The Week in Review and Into the Future!

Hello Friends!! I hope your week has gone well since we last visited. Ours has been busy and interesting to say the least, but I won't go into ALL the details...just hit some of the more pleasant highlights.  Number one, I am very thankful to finally be feeling MUCH better and getting back to wanting to do things again. It seems as though the last few weeks have been a blur of illness, hubby also having some physical issues, and both of us just praying that we will regain our strength and be able to get moving in a more positive direction in our new home and life.   Praise God we seem to be on the upswing, and looking forward to better days ahead.

That being said, I wanted to show you a few things that have been going on.  

I acquired this lovely little wicker table from my son, who found it somewhere, and he and his wife were going to just try to sell it in their business or re-purpose it somehow...but I had a plan that kept bouncing around in my head and made them an offer they couldn't refuse...so now it is mine.  

This is in our kitchen, in an area that seems to be a kind of wasted space.

(This was my first option, between two regular dining chairs)

It is kind of a long narrow area on the other side of the sink/island, with not enough space for a big table or any real wall space because of the windows for any other kinds of furniture...so I've just kind of lined  up some extra chairs there and wanted some kind of little table to break it up a bit...

My first option was here at this end, and please note the needlepoint sign on the wall, created by my paternal grandmother many years ago, which says:

"Come into my kitchen and chat with me while I prepare a pot of tea."

And then at the other end of the area there is this favorite old painting of two sweet little old ladies, sitting in their chairs and visiting. There used to be an engraved title under the picture, which is worn off now with age, but it said "The Gossips"... one of my most favorite pictures which came from my maternal grandmother's home.

 I've always loved having a rocking chair in my kitchen, so that anyone who comes to visit has a comfortable place to sit and visit with me while I am preparing our tea or supper or whatever...and actually I find myself sitting there frequently while something is cooking on the stove that I don't want to venture too far away from...so it is a good spot to sit and read or drink  a cup of tea while I wait for the "pot to boil", so to speak...therefore I moved the little wicker table down beside the rocker, so that there is actually a place to put a pot of tea and a tea cup for my guest or even myself...and even though it may feel a little crowded in that space...it is a comfortable place that hopefully will be welcoming to whomever wishes to visit a while...

 I will leave it there for now and see how that works out. But don't you agree? It really needed to come home with me.  Yes, I know I'm supposed to be downsizing...but sometimes we have to compromise with our ideas...And this was all in the spirit of being more hospitable and practicing hospitality...

Speaking of words that are similar to hospital...hubby actually made a couple of visits to our community hospital this past week...well maybe more than a couple now that I think about it. Once for some x-rays because of some severe back pain (which has now subsided, praise the Lord, but may need some further investigation and treatment in the future), and then one evening via ambulance because of what felt like a heart attack...which turned out to be nothing wrong with his heart, praise God, but apparently some kind of spasm of the esophagus that very much felt like a heart attack...and caused his BP to escalate severely.  Folks, any kind of pain in the chest is worth checking out.  I'd rather have a false alarm but be in a safe place than to ignore the pain and find out it really was something bad and it be too late to get help.  And then the third visit was to have a scheduled colonoscopy:  Which turned out fine...here he is in pre-op waiting his turn.

 One thing we have both agreed upon this past week: we are thankful that our new home is within about 11 miles from our community hospital, and it is a very easy straight ride to get there.  We hope that we don't have to visit there quite as often as this past week, but we are thankful that when we needed it, it was easy and convenient to get to.   Our previous home was at least 25 miles from the nearest hospital. 

Switching gears a bit...this morning I was rejoicing in this beautiful new day, and then even happier when hubby was able to come out on the deck and enjoy the morning with me.  We are truly blessed and very thankful that the Lord has given us this time together. This is nothing to take for granted.

Switching gears once again, we had to drive into Palatka today (our county seat), and we parked near this old Coca Cola bottling building.  I know there are many such old Coca Cola bottling buildings in many cities throughout the south. This one is no longer used by Coca Cola...but the engraved signs still remain on the iconic brick building:

 The sign in the window above says Azalea City Brewing co., and I noticed some big vats in there, so maybe a brewing company is taking it over...not sure, but I just thought it was interesting.

We went into town to pick up a lease vehicle, because we are getting ready to go on a little trip this weekend for a family reunion.  We have discovered that we are better off to lease a vehicle when we have any long-distance driving to do than to risk our thirteen year old vehicle breaking down on the road somewhere.  We were pretty amazed at this fancy hi-tech vehicle...doesn't even use a real key...I know many of you have these already...but for us it was like something out of the future...it has so many fancy buttons and screens and things that I hope we can manage to drive it without flying into outer space...

So, now I need to concentrate on packing and getting ready to leave early in the morning.  Thankfully our kids are traveling with us so we have a spare driver if we need it.  These young "whippersnappers" understand these new-fangled modern vehicles better than us old folks from out in the sticks. LOL.

With these thoughts in mind I will leave you to contemplate and consider your blessings, as I have been doing mine. This week could have turned out very differently than we'd like, and I want to go on record giving thanks to the Lord for His gracious mercy and grace toward us, His children. None of us is guaranteed tomorrow, therefore we must be prepared for the future and eternity at any time.

Here is a verse that gives encouragement and hope:

"For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, 

plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

Jeremiah 29:11 

Thank You, Lord, for Your great love and promises.

Amen!