Tuesday 4~ Hello January

 Hello January

Welcome to the New Year friends and to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4.
Toni liked to talk about each new month and it's meanings.
January was named for Janus the two faced god who looked behind and ahead. Its the warmest month in the southern hemisphere and the coldest in the north.
Garnet is it's gem stone. Garnets come in all colors but the rarest is the Tzavorite.
January 7 is Eastern Orthodox Christmas because some eastern churches use the original Julian calendar which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.
January become the first month of the year in 450BC for the Roman world .
Let's talk about two faced January.


1. Looking back, what do you hope continues or does not change in your life?
I do hope we continue to have good health and strength as the days go by. The older we get, the harder it is to keep up with things, and so I pray for renewed strength, wisdom and health for the New Year and beyond.  


2. What good came to you from the previous year?

I am so thankful for so many things...our home, family, strength, health, and God's continued provision for all our needs.  What more could we ask for?

I sat down this afternoon with a cup of tea and a "York Peppermint Patty", a very rare treat for me as I normally do NOT eat chocolate, but it just sounded so good I couldn't resist...and I picked up the new issue of Country Living Magazine that came in the mail today to look at it.  

And I turned to this page and the little caption down at the bottom of the page caught my attention. I almost missed it because it was written in white and rather small...

But the words "Country Wisdom" caught my eye since "wisdom" is my "One Word" for 2025.  I like what this says:

So to answer question #2, "What good came to you from the previous year?"...Well, maybe a few more "nicks and scratches...the architectural equivalent of hard-earned wrinkles and laugh lines..."  I don't mind that at all...especially those laugh lines...and I do hope to earn a few more in the up coming years.

3. Are there things you hope to accomplish in the new year?

To be honest, I haven't really thought that much about it. Just keeping up with our daily lives, maintaining our home and property as best we are able, and spending more time with friends and family as we are able.  Seeking what God wants for us..."Where He Leads Me I will follow..."...a favorite old hymn that sometimes finds me doing new things I never expected...but because I trust God to lead me, I know whatever it is it will be good.

4. January's flowers are the carnation and the snow drop. Do you sometimes buy flowers for your home? What kinds of flowers to you like best?

Carnations & Snow Drops
I must admit I've never seen "snow drops" before! Those are very pretty!

I rarely ever buy fresh cut flowers.  I prefer those that are grown in the garden or in the woods or along the road...i.e.; "Wildflowers" from "God's Garden".   If I do buy flowers, they are in pots to be planted in the garden...mums in the fall, and other plants for the butterfly garden in the spring/summer. Oh, I have a couple of pots of Poinsettias right now on the back porch  that I bought for Christmas, and now I hope they don't freeze in our plunging temperatures this week.  They are hiding under the table on the covered porch, so hopefully they will be okay.

There's something else hiding on the back porch to stay warm for the night...

"Blackie" the neighborhood cat!

Oops! He saw me!  However, that didn't change a thing...he's too lazy to get up and come say hello!

Actually, yesterday afternoon I sat out on the porch for a while and sipped a cup of tea before it turned too cold to sit out there...

And Blackie suddenly appeared out of nowhere and saw me sitting in his chair, and turned around and went right back down off the porch! He didn't even stop to say hello! LOL. There are two other chairs on the porch that he could've sat in, but I guess he likes mine best!  

A little later I watched the sun setting over Still Waters Pond, and then I saw the the Sand Hill Crane family fly in and go around and land on the other side of the island somewhere out of my sight.

So I hurried up and ran over to the next door new house property and went around to where I could see them on the little marshy strip of land behind the island:

I guess this is where they will probably build their next this year, once "Abe" leaves the nest for good!

I won't be able to watch them quite as closely since this spot is out of my view from my house, and once someone buys the house next door I won't be able to go over there anymore.  Unless the neighbors are really friendly!  I hope they will be, but still, they probably won't want me to come running around on their property everytime I want to watch the birds! LOL.

Well, friends, this is all for this Tuesday 4. I 've got to run to choir practice, so I'd better get a move on. (No worries, I will drive, not run. It's getting too dark to run 3 miles! LOL. As if I could or would! LOL)

Happy January everyone!!

A New Beginning ~ 2024 Is Here!

As the sun was setting over Still Waters Pond last night, we said our fond farewells to 2023, and prayed for a happy and healthy new beginning for 2024.

We counted all the blessings that God had rained down upon us in 2023, and gave Him thanks for His love and mercy and grace...

There were many blessings, as well as some trials and tribulations and disappointments...

But one by one, God saw us through them and restored relationships that were damaged, healed bodies that were broken or hurting, and filled our homes and hearts with joy and laughter and peace...

He gave us encouragement and hope that, just as He was with us all through 2023 (and all the years before that), He would still be with us in the New Year (and all the years that follow!)...

For me personally, it was a journey of learning to listen (my "One Word" for 2023) for His voice in all the sounds and noises around me...and even in the silence. Perhaps particularly in the silence, for that is when I could hear Him even more clearly, whispering words of love and forgiveness and affirmation of "this is the way, walk in it..."

Isaiah 30:21

"Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,

“This is the way, walk in it,”

Whenever you turn to the right hand

Or whenever you turn to the left." 

And so, this morning, the first morning of 2024, I have promised that I would reveal my new "One Word" for this year.  It's been an interesting journey over the past couple of weeks or so.  I thought God was steering me in a certain direction toward one word or another that kept popping up in front of me, and so I was feeling pretty good that I had it figured out already.  And then I looked back at my list of previous years of "One Words"  Link to One Word choices for previous years,  and realized that the two words I was kind of focusing on had already been used in earlier years in a little different variation of those words!  What?  How could I have forgotten words I had already focused upon for a whole year? Duh!  Apparently God wanted me to go back and have a "review" lesson, particularly in one of those words.  I must not have gotten the full message. So over the past week or so I've been praying about this and kind of putting the words to the test...how often did either of these words (or any other word??) come up in my reading or somehow placed before me...well, all of a sudden it seemed like one word in particular was popping up everywhere...in other people's blogs, on Facebook, in devotional reading, on billboards...I mean it was like God was saying: "Listen to Me, Miss Pamela! This is the word I want you to hear loud and clear and learn more of Me in the process this year!"   

So while I've been sitting here writing and making my final commitment to this word, before I reveal it to you and the world, I stepped outside on the front porch to see what the first sunrise of 2024 looked like.  God had some sweet surprises ready for me...

First of all, it was a beautiful sunrise...better than I'd expected:

And then! Coming up over the skies from around behind me where Still Waters Pond is...look who came flying over! Yes, this is our own Sand Hill Crane Family, Mom and Dad and Pat and Val...making an appearance at just the most perfect moment for me to see them and take their picture! How cool is that?

They flew right over me as if to say, "Good Morning and Happy New Year! It's going to be a great year!"

There they go, off to wherever Sand Hill Cranes spend their day, eating, walking, doing their thing, and then the usually come back here for the night to roost on the Pond.

What a blessing!! What a gift!!

So what has that to do with my new One Word?  Well, I had just committed myself to the new One Word for 2024:  Strength.  And I looked up and saw those beautiful big, very strong birds flying over me, much like how the eagles soar in the sky...and it confirmed the message God had been giving me over the past few days:

And then this....You've seen the little pillow on the right before that was made for me this past year by my now no longer granddaughter-in-law to be Dawn since she and our grandson have broken their engagement...but I still pray for her and ask God to guide her and show her His divine love...but this pillow, "The Joy of the Lord is your strength", Nehemiah 8:10, is what has been speaking to me for weeks about what my word should be. At first I thought it was going to be "JOY", but I used Joyful a couple of years ago...and so then I realized the word must be "Strength", and then discovered I had used the word "Strengthen" 10 years ago...But then, I was in the Dollar General store a couple of days ago and saw this other sign on the left, Philippians 4:13..."I can do all this through HIM WHO gives me strength."   And I snatched up this little sign and bought it right then and said, "That's it! That's the Word! Strength!!"

And then I started seeing it everywhere:

Internet 

Internet

And then a dear friend at church gave me this new devotional book for Christmas:

And on the inside flap for January was this verse:

I know it says "strengthen", which is the word I already used in 2014, but still it means the same thing, doesn't it?  God is promising to give me strength and help and He will uphold me with His righteous right hand!  What better promise could there be for 2024?

And here is the verse for the devotional for today:

Okay, Lord, I am ready!  Yes, I see it! You've already begun to make that pathway through the wilderness of my mind, and Your Word and Your Strength are flowing like rivers in the dry wasteland of my heart.

It's time for a new start...a new beginning...a new year,

and renewed strength.

God knows I need it, both physically and spiritually.

So here we go!!

Happy New Year!!

Postscript:  Just a quick note about today's plans:  Our family get together that was moved from Saturday to today has been changed once again. My dear sister has come down with a sore throat bug and isn't up to traveling here and needs to stay home and rest...and so we will reschedule when we can figure out everyone's schedules to get together again. That's fine with me. I am sorry for my sister not feeling well, but to be honest, I'm pretty tired myself...and I definitely need God to renew my 'strength' from all the recent activities of the holidays. So today we will have a quiet New Year's celebration over at our son and DIL's house...she was already planning to cook a ham and I will go ahead and make a smaller batch of "hoppin' John",  and we'll put stuff together to make a nice dinner. Our son Scott came down yesterday and would have spent the night here if we were having the family get together, but decided to go back to his place and crash since he's been working a lot of long hours lately and needs to catch up on his rest too.  So all's well that ends well...and I pray my sister will feel better soon and that no one else in her family gets it!   Hope you all have a blessed and wonderful New Year's Day, wherever you are and whatever you do! Be safe!!

Last Saturday of 2023

 Hey! Did you know this was the last Saturday of 2023?  Yep, it sure is!  And the other night I took a picture of the last full moon of 2023:

Yesterday morning hubby wanted pancakes for breakfast. I haven't made pancakes at home in a long time. We usually get pancakes when we go out to breakfast at our church community breakfast once a month, so I really don't need to make them! But we missed the last breakfast a couple of weeks ago because hubby wasn't feeling well, and well, I guess he just had a hankering for them, so here they are:

I also added blueberries from my stash of frozen blueberries from our local blueberry farm from this past summer.  They were pretty doggone good, if I do say so myself!

I also had a cup of "Gingerbread Joy" Christmas tea one afternoon...'tis the season for something a little more interesting than my normal plain black Lipton tea.

Let's see, what else has been going on this week?  Well, today is our sweet daughter in love Rose's birthday! Since our plans for our extended family "Christmas/New Year's gathering" was moved from today to Monday, we still wanted to do something special with Rose.  We left it up to her to decide where she would like to go out to lunch.  At first the plan was we would go to a BBQ restaurant in a neighboring town.  But Rose and Benton both have had a very busy and tiring week at work and neither one was feeling really great this morning, so we opted to just have a simple lunch here at home and have a low-key birthday celebration.  She didn't really want a cake, so I baked an apple crisp, and after a lunch of homemade broccoli cheese soup and deli meat/cheese sandwiches with lettuce and tomato, we had some warm apple crisp with whipped cream for dessert.  Here's the pictures from her birthday "party".

I know it doesn't look like there's very much apple crisp in the bowl. Well, the apples really shrunk when they cooked down, (and the bowl was too big to begin with). But it was plenty for the four of us, and it really was good on this very chilly day.

Yes, Rose has one more year before the big 5-0!  We'll have to plan something much grander for next year.

Her really "exciting" gift was some new "Pioneer Woman" dishtowels and utensils in a nice metal container.  The best gift was in the card/envelope. This was just something to wrap up and open, but I know for myself that I am always needing some new fresh dishtowels in the kitchen. I often use them until they are practically rags.

I thought this one was especially cute: I love you like biscuits and gravy". Here in the south that's a real thing.

In between lunch and dessert some of us took a quick nap as we were pretty tired...and it was nap time, after all!

Someone wanted to sit in Grandma's lap...

I'm sitting here holding Sugar in my lap and looking at the new doggie beds on the floor that were Christmas gifts for the grandpuppies, and thinking so much for that idea! LOL.   (Yes, that's Benton watching football and trying to stay awake).

And looky here:  Rose was napping on the couch and Spice was snuggled up next to her...

She'd peek her head up to look at her sister Sugar with me just to make sure that she wasn't missing anything, and then lay back down where we couldn't see her.

Yeah, they are a little bit spoiled, but we do enjoy them.  And kind of  like grandchildren...we enjoy them and spoil them and then they get to go back home with their "parents".  LOL.

Okay, this morning we took our last walk in the woods for 2023 (most likely).   It was 40 degrees, but at least the wind wasn't blowing so much and the sun was shining, so it wasn't too bad at all. Rather refreshing actually. 

Time for a nature lesson:  I've been noticing lately on our walks these little mounds of dirt spaced out all along the road.  They are too small to be a gopher mound, so I had to look them up to see what could be making these unusual mounds of dirt.

If you look closely in this picture, you will see the little mounds of dirt spaced out:

So I used my "Google Lens" app on my cell phone to take a picture of them and then search for what they could be.  HERE is a link to the story behind these piles of dirt.  And another link: They are the Florida Deepdigger Scarab Beetles.  If you click on those links you will get more information and a picture of what they look like.  Very interesting little critters that do this digging only during the winter months here in North Florida.  I didn't see any beetles on this walk, but I have seen them in the warmer months.  

Here's another interesting picture...this is Goldenrod gone to seed. I thought it kind of looked like it was covered in frost because we did have a frost warning this morning, but no, it's just  the was goldenrod looks when it is finished being 'golden'.  

And also there are signs of new growth already on our pine trees in the woods:  These little seed pods are full of pollen too...and so before you know it we will have yellow pine pollen to deal with again...

When I was taking a walk around our own little woods along the shores of Still Waters Pond, I saw some pretty mushrooms:

This one was actually a very pretty shade of purple, but the sun was shining on it so you can't really see how pretty it was.

And then there were these lovely orange colored mushrooms:

And here is an interesting crop of fungi growing on this dead branch which had fallen from a tree.

Funny thing, that evening hubby was asking me if I had any mushrooms to put in a salad. I said no, but I knew where I could find some in the woods, but he declined. LOL.  No, I would never attempt to figure out what kind of mushrooms in the woods are safe to eat.   Maybe if we were starving I might study up on it, but for now I think I will pass on that delicacy that could be deadly!

Safely back inside the house there have been some sweet little moments...Lily Grace (a.k.a. The Adventures of Lily Grace) received some very nice gifts for Christmas from her "Auntie" in S.C., (who is actually kind of like her "fairy godmother" who loves to send her fun things).  This same dear friend also sent me some nice little Christmas gifts as well, and one was that book you see on the left, "The Blessing of Friendship", which is truly a very lovely book between friends. I love it so much.

And also this book, "The Best Loved Doll", which is a very nice story about a little girl who went to a party where the children were told to bring a doll, either a very old doll, or a doll who could do some special things, or a very beautifully dressed doll, and there would be prizes given for the best of each category.  This little girl had several very nice dolls who could easily have won the prize in any of those areas, but she chose to take her favorite sweet old doll that was obviously very well "loved", based on her condition of a rather worn dress and some little bandages on her cheeks, etc.  When the lady who was giving out the prizes saw this doll, she realized that there needed to be a prize for "the Best Loved Doll", and of course this little girl and her doll won that prize. Sorry to be a story spoiler, but well, I couldn't help it.  

As most of you are aware, I have several dolls and they are all special and unique in their own way...and they have been gifted to me by wonderful people throughout the years of my life.  I keep them not because of their rarity or antiquity or particular beauty, but because each one has a history of some kind or another because of where it came from or who it may represent.  I know if you've followed me a long time you most likely already know the story of this doll seen below, "Baby Elva".  Here she is all dressed up in her Christmas outfit...

If you don't know her history, HERE is a link to the history of this sweet doll. and how she was originally sent to me, and by whom. That story in itself is quite amazing.

But HERE is a link to the story of why she is named "Baby Elva", and why her story is so important.  I neglected to write anything this past week on December 27th,  which would have been the 128th birthday of my Grandmother, Elva Sowers Smith Hill Mursch.  I did some extensive genealogical research into my grandmother's history a few years ago, in 2020, during the pandemic, and in honor of what would have been her 125th birthday. Because my grandmother was adopted as an infant, it was quite an interesting and eye-opening search...so if you click on that link just above you can read about that if you wish.  It's quite a story, and I am thankful for Ancestry.com and DNA research for being able to discover the real story behind my Grandmother's birth and life.

Well, it/'s time to wrap this up for tonight.  Tomorrow will be New Year's Eve, the last day of 2023, and the last Sunday as well.  We will be going to church and then plan to come home and rest up before the big gathering of family here on Monday. Our son Scott plans to come home and spend the night with us and maybe bake some more cookies...we shall see if he really wants to do that or not. We still haven't eaten all the cookies he baked last time and I had to put some in the freezer so they will still be good for Monday. 

Some have asked me if I have chosen my "One Word" for 2024 yet.  I think I have narrowed it down, but I was surprised when I went back and checked my words over the past 12 or more years of doing this that I have already used a variation of both words I was thinking seriously about using this year.  Maybe I need to go back and do them over again, because obviously I must not have learned everything I needed to learn if I can't remember that I'd already used them! LOL.  So I am still praying about this and trying to "listen" to God's voice telling me which way to go.

Isaiah 30:21 says: 

Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,”

The Bible tells us to Ask, Seek, and Knock...and "to him who knocks, it will be opened."

Matthew 7:7-8 says:

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 

8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."

(based on Revelation 3:6-8)

And so, as we await the beginning of another new year, the "opening of doors that no man can shut"...I pray for God's direction in many things...not just the choosing of a new word for the year...as that may seem a bit trivial in light of all the things that are most important in life,  but I seek His direction in how He wants me to live my life in the new  year...what things are most important to Him that He wants me to do?  Are there new steps of faith that I may be asked to take? Will there be challenges to my mind, my body, my life that will require me to walk even closer with the Lord each day than I have been doing?  No one knows what the future may hold.  Every day is a new day, every week a new week...etc....and all I know right now is that I must be willing to accept God's will and follow Him wherever He may lead me. I do not fear the unknown, because I know Who is leading the way.  So every day will be a new adventure with God.  Nothing can be better than that.

Okay, my friends, it's definitely time to close this post on this last Saturday of 2023. If I don't get around to writing again tomorrow, I will see you next year!  Until then, be at peace and be blessed. Amen.