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 6 and Thursday Thankfulness...

 Happy Thursday friends!  I just discovered that one of our blogging friends, Syl, from her blog, Sylify, is hosting this "Thursday 6" meme each week. I guess it's been around before, but she is reviving it, so it might be fun to join in if you can.  Here's this week's questions:

Linking to Thursday 6 HERE

Welcome!!

1. When was the last time you were standing on a balcony or balcony like construction? Where was it? What were you doing?
I guess you could say our back porch is a lot like a balcony, as it overlooks our back yard and Still Waters Pond.  I am out there frequently, either to feed our newest family members, the "neighborhood cats" Blackie Sue and Sunshine, 

or to look at the Sand Hill Cranes and their new baby Colts, "Spring" and "Trumpet", 

or also to watch the Canada Geese couple who are currently standing out there on the edge of the pond taking a nap, literally:

Or to shoo away the three Muscovy Ducks, who seem to have decided that our porch and yard are theirs to claim...even to the point of eating the cat's food while the cat lays there and lets them do it...

And then to make a flying leap into the pond from the porch when I come along and tell them to get a move on!

The view from the porch the other morning...one duck and two geese...

2. Share with us one of your favorite recipes.

There are so many, but I was thinking about this one today and bought some blueberries so I can make them soon: Blueberry Bran Muffins -click HERE for blog post with recipe


3. What was the last thing done to your house?

It's been a while since we did anything special to the house.  When we first moved here almost 6 years ago we did a LOT.  But since then it's been mostly just normal maintenance. Click HERE for when we added the back porch roof, which is the same porch I was talking about in question #1.

Oh, after thinking about it, I remember now! The last major thing we did was install new vinyl plank floors in our living room, master bedroom, and my "Room With a View".  HERE is a link to when that was being done.   And HERE is a link to when it was completed, with a surprise visit from another blogger!


4. Did your grandmother give wise lessons? Please share one with us.

I honestly do not remember having a lot of conversations with either of my grandmothers. My maternal grandmother lived too far away, and when we did visit, she was often not well and so there was no real time to sit down and visit with her. My paternal grandmother lived close by and I saw her often, for all holidays especially. Probably the best lessons she gave was that she was a good cook and she shared some recipes with me for some of our favorite foods.  This link leads to one of the pages in my sidebar, "It's Recipe Thyme Again, More Family Favorites", and some of her best recipes that I remember are added there.


5. Do you like going to the hairdresser? Why? or why not?

I don't mind it. As a matter of fact, I just went this morning and got my hair cut. This new hairdresser I have now (at Walmart!) does a great job. I've had some bad experiences with others in the past, and so one thing I do not like is having to find a new hairdresser when one fails or one retired that I liked.


6. Do you plan a vacation far ahead, or are you more of a "last minute" person?

To take a real vacation takes some planning for us.  We are not very spontaneous about traveling/vacations anymore. It takes money too, so we have to plan ahead for that. I am thankful that our kids like to plan some trips that we actually go together and share the expenses. That was what we did this past fall when we went to the mountains.Link HERE to last vacation  Plus, hubby doesn't like to drive long distances anymore, and we really don't like to fly either unless we absolutely have to. So unless the kids go with us, we probably won't be taking anymore vacations.


Well, you know the drill.
Answer the questions on your blog or in the comments.
If on your blog, place there a link to this post.
And place a link of your post in the comments here.

Thank you for participating.

Thank YOU, Syl, for these interesting and fun questions!  I hope others will catch on and join in from now on.

I have to add one more picture...remember yesterday HERE, when I shared a picture of our Kitty Sunshine and also a picture of a sign that said "You are My Sunshine"?  And I said I wished I could figure out how to merge the two pictures together? Well, our friend Sandra over at MadSnapper N Beau, is the queen of figuring out fun stuff with pictures, and she sent me a message with this picture that she created from my two pictures:

Isn't that amazing?  I love it!! Thank you so much, Sandra! I don't know how you did it, but I sure love it!   Oh, and thank you to all of you who commented and enjoyed the pictures yesterday, especially the ones of Sunshine and the "Guard Kitty", as seen above. It was a funny story for sure.

And in closing, this little message from yesterday's devotional calendar says it best:

God does love and care for us, "even to the least evenet and smallest need of life".  That is very comforting to know.  Nothing escapes His knowledge or concern for us, and He is always there, ready to meet our every need. Sometimes we just forget to ask!

Matthew 7:7-8 NKJV

Keep Asking, Seeking, Knocking

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."

Amen!