Happy Sunday Morning

I keep this old postcard as a marker in my Bible. You can see it is getting rather worn with age, but it reminds me that Jesus tenderly cares for His sheep...and we are "the sheep of His pasture".

Psalm 100 KJV

100 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; 

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: 

be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; 

and his truth endureth to all generations.

And furthermore:

Psalm 122 KJV

 1 "I was glad when they said unto me, 

Let us go into the house of the Lord.

2 Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.

3 Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together:

4 Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, 

to give thanks unto the name of the Lord.

5 For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.

7 Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.

8 For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.

9 Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good."

This is a good way to start our Sunday morning...being happy about going to "the House of the Lord", and also praying "for the peace of Jerusalem..."  In these turbulent times, Jerusalem (Israel) definitely needs our prayers, as does our own nation and other places in the world.  And may we never forget the part of verse 6 that says, "They shall prosper that love thee."   May our nation always remember that and not forget to pray for the peace of the people of Israel. Amen.

I am still continuing to remember things to be happy about during this month of August "happiness" challenge.  There are so many things, I may forget to count them all. But at least I will give it a try!

This morning I am happy that my wayward kitty Blackie came back home. Yesterday he got a bit scared when we had a fellow here power washing the outside of the house. He didn't want to stay indoors with all that noise going on outside, so we let him out so he could go wherever he wanted to go. Well, not too long after there developed a very loud thunderstorm with some extremely heavy downpours of rain in addition to the exceedingly loud thunderbooms and flashes of lightning.  Our power washer fellow had to stop working and will finish the job later. But Blackie apparently was so scared he took off for parts unkown, and when he didn't show up for his dinner around 3:30 in the afternoon, I began to get concerned, because he NEVER misses a meal! I called and called, and checked the places where I thought he might be hiding (he likes to go under the shed), but to no avail.  I continued calling for him long after dark, thinking he'd show up when it got dark and he could run back home under cover of darkness and not feel threatened by someone seeing him. That's what he'd done before when he got scared away because of some big dogs running loose in the neighborhood. But by the time we were ready for bed he still had not shown up. As you can imagine, I was rather worried. I know we are not supposed to worry...but alas! I am still human, and I do worry sometimes!  Hubby kept reassuring me that Blackie would be back in the morning in time for his breakfast, and so we said our prayers and prayed for our wandering kitty and went to sleep.  I did wake up a few times in the night and wondered if he was out there, but I decided not to worry and prayed again and went back to sleep.

Well, you can well imagine my relief and joy this morning at 5:30 a.m. when I went to the back door to let him in to feed him like we normally do (yes, he does normally stay out at night and that seems to work best for his routines and habits), and yes! There he was,  waiting at the back door to come in for breakfast just like nothing was any different than usual!

Of course I told him he gave me quite a fright and that I really didn't like that, but I was so happy to see him I couldn't stay too upset with him.  He just looked at me with those big yellow eyes like Mr. Innocent and he really didn't know what all the fuss was about. "After all", he seemed to be saying, "I AM a Cat! What did you expect???"   

So, I am relieved this morning that Blackie is back home again safe and sound and back to his old tricks. And yes, he is still an indoor/outdoor cat, which seems to work for him just fine. I just wish he'd tell me when he's not coming home for dinner! LOL.  I suppose he picked up a lizard or some other little creature to tide him over until breakfast.  After all, he IS a cat!!! He knows how to survive on his own...but I do think God watches over him as well.

Speaking of creatures...I discovered THIS creature(s) on our deck railing yesterday afternoon.

This strange looking critter is actually TWO different creatures "together"...(as in mating).  It is a "Southern Two-striped Walkingstick", also known as a "Anisomorpha buprestoides".

"This species, and another in the same genus (Anisomorpha ferruginea, whose range is more west and north, but may overlap with A. buprestoides) is particularly well known for its very potent chemical defense spray which it deploys from a pair of glands which open at the front of its thorax. The "Devil rider" name for this insect likely comes from this defense, as well as the fact that they are most frequently encountered in the late summer and fall when they are active adults at a time when almost all of them are found in mating pairs, with the smaller male riding on the back of the larger female." (Wikipedia)

Thankfully they did not spray it's "very potent chemical defense spray" on me when I took its picture! Shew! That was a close one! LOL.  I am happy about that!

Some other things I am happy about...fresh peaches on cereal!

(hubby's breakfast)

Or mixed with my peach yogurt....I did add some organic granola to this after I took the picture, It was SO good!!

And I promised a  picture from when the kids came over on Friday night to make home-made pizza! Here it is after it sat and cooled. I forgot to take a picture when it was fresh out of the oven or when we were making it. It was SO good!  This was all that was left of two pizzas.

And we are always happy when our two grandpuppies come to visit:

This is Spice

And this is Sugar.  They the sweetest things! (But don't let Blackie cross their path! Oh no! That would be disastrous!)

Something else I am happy about...My friend Katheryn Masterson has written another book (actually there are more than this) and I just received this one from Amazon. Again, Katheryn has written such a sweet story about one of our favorite little creatures, the Ladybug! I am collecting these little books to send to a special little friend for Christmas.  I don't have any little grand or great grandchildren in my life to read these books to, but the stories are so good I want to share them with those who do.  They are well worth the money because the stories are so engaging and entertaining as well as educational.  I'm so proud of my friend Katheryn for embarking on this adventure in her own life!

One more thing...Today would be my Daddy's 108th birthday! He's been celebrating in heaven since 2011, and there's hardly a day that I don't think about him or am reminded of him in some way every day. Here's a family portrait of my family. I'm the little redhead on the front right end,  holding onto (or he's holding onto me) my Daddy's hand.  This was on our farm in Pennsylvania, many moons ago.

And here's my Daddy when he was a little fella, probably close in age to what I was in the above picture (give or take a year). He's standing there with his big sister, my Aunt Marion. You can't tell it in the picture, but my daddy was also a redhead. That's where I got it from.

And here is a four generation picture...My Daddy, "Grandpa Choo-Choo", in his train room, showing off his trains to his Great Grandchild and my grandchild Noah. Our son Matthew is holdling Noah, and I am looking on. I wonder if Matthew and Grandpa are playing with trains in heaven?  

Anyway, I couldn't let the day go by without remembering what a special and wonderful man, Daddy, and Grandpa he was. I was truly blessed to have such a good father.  He helped me to understand just how good our Heavenly Father is, by setting such a good and godly example. I am very thankful for that blessing.

And so, now it is evening. Sunday morning came and went...we went to church, came home and had lunch and a nice visit with our son Scott. It has been a very happy day.

Good Night and God bless you all!

Thursday 6 and Thursday Thankfulness

 My friend Syl over at Sylify is the hostess for this Thursday 6 meme each week. Just six questions. Syl lives in the Netherlands (right, Syl?), and I enjoy visiting with her on her blog throughout the week.  Since I didn't have anything else in particular planned for today, I thought I would give this a try, so here you go!

Welcome!
Theme of the week:  Greetings

1. Did you already have snow this season?

No, because I live in Florida, where snow would be quite unusual, especially in November. It has happened before in January or February, but never enough to accumulate...it usually melts before it hits the ground, but when it does happen, everyone goes crazy for a few minutes just wanting to enjoy it!

Newspaper articles about when it snowed in Central Florida in 1977.  I remember this night, because I was about 8 months pregnant with our youngest son, and I had just arrived at church with our other two children for Wednesday night church, (or some other program).  We had just gotten inside the building and had taken off our jackets when people came in saying it was snowing...and the kids and everyone ran back outside without jackets to see the snow!  My hubby was working as a FHP State Trooper at that time, and he was actually directing traffic out in the snow. He said people were driving like they forgot how to drive. It was crazy everywhere! But so much fun for a few minutes.

2. Who puts the rubbish outside? How?

Usually my hubby and I take the rubbish out together, and we just did that a few minutes ago, because the garbage truck will arrive around 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, and we need to put it out tonight rather than try to wake up on time to catch them in the morning.  

3. At what time did you close the curtains yesterday?

Well, the curtains on the front side of the house stay closed all the time because we live on a rather busy street and I don't like people looking in our windows as they drive by. Plus the sun is very bright on that side of the house in the morning, so we keep them shut to keep the sun from being too hot in the house. 

Here's the view from the front porch early this morning:

 The blinds on the back side of the house overlooking the pond are open for much of the morning, but when the sun moves around to the southwestern side of the house, we have to close them during the middle part of the day or it makes it too warm in the house and the glare off the pond (when there's water in it) is hard to look at.  Then we usually open them back up when the sun goes down in the evening (or on a cloudy day they stay open all the time, which I love).  We don't normally close them back up at night on that side of the house because there's no one behind us to look in them.  

This was the view from our back porch windows last night:

Blackie and Sunshine were enjoying watching the sun going down:

Psalm 113:3 NKJV

3 From the rising of the sun to its going down

The Lord’s name is to be praised.

4. How do you keep warm during the night? What kind of cover?

Funny you should ask...when the cold snap hit a week or so ago, we brought out the new set of flannel sheets that I bought at the end of last winter. I've been anxious to put them on the bed, because I just love the little cabins and pine trees in the snow...

Aren't they cute?  And they are so soft and warm and cozy.  They make me smile just to look at them!

And when I really get chilled, I add this sherpa lined blanket that I got for Christmas last year:

It is super cozy!! Especially when I snuggle up with my little brown "Bear Bear" you see there...and of course my big Teddy Bear hubby too...

When the temperatures start to drop, I think "cozy" is my favorite word...

5. Have you bought Christmas cards yet?

I actually just ordered some yesterday. They don't seem to be carrying them at Walmart anymore and I have a hard time finding any locally, so I had to order them. I also bought some Christmas postage stamps today, but what a sticker shock that was! I may be limiting my Christmas card list this year to people that I don't communicate with online  that much...I don't know...we'll see. I do love to receive cards in the mail, so it's only right that I should send them out too...but it's really getting to be quite expensive!

6. Do you feed the birds when it's cold?

Yes...Feeding and watching the birds is one of our favorite pasttimes in the winter/spring months.

 

Now that we have these porch kitties living here, I do hope they won't scare away all of our pretty birds this winter.  Time will tell.   Mostly our cats just lay there on the porch and watch the birds...they really haven't been that interested in stalking them, so I hope that will be the norm for this winter...

I guess that's the end of the questions for the week for Thursday 6, but I still have more to say! (Of course!) LOL.

Yesterday we had some fellas from our church come and trim those big oak trees in the front. They cut back a lot of low hanging branches and really made them look a lot better!

Here's the finished product!  They cleaned everything up and it looks so nice!  We are very thankful for their hard work and excellent job!

While I was standing on the front porch, this beautiful Gulf Fritillary butterfly came and landed on the pot of Penta that is still blooming so prettily! What a blessing! 

Another thing I am thankful for this past week was as I mentioned in an earlier post HERE, that son Scott came home and cleaned up his room so very nicely.  Then son Benton came over on Tuesday and hauled away some things to the dump, and also helped me get the bed set up the way I wanted it.  I didn't take any before pictures (because it was too big of a mess!!) but here's the after pictures:

The bed used to be turned so that it was up against that wall where the head of the bed is now. You couldn't get beside it on that side so it was very hard to make the bed, but that's the way Scott always liked it.  This way is much better for my purposes and to possibly use it as a guest room now. 

Here's the organ that Scott inherited from my parents' house...(he's the only one that wanted it). It's quite old now and very heavy, but it still works, and he still loves to play it when he comes home, so it will stay there until he has a house of his own to move it to someday.

Here he is playing it at my parents' home when he was about 11. That was where you'd find him everytime we went there.  He doesn't read music, but he makes it up as he goes, and it's actually quite nice. I wish he'd taken piano lessons when he was young...but he calls this his "therapy".

Here's Scott a few years ago when we were in the process of moving and had our stuff stored at the church parsonage where we stayed until we closed on this house...(another long story).

I am very thankful for our family and for these sweet memories.  

Well, it's getting late, and I need to wrap this up.  If you wanted to join in the Thursday 6, it's not too late. Click HERE for the questions.  Thank you, Syl, for coming up with the questions for the week! I enjoyed this!

Psalm 100  NKJV

A Song of Praise for the Lord’s Faithfulness to His People

A Psalm of Thanksgiving.

"1 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!

2 Serve the Lord with gladness;

Come before His presence with singing.

3 Know that the Lord, He is God;

It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,

And into His courts with praise.

Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

5 For the Lord is good;

His mercy is everlasting,

And His truth endures to all generations."

Thursday Thankfulness and Friday Foto Friends

 I really didn't have a lot to share tonight, but thought I should at least share some blessings! There is ALWAYS something to be thankful for, right?  We just need to stop and think about it and praise God for all He has done for us.

Yesterday afternoon we were both pretty tired. Just haven't really been sleeping well and we still seem to be catching  up since we were sick for a couple of weeks following our trip.  So we took a nap and we were both pretty sound asleep, and then we were awakened by a knock on what sounded like our bedroom wall, which is on the end of the house.  It kept knocking, so I jumped up and looked out the window and didn't see anything. I went around to the doors and checked, and there was no sign of anyone anywhere. So I went back to bed, and we started to doze off and it started up again. This time we both got up and went outside and walked all the way around the house and still didn't see anything.  We finally decided it must've been a woodpecker in the tree outside our bedroom window. That's the only thing we could figure out.  I am thankful it wasn't anything else and there was no real cause for alarm, but you know how those strange things that happen kind of unnerve you?  Yeah, well, Praise God everything was fine. However I did see this while I was outside looking for "intruders".

This beautiful "Gulf Fritillary" butterfly was fluttering around in the Butterfly garden.  She was so lovely, and it made the wake up call worth all the "anxiety" of the moment...Perhaps God was knocking and wanted me to see this beauty before it flew away...

I thanked the Lord for allowing me to enjoy these few moments of peace and joy in the garden.

This verse was in our devotions for yesterday:

John 14:27  NKJV

27 "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Perfect, right?

A little later that afternoon a young boy from our neighborhood came to the door and asked if we had any kind of little jobs he could do for us.  What a surprise! He actually just recently moved into the little yellow house over across the way from us. He seemed like a very polite and sweet young man of about 11 years old.  We told him to come back today after he gets out of school and we would have something for him to do.  And so he did.  We have lots of little branches that are constantly falling from our big oak trees into the yard, and we always have to rake them up before we can mow the grass. Especially after the recent storms, we have had a LOT of raking to do, and quite frankly, we are getting too old for that! So when he came this afternoon we gave him a rake and set him to work raking up some branches. He was so happy! After he had completed the job so very nicely, we paid him a reasonable amount, and he was thrilled. He said he is wanting to do little jobs so he can earn some money to buy himself a phone. We thought that was very refreshing to see a young person willing to work and save his money so he can buy something, rather than expecting his parents to buy it for him. I am impressed with this young man, and we told him that we will have other jobs periodically for him to do, especially when we have any storms that knock down more branches!  He was very excited and happy and did a very good job.  Hubby and I both felt blessed to have this young man come to our door in such a manner. God knew we needed the help!  Next time I will ask if he minds if I take his picture. Maybe I should ask his parents first. Yeah, that's probably a good idea.

Speaking of jobs getting done, over the past weekend we had some fellows who are actually from our church come over and do some work for us under the house.  This is a manufactured home, and because we sit on a bit of a slope overlooking the pond, there is a tendency for rains to kind of erode the grounds around us.  We wanted to doublecheck to make sure things weren't getting unlevel under there, so they came and checked everything and did some work on the jacks that are already installed under the house just for that purpose. Then they reset some of the block columns and secured them better than before, and everything is now in much better shape. It wasn't really all that bad, but we just wanted to be sure. We are thankful for skilled men who knew just what to do and did it efficiently and reasonably!

While they were doing that, I found this strange looking fella on the skirting of the house around the corner:

Wheel Bug "The wheel bug, Arilus cristatus (Linnaeus), is a moderately common, widely distributed, beneficial assassin bug that preys on pest insects. However, its bite can be more severe than a bee sting, and both nymphs and adults should be avoided or handled with caution."

You can be assured that I did not try to pick him up or handle him. I do, however, like that he preys on pest insects. He is welcome to all the pests out there anytime! LOL.  I haven't seen him since that day, however.

Since I really haven't been out and about all that much the past couple of days, I didn't have a whole lot of anything new to share in the way of photos.  And so I thought you might like to see how our little family in Pamela's Victorian Cottage are doing these days!  They sit right here beside me in my "Room with a View" where I do all of my writing, and I sometimes look over at them to see what they are doing...and then I realize that they can't do anything unless I pay them some attention. Otherwise they just kind of stand around looking at me with that look of "why don't you come over and play with us sometimes?"  LOL.  And so tonight I thought it was about time they started getting ready for Thanksgiving.  Oh, if you aren't familiar with Pamela's Victorian Cottage, you can click on the link for it over on the right column of this blog under the heading of  "Some Special Topics".  That will take you to all the blog posts I've written about them since Pamela's Victorian Cottage first came into existence. Maybe you will enjoy reading about their special place.  

Here's the whole family, bustling around and getting the house prepared for the Thanksgiving holiday that is coming up very soon...

There's the little mother, looking at the giant pumpkins and turkey that the two little friends from the farm down the road brought over to help out with the Thanksgiving dinner.

Here's our little farm friends at their house just before they took the turkey and pumpkin to the big house...

Everyone is always excited when company comes!

They have set up the table for tea and cookies...

For the family in Pamela's Victorian Cottage,"Life is one big tea party" all the time! LOL.

See here? Mama has already put the teakettle on the stove!

It's so much fun having guests for Thanksgiving Dinner!

The children upstairs are playing dress up and actually thinking about Christmas, but they need to remember that Thanksgiving comes first, and we should always set aside a special time to give thanks to God for all His wonderful blessings.  The only little boy who lives in the house is already saying his prayers of Thanks!

Yes, these are happy and exciting days at Pamela's Victorian Cottage!  They can hardly wait for Thanksgiving day to come!  

And now they are all reciting the 100th Psalm, a Thanksgiving tradition that has been around since we were all children!

Let's all recite it together:

Psalm 100 KJV

1 "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: 

it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; 

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: 

be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; 

and his truth endureth to all generations."

I hope you enjoyed this little story from Pamela's Victorian Cottage.  Stay tuned for future adventures!

Good Night Friends!