Thankful Thursday

Rhondi of Rose Colored Glasses is hosting yet another Thankful Thursday. For a list of participants, please go visit her blog.

For Thankful Thursday, I selected a few Bible reference from "Our Daily Bread" booklet.

1. We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you. (Colossians 1:3)

2. Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. (Galatians 6:9)

3. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. (2 Chronicles 16:9) To know that God sees us brings both conviction and comfort.

I am also thankful for this pumpkin that climbed my weigela bush, I have quite a few of them all over my yard. They were a Fall decor last year and we let them rot last winter; new growth from the seeds came up this spring. So that is the trick, leave them to the ground ... this year, I don't have to buy pumpkins, how about that? Saved me a few dollars! :)

Thankful Thursday

Oh my, oh my ... this is a little late but I guess better late than never. Today is Thankful Thursday and I was so busy that I completely forgot all about it until Rhondi of Rose Colored Glasses reminded me. Thanks for the reminder, Rhondi.

Today, I am thankful for good friends. One of them came to my house early this morning so we could go blueberry picking. Thanks to the good weather, the blueberries are really sweet. We met up with another friend and the three of us went to the blueberry farm.
Since the owners are our friends, they gave us a discount, plus they let us pick some of their veggies like eggplant, purslane, (alugbati) and sweet potato tops. Afterwards, my friend invited us to have lunch at her house ... it was fun, and a relaxing day was had by the three of us. Thank you Inday and Josie for being such good friends!

Now let me end with this ... "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." 1 John 4:11

If ya gotta go ... ya gotta go!

Summer is the time to take vacations, picnics, repairs, renovations, road construction, etc ...
Driving to church last Sunday, I heard my hubby laugh suddenly. I said to myself, "Has he gone wacko? What is he laughing about?" :) Then he said, "Well if you gotta go, you gotta go!"....and he pointed to a porta-potty sitting on the roof-top of the school that was being repaired.



It makes sense to keep one up there but it's still funny if you think about it, don't you think? :) Above is a closer look.

Thankful Thursday

Yea! it's another Thankful Thursday! Rhondi of rose colored glasses is hosting this. Please visit her when you have a chance. I hope you are not tired of seeing pictures of flowers from my garden beds. Anyways, today I am thankful for my flowers, and pictured below are how I utilize them. Every Monday I bring a bouquet to work and display it in our waiting room for all patients to enjoy.



And on Saturday afternoon, I brought a bucket of flowers to our church to decorate the front part of our church ... for the congregation to enjoy. I normally give away the flowers after the service.



Here's a close-up of one of my church's flower arrangements.


Look how big these Dahlias are! I took a picture with a tape rule just to show you how big they are. They are bigger than the palm of my hand.



And above all, thank God for His continued creation and favorable weather to provide growth on all things He created.

P.S.
... in case you're wondering on the date, I saved this as draft Wed. night, and published Thursday a.m. before heading off to work. Thank you all for visiting!

Snow in August?!!

Nope, it's not snow ... it's hail! We have had hail before but not this much. They were pea-size where we live, but on the news they were golf-ball-size in other areas. Yesterday, we had the longest thunderstorm that I can remember; from 6pm to past 10pm. Pouring rain, hail and lightning and thunder kept cracking in the sky. Luckily, we did not get any power outage. The wind brought down many tree limbs and broke a lot of my plants. It was dark and it was gloomy. I took a picture of our deck covered with hail because it fascinates me, but jumped back in because I was afraid of lightning.



This is what the sky looked like on our way back home before the thunderstorm; I took it from inside the car ... a storm was brewing alright. It looked like the storm was localized because part of the sky was light and shining and other part was really dark; it was mysterious almost but that was the beauty of it, and it made me decide to take a few shots. This picture would be a nice model to paint, wouldn't you say?

Thankful Thursday

Today is Thankful Thursday ... already? lol ... time goes fast when you're having fun! I have a lot to be thankful for but for now I will just post part of one of my favorite hymns. Rhondi of Rose Colored Glasses is hosting a Thankful Thursday. Please visit her blog if you're interested to join. So, here goes ...

I'm Pressing on the Upward Way

I'm pressing on the upward way,
New heights I'm gaining every day;
Still praying as I'm onward bound,
"Lord, plant my feet on higher ground."

Lord, Lift me up and let me stand
By faith on heaven's table land,
A higher plane that I have found;
"Lord, plant my feet on higher ground."


I love this hymn ... it's very old, 1898. Have a wonderful Thursday everybody!

Birthdays in August

Yesterday, August 3rd, was our daughter's birthday. We asked our daughter what she wants to do and said she'll take us to this mega-church where she started attending. I edited this post to add their link... please click here if you're interested. I've seen these churches on TV but have never been to one yet, so this was my first. What a difference from the old traditional churches. There was a loud band playing and lots of clapping but I particularly enjoyed the way the Pastor gave his message ... it was surely not boring and very interactive. Afterwards, we went to eat at a restaurant. Somewhere in the conversations between us and the waitress it came up that we are celebrating our daughter's birthday. They surprised her by giving her a free sundae and singing to her, pictured below. She was a bit embarrassed by it but we had fun watching her get embarrassed! :) Feel free to click at images to enlarge for a better view.


Then we stopped at the Guitar Center ... she wanted a loop station and an adapter for her electric guitar as birthday presents. After a while we headed home to have a birthday cake. I made her a red velvet cake, pictured below. It was a quiet and simple celebration. When they were little, they used to have three bday celebrations, one with the family on their actual birthday, another with their friends on a weekend and the 3rd, with my friends. lol ... the adults got to have an excuse to get together, 'ya know! :)


And on Tuesday, August 5th, is my step-daughter's birthday. Since she lives in Oregon, we took these pictures to greet her a Happy Birthday. She tries to read my blog whenever she has a chance and so I hope she will see this. Oh, I'm sure her dad will "alert" her on this. lol




This is her, pictured below. She wanted so much to have this Chinese checker game that her grandpa made so we gave it to her. She has nice memories playing with that Chinese checkers. This was taken last April of this year when she came to be with us on her dad's birthday. Have you noticed the difference on our walkway? It was still bare then ... now it's bursting with flowers. And our porch, pardon the mess, we use it to store lawn furnitures in the winter.

Sigh of relief! I made it. Vicky's photo is now above.

(Darn, darn, darn! #@%^#$ ... i don't understand why the image disappeared. I tried to upload it again but was giving me an error message. I have to try it again tomorrow, it's getting late ... my apologies.)

Anyway, I put together a video for her and the above is what I came up with. For some reason blogger does not accept text with the video so they are separated; it's a learning experience for me. Vicky, we hope you enjoy the above video. From all of us here in NY; we wish you a happy and blessed birthday! Hugs and kisses from all of us! Enjoy!

An Award ... for me???

Oh my, oh my! see that award on my sidebar? It was given to me by my bff mari. Mari and I goes a long way. I first met mari online, then after a few years, we decided to meet in person. A very nice lady, inside and out. Thanks a million, dudette!

I am now sharing this award to all my blogger friends; you are all deserving of this so please feel free to grab and display it.