Fell Asleep on my Quilting Friends During Retreat Meeting :(

Well.... I was supposed to get up at 7:00am this morning to go meet Quiltaholic and a few other ladies for the 2011 Quilt Retreat. Committee Meeting. I was having such a hard time trying to sleep. I would go to fall asleep much like I always do and be jolted from my sleep. It's like my mind doesn't want to turn off. My heart races so bad it is scary. So I got up at 4:30am and proceeded to get ready to leave my house. I packed some clothes in case I wanted to spend the night with my son. Once I got into Charlotte, I thought I was gonna get run over.... talk about rush hour.. people were everywhere trying to get to work. I finally made it to the Hotel where we were meeting. I was about 2 hours early. I tried to sleep in the car but I kept falling asleep and having a problem staying there. I again was jolted from my sleep. I am not going to lie.... I layed there and cried.... and worried that if I had a heart attack that no-one was with me and my son was the closest and he was 1 hour away.... and then I said, gosh.... Q and them won't be here for 2 hours.... and then I said.... “Sonja, you are gonna be ok.... get out and walk around and get some air”. It was cold there, so I went to TJ Max store and bought me a coat. I came back and parked and I layed there and Prayed. It wasn't long and Q and the other ladies got there and we went for our tour of the place. Wow what a beautiful place it is. The ladies are gonna love it! Afterwards, the lady (Monique) paid for our lunch. I had the best salad there. By almost 5pm I was falling asleep at the table. How embarrassing!!! I felt so bad about this... it was so uncontrollable. You would have thought I had sleep apnea or something. After we said our goodbyes I must have slept for an hour... in the car! My husband kept calling to check on me. When I felt like I was gonna be ok, I drove as far as Columbia and stopped at Red Robbins to eat dinner. Afterwards I made my way home. I was so tired when I got home, I met my husband and kids at the campground for showers and then went on home. I fell right into bed.. I prayed the whole way home that G-d would deliver me from all these sleep problems, whatever is causing them. I hope that Quiltaholic and the rest of the ladies will forgive me for being so tired and falling asleep at the meeting. I honestly did NOT mean to :(

Found a Citadel College Ring to give back

My Metal Detecting friend Christina came over this morning for my husband to detail her Jeep in hot pink and light pink.. She took me to dinner at Bojangles which I love and we just got in our town. Aftewards, I took her to Sunset Park where we found a bunch of sharks teeth laying on the bank. They are very plentiful here but small. She and I had a great time! Then we went over the Folly Beach Metal Detecting. I bet we weren't there 15 minutes and 4 ladies walked over to me and asked me, “Do you ever find anything with that thing,” (pointing at my MD) I said, yes. I showed them the two rings on my fingers my husband and I found and then I proceeded to tell them about the time I found a high school ring. It was gold and had a guys name in it. I told them about me giving it back to the man and hoping I would have a good story for the newspaper but.... come to find out, the ring had been stolen off the mans dresser by his son whom had asked to wear it and was told no! I said, well.. it wouldn't have been a good story telling on the child and how embarrassing to the family, so I didn't get in the paper. I said, I have been praying since then that someday I will find another one and there will be a great story behind it. They wished me luck and walked off. I bet not even 10 minutes later I seen a Tiki Bar where people were standing around it getting drinks.... there were lawn chairs in front on the beach with blue umbrella's over them. There wasn't someone in each of the chairs so I thought, “What will it hurt if I detect between the chairs where there is no-one sitting”? So I proceeded to do so. About the second chair I came to, I got a signal which read 25-50 cents, or gold. I thought, “Well, it must be a nice coin, or it's mixed up and it's only a quarter”. I dipped down with my sand scoop to retrieve it and the weight in the scoop was pretty heavy. I thought I had picked up a rock on the beach somehow. I shook the sand loose and looking down in my scoop, to my surprise, was a Big GOLD Ring! I can only imagine the look on my face when I seen this thing. So unexpected! I was saying, “Christina, Christina”.... but she had head phones on and couldn't hear me. I looked over at this couple and the man had been watching and I caught his glance and his smile as he put hit head back into the book trying to act as though he had not been looking but recognizing the excitement on my face. I started walking to her and when she seen it, she hollored! What I had found was a GOLD Citadel Military College Ring. From what I know about them now, they cost between 700-800.00. I was so excited! I plan to give this ring back. It had his name in it and where he lives. He doesn't live but about an hour away from me. It's so funny how quickly I found this ring after telling those ladies my story and how I longed to find another ring. I sure hope this ring has a good story! Lol

Finished Tournaments and Sheriff Dept Visits

The kids bowled 6 games today. Boy were we tired of watching, lol. Afterwards we got on the road to come home. We stopped off in Columbia at Red Robbins for dinner. If you've never been, gosh it's the best biggest hamburgers you will ever eat!!! I go every chance I get! When we started home from there I started to feel sick. My heart started to race and I started to worry that when we came home the house would be burn't. Anxiety attacks are not good!!! I almost told Chris to pull off but I didn't and I didn't tell him what was going on either. I finally got myself calmed down and relaxed by praying and asking G-d to please help me. When we got just about to where you turn off the main road onto the dirt road we live on, there was a car ahead of us. It was a deputy. Can you believe that? Talk about perfect timing.... it looked like we were getting a police escort back home. When we got there, we discovered it was the cop whom I had reported to the sheriff the other night. This deputy had pushed my husbands hand out the way while he was showing the deputy where the poop was on the floor where my brothers dog had done it's thing. He had also told me to go to the unemployment office the next day to apply for a job that since things were not good back where I lived with my family that it was not a good idea to try to run my business there. Anyway..... as the cop made it up my drive, he stopped to talk and ask how we were. He said he had no idea we had been going through as much as we were. He apologized for what he had said to us. I accepted his apology but told him he was totally wrong telling me to go flip hamburgers for McDonalds when I had a business I was trying to get back off the ground. Anyway, he was really nice and we talked for a while. He said they would continue to patrol the area.

Home School Bowling Tournaments

The dogs were left at a Kennel this morning as we packed the car to leave for Simpsonville, SC for a state bowling tournament. Both kids were in it and they will both bowl teams today and then singles on tomorrow. Afterwards, my friend whose kids we were bowling with asked us if we would like to go eat Mexican food with them. We said sure. We went and ate and she even picked up our tab for the food. How awfully nice!!! I had no idea she was gonna do that. My heart was so touched! We had a great day and the kids enjoyed it quite well as well. It felt good to get away for a bit. Spent the night with my son in Spartanburg. It was so nice to see him and spend some time with him.

Rice Festival Weekend

We decided to go to the Rice Festival here in town. I wanted to taste the rice from the rice contest they had, IF it didn't have pork in it. We made our way down the street where there were lots of vendors everywhere. The rice booth unfortunately was closed, however I found out the rice had pork in it, so with that said, we proceeded to look for some place to get a snack. While standing around the vendor trailers, I noticed a cop who had been at our house a few nights ago. Chris walked over to talk to him and left us eating on a turkey leg, lol. I later joined him and we talked to the cop about the video which I had given Officer Dunn a week prior to this. He informed us the video was on it's way to Columbia to the CID for them to do an enhancement on it so we could find out who was responsible for hitting (D) over the head with a brick. After our conversation , we ran into the Sheriff whom I had never met. We told him everything that had been going on and I broke down and cried right there in the street. I told him we had had no help hardly with anyone trying to catch who did this to (D) and we were about to go out of town and were scared to leave. He immediately radioed in to dispatch to have our house watched the whole weekend by doing ride bys and making sure to leave a card in the door so we knew they had been by. He was very nice and told us to check with him on Monday to let him know how things were and to never feel afraid to call them out. We ended up leaving quite early.... as we only went there to get a bite to eat.

Tired of Carrying Water!

I think our energy was gone much of the day. We woke up and ate a little bit and laid back down again. Chris is hurting in his groin area. We don't know if he has pulled something or if he has a hernia. He had one on the opposite side many years ago and had to have surgery. I am praying he won't have one but if the pain keeps up, he will have to see a dr. to find out. This evening once it cooled off, I went to the truck and took a lot of my sewing items out of boxes and put them in plastic bins we bought last night. I don't know how long they will be on the truck, so I don't want any of it to be ruined. One more step in the right direction.

Life is pretty boring... it's almost like we have stopped living. This is more my husbands idea of staying home than it is mine. Here shortly we are gonna have to go someplace and stay a while. This carrying water back and forth, heating water to do dishes, going to the campground for showers is starting to get to me. I need something that feels normal at least for a little while. Other than that, we are chugging along!

I don't want to forget how to live. It's so true that when you look at your problems and go through the struggles, day in and day out, you tend to lose track of time. You learn to live in your present conditions not expecting things to really change. Then one day, you realize how much of your time was wasted. So.... today, I made a reservation at Disney World for Sept. 25^th to Oct. 2^nd. That sure put a big smile on my children's faces!!! We will be able to get heavily discounted tickets through our home school group so we can go. I guess we will from here until then look so forward to that time getting here. I know I can't wait!!! I am hoping my oldest son can go with us. If not, it will be the 4 of us going. We are hoping Disney offers their Free Dining program this year again. If so, it will greatly reduce the cost of the trip. I was really surprised how cheap it was to stay at one of their value resorts. It was half the cost of what it was for us to go the first time.... but then,,, we have our oldest with us and that made 5 of us in a room, so we had to stay at another resort which was much more expensive.

Another thing happened today. There were 2 cops which showed up next door at my brothers. He wasn't home but his g/f was seen loading all her things into a vehicle. She had some guy with her. We don't know what's up with that, it's none of our business and we don't wanna know..... but things should be just a tad quieter around here. Too bad he didn't let her have the dogs.... guess we'll fight some more about those dogs coming in the yard.

Ok, back to work!!!

(Update: We never went to Disney, had to cancel cause we wanted to go to Wisconsin so we could stay away from here for 3 weeks)

Packing Today

We packed much of the day. Re-organized the truck. We will start packing more of the house now and get it on the truck. I hope to finish cleaning out my sewing room tomorrow and see what needs to be thrown away, then I plan to clean the walls in that room and then paint in there. Afterwards I will setup a temporary place in there so I can sew some while we are living here. I miss sewing so much. I need something to take my mind off some of this stuff.

Shabbat Shalom

Shabbat Shalom .. we rested ALL day long!!! Much needed rest!! It was cool here today and it felt so nice. Thank you Father for giving us a restful Shabbat and a cool one at that. We read the Torah tonight with the children and grilled out hamburgers and had fresh salad with that. It was a nice Shabbat for us.

Father, we love you and praise you, even in these hard times, for we know you have never seen your children forsaken, never seen them begging for bread. Although we carry water for our toilet, you have provided that water in the nearby pond, or the rains you have sent so our buckets have caught the water. We are so thankful for the small things as well. Thank you so much too for the business you are sending to us. We find that although my brother put out the signs that say No Trespassing that our business continues to grow and people have started to come. We so much thank you for looking out for us and we know, YOU are certainly ALL we need in order for our needs to be supplied. Praise Your Name Father YHWH, the G-d of Abraham, Issac and Jacob... We love you !

Getting Text Messages Now

I got a text message from my mom. It read, “I love you Sonja”. I got to wondering.... how can you just say those words to people yet have shown the person such hatred? Just words!!!! All I can think is guilt is talking.

Another promise of a letter sent out from a lawyer

We were gonna head to Charleston today on our weekly run as always but we were gonna get another lawyer since ours had seemed to string us along for 2 mos. Well as luck would have it, OR what seemed like an answer from G-d..... Our lawyer called bright and early this morning. He decided to send a letter to my brother and my dad asking what their intentions were for giving us back our land. I guess they should get that letter by the beginning of the week. We really need some answers in many ways in order to proceed. The one thing we do know now is we will fix the house (once the ins. Company decides to give us some money) and we will rent the house out. We are still living w/o water and air. At some point a well will have to be put down but if WE do it then the mortgage company may do a number of things.....

1. may try to foreclose on the house, cause we have withheld the house payment due to insurance company dragging their feet.
2. They may offer to put down a well for us instead of us paying for it since the title company is at fault for us not having a well on the property.

So we'll see what happens. In the meantime, we have our mortgage payments in an account sitting there. Hoping things turn out for the best for us. I'm at wits end though and really don't care one way or the other.

Today also, my friend has offered to rent us their 30something feet camper. We were gonna try and park it in a campground but the local campground wants 360.00 a month for rent to park there. So that would be 660.00 a month in a camper. Just as well rent a house for that amount of money. So we have talked about it and we might park it in our yard and hook up to the outside pole. At least we can have air conditioner, cook and fill up the reservoir to wash dishes and still use the campground showers. At least we will have a place to cool off..... and can still be packing up the house. There is so much to go through in the house. You never know how much you have until you have to pack it all up!

Still keeping the faith that somehow all of this stuff is gonna work out..... heaven knows these problems are too big for us!

What a joke for a Sheriff's Dept

Called Sheriffs Dept and left a message for Sgt. Dunn to call us back. He did in fact call us. Chris informed him that we had spoken to Reuben Carter and he informed us that he himself had taken the report and would be the one to do the investigation. His reply was, “That's interesting”. So Sgt. Dunn had no idea he was supposed to do this? Sgt. Dunn asked that we put the video on a cd and he would come by the house that evening and pick it up from us. By the time we had dinner, got showers and I got this file on a video, it was around 12:30pm. Chris called him anyway and Sgt. Dunn came by the house to get the file. Chris informed him of what he would see on the file. Sgt. Dunn told him he would turn this file into the CID (Criminal Investigation Dept.) So we are waiting till the beginning of the week to see if anyone responds with some answers.

Sheriffs Dept never called back

Called the Sheriffs Dept and left a message for Sgt. Dunn. He never called us back.

Trip to Sheriffs Dept

April 5^th, 2010

Went to the Sheriffs Dept. to get the copy of the report which was made on Douglas. We were met by Douglas and his mom. We were sent to an Annex Dept where the Detectives here. We were told there by Reuban Carter that we would have to see the reporting officer and he would have to finish up the report. And... he doesn't come back to work until Tuesday Night at 6pm.

Trespassing Signs?

Well... it's a new day..... and gathering from yesterday you would think at least a few hours break for us would come. I was up all night long watching over my family, until around 6am this morning. Around 11pm the dogs went to barking and carrying on. We looked out and my brother was walking across the back yard. Chris sat outside and watched him for a little bit. He tried staring my husband down, but Chris says he stared right back. Wasn't long and he left his house. Chris would hear a pounding noise in the distance so he drove the van past the mailboxes on the dirt road and he said he looked at the “No Trespassing” signs and my brother had added “Property Owner, Richie Bennett”. What a joke! He doesn't own all the property down here. I told my husband, “learn the enemies tactics”. What my brother is doing is trying to show authority and really has none. He has to give access to us and our company. He threatened me last week with, “I will see to it you don't do business back here”. So it's so funny.... Chris just did an 18wheeler this morning...... and 2 days ago he had two motorcycles to do. Oh another comment to my husband from him was, “Why don't you get a real job”? Oh gosh, I do laugh when I see the enemy trying his hardest. It does seem the more he reacts this way, the more money comes our way, so come on hasatan.... we know it's you.... and we KNOW who wins too in the end!

Wish I could say we were left alone for Passover

Today we prepared for our evening Pesach Seder/Meal- We knew we could only do so much but we so much wanted to honor Abba Father in this feast, not ever forgetting what he did for the children of Israel and for us by giving his sons life so we could be saved. I cooked a lamb almost all day long, a turkey leg, Rice and sweet peas. We also made gravy using instant potatoe flakes to thicken up the gravy from the lamb. After it was thickened I put in cooked potatoes and carrots and let it cook on low in the oven. I did a test taste later and boy was it good!!!

SS Check was not in the mailbox today. I sent a text message to my mom letting her know that no-one hardly knew Chris was getting a SS check but I bet someone couldn't wait to get the word out and now the check had gone missing. I said, after Wendell McDonald said my house had been burned, this was just another Federal Offense! I said, I just thought you might want to know what kind of kids yall raised.

It wasn't long and I got a telephone call from Chrissy. (my younger sister) asking me about the text message and telling me my mom was upset. She said my mom was saying I was accusing them of stealing the SS check. I explained that I was just letting them know what kind of kids they raised and after all these years of the check never being late, and the kids getting theirs on time, direct deposit that this could be no coincidence. She asked me why I took her name off of facebook and I told her I took everyones names off of there, including HER friends. I explained it was cause I did not want to hear anything more from the family and that everything that had already happened was enough mess for me. I tried to explain to her why but then she said, “I just want to let you know, I would never have told my children not to talk to you”. I said, well... I didn't tell my children this, but they chose NOT to talk to anyone in the family either cause they are tired of hearing it. With that, she said, Well..... You and Taylor can kiss my Ass! I was still trying to explain about Taylors feelings on all of this before I realized what she had just said. I said, My kids know what they see and hear, I don't have to tell them anything.... they can make their own decisions. She again was saying, Kiss my Ass! I thought this was funny really..... A so called Christian telling me I could kiss their Ass? Hhmmm....... so I said, Wow.... what a christian while she still went on but then I just hung up on her before I decided to get mad and say something I really didn't want to say. I had tried to explain to her why we cut ourselves off and that she was right in the middle of it all..... wanting to call my brother and ask him he took Chris' SS check, I was telling her to leave it all alone and let the law handle it. I guess that's what made her mad.... but to be honest... it was the truth... she was up in my business just because my mom called her. My mom must think I am gonna run from her or something.... Anyway, ….. maybe now they will leave us alone!! I sure hoped so.......

Went to put an envelope in my car this evening and discovered that someone had broke into my car somehow and had put my phone bill and the SS check on the dash of my car. We didn't bother to call and tell my parents as we know whoever has done this will eventually get told on. Someone will slip up one day and tell it. We will fix next months check to go direct deposit too into another account and not postal mail so we never have to worry about that one again.

Approximately 11:15 we decided to go get showers at the camp ground. Douglas had already went home to get a shower and had come back over to spend the night. I asked him if he minded staying at the house while we went to take showers so the dogs and house would not be here without someone to watch. He said he didn't mind. We arrived back at the house approximately 11:50. Taylor and Austin both were standing at the sliding glass doors knocking to get in as the door was locked. Looking through the glass doors, Douglas was NOT in the living room. This was strange cause this is the only room we hang out in cause we have the back of the house blocked off, with the exception of now cleaning the kitchen some. I told them to stand there and we walked through the back door with no problem cause Douglas didn't have the back door locked. We let the kids in but we couldn't find Douglas anywhere! Taylor and Austin went back outside and after a minute or so I heard Taylor shouting, “Douglas is on the ground”. I could hear her asking him if he could hear her. I finally got there to where he was, laying on the ground and holding his head. I tried to talk to him but he kept holding his head. I felt the back of his neck and he was warm feeling and clammy. I kept asking if someone had hurt him. Then we seen the brick next to him. When he was able to talk he said he had not known anything until Taylor woke him up. I had called 911 and asked for a Deputy as well as an ambulance cause I didn't want Douglas moved. They said they would dispatch one.

In the meantime, Taylor called Douglas' parents. They got there before the ambulance and Deputy and his dad was really mad, wanting me to call my dad and tell him to get here and tell Richie to get out there. I told him I was not speaking to my parents nor any of my family for that matter so lets let the deputy handle it. Finally the ambulance arrived along with the deputy. The first responders medics asked him a bunch of questions and had him get up if he could on his own. He was able to do this but a little shaky on his feet. They asked me if he had been complaining about throwing up and I said no. He asked if he had complained about anything and I said, Yes, his neck. With that said, they got a stretcher and put him on it. The parents and the grandparents were there. His mom was gonna ride in the ambulance with Douglas and Douglas' dad said Taylor could ride with him to the hospital. In the meantime the deputy was doing some finger printing. The results were not good cause the dew had settled on the brick already so they couldn't get any prints off of it.

Everyone left and after they did, I went in and looked at the video to see what I could see. I have the video of what looks like Douglas coming out of the house. I also see in the video something that looks like a person with a flashlight wearing white. I'm not sure yet who or what this is, I am hoping that SLED will take a look at it and see what they thing. I will do this on Monday.

WOW..... another Pesach Seder /Feast...... another Eventful year! Gosh, HaSatan sure must hate Passover, LOL.

How about this.... We had it with NO running water.... but was able to go get jugs and jugs of water filled. It turned out GREAT and the meal was really good. YHWH does provide for his people!

Missing SS Check

I had a really bad night last night again and couldn't sleep. Each time I would fall asleep I would be jolted from my sleep. I was like this all night! So... I tried to sleep today. I did mange to sleep a little but not much. Today the SS Check should have been in our mailbox but for some reason it isn't. We started to wonder if anyone took it. We will wait till tomorrow to see if it comes then before reporting it. We did laundry tonight really late and got showers late. Douglas was spending the night and got a call in the early morning hours to go to a fire. He left out to go to the fire and for some reason, Richie followed him. We thought being it was so early in the morning how funny that was.

Picking a fight

Well..... sometime in the afternoon we noticed my brother parking his g/f's jeep on the lawn in his back yard. He parked it parallel to my sliding glass doors so we could see him. He leaned against the front of the jeep, arms folded like a big shot. All of a sudden, their little dog ran to my sliding glass doors and my dogs started to bark. We looked out and opened the doors and heard him say, “Good dog”! He was doing nothing but picking a fight. We didn't say anything back as we knew that's what he wanted us to do.