Monday Monday~Father's Day and Storms

 Happy Monday evening!  I'm just getting around to sitting down here at the computer and trying to think of what to say!  Hope you have been having a good Monday, and that your weekend was special in every way.  We had a wonderful Father's Day get together with the kids yesterday.  Our son Scott came and grilled boneless/skinless chicken thighs for us. I made potato salad and corn on the cob, a tossed salad, and a blueberry pie at hubby's request.  Rose brought the deviled eggs.  I forgot to take a picture of our meal, but here's the blueberry pie right after it came out of the oven. You can see it was bubbling over with blueberry juice!

Hubby declared it was the best blueberry pie he'd ever eaten!

I was happy to hear that, because these were blueberries that I'd gotten fresh (already picked) from the blueberry farm last month and froze them. Unfortunately, they have a picking machine that tends to leave a bit of the stem on the berries, and I had to hand pick the stems off of almost every single berry! Imagine that when the blueberries were thawing and becoming a bit soft...yeah, it was a tedious job, but no one found a stem in their piece of pie! LOL.  Next year I guess I will have to go and pick my own blueberries so I can be sure there are no stems left on them!

Who knows, maybe next year I'll be able to pick enough blueberries off of my own bush to bake a pie! This is a bush I planted a few years ago, and this is really the first year it has had so many berries.

I just went and picked this little handful of ripe ones. Maybe not enough for a pie, but they will taste good in my yogurt or on some cereal. There's just something very satisfying about picking your own fruit and eating it!  I consider it a gift from God! I know I sure didn't do anything to make these grow, except water them when it was so dry. But God did everything else.

Anyway, I digress.  Back to yesterday...here's the "kids" with "Daddy"...

And here's the whole bunch of us.

This is one of my most favorite pictures of my hubby, reading Bible stories to our little boys in bed at bedtime. As you can see, Scott is just a baby, then Benton was about 5 &1/2, and Matthew was 4. These are very precious memories.

And here's a picture of "Daddy" and his boys and our one grandson Noah, taken back in  February of 2014 at the last time our whole family was together before Matthew passed away from cancer in May of 2014.    It's sad to me that we will never be able to have a "complete" family portrait again...but we will all be together again in heaven some day, and that celebration will never end!

And speaking of other great fathers...Here's hubby's father and my hubby John and his little brother Billy. This was taken at Daytona Beach back in the late1950's.  Notice the Studebaker car behind them. That was their car.  Our family had one of those too back in the day! They were built like a tank! LOL.

And here I am with my Daddy. This was taken on a Sunday afternoon. I think he had been reading the funny papers to me and we fell asleep.  I was pretty young. LOL.

So after our kids left we took a nap too.  Then when we woke up, there was quite a thunderstorm brewing.

The rain was so heavy at times it was like a "white out" on Still Waters Pond!

And yes, it did help to start refilling the pond! WooHoo! We are very thankful for that!

At one point, I could actually see and hear very small bits of hail hitting against the front picture window!

And although you can't see it here, we had two umbrellas open on the front porch, one on each table, which helps to shade our front window/porch on these very hot and sunny days. I usually try to put the umbrellas down when a storm is coming, but this one blew up so quickly I didn't have time, and the umbrella from the table on the left literally was lifted up by the wind and blown over the top of the other umbrella...

And landed on the other side of the deck outside of the porch railing on the ground!  That was quite a blow!!

Thankfully no harm was done to the umbrella or the tables, but it just shows how quickly things can change in a bad storm!!

But thankfully, when we know we have Jesus with us in this "boat of life"...we do not need to fear what the winds and waves and storms of life can do to us...He rebukes the wind and the "sea", and says, "Peace be still!", and the storms will cease...

Mark 4:35-41 NKJV
35 On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.” 36 Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. 

37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. 

38 But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
39 Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace,be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. 

40 But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” 

41 And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!”

Even though there are still times in life when I may feel fearful and anxious about things that are happening around me or in my family, (or in the world at large), I am reminded of this story where Jesus rebuked the disciples and asked them why they were so fearful..."How is it that you have no faith?"  He wanted them and us to know that when you have Jesus in the boat with you, there is nothing to fear.  The important question to ask ourselves is if we have Jesus in our boat with us.  If not, there's no time like the present to invite Him to join us in our life's journey. When Jesus is with us, we can sleep in peace while the storms are raging. God is in control. 

Like these porch kitties...Blackie and Sunshine...sleeping in perfect peace...

And just for fun...these were taken last night after the storm...Sunshine sometimes likes to jump up onto the porch railing and watch the world go by...

"Hey! I see you looking at me!"

"Am I yawning because I'm bored with looking at you? Or am I laughing at a good private joke?  I'll never tell."

"There's nothing too exciting in there to see, so I'll just lay down here on the this railing ignore you!"

And with that, I think I will close this for tonight.

Psalm 4:8 NKJV

8 I will both lie down in peace, and sleep;

For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Amen.

Happy Valentine's Day and more!!

 Here it is Friday night, Valentine's Day evening.  And I am plumb tuckered out! LOL.  Thank you all for your sweet comments the past few days.  Many of you wanted to hear more about how things went today, as we celebrated my hubby's birthday along with Valentine's Day and also my sister and her hubby's 59th anniversary.  So here you go...We'll start with the fun stuff...Well, it was ALL fun stuff!

Here we are all gathered around the table, and of course I say, "Wait! We have to get a picture before you start eating!"  Well, Some people couldn't wait...but thanks to son Scott, who knows how to do the timer thingy on my cell phone to take a picture and jump into it himself before the actual picture snaps...here we are, all smiling and happy and hungry!

After we finished our wonderful lunch of hamburgers, hotdogs, and/or chicken thighs, potato salad, cole slaw, beans and deviled eggs, it was time for the family tradition of singing Happy Birthday to the Birthday boy:

And then of course he had to blow the candles out:

Oh, there were so many candles! LOL! But he made it, so his wish will come true! LOL.

I think he was wishing we'd quit taking pictures and get on with the cutting of the cake! There were actually two cakes...one Devil's Food with Cream Cheese/Whipped Cream frosting, and a Strawberry Cake with whipped cream topping and fresh strawberries on top. They were both good, if I do say so myself. (I baked them). LOL.

Here's some before pictures of the table, and there were Valentine's Cards, Birthday Cards, Anniversary Cards,  and Valentine candy for everyone.  

Lily Grace may have had something to do with all the little Valentines and Candy hearts for everyone...

and she and her friends sure had a nice party too!

Remember getting these kinds of Candy Hearts for Valentine's Day?

My sister Doris brought these beautiful "High Fragrance Camellias" from her garden to share with us! 

They definitely smelled so good!

After we were done eating, we girls walked around looking at the flora and fauna..here's Rose and Doris now...

And here's Doris taking a picture of some of the "flora"  (yes, we both do this...)

She was trying to identify the plant and also we were both looking at the bumblebees all over it! (and trying not to get stung!)

Come to find out it is a "Wild Radish" plant, which grows wild all over the area.  

Oh, and you remember my favorite little "Fairy Flowers", as I call them, that are growing in our yard right now?

Turns out it is something called a "Blue Toadflax" wildflower! Who'd ever thought that???

That is what is growing in the "yard" of our Gnome Home...and now there is a "Mr. Toad" sitting there pretty as you please, and he said, "I Toad You so!"   LOL.

Soon we two sisters got tired of walking and sat down in the Secret Memorial Garden on the bench to take a little break, and sweet Rose took our picture:

Some people like to say we look like twins, and I expect there will be some here who see this and will wonder. But no...we're definitely not. There were "several years" between our births, and growing up we didn't look much alike at all. Somehow over the years we have kind of melded into each other...

Here we are as children, many years ago:   I'm the "little redhead" on the end, looking up at Doris, who is the cute brunette child standing next to me, holding a bouquet of flowers. I think she was born with flowers in her hand. She's the one with the green thumb in the family.  I like to take pictures of flowers, but I don't do a very good job of growing them, so I depend on God to do that for me! LOL. That's why I love wildflowers so much.  BTW, I love this photo of my family. It is rare to find color photos from way back when, but my Grandfather loved to take "Slide" photos, and they were always in color, so this picture actually was developed from a slide.  L to R, my brothers Russell (RIP), Clifford, Doris, and Me. My parents Bill and Dorothea Mursch on the back row. (RIP for both of them too).

Speaking of wildflowers, I went looking for these Wild Plum trees the other day to see if they were blooming. I found one in the area where we used to walk all the time, but I apparently was too late for some of the trees that I usually watch for them to bloom. I was happy to find these:

So I brought some home to make a bouquet for today, but they don't look quite as good as I'd hoped, plus they keep dropping petals.

But here's one pretty photo before they totally droop and die:

Speaking of drooping...I am about to droop now...so I think I will call it a night. It was a wonderful day, and I am SO thankful for our family, and especially for my sister and her hubby Art to drive all the way up to be with us today. They live almost two hours away, so that is a long trip to make round trip in one day. I tried to talk them into spending the night, but you know how we all like to sleep in our own beds at this stage in life...and thankfully I've already heard that they arrived back home safely.

And now this verse speaks to my heart...

Psalm 4:8 NKJV

8 I will both lie down in peace, and sleep;

For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Good Night everyone! "Sleep tight! Don't let the bed bugs bite".   LOL.  

Monday Monday~Time to Prepare

 Here it is Monday evening, and I haven't written anything yet!  We've had a bit of a busy day...prepping for Hurricane Milton, which is scheduled to arrive in our state sometime late Wednesday evening or overnight Thursday morning.  If you've been watching the news, you will see that it is currently a Category 5 storm, but it is still in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and moving slowly toward the peninsula of Florida. It is scheduled (at this time) to make landfall somewhere near Tampa Bay, maybe a little north, or maybe a little south, but hopefully by then it will have slowed down to a Category 3, which is still huge, and it will wreak havoc on the Gulf Coast with strong storm surges again in areas already hit hard by Hurricane Helene two weeks prior.  This storm is supposed to move across the state rather than going up the coast, which means it will come barreling in our direction. However, the current prediction is that it will slow down and be more of a Category 1 as it crosses the state, but it may move very slowly, which means it will have more time to dump more rain and blow high winds all around while it lingers over us.  Therefore, even though we are more inland and north of the main impact zone, we could still get sustained 60-75 mph winds, which most likely will do some major tree damage and we can expect to have widespread power outages.  (I'm beginning to sound like a weatherman! We spend so much time watching them, we are being programmed...)

So anyway, we went to the store this morning and stocked up on some food/paper goods items, and then came home and put things away again from the yard...bird feeders, wind chimes, small items that could blow away, etc.  Then we went to our Bible Studies this afternoon and did more talking about what's going on that doing our Bible Study very seriously. But we encouraged one another and prayed for our situation and basically prepared ourselves mentally and spiritually for what is coming.

Speaking of bird feeders, I put ours up on the back porch under shelter for now, but left out where the birds could still find them and eat, and also where we could watch them from inside the house.  I enjoyed just sitting and watching and snapping a few pictures for a while, which was very relaxing and calming:

Male Cardinal

Carolina Chickadee

Male Cardinal and Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse

Male Cardinal

Female Cardinal

Carolina Chickadee

Two Carolina Chickadees!

I enjoyed watching them so much! I hope you did too!

Yesterday was our grandson Noah's 25th birthday!  We tried to call him, but he had to work, so we just left him a message on the phone and sang Happy Birthday to him.  But happily, he called us back this evening and we had a nice long conversation.  Here's the latest picture of him, posted by his mother on Facebook yesterday.  Someone said he must be a James Bond fan because of his gesture.  But my son said, no, it would be an Austin Powers gesture...I don't know anything about that, but apparently he was just being funny and cute.  He reminds me so much of his father, our son Matthew, who was always doing something funny and cute. Anyway, I'm just so glad we were able to talk with him. That means so much to us, and hopefully it did to him as well.

Also yesterday evening our "kids" (Benton and Rose) came over and we had bratwurst with peppers and onions on it for supper.  Then we played some of that game, "Deer in the Headlights", and discussed Hurricane strategy.   If things get too wild and rough, we may go over to their house, as they have a solid concrete block home, whereas we live in a manufactured home.  However, we have a generator and they don't, plus we have city water and they have a well, so we would have water and electricity via generator, but they would have solid concrete walls, but no water or power.  We shall see what we end up needing the most. Praying mostly that we will all be safe no matter what condition our utilities are in.  

While the kids were here, of course the grandpups came over too. They were being their usual cute selves.

Here's Sugar...and this is her habit when she knows she is about to be fed:  She runs with her tennis ball in her mouth and goes to her "dinner mat" and waits for her food. It's really comical...she will run and find that ball as soon as she hears someone say something about coming to eat...

And here's Spice....She doesn't bother with the tennis ball, but she just waits for the food. Sometimes she tends to be very finicky  and doesn't eat everything, but Sugar will usually take care of any of her leftovers. Their personalities and little habits are such fun to watch.

Here is the link to our church service yesterday.  I am linking it because I wanted you to hear the choir singing "Let Us Break Bread Together". (it's at the very beginning).

Yesterday, our Pastor and wife were away on vacation. The sermon on this video was actually from a message he preached last year, since they were away this week and did not record a new sermon. (And we had a guest speaker preach for the service on Sunday.)  But the song we recorded during our choir practice last week.  Anyway, I tell you all of this because even though I am singing with the choir in this video, in reality on Sunday morning, I was directing the choir.  Our Pastor's wife is also our choir and worship leader, and since they were going away, I was asked to fill in for her.  So on Sunday morning I directed the choir when they sang this song.  Thankfully it was a very easy song to sing and direct, and everything went well.  I also had to lead the congregational singing and make all the announcements, etc., basically everything except for the things that the Pastor does, like pray and preach and lead the Communion service. We had a few little snafu's at the beginning when the sound system would not work properly, and our usual sound technician was also on vacation.  Another person had been trained to operate the system, but for some reason things didn't go exactly as planned, however we did manage to find a microphone that worked and the service carried on without a hitch from then on.  I give thanks and glory to God for getting us through it all, and I'm also thankful our Pastor and wife will be back next Sunday! LOL. It certainly made me appreciate everything they do every Sunday even more! And they truly deserved and needed to have a break!  (It also made me thankful that my hubby and I are now retired from the pastoral ministry, because we had to do all those things before every week as well for many years! But we were younger then and had a lot more energy!)  Actually, I am very thankful to God that I was able to serve in this way, and I really did enjoy every minute.  But my Sunday afternoon nap felt real good! LOL. 

 "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God..."

2 Corinthians 3:5

Well folks, "Lord willin' and the creek don't rise," I hope to write again tomorrow for the Tuesday 4 meme, and then I will be getting things ready for Hurricane Milton to make his way through on Wednesday and Thursday.  Hopefully I will still be able to communicate with you during that time, but please just be praying for everyone in the path of this storm. There are quite a few of us bloggers here in Florida, and I pray we will all be safe and sound and able to talk about our experiences when it's over.

"I will both lie down in peace, and sleep;

For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

Psalm 4:8  NKJV