Moving Forward

The main sound heard around here is the sound of chain saws and tree shredders! Nearly everywhere you look someone is cutting up and shredding broken trees. I got to drive a bit west of us this evening and saw some of the worst damage! Living in "Tree City USA" with quite a few less trees these days.

This morning I attended the weekly employee meeting at Walmart and was able to thank them for their donations for our last trip to Alabama. They were finally able to reopen and their power was back on mid morning today. The manager said the damages will easily go into 6 figures dollar wise! Sam's Club is still closed as the roof is being repaired.

This evening I spent a short time at my grandson's baseball game. It's such fun to watch them learning what to do with the ball! He's having a great time and the most fun thing for him is sliding into home plate -- whether it's needed or not! Those white pants will never be white again!

Later I headed to our local AmVets to show pictures of some of the damage in Alabama and thank them for their donations to help cover our fuel costs. They had a packed house and were truly touched by the pictures. Many, many thanks to my mother in law, Judy, for getting the word out and being the fuel behind the whole thing! After thanking everyone and on my way out a gentleman came up to me with tears streaming down his face and had much trouble even getting his words out. He wanted to thank us for helping and said "I'm not a rich man but . . ." and reached into his wallet for a monetary donation! God had touched his heart and he "got it." Priceless!

And now we look forward to tomorrow when Cheryl and Terry and 9 of their 10 children will be coming to our house for dinner! You may remember me writing about our visit to their home and we are so excited they are coming to visit with us! My table has enough leaves to open up to seat all 13 of us but I had to borrow some chairs from church! It will be a great evening filled with plenty of laughter and never a dull moment!

On a more serious note -- a very serious note -- I got word today that the construction coordinator for the long term recovery we worked with during the Columbus, Indiana flood in the summer of 2008 committed suicide yesterday morning! I was shocked to my core! It's one of those things that carries only unanswered questions and bucket loads of pain! I pray for God's grace and mercy -- tons of it!

We all are looking at a 3 day weekend and it is our prayer that it's a safe and blessed one for all of you. It's the weekend of the Indy 500 and so many other activities -- enjoy your families and thank God for each one of them.

Until next time . . . love to all of you. Susan and Monty