Thursday Thankfulness

You know, when people go the extra mile to send you some cheer when you've been feeling bad, I call that God's amazing grace shining through His people. One of our dear blogging sisters, who shall remain unnamed but she knows who she is, blessed my heart with a lovely card in the mail today. Thank you, dear friend! It made my day. It also made me wish I could be more like her...sometimes I think about doing that extra special nice thing, and then I get side tracked and forget until it's too late. I pray that God will help me to be more thoughtful...and I thank God for those who already are. What a blessing!

And I thank the Lord that I am starting to feel much better, both with my shoulder/arm, (thanks to the steroid shots and also the Lord's kindness) and also the laryngitis and sinusitis/coughing is gradually returning to normal. I still can't sing, but I am praying that I will have some kind of voice by Sunday morning so I can sing God's praises! If not, I'll mouth the words and He'll know my heart anyway.

Also, I will be starting physical therapy on Monday for my shoulder, so I pray that will help my arm to get stronger and heal the tears inside. One step at a time.

So often I show you the beautiful sunsets that we enjoy here on Still Waters Pond, but I rarely share the cloudy skies.  This is how it looks out there right now...and I am thankful for the cloudy skies, because there is a hope and promise of some much needed rain inside those clouds:

It has been so very dry and dusty and the air is full of pollen and often smoky as well. That contributes to much of our sinus issues here at this time of the year, and so we are very thankful when God sends the showers to cleanse the air and give us fresh air to breathe again. The weather forecast says it's coming, so I am waiting and praying.

This afternoon when I went out to get the mail I stopped to smell the flowers along the way (yes, I know that will also trigger a big sneeze, but they were so pretty!)  Actually I just took their picture.

This is the Carolina Jessamine that grows wild in the trees and along the fence at this time of year.

It is a beautiful herald of spring.

Another herald of spring is the azalea bush, though not wild...this is one that I planted a couple of years ago, but it is blooming now as well.

Back inside the house I have managed to put out a few decorations for Valentine's Day. Nothing too elaborate, just a little bit of hearts and color...

Lily Grace and her friends are ready for a Valentine's Tea Party...

Lily Grace sends her love to you all.  

I just saw this picture on Facebook...my sister had shared it.  I guess it kind of fits me perfectly! Or at least I hope it always does !!!

I kind of like this very rustic rocking horse at Dixie Cottage, although it may be a little too rustic to let a little grandchild play on...I think it's meant more for "decor" than actual rocking rambunctious children.

Here's just a few pretty and interesting things that caught my eye this week at Dixie Cottage:

I think this refinished French Provincial style dresser is very lovely.

And I think this antique vanity/dresser would make some young lady very happy...(or maybe some more mature lady as well!)

Now this is something I wanted for a long time at our last house where I was doing a lot more with my back yard "decor"...This garden potting bench is really cool...

I just think that would be so much fun to have...

Now, here's a wonderful vintage chest of drawers with a lovely design...I think it would be perfect for my guest room...but I can't take home everything I see...I may just have to paint the one I have...

Now here is something very unique! Can you guess what they are made from?

I would have never guessed...now, they can be used either as a flower pot or a bird feeder...and they are made from...

Old vinyl records!!  Amazing! This vendor paints the record and then somehow melts it in the oven in a bowl...I don't know exactly, but that's how it turned out!  Very clever indeed!! (please look up specific instructions before trying this at home!)

Well, I am thankful for so many things...my family, my friends, my health...even with the little issues I have I know it could always be worse, so I am VERY thankful to God and do not take my health for granted.  

Oh...also I managed to get our taxes done this week! Hooray! and even bigger hooray, we are getting some $$ back!! Yay! Yay! Yay!  I am thankful for Turbo Tax, which makes doing our own taxes online very simple...and because ours are so uncomplicated with very little input, we can do it for free! That's even better!  I have used this method for several years and I even do our son's taxes on it, and I am very thankful for this method.  

I guess that's all for tonight.

Here's a verse to ponder:

Exodus 15:2

"The Lord is my strength and song,

And He has become my salvation;

He is my God, and I will praise Him;

My father’s God, and I will exalt Him."

When my own voice cannot vocalize and sing God's praises, I can still praise Him with my words written here and with my whole heart.

Amen.

 

Saturday Catch Up

Happy Saturday!  I promised in my last post that I would tell you about where we went yesterday.  

But first, I want to thank you all for the very kind comments on my special memory post HERE yesterday.   Your compassion  and thoughtfulness truly touches my heart.  I trust you all understand that sometimes we just have write about those we have loved and "lost" to help keep their memory alive.  I find that looking at those pictures helps me to feel like it wasn't that long ago, and also that our son is really not that far away.  After all, heaven is only a breath away...think about it!

Now on to what we did yesterday.  We took a little ride over to St. Augustine to meet up with my cousin (who is actually a second cousin, the son of my first cousin...  First cousin, once removed? I get so confused on that part of genealogy)..but I won't give the whole genealogy list here, LOL).   He is in Florida on a little vacation and wanted to meet us over at my son's store, "Dixie Cottage", in St. Augustine. But more about that later.  On the way over we took the "scenic route" to avoid a lot of traffic, which took us past many acres of farm land.  I think most people who think of Florida are not aware of its rich agricultural history.

This particular part of Northeastern Florida (St. John's County) is well known for its vegetable farms, primarily potatoes and cabbage.  These are acres and acres of cabbages...

As far as the eye could see in many different directions there are fields of cabbages, ripe and ready to go to "market".  That's a lot of coleslaw!

Probably good for some "Corned Beef and Cabbage" on St. Patrick's Day too! LOL.  Anyway, I thought you'd be thrilled to know about where your cabbage comes from! 

As we got closer to the coast, we had to cross the Intracoastal Waterway, which I didn't know actually runs all the way from Boston,  MA, all the way down the Atlantic coast of the U.S., around the southern tip of Florida and up the Gulf side and all the way around the Gulf to Brownsville, Texas!  Wow. I will have a little more respect for this waterway the next time we are stuck on the road waiting for the drawbridge to go back down...which is what was happening here, although in this  picture below the bridge was already back down and we were crossing it after waiting for about 15 minutes:

This is why we had to wait...there was not just one...

but TWO sailboats with their tall masts (but no sails up!) that needed to pass under the bridge!

But I really did not mind the wait as it gave me ample time to sit and enjoy the view on either side of the bridge. I believe the tide was out as there were many sand bars and little islands exposed that you can't always see completely when the tide is in...

And, happily for me, I was able to also capture a few pictures of some pelicans flying over and around the bridge ...

My sight was limited by being inside the car and not able to get out and get better pictures, but I feel pretty happy that I got any pictures at all!

They were busily flying about and swooping down to catch a fish for their breakfast...

Do you see him on the far right side of this picture below?

And here he kind of blends in above the houses:

Finally we were on our way and my hope was that we could cross over to the beach side and perhaps drive a little ways on the beach before we had to continue our journey to our destination.

The first opportunity we found to go down to the beach had this warning:

We turned our car around on this little "ramp" street because we could see the sand was way too soft/deep for our non-4x4 vehicle.

So we drove further down the highway until we found another location where we could access the beach, and the sand didn't look too bad there...

Well, until we got down onto the beach, and the driving area was in one direction only, no turning around, and no place to park our vehicle where we wouldn't get stuck.  As a matter of fact, we almost did get stuck!  Hubby was not real happy with my "ideas" at this point and just wanted to find a place to get back off this soft sandy beach and back to "terra firma!"

Thankfully we made it. Next time we will go a different direction where we know there is a parking lot where we can park our car and then walk to the beach across a long pier. We were just in too big of a hurry on this day to do that. But it was still lovely to see the ocean and hear the surf pounding on the shore.  

We finally made it to our destination in plenty of time. My cousin arrived shortly after we did. This is the same cousin who recently sent me that box full of old books and those pictures of my grandparents. (I told you about it HERE)

Here we are: L to R: my cousin Grant Moss, me, hubby, and our son Benton.

If you read Grant's t-shirt, you will see that he "turns wood into things..." and yes, he certainly does! He creates the most beautiful items with select pieces of hardwoods...the type of craft he uses is is called Intarsia woodworking  Here is a small example of what he does, and this was his gift to me:

Yes, that is a hummingbird, created out of many different pieces of different kinds of wood to give it dimension, depth, and its unique coloring. He sells a lot of his pieces at a shop where he lives in Tennessee, but also will take orders from people online. And one of the reasons for meeting at Benton's store, "Dixie Cottage", was to talk about offering some of his pieces there for sale. He is going to prepare a lot of new pieces using a coastal theme, in keeping with the design of the store.  Here are just a few other examples of his work:

Pretty amazing, huh?  I am excited that he is going to be working on some special designs to sell here. I'll be sure to show them to you when he gets them done.  His "wheels were turning" as they discussed lots of ideas for special designs, like Lighthouses, Fish, Sea Turtles, Whales, Mermaids, etc. Should be fun!  

So that was a wonderful visit and we were so glad we were able to get together. 

After he left to head back to where he was staying with some friends for the week, hubby and I headed to our favorite little seafood restaurant not far from Dixie Cottage, called "O'Steens". We were blessed that there was no long line to wait for a table, which was a small miracle on a Friday at lunch time! Their food is that good!

This is what I had, although this picture came from their menu online. I was too busy eating to remember to take a picture! LOL.

It was a lovely day and we enjoyed getting out and about, but of course, it's always good to get back home again, safe and sound.  Traffic was getting pretty heavy!

So, this morning our son Scott was off from work, and he helped finish up our flower project for the Memorial Garden.  We picked up some bags of mulch at the hardware store this morning, and Scott spread the mulch around some plants for us, including the new "bottlebrush" we had just planted:

He also added some new mulch to the little azalea bushes we planted last year.

I guess that about covers it all. 

"The Lord is my strength and song,

And He has become my salvation;

He is my God, and I will praise Him;

My father’s God, and I will exalt Him."

Amen.

Exodus 15:2

Have a blessed and wonderful rest of your weekend, my friends. And thank you again for your kindnesses.  You are a wonderful bunch of friends to have!!!