Friday Foto Friends: Welcome September!

Welcome September!!!  The first of the "ber" months! All my favorites!

Actually, these pictures were taken yesterday morning, on the last day of August, but this morning was too cloudy for a good photo, so I figured we could say "farewell to August" as we welcome September!

Do you see the "super moon" in the photos below?  That was taken around 7:00 a.m. yesterday morning, as the moon was sinking down beyond the horizon and Still Waters Pond.

I thought it was quite "picture-worthy", don't you?

I'm so glad I got to see it, as it was hidden this morning behind thick clouds.  These photos were taken the day AFTER Hurricane Idalia had made her way up the Gulf Coast and across the Big Bend and Northern section of our state and on into Southeast Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. I hope she is fizzled out in the Atlantic ocean by now!  My heart goes out to those who lost so much in this storm.  Thankfully there was not a high death toll anywhere, but a lot of damage especially along the coast due to storm surge.  We are so very very thankful that it bypassed our area and barely even left us a puddle to wade through or a tree limb to pick up. Quite a miracle, I'd say!

So now we truly welcome September, and pray that she doesn't have any more surprise storms awaiting us.  We don't dare let our guard down until after October!

But meanwhile, we can enjoy the beauties of this beginning month of autumn. Also my birth month, so it definitely is a special month for me.

As per my norm, I like to share pictures of the different calendars I have throughout the house for each new month.  This one above is the John Sloane Country Seasons calendar.  This painting is called 

"A Taste of Summer", with the jars of freshly canned vegetables from the garden sitting in the sink and on the windowsill.  I wish that was a photo from my kitchen, but alas! We do not have a garden and I never had really learned how to can vegetables, etc.  I've made jellies before, but that's about it.  We left the farm and moved to Florida when I was 5, and then my mother had to go to work as a secretary when I started school, and so the farming/gardening way of life became a thing of the past.  I'm sorry I missed out on it.

Seeing that box of Ivory Snow in the picture above made me think about this jar of Ivory "Flakes" in my Hoosier Cupboard.  It's very old...I've never used them...just have them on display in the cupboard for old times' sake.  

I haven't started my fall decorations yet...it's been too hot and with all the hurricane prep and other things I've been going through lately, I just haven't had the energy or time.  Hopefully when Scott comes home this weekend he can bring in the tubs of decor from the shed and I can start working on it next week.  So these photos from inside the Hoosier Cupboard will be a little nod to September/fall for now!

Yes, it's a bit of a hodgepodge of old stuff...kind of a part of the family "museum" here...LOL.

I love this little Susan Branch calendar...it has such fun and homey things to say about each new month:

Thomas Kinkade always captures the most wonderful scenes in his paintings as well...look  at all the detail in this one entitled "Country Living"...I think I'd love to live there...how about you?

Yes, faith without works is dead...  If we are not willing to back up our faith with some positive action, then we will probably not see too many prayers answered... Kind of like the old saying "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step..."   Take a step of faith and you will see great things happen...

Wow, this is a lovely teapot on the September Tea Pot calendar...

Interesting quote...I never thought about there being "connoisseurs of blue" before, have you?  I do like blue, but I don't think I'm a connoisseur of it...what would that look like???

And the last, but not least, of my calendars...this one hangs in my bathroom where I can write down all the appointments for the month.  It helps to be able to see it every day when I wake up (or when I sit on the throne to contemplate important issues of life...LOL)  Wouldn't this be a lovely place to sit and dream?  It reminds me of my Aunt Margie's garden in Crafton, Pa.  I know there's a picture somewhere showing her beautiful flowers like this in bloom...but I doubt that I have it.  I need to ask my sister Doris to look for it in the family albums...Doris, if you are reading this...do you know where to find that picture??? LOL.  I will let you know if she finds it...but it may take a while...

What a lovely surprise to receive these beautiful cards in the mail this week from a couple of you dear blogging friends!  I tell you, blogging friends are the best people in the world!! All of you, whether you remember to send cards out or not...I love having regular "conversations" with you here in Blogland...every day is like finding a nice letter in the mail!!  I don't know who invented blogging, but I'm so glad we all found out about it!

Now, it wouldn't be September without this creature!!!  My hubby looked outside and saw this guy today and said "it must be September because I've seen the first love bug of the season!" Just like clock work, they show up in September and May!  This one is still alone, but it won't be long before it will have a mate...and they will "mate for life", which may not be very long, and lay their eggs somewhere in the trees or dirt or something so they can hatch in the spring.  They don't bite, and they serve no useful purpose that I know of. They mostly like to fly around in swarms near the roadways and stick to the grill and windows of automobiles,  making a huge mess and also eating the paint off the hood if you don't keep them washed off.  If you've never experienced the semi-annual "plague" of the love bugs, be thankful!!  They mostly stay in the south, primarily here in Florida.

Well friends, this ends the first blog post of the month of September, 2023.  Hopefully it will be a month of much joy and many blessings for all of us.  (and no more hurricanes!!)

Psalm 5:8,11-12

8 Lead me, O Lord, in Your righteousness because of my enemies;

Make Your way straight before my face.

11 But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You;

Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them;

Let those also who love Your name

Be joyful in You.

12 For You, O Lord, will bless the righteous;

With favor You will surround him as with a shield.

 

Thankful Wednesday!

 Rather than wait until Thursday to write about our "thankfulness", I thought I should let you all know tonight just how very thankful we are for how God protected us throughout Hurricane Idalia.

I kept waking up during the night, expecting to hear the sounds of high winds and pounding rain on the roof, and it was just very very quiet.  But because I was so keyed up about my expectations, I really couldn't sleep very well, and so finally just went ahead and got up around 5 a.m. to watch the news and see the latest updates.  According to the 5:00 a.m.  updates, the storm had been upgraded to a category 4, which is very powerful, and had not made landfall yet.  However, the expected landfall was, thankfully for us, a little further to the north west on the gulf coast, and our location would be out of the worst of the impact. Still, we were expecting to get a lot of rain and some high winds and possible tornado warnings.  

At daybreak I looked outside at Still Waters Pond (below)...

And out the front side of the house looking east (below), and although it was very cloudy and somewhat windy, there was no real rain to speak of...just intermittent showers now and then...

And praise God, we never even lost power except for a couple of momentary flickers that quickly corrected themselves!  Wow! And that was how it was all day long! We have been thanking the Lord all day for His kindness and mercy toward us and our community and as far as I know all our family and friends throughout the different parts of the state.  However, the area of landfall in the "Great Bend area" and also places further south along the Gulf coast, did have some pretty serious damage and storm surge and coastal flooding. Our hearts go out to them and we pray that they have not suffered any loss of life or serious damages that cannot be repaired.  This was a very huge and powerful storm, and we are just so thankful that it didn't come inland anywhere too close to us.

Thank you all who prayed for us and sent best wishes.  You are the best kind of friends ever!!  

We mostly spent the day resting in our recliners and watching the storm news and doing some reading. I actually took a couple of naps to make up for my restlessness last night, and then we took a nice walk about an hour ago to stretch our legs and get some fresh air. I left my computer turned off until now, as I didn't want the power surges to damage it, as it is it is getting kind of old and the power switch is getting kind of cranky...so I'm thinking I need to do some more backing up of my files and be prepared for the inevitable day when it will finally shut down for good. I truly hope that's a long ways off, but like a good Girl Scout, I should always 'be prepared'.  LOL.

We've been singing this song at the close of our Sunday morning worship service  this past month...and I feel like it is an appropriate song to sing now and close this post...as you sing along with the singers below, look at the pictures of the trees outside here along the shore of Still Waters Pond. You can't see them moving in the wind, but it's like they are swaying with the music and clapping their hands with joy because they were spared in this storm!! So let us all rejoice together!

The Trees of the Field (Gaither Homecoming Family)

You Shall Go Out With Joy

And Be Led Forth With Peace

The Mountains And The Hills

Will Break Forth Before You

There’ll Be Shouts Of Joy,

And All The Trees Of The Field

Will Clap, Will Clap Their Hands

And All The Trees Of The Field

Will Clap Their Hands

The Trees Of The Field

Will Clap Their Hands

The Trees Of The Field

Will Clap Their Hands

While You Go Out With Joy

You Shall Go Out With Joy

And Be Led Forth With Peace

The Mountains And The Hills

Will Break Forth Before You

There’ll Be Shouts Of Joy,

And All The Trees Of The Field

Will Clap, Will Clap Their Hands

And All The Trees Of The Field

Will Clap Their Hands

The Trees Of The Field

Will Clap Their Hands

The Trees Of The Field

Will Clap Their Hands

While You Go Out With Joy

(Based on Isaiah 55:12)

Amen!!!

Monday Monday!

 Okay friends...This is Monday, and it's not like any other Monday!! Not only is it my oldest son's birthday!!!, but we are also getting prepared for a big ugly hurricane that is headed our way in the next 48 hours.  So if you don't hear from me for a while, it may be because we either got blown away (trusting God that won't really happen!) or we may lose power for a few days and that would make life miserable...but better than being blown away!!  So if I am able to update you after the storm passes by, I will as soon as possible.   Thankfully we live pretty far inland, about and hour or more from either coast, but the predicted path of the storm goes right up and over our area...unless something shifts here in the next few hours.  So your prayers are certainly welcome and appreciated!!  We've been out this morning cleaning up stuff in the yard and making sure there are no "projectiles", and then we just stocked up on bread and water and other essentials...(toilet paper!)  We haven't been ordered to evacuate this area yet, so we are hoping we can just stay put like we normally do for a hurricane.  If not, we may go over to our son's house as they live in a concrete block home as opposed to our manufactured home.  Time will tell...we are about as ready as we can be...so just trying to relax and pray.

Meanwhile, thankfully we did all our "celebrating" of birthdays over the weekend and we don't have to worry about people traveling and gathering, etc. now.  If you are not a Facebook friend, you probably haven't already seen these pictures...and if you have already seen them, then you are free to move on to something else. LOL.  Thank you for all your kind words and Happy Birthday greetings for our son.  It's hard to believe he is 52, and that I am even old enough to have a son so old! LOL.  Something must be wrong...maybe he's really only 25 and we got the numbers backwards. LOL.  

We ended up with cupcakes because we had taken a LOT of cupcakes with us on Saturday for the family gathering, and they didn't all get eaten, so rather than waste them and make more, we were smart and had them on Sunday too.  Some of them were pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting! Yes, it's that time again...pumpkin this and pumpkin that...LOL

Of course my mouth is open saying something...or maybe I was singing...anyway, we had a good time.

This was yesterday, after church, and after we had a nice grilled steak dinner, thanks to Rose buying the steaks and Scott doing the grilling.  It was a wonderful treat.

As I told you in last week's Tuesday 4 POST HERE, we had planned to travel an hour or so to a restaurant on Saturday to meet up with our extended Florida family to celebrate August birthdays and anniversaries, etc.  And so we did...and here we are:

This is both sides of our family...my hubby's brother Bill and wife Peggy and their two kids Shannon (and her boyfriend Tristan) and Nicholaus, and my sister Doris and her hubby Art and their two kids David and Debbie (and her hubby and son Jack), plus our kids Benton and Rose. The only one not able to attend was our son Scott, as he had to work.  We were quite a happy big gang of people!

Peggy and Bill were celebrating their 25th anniversary!

Debbie and Darrell had already celebrated their anniversary earlier in the month, but we also celebrated Debbie's birthday, which is this week.

And their handsome son Jack is turning 18 in another week, so we celebrated his birthday too!

And then of course our son Benton and wife Rose celebrating his birthday...

And Billy and Peggy's son Nicholaus is also celebrating his birthday today, on the same day as our son Benton.  He is now 21, but still hates to have his picture taken!  Oh, and he is starting his Junior year at UCF (Univ. of Central Florida), having just graduated with his AA degree from Seminole State Community College. So we are very proud of Nick.  

And this is Nick's sister Shannon and her boyfriend Tristan. She is also attending Seminole State Community College.  

It's not my birthday yet, but my sister in law Peggy gave me this "Squishmallow" pillow as an early birthday gift (later in September), because she will be out of town on my birthday and wanted me to have it now.  I didn't know these special pillows had names and personalities....She picked this one for me because it's name is "Pama",  and her description says that "Pama reads so many books that there are stacks of them everywhere in her home! Pama prefers classic novels and short stories, but she will read anything if you recommend it. This "Mallow" even has a collection of encyclopedias she will sometimes open up and read just for fun!"   LOL.  That's pretty funny! I do love to read, and right now I have a stack of library books I am working through. I used to have encyclopedias that we enjoyed reading, but they became too outdated and are long gone...so now I just look things up on "Wikipedia" when I want to know something.  So this description was pretty appropriate for me...LOL.

And because it was Peggy and Bill's 25th anniversary, we wanted to give them something silver. I actually sent Benton out on a mission the other day while I was having my stem cell procedure done and he was killing time waiting for me to get done (Rose couldn't go with him because she wasn't feeling well that day sadly), so he went shopping and couldn't find anything silver that was appropriate (or affordable).  However, he did find these really cute little trinket dishes with what appears to be the ocean inside and little "silver" sea turtles swimming out to sea.  This was perfect for Peggy and Billy as their home is decorated with a coastal theme!  

She loved them!  (So did Billy, but probably not as much as Peggy. LOL).

Oh, and I wanted to thank all of you for your kind thoughts regarding my procedure that I had the other day.  I am feeling much better, but still it will be a while before my arm is completely healed. I am trusting God for healing and taking it easy and carefully one day at a time. I still have to wear the tummy pressure belt for another week, which is a bit uncomfortable, kind of like a girdle...remember those, ladies?  Does anyone wear girdles anymore??? LOL.  Anyway, little by little things are improving and I am very thankful. You are all the greatest cheerleaders, by the way. I thank God for you!

Well, as I sit here writing this, I have been hearing thunder. It's still too soon for Idalia to make her appearance, so this must be from that other storm out in the Atlantic.  Anyway, it is a warning of things to come, and a reminder that things could be getting crazy around here in a little while. So I will sign off for now and if I can get back to write again in the next couple of days, I will. But don't worry about us if you don't hear anything...just pray...especially for those closer to the coast who may experience much worse weather than we will.  We will hopefully be able to communicate again soon.

"Til the Storm passes by...."

In the dark of the midnight have I oft hid my face

While the storm howls above me, and there's no hiding place

'Mid the crash of the thunder, Precious Lord, hear my cry

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more

Till the clouds roll forever from the sky

Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Many times Satan whispered

There is no use to try

For there's no end of sorrow, there's no hope by and by

But I know Thou art with me, and tomorrow I'll rise

Where the storms never darken the skies

Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more

Till the clouds roll forever from the sky

Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand

Keep me safe till the storm passes by