Jill's Journal

OH Happy Day!!!

2009-05-30T15:23:00.004-04:00

TODAY The doggie duplex was finally hauled away--free to good home! It served its purpose and now it is on its way to a new location to make another family and their dog very happy. Yay!

Bye-bye!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spring Day

2009-04-10T13:56:00.003-04:00

Ok. It has been a while. But it was SO nice outside I really needed to post about it. Here are some photos of our backyard and some driveway scenes that show how nice it is here today. It is about 80 deg F, breezy and low humidity. We have about 5 days like this per year. Here is our first of the season!

The Back Porch

2008-07-04T16:04:00.003-04:00

We have been working on our back porch for a couple of weeks now. We had a porch with an industrial-type concrete surface and we wanted to tile it. We went to a local home improvement store and found some of the most beautiful slate tile that Wayne and I had ever seen. We had to have it. After we got it home I made up some designs and we picked one and Wayne went to work on it. Here are the results. Sasha wanted to help. Here's the middle pattern. The finished floor.

News Flash! New Art Journal!

2008-06-05T23:55:00.002-04:00

I finally posted some journal pages on my art journal. Just click "My Art Blog" under the links list on the right to go there. Otherwise the address is: http://jill-holmes-art-journal.blogspot.com. I hope you enjoy your visit there, too!

Biking on Jekyll Island

2008-06-01T19:20:00.010-04:00

Saturday Wayne and I went bike riding on Jekyll Island with two of our friends Buddy and Terry. We started at the Jekyll Island Club and rode north on the island toward the pier. There were lots of people out fishing and enjoying the day with their families. On the way we stopped and took some pictures of the new Sidney Lanier Bridge. We stopped at an old cemetery that had only 5 graves in it. It was surrounded by an old cement wall that had an old iron gate on the front of it. I loved the gate. The area surrounding the cemetery was beautiful the way that the marsh flowed in and around it. We rode on around the island until we came to a place called Driftwood Beach. A lot of the locals go there during low tide and get professional photos taken of their families. They make wonderful photos. I took several photos of the beach and also some of Buddy and Terry like the first photo at the top of this entry. We even managed to get a picture of us on one of the dead trees. As we were getting ready to leave, Terry yelled that she had spotted a snake. We went to the area to investigate. Sure enough, there was a small rattlesnake in the grass. He was only about 2.5-3 feet long and only had 2-3 rattle buttons on his tail. He seemed quite content to just lay there (we think he had just eaten recently) so I of course went to work with my camera. Not as cute as the previous baby racoon pictures but still pretty cool. He looked like he had just shed recently as his scales were very vividly colored and very shiny. We finally returned to the Jekyll Island Club and had sandwiches at their cafe. We were starving by then and hot. It was a long 3-hr ride around half of the island. We saw at least 5 wedding parties on the grounds. It must have been a big weekend for that, too. All of the brides and girls looked pretty and happy and all the grooms and men looked stressed. It was pretty funny. The magnolia trees are in full-bloom right now and everything within 100 yards of one of them smells wonderful! One more photo across the marsh looking at the bridge (on the extreme left) almost at sunset from the Jekyll Island Club. The breeze was wonderful, the temperature was perfect and it was a great evening. We didn't really want to leave.

Visitor

2008-06-01T18:37:00.004-04:00

On Wednesday I sat with my parents on the back porch for most of the day. It was a great day for back porch sitting. Sasha spent the day out there with us, too. About mid-morning she started barking at something down in the backyard. After a while I finally went to investigate and sent her back to the porch. This is what I found: He was about as big as a 10-wk old kitten and frightened out of his wits. I took some photos and Sasha and I went inside for about a half an hour. When we came back out he was gone. Hopefully he's OK.

Meet the Parents

2008-05-29T22:26:00.008-04:00

Mom and Dad came down to visit this past weekend. We did all kinds of things while they were here. We went to church Sunday morning then we went to Mudcat Charlie's on Hwy 17 for lunch with friends. It was a nice afternoon.

That evening we took them to St. Simons Island to see the lighthouse, pier and Atlantic Ocean. It was perfect weather for that. The wind was nice enough to keep the bugs away and to keep things from getting too hot. There was a lot of great scenery.

Monday we went to Taylor Farms and picked blueberries.

The bushes were huge! They hadn't quite ripened enough for bulk picking yet so we got the first picking on the bushes. It was hot but passing clouds and the shade from the bushes kept us pretty cool.

It was a wonderful day.

Joey showed Dad the pecan trees while we were there.

The nuts are already growing just as little tiny buds on the trees.

Looks like there will be a good pecan harvest this fall!

I was also able to get some cool photos of some flowers during our travels. I like getting close-ups of them.

On Tuesday we spent most of the day at Jekyll Island. It is an island with beautiful, nearly pristine beaches. Here are some photos of the beach. In the third photo, the land you can see in the background is one side of Cumberland Island, the next island down the coast.

Another Wayne Update

2008-05-19T22:39:00.002-04:00

Wayne went to the physical therapist today. He said that he was healing well and that he had a tremendous amount of flexibility for his injury. He had him moving his arm in several directions with a small amount of weights and resistance. He started getting sore this evening. The therapist said that he would. He's supposed to go see a chiropractor this week, too to see if we can get his back into proper alignment again. I think that will help a lot also. All in all he is doing quite well and healing quickly and without any issues. It is truly a miracle. However, the fenders and ferrings, etc. came in for his broken motorcycle today...good grief!

Omega Group Dinner

2008-05-19T21:36:00.013-04:00

Tonight was the monthly dinner for the Omega Group at church. We all went to the "Buie Plantation" and had a great breakfast for dinner. Dr. Merschon (sp?) spoke to us this evening about being Ostrich Christians--we do great at church but when it comes to living life out in the real world we stick our heads in the sand.

Jessie Deems sang a song and we had some harmonica playing, too. Carolyn played the piano. All of the music was really good. I took these photos with one of my old cameras and I think the settings were a little off. I'm posting some of the pictures any way so you can see some of the people that attended. Please don't hold them responsible for the bad photography. Where is Janice when I need her? :-)

Cresent Beach, FL Vacation Weekend

2008-05-14T22:06:00.007-04:00

I went to Cresent Beach, FL (the next beach south of St. Augustine) and spent the last weekend with my arty friends from Gainesville, FL. We had a grand time! I got to take lots more photos and spend time arting with my friends. I took several photos of the beach, flowers and especially the pelicans! The pelicans were great!They just kept flying and diving and feeding and doing it all over again and again just a few yards from the shore. They were out there the whole weekend. Usually I get to see a few fly overhead at the pool or some flying by out over the ocean but I've never seen such activity for so long on one of my beach trips. I loved watching them. And in some of the pictures they looked like they were watching me, too! I waded out in the surf for a distance and used my telephoto lens to get some pictures of them. Several of these turned out really well, I think.

Wayne Update

2008-05-14T21:58:00.004-04:00

I just wanted to let everybody know that Wayne is doing fine. He went and had another X-ray of his collar bone on Monday and the doc says he is healing nicely. He doesn't want to see him again for another 6 weeks. This is good. He's only taking a little pain medicine at night now and he is doing much better during the day. The first week back at work last week was a little rough after laying around for almost a week and a half prior to that but he made it through and is doing OK at work now, too. The doc also says he can get back on his motorcycle by the end of the month but Doctor Jill says no way! :-) It is going to be a while longer before he's allowed to do that again...

Panama City Beach Long Weekend Vacation

2008-05-07T23:29:00.000-04:00

Wow! Wayne and I just returned from a long weekend vacation to Panama City Beach, FL. We were invited by Janice and Earl Odom to go on their vacation with them. I'm really glad that we went. It was a WONDERFUL vacation! We had three and a half days at the beach. We stayed at a condo located on the Gulf of Mexico. The sand was so white and the water was so blue, unlike the Atlantic where the sand is browner/grayer and the water looks more green and you can't see through it at all. Since it was early in the season there weren't many people there which gave us most of the beach to ourselves. The water was still just a little chilly--probably in the low 70's instead of the mid-80's like we are used to in the mid-summer. I got plenty of chances to use the new camera. Here are some of the pictures that I took this weekend. The sunsets on the west coast of Florida are spectacular.

Down to the Bare Bones

2008-04-28T22:29:00.003-04:00

I took Wayne to the bone doctor today. The clavical is definitely broken. We had his elbow X-rayed just to make sure it was OK and there were no brokens bones there--just a lot of pain and swelling. Dr. Brooks said to come back in two weeks for another X-ray of the collar bone and that we would be able to tell more when some of the swelling went down in that area. We will be keeping an eye on it to make sure that it heals correctly. He wrote some more scripts for pain since Wayne is not sleeping too well and we paid and went on our way. He gave Wayne some VERY simple exercizes to do to keep his shoulder mobile during the time his clavical is healing. He won't be able to do them for a while but as the pain subsides some he should be able to move a little more. Right now he needs a lot of help just getting in and out of bed! On another note, the telephoto lens I ordered to go with my new camera came in today. I took some more photos of Sasha--pls ignore the green eyes. I don't have the time nor the patience right now to correct them. It is really clear and you can see every hair. I love my new camera!

Life Happens

2008-04-27T19:39:00.020-04:00

I received a phone call late last night from my husband, Wayne. He had been in a pretty big motorcycle accident at Jennings Race Track in Jennings, FL (just below Valdosta, GA). He doesn't remember what happened except that he thinks he was going into turn #13 a little too fast. His last glance at the odometer showed about 105 mph! Good grief! Tony (our son) says his back tire may have been a little too worn on the edges and that could have been what caused him to wreck. Wayne can't remember anything other than going into the turn and then waking up flat on the ground with the EMT talking to him.

Wayne went to the ER at Valdosta in an ambulance where they poked, prodded, stuck and X-ray'ed him to a fare-the-well. No internal injuries; no internal bleeding; no massive head injuries. Just a broken right collar bone. Amazing. His leathers (a leather suit that zips up to cover him from head-to-toe much like a diving suit for motorcyle riders) showed only a little scratching on the tops of both shoulders and his helmet didn't look too bad either. All of the protection that they wear (a back/spinal/chest protector, leathers, gloves, boots and helmet) really proved its value yesterday. Although bruised both physically and in the ego, Wayne is doing pretty well. We got him home last night and got some pain pills in him and he is doing OK all things considered. He's going to be sore for a few days but by the Grace of God he'll live to ride another day. We go see the local bone doctor tomorrow.

Here are a few pictures of the motorcycle, Wayne and the dog that hides under the bench anytime anyone goes near one of the motorcycles in the garage!

New Camera

2008-04-26T17:48:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I finally received the new camera I ordered last week. It is a Nikon D80 and it is sweet! My lenses from a previous Nikon camera fit it plus I order a couple of other lenses for it, too. Here is a photo I took of Sasha while trying it out this morning. I also tooks some photos of a bird out in the marsh behind our house. It was fishing for breakfast. I enjoyed it so much that I traded eating my breakfast for watching the bird eat its breakfast. It was so quiet and peaceful in the backyard this morning. I wish I had more mornings that I could spend out there taking in all of the nature that is there and just absorbing all of the peacefulness to be had when enjoying God's creation.

First Post

2008-04-26T17:29:00.002-04:00

Today I decided to enter the world of blogging. I hadn't really planned on it but Wayne was gone most of the day and I had been doing other things on the computer any way. When it looked like it was going to rain (ruining my plans for going to the island to take pictures this afternoon), I decided to investigate creating my own blog. Hey, I started an on-line photo album this morning so this seemed like the next natural step in keeping up with technology. I don't know how often I will be able to post but at least I have a place when I feel like it now!