ALMOST THERE

I’m sorry that I didn’t blog last week but I turned around and the week was gone.  Where did it go?  I guess the same place the year has absconded to.  Anyway it seems both are gone.  Like everyone else I am busy, busy, busy.  I have my shopping done and my sweet husband has done most of the decorating for me.  Now we have to wrap the gifts.

One of my best gifts will be here this coming Monday.    My youngest son is coming home for Christmas.  I am so excited to have my family together.  God blesses us with a family and it is up to us to enjoy them  Yes, there will be the usual cooking and preparing but we will also be enjoying each other’s company which is a gift money can not buy.

Since I have so much to do I won’t write much this time.  I might not write any for the next couple of weeks but know I am thinking about y’all and the joy you bring by following my blog.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you are all prepared for the most blessed day of the year.  Merry Christmas and God bless.

 

LET’S GIVE THANKS

I’m sorry that I didn’t get this blog out yesterday but I had a doctor’s appointment and time just got away from me.  We have so much to be thankful for.  I always thank God for letting me live in a country where I am free to blog on whatever I choose and I can worship when and where I want.  We know that God determines where we live even though we might think the choice was ours.  In this wonderful country we can choose our careers and be as successful as we are willing to work hard.  I saw a billboard the other day that said “The distance between your dream and reality is call action.”  I fully agree.

The garden is coming along just fine as you can see from the peppers above.  I am so proud of them.  This is the first year that I’ve had such a large beautiful bounty.  My eight year old grandson had a sleepover with me this past weekend and he was excited to pick them.  He chomped right in to one like someone might eat an apple.  I’m glad he likes vegetables.

He was thrilled when he gathered the eggs and found nine in one nest.  The young hens have started to lay so now we are getting plenty of eggs.  Granted they are small but will get bigger as the girls mature.  He took the photo of this one on her nest.  The older girls are still molting so right now they aren’t earning their keep but that’s all right with me.

I sent in a query letter to see if I can get my novel “Defiance of Destiny” republished.  Hopefully this time by a publisher who will give more help with the promotion.  I’m almost finished with the suspense novel “Forethought” and soon will be sending it to get a copyright.  Once that is done I have to finish the women’s drama novel “Tomorrow’s Memories.”  As you can see I have plenty to keep me busy and out of trouble.  Maybe I’ll include and excerpt from one with one of my blogs.  Please let me know if you would like that?

Thanks for stopping by; have a blessed Thanksgiving and keep writing and gardening.

God Bless.

 

MANUSCRIPT REWRITE

Good Monday to all.  This past week fairly flew by so here we are again.  My garden is looking beautiful to me and it brings me so much joy; not to mention good food.  It is exciting to see the tiny carrot and beet sprouts peeping out of the ground.  While they are not as fast growers as the greens it is still wonderful to have them.

My mustard.

Collards.

And turnips.

I wish you were all close enough to share in the bounty.

Several of you have asked whether I am writing a new novel or not so I’m happy to reply “yes.”  I am in the process of doing rewrites to my suspense manuscript “Forethought.”  Please don’t hold steadfast to that title because an agent or publisher might decide to change it.  If they do it will be all right with me.  I’m not hard to live with though my husband might beg to differ.  I also have another women’s manuscript on the burner.

I love writing because I know what is going to happen next.  While writing is fun it is also hard work getting what I see in my head down on the blank page so my readers can also see it.  I think my love for writing is a gift from God and I try to be the best I can be at this task.

Many of you know I am also an avid reader.  I will say now as I have probably said a thousand times and will most likely say another thousand that you don’t have to be an author to be an avid reader but I feel you must be an avid reader to be a great writer.

Now I need to get back to the manuscript or I will never get it completed.  Yeah, I might squeeze in an afternoon nap as well.  Thank you for stopping by and if you are a writer keep writing and enjoy it and if you are a reader keep reading.

God bless.

 

 

BEAUTIFUL MORNING

It is another beautiful morning here in Florida with the temps in the 70s.  The birds are singing and the chickens are clucking.  My garden is growing and my family is healthy.  I know God is good all the time.  I hope all is just as well in your corner of the world.  I don’t know if the election turned out the way you wanted it to but we must all remember that God is still on the throne and He is in charge.  He sets up kings and removes kings Daniel 2:21.

Have a blessed day and please stop back by soon.

 

GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME

God is so good all the time. This morning I gathered our first mustard of the season so we will have fresh mustard for dinner tonight. I just love being able to go out in our garden and get our fresh vegetables. My little grandson loves the star apples lol. Thank God we have a few on the tree this year; more than ever before. Last year we had some but the cold ruined them. This year the tree was loaded with blooms but not all the blooms mean fruit because the tree is self-pollinating so some of the blooms are male and some female and only the female bear fruit. But we have plenty and some to share; I love to share.

Everything in the garden is looking good except… My onions are not coming up like I hoped but I will give them time. And the first carrots I planted refused to germinate so I replanted them and some more beets last week. I think with the beets, spinach and English (sweet) peas I used too much cow manure. They were all planted in the raised beds and none of them did anything. So this week (maybe Wednesday) I will plant some more pea seeds in the side garden.

Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you. In September my husband rotator tilled the side yard for me and we had six yards of garden soil brought in so I now have a garden there. I am so proud of it because I can plant a lot more. It used to be in the shade but my neighbor had her tree trimmed so now it is in full sun; love it.

I will also till up the soil in the raised beds and try to plant some more spinach. I have just never had much luck with spinach. This year I  planted turnips and they are doing well; first time I’ve tried them in ages. I don’t know why because we love turnips. I just love fresh greens period.  My radishes are doing well so I’ve been able to get fresh radishes for a couple of weeks now.  These are a tiny bit spicy but good and crunchy.  Radishes are wonderful for a snack.  I’ve planted some Watermelon Radishes for the first time and they are up but not big enough to eat yet.  I can’t wait to try them.  I try out new and weird vegetables from time to time.

Thank you for stopping by.  I hope you come back soon and in the mean time have a blessed, happy life and happy gardening.

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Your Responsibility and Their Choice

     This post has absolutely nothing to do with chickens but since I haven’t shown you any pictures of my girls I thought I would share this one.  I have six and hope to get six more soon; just as soon as I feel all the cold weather is behind us.  Even though I will keep the babies in a warm brooder I like for the weather to be nice as well.

One month ago today I had a heart attack and was in the hospital for a lengthy stay.  I’m home now and slowly but surely getting back to my normal self.  While down and not out it gave me a lot of time to think about a lot of things; as you can imagine.  I sit at my dinning room table and look out the big window at a wonderful view of the back yard and the wild birds that we feed.  Yesterday we had a visit from a Painted Bunting!  What a beautiful creature; so bright and cheerful!  It made me think of how God makes so many magnificent things.  How could anyone not believe in Him?  How could anyone not teach their children and grandchildren about God and His mighty love?  But sadly they don’t.

They say “We want to let him/her make their own choice.”  Wrong!  What choice?  If you don’t teach them about God what choice can they make?  What do they have to choose from?  You let them watch television and use their ipads and flood their minds with worldly concepts but you say no to God and His principles and virtues.  Then we wonder why our kids are killing each other.  Boys shooting girls because they said they didn’t want to be their girlfriends or killing other kids because they didn’t do as they wanted them to do.  People setting bombs and harming or killing complete strangers just for the heck of it.  Where did this start and where will it stop?

I fully believe it all started when we took prayer out of school.  When I was in school (and granted that was years ago ) we started every day with a verse from the Bible, the Lord’s prayer and Pledge of Alliance.  If one did not want to say the prayer they didn’t have to but they had to be quiet what the others participated.  Back then we respected out teachers and elders.  Back then you did not hear of all this kids killing kids.  But along came someone who said “We should not have prayer or talk about God in our schools.” So they stopped the prayers and devotionals and said “We don’t need You in our schools God.”

Since then we have been like a snowball rolling down hill!  Our world is getting worse and more evil it seems by the day.  Where does it stop?  I’ll tell you where.  In the home!!  Parents and grandparents can’t say we’ll let him or her make a choice and then not give them role models to choose from.  Oh it’s easy to blame television and computer games and I can see why.  That’s all you are giving your children to choose from. Violence, disregard for human life (we are killing babies by the thousands but that is fodder for another post) that is the choices we are giving them.

Absolutely they should have a choice.  God gives us the choice to choose Him or the world.  But if we don’t teach our children God’s principles and virtues all they have is the world view (and we know the devil controls the world ) to choose from.  Yes it is their choice but it is your responsibility.

Yes I am on my podium but I feel this is an epidemic we need to deal with.  God tells us in 2 Chronicles 7:14 what we need to do so He will heal our land.  And you must agree our land needs healing.

Thank you for stopping by please come back soon.  God bless.

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GARDEN WEEK 4

I promised an update on my garden, so since I will have my wonderful grandson tomorrow I thought I better get this done tonight.

As you can see from the photo above it is coming along just fine.  Look closely at the mustard.  I do believe we will be eating some in the next couple of weeks.  What do you think? I can hardly wait.  I absolutely love reaping the result of my hard work.  Like collards mustard greens is an acquired taste either you will or will not like them.

Remember I told you about planting the radishes, beets and carrots last week?  Well most of the tiny plants are peeping out of the soil.  You can see the radishes but the other two will need a little longer before they will be easily seen in a photograph.

If you are wondering about the straw it is hay; part of the compost from my chicken pen.  My chickens pay for their keep in more ways than one.  It’s a good thing I get compost because right now most of them are molting and I’m only getting one egg a day.  I know the egg comes from Amera because it is blue and she is the only one that lays blue eggs.  And another factor that figures in to the “no egg production” is the shorter days.  They don’t lay as much when they have less sunshine.  However, we should change time soon; fall back, so we will be eating eggs again.

Thank you for stopping by.  I will keep you updated on the garden.  I’m so happy it is doing well.  God truly blesses me. Until next time happy gardening and God bless.

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ROW OF ANTS

I like to go for a three-mile walk every morning just to try and stay healthy.  I usually try to go around seven o’clock before it gets so hot.  This morning it was very nice; over cast and a nice breeze.  The breeze always helps. There is one hill that almost kicks my butt so I celebrate with a big drink of water when I crest it.  Small treats that makes one smile.  This grasshopper doesn’t have anything to do with my walk but I love his colors and was happy when I was able to capture his photo; another small treat.  God gives us so many things to be thankful for and we don’t have to look hard to find them.

     So what does grasshoppers and walks have to do with a row of ants?  Nothing really, I guess, except they are God’s creatures.  But as I’m walking I always notice these cars on one street I have to cross.  They are lined up like a row of ants waiting to get on the main highway and get to work or whatever.  People are so busy.  I once was a member of that rat race before I retired.  And I guess they don’t have a single thing to do with Shiny unless you can claim their headlights.  But it is interesting to see.  Just a few of my Monday thoughts.

Thank you for stopping by and God bless.  Stay safe out there.

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WOW 2017

     I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I tell you 2016 flew by so fast I was surprised it was that time again.  But we had a wonderful time.  My family was together and that always makes me happy.  Both of my sons and daughters-in-law are Christians and they are teaching my six-year-old grandson to serve God.  I know we can’t make that decision for him but at least we can give him the foundation.

     With that said I must talk about one of my pet peeves.  I hate it when I hear someone say ‘Christmas is all about the kids.’  No it isn’t!  Christmas is about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!  We are celebrating His birth.  Yes, I get the gift giving concept because God gave us His Only Son as a gift that we can accept and have eternal life.  I guess you could say Jesus was the First Christmas Gift.  And listen, I love giving at Christmas and I love getting gifts also but please let’s remember the real reason for the celebration.

     Don’t get me wrong I love children…well most of them anyway.  I have been around a few I found hard to tolerate but that is not the child’s fault.  There are no bad children just terrible parents who fail to teach what they should.  But that’s a subject for another post.

     Thank you for stopping by and come back whenever you want; you are always welcome.  And please when you hear someone say ‘Christmas is all about the kids’ explain to them what Christmas is really about.

God bless.

LOOK UP

The last few weeks our country has seen some unhappy times.  But just as we share our joys and successes we share our heartbreak and sorrows.  Yes, we’ve had different opinions on some things that happened here but thank God we are still free to voice those opinions.  The citizens, both men and women, who gave their lives so we can live free would not be proud of how we have abused what they paid the ultimate price for us to enjoy.  Yes my heart grieves for those Officers in Dallas and I pray for those families.  I pray for all our officers and first responders everywhere.  I invite you to pray with me.  And while we are at it  look up; our flag still waves and we can choose how and where we worship. This is still the best country in the world to live in. Let’s honor our fallen heroes by treating each other with respect no matter what color our skin.  Though we may not agree with their opinions we should respect their rights to voice those opinions but absolutely without violence.  If we all stand together and do what 2 Chronicles 7:14 tells us to do God will hear our cries and heal our land.  Don’t say “Well that’s Old Testament stuff.”  God never changes He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  What He promised in the Old Testament He will do today.  No politician can straighten out this country.  What we need is for Christians to stand up for God’s principles and virtues. If we do God will stand beside us and the United States will once again be the great country it once was.  Look up!  GOD BLESS AMERICA!