

We had some bad storms come through Easter Sunday. We were out of electricity from Sunday night through Thursday night.

One of the neighbor’s tree – or what’s left of it.

We’re all safe. Our house, the henhouse, my cat’s run, everything is okay.  And everyone is okay.

Another of our neighbor’s trees – or what’s left of it.

I was outside bringing my plants inside right before the storm. I was on my way inside when I heard a noise that sounded like a freight train. I thought it was a tornado coming, so we headed inside. And then we lost power.

It went over and we could hear the snapping and a few loud crashes. These trees no longer have tops – and I haven’t found them yet. They are just gone. I guess they were blown away.

We heard one crash in which there was a definite sound of metal. Dad thought a tree fell on his workshop, but the shop was fine. Then I knew what happened.

I’ve been praying for the past year or so that the dead tree near my grandpa’s El Camino wouldn’t fall and crush it before we could try to have the dead tree taken care of. We hoped to restore it.

And then this storm happened. God answered my prayer – I prayed specifically, and He answered! He is good.

How did He answer, you wonder? The car indeed looks crushed. Well… the car IS crushed. Do you see the tree in the center of this photo? The one standing? The one with the bark damaged? THAT is the dead tree. It’s still standing.

The tree that crushed the car was over 100 years old – and very much alive. It’s an oak too. I thought those trees were strong, but it was uprooted.

My heart is still as crushed as the car is, but I’m grateful that it was the only damage. It could have been so much worse! We lost several other trees – snapped or uprooted – but they didn’t smash anything.

“Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:14)

The car was named “The Way” (el camino in Spanish means “the way” or “the path”) but there is only one true Way – and that is Jesus. The only Way. He leads to life. And He protected us from the storm. It was just a car, even though I was attached to it. It won’t make it through the fire – I can’t take it with me. And it isn’t The Way.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

I’m determined to keep my eyes on the True Way. The One who protected us during the storms. He is good! ❤

April 3rd 2020 Sunset

Well… I meant to post this Saturday but I got wrapped up in a book. Then I meant to share Sunday and… I got wrapped up in the same book. 😅 So here it is today before I start reading again and forget! 😂

Friday night’s sunset was amazing.

And it kept getting better and better.

I waited a few minutes and it changed to this:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Psalm 19:1

No filters here – this is actually what it looked like.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse… Romans 1:20

Angel – Life Updates

This is the post I promised back in my It’s been a while post.

Back in 2004 – yes, 2004, I had her for over half of my life! – my dog brought me a present.

My dog brought me a kitten. We still don’t know where she came from for sure. This is when we first met! We had her in the back of our truck.

Here is the dog who brought me Angel. Her name was Grunt. (Don’t let five-year-old me name animals, okay? 😂) Not long after she brought me Angel, she got hit by a car. I was crushed. But Angel helped me get through that. I thank God for bringing me Angel. ❤

Getting back on track, my parents said no animals in the house – that lasted a whole three days. 😆 It started raining so we brought her inside, only until the rain was gone. And she never went back outside again. 🙂 Here, you can see her on dad’s back. One of her favorite places to hang out. 😂

She was officially an indoor kitty! And she made herself right at home. 🙂

After we found her, we no longer needed to put a star at the top of the Christmas tree – we had an Angel up there. 🙂

She had her crazy moments. Here we destroyed a paper sack and a newspaper. 😆

She had such patience – she put up with younger me. In this photo, she let me bury her with my plush animals. Can you find her?

She had favorite places to sleep. On top of this TV was one of those. 🙂

Mom cleaned out the cabinets and started reorganizing and afterward, we couldn’t find Angel. Here is where we found her. 😂 After this, Angel wasn’t allowed in the kitchen much unless we were present.

Mom washed the towels and put them back in the drawer and here is where we found Angel. 😂 She started opened drawers and cabinets and emptying everything – or sleeping on stuff we didn’t want her on. 😂 My parents bought baby locks for the drawers and cabinets after this.

If we couldn’t find her – she liked hanging out on top of doors. Just had to be careful when closing doors. Didn’t want to accidentally smash a paw or knock her off the door. 😂

One of my favorite photos of her. Makes me laugh every time. 😂 I caught her mid-yawn.

These two are two of my other favorite photos of her. 🙂 Those eyes!

 

I thought making this a collage of the two of us over the years might cut down on post length. 🙂

The avatar I’ve used for the past few months, this photo, is the last photo we took together before she died. It was New Years Day.  Yes, that is the same shirt I was wearing in the first photo of this post. I found it and thought it would be fun to have our photo taken together with it for nostalgic purposes. I didn’t realize it would be our last.

She will be missed. I treasure the memories we made together. ❤

Guess what bloomed during the quarantine…

Thank you, Jesus, for a such a lovely thing to witness during the quarantine. 🙂

And it was my favorite color, too! I also have pink but they have no buds forming this year, haha.

I took potatoes for granted.

(In light of Coronavirus / COVID-19 , I felt this post was needed today – I’ve moved Angel’s post up to another day. 😉 )

It was weird to see signs such as these in the supermarket.

I took full shelves for granted.

I took being able to go to town for granted.

I took paper products for granted.

I took potatoes for granted.

When you’re no longer able to get things you buy regularly, you suddenly realize how much you took for granted. This was last Monday; I don’t know what the state of the supermarket is today. I’m thankful we bought potatoes the week before.

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“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34

Through it all, God is faithful.

The God who created these intricate flowers is in control. Through it all, He is in control.

The God who created mushrooms is in control.

The God who created bugs is in control.

The God who created frogs is in control.

The God who created cats and kittens is in control.

The God who created dogs and puppies is in control.

The God who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them is in control.

The God who created works of art like this is in control. The Creator of all is in control, even when it feels like everything is spiraling. May we trust Him during this hard time. ❤

How are you all doing? Are you in quarantine where you live?

If you have time during this quarantine, I highly recommend this short movie from Living Waters. Its only 29 minutes long. 🙂

 

Miss Monkey – Life Updates

This is one of the posts I mentioned I’d make in my It’s been a while post. I lost two cats, Miss Monkey in November from the wild cat population and the other in January, our 15 1/2 year old Angel. This post is for Miss Monkey. 🙂

Miss Monkey is the one on the left. You can see how scared she is. This photo was from before I tamed her. It took a few months before she trusted me. And then soon after, her brother Lion decided to trust me too. (The other cat here is Mama Kitty, you may remember her from the post, Mama Kitty – Life Updates.)

It was really hard to get photos of her because her favorite thing was to be held or be on a lap. 😅 But these are the best ones I saw.

She was also scared of the camera flash. Those eyes!

But then she quickly decided that she didn’t care as long as I was holding her. 😆 She started purring and she grabbed onto my shirt because she didn’t want me to put her down. ❤

Of course, it was during a holiday (Thanksgiving) when she got sick so the vets were closed. She died on Black Friday, which was kind of fitting since it was a dark day because of her death. She was 11 when she passed away.

The last thing she did before she died was use every ounce of strength she had and pull herself into my lap (I was sitting on the floor). My heart couldn’t take it. 😭

It was hard to look back through the photos at first because it still hurt so much, but time has dulled the pain a bit. 🙂 I miss her but I can look at these happy memories without bursting into tears now.  🙂

Hope you all have a lovely Monday! ❤

P.S.: As usual, I’m behind on responding to comments but I plan to do that this morning! 😀

P. P. S.: If you want to see the chickens and Jackie, I’ve been posting photos and videos the last two days on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/peneloperoyalpayne/ You may also see one that heavily hints at another post I intend to write this week. 😉