A Poignant Homily

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." Matthew 6:24

"For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." 1 Timothy 6:10

Doug and I went to mass on Saturday night and found the homily given by the deacon to be extremely relevant.  He talked of greed, misery and idolizing one's money over everything else including God.  We both walked away from the sermon touched, but with different thoughts.  I felt that the deacon was affirming our decision to help our children start their lives by paying for their college educations.  The stress of Doug's job and the decommitment of his family to help with that expense had really taken a toll on us these past few years and my mind had started to drift away from what was important and focused instead on wealth and hoarding money for "someday."  I had even started to wonder if we should have had them be partially financially responsible for their expenses as well.  I was afraid that we had robbed from our retirement to support them.  We hadn't and I was glad that the deacon reminded us today that Jesus asked us to forgo riches and to let go of earthly idolatry.  He was right and I knew that.  Doug and I were able to help our children start their lives and still live comfortably ourselves.  The most important part of raising them wasn't money, but to give them richness in faith.  This summer, I realized that we had done exactly that, and we had reaped the benefits of following the Jesus' teachings.  

Doug completely agreed with my thoughts, but he had never doubted that we had made the right decision all along.  His thoughts were deeper than mine as he contemplated his family's legacy, the promises that had been made to him years ago and what that meant for our future.  He brought up legitimate concerns, but did not have a solution for any of them.  The nice reminder for him Saturday was that we had learned long ago to only rely on each other.  We had weathered many storms together through God's help and the hardships of the past two years were slowly becoming a memory.

I appreciated Doug's opinion today.  He doesn't talk as much as I do, so it was nice to hear that we were on the same page with our own decisions.  When he went to bed tonight, I thought a lot about our upbringings.  They were so different from each other. My grandparents lived on a fixed income and worked commodities to bring home government peanut butter and cheese.  They had nothing to leave me but a case of Halloween Miller Lite beer and some knickknacks that I absolutely cherished.  His grandparents owned farmland that was now worth millions of dollars that they wanted their grandsons to inherit.  I hope that one day the boys are allowed to be owners of something that was so precious to their family.  The nice part is that no matter what happens, Doug and I both loved our respective grandparents dearly and had wonderful memories of them.  That's enough for me.

Oktoberfest

Last year we went to Oktoberfest at the World Equestrian Center and really enjoyed it. Thus, when they were hosting the same event this year, I put it on our calendar. They offered two dates for the festival, but Doug and I were busy last weekend, so we bought tickets for today.  Phil joined us for the event, and we all had a fantastic time.

This year we decided to arrive at Oktoberfest right when it opened at 11 a.m.  Last year, we waited until noon, and it was already standing room only when we arrived. I knew that I couldn’t stay very long if I wasn’t able to sit for part of the event. Thankfully, it wasn’t quite as crowded this year and there were more tables available. The first thing on our agenda was to try all of the authentic German foods. We sampled knockwurst, bratwurst, beef and cabbage, German pretzels, apple strudel, ginger snap cookies, and German chocolate cake. Everything was delicious, but the bratwurst and German chocolate cake were my favorites. I did not sample any beer, but the guys tried several of the Oktoberfest offerings. Doug even scored a German Oktoberfest hat when a Sam Adams representative walked by handing them out to those of us who arrived early.

Besides beer and food, we also watched juggling acrobats and a stein holding contest. There was cornhole, a giant jumbo game and connect four as well.   As much as I loved all of the food and activities, the best part of the day was the band. I liked the one a lot last year, but this year's was even better. It was a family band called the Swinging Bavarians. They yodeled, played polka music, and did traditional German Oktoberfest chants and songs. They showcased their children dancing and even taught the crowd a few dances as well. I loved listening to "It’s a Small World" on the cowbell and I know that Doug really appreciated the Chicken Dance. We never made it to the dance floor, but we sure enjoyed watching everything.

After 3+ hours of fun, we decided to call it an afternoon. Doug and Phil both went home and crashed for a while. I couldn’t blame them as there had been a ton of food mixed in with some heavy beers. After Doug took a short nap, he and I went to mass and spent the rest of the evening home watching football. I told him over and over how much fun I had had today. That has been the best part about moving, all of the different activities that we have been able to enjoy and now that he doesn’t have to work so much, we can actually attend many more of them.

                                              

Scary Movie Season Revisted

Every year October becomes scary movie season for our family. When we were still living in Syracuse, Camerron and I would pick out our favorite horror movies to watch to commemorate the holiday. We watched Scream together, Halloween, and many more. Doug wasn’t as big of a fan of scary movie season, but he would join us from time to time.

If Cal was home, he would suggest some of his favorites or a new thriller that he had heard was good. Cal’s favorite horror movie was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He and I rewatched it one year while he was still living at home, and I realized that it was a little bit too much for me. After he moved out, he suggested the movie "The Strangers" for Cameron and I to watch. Cal did warn me that it was one of the scariest movies that he had ever seen. We decided to brave it and watched it one afternoon while Doug was traveling home from Florida. I had never been so scared.

I have started to realize the last couple of years that I just can’t handle scary movies season anymore. The heart pounding thrillers that I used to love were just too much for me now. Thus, last year I switched over from scary movie season to Halloween movie season instead. I focused more on Brett and Meg's favorites that I found on Disney+ instead of the horror classis.  Shows like "It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" were more my speed. This year, I even bought the pumpkin shaped soundtrack to it on vinyl that Meg had recommended. Doug and I both really enjoyed listening to that. 

Last week on the Rewatchables podcast, the movie "The Blair Witch Project" was featured.  The film came out in 1995 and had become one of Doug and my favorite scary movies. When we first saw it in theaters, we believed all the hype about the Blair Witch.  As I listened to Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan talk about the film, the memories of the first time I saw it 25 years ago came back.  Even though we found out later that it was a made-up story, we still had fun showing it to all of the boys. They also enjoyed the unique movie style.  Doug listened to the same Rewatchable podcast on his drive home from work today and loved the walk down memory lane as well.  We talked about watching it again, but I knew I couldn’t. We decided instead to watch the Curse of the Blair Witch. It was a faux documentary that was made after the original movie was released.  It described the Blair Witch's legend and the film students who had gone "missing" while studying the myth. We watched it outside on the tiki bar tonight and even though we knew that it was not a true story, we both still found it scary. 

After tonight, I realized that scary movie season is over for both of us. That’s ok with me.  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow had always been my favorite Halloween story and fortunately, I could still handle the animated Disney classic.

The Clean Up

Doug and I spent Tuesday getting ready for the hurricane. We brought in all the outside furniture, moved all the plants to the side of the fence, filled the bathtub with water and had food and water ready in case we lost power. For the most part yesterday, we really just dealt with rain. It started after midnight and continued throughout the rest of the day.  We watched the news off and on and knew that the storm had moved a little bit south of us. I hoped that meant that we have to deal with the storm at all.

Unfortunately, just as the weather forecaster said that hurricane Milton had made landfall in Tampa, a gust of wind picked up here and knocked over our tiki bar. I couldn’t believe it. We had it under the patio and it had never moved in any other storm. Unfortunately, we could tell that the countertop shattered when it blew over. Doug and I ran outside in the rain, picked it up, took everything inside that was stored in it, and put the fireplace in front of it so that it was wedged against the wall. Even the 80-pound fireplace didn’t make a difference, as the tiki bar blew over one more time in the evening. We to move it to the fence and lay it on his side after that.

I was pretty bummed last night when I thought about the countertop to the tiki bar being broken. It didn’t help that we lost power for six hours in the middle of the night, making it hard to sleep in general. This morning, I got up and started researching what we could do to fix it. I knew that it was going to be a really big project, but we loved the tiki bar and used it quite often. Doug went outside to access the damage and said that besides the tiki bar the only other issues we had were a broken wind chime and a few slats that had blown off the fence. I didn’t need the wind chime anymore and he was able to fix the slats, so it was really just the tiki bar. I knew that I was silly being sad about it as a lot of other people had lost their homes in the storm.

Our power had been restored at 6:30 in the morning, but the Internet was still out when we were outside cleaning up. We could see the Cox Cable trucks working on it in our side yard.  Doug suggested that we take some time to run over to Lowe’s and see what they would have to fix the tiki bar. He carefully measured the area that needed replaced.  He thought that maybe we could have a piece of plywood cut and use that until we came up with a more permanent solution. I didn't have a lot of hope but agreed to ride along.

Doug and I walked into the store, thankful that it was open. It wasn’t as crowded as I thought it would be, but there were a lot of people buying supplies to fix different items. Doug suggested that we walk to the flooring area first.  As soon as we reached the flooring aisle, I noticed that they had large piece of tiles that looked a lot like the size of our countertop. We ran over to it, looked up the measurements and realized that we had just found the perfect solution. They even had the exact same color as the one that had been destroyed. Neither one of us could believe it. It was only $22 and soon we were on our way home with a brand new countertop.

I couldn’t stop talking all day about how fortunate we were. I had envisioned this huge project that was really never going to look the same. Instead, no one would ever know that my favorite piece of outdoor furniture had been damaged. As an added bonus while Doug was out picking up, he found the pickle ball that had been stuck in the arborvitae bushes since last Christmas. Nick had hit it high up in the bushes on an errant return up and no matter where we looked, we could not find the pickle ball. After each and every storm, I would go out and look to see if it blew down. I had actually given up ever finding it after Hurricane Helene, but thankfully hurricane Milton gave it back to us. It wasn’t a big deal that it was lost, but it sure was fun finding it again. Hopefully, this is our last major storm of the season. I don’t think that Florida can handle another one this year.

A Great Way to Spend Time During the Hurricane

When I was sorting through mine and my brother's childhood possessions at my mom's a couple of years ago, I ran across two nightlights that my Grandma Guard had given us when we were very young.  Instantly, a flood of memories came rushing back. First, they were of my Grandma Guard. I absolutely loved visiting her when I was a child and looking though the knickknacks that she had picked up on her various trips. I also remembered the orange blossom perfume that she had.  It smelled just like the Florida orange groves. The next memories that came flooding back were from our family home on Jackson Street. I remembered my room, my brother’s room, his record player, and this really awesome vanity that I used to have when I was little.  I was incredibly thankful that my mom had kept the nightlights.  I quickly found a place for them in her guest bedroom closet along with my other prized possessions - Zip the Monkey, the Charlie Brown encyclopedias and the doll crib that my grandpa made for me.  

This fall when we drove up to Indiana to visit everyone, I decided that I wanted to bring the nightlights back to our home in Florida.  I felt like it was a true homecoming for them as it was the state where Grandma Guard bought them over fifty years ago, and Bunk's fit the decor in our Ocala home perfectly. I knew that it would take some time to get them back to their original state again as a lot of the beads had come off and the cords no longer worked.  I didn't mind as I was really looking forward to the project.  

Last week, I started to investigate what I would need to refurbish the nightlights. I had looked through all of Ocala's craft store for replacement beads but couldn’t find what I wanted. After doing a lot of research I thankfully found some on Amazon that would work.  That solved problem one. The cords were a bigger issue. I couldn’t use them anymore because they did not have a safety plug at the end, but I also couldn’t just put in another nightlight cord because it wouldn't fit in the bottom correctly. The original chords came out the side and had connecting wires to the light bulb. The other issue I had with it was that the cord had gotten stuck up inside the ceramic nightlights and the prongs on the bulb were almost impossible to get out. After taking the cord completely apart and getting out pliers, wire cutters, and tweezers, I at least had a plan to take out the bulb. It took about an hour of manpower, but I finally got both bulbs out without damaging the ceramic figures. Amazon had battered operated fairy lights that fit perfectly inside our prized childhood objects.  I then reglued all of the bulbs and soon my brother and my nightlights were shining once again. I was so happy that I worked on this project this week. It kept me busy during the hurricane and it was a great way to remember my brother on his 61st birthday.

My Brother's Birthday

As I spent the majority of today getting ready for Hurricane Milton, I didn't realize what date it was.  Thus, I was surprised when my cousin Billy called me to check on the hurricane and to also talk about Bunk's birthday.  I never forget my brother's birthday, but sometimes the date gets away from me.  I couldn't believe that it was already October 8th.  It felt like the month had just started and here it was already over a week into October.  

After I hung up with Billy, I felt bad, like I had let Bunk down for not posting anything this morning.  It was still early afternoon.  I could put out a post then, but that's when I realized that I didn't have to post on his birthday. I could post about him whenever I wanted. The most important thing about my brother was that I remembered him.  That I do quite often and the past few weeks, I had actually been thinking about him a lot.  I was working on a project that included something that he loved as a child.  I hadn't had a lot of time to finish it and had set aside this week to do so.  If the hurricane hadn't been coming, I would have finished it done today. Now, the project will be a great way to spend time while we are sheltering from the storm and remember some of my favorite childhood memories of my brother.

People Get Ready

I really thought that hurricane Helene would be the last major hurricane of the season. The destruction that it caused was massive and I couldn’t imagine that we would have to worry about another storm this late into October. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Hurricane Milton is supposed to make landfall later this week as a category three storm. Although it will not cause the destruction that Helene did north of us, it does look like a pretty nasty storm for our area.

With the storm making national news and the map showing it going right through Ocala, I had gotten a lot of texts and phone calls from friends and family to make sure that we were ready. I really appreciated everybody’s concern. As this was our fourth major hurricane since we moved here last August, getting ready for a hurricane was not quite as scary as it was the first time. Thus today, I was happy that I could text this to everyone:

“It is amazing to me how prepared the state of Florida is for hurricanes. We have been getting warnings all day. Ocala will have wind gusts up to 80 mph and 8-12 inches of rain. We have our hurricane pack ready, cars fueled, battery operated generator charged, will bring in all of the outside furniture Tuesday and fill the tub with water on Wednesday. Doug's work is closer to Orlando so they will get hit harder. They are closed on Wednesday and Thursday, so he will be home for the storm. I'm nervous, but we should be fine. Fortunately, we do not have to evacuate. I’ll keep you updated! Thanks for checking!”

I was proud of us for taking it seriously. Phil called tonight to let us know that there was no gas available in our area of town and that I-75 was at a standstill with evacuees. Thus, filling up early and Doug staying in Lake Mary tonight were really good decisions. Once he gets home tomorrow, we are going to treat it like a mini “staycation” complete with movie nights, games and plenty of snacks. Hopefully, my positive attitude works and by Friday morning everything will be back to normal.