August is Here! Happy Days!

 Happy August 1st!  Hooray for a new day, and a new month!  Of course, you know what that means! Yes, it is time for the August Calendar Roll Call!! So without further adieu, here we go:

Even though this appears to be a fall scene, it is one that I love, and this calendar is in my bathroom where I can see it every day (several times a day and night too! LOL).  That's pretty much my little dream cabin spot, with that beautiful lake and mountains in the background, and a row boat right there waiting to take me to places to explore all around the lake. Yes, I could easily climb right into this picture and be quite happy and content!

Wow! There seems to be a theme going on here for August!  Here's another beautiful cabin and lake and rowboat scene, with a mountain backdrop. It is also gorgeous, but I think I still prefer the more peaceful and private scene above.

This calendar has quotes from Billy Graham and also from the Bible..."Christ belongs to ALL people; He belongs to the whole world!".  Yes, He does...and it is up to us to share Him with everyone everywhere!

"Blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice." Luke 11:28.  Yes, a good reminder for each of us to not only read the Bible, but to actually believe and put it into practice in our daily lives.

I love this John Sloane Country Seasons calendar...and this picture for August is a true gem...

I wonder how many of us have ever done a lemonade stand before? I'm trying to remember if I ever did, but I know my kids did years ago...

Here's our three little musketeers now...I snuck up behind them and got this response:
Matthew on the far left, sticking his tongue out at me...Benton in the middle, and Scott wearing his swimming goggles...

Hey! Lemonade only 10 cents! What a deal that was!!

I don't know how much lemonade they sold that day, but I think they sure had fun. I'm so glad I could find these pictures, thanks to having my early photo albums of when our kids were little more organized. I must admit to having a bit of a tear in my eyes as I look at these sweet pictures of when all three of our boys were so little and sweet and innocent and healthy. Sadly, today I don't even develop pictures, and it would take forever to find a picture, unless I've posted it here in my blog or on Facebook. That really is a crime.

Scott, Benton, and Matthew, circa 1981, Willoughby Hills, Ohio.

Precious Memories.

Well, moving right along...Look at this very colorful teapot set from my TEAPOTS calendar:

Here's the description:

And there's always a quote from some famous tea lover, whom I don't know, but it's still interesting...

The Thomas Kinkade calendar always has something beautiful to see...and this picture is from along The Big Sur, which I assume is in California?   And I love the Bible verse: "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Who hast set thy glory above the heavens." Psalm 8:1  Amen!

And this verse is at the bottom of the calendar:

"Ah Lord God! Behold, Thou has made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretche out arm, and there is nothing too hard for Thee." Jeremiah 32:17

Oh, and here's a good thought to end the calendar roll-call...This Susan Branch calendar always has fun and good thoughts...

Yes!  "Oh for a book and a shady nook, either indoor or out."  Summertime is a great time for reading, but here in Florida, it best be a cozy nook indoors during August. It's still too hot to consider sitting outside for very long! If not for the heat, it's the mosquitoes!

And speaking of bugs:

I discovered this "Dog-Days Cicada" shedding it's exo-skeleton under our shed. 

Here's how the exo-skeleton looked after he disengaged himself from it:

And here's how he looked until he turned himself over and started pumping out his wings...

Here he is in the process of his wings filling out.

I assume he flew up into the trees after this as he wasn't anywhere to be seen this morning.

Not my picture, but this is how he should've looked later:

Internet photo.

I've never seen one of these creatures that close and alive before.  I know they sure can make a lot of noise!!  It is typical that they should appear now, in the hot "dog-days" of summer!!

And speaking of creatures...

Some furry black creature has invaded and taken over my chair!

Almost looks like a bat! But yes, it is none other than King Blackie, sleeping so peacefully in my chair. And yes, I have to cover my chair with this coverlet because I'm trying to preserve it from cat hair and possible fleas (although he is being well-treated for fleas these days and I think we have that pretty well under control).  

If I want to sit in MY chair, I have to roll him up in that coverlet and encourage him to "roll down" on the floor...otherwise, he will stick his sharp little claws into my behind and let me know who's boss around here! LOL. Now, I must say that quite often he jumps right back up into my lap once I've seated myself, but that lasts for a while until he decides he doesn't like me moving my arms about to use the tv remote or my phone, and then he grabs my arms and lets me know that if I'm going to sit in HIS chair, I have to be still! LOL.  What a little tyrant he can be!!!!

To follow up on my rooster story, no, these eggs didn't come from that location, but they did come from some chickens that are being raised by a woman in our church, and she brings dozens of eggs to church quite frequently to GIVE away...first come first served. Aren't they beautiful??? So colorful!

And below, this is a comparison...guess which egg is the fresh "real chicken egg" (as I call the eggs from the chicken lady) ?  And which egg(s) came from the grocery store?

Just look at that huge egg yolk! It came from the fresh "real chicken eggs", and the other two smaller yolks came from large eggs from Walmart. What a difference!  I wish I could have "real chicken eggs" all the time, but no, I am not willing to raise my own chickens in order to do that.  I will just keep looking for more reasonable alternatives!

I will close this out with this photo of this morning's sunrise, righ after a nice little early morning rain shower!

And here's a view of Still Waters Pond, still very dry, but we are supposed to get rain all this next week. I hope they are right this time. Still Waters Pond is very very thirsty!!!!

Isaiah 55:1-5

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you— The sure mercies of David. Indeed I have given him as a witness to the people, A leader and commander for the people. Surely you shall call a nation you do not know, And nations who do not know you shall run to you, Because of the Lord your God, And the Holy One of Israel; For He has glorified you.”

Here is a video of a church singing this beloved old hymn, "Ho Everyone That is Thirsty". This is not our church, but I like their presentation...

1 Ho! ev'ryone that is thirsty in spirit,

Ho! ev'ryone who is weary and sad,

come to the fountain, there’s fullness in Jesus,

all that you’re longing for; come and be glad.

Refrain:

"I will pour water on him who is thirsty,

I will pour floods upon the dry ground;

open your heart for the gift I am bringing,

while ye are seeking me, I will be found."

2 Child of the world, are you tired of your bondage?

Weary of earth-joys, so false, so untrue?

Thirsting for God, and His fullness of blessing?

List to the promise— a message for you.

 [Refrain]

3 Child of the kingdom, be filled with the Spirit;

nothing but fullness thy longing can meet.

’Tis the enduement for life and for service;

thine is the promise, so certain, so sweet.

 

[Refrain]

Amen.

Go and be filled...and be blessed.  Happy August!!!

Friday Foto Friends and the Final Photo A Day Challenge for July

Happy Last Day of July!! Another Glorious way to start the day!!

 

When I see the sunbeams reaching out from the sun into the skies, I think of these verses from Psalm 19:

Psalm 19:1-6

1 The heavens declare the glory of God;

And the firmament shows His handiwork.

2 Day unto day utters speech,

And night unto night reveals knowledge.

3 There is no speech nor language

Where their voice is not heard.

4 Their line has gone out through all the earth,

And their words to the end of the world.

In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun,

5 Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,

And rejoices like a strong man to run its race.

6 Its rising is from one end of heaven,

And its circuit to the other end;

And there is nothing hidden from its heat.

It's definitely going to be another hot day, but we were refreshed with some good rains yesterday evening, and there is the promise of more tonight and throughout next week. I sure hope they are right.

So I have come to the end of the July photo-a-day challenge, and today's challenge is to "choose your own theme."  That shouldn't be too difficult for me! I am always choosing my own theme even when I'm supposed to do other stuff. LOL.

I woke up with a few ideas in my head, and then some things got kind of rearranged as the morning progressed.  So now it is a kind of mixed bag of thoughts and ideas. So please come along for the ride and enjoy the journey through time and space with me, okay?

I think I'll start out with the most recent photos, just taken a few minutes ago after we took a little ride down a dirt road (no pictures of that), and after last night's rain, we ran through a few mud puddles, so we had to make a special detour on the way home...can you guess where?

Yes, if you guessed the car wash, you would be correct. I just thought the patterns of water on the windshield looked pretty cool. (And I am thankful my hubby can still steer the car into the carwash correctly so that I don't have to do that!!)

This made me think about this Bible verse... (1 Corinthians 13:12)

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Right now in our lives we can't really see very far beyond this moment. We think we know what's coming up, or we have plans for what we hope will happen, but we truly can't see beyond this very minute, and things could change "in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye..." (1 Corinthians 15:52). Therefore we should always be ready to meet Jesus at any moment.

That reminds me of these verses in the book of James:

James 4:13-15 NKJV

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

One thing hubby and I did this week was practice a song that we are planning to sing  (Lord willing!!) this Sunday morning at church. Here's the song being sung by the man who actually wrote the song, Jim Hill. (although he didn't sing the first verse in this version, but we will sing the whole song on Sunday).

1. There is coming a day

When no heartaches shall come,

No more clouds in the sky,

No more tears to dim the eye;

All is peace forevermore

On that happy golden shore,

What a day, glorious day that will be.

Chorus

What a day that will be,

When my Jesus I shall see,

When I look upon His face,

The One who saved me by His grace;

Then He’ll take me by the hand,

And lead me through the Promised Land,

Oh, what a day, glorious day that will be.

2. There’ll be no sorrow there,

No more burdens to bear,

No more sickness, no pain,

No more parting over there;

And forever I will be

With the One who died for me,

Oh, what a day, glorious day that will be.

Chorus (Twice)

It's been a while since we have sung a duet in church, so I pray that God will be with us and help us both to have a strong voice to sing, and that this song will be a blessing to those who hear it, and that the Lord will be glorified with this music.

Now these next pictures have a story.  Those of you who know me know that I am not really a fan of roosters (or "free-range chickens" either, for that matter).  When I was about 4 years old and living on our farm in Pennsylvania, we had chickens and roosters. One day I wandered down to the 'corn crib' to get some corn to feed the cows. I don't know why I was out there by myself, but somehow I was. Anyway, when I got down there away from the house, all of a sudden this big old mean rooster came running out at me with his ugly and dangerous "spurs" and started to attack me.  I started screaming bloody murder, and I guess my mother heard me and came running with a broom and shooed that big old mean rooster away from me. I understand that we had stewed rooster for supper that night, but that he was rather tough. LOL.   Anyway, to this day I am not one to get very close to chickens and especially not roosters.  

So, the other day we were with our "kids", and we had a reason to visit this place, not knowing there would be free range chickens and roosters running around.  Thankfully they were "friendly" and did not attack us.  I am quite proud of myself for not going into a panic when I stepped out of the car and this fellow came running around the house to greet me.

There were actually two of them...double trouble!

I am thankful they had no interest in me whatsoever! Praise God!

I'm not going to say that now I am ready to go out and start raising chickens, but at least I survived that moment!

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, (or woman!) I put away childish things.  (1 Corinthians 13:11)

Well, friends, I think this is probably enough for today. I had some other ideas for pictures, but decided to wait for another time and not overburden you with too much stuff.  It's taken me all day just to get this done! LOL.  

Tomorrow begins a new month, and brings us closer to those blessed cooler autumn days, even though for us here in North Central Florida, it will be late October before we begin to really feel a bit cooler. Still, it's encouraging to know we are getting closer! 

 

I hope that you will have a blessed and wonderful weekend. 

Thursday Thankfulness and Photo Challennge

Happy Thursday morning! What a glorious morning it is! 

I love my little morning ritual of putting out the American Flag each day at sunrise, and capturing a picture of whatever kind of sunrise we may have...and no two are ever the same! Our God is an awesome God, and He paints the most beautiful pictures in the skies! No artist can ever totally duplicate what God has painted!!

I just noticed that today's (30th) photo challenge was for "shapes". I think the Stars and Stripes on the flag  (above) are some of the most beautiful shapes created by our American forefathers! I am very proud of our American Flag and am so thankful to live in the "land of the free, and the home of the brave." 

I was looking around for some other kinds of "shapes" to share for today, and looked up above my computer screen to the beautiful hanging beads "suncatchers" that  I bought last year at a farmer's market.  I believe all the basic shapes are 'clearly' represented here in living color:

These beads sparkle in the sunlight and brighten my day.

Now, the photo challenge for yesterday (29th) was "Flip-flops".  I personally do not wear flip-flops, but my hubby wears a kind of a floppy sandal, and guess who really loves to play with them (along with the feet that are inside or alongside them!)

Yes, Blackie LOVES these sandals, and will lay beside them and sniff them even when Daddy is no where around.  (Crazy cat! LOL).

He also loves to play "footsie" with Daddy.

We are thankful for this little bundle of energy and joy that we've been blessed with.

I have to get a move on this morning as we have haircut appointments at 9:00. So I will close with these words...

Amen.

"Be Strong in the Lord and in His Mighty Power."

Ephesians 6:10

No matter what the world throws in your path today...stand strong in God's strength.

Have a blessed and beautiful day.

A "Blue" Tuesday!

Good Morning Dear Friends in Blogland and beyond! I hope this Tuesday finds you enjoying a beautiful summer day...the last Tuesday in July!  It's still hot and dry here in north central Florida...all the rain storms have somehow managed to circumvent our area once again, but the rest of the week does show a good possibility of rain each day, so here's hoping and praying!   These were the clouds in the blue skies yesterday evening, and you can see there may have been some stormy skies in the distance, but they just didn't quite reach us here: 

These cloud pictures also fulfill the Monday Photo-a-Day Challenge, which was "clouds".

I'm sorry I didn't get around to posting anything yesterday (Monday), but we had a kind of busy morning/day.

Our "kids" had the day off yesterday, and we took a little ride together and then decided to go out for lunch.  We drove by this location to see if this "new" restaurant was open yet, but it is still awaiting inspections from the county before it can open. You may recognize the building as the former "Hog Wild Country Cafe" that we used to go to frequently before it had a kitchen fire that shut it down last year. They ended up selling the building to a new owner, and he has been making all the repairs  and preparing it to become this "Backwoods Country Kitchen", that will serve Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner. Our whole community is anxiously awaiting its opening.  

So we ended up going to try out this other new restaurant to our town:

(Internet Photo, not mine)

Not to confuse you, but it took the place of the temporary location of where the Hog Wild Country Cafe' moved to after the fire, but they (Hog Wild) have moved to a different location that I've already shared the full history in THIS former Tuesday 4 post HERE.  If you think you're confused, you ought to live here! LOL. 

Anyway, long story short (kind of), we ate at the new Cowboy's Philly Cheesteak and Chicken place, and it was really good!

Here's a sample menu. There's more than this, but you get the idea.

The food was good and the prices were very reasonable. We will probably go back again. 

I must apologize to our Tuesday 4 group this week (link here), as it's all about movies, and to be honest, I just don't watch many movies these days and I really couldn't come up with anything sensible to say, so I am skipping it for this week. However, you can check out what others are saying on that link above if you wish. I intend to go visit everyone as soon as I finish this post.   What I have been doing is the July "photo-a-day challenge", and we are winding down the month this week with some good challenges. Today's challenge is "BLUE".  

And I thought, what better blue is there than the amazing blue of the male Bluebird!  Here is our Mr. Bluebird, with a mouth full of some kind of bug or grasshopper to feed to his babies in the birdhouse this morning...

It just seems to me that the most beautiful "blues" are those found in nature, in God's amazing creation! If you scroll back up through this post, you will notice the blue skies in the background of several pictures...and then this gorgeous blue of the bluebird...I don't believe that man can create any shade of blue any more perfect than those that God has already given us in His creation!

I asked my computer for some references to "blue" in the Bible.  There was a link to this blog post: First Century Christian Fellowship - "Blue: God's Favorite Color", by James Collazo.  I found it very interesting to read.  Here are a couple of verses that were referenced in his post:

Exodus 24:10 NKJV

10 and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very[a] heavens in its clarity.

Ezekiel 1:26 NKJV

26 And above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it.

I like that those verses mentioned the "paved work of sapphire stone", and the throne, "in appearance like a sapphire stone"...because blue Sapphire is my birthstone!! 

And yes, this verse may not use the word "Blue", but we get the message from the blue skies of the heavens...they "declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands."

Internet Photo

I do believe God really does love the color blue! 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this "blue post" today. Thankfully, it's a happy post, not a "blue post" in regards to feeling "blue".  I am very thankful today to be alive...yesterday when we were leaving the restaurant we were waiting at a red light for the arrow to turn green so we could turn left.  Finally the light changed, and my husband pulled out to make his left turn with the turn arrow. Suddenly out of nowhere a car came flying through the intersection and had to swerve to keep from hitting us broadside where our son Benton was sitting in the front passenger seat and his wife Rose was in the back seat.  The man had totally flown through that red light, and if we had not suddenly stopped and if he could not have swerved around us, it would have been disastrous. He was driving extremely fast, and never attempted to stop at that redlight. Of course he just kept on going, and never even slowed down.  We really wanted to report him, but he was long gone and they wouldn't have done anything even if we did get his tag number. 

All we could do was praise God for giving His angels charge over us and for protecting us from what could have been a terrible tragedy. For the rest of the day our lips were filled with thanksgiving and praise for God's protection, and we prayed for that man driving that car to be duly warned and awakened before something truly tragic happens to him or others in his path.   And yes, we do always take a quick look before pulling out in an intersection at a traffic light to make sure nothing is coming, but there was a car beside us in the other lane blocking our view, and also this guy came so fast we could not see him until he was right there on us. Again, we just praise the Lord for His protection.

Here's a happy song to close this post..."All Night, All Day, Angels Watching over Me My Lord".  Sing along and enjoy!

Be Thankful for those angels God has watching over us!

Have a blessed Day my friends!!