Thursday Thankfulness and Friday Foto Friends

 Hello Friends!  This first picture should have gone with the Tuesday 4 post about Books!  But I didn't think about it until later, after reading everyone else's posts and comments on my blog.  That is how I felt after hearing how much so many of our friends love their books!   I've seen this picture many times before on Facebook, and I've always loved it because of the joy of these two dear old ladies sitting under the table having a cup of tea together with all of their books stacked up around them and just laughing and having such a great time! Oh, and eating bonbons  and candy and it looks like they have found the secret to happiness!  Yep! I could see myself and a good friend in this picture in a few years...(or maybe not so many years away...LOL). How about you? It just makes me smile...

So how has your week been going?  Ours has been busy, even without so many appointments...it just seems like the days get filled up.  Hubby got his new glasses the other day, and so when he went to pick his up I had the optician in our eye doctor's office take another look at my new glasses, just to be sure they are lined up right. She made a couple of little adjustments and I tried them again, and I do think they are better. My eyes seem to be adjusting finally, so that's good news.

On Sunday I had a little bit of sadness when I thought I had lost one of my earrings for good.

This is the remaining mate.  I knew I must've dropped it somewhere at church, and so we went back and retraced my steps everywhere, hoping to find it in some obvious place. I even sent this picture to the lady who does the cleaning on Monday morning to let her know to be on the lookout for it.  You may ask why be so upset over losing an earring? Well, this particular set had belonged to my hubby's grandmother, "Nanny Martin".  My Mother in law had given it to me with some other of Nanny Martin's jewelry years ago.  It has to be quite old, because if Nanny Martin were still living she would be around 128 years old. And even though I somehow can't envision the sweet, humble country woman that I knew, who was already in her 70's when I first met her, ever wearing these pretty dangly earrings, at some point in her younger life she must have because they were hers, and I sure didn't want to lose one of them.

This is how I remember her...

But this is how she looked as a young woman...

So anyway, back to the story...On Monday afternoon I went to the church to drop off my hubby for the Men's Bible Study, and also to pick up our church Secretary at the office to go with me over to the Parsonage for the Ladies' Bible Study. I showed her the picture of my earring, and she said, "Oh! It's been found!"  The Pastor was also there at that moment, and he said that his wife had it with her and will give it to me at the Bible study!  It seems that as I was leaving church on Sunday, one of our sweet younger women came up to me and gave me a hug.  She has very long beautiful hair, and apparently as I embraced her with a hug, my earring caught in her hair! I did not notice it at the time and neither did she, but when she was walking to her car she realized it was caught in her hair. At that point she wasn't sure where it had come from so took it back to our Pastor's wife and gave it to her to find out who it belonged to. I had already left the church, and I didn't realize the earring was missing until I got home. So you can imagine my joy to have this lovely earring returned to me.

(Nanny Martin's earrings, sitting on a quilt that she made)

Here is the matched set, along with another little black earring that also has a story.  It also belonged to Nanny Martin.  And I loved wearing that sweet little antique set of  black earrings. However, again, because these earrings are the old fashioned screw on type of  clasp, they often came loose, and sadly I lost the mate to this one at my parents' church many years ago. I searched and searched there at the parking lot and all around, but it never showed up.  So I've been sad about that one all these years, and then when I thought I'd lost the mate to the dangly pair, I thought that I would just wear the one dangly and the one little earring at the same time and call it a set  with a story!  Now I won't have to do that, but I am wishing I could turn the little earring into a pin or a necklace or something special. Not sure how to do that...but it's a thought anyway.    I am thankful that that which was lost has been found. Is it really that valuable? Probably not in monetary value, but to me the links to dearly departed loved ones have a special value that goes beyond worldly treasures. It's a way to honor the memory of someone who meant a lot to my husband and also to me.

Reminds me of this story in the Bible...

Luke 15:8-10 NKJV

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.”

Now, here's another story...

The last few days that we've gone walking I could hear the Eastern Towhee singing in the treetops, but I could not see him.   So I got the bright idea to play his "song" on my cell phone to see what would happen.  You can listen to it here:

Well, let's just say that I almost found myself being sought out by this Towhee almost immediately:

He flew to the nearest tree and kept looking around, and then he flew across the road right over top of me and went to another tree:

And you could tell he was rather excited and maybe even distressed because he could hear that other bird singing, but he couldn't find it.  This was in the morning...and he flew back and forth several times over and around me until I turned off the recording and we decided to move on before I was possibly attacked by this excited bird.

However, the next evening we came back, and I thought I might try it again to see what would happen, and sure enough, as soon as the recording started playing, the bird flew to a nearby tree and started watching and singing back...

Then he flew to another tree and kept returning the calls from the bird on the recording:

He was really quite excited about hearing this other bird.  After a little while I decided that maybe we should go because I could hear other birds calling as well, and it seemed like they were getting excited.

So I learned one thing, if you want to attract a bird to come closer, just play a recording of his call on your cell phone and you may find yourself the center of some bird attention. I don't know if it is a good thing to do or not, but I did enjoy seeing the bird up close and have these pictures to share with you.

But maybe that was just cheating a little bit...not sure...but maybe I won't do that again because as they say, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature". LOL. (Remember that commercial for Chiffon Margarine? Now I'm dating myself...I see that was back in the 1970's! Some of you may be too young to remember!)

Well, that's all for tonight.  I hope you are having a wonderful week! 

Psalm 96:1-6

1 Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!

Sing to the Lord, all the earth.

2 Sing to the Lord, bless His name;

Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.

3 Declare His glory among the nations,

His wonders among all peoples.

4 For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised;

He is to be feared above all gods.

5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols,

But the Lord made the heavens.

6 Honor and majesty are before Him;

Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

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!