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!! 

Sunday Evening "It's About Time"

I thought you might like to see that the Sand Hill Crane couple still stops by in our weedy yard every so often to say hello, 

My poor zinnia garden is pretty well toast and weeds. They also had a fungus and didn't do very well at all. I've planted some new seeds in a different location, and if they make it I will let you know. It's just been too hot and dry for anything nice to grow.

And to get a drink from the swimming pool that we keep filled up just for that purpose since it's so dry and Still Waters Pond is still very dry.

They seem to be most appreciative.

And Blackie loves to watch them from a distance. He's knows better than to get too close. It they had babies with them they would definitely chase him away...

"Hi Mom! Don't worry, I'm being good."

Here it is Sunday evening, and we are winding down with July as well as the photo-a-day-challenge. Today's challenge was 9 o'clock!  Well, at 9:00 this morning I was getting ready for church and didn't have time to take a picture of a clock.  And now it is about 8:11 p.m., and I don't feel like waiting until 9:00 to take a picture tonight. So, I cheated a bit.

This "Anniversary Clock" has been sitting on the Secretary Desk for ages, and it needed a new battery put in. So I decided to go ahead and put in a new battery and set it for 9:00 so I could take a picture. But by the time I got the battery in and the time set, and the mirrored back put back on and arranged it in such a way so you couldn't see my reflection in the mirror so well or on the glass...well, it was already past 9:00! 

I tried a couple of times (actually several, because of the reflections...I didn't want you to see my hands on the camera)

Or too much dust in the corners so I had to take it apart and clean it better...LOL.

This clock was given to us by my husband's Aunt Florence many years ago. She owned a furniture store in New Jersey, and I can't remember exactly when she gave this to us, but I'm thinking it's when we went there to visit her. BTW, the Army Soldier in the background was my hubby's father...and Aunt Florence was his sister. So this clock holds special memories, dust and all!  

And by the time I get finished writing this post, it will probably be 9:00! LOL

Today was a lovely day. We were blessed this morning to receive 10 new members! That is quite remarkable for our small church! Such a blessing! As you can see by all the gray heads in the pews, we need to keep bringing in new members, and especially some that are younger! 

It was also wonderful that our "kids" were here for lunch after church. Here's Rose and Benton and our grandpups Sugar and Spice. We were having some "cool" dessert, Marie Callendar's frozen Key Lime Pie and/or Banana Cream Pie. They were refreshing and I didn't have to bake.    Scott was also here, but I failed to take his picture.  He was busily enjoying his piece of Key Lime pie too.  We also had Fried Chicken that I picked up at the grocery store on the way home from church,  along with some coleslaw and Hawaiian Rolls. I did cook some mashed potatoes and made a tossed salad. It was nice not to have to cook anything but the potatoes, as it is SO hot, and I didn't want to ask Scott to grill anything outside in the heat.  All in all it was a good meal and a good time visiting with our kids. Always such a joy.

I had mentioned the other day that we needed to have some tree work done on Friday. One of the windy storms we had earlier in the week had knocked down some very large and heavy branches from some oak trees in the woods lot next to our house. Thankfully they weren't close enough to the house to hit it, but they did land on the chain link fence and needed to be cleaned up. So our son Benton came over and also a fellow from our church who helps us with our yardwork, and they worked really hard in the extreme heat to cut back those branches and clean it up the best they could.

It really was a bigger job than what they had equipment to handle, but they got the worst of it done and we are very thankfuly they managed without injury or too much heat exhaustion.

It was only 9:00 in the morning, and yet, it was already so hot that they really couldn't stay out there for very long.  

Someday when it's a bit cooler  than it has been we will get a lot more work done, but right now they did all that needed to be done.

Since our photo theme was about time, I thought I would close with a few Scripture verses about Time:

Isaiah 64:4  NIV

4 Since ancient times no one has heard,

no ear has perceived,

no eye has seen any God besides you,

who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Psalm 31:14-15a

But I trust in you, Lord;

I say, “You are my God.”

15 My times are in your hands;

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

A Time for Everything

1 There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6 a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

Well Folks, I did it! I managed to keep writing until 9:00, and then I had to run around like a crazy person taking pictures of clocks before they changed the time. so these are the ones I managed to get!:

(on the bottom of my computer desktop screen).

The kitchen wall clock

My cell phone screen

The clock that sits in front of our TV in the living room.

My wrist watch. I almost didn't get there in time!

Well, now it is TIME for bed, so I will say good night and God bless you all!