Monday Monday! Praise The Lord!

It's Monday morning, and a beautiful day so far!  I was just outside walking around and watering my plants, and I could hear the birds singing in the treetops so sweetly!  I love how they always lift up their voices in praise to their Creator every morning! It's truly a wonderful sound!! 

I don't have any new bird pictures to go along with this, but I will just post the pictures that I did take while I was outside...

All Creatures of Our God and King

(St. Francis of Assisi originated this song in 1225)

1. All creatures of our God and King,

Lift up your voice and with us sing

Alleluia, alleluia!

Thou burning sun with golden beam,

Thou silver moon with softer gleam,

O praise him, O praise him,

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Our small bottlebrush bush finally blooming after about 4 years of watching it grow!

The Zucchini and Yellow Squash plants are growing, but I think they need some fertilizer. I thought the potting soil we bought had some in it, but apparently not much.  But still, they are growing. I have to water them every day.

The "Beefsteak" tomato plants are growing also...

2. Thou rushing winds that art so strong,

Ye clouds that sail in Heav'n along,

O praise him, alleluia!

Thou rising morn, in praise rejoice,

Ye lights of evening, find a voice.

O praise him, O praise him,

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

It's a sunny, breezy beautiful day! God Bless America!!

3. And all ye saints of tender heart,

Forgiving others, take your part,

O sing ye, alleluia!

Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,

Praise God and on him cast your care:

O praise him, O praise him,

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Blackie and I enjoyed some "Secret Memorial Garden" Bench time together. It was so pleasant this morning.

This picture was taken earlier this morning...Even though I put my purse on that chair to keep him from getting on it, he got up there anyway.  He definitely has a mind of his own, but I keep trying to teach him. Not long after this picture was taken he woke up and was sweetly "removed" to another location.

4. Let all things their creator bless,

And worship him in humbleness,

O praise him, alleluia!

Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,

And praise the Spirit, Three in One:

O praise him, O praise him,

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

This rose was blooming in the garden, but it needed to come inside where we could enjoy it. It will last much longer in here, and I love to "stop and smell the roses" every time I pass by.

Another thing to praise God about: The Blueberry Farm is open and they have beautiful lucious blueberries!  This was our first batch. I will go back and get more to freeze, but I wanted to enjoy these while they are fresh picked right from the farm...

And so we had homemade Blueberry Muffins this morning:

Along with some scrambled eggs and cantaloupe:

I went outside and checked on my blueberry bush that I've had for a few years, and it is really loaded with berries too! I really wonder about this drought we are in...and the cold winter we had...some things are actually growing better. Of course, I do water them almost every day...

This is the whole bush. It is loaded with berries that are still ripening! What fun!

Now I have another story to tell you that is really strange... The other day our AC started not cooling properly...Yes, we've had days warm enough to need the AC already. This is Florida.  We've often needed AC on Christmas day!  Anyway, it was actually Easter Sunday, after everyone had left after a lovely afternoon, and I noticed that our thermostat was registering a temperature that was several degrees higher than it should be.  So I sent a text message to our AC repairman asking him to call us in the morning, which he did.  He came over Monday morning to check it out, and couldn't quite figure out what was going on with it, and said he would have to come back later in the week when he had more time to take it apart and look it over really well. Thankfully it is still under warranty, but he did remind us that we would have to pay the labor charges.  We understood that, but we were concerned about  him having to "take it apart" and needing more time to figure it out...but he assured us he would be fair. He's a good man and is always fair, so we weren't too worried.

So you may wonder what this towel is.  Well, on the day that he came back and took apart the the unit, he found this towel in the bottom of the outside air handler...

Yes, down inside this unit:

That was pretty astounding.  He said that somehow it had been sucked through the ductwork into the outside unit! What????? How could that happen?  He said he's seen some pretty strange things before in AC units, but this was pretty unusual.  After I thought about it, I remembered a day when I was changing the filter on the AC unit inside, and I had a little "accident".  This shelf unit below sits beside the cold air return/filter...

Do you see what is on those shelves? Yes, Towels. Those are mostly old towels that our son uses when he comes home and is dirty from mowing or working on his car, or we use them for dirty clean up jobs, etc.   Do you also see that gallon of bleach on top of the shelf? Well, here's the story that I figured out must've happened  to somehow get that towel inside the ductwork:

One day I was going to change the AC Filter. In order to do that I have to pull that shelf unit out away from it so I can open up the grill in front of the filter.  On that particular day I was in a hurry I guess, and I neglected to remove the gallon of bleach from the top of the shelf (along with the other items up there) before I tried to move the shelf.  When I did that, the shelf shifted in my hands and the gallon of bleach fell to the ground and burst open, splashing bleach all over me and everything around it. Thankfully this is the laundry room and there was nothing of any great value that could be harmed, but it just made a huge mess as you can imagine. I was grabbing those towels and mopping up the bleach (you should see the outfit I was wearing...talk about a tie-dye look with unusual bleach splash patterns all over me. Thankfully I was wearing my old house clothes...nothing good!)  Anyway, apparently I had already opened the grill over the filter and big cold air return duct before this happened...I don't totally remember all the details because it was such a big mess! But apparently one of those dry towels fell into the open duct, and it was eventually sucked all the way through to the AC unit outside.  This happened over a year ago, and so it took that long to travel!  There are some small bleach stains on the towel, so that was my clue as to what must've happened!

Anyway...thankfully it didn't do any permanent  harm to the AC unit, and once it was removed everything started working properly again. And thankfully all we owed was a service call amount, which wasn't too bad all things considered! Whew!!! Praise God it didn't do damage to the unit, because that most likely would NOT have been covered by the warranty!!  

UPDATE:  Someone reminded me that I may have blogged about the bleach spill before, so I looked it up and sure enough, HERE IT IS!  Thank you, Martha Jane Orlando of Meditations of My Heart, for having a good memory!!

So now we are nice and cool as a cucumber and thanking God for His mercy! And I will be more patient when changing the filter from now on for sure!!!!!

Psalm 150 NKJV

Let All Things Praise the Lord

1 Praise the Lord!

Praise God in His sanctuary;

Praise Him in His mighty firmament!

2 Praise Him for His mighty acts;

Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!

3 Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;

Praise Him with the lute and harp!

4 Praise Him with the timbrel and dance;

Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!

5 Praise Him with loud cymbals;

Praise Him with clashing cymbals!

6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!

Fanning Away

Well, it happened again! The AC broke down last night, but this time it is a different problem. The good news is, help is on the way! If you live in our area, I highly recommend "Frosty's" for AC repair. Once you are an established customer, they will do their best to take care of you no matter when...including weekends! 

(Pulling out all the fans...this woven palm fan is ancient!  It could be more than 60  years old at least. It came with the buffet from John's grandmother's house, tucked in one of the drawers.  No telling how many years it was in there, but it still works just fine!)

So, as I sit here "fanning away", I am very thankful that God has placed these special people in our midst.  We learned about them through our church, as they take care of the church AC.

This lovely fan was a gift from one of our sweet blogging friends, the same sweet friend who sent Lily Grace to me, all the way from Charleston, SC.  Thank you, dear "Auntie Debbi", from "Debbi's Front Porch".  It would be nice to have a cool front porch to sit upon today, but alas! It is just as hot and humid outside as it is inside. 

I've had this oriental fan and ginger jar forever. May have to break it out as well...

Thankful for our ceiling fans, which are running full blast...

And other standing fans:

This one is in my "Room With a View",  humming away and keeping me somewhat cool, but with the high humidity, I am still in a bit of a sweat...

Here's the view from my window. But it's too hot and humid to open the window...at least it is a cloudy day, with rain promised later on...

Thankfully we do have ceiling fans on the back porch too.  The other day we noticed that a family of wasps had taken  up residence inside this fan. When we turned it on, wasps flew every direction! So there was no sitting out there at that time.  We waited until early morning before sunrise and sprayed it good with that long distance wasp sprayer, and by the time the sun came up we had dead wasps laying everywhere under the fan.  Sorry, wasps...you picked the wrong place to set up housekeeping this time!

Here are the "Porch Rules"...and if I could "Feel the Breezes" I would take a nap out there and then read a book, converse with a friend, listen to (and watch) the birds, sip a cool drink and just RELAX! But there is NO breeze to feel on this sultry early summer day here in north central Florida.

Ahhh!! But I have some GREAT NEWS!!! While I've been sitting here typing this post, our friend Frosty came and found the problem and FIXED IT!! It was some kind of capacitor...and he only charged us for the service call since he'd been here recently two times for a different problem.  We are all hoping and praying that we can keep this almost 20 year old air conditioner running a while longer.  A new one would definitely break our piggy bank and then some!!!!

So now I am beginning to feel cooler air blowing on my back  and neck while I sit here writing. 

The humidity is starting to give way to dry cool air, and I can breathe again...

Praise God!

Now tonight I might be able to sleep well and enjoy my new 

"My Pillow', which arrived yesterday afternoon. I did use it last night, and I must admit I woke up without any neck pain!  The rest of my body was a wreck from tossing and turning in the heat and humidity, but my neck felt great, and still does! So praise God again for an answered prayer! 

I believe I will definitely sleep in peace and comfort tonight...

(from the Devotional book, "Choose Grace")

"I will both lie down in peace, and sleep;

For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

Psalm 4:8 NKJV

And now I can put away my fans and stop "fanning away".

So thankful they were here when I needed them most, however!

God is good!

 

Blessings and Praises!

Mother's Day Lilies in the Secret Garden

I trust that you all had a blessed and beautiful Mother's Day yesterday!  I realize for some that Mother's Day can be a difficult day.  I totally understand that as I have had my own share of sorrows regarding motherhood, but without lingering there, I am thankful to have learned to enjoy the day because of what God has done for me...for the blessings I do have, and not dwell on the sorrows of that which I do not have. I am very thankful that He has helped me greatly in that regard.  And so now I would like to share with you some of the blessings and praises of the past 24 hours!

Our family had decided to have a cookout here at our house in the evening since our daughter in love had to work all day and by the time she got off we knew finding a decent restaurant would be difficult on Mother's Day.  So our son Scott grilled the chicken, and I kept it simple by boiling corn on the cob and making a salad and some red potatoes and deviled eggs.   Around 4:00 p.m. we noticed that the house was suddenly feeling very warm.  It was 90 degrees  and very humid outside and rising to 85 degrees inside very rapidly.  The central air unit was definitely malfunctioning. Of course, on a Sunday there is no one to call.  So we just had to turn off the AC and turn on every fan we could find.  Wouldn't help to open the windows, that's for sure!  But we didn't want to cancel our dinner, so we just all sweated together and kept the fans blowing!

First thing this morning we called AC repairman. He said he'd be over around 1:00 p.m., and to their credit, they were here right on time!  After checking things out, he determined it was NOT the AC unit itself, but the thermostat!  Praise God! A new AC unit would have cost $5,000.00!  The thermostat was only $225.00, labor included! So here is the new one...just installed, and the temperature is going down, down, down as we speak....81 is much better than 88, where it was earlier! What a blessing and answer to prayer!

You would have to live in Florida to fully appreciate what a miracle and blessing this is!!

So, let's see, what other good things happened?  Well, if you are a Facebook friend you've most likely already seen my pictures that I posted last night.  Some of them may need more clarification as to their significance.  Like this video:

And these pictures:

Here is a link to a previous post of when I first got these pillowcases from my mother-in-law's home.

I thought I had written about the fact that when we moved here in August of 2019, I could not find these pillowcases anywhere. But I can't find any post about that, so it must have been on Facebook that I talked about it.  I thought I had packed them with the other bed linens that I took off the bed in the guest room before we moved. I really thought I had taken the cases off of the pillows, and put them either in a dresser drawer, or in a bag with the other linens.  But after much careful (more like obsessive) searching and re-searching, taking out dresser drawers, emptying their contents, going through boxes and bags and anything remotely possible, they were nowhere to be found. My worst fear was that somehow they had gotten left in a bag that went out with the trash.

I had asked our son if they could've been mixed in with any of his things in his room or closet, but he hadn't seen them. I asked our other son and his wife if they were mixed in with some things I had given them for yard sales back when we were moving, but they had not seen them.  So after racking my brain over this issue for almost two years, I had finally given up hope of ever seeing these lovely vintage pillow cases ever again!  Until yesterday, when my son Scott presented me with a large TV box saying he got me a new TV. I knew that couldn't be true, but what on earth could be in that box?  So, if you watched the video and my reaction to finding these pillows and pillowcases in that box, which had been "buried" in his closet in a black trash bag that he thought had some old clothes or something else in it and had not looked inside all this time, you will maybe understand why I was so thrilled almost to tears to finally have this mystery solved!

And now they are back where they belong in the guest room:

(In case you missed it the other day, Lily Grace had a fun post from the guest room HERE.

Just wondering, does anyone else ever get obsessed over not being able to find something that was special?  These may not seem all that valuable to you, but to me they were a link to our family's past and they had brought a smile to our faces when we saw them...and that made them valuable.

Kind of reminds me of this story in the Bible:

Luke 15:8-10

The Parable of the Lost Coin

8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’ 10 Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

In addition to the hilarity of finding the lost pillowcases, I did get some other nice things from the rest of the family:

The best gift was just being together...

Benton and Rose gave me these sweet gifts...

This beautiful pitcher and bowl is something that came from their store, Dixie Cottage. (Sorry, one of a kind...there aren't any more of them!)

Now the guest room really is ready!  If the bathroom is in use, you can always "bathe" in your room!

And this wonderful framed plaque from my sweet daughter in love Rose really touched my heart:

Since Rose's own dear mother passed away not too long after Benton and Rose were married, I have felt quite honored and blessed to be her "other mother". 

After supper and before it got dark, Scott got up on the roof to clean out the gutters, as they were full of the oak leaves from the big live oaks in our front yard.   

He disrupted this poor frog from his sleeping quarters! I believe this is the same frog I accidentally grabbed onto when I was opening the porch umbrella one morning. I don't know who jumped higher or screamed louder...me or this frog!  I'm glad to see he is still jumping around! 

So all's well that ends well. We are finally cooled down to a lovely 76 degrees and we should be able to sleep cool and peacefully tonight!

I know that I am truly blessed, and I give thanks and praise to the Lord for all His blessings.

Oh, in case you missed a good Mother's Day message yesterday, here is our pastor's message on Proverbs 31...and a song by the choir entitled

"My Mother's Bible".

Have a wonderful week my friends!

How We Survived the Summer BEFORE AC! Updated

UPDATE:  I just thought about this post when I saw one of my friends' posts about being thankful for air conditioning...and this is what I wrote about this subject almost exactly five years ago today! This will be my "Thankful Thursday" post this week. I am STILL very thankful for AC, along with all the happy memories this invoked from my childhood summer vacations...


Original Post 6/30/2012:
I started writing a response on Facebook to my husband's cousin, who asked the question, "How did people live here 100 years ago?"...speaking of the 97 degree temperatures here in Florida today.  He is originally from New Jersey, and has not had to endure too many hot summers in Florida before I take it.  Although, Florida is probably much cooler today than most of our northern and midwestern states!   Anyway, as I started responding to his question on Facebook, I realized that I was writing much too long of a response for the comment space, and decided I should switch it to my blog instead.  I will make sure that cousin John gets a copy of this response! 

So here goes:

Although I didn't live here in Florida 100 years ago, I did live here prior to AC, and it was HOT. But we didn't know what AC was, so we just adapted. We had fans, and windows that opened wide, and  mildewed shoes from the humidity. We dressed accordingly...for kids that was easy, shorts and halter tops and flip flops.  We played outside all day and cooled down with a water hose...drank from it too, and didn't die from it. We went swimming in the lakes and local springs as often as possible, and didn't get eaten by alligators or bitten by snakes. We built forts in the woods and ran barefoot most of the time.    We didn't have AC at school either, but we still survived and learned a lot of reading, writing and 'rithmetic. (sometimes to the tune of the "hickory stick"...or the teacher's ruler in my case).  We did not stay indoors and play with video games or watch tv all day.  That was forbidden! (didn't have video games, and TV wasn't that sophisticated yet). 

One of our campsites in the Smokey Mountains

Eating lunch at a roadside park on our vacation
(I took this picture, so I wasn't in it. )

Our cars didn't have AC either, but we took vacation trips to the mountains to "cool off" and slept in tents on air mattresses that we had to blow up by mouth! 

We cooked our food on a campfire or a Coleman stove, and swatted mosquitoes and watched out for bears.   We didn't have McDonalds, Burger King, or Wendy's, so we stopped at roadside parks and ate picnic lunches while traveling along the winding mountain roads.  My mother could create the most delicious meals out of a cooler and with that Coleman stove. After eating our lunch we would often wade in a nearby mountain stream or creek, and look for interesting river rocks and stones to add to our rock collection.  Finding places for all of our "souvenirs" in the car was sometimes a bit tricky, especially since there were six people crammed into a rather small car, but somehow we managed to bring our treasures home with us. 

To this day I really don't know how all six of us managed to travel in those vehicles without air conditioning through the hottest months of the year, but we did it. We rode with the windows open and the wind blowing in our faces and our hair, and sometimes we even stuck our feet up in the window to cool them off!   We played all kinds of road games to pass the time, like the "Alphabet Game", the Horse Game, where you counted horses on your side of the road, and got extra points for a horse farm, and lost your horses if there was a cemetery that the opposite side of the car team noticed on your side of the road before you could call your horses safe.  We also ate homemade cookies that my mother had baked prior to the trip, and drank water from a thermos.  I was the youngest, and also the one most prone to car-sickness in the mountains, so there were frequent emergency stops along the side of the road for me to "lose my cookies".   Yuck.

On one most memorable trip we had stopped along the way and purchased a watermelon to eat later with our picnic lunch.  We were hauling a small trailer on the back of our car with our camping gear and luggage. inside. It was mostly empty as we had planned to pick up some of our furniture that was being stored at my uncle's farm in Pennsylvania from our former home and take it back to Florida with us.  So my dad put the watermelon in the trailer with the tents and luggage.  Apparently it did not occur to him that the watermelon would do a lot of rolling around in the mostly empty trailer as we traveled over hill and dale through the mountains.  When we stopped for lunch and opened the trailer to take out the watermelon for lunch, to our horror we discovered that the watermelon had broken open and had smashed itself all over our camping gear and our clothes!  You can imagine what  a sticky icky mess that was! Fortunately, we were near Columbia, S.C., and my father remembered that the parents of one of his old college buddies lived in that area.  He went to a pay phone (no cell phones back then either), and looked up their name and number in the phonebook, and gave them a call.  He told them who he was and about our dilemma, and these dear sweet people insisted that he bring us all right over to their home and they would take care of us!  And take care of us they did!  Talk about "Good Samaritans"!  Not only did they take us in and wash our clothes and feed us, but they put us up for the night, and when we were ready to leave the next morning (after a huge southern style breakfast) they packed a cooler of food for us to take along for the day...fried chicken and all the trimmings!  Can you imagine that?  These people did not even know my Dad personally, but because he was a friend of their son from college (quite a few years prior), that was good enough for them.  They went above and beyond the call of duty and cared for us so kindly...I've never ever forgotten that!  I would hope that I would do the same if the situation ever arose...but I fear I've possibly missed some good opportunities to be such a "Good Samaritan" already.  (See the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37)

The Trolley Car DOWN the mountain from Ghost Mountain
in the Sky...quite a trip!

I guess I have "traveled" a bit away from the original subject of living in Florida prior to AC, but I think you get the picture.  It was such an idyllic time in our lives...I can think of no happier childhood than what I had, living here in Florida before AC.  I feel sorry for kids today who don't know the joy of playing outside all summer long, using their imaginations and playing in the sprinklers to keep cool or going to the local lakes or springs for a day of fun and swimming. We were especially blessed in that we were able to take camping trips up through the mountains...what we didn't realize at the time was that that was the only way our family could afford to travel to go visit our grandparents up north.  We could not have afforded to stay in motels and eat at restaurants the way people do today. And we didn't get to go to all the expensive "theme parks", although we DID have a fun time one summer at "Ghost Mountain in the Sky" in Maggie Valley, NC, I recall.  That was the closest thing to a "theme park" we had back then I guess. 

The chair lift UP to Ghost Mountain in the Sky,
Maggie Valley, NC

I have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane today. It kind of helped to "cool things off" a bit for me, how about you?

Truly, after watching the national news tonight, I am very sorry to see all of the severe hot weather around our nation, in addition to the extremely volatile forest fires out west.  I am particularly concerned about that because my youngest son Scott happens to be out there in Colorado right now.  He assures me that he is safe and on the opposite side of the city from the biggest fire right now...but I still worry.  I will be a very happy mother when I see him step off of that plane next week as he returns home.  Although his trip to seek work out there was unsuccessful, if he is able to escape this firestorm unscathed, that will be a huge success to me.  God will take care of the rest once he is safely back home, I am certain.

So, cousin John, yes, we did survive life here in Florida pre-AC, as our ancestors before us survived much greater hardships than high temperatures in the preceding century.  I fear that each generation gets a little bit softer and less resilient to the hardships of life because we just don't have to endure much discomfort anymore.  I wonder how future generations will survive when life gets really tough on planet earth in the years to come? I don't know, but I don't plan to be here that long!  I got a mansion just over the hilltop, where the temperature is always perfect, and we never to need to worry about AC, heat, freezes,  fires, or floods ever again! Woohoo!  That will be a wonderful day! Amen?  In the meantime, keep cool, my friends.