Out of town

Hello. I will not be posting anything new for at least a week. We will be in NY visiting family and friends and attending my brother Evan's wedding. I will be bringing the camera and will hopefully have a lot to write about when I return. I will miss Florida and all of the people here!

Update on Stellan

I know that many of you have been praying for Stellan. He definitely seems to be holding his own, as apparent from MckMama's latest blog. I could not possibly explain what is going on as well as she did, so here is a link to her latest post: http://www.mycharmingkids.net/2009/03/central-line.html

It is a privilege and an honor to pray for this precious baby and family. God is so faithful! Love to all,

Our Fearless Leaders

I've been telling my family in NY for a while that I would post photos of our pastor and youth paster/worship leader for all to see. Here they are! This is Matt Day, our pastor at the Bridge Church. He is a very annointed preacher and a great guy. He is from Alabama as you can probably tell by his sense of humor! Here he is at a recent get together with "watermelon teeth" (apparently a southern tradition!) This is Rodney Ring. He is our youth pastor and a very talented worship leader. He is also a joker! Well, there you have it. We love both of you guys!

Please join me and many others in prayer for baby Stellan. He is the son of MckMama, the creator of "Not Me, Mondays" and is very sick. His heartrate is currently much too fast and needs to be normalized. All efforts to do this so far have been ineffective. We who know the Creator know that He has this completely under control. We pray for peace for his family and a speedy recovery for Stellan. Thank you Father that we can trust You no matter what the circumstances look like. We love you.

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to another addition of Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. It is not wildfire season here in Florida. It has not been so dry that the other day when it rained (for about 5 minutes), we realized that our puppy had no idea what was happening. He did not go out onto the lanai and just stand there looking up! These are not some photos of fires in North Port which is about 10 miles south east of Venice. Well, other than the excitement of the fires, I have not been having a very busy, yet rather uneventful life. Since we are not planning on travelling to NY for my brother Evan and his bride Tara's wedding in nine days, I have not had to cram all of my week's worth of regulars into the time before and after the trip. This has not resulted in a rather uneventful posting for all of you to read as I have not been too busy to give it much thought. I was not almost 20 minutes late picking Maddie up from La Voce de Venizia practice today because I underestimated how long a new client would take. Our family did not spend a good portion of Saturday putting together the universal exercise equipment that our friends the Crites gave us. Very cool! Below is not a photo of these same musically talented friends performing with the praise and worship team from their church at an event at the Venice Christian School. Mark is not the one playing guitar on the left and Chris is not the one singing on the right. Their daughter Maddie is not standing next to her mom. That is not our friend Rick in the back playing drums. We are not in a bible study with Rick and his wife Terri and we did not go to an awesome pool party at their house last week. They do not live on a lake and have a heated pool and jacuzzi that we did not spend time in. Our Florida friends are not a lot of fun to hang out with! The Crites are also not the owners of Casey, half brother and beloved playmate of our puppy Gianni. In this photo Gianni has not stolen Casey's chew toy and he is not ignoring him to eat it! As warned, I am not completely out of material and I am not signing off to go watch Biggest Loser! Do not have an awesome day. God bless,

Happy Spring!

Happy Spring to you all! Here in beautiful southwest Florida it has felt like spring for a while, but I am happy for all of you cold-climate people! Hope it warms up soon. New York - I am warning you, it better be warm when we get there! We can not deal with the cold! Speaking of cold, we got Dave a firepit for his birthday.
We have used it almost every day since and have really been enjoying it. Surprisingly, and something we did not consider, is how difficult it is to find wood to burn in Florida! There is not a lot of it. Most people go to Home Depot or Walmart and spend $5.00 for a few logs. We searched the area and were blessed to find a guy who loaded up Dave's truck with the most amazing, hard, perfectly seasoned, live oak wood you ever saw - cheap!
The other day Craig cut down some orange tree branches from his yard and we burned them. What an awesome smell!

Spring might be nice wherever you are reading this from, but I think I will keep my Venice! With much love,

Going bananas

Would you believe that these bananas actually came out of our backyard? We got a total of 52 bananas all together. They were delicious! We have a new little bunch growing right now, but they take about a year to come to fruition. We have eaten a lot of banana bread lately!

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to another addition of Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. I did not enter Gianni into a "doggy diva fashion show" this week! That would be so silly! He did not win a second place trophy in the "cutest dog" category. He was not obviously the cutest one there! The judges were not completely off the mark! I did not walk a "dogwalk" (ha, ha, get it?) with my 5 month old puppy. We did not get invited to be on a nationally syndicated radio show with Sophie the Doggy Diva. G did not have his picture taken for the Sarasota Pet magazine. This is not a photo of Gianni actually smiling with his trophy.

This is not our vet's office.

We did not miss our member recognition day at church yesterday. Dave is not in the middle of a critical update on his site which prevented him from going anywhere. I did not glom (I am pretty sure that is not a real word but I do not like it anyway) on to Dave's inability to leave and stay home because I was not soooooo tired! I do not feel kind of guilty even though I have not missed a day of church in almost two years! Maddie and I did not go to Walmart to get a few things as a great excuse to go to Panera for lunch. Maddie did not have a concert at Epiphany Cathedral on the island. It was not beautiful! I did not become offended when they started to pass around baskets and tell everyone when they were 2/3 of the way done that they were collecting to repair their organ! That was not cool! The audience did not think the money was being collected for the Choral Boosters organization! We are not starting to prepare for our upcoming trip to NY. We do not wish we could take Gianni with us. I did not look into the cost only to find out that it would be about $350. We will not miss him so much! (I think Dave will not miss him most of all, as Gianni is his constant companion when Maddie and I are out much of the day!) Gianni does not LOVE his daddy!


I am not having one of the most relaxing Mondays ever. I did not go back to bed after Maddie left for school and sleep until almost 11:00! That is not completely out of character for me. I am not still in my nightgown even as I write this post with a cup of coffee at my side at 1:00pm in the afternoon! I have not accomplished very little today. I am not enjoying every minute of it. I do not have a very busy week for the rest of the week. I do not need this mental health day! I do not love you all bunches! Do not have a blessed day,

Spring Clean, Year 'Round

My multi-talented friend Travis has created an amazing and clever cleaning system called "Spring Clean, Year 'Round" which I highly endorse. You can check them out at http://www.springcleanyearround.blogspot.com/. These systems are very useful and practical but also adorable and stylish! These are the colors that I like but there are many available to match any decor. Go get one today and get cleaning! Much love,

Venice Cleaning Company

Hi everyone, I thought I would show you some of the homes that I get to spend my days in. These are just a few of my regulars:

This condo is right on the beach, very distracting to work in!

This is the house I call "crumble house" because it is kind of old and crumbly, but it's got the gorgeous, million-dollar view on Casey Key! (That's my car in the front.)

Here are more of my favorites:

This is the company that I receive many of my referrals from:

So, there you have it. I know it's tough to deal with! As nice as these houses are, the clients that go with them are even nicer! God has blessed me immeasurably, how awesome! Love to you all,

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. OK, here I go with my first ever "Not Me! Monday" post. First and foremost, I absolutely did not stalk my friend Travis' amazing blog Created for His Glory to get ideas of exactly what to do for this post! That would have been kind of pathetic. This Saturday on the way to a get together with many of the same people that were at Dave's party (where I dumped his cake on the floor moments before serving it) I certainly did not spill at least half of the cherry fluff I had just made all over the back seat floor of my car. Oh, and I did not just have my friend Craig the superior carpet cleaner clean the upholstry two weeks ago. Yesterday I did not get stung by yet another fire ant on the very same hand that was covered with stings last week (gross and itchy.) Dave did not play paintball Saturday morning with 12 of his buddies and have an amazing time! The women are not planning on going next time to get in some girl-power! While Dave was warring, Maddie and I did not meet some friends at Panera for breakfast and then stop at a roadside "petting zoo" where we saw a tiger and a camel. We did not all get together at the Crites afterwards and have a great time which included swimming in the pool and hanging out in the jacuzzi. Maddie did not get a new bathing suit which she is not wearing in this picture. I did not bring Gianni in the jacuzzi where he sat on my and Maddie's laps for about an hour. Gianni did not have an awesome time playing with his half-brother Casey Crites. Casey is not a Maltese/Yorkie mix while Gianni is not a Maltese/Pomeranian mix. I did not take Gianni for a ride today to pick up Maddie and he did not slime me and himself up so badly that I had to give him a bath when we got home. I did not bring Maddie to Vertical (her youth group) wearing my slippers so I did not get out and say "Hi" to everyone. I am not so grateful that I have no jobs tomorrow so I can spend the day cleaning my house (which is not a mess) so I can not have about 20 people over for our bible study tomorrow night. Our bible study is not so awesome that it grows bigger every week! I am not running late picking Maddie up because I am not enjoying this purging so much that I can NOT stop writing!!! I am not signing off now and I do not love you all bunches!