Homestead for Sale

Our home for almost 20 years is now for sale.

It is with mixed feelings that Gene and I are selling, along with all the hard work that has gone into it, from choosing a floor plan, to building on a vacant lot, then forwarding on to create a home. 

(nostalgic pictures from 1996 as we were building)

(Larry Bennett was builder)

(late 1996)

(August, 2016 our house for SALE!)

You can imagine the reasoning that has gone into the decision to sell, if you have been following this blog for a while.  It is difficult to say that the return of cancer is nudging us along, because that ugly disease is not going to make me a victim. I do so want to be the Girl on the Right. SHE would not be a victim.

My brother John and SIL Char were here this week and John was a trooper, helping to fix the garden gate, transplanting iris into a big pot, trucking dead foliage into the pit, and helping to move a 75 year old workbench and heavy oak table onto the back of a friend's pickup bed.  The workbench and table have already found a new home thanks to Marianne, Judy and Bill.

We also had some recreational time.  SIL tickled heads for Julie and me while Uncle John photographed. We had some good days together.

Today starts day 9 of 21 days for the first cycle of the Ibrance chemo drug at 125 mg/day with expected side effects (SE) of fatigue and woozy-ness.  Not too bad, and SE should diminish as time goes by.

Pictures tomorrow of a Girls on the Right Luncheon with friends and salads and summer drinks on the patio.

St. Brigid: Cathedral and Cross

Friend Sharon sent pictures of St. Brigid Cathedral in Kildare on her recent trip to Ireland.

Brief Notes on the Cathedral's History says:

Just over 1500 years ago...Saint Brigid arrived in Kildare with her nuns in the year 480 A.D.  Her original abbey church would have been a simple wooden building, but so great became her fame that, soon after her death in 523 A.D., a costly shrine was erected in her honour in a new and larger building. For many centuries Kildare maintained a unique Irish experiment; the abbess ruled over a double community of women and men and the bishop was subordinate in jurisdiction to the abbess.

Sharon also sent a beautiful St. Brigid Cross that will be placed beside the inside entry of our home.  A smaller replica in the form of a lapel pin says:

The idea of St. Brigid's Cross probably goes back to Pagan times. Making the cross may have been part of a ceremony of preparing the seed for planting.  Legend has it that St. Brigid made her cross while sitting at the bedside of a dying leper. Some say the man was her own father, Dubthach. She whiled away the time making a cross from the rushes that covered the floor. Her father notices, and asked what she was doing. Explaining the cross, St. Brigid told him the Gospel story. It is said that Dubthach became a believer.

Yes, Sharon, it does give me inspiration.  Thank you, friend.

Random Pictures Shared with Yarn Along

Gorgeous lilies, roses and mums that Cookie brought me yesterday for our lunch together; I forgot to give her dessert, bad on me.

A favorite:

A second tree limb fell this week in our back yard; confirmation that it is time to move.  That back area is too much work for the DH.

A picture of our pretty lilies:

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St. Brigid is my patron saint!

It has been hot this August!  Don't you love this picture of birds trying to escape the heat!

Progress on my Rainbow Trail sweater is coming along.  Joining in with Ginny in her weekly Yarn Along.

Marianne and I made two angels yesterday for the church bazaar, proceeds to help fund the food bank.  Isn't she pretty?  It took us over an hour to make just one each, amply filled with sweet smelling lavender.  Each time you hold the angel and give her a little squeeze, more aroma is released. Wish the colors showed up better but I took it against the lighting.  More to come, with better pictures.  She has about a dozen ready, and they will be shown again.  Thanks for playing and teaching me how to make the angel, Marianne!