Friday Fotos and Projects

It's Friday morning, and I am running way behind! Our WiFi, Internet, and TV were all down from yesterday afternoon until after we went to bed last night, so I was unable to do ANYTHING!   It's sad when you realize how much you depend on technology to live your life! Not even my cell phone would help with social media, except for a few texts to let a couple of people know where I was! Of course, I could make phone calls on my cell phone, but who wants to be bothered at supper time and bedtime with phone calls?

So, we took our usual evening walk, and then I actually went outside and visited with my neighbor lady across the street, who also had no internet or TV, so she was outside too! Imagine that! People came out of their houses and actually had real conversations with each other face to face! Hmmm, maybe I should turn off my WiFi more often...

So now I am scrambling to get a Friday Foto post done before the rest of you wake up and wonder where I've been! LOL.

I started working on this post earlier this week, by taking various pictures in my kitchen of things that are up on the tops of my kitchen cabinets...and then there's a few other things of interest that happened along the way. So get your tea cup, coffee cup or whatever and let's pretend you came here for a visit...which you did, kind of sort of.

High above our kitchen cabinets you will see this tray that my son, (from Ben & Rose's Country Woodshop) created for me several years ago.  And the message is the way I feel about life:

God first, then family, and then our country. And we do a LOT of praying to God about both our family and our country!!  

You will also notice that I have several (well, a lot) of birdhouses scattered throughout the house. I guess this could have been another case for by Wednesday "Treasures", but these will just have to be Friday Fotos for now. LOL. Yes, I've collected birdhouses through the years...but again, most were gifts or special creations. (and I actually gave a few away when we moved!)

You will see the various sides of this mug throughout this post. It has a message on all sides, and I was enjoying my cup of tea in it the other afternoon, and wanted to share it with you!

One day this last week I was reading some of my dear friends' posts, and I noticed some of our blogging friends have been doing a lot of gardening and canning. I felt a bit envious that we don't have a nice garden to get our produce from, and we even are having difficulty finding a good farm stand to buy fresh veggies from, so grocery store zucchini will have to do! I am not a fancy cook either, didn't even cut all the way through those slices like I intended to, but the squash and onions was still good, and we are blessed.

So let's just celebrate having fresh veggies anyway! God is good!

Here's another of my birdhouses and other creations...and one of my little cream pitchers (another collection).

Now, the "birdhouse" on the left I guess is really a "bee house" because the holes are too small for a bird.  The bird house on the right is a creation by my son for me several years ago. I love all the little details.  The tole tray came from my parents' home. I love it.

Above the refrigerator is an American Flag tray, some baked bean crocks, and my barnyard of a rooster who actually crows, a piggy, cow, hen cookie jar, a hen on a nest  candy dish, and some other little birdhouses.  

Here's another birdhouse my son built, but this one he build for his "Nanny Steiner", and when she passed away...(actually two years ago yesterday...) it came home to stay with us. It is a part of my dollhouse farm scene.

The birds need a church to attend...so here is a little church birdhouse that was a gift many years ago.

Oh, can't you just hear the birdies singing and rejoicing?

One last birdhouse to show you...this one is the Log Cabin birdhouse that my son made for his Grandpa. (my dad). It is a replica of the log cabin that my father and his father built together when my father was a teenager. It was their family vacation cabin up in the Cook's Forest of Pennsylvania.  I shared the history of this cabin with you HERE back in January.  This is where my parents met and fell in love, so that is why I have their wedding picture there.  Sadly, the log cabin was sold when my grandparents retired and moved to Florida back in the 50's. (And my family also moved to Florida at the same time, leaving our farm in PA.)  Our family did have a good visit and tour there the summer of my parents' 50th anniversary. We all went back to PA. for a family reunion at my uncle's home, and the new owners of the log cabin happened to be up at the cabin that weekend, and they allowed our whole family to come in and see it once again! It brought back such happy memories for all of us. It had not changed much at all, except for adding an indoor bathroom, which was a nice addition! Yes, before it just had an outhouse, which was typical of most homes in that area back then.

Okay, now down to what else we've been doing this past week.  One evening we discovered that our kitchen sink faucet was leaking terribly all of a sudden. Water was spewing out from around it, and we could not get it to stop so we had to turn off the water under the sink and go to bed and hope we could find someone to help fix it in the morning.  Our previous handyman who had done so much for us when we were moving into this house last year (exactly one year ago!) seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth and we can't find him anywhere. So now we had to start searching for a new one. When you are "old" and not exactly skillful in repairing things, especially when it comes to plumbing issues, you need a good handyman!

After calling two different people who had been recommended to us...and one had a bad sciatic nerve and couldn't do anything right now, and the other never returned our 2 calls after I was assured by his answering service or whoever she was that we were "next up as soon as he gets done with the current job any minute now"...well, either he never got done with the current job or he just didn't want another job because he never called back...and so we'll never call him back either. His little business card went right in the trash!,  But, I digress...that was just exasperating...as we were making do with not having any water at the kitchen sink all morning...getting water from the bathroom to fix breakfast, coffee, tea, wash the dishes...you know, all the usual morning routine, and waiting for a phone call that never happened...well, let me tell you, we were getting desperate!

And then God took pity on us and brought someone to our door literally! Remember a week or so ago when I told you about "George of the Jungle" ?  Well, he had introduced us to his dad, "Billy", who is a "jack of all trades", and who we were talking to about doing some other kind of job for us that I won't tell you what it is yet because it will be another post later, but anyway, "Billy" showed up at our back door to talk to us about this other job, and guess what?!  Billy is a real handyman! He took one look at our faucet, found the problem immediately, went to the local hardware store and got the necessary parts (washers and o-rings), and had it fixed in about 1/2 hour, and only charged us $20.00!!!!!!!!!!! Talk about a miracle! Yes, finding anyone to do anything for $20.00, parts included, is what I'd call a miracle in this day and time.  Now, "Billy" doesn't look like much...a bit rough around the edges with a scruffy gray beard and a few missing teeth, but he is wiry and tough and knows his stuff! Praise God!

My hubby was so impressed with him, he asked him to look at his bathroom sink faucet, which has given him fits ever since we moved here because it is old and squeaks loudly every time he turns it on. Our previous handyman, (who has disappeared off the face of the earth), tried to fix it once, but said he couldn't do anything else for it.  

So hubby thought he'd ask "Billy" what he'd do. He said he'd just have to replace it and he happened to have a new faucet at home that he would bring back the next day.

And there it is! It works beautifully (no loud squeaks), and hubby is happy, and again it was a great deal!  So we are very happy to have found a new handyman! 

Meanwhile, "Pam the Handywoman" was doing her own project. This picture of our shower was taken before we moved into this house, so please excuse the dirty shower floor. These shower doors have been a pain in the neck ever since we moved here. They only open wide enough for a person to turn sideways and step through. The frame across the top was too low for hubby and he kept hitting his head on it. The track was very difficult to keep clean as were the glass doors a constant battle to clean.  It was time to recaulk around the bottom of the track because water was getting under it and leaking out onto the floor. We finally decided it was time to remove these doors and be done with them!

 

And so I decided that I would tackle the job myself! 

Nasty aluminum frame and doors are all gone!! It took a lot of elbow grease, but I did it all by myself!

For now we are just using a shower liner for the shower curtain until I can find one that I like, but it works great, and we can step in and out of the shower without bumping into the very narrow doorway or bumping our heads on the frame! Yay!!

The only downside is we lost our towel bars with the doors, so now we have to figure out some new kind of towel bars, but that will come. We are just very happy to not have to deal with those doors anymore (or that nasty track!)

Well, while trying to write this post I have been helping hubby set up his new laptop that was delivered yesterday afternoon that we had ordered, and he couldn't set it up last night because of no internet, and so all time I am trying to write this post he has been calling me to his side to install all the necessary programs, etc, to his new laptop (which is actually a refurbished one but has Windows 10 and his old one was obsolete and quit working).  So now it is past time for breakfast, and I am running way behind schedule, so I will say bye for now, and I will hopefully get around to visit with you all a little later.

I will finish with a few verses from our morning devotions, which we are now getting ready to read:

Isaiah 12:2-5

2.  "Behold, God is my salvation,

I will trust and not be afraid;

For YAH, the LORD is my strength and song;

He also has become my salvation.

3. Therefore with joy you will draw water

from the wells of salvation.

4.  And in that day you will say;

Praise the LORD, call upon His name;

Declare His deeds among the peoples,

Make mention that His name is exalted.

5.  Sing to the LORD,

For He has done excellent things;

This is known in all the earth."

Amen!

Have a blessed and beautiful day my friends!