Early Saturday Morning!

It's a bit late to connect to Random Five Fridays, so I won't...connect this time, I mean.  I need to do a sort've "Random 5" post though.  You'll understand as you read it:

1.  My husband's Dad passed away this last Monday.  Russell is now in Virginia, but will be returning soon to Florida to go to the Memorial Service before coming home.  He has a sister who lives there who has been caring for their Dad the last couple of years.  Please keep he and his sister in your prayers.  This isn't easy, us not being able to be with him.

2.  When Russell left to go see his Dad after the stroke, I told him to take the digital camera with him.We only have the one, and it is older, and not overly efficient, but boy am I missing it!  I have two Nikons available to me to use, both 35 millimeter.  One is "automatic" and the other is an older more manual type.  And of course you have to wait till your photos get developed.  I had never used the automatic one, so I wasn't aware that if I changed the lens, it would make the settings different, and I didn't know how to adjust for that (a photographer I am not!)  so many of my first roll of pictures did not come out, and I was having such trouble with the automatic camera, I switched to the older one Yvonne and I always call the "donut" camera because when you look through the lens you see on the side a minus sign, a circle or a plus telling you if you have enough light or too much.  When Russell taught our daughter and me to use the camera, he said, "If you have a donut, you can take the picture."  Unfortunately, even though I am much more comfortable with it, I can't take close-ups with the smallest lens I have, but I kept TRYING to, as you will see....

3.  So, here is our day of strawberry jam making!  Two Saturdays ago, Yvonne and I bought organic strawberries and I took my canner and jars and sugar and pectin to her house and we had a delightful and VERY productive day!

We canned 18 quarts of strawberry jam!

Couldn't wait to have toast and jam!  This is white bread toast (buttermilk) with the butter on it before placing it under a broiler...the ONLY way to go with homemade jam!

And then I made an Old Dominion Pound Cake so we could have some strawberry shortcake with the little bit of strawberries we had left.  If we hadn't forgotten to buy whipping cream, I would have taken a picture of that too!

4.  This is going to sound weird after telling you all that but I actually am having some bad health issues right now, but it's better and then worse, and obviously it was better when I did all that above :-)  But, I am having a lumbar spine problem that is also causing bilateral neuropathy.  I only mention it because I am extremely uncomfortable a lot of the time now, and hope my Dr. (whom I really like) can help me find some relief.  I went in for an MRI but couldn't go through with it...have terrible claustraphobia issues!  We are rescheduling with an "open" MRI which I hope I can get through. I will also start physical therapy. Anyway, I am having cataract surgery this Wednesday (cataracts caused by my surgery for a hole in the macula of that eye last year) so I can't take any pain meds, and that's why I'm up this early! :-)  Well, a lot of people have a lot worse, so I'm not complaining...just saying it's hard sometimes now to sit at the computer (or the sewing machine) for very long. Once again asking for prayer.

5.  The sun is now rising, and I am thankful for another wonderful day filled with God's blessings!  We started a new Bible Study at church about developing a close relationship with God. It's a wonderful study!  If anyone wants to know the name of it, just email me.  More insufficient photos upcoming in future posts.  I am grateful I will be getting my hubby (and my camera!) back before too much longer. :-)  God bless each of you! (photo from the internet)