Thankful Thursday and Friday Foto Friends

I seem to be combining these two days more often these days! I haven't been taking many pictures this week as it has been rather busy, but a few things have gotten my attention and so I thought I would share them with you.  BTW, I've been enjoying reading everyone else's posts this week about your Christmas and also your thoughts and plans for the New Year. I can't believe it's already here...when we were kids did you ever imagine that we would be living to see the year 2023? Wow! Time sure flies when you are  having so much "fun"!  

Speaking of time, this year seems to be a year for calendars! Everyone in the family seems to be getting them...and maybe not just one or two!  I believe this year we may have enough calendars for every room of the house!  But I am not complaining! I LOVE calendars, especially pretty and interesting ones. I want to share one sweet little one I received as a gift from a dear friend:

The 2023 "Heart of the Home" Calendar by Susan Branch.  I love her artistry throughout the pages, with lots of cute quotes and ideas interspersed throughout the months. I can't wait to see what each month will bring.

For January there are some thoughts about "How to write a Diary".  Now, most of us probably don't keep a "diary" of sorts anymore like we did as young girls, where we wrote our innermost secrets and thoughts about cute boys and stuff like that...but for us grown up girls we are kind of writing our diaries right here in our blogs!  Definitely no secrets here...these are open to the whole world, so we need to use discretion about what and how we say things, but I enjoy the fact that we are actually sharing our thoughts with other sympathetic and caring and encouraging friends.  We have a bond that seems to grow day by day as we get to know each other on a more personal level through our writing. 

Many of us may still keep a written journal that is private and personal...I used to before I started blogging so much, but my handwriting is so bad these days that it is difficult for me to do a lot of "real writing", so my computer aided blog posts are really the only journaling I am doing anymore.

The little quote at the bottom of the page above says,  

"Reserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell." 

Louisa May Alcott

Good advice!  I am thankful for this way of reserving our memories. I just need to print them off now and then so they won't be lost when this computer technology is gone (or I am no longer around to share them).

That same dear friend who sent me the little calendar also sent me a bag of whole pecans, straight from her very own pecan trees!  What a delight and blessing that is!

She even included a nutcracker set to crack them with!

My cup overflows with joy and love and thankfulness!

And speaking of pecans, another dear friend from church gave us this lovely jar of "Cranberry Pecan Muffin Mix"!

What a wonderful idea and sweet gift!  I haven't tried them yet, but may do so this weekend. 

So thankful for thoughtful people who are also so creative!!

What a neat gift idea!!

Now here is something I love:   This little picture ornament was created by one of our vendors at Dixie Cottage. I had my eye on it for the past several weeks, wanting to buy it, but also wanting to give other people a chance to buy it first. I have to be careful or I will be bringing home something from there every day!  Anyway, I was surprised that no one purchased this before Christmas, and knowing that this particular vendor would be coming to take home her Christmas items that had not sold soon, I decided to give myself a little gift. It wasn't expensive, and something about this picture just really spoke to me.

When our boys were young and we lived up north, we often went to tree farms and cut our own Christmas trees. It was often quite a long, cold experience, as I had to check out every tree available before making a decision of which one to cut.  The boys would run around and say, "how about this one, Mommy?"  And I would inspect it and look at all sides and so many had bare spots here and there and I would say, "Let's keep looking!".  Hubby was somewhat patient, but after a while his feet were getting numb and the kids were getting tired, and everyone would say, "Just pick a tree so we can go home!" LOL.  By then we usually had looked at every one, and I had to narrow it down to the final choice, and hubby would cut it and we'd happily drag it up to the man to help tie it on our car and away we'd go! And of course the trees were always perfect when we got them home to decorate! (well, maybe not really perfect, but good enough to be beautiful and make us all happy).

Precious memories.

One last photo...the Christmas Cactus that just keeps on reviving every year and putting on its beautiful dress for us to enjoy!  (Click on this link for a little story about this cactus)

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and comments on my last post.  I had mentioned about having some back spasms, etc., and I wanted to tell you that I had an already scheduled Dr. appointment on Tuesday as a follow up to last week's labs.  I told him about my back and shoulder/arm issues, and he prescribed an x-ray for me, which I had on Wednesday. I won't get the results for a little while, unless he calls me when he gets them. He suspects that I have a pinched nerve. Not sure an x-ray will show much, but insurance requires the least expensive kind of tests first before going for the big ones like an MRI or CT Scan, so we will see what develops,  I have a history of slipped discs and spinal issues and surgeries, so we shall see what happens.   Stress causes these things to flare up, and then it just kind of goes downhill from there. Praying it will be an easy fix and no more surgery. It hurts the most during the night, so I'm not sleeping well, but during the day it isn't quite as bad. I told my hubby if I could just learn to sleep standing up I might be okay. LOL.  It's better to stay active and keep moving and not give in to this thing. (sometimes easier said than done).  But I am thankful it isn't something worse. 

Oh, I am still waiting for the Lord to show me what my "One Word" for 2023 is going to be. Time is running out, but I know He will show me on time. I just have to "listen" for His voice.  (I don't want to use the word listen, because I saw someone else had that word already...but then again, it does keep showing up in my thoughts...we'll see what happens...stay tuned).

"My flesh and my heart fail;

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." 

Psalm 73:26