What Do You See Outside YOUR Open Window Today?

What Do You See Outside YOUR Open Window Today?
Remember: "When God closes a door, He always opens a window!" You never know what might be out there waiting for you!

Monday, March 18, 2024

Monday, Monday..."It's Raining, It's Pouring..."

 So today is one of those "Rainy days and Mondays", but I'm not going to let it get me down! We need the rain, and also it is ushering in some cooler temperatures for a few days, which will also be welcome after already hitting 90 degrees this past week!  I want to enjoy some springtime before summer gets here!  But here in North Central Florida we know it's only a matter of time before it will be feeling more like summer than spring all the time for the next 6-7 months. It's the trade-off we have for living here year round instead of up north where you have winter for 6-7 months (or longer) and then a little bit of summer in between a lovely spring and fall.  We have 6-7 months of summer and 5-6 months of kind of like spring and/or fall weather in the winter time. It is what it is, and we are thankful for what we have.  Some of you may have been pretty close to some bad tornadoes last week, and I pray that you and your loved ones all managed to escape any severe weather/damages.  When it comes to weather reports, we all count our blessings when we are spared the severe stuff.

Here's what it looked like out on Still Waters Pond a few minutes ago when I started writing this:

You can just barely see the little island area out there in the middle of the pond where Mrs. Crane is resting peacefully on her nest:

Here's a couple of closeups:

No matter what the weather, she sits there patiently waiting and protecting her two eggs. By my calculations, the two new "Colts" (that's what they call baby Sand Hill Cranes) should be making their debut anytime this week. So I will keep you posted for further developments.


In the past few days the Bluebirds have been busy either building or rebuilding their nest in house #1.

I have been a bit confused by their activities. I honestly thought they had already built a nest in this house, but for some reason they have been working hard on it this past weekend. 
Mama and Daddy both take turns bringing in the twigs and grasses to build the nest.
They get very defensive and scare off all other birds from being anywhere near their nest.
This Godlfinch was taking refuge on this bird feeder for a while, but it wasn't long before they discovered her and drove her away too. 

Like I said, time will tell what develops. I've given up trying to figure out the nesting habits of our Bluebirds.  The other birdhouse appears to have been abandoned, and no babies ever came forth. I haven't looked inside yet to see if there are any eggs in there. The last couple of nesting seasons I ended up having to remove several "dud" eggs from the nests once the birds had been gone a sufficient amount of time to make me believe the nest was abandoned. But I am a little leery of attempting to do that too soon. So I will just keep watching and waiting.

Talking about birds in the nest, etc. reminds me of my own little family "nest".  Our youngest "baby" turns 47 today!  We celebrated his birthday Saturday evening with a steak dinner.

Here's Scott about to bite into his favorite "deviled eggs", so I caught him just in time.
This is my plate...steak, baked potato with sour cream and cheese, broccoli, and a salad. 
Here's the family...Daddy (hubby), Rose, Benton, and Scott licking the frosting off the candles...some things never change, and I hope they don't!

Here he is about to blow out his candles...(or maybe he already did...I don't see the flames! LOL)

Here's the "big blow" photo! It's a family tradition!

Here's Hubby, Benton, Me and Scott...

This was probably his favorite gift: LOL.
But he also liked getting this special headlamp:
Something that he uses every morning on his job at the golf course while it is still dark.

We had a good little family party. Hubby wasn't feeling great, but he was feeling good enough to enjoy the party.  The shingles are still there, but they seem to be under control. The medicine that the Dr. gave him has helped, but it makes him feel pretty blah. He'll be happy when he doesn't have to take it anymore. We are just thankful they have medication that actually helps control the shingles from progressing.  Thankfully he hasn't had a lot of pain, so we truly are grateful to God for that.

So what else is going on ?  Hmmm, well, last week I told you about all of the things that were going wrong...I did get my new computer, and it is working well. I haven't been able to transfer my data yet from the old hard drive because the part I ordered ended up not being what I needed. The description on Amazon did not include some vital information about the compatibility of this particular cord and it turns out it was for an older model computer. So I had to order something different and am still waiting for that. 

The repairman for the ice-maker/water dispenser on our refrigerator came on Friday as planned, and did not have the part he needed to repair it, so it had to be ordered, which will take two weeks to get here, so he will come back then. Thankfully it's not the whole refrigerator that is not working, just the ice maker, and we can live with that...but still, it's another delay.

When Scott went out to grill the steaks for his birthday dinner there was something wrong with a connection from the gas tank to the grill, and it needs a new part!  So we ended up cooking the steaks in the oven.   We will have to look into finding the part we need to repair the grill.

Oh, one more little thing. I have a special nozzle on my kitchen sink faucet that allows you to spray the water in different directions. We had just replaced that a few weeks ago with a new one. Well, that came off and refuses to go back on and stay, so we had to put the old original faucet thingy back on. Just another little aggravation.  Thankfully it wasn't something real expensive, but still...

It seems like when it rains, it pours! But we are thankful that in each problem they are all minor things and nothing life threatening. Even hubby's shingles seems to be much less of a problem than what we feared it would become.  

So we give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness and mercy shown unto us.  


Psalm 136:1-3
1 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
2 Oh, give thanks to the God of gods!
For His mercy endures forever.
3 Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords!
For His mercy endures forever:


Amen!

Have a lovely week!





Sunday, March 17, 2024

A Visit to Ireland- A Creative Adventure Revisited

In honor of St. Patrick's Day and also in memory of our blogging friend Toni Taddeo...I wanted to repost this special little story.  I've shared it several times now over the past few years, but since St. Patrick's Day only happens once a year, I hope you won't mind reading it again if you already have, and if you are a newer friend here this may be your first time to enjoy this little Irish Fairy Tale.  Here is what I wrote in 2021, and prior to that when Toni was still here with us.

3/16/2021:
Our dear friend Toni Taddeo,  also known in the blogging world as Treasures By Toni, passed away several years ago.  Toni left us with such a wonderful heritage of creative writing adventures, poetry, and interesting blog themes. Those of us who were privileged to have been Toni's blogging and Facebook friends miss her daily smiles and wisdom.  Our friend Annie over at Cottage By The Sea has picked up where Toni left off with a Tuesday 4  weekly theme in memory of Toni.  You may want to check that out.

But today I wanted to do something a little different, in memory of Toni.  Toni used to do a "Toni's Creative Adventures" meme, where she would give us several unfinished sentences that we needed to complete with our own special creative adventure.  Here is one that I did, using Toni's prompts, back in March of 2018.  Since tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day I thought I would share this one again, as I also did last year at this time. So here we go, back in time and space to a happy place...won't you come along with me? Some of you have already commented in times past, but there are a few new friends who might not have ever seen this before. I hope you will enjoy it.

Original Post 3/12/2018

So, what did YOU do the Monday after the time change to spring forward?  I know what I did...I took a nap!  (I did yesterday too...and the day before that, and the day before that...) I actually look forward to nap time!  I snuggle down with my blankie and pillow and fall asleep within one minute (wish I could do that at night)...and I stay asleep for at least fifteen minutes...sometimes twenty or even thirty!

Well today I must have either fallen into a much deeper sleep, or perhaps something else happened...I'm not exactly sure... but I found myself...

1.   "Walking in a countryside in Ireland,  and I see a strange green glow coming from behind a large tree. Walking up to it I find a large pot of shamrocks...



 They were so lovely, they seemed to be glowing and smiling up at me...




2.   Being the curious kind I decide to pick a little bouquet...

3.   Much to my surprise as I bend to pick them, a sudden gale blew up and whirled me around and round and finally sat me down on a lovely garden bench. 

As I recovered from feeling a bit dizzy, I looked around, and sitting there beside me was a delightful little tea tray, with the prettiest little Irish red haired girl blinking her bright green eyes at me and asking me if I'd like to have some tea!

Well, of course, I said yes!  

And then she asked if I would do the honor of pouring since the teapot was so hot and a bit too heavy for her to lift...and so I did.  

As we sat there together, sipping our tea,  it was so peaceful and lovely in spite of the wind...and I noticed some dainty little wildflowers blooming across the lawn, and thought how perfect they would be for our tea table...

The little yellow flowers looked like miniature dandelions. 

The tiny purple flowers were so delicate and airy...it seemed as though they belonged in a fairy garden.  (Perhaps it was???)




4.   Deciding this must truly be an Irish fairytale, I laughingly think to myself that I must have fallen out of bed or hit my head or something, because how could I really be sitting in that lovely little garden in Ireland, sipping tea with this lovely young maiden when just a few minutes ago I was taking a little nap in my own bedroom many miles and oceans away?




Suddenly I woke up, sprang out of bed, rubbed my eyes and looked around my room. Everything looked just the same as it had before my nap.

And then I got up and went into the kitchen, and there on the windowsill was this tiny little bouquet...


But where did that shamrock come from?...  What do you think?

Thank you, Toni!  This was delightful!!!

Well, You have just come along with me on another of Toni's Creative Adventures...  and I wish Toni were still here to share more of her creative ideas with us.  These were a lot of fun, and I am sad that I didn't participate in them very often, because now all of her special creative adventures are lost to us.  Perhaps there are some of you out there who might have some of them saved in your blog archives, and maybe we could revive them again in memory of Toni...just a thought! It's another way to keep her memory alive and we could all benefit from the wonderful ideas she shared with us.





2021: Current picture in my kitchen! The little Irish Maiden found a little Scottish Maiden friend, and they picked some fairy flowers for us to enjoy for St. Patrick's Day!  
They had a little help from another little "Irish Lass", 
who is all dressed up in her Irish Green so she won't get pinched!


And perhaps some help from the fairies as well...



Proverbs 17:22 (NKJV)

 "A merry heart does good, like medicine,
But a broken spirit dries the bones."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 I hope you all enjoyed this little adventure in fairyland with me. In the midst of  the current world situation we need a little levity and creativity to lift us above our troubles and help us to enjoy some lighter, happier moments.  Have a blessed and beautiful St. Patrick's day...and be watching for the little fairies and leprechauns to bring some cheer to your day!

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Finally Back!

 Dear Friends in Blogland and beyond! 

It's been a long week since my desktop computer crashed!  But thankfully, that waiting is finally over and my new computer arrived today.  Let me explain...what I now have is a refurbished Dell desktop computer that I ordered via Walmart online, and it only cost around $70.00. It came fully equipped with Windows 10, which is what I had before and what I wanted to keep so I didn't have to learn a new program on top of adjusting to a different computer.  My last computer was also a Dell refurbished computer, purchased the same way, and it lasted quite a few years. So I feel pretty confident that this was a good plan, and we will trust that it will last for a good long time!  Now I am waiting for a little $10.00 piece of equipment to arrive via Amazon tomorrow that will enable me to transfer my files from my hard drive from the old computer to the new one. I have already removed the hard drive from the old computer, and I am trusting it was not corrupted when the computer crashed and that my files are still intact. We shall see what develops!   Thankfully I have saved a lot of my pictures and important files to flash drives, but I had not done a backup recently and so I know there are many files that I want to make sure I can save.  

One thing that will be different for me is my Picasa Photo editing program is no longer available, and I do not have it on a CD so I cannot load it onto my computer.  So I am experimenting with what comes with the computer programming online. So far I am not too impressed, but I'll keep working on it.

Here's a few pictures I took yesterday at our monthly "Women in Faith" fellowship...Since both St. Patrick's Day and Easter are during this month, the decorations covered both special days.  We had a great time of fellowship and prayer for one another, and a delicious lasagna luncheon provided by the ladies. Different ladies take turns each month in preparing the lunch, and we always have something good! There were about 22 ladies present, which was great for a regular meeting month.  Our bigger events are in May, when we have our "May Fellowship" and invite ladies from all of the local churches to join us for a luncheon and a nice program/guest speaker,  and at Christmas, when we have our Christmas potluck fellowship.    






We are now called "Women in Faith", since our church no longer belongs to the United Methodist Church, where we were known as "United Methodist Women". We now belong to the Global Methodist Church, which is the conservative new denomination recently created for churches wishing to leave the United Methodist denomination. As of yet I don't believe there is an organized women's group for the Global Methodist Church, so each church has developed its own group and we wanted to be known as "Women in Faith".  

 A funny thing happened yesterday.  At our last month's meeting one of the ladies said she was going to order some new bags for each of us, and she passed around the catalog and told us to choose the one we wanted.  I thought she meant for each of us to pick the one we wanted in particular, so I chose this one:

Those of you who know me will know why I wanted this particular bag. My "One Word" for 2024 is "Strength", and so I thought this would be perfect.  Well, much to my embarrassment yesterday when she gave everyone a new bag, everyone else received bags that were all alike, which said "Women of Faith", except for me. I got this one, because I was the only one who thought we were supposed to pick out the bag we wanted.  What she had meant was did everyone like the bag she had chosen for our group, which is what everyone else got.(I just found this picture online of the bag everyone else received):
Everyone had a good laugh at me for being the only one different from everyone else. She did have another bag like this to give me, but I told her to save it for someone else who may not have been there yesterday and would still want a bag. It was funny and I guess I need to learn to listen (my one word for last year!) better to instructions from now on! LOL.

Lest you think I've moved away from Still Waters Pond, here are a few pictures I've taken this past week of the birds:
The Goldfinches are still coming around for seeds. Not sure when they will head north, but we are enjoying them in the meantime.

The Bluebirds still come and go also, but we aren't sure what exactly is going on as it doesn't appear that there are any new babies in the nest yet, and it seems like they are way overdue. So I'm just watching and waiting to see what develops.

Mr. Cardinal stopped by for a visit.

And Mrs. Sand Hill Crane still comes up for her daily break away from the nest to get a snack before returning to her place of waiting. I figure the new "colts" should be cracking open their eggs sometime late next week.
These Great White Egrets came by to visit Mrs. Crane while she was on the nest yesterday morning:
They danced and pranced and flew around as if they were entertaining her so she wouldn't get bored.  I'm sorry the pictures aren't more clear, but it was till early morning and low light.

So what else has been happening you say?  Oh my, when it rains it pours! Not in the literal rain sense, but in the happening of events.  Not long after my computer crashed, the water dispenser and ice maker on our refrigerator basically stopped producing any water or ice. I thought perhaps it was time to replace the water filter, so I ordered one online. It came in a couple of days, and so we installed it, but the problem with barely a trickle of water continued.  Thankfully, this time when we purchased this refrigerator almost 4 years ago we also purchased an extended warranty! It is good for 60 months, so we are still within the time frame to be covered. I called the company and they are sending out a repairman tomorrow to repair the issue (hopefully!).  No fees for parts or labor! Hooray!! That was good news!!!

The other item we ordered was a replacement part for our generator. We couldn't get it to work last summer during hurricane season, so with that dreaded season coming soon we thought we'd better get it fixed and ready to work in case we need it.  So I ordered the right part. We had some fellas from church coming today to repair it with the new part, however, the part we received was not the correct part. At first it appeared to "others" that I must have made a mistake in ordering the wrong part, but when I looked it back up, I had ordered the correct part, but they sent me the wrong part! So now we must send that part back and they will send us the correct part (hopefully) soon. I'm just thankful to know that it wasn't my fault!  

Also, keep in mind that all these things I had to order happened after the computer crashed, so I had to do everything on my cellphone! I am amazed at all you can do with cellphones! I even figured out how to write a blog, but commenting on other's blogs is not always as easy, as it wants to go to "anonymous", and there are too many steps involved to change it, so I have gotten way behind in reading and commenting on your posts. Plus, I just don't like reading such small print and trying to type on the cell phone with any decent comments! LOL.  So I will try to get caught up with you all in the next few days as I am able. Please bear with me!

One more thing...Last night hubby kept mentioning that he had pain in the top of his head and down around the left side of his face and cheek and neck and his left eye kept wanting to close. Also he had a swollen gland in his neck. We thought maybe he had a sinus infection working on him. But this morning a small rash of blisters appeared on his cheek, and we both said "shingles!"  So thankfully we were able to get into the doctor this morning, and he agreed that he thought it was shingles, but that he also could have some sinus infection as well. So he is now on several medications for all of the above.  Praying that we got it in time before it really had a chance to take hold on him, as anyone who has had shingles knows it is very painful. And no, we haven't had the vaccine. The Dr. said for him to wait 3 months to get it now, but I need to go ahead and get it soon. So I will.  Thankfully he said it is not contagious. So we are thankful he was able to get right into the doctor right away.

Well, I think I will close with this photo of the sunset last night.  Our kids were here for supper and Rose and I went out on the back porch for a while and enjoyed the sunset until the mosquitoes started biting and we had to go back inside! Yes! It's that season already!!


And here are some good verses to close out our day, after a week of expectation, waiting, some frustration, but much thankfulness to God for all of His wonderful blessing and kindness shown unto us. Our problems are so minor compared to so many in the world today. I am very thankful indeed.

Psalm 62:5-8
My soul, wait silently for God alone,
For my expectation is from Him.
6 He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defense;
I shall not be moved.
7 In God is my salvation and my glory;
The rock of my strength,
And my refuge, is in God.
8 Trust in Him at all times, you people;
Pour out your heart before Him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah

Amen, and Good night!
It's so good to be back!




Sunday, March 10, 2024

It’s Me

 Hello Friends in Blogland. I wanted to let you know that I am okay but my computer has died and I am not really able to do much here in blogland right now. I am typing this on my phone and it is very time consuming so I really don’t want to do much of anything this way. It may be a little while before I am back up and running again but I just wanted to let you know that I am alive and well. This is really a test to see what all I can do here on my phone. 

Wow!  I just figured out how to add all these pictures from my phone!  If you are a Facebook friend you may have already seen these. I won’t bother to describe them all here but just thank the Lord for His continued love and care and beauty all around us. If you are ever feeling sad or blue, just take a moment to look around you and count your blessings. When we start to feel sorry for ourselves all we need to do is count our blessings and give thanks to God for all He has done for us. 














“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!  Praise ye the Lord!”  Psalms 150:6

Thank you all for your patience with me as I am unable to get around to visiting you. When I figure it out I will do the best I can. Until then just keep praising the Lord for all the good things He has done!  Amen