Thankful Thursday and Friday Fotos All At Once!

Today is Thankful Thursday... and yes I am thankful.
Thankful for the rain that has been falling for the past few days. Still Waters Pond is starting to look like a pond again instead of a mud-pit. The water birds are starting to come back again.

 Can you see the Wood Duck couple above?  And the White Egret below?

This Red Bellied Woodpecker is enjoying a feast in the top of this dead pine tree:

Yes, he's really way up there!! But he doesn't seem to mind.

He can see all over town from way up there.

It is also time for Friday Fotos again, so I may as well add a few pictures from this week's walks:
I am thankful that my hubby and I can get out and walk every day, even in between the rain showers. (sometimes during, but not on purpose!)
Found some new species of flowers while walking this week:  (Do you see that little green grasshopper again? I wonder if he is the same one that was on my rose blossom last week? He sure gets around town! LOL)

Penstemon-Multifloris  found in the woods  https://www.fnps.org/plants/plant/penstemon-multiflorus

Fernleaf yellow False Foxglove

Wild Purple Pea Vine

 Fungi growing on old dead logs. Kind of like the age spots that grow on our "old bodies". LOL.

One day this week our friend Sylvia, who used to write her blog A Grandma's Blessings, invited me to have tea with her on Facebook. (Sylvia hasn't been able to write her blog since her sweet hubby passed away last year and she has moved and hasn't unpacked her computer. We've missed her here!) She sent me a picture of her teacup and delicious looking cranberry orange muffins. So I responded with this picture of my teacup and an apple bran muffin. Soon a few other friends joined us...I think there was Mary from "Visits with Mary" and a banana muffin, and then Linda joined us from "Simply Linda", along with her lemonade because she said it was too hot for tea up in New York!

We had a great time visiting on Facebook, and you are welcome to join in here if you'd like. I think we are all ready for some kind of tea parties and friendly visits with one another.

I just picked up a little book off my bookshelf here beside my desk.

I think someone else mentioned this book or another by Emilie Barnes recently. I love her books and have several of them.

I turned to the chapter that says: "Fill my cup, Lord...I offer you my cup of loneliness and selfishness, that You may give me Your cup of communion."

I think many of us are suffering from various forms of loneliness during this time of isolation. Even if we have family all around us, we can still be lonely. We are missing our friends and our times of fellowship and friendly visits.  I don't think it is selfish to miss that. I wrote yesterday about missing our times of worship at church and my concerns that even when we go back to church it just won't be quite the same as before.  I've been really thinking about that praying about my attitude toward that today.  You know, "the cup of communion" with Christ is not only talking about "The Lord's Supper" that we share with other believers at church on a regular basis. It is a daily communion with Christ...reading His Word, praying, and communicating with Him throughout the day as we walk or sit and watch the birds, or whatever we enjoy doing that is relaxing and peaceful.  And even though our "communion" with others may be somewhat limited right now, we can still have a kind of communion here, through our blogs as we encourage one another and lift up each other in prayer. As we share stories of hope and faith from our own life's experiences...these are all ways of filling our lives with the "cup of the Lord's communion".  

I am thankful for this group of people here who gather sometimes daily to share their lives with us. This gives us each a feeling of friendship and fellowship that we sorely need.

Jesus said in Matthew 18:19-20

"I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them."

So in my combined thankful Thursday and Friday Foto post, I want to thank you for being here! Thank you for listening when I share my concerns and frustrations as well as my joys and blessings. I look forward to hearing from each of you and seeing what things are happening in your lives each week. We are a kind of family here, and you are each very special to me. My cup is full because of you!

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you."

Philippians 1:3

Friday Foto Friends - Some Friendly Thoughts

I saw this picture on Facebook and couldn't resist...

It made me think about my wonderful blogging friends as well as some of my local "face to face" friends and family...

It seems to embody all the things we tend to have in common...love of a good cup of tea (or coffee for those of you who must! LOL), a stack full of good books that we can't seem to get enough of...some bon-bons and cupcakes, pretty flowers, and a spirit of adventure!!  Who among us wouldn't just love to do exactly this...remember when we played house and had tea parties as little girls?  My sister and I did...we had a special table-cloth that fit over a card-table that had a picture of a house painted on it...windows, a door, the roof, and we could sit under the table and play with our dollies and have tea parties and "pretend" we were grown up mommies.

 (Something similar to this idea below found on the internet:)


Last weekend my sister and I celebrated her birthday with a little tea party.  We didn't have to crawl under the table to have our party (thank goodness! We'd probably still be stuck there!)..and now we are both grown up mommies for real!  (I know some of you who are my Facebook friends may have already seen some of these pictures, so bear with me)

We used the cute little teapot with a birdie on the lid that my sister had given me one year for my birthday or Christmas, I forget which...

And we used the Haviland China Tea Cups that came from our Grandma Tedlie, via our mother when she passed.  My sister and I shared the collection so that we each have some of the same...

Then we took our tea party out to the front porch because it was such a lovely day:

and sat and rocked like two little old ladies and listened to the birdies and talked about things we enjoy...flowers, birds, and our families...

Kind of like this old painting which belonged to our grandmother...I believe this picture is entitled "The Gossips",   but we weren't gossiping...just visiting, which is entirely altogether different!

I count you all as my special friends, whether we have met in person or not. I look forward to this gathering each week...love to hear about your life and what you've been doing and the things you have seen. It truly is like visiting with dear friends, and I do thank God for each and every one of you.

~Some thoughts on Friendship~

"If you would be loved, love and be lovable."

Benjamin Franklin

Philippians 1:3 

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you"

"The better part of one's life consists of his friendships."

Abraham Lincoln

I Thessalonians 5:11 

"Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing."

Proverbs 17:17a 

"A friend loves at all times..."

"Being with you is like walking on a very clear morning..

definitely the sensation of belonging there."

E.B. White

I hope you've enjoyed this little friendly visit today.  Now let us join our other Friday Foto Friends over at Deb's Place, Breathing in Grace, and see what's been happening in your lives!!