Thursday Thankfulness...And a little bit of Fantasy Land...

 I guess this week is already flying by! With a holiday on Monday it always seems to make the week go faster.  Tuesday we had our quarterly labs in the morning, followed by breakfast at our local Nanna's Country Cafe' (I forgot to take a picture, but you've seen it before), and then that evening our church choir started practice back up after a summer break, so that was fun. Even more fun was that our son Benton decided he wanted to try singing in the choir for the first time ever, so he went with me to choir practice, and he seemed to have a good time.  It will be interesting to see if he decides to stay. He's never done anything musical before and doesn't read music at all, but he has a nice voice and he enjoys singing congregational hymns, etc.  We do a lot of songs that are a bit complicated with a lot of "moving parts", so it will be challenging, but I hope he will stick it out.  

I've always dreamed of having a family quartet someday with my own family, and this gets us a little closer to that dream. Rose does like to sing also, but her work schedule is too erratic at Home Depot and she can't always have Sundays off or even be sure she'll be free to go to choir practice every week, so she's kind of given up on participating in the choir.

Well, I started this post yesterday (Wednesday), and got side tracked and busy with something else, so I thought I'd give it another try this morning, Thursday, and again I got side tracked looking for something and went down another rabbit hole...This old antique cedar wardrobe holds many treasures...

Namely...These containers are full of pretty much my whole life (and of course my family) in pictures, at least up until I got a digital camera and quit developing film and rarely ever print pictures anymore...

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Kind of reminds me of the C.S. Lewis story, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (or maybe it should be "Alice in Wonderland"? by another "Lewis", Lewis Carroll?

I was looking for a particular picture of my father, my sister Doris, my hubby and I singing together in a quartet.  We used to do that somctimes whenever we came home for a visit and attended church at my parents' church. My father sang tenor, my hubby sang bass (or was it the other way around? I'm not sure), my sister sang alto and I sang soprano...or maybe that was reversed too? Over the years I've lost my soprano voice and my sister and I are both altos. We haven't sung together in many years so I don't know how we'd do it now since neither one of us can sing soprano. LOL.  Anyway, I digress...I never did find the picture I was looking for, so I gave up on that idea and wanted to move on to other things, and then this happened:

Okay...I'm trying to post pictures, and Blogger is not cooperating this morning.  Plus I noticed that it had not updated the the feed of all my friends' posts for a couple of days. What is going on? Is anyone else having these problems??? I finally just had to shut down and will come back later...

Here we are several hours later, and finally I am able to post some pictures.

This was my "companion" (The Lion??)  this morning while I was trying to write that above...Perhaps he had something to do with the glitch in the system?  He does tend to walk all over the keyboard and/or lay on top of the mouse so I can't get it without him grabbing my hand...

 It seems that Blackie is always finding ways to keep me from doing my work...like yesterday afternoon, (see below) I was trying to type the minutes from our church board meeting. (I'm the board secretary). The meeting was last week, and I wanted to get them finished before another week went by and I got too busy and forgot...

He is literally laying on top of the notebook where my handwritten notes are:

I finally had to tilt the notebook to an angle so that he had to slide off and onto the floor. Otherwise I would never have gotten them done.  He's such a rascal!  You'd think he never gets any attention at all, but you would be wrong! Trust me, he gets plenty of attention!  When I say it's like having a toddler around, I'm not kidding! LOL.

Here he is watching the world go by outside the window in "My Room With a View"...

So anyway, I'm now trying to climb back out of that rabbit hole or back through the wardrobe, take your pick...they both involve children stepping through something (the wardrobe or the rabbit hole) and ending up in a fantasy land. Sometimes life feels like that, doesn't it? Especially if you watch too much news...but let's don't go there, okay?

I prefer to stay in fantasy land for a while longer...LOL.  I decided to get busy and start doing a little bit of fall decorating...

It's time to bring out the fall dishes and little pumpkins and owls and all things orange and brown and olive green instead of the summer pinks and yellows and blues...

It's time to give thanks and prepare our hearts  and minds for acknowledging all of our many blessings, which we do year round, but it seems we tend to be more deliberately thankful during these autumn days...as we gather with friends and family and enjoy the change of the seasons and hopefully some cooler air (somewhere! Not here yet!)

Perhaps it's time for that tea party! I wonder where Alice is? Somewhere in wonderland, I'm sure...

She may be in search of the Great Pumpkin...apparently they are  that way  🠊

There's no rabbit, but I do see some squirrels dressed up for fall, along with a ghost, a pumpkin, and of course a black cat!

OH, HERE's the Pumpkin Patch!!

Lots of interesting choices here...

Oh! I see some of our special friends from Pamela's Victorian Cottage are visiting the Pumpkin Patch! Perhaps one of them is Alice...

I believe they are contemplating how on earth they could get that huge pumpkin back home! I do believe I see someone wearing a "mad hat". LOL.  

This story may have to be continued later while we figure out the logistics of this conundrum...

Meanwhile, Lily Grace and her friends have already visited the Pumpkin Patch and picked out some little pumpkins...perhaps they are planning to bake a pumpkin pie or some pumpkin muffins to have with tea for a tea party!

Lily Grace has been busy back at school these days...she just wanted to pop in and say hello to everyone.  Her dog Bailey says hello too! 

Wow! While I was trying to finish this crazy post with all of it's rabbit trails, we were blessed with an unexpected rain shower!  So of course I had to drop what I was doing and go out on the back porch and take pictures and listen to the rain...

 Can you see the water puddle forming out there on Still Waters Pond?  Hooray!!

If you'd like to listen to the rain hitting on our porch tin roof, here you go!

And all the while, the skies above looked like this!  I know that somewhere there must be a rainbow out there, but I couldn't find it.  Oh my! Another story in fantasy land...the Wizard of Oz...made me think of the song  "Somewhere over the Rainbow"

Don't you just love this song?

Well, dear friends, it's time to bring this little fantasy to an end...and get back to work. I just heard hubby say something about supper...

Just a thought for us from God's Word, for when we are feeling like we are lost in fantasy land or like Alice in Wonderland...

Deuteronomy 4:29
"29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul."

(and you don't even need to have ruby slippers to find Him!!)

Have a wonderful rest of your day...and let's all count our blessings...

I know tomorrow is a special day of remembrance. I will be back to talk about that tomorrow.