Finally Back!

 Dear Friends in Blogland and beyond! 

It's been a long week since my desktop computer crashed!  But thankfully, that waiting is finally over and my new computer arrived today.  Let me explain...what I now have is a refurbished Dell desktop computer that I ordered via Walmart online, and it only cost around $70.00. It came fully equipped with Windows 10, which is what I had before and what I wanted to keep so I didn't have to learn a new program on top of adjusting to a different computer.  My last computer was also a Dell refurbished computer, purchased the same way, and it lasted quite a few years. So I feel pretty confident that this was a good plan, and we will trust that it will last for a good long time!  Now I am waiting for a little $10.00 piece of equipment to arrive via Amazon tomorrow that will enable me to transfer my files from my hard drive from the old computer to the new one. I have already removed the hard drive from the old computer, and I am trusting it was not corrupted when the computer crashed and that my files are still intact. We shall see what develops!   Thankfully I have saved a lot of my pictures and important files to flash drives, but I had not done a backup recently and so I know there are many files that I want to make sure I can save.  

One thing that will be different for me is my Picasa Photo editing program is no longer available, and I do not have it on a CD so I cannot load it onto my computer.  So I am experimenting with what comes with the computer programming online. So far I am not too impressed, but I'll keep working on it.

Here's a few pictures I took yesterday at our monthly "Women in Faith" fellowship...Since both St. Patrick's Day and Easter are during this month, the decorations covered both special days.  We had a great time of fellowship and prayer for one another, and a delicious lasagna luncheon provided by the ladies. Different ladies take turns each month in preparing the lunch, and we always have something good! There were about 22 ladies present, which was great for a regular meeting month.  Our bigger events are in May, when we have our "May Fellowship" and invite ladies from all of the local churches to join us for a luncheon and a nice program/guest speaker,  and at Christmas, when we have our Christmas potluck fellowship.    

We are now called "Women in Faith", since our church no longer belongs to the United Methodist Church, where we were known as "United Methodist Women". We now belong to the Global Methodist Church, which is the conservative new denomination recently created for churches wishing to leave the United Methodist denomination. As of yet I don't believe there is an organized women's group for the Global Methodist Church, so each church has developed its own group and we wanted to be known as "Women in Faith".  

 A funny thing happened yesterday.  At our last month's meeting one of the ladies said she was going to order some new bags for each of us, and she passed around the catalog and told us to choose the one we wanted.  I thought she meant for each of us to pick the one we wanted in particular, so I chose this one:

Those of you who know me will know why I wanted this particular bag. My "One Word" for 2024 is "Strength", and so I thought this would be perfect.  Well, much to my embarrassment yesterday when she gave everyone a new bag, everyone else received bags that were all alike, which said "Women of Faith", except for me. I got this one, because I was the only one who thought we were supposed to pick out the bag we wanted.  What she had meant was did everyone like the bag she had chosen for our group, which is what everyone else got.(I just found this picture online of the bag everyone else received):

Everyone had a good laugh at me for being the only one different from everyone else. She did have another bag like this to give me, but I told her to save it for someone else who may not have been there yesterday and would still want a bag. It was funny and I guess I need to learn to listen (my one word for last year!) better to instructions from now on! LOL.

Lest you think I've moved away from Still Waters Pond, here are a few pictures I've taken this past week of the birds:

The Goldfinches are still coming around for seeds. Not sure when they will head north, but we are enjoying them in the meantime.

The Bluebirds still come and go also, but we aren't sure what exactly is going on as it doesn't appear that there are any new babies in the nest yet, and it seems like they are way overdue. So I'm just watching and waiting to see what develops.

Mr. Cardinal stopped by for a visit.

And Mrs. Sand Hill Crane still comes up for her daily break away from the nest to get a snack before returning to her place of waiting. I figure the new "colts" should be cracking open their eggs sometime late next week.

These Great White Egrets came by to visit Mrs. Crane while she was on the nest yesterday morning:

They danced and pranced and flew around as if they were entertaining her so she wouldn't get bored.  I'm sorry the pictures aren't more clear, but it was till early morning and low light.

So what else has been happening you say?  Oh my, when it rains it pours! Not in the literal rain sense, but in the happening of events.  Not long after my computer crashed, the water dispenser and ice maker on our refrigerator basically stopped producing any water or ice. I thought perhaps it was time to replace the water filter, so I ordered one online. It came in a couple of days, and so we installed it, but the problem with barely a trickle of water continued.  Thankfully, this time when we purchased this refrigerator almost 4 years ago we also purchased an extended warranty! It is good for 60 months, so we are still within the time frame to be covered. I called the company and they are sending out a repairman tomorrow to repair the issue (hopefully!).  No fees for parts or labor! Hooray!! That was good news!!!

The other item we ordered was a replacement part for our generator. We couldn't get it to work last summer during hurricane season, so with that dreaded season coming soon we thought we'd better get it fixed and ready to work in case we need it.  So I ordered the right part. We had some fellas from church coming today to repair it with the new part, however, the part we received was not the correct part. At first it appeared to "others" that I must have made a mistake in ordering the wrong part, but when I looked it back up, I had ordered the correct part, but they sent me the wrong part! So now we must send that part back and they will send us the correct part (hopefully) soon. I'm just thankful to know that it wasn't my fault!  

Also, keep in mind that all these things I had to order happened after the computer crashed, so I had to do everything on my cellphone! I am amazed at all you can do with cellphones! I even figured out how to write a blog, but commenting on other's blogs is not always as easy, as it wants to go to "anonymous", and there are too many steps involved to change it, so I have gotten way behind in reading and commenting on your posts. Plus, I just don't like reading such small print and trying to type on the cell phone with any decent comments! LOL.  So I will try to get caught up with you all in the next few days as I am able. Please bear with me!

One more thing...Last night hubby kept mentioning that he had pain in the top of his head and down around the left side of his face and cheek and neck and his left eye kept wanting to close. Also he had a swollen gland in his neck. We thought maybe he had a sinus infection working on him. But this morning a small rash of blisters appeared on his cheek, and we both said "shingles!"  So thankfully we were able to get into the doctor this morning, and he agreed that he thought it was shingles, but that he also could have some sinus infection as well. So he is now on several medications for all of the above.  Praying that we got it in time before it really had a chance to take hold on him, as anyone who has had shingles knows it is very painful. And no, we haven't had the vaccine. The Dr. said for him to wait 3 months to get it now, but I need to go ahead and get it soon. So I will.  Thankfully he said it is not contagious. So we are thankful he was able to get right into the doctor right away.

Well, I think I will close with this photo of the sunset last night.  Our kids were here for supper and Rose and I went out on the back porch for a while and enjoyed the sunset until the mosquitoes started biting and we had to go back inside! Yes! It's that season already!!

And here are some good verses to close out our day, after a week of expectation, waiting, some frustration, but much thankfulness to God for all of His wonderful blessing and kindness shown unto us. Our problems are so minor compared to so many in the world today. I am very thankful indeed.

Psalm 62:5-8

My soul, wait silently for God alone,

For my expectation is from Him.

6 He only is my rock and my salvation;

He is my defense;

I shall not be moved.

7 In God is my salvation and my glory;

The rock of my strength,

And my refuge, is in God.

8 Trust in Him at all times, you people;

Pour out your heart before Him;

God is a refuge for us. Selah

Amen, and Good night!

It's so good to be back!