New pool and patio and the old Wimpee Homeplace!

I continue t0 be amazed and proud of my brother and his gifts,skills, and talents! He designed, built, and completed this beautiful vanishing edge pool and patio at my parent's old home place! This is the house where I was blessed to grow up. He and his wife live here now and have made it a showplace as they are totally updating, renovating, and repairing it to even better than it was in it's previous years!

Beautiful glass tiles dress up the edges! the steps are even pretty limestone as well!

Gorgeous West Texas setting in Mom's old backyard! Perfect spot to sip a cold drink and watch the sunset over the Twin Buttes!

Oh, so amazing! His talent and vision astound me!

He finished the patio after I had visited! He got these columns in Mexico!

I am so proud of Blake and Sue! Brandon, Ras, and Juan helped but Blake is the head honcho and the visionary and he works just as hard as the helpers! Amazing! He also planed beautiful Mesquite wood for customers and simultaneously was restoring a vintage Airstream in the driveway while he was doing this pool and patio! Yes, the ADHD that is pervasive in my family CAN be channeled into creations beyond imagination!

Thank you Lord for the many wonderful memories in this house! Thank you for family and heritage and genetics!

Psalms 128:2

"For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee!"

After my last visit "home", I smiled as San Angelo was in our rear view mirror. I can truly say,
"it is well with me!" Thank you Lord, thank you. I am blessed beyond measure and you have been good to me and my family.

A week at the Skaar Dog Resort

We loved having Gabby, a long haired dachshund stay with us this week while her human mommy and daddy went on vacation! Our good friends, Cecil and Betty, checked Gabby into our dog resort this past week and we so enjoyed this sweet old girl! Gabby is 16! She loved treat time, play time in our big back yard, couch time, massage time, and social time with Zeus! He really loved her because she basically ignored him and tolerated his curiousity.

Evening lap time and couch time at the Skaar dog resort!

Zeus was quite fine with this lady like gentle old gal visiting this week!

Nap time! Isn't she sweet! We can learn so much from our furry friends.

We should all love unconditionally like dogs do and make a huge fuss of glee and happiness everytime a loved one comes home and walks in the door!

What a fun week we had here at the Skaar Dog Resort!

Sunscreen and your dermotologist are your friend!

Sunscreen and Your Dermotologist are your friend!

I love the CVS brand of this spray on 30 SPF Sunscreen! Be sure you use a 30 or higher!

Bronze Goddess Soft Shimmer powder by Estee Lauder is the best beauty secret ever! For an instant tan look, simply brush it on anywhere you want! Face, neck, chest, shoulders, arms! I love this product!

Ok, next best tip, mix this lotion and the following one together and smooth on after exfoliating and bathing! You will LOVE the sunless tan it gives you!

Good stuff!!

Willy Nelson sings a song that says, "Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys!" I'd like to offer my friends and Mamas this advice, "Mamas don't let your babies go out without sunscreen!" and for that matter don't let them get in tanning beds either! I'm 52 so anyone my age or near my age knows that we didn't have good sunscreens nor education about this risks of sun exposure when we were young.

I had my 4th pre-cancerous lesion removal this week. I just got the pathology report today. My first three were all stage 2 but this one was stage 3, pre-canceous. So, that means in 2 weeks my doctor removes the stitches and then will most likely opt to excise the remaining margins to make sure they removed it all. Had I not gone for regular skin screenings this would have progressed to melanoma. I will have to continue head to toe skin screenings every 6 months for life. I am thankful for good doctors, for my parents teaching me to be my own health care advocate, and I am thankful for good insurance. I am blessed and appreciative at a time when so many are unemployed and lacking health care coverage and barely making ends meet. I am so thankful it was caught while still PRE cancerous and not melanoma. God is good and I am very blessed.

Ephesians 1 ,"3 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ:"

I'm thankful for the covenant of grace.

After yesterday's shocking verdict from the trial of Miss Anthony I find myself having thoughts of thankfulness for the covenant of grace we have been under since Christ's death. I am grateful and humbled that he gave his life, willingly, to pay the penalty for sins I had not yet even committed but he knew I would. He paid the sentence for me, he spared me from the punishment I deserve.

In the Old Testament this was not the case. It was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, literally! If you sinned and broke the laws you paid the penalty and swiftly! When I typed in the word "smote" into my concordance app, 220 scriptures came up with details of sinners who were "Smote" (not pretty, not nice, yes, very violently!), and they paid for their error/sin right away! Makes me shiver to think of some disobedient people who experienced "the earth opening up and swallowing them up and their households", yes, there was violence in the Bible and it wasn't pretty. If the entire Bible was a movie, it would not be G rated. Like I said, I am SO very thankful for what Christ did for us all.

We were able to come before God on our own, after Christ's death, and enter the "Holy of Holies", the inner most part of the Temple, and come before God without dying. We became our own priest and we were free to ask for forgiveness on our own, without a burnt offering because Jesus was the sacrificial lamb for us! I am so thankful.

After hearing the verdict, and remembering that the law of our country guarantees us all innoncence until proven guilty, beyond reasonable doubt, I was stunned, yes, but I can't judge Miss Anthony or anyone. I don't know all the facts, evidence, nor what really happened. I can only pray for her, pray for her parents and pray for God to bring good from this tragic happening. I am thankful to be an American and to have laws and a judicial system in place that has due process guarantees. I am glad to know that, God forbid, if I was ever accused of a crime, I would have the right to trial by a jury of my peers and I would have rights and safeguards that "attempt" to help truly innocent people from being wrongly punished. It is not my place to judge Miss Anthony. I grieve for the loss of this precious innocent little girl. Our system is not perfect. Innocent people do get sentenced for crimes they did not do and guilty people go free who did commit the crime they are accused of. However, the intent of the law is to protect the innocent and falsely accused. It is such a complex issue but I am glad to be in America. I feel so for the parents of that young woman in Italy accused of murder. I feel for Americans who were punished by caning which is being beat on the buttocks with a big cane for minor offenses in some countries. Other contries have no juries, just judges, end of story, you can be locked up and that is that. End of story. In America we even let our former President's issue pardons to who ever they choose as they leave office!

Romans 6:14 says, "For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law but under grace". These words are huge! Read them again and think about their meaning! Be thankful for grace! Justice is not what I ask God to give me, grace is what I ask of Him and thank Him for, over and over!I wonder if Miss Anthony has any idea that the jury gave her grace by following the judges directions and following the law as they interpreted it. They agreed that the government did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that she committed manslaughter/murder. She will not be "smote", she will not be swallowed up by the earth, she will not suffer an eye for an eye..., she was acquitted. If she is guilty, she will not pay the penalty for her sin. We are all like Miss Anthony in this one way. We are all guilty of some sin/s and we are all offered grace instead of justice for our sin/s. Christ paid the penalty for our sins, past and present, long ago.

Tommy Bahama!

Melissa and Jonathan are going to Maui with his family this month and Bill and I now have our reservations at Aulani, the new Disney Resort in Hawaii for our 30th Anniversary in January!

Bill mentioned to me that I may want to get a new swim suit for the trip and HE realized that now is the best time to do that! If I tried to shop for that during December right before our trip it might be difficult! (However, I know now about the fun store at Northpark called "Just Add Water!" where you can buy swim suits for women all year round! Shhh.... Anyway, I found the perfect Tommy Bahama swim suit there and then I went online and found this darling sundress I just had to have for our trip as well! I texted Melissa to tell her and show her and guess what!?

My dress, which I LOVE! I can't wait to wear it in Hawaii next January!Melissa called me right after I texted her my message that my dress had come and sent her a picture too! She said she had been at the Katy Mills Mall and Jonathan found the Tommy Bahama outlet there!! She got two sundresses and at half price! There is not a Tommy Bahama store in the DFW Metroplex, 0nly in San Antonio and Houston! So I was so excited for her! We have the same sundress just different colors! So fun!

This is from the tommybahama.com website! It comes in orange and pink! I got pink!

Thank you Lord for simple pleasures! Just had to share!