Monday Monday

Good Morning! Not much new to share today, but thought you'd want to know that the Sand Hill Crane Family came back by for a visit.  "Colt" (on the right below) is getting almost as big as his mother. I don't know where they've been the past week...maybe they took a "Spring Break" vacation to show "Colt" the sights around town. But anyway they came back and stepped right back into their routine where they left off.

Mrs. Bluebird stuck her head out of her house to see what was going on in her yard this time. 

Between the turtles laying eggs and the Sand Hill Cranes trampling through the garden, I think she's beginning to think that "Still Waters Pond" isn't so still after all!

The cranes were happy to take a bath and find some good juicy snacks in the water.

And then they wandered on around to other places to eat and eventually back out to the island to sleep for the night.  I'm glad they are back. I was missing their daily activities.

Oh, and speaking of the butterfly garden...here's a picture of the first "butterfly" to visit the garden that I've seen.  This is a Common Checkered Skipper.  He may not be the most beautiful butterfly in God's kingdom, but he's cute, and he seems to like the flowers, so that makes me happy.

Speaking of things that make me happy, our church has a breakfast every 3rd Saturday and every 5th Saturday.  It is open to the public and is a way to reach out to the community and welcome them to our church.

So we went on Saturday morning and enjoyed a great breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage...or you could have biscuits and sausage gravy, grits, eggs any way you want them, french toast or regular toast. You can pick and choose what you want, or you can have some of each. It's a great deal/meal for $6.00! Includes coffee, tea, and/or juice.

Y'all come!

Speaking of church, here's our service from yesterday.

The choir was singing an old hymn favorite,

"Great Is Thy Faithfulness"

and the Pastor preached from I Corinthians 12:12-30, entitled "Ouch, That Hurts!", a message about the Body of Christ, and when one part of the body hurts, so does the rest of the body...and how much we need each other.  Great message.

"Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father;

There is no shadow of turning with thee.

Thou changest not; Thy compassions, they fail not.

As thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest

Sun, moon and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth

Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!"

We love our little church family. It's a wonderful place to worship God and grow in His Word. We have a wonderful pastor, and his wife is our music/worship leader.  For such a small church, we have a lot of outreach ministries that we support in our community and beyond. And now my hubby is serving as the teacher of the Adult Sunday School class as well as a Men's Bible Fellowship on Monday mornings. I am so happy that he is able to continue using his gifts of teaching God's Word even though he is retired. It's been really good for him.

Another thing we enjoy is going out to lunch after church with a group of church friends. We never know exactly who all will join us as it might change from week to week.  Lately we've been meeting at this little country cafe' in town called Nanna's Country Cafe'.  It's good country cooking...nothing fancy, but most weeks we have a reserved big table where we can squeeze in as many as possible.  I think I counted 13 people from our church there yesterday, but we couldn't all fit at the same table. Even so, it was just great having that added time of fellowship after church with sweet people. To me it's like the icing on the cake after a good church service!

One of the joys of living in a small town. We don't have a lot of places to choose from to go eat, but this place has been the most accommodating for our groups each week, so they win the prize!

Then we went home and took a nap. LOL.  But later our "kids" came over for supper and brought homemade egg rolls. I wish I had taken some pictures of them. Rose really knows how to cook them. They were SO good!  They were a meal in themselves, but I also cooked up an egg omelette with spinach and cheese and sausage in them and that made for a great supper! It was fun to have our kids over. We don't get to see them as much it seems these days because their business keeps them so busy. Happy for them that they are going to take a little vacation this coming weekend up to the mountains of Georgia.  They said we could go too if we wanted to, but even though we would love to do so, we really feel like they need a vacation without the parents along this time.  It was sweet of them to ask, but I think they were probably just as relieved that we said no.  LOL.

Well, I guess that's all for today. Here's a good thought/verse for the day:

Ephesians 4:1-3

1. "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, 

beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 

2. with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3. endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Amen.