Friday Foto Friends

 Happy Friday Morning! "Baby it's cold outside!"   Our early morning temperature was 34, but the "feels like" temperature was 23 F at 6 a.m.  Our high today will only be 55.  That's pretty doggone chilly for us here in north central Florida in the latter part of February! Not unheard of, but still a bit unusual, especially after we were lulled into a false sense of Spring a week ago!  But spring is definitely still in the air, just a bit on the cold side!

Mrs. Sand Hill Crane is all hunkered down on her nest on Still Waters Pond!  I walked around to where I could see her yesterday afternoon, hoping she would stand up long enough for me to see how many eggs she has...

But, alas! My camera memory card decided to announce that it was all full and I couldn't take any more pictures at that time. Thankfully, she didn't stand up so I didn't miss anything. I will have to try again today when it warms up a little bit.  Right now it's 34 degrees and I'm not going out for anything if I don't have to! LOL.  I know...you folks up north think I'm a big sissy! Well, maybe I am, but at least I'm a warm big sissy! LOL.

Yesterday wasn't quite as cold, thankfully, and hubby and I drove about an hour + south through the forest to meet up with his brother Billy and wife Peggy and their son Nicholaus for lunch, and to celebrate a belated hubby's birthday with them. They live about another hour south of that location, so this little favorite restaurant, "The Mason Jar", is a good half way meeting place.

Here's hubby and his brother Billy...it took a couple of pictures to get both of them to look at me... LOL.

Here's my sister in law Peggy and yours truly, with our friend the bear:

And here's Peggy and Nicholaus...who still loves to play this game with me when I want to take his picture.  He has a nice profile, don't you think? LOL.  We love Nick...he's such a good sport and a great young man, who is finishing up his bachelor's degree in Psychology (and something else, I'm not sure exactly).  It's always good to have a psychologist/counselor in our crazy family...LOL.

I took this picture of a picture hanging on the wall in the restaurant lobby.  This place is back in my home territory where I grew up, and this is a picture of the Lake County Sheriff's Department back in the late 1950's.  The man wearing the suit 2nd to the left is Sheriff Willis V. McCall, and those men are his deputies. That picture was taken in front of the county courthouse, and this is significant, because my mother used to work in that office  right behind them. She was a secretary to the Sheriff in the early 60's.  I knew most of those deputies as I used to go to her office after school a lot of the time, and also they became friends with our family.  However, if you look up the Sheriff, you will find that he was rather notorious in the history of Lake County, back during the days of segregation in the south prior to when the Civil Rights Act became the law of the land. Let's just say that my mother had her eyes opened to many unpleasant things when she took that job in that office, but she was an excellent secretary and handled her position very professionally.

It was interesting to see this bit of history from an era long gone now.

Speaking of history,  this is going on in our little town of Interlachen right now.  This old historical building, A.K.A. "The Brush Store", is finally being renovated after a bad fire several years ago.  

These are photos below of how it used to look many years ago, when it was a prosperous little general store and the Post Office.  More recently it was a rental home until the fire.

1943-44

This is how it looked in 1885.  Our church is right down the street, on the right side, but this picture may have been taken even before our church was built in 1887.

 The same building in 1915

I don't know if the people doing the current renovation are going to restore it back to the original, or make it into a house again. Originally the owners of the store lived upstairs.  I would LOVE to see this restored back to the "original", with a store downstairs, but that probably wouldn't be cost effective for them, so we shall see what develops.  I'm just glad they aren't tearing it down as it has so much history.

This is also in our historical downtown:

And, as I mentioned in a previous post, our little town is growing again...we will soon have a Dunkin' Donuts:

I guess you could call that progress? Maybe...maybe not. LOL.

One of my blogging friends, Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden, shares lovely photos of her tea parties and garden and beautiful table settings in her home "tea room".    In her latest post (linked above), she stated that "February Means Time for Violets".  Since I was wanting to put away my red Valentines decor and replace it with something else, her suggestion led me to look for the violet and other spring time tea sets that I have.  So here's what I came up with:

First of all, I just realized that this sweet little basket of flowers on the Susan Branch calendar for February this year is actually a basket of violets, although they are pink and not the traditional "violet" purple color:

This is a miniature tea set that was given to me by a dear friend from our church who was moving away and downsizing.  Isn't it beautiful?

Lily Grace thought so, and wanted to put on something purple to wear instead of her red Valentine's dress...

The other tea sets are gifts from family in the past...all special treasures to me!

Hubby gave me this beautiful little sugar and creamer (see below) from a trip he made to California one time for a Pastor's conference. He was able to take a tour of the Queen Mary ship that is docked there, and he bought these for me and had to carry them in his lap on the plane all the way back home to Ohio (I think that's where we lived at the time).  When he stepped off the plane to greet me, he handed me this little bag with these in it and said, "Here, take these quick before I drop them! I've been holding them for hours on this trip because I didn't want to pack them in my suitcase for fear they would get broken!"  

So they are especially special to me!

This little violet small tea set was a gift from my Mother and Father years ago, so it is also a treasure.  The larger tea cup and saucer, I am not sure where it came from, 

and the cannister behind it was a gift from a friend also.

Oh, and that "The Tea Party Book" was also a gift from one of my dear blogging friends! It has all kinds of fun ideas for tea parties for children and others as well.  And the sweet tea pot on the left was a gift from my sister Doris many years ago.

Since violets seem to be such a special flower, I looked it up to find out if there is any other information that was meaningful about the violet.  Here is a link to a post about Violet Flower Meaning & Symbolism, that certainly had a lot more information than I ever realized about the sweet little violet flower.   I thought this was interesting:

"Victorian Era

In the Victorian era, the “language of flowers” became popular, and violets were a significant part of this tradition. They symbolized modesty, faithfulness, and everlasting love. Violets were often included in bouquets and gifts to convey these sentiments.

The sweet fragrance of violets made them popular in the perfume industry. Violets were used to create perfumes and scented products, contributing to their popularity in Victorian society."

Speaking of everlasting love...

1 John 4:12 NKJV

"12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, 

God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us."

And also speaking of Lily Grace, her little wardrobe has expanded over the past few years, and the original box I had to hold all of her special things has become too small. (the one on the bottom).

I love these boxes that they sell at the Dollar General. They come in so many different colors, styles and sizes, and this one with the bluebirds on it seemed to be the perfect one to hold the extra shoes, hair ribbons, and other little things that little girls accumulate:

Now hopefully we can keep her things more organized and easier to find!  Whew! I never knew little girls could accumulate so much stuff! LOL.  

Speaking of Bluebirds:  Our bluebirds are continuing to visit the birdhouse regularly, but to my knowledge they still haven't built a nest.  One day at a time.  I've already shared this picture before, but my camera was acting up again when I wanted to take a current picture of them a few minutes ago, and so I didn't think you'd mind seeing this one again...

Some words of wisdom from God's Word and others from yesterday's calendar page...

And with that I will close this post for today. Praying you will each have a blessed and faith-filled weekend.