Mother nature is a b*#@%

Those were my husband's words when he woke up this morning. It was a bright, sunny day and he is usually an optimist. But yesterday afternoon's storm had him down in the dumps. "This was a make or break year," he said.

All of our crops are ruined. And they were looking so good. We were already in bad shape because of the draught. We hope we will have time to replant.

Of course, we are so thankful and grateful that we all made it through unharmed. The boys were all huddled with Steve in the cellar while they heard the glass breaking above. They said they prayed the entire time.

Here's some pics from the storm. This tree was stripped of all its leaves and some of its bark.

It's hard to see in this picture but this is out of one of my broken windows...There's a drift of 12 inches of hail against the house.

The hail knocked holes in the stucco at the "old house."

During the hail storm.

You may be wondering why I would take the time to blog when I could be cleaning broken glass out of our clothes or sweeping leaves and mud out of the floors. I've done that. We've had tremendous help from family and friends. They boarded up windows, vacuumed floors and mopped up rain water, mud and leaves so that we could sleep in our home last night. They've also provided dinner and lots of prayers.

I just had to blog just to get this off my chest. The damage is overwhelming.

Please pray that we have the strength and patience to rebuild and keep farming. Thanks.

back from my jewelry conference

My autographed photo from Stacy London! (OK...everyone there got one...but I just KNOW she was speaking directly to me!)

Stacy London introduced our new fall line of jewelry. It is absolutely beautiful stuff. I was totally blown away.

Here are some of the things Stacy said that really hit home with me:

"Style is not a privilege...it is a right. And women should be able to look good and feel good as often as possible.

"We UNDERESTIMATE the power of style."

"Accessories are the period at the end of a sentence. They are an easy way to put your own style on something."

"Modern day women have it tough. We are asekd to be perfect at so many things. We are held to an invisible standard of measure. Allowing yourself to have style is the GREATEST gift you can give to yourself."

Stacy is SO right. If style wasn't important, we would wear cutoffs and muscle shirts to weddings. So embrace your style. And ask me about free jewelry!

I found a great podcast!

I still just adore my ipod - even though I've finally upgraded cell phone plans and LOVE the new blackberry curve! I typically use my ipod to download the freebies from i-tunes. I spend A LOT of time in the car so I'm always looking for free audio books...but this FREE podcast is almost just as good as an audiobook.

It's called "selected shorts," and features short stories, read in front of a live audience, by a variety of entertainers.

Download it now at i-tunes or at www.npr.org