Welcome to Thankful Thursday - August 4, 2011

All pictures compliments Better Homes and Gardens magazines.

Hiddy Ho Sweet Peas,


Wow,  Thursday again already............
Where o where is the time going,
 I might add!! lol

Hope you have had a very good week!!

Our week has been good,  and one good and fun thing
we did reminds me of my 
#1

I am thankful

for wonderful, heart warming movies that make

 me think and feel, and inspire me.  We saw a really

great movie this week called "The Lost and Found

Family".  It seemed a lil lame right in the beginning

but turned out to be just a wonderful story,  and

the ending,  well, you just might need your hanky,

but it will be for good tears!!
You can rent it from Netflix if you feel so inclined.

#2

I am thankful

that the tropical storm Emily is no longer a
 tropical storm.........Yeahhhhhhhhh!
She has about blown herself out,

That is always happy news..............
Just hope the poor people of Haiti didn't
get hit too badly!!

Same pic equalized.




#3
I am thankful

for the great time we had with Dee and Jerry

going to the conference and out to dinner
 this passed weekend.  To spend that time
together made it doubly fun for us!!

#4

I am thankful

that Megan is finally feeling better,  she had

sort of a rough go of it after she had her wisdom

 teeth removed last Friday.  bless her heart!!

#5

I am thankful

that I have found some nice goodies so that
I can have a "Get ready for Fall" giveaway soon.
to celebrate my 100th follower!
Stay tuned next week for details!
Sorry..... but it will only be for my
 faithful followers.

#6

I am thankful
that when we were at the marriage conference
they talked about sponsoring children thru a
Ministry called  "Food for the Hungry".  I have
always had the desire to do that,  so we decided
to sponsor an 11 yr. old Ethiopian boy named
Nuredin.  I am very excited about it, as we can 
also communicate with him thru writing.




#7
I am thankful
that Megan came over for a visit and to have dinner 
with us last night ,  and that she so much better,
still swelling a lil bit tho. 
  Scott is out of town and nice she feels
comfortable to come over for some company.

Same pic equalized.




#8
I am so thankful
we were finally able to get new blinds for my kitchen and 
computer room.  Both were broken and couldn't be opened, 
 so what a thrill to be able to open and close them, not 
to mention how nice they look!!  Whoo Hoo!!




#9
I am thankful
that I saw my disgustingly dirty kitchen window,
albeit a bit embarassing, it was all on the outside thankfully,
but the screen looked like a spider colony lived there, and
the window had big dirty streaks for some reason.
I couldn't see it before because I couldn't open the blinds
so it hid from me,  and pretty much from anyone else
fortunately, because of where the window is  placed.
Oh gross is all I can say..............
 but once the installer left 
I  promptly went out and cleaned it, and the whole
 porch area, brick, ceiling and the door.
Looks soooo much better..........nothing like gross
to get you in a cleaning mode.




#10
Now.......
I am thankful
for my nice clean kitchen window and clean
front porch.........................Still need to do
the outside window on the computer room too,
but it is too hot and it doesn't look anywhere
as bad as the other one!  Thank the Lord!!
Maybe tomorrow!!

Used this pic just recently but here it is posterized




#11
I am thankful
that hubby just found out he is gonna get to
work from home tomorrow.  They are moving 
the offices around and they are having movers do it, 
 so they all get to stay home and work,  how nice!!  
Made him a happy guy!!




#12
I am thankful
for a bright, beautiful,  sunny, blue sky day,  and for
an opportunity to sit and drink in the delicious sunshine.
It has been overcast and/ or rainy every afternoon
 this week, so feel like I am living in Florida again.......
course, I am grateful for the rain,  cause we do need it!!
just nice to have a lil break!!

Well, Sweet Peas
Happy Thankful Thursday!!


and Tell Us,


What are you thankful for?????






Hope you have a Funtastic Friday
and a Wunderbar Weekend!!  




Love, Hugs,
and Sweet Summer Blessings
Nellie

Simple Pleasures Thursday

Greetings Sweet Friends,

Hope you are having a nice

Wednesday.

I have decided to link up to Dayle

for "Simple Pleasures" Thursday.

One of my typical simple pleasures that

 I usually eat for breakfast every spring 
and summer, but I had forgotten about this
 year,until just this past week, is waffles
 with bananas, strawberries or peaches 

and whip cream. 

along with a great cup of coffee!

I use low fat frozen multigrain waffles
or freshly made belgian waffles at times,

 and

 light or no fat whipped cream.

As you can see I mixed bananas and

 strawberries this time, and I also 

like to add pecans or walnuts as well.

It is a very nice heart healthy 

breakfast or snack.

I have been eating cereal with fruit 

until now..........

Are you hungry yet???

I was.... but I'm not now.........

cause I ate every last bite........lol

I'm sorry this was cruel and unusual

 punishment, but if you have never tried 
it, hope you decide to try them, and they
 become one of your simple pleasures too!

Thanks for coming by..........

 love hearing from you!

Will be linking up to Dayle over
at a little of this and that too,
If you want to check out more
simple pleasures,

just click here!

Blessings, Hugs,

and fruited waffle Love,

Nellie

Bye Now!!!

A typical Tuesday

Greetings Sweet Peas,
and Happy Tuesday to you!

Doesn't this field of Lavendar just about
take your breathe away???
Can't even begin to imagine how wonderful
the fragrance must be.......................

So...........how are you this lovely day??


Right now it is a beautiful day here, bright
and sunny,  but we might have some rain
later,  you can never tell,  we have gotten
some the last few late afternoons.

Our weekend was delightful as I said yesterday
...............we got the lawn done,

 watched a movie, "Forever Young" (thanks

Bonnie for the suggestion, it was great!) while we

exercised on the gazelle.  Then Sat. had a nice leisurely

 breakfast and morning, and then left the house about

 5 P.M. to go to the "Love worth fighting for conference"

with the speaker being Kirk Cameron.  Dee and Jerry

went as well,  and we met them there.

It was truly a great event, there was music too, and the 

musician was very good and was also a comedian

 as well.   He was a very funny guy, but can't remember

 his name right now, and he had an awesome testimony

 about his own marriage  So it was a really fun and 
challenging evening. If you should see it advertised
 anywhere in your area, we would highly recommend it.
  Ours was very well attended, and Kirk Cameron is
 a great speaker and very wise beyond his years..........
although, he is 40 now,  which is hard to believe
 cause he sure doesn't look it!!

We didn't get out until after 10:00, and we were all

starving so the 4 of us went to "Cheesecake Factory"

and had dinner, and it was their Cheesecake

 Anniversary or something like that, and you could

get your cheesecake half off,  so we all got our

own cheesecake and sampled each others ..........

Yum,  the were all great........Snicker bar cheesecake,

 herseys chocolate cheesecake, and Ducle De leche

cheesecake, but think mine was the favored.........

 Reese's peanut butter cheesecake,  it was awesome,

course, we wound up brining them all home cause

it way too much to eat that late!  We pretty much

never get dessert out,  but when it is half off it was

just way too tempting.......and we sucombed!!  lol
and we are still eating the leftovers............

Not much going on today,  just paying bills,  and

making a pot roast, doing some laundry, reading,

checking a few blogs and now posting..........

 all that good stuff.

Made some heart healthy eggplant parmesan

yesterday,  so will share the recipe with you

next Tuesday, in case you are interested.

and..... since I had some marinara sauce left

over yesterday, I said to myself you should

try to make some heart healthy mozzarella

cheese sticks tomorrow.

So I did...............I just ran to get them out

of the oven, cause I forgot about them..........

and they looked more like cookies than sticks, 

but they sure tasted good. I will try to perfect them,

 and if I get it down I will let you know how to do it.

For now I guess I will just call them

baked mozzarella cookies!!!  lol

I know, I know ......

presentation is important.....but who says they

couldn't be cookies...........ya know what I mean!!

Well,  think that calls for a  cup of coffee and

the rest of my Reese's peanut butter cheese

cake......................ummmmmmmmmmm!

See ya later gator!!

After while crocodile................

Gator love, Crocodile hugs, or is that tears,

and cheesecake blessings, um yea!

Nellie

Monday Manna - Stories of God's Goodness #1

Good Monday Morning to You

Sweet Friends,

Hope you had a delightful weekend.

Have to say our weekend was pretty delightful.....and 

even wrote about it but it was gonna make the post way

 too long,  so cut and pasted it for tomorrow..............

So stay tuned till tomorrow!!!.....lol

I wrote this last Tuesday,  July 26th, 2011.....

I just came from visiting Rebecca over at Life and Godliness,

and she shared a story that reminded me of a story of my own,

so decided to write about it for this Monday's Post.

If you would like to visit Rebecca too,  Click Here!

**************

So here it is.....................


and remember this was in the days before cell phones,
and I have to say I am glad it was, and you will see
why as you read on.................

Years ago when my son Scott was about 5 yrs. old,
 and we didn't have my daughter, DeeAnna yet.....
 probably about 26 years ago......but I remember it like
 yesterday,  because it was such a neat experience.

Two of my friends and I volunteered to do the decorations

 for a Mother/daughter banquet for our church. So since we

 knew of this wholesale florist, that was open to the public,

and it was fairly close by,  about 30 mins .away from where

 we lived,  we had decided it would be fun thing to go there
 and see what they had, and maybe just get some fresh ideas.

So, we were all in agreement and very excited about

going there,  so we decided on a good day for all of us

to go, and we set off in my friends car,  and as we were

 driving  there and talking Ann said to us,  "don't let me 

forget to get some gas before we head home",  and we

 all agreed,  and went back to talking,  then we arrived at

 the wholesale florist,  looked around,  ohh'd and ahhh'd

got some great ideas, got some great things to work with,

 and had a delightfully marvelous time, as we all love seeing 

 and creating pretty things as well as decorating!

So we paid for our goodies, then headed for home.

As we were driving and talking in all of our excitement,

about our great finds,  we were planning  how we would 

do this and that and the other,  then all of the sudden,

 Ann said uh oh.... 

I think  I ran out of gas, as she was

 pulling over to the shoulder of the interstate highway, 

 right before an exit.  

Now we were all in shock and couldn't believe we had 

forgotten all about the gas, but mainly, we were all now 

worried because we all had young children that would be

 coming home from school,  and we were cutting it very 

close as it was...................

Ann, who was a  brand new believer said, guess, I will
 just get the gas can and walk up to that gas station, we 
all knew it that wasn't too far,  probably about a mile, but
 we also, intuitively knew it would take quite awhile to go
 and come.............. then the thought came to me, 

Why don't you pray first.........
so I said to my friends, let's pray first,

so we bowed our heads and I said something like "Lord, 

 you know we need to be home in time for our kids,  please

 help us",  and as we raised our heads from praying, a car that

 was going up the exit, starting backing down into the grass

 coming backwards towards us....  we never even had time
 to say anything to each other, it happened so quickly.

 The car backed up next to us, and a man rolled down his
 window,  as did my friend Vicki, who was sitting in the
 front passenger side, and the man said, 

" You outta gas?? "

and we all said " yes".........

So he said, " I will push you up the exit to the gas station,"

and we said " Oh, thank you so much",  with great amazement,
never thought of anything like that... and so he lined his car up
 with hers and away we went up the exit to the gas station,  but

when we got there,  Ann had looked at the gas pumps, and

 said, Oh,  No............ they don't have diesel !! 

By this time,  the man had disengaged from her car

and was now beside us again,  and guess he saw our

faces,  and said "What's wrong???"

and

we all said in unison, " they don't have diesel  and

her car takes diesel", 

 So he said, " I will push you across the street."
Now I have to admit this was getting funnier and
 more unbelieveable to us, by the minute, this being 
pushed all over the place in this manner........

So once again, he pushed her car to a station that was
 catty corner to the first station,  and as we reached the 
pumps, we saw that thankfully, 
they had diesel.
and the man again, disengaged his car and pulled up
 along side of us, and  guess he saw we were smiling,

 then simply said, " gotta go".................

and we hardly had time to thank him, and off he went.

Ann, got out of the car, put the gas in,  then got back in 

the car,  but when she tried to start the car......

...........it would not start...................

so my friend Vicki,  laid her hand on the dashboard, 

 and said "Lord,  Please start the car, you know we

have to be home for our kids", 

and it started right up........................so we headed

for home,  and believe it or not..................

we were all home in time to get our kids!!

We can't explain it, but we know it was miraculous!

and it was sure a huge faith builder for all of us but, 

especially for our new christian friend, cause she

said I would have just walked on up to the gas 

station and got the gas, and been really late
 getting home.

Makes me think of that verse in James 4:2, that says
 you have not, because you don't ask God................
and there is more to the verse as well, but that is the
gist of it!!

and I wonder how many times things would turn out

so much better.... if we would just ask him to Help us!!

Oh and here is a part of the story I forgot about,

Then later that evening when Ann told her hubby

 the story,  he said not only was it amazing all that
happened to us, but it is amazing that the car 
started at all.............

because if you let a diesel go dry,  you would have

to do something special to the engine to get it to

restart and it might never start again!


So that was even further confirmation of our
miracle.................


and I have wondered many times if the driver
of that car might have been an angel sent
from the Lord to help us!  Especially since
he already seemed to know we were
 out of Gas!!!


Well,  Sweet Folks,
Tell me what you think of my
 true story........
and of God's goodness............


Have a Miraculous Monday!!


I am linking up to Richella
over at Imparting grace
if you would like to hear more
stories of God's amazing 
everyday graces just click here.




Love, Hugs
and Angelic Blessings to you,
Nellie