Tuesday 4~ St. Patrick's Day

 I had another post started for yesterday and got busy and never finished it, so now today is St. Patrick's Day, and I guess I'd better address that first and go back to the other one later! LOL.  So here we go...

St Patrick's Day

It is St. Pattys Day here at Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4...


1. Do you celebrate in any significant way?

Not particularly...I will probably be wearing green wherever I do and whatever I do, but I don't have any special plans for today except that I hope to plant my vegetables that I bought over the weekend...Benton is supposed to bring over the wooden planter boxes for me so I can get started on it...we'll see how far we get! 

Lily Grace and her dog Bailey are all dressed up for St. Patrick's Day...they are hiding in a forest of shamrocks and looking for the pot of gold! LOL.

You can click HERE for more adventures with Lily Grace!

2. Is it religious to you or secular?

It is a secular day in my mind. Although we appreciate the stories and legend of St. Patrick, we do not really connect that with anything "religious".  He was a good man and it's a fun day to remember what he did for Ireland.

3. Is there any green in your wardrobe ? Your home? Is it a good color for you?

I have some green in my wardrobe, but it is mostly either more of a forest green or a teal green. I do have one kind of emerald green top that I will wear today so I don't get pinched. LOL.

4.March has a lot of things associated with it... The Ides of March on the 15th, St. Patrick's Day and the old saying that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.
How is your March going thus far? Is it quiet? Is the weather good, bad or ugly? Is it a lion or a lamb?

Well, yestereday was certainly a lion as far as the weather is concerned! We had quite the thunderstorm yesterday afternoon, and I hear that there are trees down in various places around here. There was a lot of lightning and thunder and very wild winds for a while. Thankfully we are fine and we didn't lose power, so that's good. It also has cooled down to 40 degrees this morning after being in the 80's yesterday!

These photos of the skies were actually taken the night before last, (Sunday night), when we also had a good rain! Rain two days in a row! Woo Hoo! Prayers are being answered!  

But this is the Still Very Dry Still Waters Pond after the rain...it's like a big sponge soaking up the water, but there is still not enough to have any water on top of the ground. It's going to take a LOT more rain for that to happen.  

But hey! There's one blossom on the Bottlebrush Bush! That's a start! LOL.

Hopefully today Benton is going to bring over my above ground wooden planters so I can get the vegetable plants planted. Although I hear we might get a frost tomorrow morning, so we'll see...I may decide to wait...but then again...I hate to keep putting it off...decisions, decisions...I can always cover them...Tune in for further developments! LOL.

In keeping with the tradition of the day, HERE is a link to a post I wrote a few years ago for Toni's Creative Adventures.  Our Toni Taddeo was a very creative lady, and she often did these special "Creative Adventures" for us to make up little stories to go along with a theme. This one was my favorite, and it bears repeating again today especially for St. Patrick's Day. I hope you will take the time to revisit it and enjoy this little fairy tale today with a lovely Irish little lady.

Saturday Review-Finally a Post!

 I bet some of you thought I'd dropped off the planet this week! Although I've tried to stay in touch with as many as I can through your blogs, I haven't had much going on to write about here all week.  Goodness gracious! I didn't even have a Friday Foto Friends post yesterday! What's up with that?  Well...it's been raining all week long, and we've been busy at Dixie Cottage and other stuff and I guess I just haven't taken time to take pictures or come up with anything intelligent to share with you.  (Although some may wonder if I ever DO have anything intelligent to share...LOL.)  

So here it is Saturday, and a mighty rainy one at that!  But it's been a lovely lovely day. Why? Because our dear friend Terri D'Orsaneo, of "Your Friend From Florida" fame...traveled all the way up here to see us today!  She lives about 3 hours away, but had another stop to make on the way to visit another of our blogging friends, Barbara from "Sweet Tea and Sandals" fame...and then since she was so close to us she wanted to come on up and see us and also visit Dixie Cottage.  So we met at our church because we were having a potluck luncheon today and that made for a fun and interesting way to "do lunch"...(Terri will have more photos to share on her blog when she gets back home, so be sure to check them out later).

Here we are doing a "selfie" in front of the church...

And somehow in the midst of taking our picture I managed to accidentally snap a picture of the skies above us...you can see they were building up for a big rain...and yes, they surely did open up and pour...

But we managed to get down the street to Dixie Cottage and had our picture taken by my son Benton. (I think Terri has a picture of him to share)

Next we headed to our house, and the heavens opened up and really dumped a ton of rain on us just as we were trying to get inside the house (hence the wet hair on my head). In the craziness of the moment I dropped my big round Pyrex casserole dish that I had taken to the potluck dinner with macaroni and cheese in it, and the lid broke into a million pieces on our steps, along with the leftover macaroni. So that's why I got especially wet, trying to pick up the pieces as best I could. Finally just had to leave it because it was raining so hard, and John and I cleaned it all up later after Terri left for home. Now I need to be on the lookout for a spare large round Pyrex casserole lid. to replace it.  Maybe some thrift store will have one.

Here we are standing on our back porch, overlooking Still Waters Pond. It was raining so hard on the tin roof that we could barely hear each other talking.

After a wonderful visit (back inside where it was dry) Terri decided she'd better get back on the road and hopefully dodge the bad storms on her way back home. I've been praying for her all the way and hope she will let me know when she arrives safely.  

Oh, I almost forgot! Terri brought us this delicious Pumpkin Spice bread:

The bag was so cute, but it also got caught in the rain and smeared the writing a bit! LOL. Thankfully the bread wasn't hurt as it was well wrapped.

It would have been nice to have a piece of this with Terri before she left with a cup of tea or coffee, but we were still too full from the potluck luncheon.  So I guess Lily Grace and Bailey and I will have to have our own little tea party later!

Okay, that's all for now folks!

Please say a prayer for Terri as she is still on the road.

Giving thanks to the Lord for the good friends I've met here in "blogland". Which reminds me...

Yesterday at Dixie Cottage another lovely friend who reads our blogs but doesn't have her own blog stopped by to pick up a piece of furniture that she and her husband had ordered from our son.  Her name is Betty Barber, and she may comment on your posts now and then as well.  This is the second time we've met, and the second time I've forgotten to have our picture taken together.  She just moved not too far up the road in the next town from us, so hopefully we will get together again soon and definitely get our picture taken! It's a tradition!!  Thank you, Betty, if you are reading this, for your visit. You are a delightful person and I hope we get to meet again soon.

Here is a prayer of blessing for our friends Terri and Betty today...and for each of you as well, whether we've met in person or not...you are ALL very special to me...

Amen

Friday Foto Friends: Just a Quick Bear Update

Good Morning!!! Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I hope you are wearing the green today, or I'll have to come pinch you!  :)  I made sure I had on green as soon as I got up, because the people in my house love to have excuses to pinch...  LOL.  

Here are a few pictures of shamrocks that I just found in my yard as I walked around this morning:

 This one was peeking up at me from inside a pot where my green pepper plant is growing!  How lucky is that???  :)

 And these two pictures were actually taken in The Secret Garden!  They just popped up to surprise me and be an extra little blessing to us today!

Yesterday I mentioned that my wisteria vine /blossoms got hit by the freeze we had the other evening. So I went to check on them today to see if there is any sign of new buds forming...and guess what?  Here they are:

 The buds that are sticking out or up are the new buds that apparently were not hurt, so, yes!! It appears there will be new blossoms coming soon!!! That brought a big smile to my face!

Also yesterday I showed pictures of bear footprints in my yard, and pictures of a bear from a week ago walking through our yard at night.  This morning we saw some new footprints, so I checked the nite camera again, and this time we did get pictures of the bear as he came for a drink at the "pool"...

Since today is Friday Foto Friends Day, I thought this would be a great opportunity to share those new pictures with you...We will name this bear St. Paddy, in honor of St. Patrick's Day today:

Bye Bye St. Paddy!  Thanks for visiting!!!

Here's an Irish Prayer to bless your day:




And then here is the traditional "Irish Blessing"

So, until we meet again, "May God hold you 

in the palm of His hand."  

Amen!