Texas!

I see it has been one year since my last post. I'm creating quite a track, eh? Since the advent of Facebook, I have really rather ignored this thing called blog ~ and I probably should not do that. There are definitely some things I do NOT put on Facebook; but then, there are definitely some things I will NOT blog about, either. So where does that leave us? Hmmm... I would say that you will learn more about us if you read our blog, but it's been a year since the last post. I guess you'll just have to ride along and see. Well, I left you as we were living in a nice double wide mobile home in the same park my mom was living in. It really was an answer to prayer, as those RV walls were closing in. It put me an hour away from Amanda Coughlin, my Stampin' Up! demonstrator, who has become one of my very BFF's. Amanda, Delma, Marsha and I had some stampin' good times. We laughed and cried and made cards and scrapbook pages and ate and played... You just don't come by special friends like these very often. Love them! And I found a few other gals who were interested in making cards for Operation Write Home (OWH) in Lakeland at Violette's Scrapbook Store. We met once a month and worked on cards to send to deployed military to use to write home with. Great organization and makes you feel like you're using your craft/hobby for a very worthy cause. Gurtha and Rainy became close friends, as well, and I will miss them immensely. You can tell I'm building up to something, can't you? Mark also found a group of guys who loved to get together and play their guitars and sing. He made some relationships that will be kept even though distance separates. Sonny, Bill, Carl, Freddy and so many others. They all met in Sonny's barn and called it Sonny's Pickin' Shed. Along with having such wonderful friends...did I tell you Moffitt decided they needed to eliminate some positions due to the financial crunch? Yep, you guessed it. Mark's position was one they felt they could do without. Mark had five years with them and his employees and co-workers were devastated. And how do you think Mark and Diana felt? Devastated. We lived on the unemployment checks and the savings account for over a year. Then we decided we may as well sign up for Social Security. It really wouldn't be that much more income to wait two more years for 65 to roll around ~ so we did. Mark was rather worried as most of his working career was with RAHD and he didn't have much income (poured everything back into the company). Sooooo when all the figures were plugged in, we were pleasantly surprised to find that SS takes your five highest years of earnings to base your retirement on. So there you are. The reason we were in Florida working for Moffitt Cancer Center ~ which only lasted five years. Does God have a plan? I say most certainly yes! Diana was increasingly restless, being so far from children ~ so far from ANYTHING, really. And no Pilgrim Nazarene Church. I know you can get to Heaven if you're not Pilgrim Nazarene, but that's our church. You know? I was quite sad in Florida. Then, the landlady says out of the blue that she wants us out of the house by the end of August (this is 2013). Wow. It was July! Mark called and asked if we could possibly stay til the end of September ~ and permission was granted. The people were happy with us, but they just wanted to sell the place and get it off their hands. Mark and Diana (and Mom) got busy and packed and packed and packed some more and made arrangements to move to Sherman, Texas! Connie and Steve have taken that church to pastor and it seemed like the right thing to do. Here we are ~ in a 3-bedroom home on 5 acres of land with a 24x30 shop. Thank you, Jesus! We bought it! It's ours! Miracles do happen! Mom is living with us for the time being. We are busily UNpacking everything we packed and getting everything changed over to our Texas address, like car registrations, insurance, driver's licenses, library cards, etc. etc. And that is where I will leave you for now. Hopefully it won't be a year before I update you again.... Gotta figure out how to change the name of this blog ~ we are no longer the Russells at Richmond Place...