Monday, Monday..."It's Raining, It's Pouring..."

 So today is one of those "Rainy days and Mondays", but I'm not going to let it get me down! We need the rain, and also it is ushering in some cooler temperatures for a few days, which will also be welcome after already hitting 90 degrees this past week!  I want to enjoy some springtime before summer gets here!  But here in North Central Florida we know it's only a matter of time before it will be feeling more like summer than spring all the time for the next 6-7 months. It's the trade-off we have for living here year round instead of up north where you have winter for 6-7 months (or longer) and then a little bit of summer in between a lovely spring and fall.  We have 6-7 months of summer and 5-6 months of kind of like spring and/or fall weather in the winter time. It is what it is, and we are thankful for what we have.  Some of you may have been pretty close to some bad tornadoes last week, and I pray that you and your loved ones all managed to escape any severe weather/damages.  When it comes to weather reports, we all count our blessings when we are spared the severe stuff.

Here's what it looked like out on Still Waters Pond a few minutes ago when I started writing this:

You can just barely see the little island area out there in the middle of the pond where Mrs. Crane is resting peacefully on her nest:

Here's a couple of closeups:

No matter what the weather, she sits there patiently waiting and protecting her two eggs. By my calculations, the two new "Colts" (that's what they call baby Sand Hill Cranes) should be making their debut anytime this week. So I will keep you posted for further developments.

In the past few days the Bluebirds have been busy either building or rebuilding their nest in house #1.

I have been a bit confused by their activities. I honestly thought they had already built a nest in this house, but for some reason they have been working hard on it this past weekend. 

Mama and Daddy both take turns bringing in the twigs and grasses to build the nest.

They get very defensive and scare off all other birds from being anywhere near their nest.

This Godlfinch was taking refuge on this bird feeder for a while, but it wasn't long before they discovered her and drove her away too. 

Like I said, time will tell what develops. I've given up trying to figure out the nesting habits of our Bluebirds.  The other birdhouse appears to have been abandoned, and no babies ever came forth. I haven't looked inside yet to see if there are any eggs in there. The last couple of nesting seasons I ended up having to remove several "dud" eggs from the nests once the birds had been gone a sufficient amount of time to make me believe the nest was abandoned. But I am a little leery of attempting to do that too soon. So I will just keep watching and waiting.

Talking about birds in the nest, etc. reminds me of my own little family "nest".  Our youngest "baby" turns 47 today!  We celebrated his birthday Saturday evening with a steak dinner.

Here's Scott about to bite into his favorite "deviled eggs", so I caught him just in time.

This is my plate...steak, baked potato with sour cream and cheese, broccoli, and a salad. 

Here's the family...Daddy (hubby), Rose, Benton, and Scott licking the frosting off the candles...some things never change, and I hope they don't!

Here he is about to blow out his candles...(or maybe he already did...I don't see the flames! LOL)

Here's the "big blow" photo! It's a family tradition!

Here's Hubby, Benton, Me and Scott...

This was probably his favorite gift: LOL.

But he also liked getting this special headlamp:

Something that he uses every morning on his job at the golf course while it is still dark.

We had a good little family party. Hubby wasn't feeling great, but he was feeling good enough to enjoy the party.  The shingles are still there, but they seem to be under control. The medicine that the Dr. gave him has helped, but it makes him feel pretty blah. He'll be happy when he doesn't have to take it anymore. We are just thankful they have medication that actually helps control the shingles from progressing.  Thankfully he hasn't had a lot of pain, so we truly are grateful to God for that.

So what else is going on ?  Hmmm, well, last week I told you about all of the things that were going wrong...I did get my new computer, and it is working well. I haven't been able to transfer my data yet from the old hard drive because the part I ordered ended up not being what I needed. The description on Amazon did not include some vital information about the compatibility of this particular cord and it turns out it was for an older model computer. So I had to order something different and am still waiting for that. 

The repairman for the ice-maker/water dispenser on our refrigerator came on Friday as planned, and did not have the part he needed to repair it, so it had to be ordered, which will take two weeks to get here, so he will come back then. Thankfully it's not the whole refrigerator that is not working, just the ice maker, and we can live with that...but still, it's another delay.

When Scott went out to grill the steaks for his birthday dinner there was something wrong with a connection from the gas tank to the grill, and it needs a new part!  So we ended up cooking the steaks in the oven.   We will have to look into finding the part we need to repair the grill.

Oh, one more little thing. I have a special nozzle on my kitchen sink faucet that allows you to spray the water in different directions. We had just replaced that a few weeks ago with a new one. Well, that came off and refuses to go back on and stay, so we had to put the old original faucet thingy back on. Just another little aggravation.  Thankfully it wasn't something real expensive, but still...

It seems like when it rains, it pours! But we are thankful that in each problem they are all minor things and nothing life threatening. Even hubby's shingles seems to be much less of a problem than what we feared it would become.  

So we give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness and mercy shown unto us.  

Psalm 136:1-3

1 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.

2 Oh, give thanks to the God of gods!

For His mercy endures forever.

3 Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords!

For His mercy endures forever:

Amen!

Have a lovely week!