I'm Still Here

I had planned on posting in June, but life got in the way.

The end of May through June 10th, we had a house full of dogs when Grand-dogger Skye stayed with us while DD & SIL were in Alaska.

Clockwise Bottom Left to Right:  Skye, Hollie, Dottie & Hazel 

It is really difficult to get 4 dogs to sit still for a photo, even when holding a treat over their heads, lol. They all got along really well and played together nearly all day long.

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June 14 brought severe storms to our area and our little town was hit the hardest.  I took a few photos of some of the damage.

This is what's left of the oldest barn in town.  It was over 100 years old.

We were lucky that the only damage we had was the TV tower being twisted and blown over.

Our neighbor was not so lucky.  She had just returned home during the worst of the storm, when the tree fell on her house. Remarkably, she was not injured.

Almost all of the homes on my side of town suffered some kind of damage from wind or broken trees and several garages and sheds were blown apart.  The other side of town had only a few homes that had minor damage even though many trees were damaged in the storm.  DD lives on the other side of town and had no damage other than a few small branches in her yard.  Just on the edge of town, a machine shed was blown apart and pieces of the building were found in a field almost 2 miles away.  We were without power for 28 hours during some of the hottest and most humid weather we've had.

I've never seen so many people in our tiny town as there were the night of the storm and the days after. Besides the power crews and tree crews, people were showing up just to drive around and see the damage. Too bad none of them stopped to help with the clean up.

Two days later, more severe storms came through in the late afternoon and we were rewarded with a double rainbow.   The house in the background is my neighbor's house and a tree crew had just finished removing the tree and tarping the roof an hour earlier.  Half of that huge tree in the front yard fell on her house.  The remainder of that tree is scheduled to be removed later this summer.

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Our oldest DD still has not been feeling well.  She had her gallbladder removed last November, but is still having digestive issues along with pain in the abdomen.  She had surgery again on June 23 for female problems.  The doctor also examined other organs during the surgery.  The liver appeared a little off color and not as smooth as it should be.  Her liver enzymes are mildly elevated and DD had a liver ultrasound last week, which we are still awaiting the results of.

My sister was telling me that my niece had elevated liver enzymes when she was diagnosed with gluten intolerance.  My niece had been very ill and once she was diagnosed and changed her diet to omit gluten, she began to feel better and her liver enzymes returned to normal.  I am hoping that whatever is going on with DD can be easily fixed and controlled by diet too.

I've done some research and DD has most of the symptoms of gluten intolerance, but we haven't heard from the doctor with the results of the liver ultrasound, so we don't know anything yet.  I have been so worried and the waiting is the hardest!

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I have no stitching or crafting to share, so how about a few flower pics?

Pink Wave Petunias

Pink Zinias, Vanilla Marigolds & Mixed Flowers

Pink Poppy

Until next time,

STAY SAFE 

& 

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!