Thursday Thankfulness and Photo Challennge

Happy Thursday morning! What a glorious morning it is! 

I love my little morning ritual of putting out the American Flag each day at sunrise, and capturing a picture of whatever kind of sunrise we may have...and no two are ever the same! Our God is an awesome God, and He paints the most beautiful pictures in the skies! No artist can ever totally duplicate what God has painted!!

I just noticed that today's (30th) photo challenge was for "shapes". I think the Stars and Stripes on the flag  (above) are some of the most beautiful shapes created by our American forefathers! I am very proud of our American Flag and am so thankful to live in the "land of the free, and the home of the brave." 

I was looking around for some other kinds of "shapes" to share for today, and looked up above my computer screen to the beautiful hanging beads "suncatchers" that  I bought last year at a farmer's market.  I believe all the basic shapes are 'clearly' represented here in living color:

These beads sparkle in the sunlight and brighten my day.

Now, the photo challenge for yesterday (29th) was "Flip-flops".  I personally do not wear flip-flops, but my hubby wears a kind of a floppy sandal, and guess who really loves to play with them (along with the feet that are inside or alongside them!)

Yes, Blackie LOVES these sandals, and will lay beside them and sniff them even when Daddy is no where around.  (Crazy cat! LOL).

He also loves to play "footsie" with Daddy.

We are thankful for this little bundle of energy and joy that we've been blessed with.

I have to get a move on this morning as we have haircut appointments at 9:00. So I will close with these words...

Amen.

"Be Strong in the Lord and in His Mighty Power."

Ephesians 6:10

No matter what the world throws in your path today...stand strong in God's strength.

Have a blessed and beautiful day.

A "Blue" Tuesday!

Good Morning Dear Friends in Blogland and beyond! I hope this Tuesday finds you enjoying a beautiful summer day...the last Tuesday in July!  It's still hot and dry here in north central Florida...all the rain storms have somehow managed to circumvent our area once again, but the rest of the week does show a good possibility of rain each day, so here's hoping and praying!   These were the clouds in the blue skies yesterday evening, and you can see there may have been some stormy skies in the distance, but they just didn't quite reach us here: 

These cloud pictures also fulfill the Monday Photo-a-Day Challenge, which was "clouds".

I'm sorry I didn't get around to posting anything yesterday (Monday), but we had a kind of busy morning/day.

Our "kids" had the day off yesterday, and we took a little ride together and then decided to go out for lunch.  We drove by this location to see if this "new" restaurant was open yet, but it is still awaiting inspections from the county before it can open. You may recognize the building as the former "Hog Wild Country Cafe" that we used to go to frequently before it had a kitchen fire that shut it down last year. They ended up selling the building to a new owner, and he has been making all the repairs  and preparing it to become this "Backwoods Country Kitchen", that will serve Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner. Our whole community is anxiously awaiting its opening.  

So we ended up going to try out this other new restaurant to our town:

(Internet Photo, not mine)

Not to confuse you, but it took the place of the temporary location of where the Hog Wild Country Cafe' moved to after the fire, but they (Hog Wild) have moved to a different location that I've already shared the full history in THIS former Tuesday 4 post HERE.  If you think you're confused, you ought to live here! LOL. 

Anyway, long story short (kind of), we ate at the new Cowboy's Philly Cheesteak and Chicken place, and it was really good!

Here's a sample menu. There's more than this, but you get the idea.

The food was good and the prices were very reasonable. We will probably go back again. 

I must apologize to our Tuesday 4 group this week (link here), as it's all about movies, and to be honest, I just don't watch many movies these days and I really couldn't come up with anything sensible to say, so I am skipping it for this week. However, you can check out what others are saying on that link above if you wish. I intend to go visit everyone as soon as I finish this post.   What I have been doing is the July "photo-a-day challenge", and we are winding down the month this week with some good challenges. Today's challenge is "BLUE".  

And I thought, what better blue is there than the amazing blue of the male Bluebird!  Here is our Mr. Bluebird, with a mouth full of some kind of bug or grasshopper to feed to his babies in the birdhouse this morning...

It just seems to me that the most beautiful "blues" are those found in nature, in God's amazing creation! If you scroll back up through this post, you will notice the blue skies in the background of several pictures...and then this gorgeous blue of the bluebird...I don't believe that man can create any shade of blue any more perfect than those that God has already given us in His creation!

I asked my computer for some references to "blue" in the Bible.  There was a link to this blog post: First Century Christian Fellowship - "Blue: God's Favorite Color", by James Collazo.  I found it very interesting to read.  Here are a couple of verses that were referenced in his post:

Exodus 24:10 NKJV

10 and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very[a] heavens in its clarity.

Ezekiel 1:26 NKJV

26 And above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it.

I like that those verses mentioned the "paved work of sapphire stone", and the throne, "in appearance like a sapphire stone"...because blue Sapphire is my birthstone!! 

And yes, this verse may not use the word "Blue", but we get the message from the blue skies of the heavens...they "declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands."

Internet Photo

I do believe God really does love the color blue! 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this "blue post" today. Thankfully, it's a happy post, not a "blue post" in regards to feeling "blue".  I am very thankful today to be alive...yesterday when we were leaving the restaurant we were waiting at a red light for the arrow to turn green so we could turn left.  Finally the light changed, and my husband pulled out to make his left turn with the turn arrow. Suddenly out of nowhere a car came flying through the intersection and had to swerve to keep from hitting us broadside where our son Benton was sitting in the front passenger seat and his wife Rose was in the back seat.  The man had totally flown through that red light, and if we had not suddenly stopped and if he could not have swerved around us, it would have been disastrous. He was driving extremely fast, and never attempted to stop at that redlight. Of course he just kept on going, and never even slowed down.  We really wanted to report him, but he was long gone and they wouldn't have done anything even if we did get his tag number. 

All we could do was praise God for giving His angels charge over us and for protecting us from what could have been a terrible tragedy. For the rest of the day our lips were filled with thanksgiving and praise for God's protection, and we prayed for that man driving that car to be duly warned and awakened before something truly tragic happens to him or others in his path.   And yes, we do always take a quick look before pulling out in an intersection at a traffic light to make sure nothing is coming, but there was a car beside us in the other lane blocking our view, and also this guy came so fast we could not see him until he was right there on us. Again, we just praise the Lord for His protection.

Here's a happy song to close this post..."All Night, All Day, Angels Watching over Me My Lord".  Sing along and enjoy!

Be Thankful for those angels God has watching over us!

Have a blessed Day my friends!! 

Sunday Evening "It's About Time"

I thought you might like to see that the Sand Hill Crane couple still stops by in our weedy yard every so often to say hello, 

My poor zinnia garden is pretty well toast and weeds. They also had a fungus and didn't do very well at all. I've planted some new seeds in a different location, and if they make it I will let you know. It's just been too hot and dry for anything nice to grow.

And to get a drink from the swimming pool that we keep filled up just for that purpose since it's so dry and Still Waters Pond is still very dry.

They seem to be most appreciative.

And Blackie loves to watch them from a distance. He's knows better than to get too close. It they had babies with them they would definitely chase him away...

"Hi Mom! Don't worry, I'm being good."

Here it is Sunday evening, and we are winding down with July as well as the photo-a-day-challenge. Today's challenge was 9 o'clock!  Well, at 9:00 this morning I was getting ready for church and didn't have time to take a picture of a clock.  And now it is about 8:11 p.m., and I don't feel like waiting until 9:00 to take a picture tonight. So, I cheated a bit.

This "Anniversary Clock" has been sitting on the Secretary Desk for ages, and it needed a new battery put in. So I decided to go ahead and put in a new battery and set it for 9:00 so I could take a picture. But by the time I got the battery in and the time set, and the mirrored back put back on and arranged it in such a way so you couldn't see my reflection in the mirror so well or on the glass...well, it was already past 9:00! 

I tried a couple of times (actually several, because of the reflections...I didn't want you to see my hands on the camera)

Or too much dust in the corners so I had to take it apart and clean it better...LOL.

This clock was given to us by my husband's Aunt Florence many years ago. She owned a furniture store in New Jersey, and I can't remember exactly when she gave this to us, but I'm thinking it's when we went there to visit her. BTW, the Army Soldier in the background was my hubby's father...and Aunt Florence was his sister. So this clock holds special memories, dust and all!  

And by the time I get finished writing this post, it will probably be 9:00! LOL

Today was a lovely day. We were blessed this morning to receive 10 new members! That is quite remarkable for our small church! Such a blessing! As you can see by all the gray heads in the pews, we need to keep bringing in new members, and especially some that are younger! 

It was also wonderful that our "kids" were here for lunch after church. Here's Rose and Benton and our grandpups Sugar and Spice. We were having some "cool" dessert, Marie Callendar's frozen Key Lime Pie and/or Banana Cream Pie. They were refreshing and I didn't have to bake.    Scott was also here, but I failed to take his picture.  He was busily enjoying his piece of Key Lime pie too.  We also had Fried Chicken that I picked up at the grocery store on the way home from church,  along with some coleslaw and Hawaiian Rolls. I did cook some mashed potatoes and made a tossed salad. It was nice not to have to cook anything but the potatoes, as it is SO hot, and I didn't want to ask Scott to grill anything outside in the heat.  All in all it was a good meal and a good time visiting with our kids. Always such a joy.

I had mentioned the other day that we needed to have some tree work done on Friday. One of the windy storms we had earlier in the week had knocked down some very large and heavy branches from some oak trees in the woods lot next to our house. Thankfully they weren't close enough to the house to hit it, but they did land on the chain link fence and needed to be cleaned up. So our son Benton came over and also a fellow from our church who helps us with our yardwork, and they worked really hard in the extreme heat to cut back those branches and clean it up the best they could.

It really was a bigger job than what they had equipment to handle, but they got the worst of it done and we are very thankfuly they managed without injury or too much heat exhaustion.

It was only 9:00 in the morning, and yet, it was already so hot that they really couldn't stay out there for very long.  

Someday when it's a bit cooler  than it has been we will get a lot more work done, but right now they did all that needed to be done.

Since our photo theme was about time, I thought I would close with a few Scripture verses about Time:

Isaiah 64:4  NIV

4 Since ancient times no one has heard,

no ear has perceived,

no eye has seen any God besides you,

who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Psalm 31:14-15a

But I trust in you, Lord;

I say, “You are my God.”

15 My times are in your hands;

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

A Time for Everything

1 There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6 a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

Well Folks, I did it! I managed to keep writing until 9:00, and then I had to run around like a crazy person taking pictures of clocks before they changed the time. so these are the ones I managed to get!:

(on the bottom of my computer desktop screen).

The kitchen wall clock

My cell phone screen

The clock that sits in front of our TV in the living room.

My wrist watch. I almost didn't get there in time!

Well, now it is TIME for bed, so I will say good night and God bless you all!

Friday Foto Friends: "Just Grin and BEAR it!"

 Good Morning and Happy Friday!  I've been promising you a special blessing and so I hope you will just "BEAR with me" today and let us enjoy this together.  First off, I've been doing this Photo-a-Day Challenge every day for July, and it's been a lot of fun. Chrissy T. from "One Season to the Next" got me started on this.  I know some others of you have joined in the fun, and it's really been neat to see what each of you has come up with for your photo challenges.  Most people are more disciplined than I am and they only show one picture a day. I've never claimed to be very self-disciplined when it comes to taking pictures, and especially when it comes to sharing them! It's just something I love to do, ever since the day my brother gave me my first digital camera...and then when I got a cell phone that actually takes pretty good pictures...there's just no stopping me!.  So today I'm asking you to not only "BEAR with Me, but to "Grin and BEAR it" as we go along, okay?

Today (24th) the challenge is for a "close-up".  That should be easy...

LAST week (HERE) I mentioned that " I did do something interesting and special this morning, but I've promised not to share it until after the person for whom it is intended has been properly notified and surprised, so you will have to wait a week for that.",  and so you all have been patiently waiting for me to explain what that something interesting was, and who it was for.  Well, yesterday was the day for the 'big reveal'.  I had mentioned yesterday that I was having a special guest over for lunch, and so I did...

Well, let me explain a little further. We will have to go back in time a few weeks to THIS STORY to explain.  Many of you will recall that my dear friend Maura had passed away just a few months after her sweet hubby Woody.  And so their granddaughter was working hard at trying to settle their estate and clean up their house, and they had a LOT of clothes that needed to go somewhere. I suggested to Katheryn (the granddaughter) that our church's "Sew & Sew" Quilting group was going to be having a yard sale to raise funds for their quilting projects  that they do for the Ronald McDonald house and Hospice, etc., and that they could probably sell a lot of those clothes. So Katheryn donated a literal truck load of clothes to the cause and we went and picked them up.  

Also Katheryn asked me if I knew anyone who could make a Memorial Teddy Bear from the clothes of a loved one, and so I asked the ladies in the quilting group if anyone could do that, and one of the ladies volunteered to do so.  So Katheryn gathered up some favorite clothes from both her grandparents, along with one article from her father who had passed away a couple of years ago.  What she wanted to have made was two bears, each made with clothes from both grandparents and a piece from the one article of her father's.   Well, last Thursday I picked up the completed bears from the lady at the Quilt House at our church. (They meet in what used to be the OLD parsonage, which is a little house next door to the church. They have turned that into their own Quilt House and they meet there every week to work on the hundreds of lap quilts that they make.)

So, much to my surprise, when I got to the Quilt House, the dear lady (her name is Deni), had made not just two, but three bears from the clothes. She said she had been confused and thought she was supposed to make one female bear and one male bear, but then realized the bears were supposed to have something from each, and so the one female bear was a bonus bear!  So here she is with the three bears. (Please excuse the extra lady in the background working on their quilting materials. This was their usual work day and there were about 10 ladies there all working very hard!)

Here's a better "close-up" of the three bears.  They each have a blue heart on them, which was the one piece of fabric from Katheryn's father's clothes.  

And the bear sitting up above (below) is turned backwards to show you the butterflies that were applique'd on the back of the bears, which came from one of Maura's blouses. The flannel plaid bow ties came from one of Woody's favorite flannel shirts. And all of the material to make the bears came from each of the shirts that Katheryn had chosen from their clothes, ones that were special to her.

Aren't they all adorable????

Katheryn lives about 30 minutes away, and she was busy last week, so she couldn't come herself to pick up the bears that day. So I invited her to lunch at our house for yesterday so she could pick up the bears. I asked her if she wanted me to send her pictures of the bears beforehand, but she said, "NO! I want to see them in person and be surprised."  So that is why I couldn't share any pictures of them last week, even though I was sorely tempted to do so. I'm proud of myself for having that much restraint! LOL.

And so this close-up below is a very smiling Katheryn, holding the three bears...and yes, she was very surprised and pleased.  The only thing we both agreed on was that she's going to try to figure out a way to change those staring eyes...at first they were cute, but after they stare at you for a while with that surprised look, well...we both decided that maybe some plain button style eyes might be easier to look at in the long run, so she will figure that out and use some buttons from her grandmother's button stash.

Thank you for "BEARING" with me for this little story!!...oh, but there's more...

Many of you will remember when I told you about this book HERE, The Little Sand Hill Crane, 

The book on the left is actually a journal, and she gave me this yesterday!

and that my friend Katheryn had written this book and it is for sale on Amazon. Well, yes, this is the same Katheryn!

And now my copy of the book is signed by the author!!!

She also has written a coloring book to go along with the book, in addition to the journal!

Click this link to more information about Katheryn's books

And this is her latest book!

I am SO excited for the work that Katheryn is doing with these little books. They are really well written and so very special! If you have grandchildren or great grandchildren they would make wonderful gifts!

Okay folks, that's all for today. I have to go as we have some tree work to be done on the property today,  and I have to get a move on.

God bless you all, and thank you for "BEARING with me today!!"  

Galatians 6:2 "Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."