Thursday Thankfulness...And a little bit of Fantasy Land...

 I guess this week is already flying by! With a holiday on Monday it always seems to make the week go faster.  Tuesday we had our quarterly labs in the morning, followed by breakfast at our local Nanna's Country Cafe' (I forgot to take a picture, but you've seen it before), and then that evening our church choir started practice back up after a summer break, so that was fun. Even more fun was that our son Benton decided he wanted to try singing in the choir for the first time ever, so he went with me to choir practice, and he seemed to have a good time.  It will be interesting to see if he decides to stay. He's never done anything musical before and doesn't read music at all, but he has a nice voice and he enjoys singing congregational hymns, etc.  We do a lot of songs that are a bit complicated with a lot of "moving parts", so it will be challenging, but I hope he will stick it out.  

I've always dreamed of having a family quartet someday with my own family, and this gets us a little closer to that dream. Rose does like to sing also, but her work schedule is too erratic at Home Depot and she can't always have Sundays off or even be sure she'll be free to go to choir practice every week, so she's kind of given up on participating in the choir.

Well, I started this post yesterday (Wednesday), and got side tracked and busy with something else, so I thought I'd give it another try this morning, Thursday, and again I got side tracked looking for something and went down another rabbit hole...This old antique cedar wardrobe holds many treasures...

Namely...These containers are full of pretty much my whole life (and of course my family) in pictures, at least up until I got a digital camera and quit developing film and rarely ever print pictures anymore...

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Kind of reminds me of the C.S. Lewis story, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (or maybe it should be "Alice in Wonderland"? by another "Lewis", Lewis Carroll?

I was looking for a particular picture of my father, my sister Doris, my hubby and I singing together in a quartet.  We used to do that somctimes whenever we came home for a visit and attended church at my parents' church. My father sang tenor, my hubby sang bass (or was it the other way around? I'm not sure), my sister sang alto and I sang soprano...or maybe that was reversed too? Over the years I've lost my soprano voice and my sister and I are both altos. We haven't sung together in many years so I don't know how we'd do it now since neither one of us can sing soprano. LOL.  Anyway, I digress...I never did find the picture I was looking for, so I gave up on that idea and wanted to move on to other things, and then this happened:

Okay...I'm trying to post pictures, and Blogger is not cooperating this morning.  Plus I noticed that it had not updated the the feed of all my friends' posts for a couple of days. What is going on? Is anyone else having these problems??? I finally just had to shut down and will come back later...

Here we are several hours later, and finally I am able to post some pictures.

This was my "companion" (The Lion??)  this morning while I was trying to write that above...Perhaps he had something to do with the glitch in the system?  He does tend to walk all over the keyboard and/or lay on top of the mouse so I can't get it without him grabbing my hand...

 It seems that Blackie is always finding ways to keep me from doing my work...like yesterday afternoon, (see below) I was trying to type the minutes from our church board meeting. (I'm the board secretary). The meeting was last week, and I wanted to get them finished before another week went by and I got too busy and forgot...

He is literally laying on top of the notebook where my handwritten notes are:

I finally had to tilt the notebook to an angle so that he had to slide off and onto the floor. Otherwise I would never have gotten them done.  He's such a rascal!  You'd think he never gets any attention at all, but you would be wrong! Trust me, he gets plenty of attention!  When I say it's like having a toddler around, I'm not kidding! LOL.

Here he is watching the world go by outside the window in "My Room With a View"...

So anyway, I'm now trying to climb back out of that rabbit hole or back through the wardrobe, take your pick...they both involve children stepping through something (the wardrobe or the rabbit hole) and ending up in a fantasy land. Sometimes life feels like that, doesn't it? Especially if you watch too much news...but let's don't go there, okay?

I prefer to stay in fantasy land for a while longer...LOL.  I decided to get busy and start doing a little bit of fall decorating...

It's time to bring out the fall dishes and little pumpkins and owls and all things orange and brown and olive green instead of the summer pinks and yellows and blues...

It's time to give thanks and prepare our hearts  and minds for acknowledging all of our many blessings, which we do year round, but it seems we tend to be more deliberately thankful during these autumn days...as we gather with friends and family and enjoy the change of the seasons and hopefully some cooler air (somewhere! Not here yet!)

Perhaps it's time for that tea party! I wonder where Alice is? Somewhere in wonderland, I'm sure...

She may be in search of the Great Pumpkin...apparently they are  that way  🠊

There's no rabbit, but I do see some squirrels dressed up for fall, along with a ghost, a pumpkin, and of course a black cat!

OH, HERE's the Pumpkin Patch!!

Lots of interesting choices here...

Oh! I see some of our special friends from Pamela's Victorian Cottage are visiting the Pumpkin Patch! Perhaps one of them is Alice...

I believe they are contemplating how on earth they could get that huge pumpkin back home! I do believe I see someone wearing a "mad hat". LOL.  

This story may have to be continued later while we figure out the logistics of this conundrum...

Meanwhile, Lily Grace and her friends have already visited the Pumpkin Patch and picked out some little pumpkins...perhaps they are planning to bake a pumpkin pie or some pumpkin muffins to have with tea for a tea party!

Lily Grace has been busy back at school these days...she just wanted to pop in and say hello to everyone.  Her dog Bailey says hello too! 

Wow! While I was trying to finish this crazy post with all of it's rabbit trails, we were blessed with an unexpected rain shower!  So of course I had to drop what I was doing and go out on the back porch and take pictures and listen to the rain...

 Can you see the water puddle forming out there on Still Waters Pond?  Hooray!!

If you'd like to listen to the rain hitting on our porch tin roof, here you go!

And all the while, the skies above looked like this!  I know that somewhere there must be a rainbow out there, but I couldn't find it.  Oh my! Another story in fantasy land...the Wizard of Oz...made me think of the song  "Somewhere over the Rainbow"

Don't you just love this song?

Well, dear friends, it's time to bring this little fantasy to an end...and get back to work. I just heard hubby say something about supper...

Just a thought for us from God's Word, for when we are feeling like we are lost in fantasy land or like Alice in Wonderland...

Deuteronomy 4:29
"29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul."

(and you don't even need to have ruby slippers to find Him!!)

Have a wonderful rest of your day...and let's all count our blessings...

I know tomorrow is a special day of remembrance. I will be back to talk about that tomorrow.

Tuesday 4~ Labor Day

 Good Tuesday Morning! We are talking about Labor Day today, but I wrote about what we did on Labor Day yesterday. Actually we ceased from our labors and just relaxed and enjoyed a beautiful day! 

Labor Day




Welcome to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4 where we ask 4 questions every week.


Labor Day is Monday, Sept. 7. The original Labor Day was September 5, 1882 when over 10,000 workers took to the streets to protest 12 hour work days for low wages and cruel practices of employers.
The first official Labor Day was on September 7th in Oregon.
President Grover Cleveland signed on for the first offical federal observance of Labor Day following the Pullman Strike in which government forces shot dead many unarmed workers strking over dramatic wages cuts and dramatic cost of living increases in a company town. Workers pay was cut 30% and they could not afford basic food. When a group of men tried to negotiate with Pullman, they were fired and 34 of them were "unalived"* by government forces.   

1. How do you observe Labor Day and were you aware of the background of it?

I really didn't know that particular story as shared above.  * My question: Where did the term "unalived" come from? That's strange terminology to me...I guess it's the pc way of saying they were killed. I believe in just telling it like it is...as sad as it is. No sense in mincing words! It sounds like it was a very sad chapter in our country's history.  Thankfully our observance of Labor Day is much more peaceful.  We didn't do anything extra special, but what we did do I wrote about yesterday HERE.


2, Many holidays become just a day off rather than a real commemoration of an event.
How do you propose we can remedy that?

A lot of communities and cities have special events and parades, etc., to commemorate these kinds of holidays. Certainly there should be more education about these holidays in our schools. I guess because I grew up in a more rural area, Labor Day was never really something that we understood that well, because it didn't seem to connect to the kinds of workers that were in our area...we didn't have labor unions, etc., like they do in the big cities,  


3. What is the most labor intensive job or activity you have done? 

When we moved back to Florida from Maine I wanted to get my foot in the door with the county school board, so I accepted a position in the Testing Department. This meant that I had to deliver testing booklets to all of the county schools for their standardized testing. Then I had to pick them back up. It was a lot of lifting and very hard on my back. I was almost 50 years old at the time, and in much better condition than I am now, but still it was hard work for me. Then the county decided to relocate the Testing Department to another location, which meant that I had to physically pack and move all of those boxes of testing materials, mostly by myself. They did provide a truck and workers to transport them to the new place, but I had to do all the labor of arranging them in the new location on shelves. There was also the daily routine of managing paperwork and scanning the tests for scoring, which involved a lot of repetitive motion. Consequently I developed a very severe case of carpal tunnel. It was extremely painful, and I had to make a work comp claim and take some time off. The best part of this story was that the school board realized that I should not have been doing all of that hard labor by myself, and they actually "promoted" me to a much better position as a school Bookkeeper, which was much more in keeping with my skills and better pay too! So all my hard labor paid off, but I truly suffered in the meantime. I am thankful to the Lord for rescuing me out of that situation and moving me on to much better things.

4. If your income was cut by 30% could you still survive? What would you do?

If our current "income" was cut by 30%, it would be quite difficult for us to survive, since we are retired and dependent upon a very fixed income. We do not have a huge savings account, and we are very careful about maintaining those funds. We would most likely have to consider selling our home and hopefully finding something that we could pay for outright and not have a mortgage. Or we would have to consider living with our kids.  In the past, when we were still young and able to work, we would just look for another job...but we are both at an age where working is not really feasible, although if I really had to, I could probably find a part time job doing something not too physical.  

I am very thankful to God for providing for us in all of our years. There were many lean times when we were raising our three children, but we never had to do without the essentials of food, clothing, and shelter. God always took care of us even when things were difficult, and our children never really knew any kind of deprivation. They may have thought they were being deprived sometimes when we couldn't buy them the new expensive shoes or jeans or "toys" that their peers may have had, but they always had what they needed and they were well taken care of.  

Here's a favorite passage that has always meant a lot to me...

Psalm 37:3-5 New King James Version

"3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;

Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

4 Delight yourself also in the Lord,

And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the Lord,

Trust also in Him,

And He shall bring it to pass."

I can attest to this being true!! Amen.

Now we must go "give blood" for our quarterly lab work and then off to breakfast somewhere! Hip Hip Hooray! LOL.  Have a lovely day!!!

Nature Calling: Birds, Butterflies and Blooms

 Happy Labor Day everyone!  How are you spending your day?  We decided to get outside and enjoy some nature on this last official holiday of summer.  We took a ride down to the Kenwood Boat Ramp  and Recreation Park,  and I was not disappointed in the variety of natural beauties awaiting to be photographed.  

September is known for being a busy butterfly month! It seems that all the summer cocoons have burst open and there are butterflies everywhere, tasting the last blooms of summer!  This Gulf Fritillary (actually there were several of them) were enjoying these pretty little yellow flowers along the shore of the boat ramp...

Along the other side of the boat ramp canal was this beautiful Little Blue Heron, searching for some breakfast:

Soon this American White Ibis flew in to join him.

I love seeing their mirror images in the water:

Hello!

Soon they both flew away to bigger places to do their fishing away from prying eyes and cameras.

So I wandered around for a minute through the trees and saw this huge white mushroom/toadstool...

It had to stand about 8" tall and the top was as least 5 inches across.

That was pretty amazing!

Nearby was this other very dark mushroom:

I looked it up online, and found out it is called Old Man of the Woods,  and that link will tell you more about it. They say it is edible, but I am not one to experiment with wild mushrooms found in the woods. I'll leave that to the experts!

Since it is September I am starting my watching for signs of Autumn/Fall...and here is the first sign...this leaf of the American Sweet Gum tree.  

Here in Florida we don't get a lot of pretty colored fall leaves, so we grab at any opportunity to see something that resembles and Autumn leaf! LOL.  

Back at home in my own yard my Bottlebrush Bush has been blooming profusely since we've been having some good rain.  And the butterflies LOVE IT!  

There's another Gulf Fritillary enjoying the blossoms:

Can you see him?

This bush has been quite attractive to the Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly, and there have been several on it at the same time, flitting from blossom to blossom...

I tried to get a video of them on the bush, but this one flew away as soon as I got too close, however, if you look closely you will see a bee or two on there as well.

Then I was happy to see that my new batch of zinnias are finally blooming, but there are really small blossoms. Probably because I didn't fertilize them.  

Sorry these may be a little blurry. I couldn't get them to stay still because it was kind of breezy out there...

Oh, there's a bonus picture of Big Foot  here: 

LOL.

And this pretty little Marigold wanted to smile for the picture as well:

So that's how I've spent today so far. How about you?  Tomorrow's Tuesday 4 will have more questions about that, so be sure to tune in.

Jesus reminds us to come to Him when we are tired and heavy laden with work and concerns, and He will give us rest.  It's good to take a day to just enjoy God's Creation all around us and rest in knowing that God is with us and He is always there to help us carry our burdens....

Matthew 11:28-30  NKJV

28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, 

and I will give you rest. 

29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 

30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

I hope you've enjoyed this little respite from your labors!