TGIF Silliness

Today is Friday and after the week I have have ’tis time for some silliness. So I have asked my friends here to join in on the relief.

“Does the mean I can come play…

“Sure come on and join in.”

“How about all of us…?” Image result for winnie the pooh picture

“Sure, everyone is welcome.”

“Cool. I like joining in on silliness. I will play music for us… amusicdog

“Well, that may not be necessary but OK.”

“I don’t know what you guys think is so great about Friday. We are still flooded for weeks. wet cat

“That’s true there big guy, but the sun is shining today and may shine again tomorrow. You have to look at the good with the bad sometimes, so come join in. Here have a towel. They are still warm.” Image result for picture of towel

“Thanks. How much water did you get?”

“Pulled over 100 gallons from my basement over the last 2 days. It finally quit coming in. And it may rain this weekend. But we are not going to think about it because…

cheers1 IT’S FRIDAY!!

Seems overrated…. cat2

And I don’t get it…. dog

“Dude, there is nothing to get. WE are choosing to be happy regardless of the hard week we have had…”

So anyone else who wants to join in on our silliness, stress relieving Thank Goodness Its Friday, come join along, the more the merrier. Just remember, it can’t always be the top of the mountain and it won’t always be the bottom of the valley…so smile, be happy and know that God always has a plan and that He is in total control. And as always…Remember to Be Kind.

321 Quote – Happiness is….

What a fun thing to quote on, regardless of your situation. Thank you Sadje of Keep It Alive for thinking of me. A good day to bring happiness quotes to the fore front.

321 Quote Me Created by A Guy Called Bloke and K9 Doodlepip!

Rory says;

Once a week, l will pick a random topic, post two quotes on that topic and nominate 3 bloggers, who in turn will post 2 quotes on the topic and nominate 3 bloggers of their own.

Guidelines: 3.2.1 Quote Me!

Thank the Selector

Post 2 quotes for the dedicated Topic of the Day.

Select 3 bloggers to take part in ‘3.2.1 Quote Me!’

Please Note Rory will be reblogging your responses unless you wish for me to NOT do so.

So Happiness is our theme for today’s quote. My quotes are:

happiness

Too many time we get confused on understanding what happy is. I promise it’s not the newest, greatest, fastest, most colorful item on the market that you just have to have to be happy.

Be like….

You know when you see someone smiling it makes you smile…just wondering what they are smiling about.

And for choosing bloggers who may or may not want to play, I chose ones who’s blogs inspire me the most as there blogs always make me smile.

Shelley of Quaint Revival

Irene of Heaven’s Sunshine

Margret of Margret’s Life Journey

And in closing as I always do, I remind my readers to remember to be kind and make someone happy.

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Precious Time

In the mornings I read from Sarah Young’s devotional Calling Jesus. It really spoke to me this morning as I know today’s labors are going to be intense as I work to clean the damages of these intense spring rains in my flooded basement. It reminds you to turn your focus to Him first before dealing with the demands of the day. “Bring Him the sacrifice of your time. This creates a sacred space around you permeated with His Presence and Peace.” Jesus Calling, May 30

The Psalms also have many uplifting verses to help with you when you think no strength is left.

Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which can not be shaken but endures forever. Psalm 125:1

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. Psalm 119:105

Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth and it endures. Psalm 119:90

For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the sky. Psalm 108:4

So even when life seems to be drowning you, remember His hand is always reaching down to you, so reach up and grab it.

a cross

In my reading this morning I also read a verse that goes along with how I always close…

And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:16.

Some many think only of sharing physical items but sharing of your time when others are in a desperate need is critical. A simple smile and gentle hug can share the warmth of Christ to provide endurance to finish a hard task. So remember to share of you, which shares of Him, and be always be kind.

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Here We Go Again, #1LinerWed

You are probably as tired of hearing about this as I am tired of living through it.

flood2 — We are above major flood stage **AGAIN**

Do take into consideration we have yet to leave any flood stage status since March. Some areas along the Mississippi have been at flood stage since February 17th, 2019. On May 3rd we reached the new record of 22.7 feet and you can see the projected path on the chart above but that may change since we got 3″ Tuesday. For Memorial Weekend, a weekend we will remember, we took in 2.79 FEET of rain. And yes, my basement is flooded. There is simply no where for the water to go. And rain is in the forecast for the next week plus. So my dear friends in South Africa, I wish I could send you some of what we have. You don’t have enough and we have too much.

In this Friday, May 3, 2019, aerial file photo, flood waters from the Mississippi River surround Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport, Iowa. Officials in Davenport say the city's public works department has spent over $1 million on flood-fighting efforts and that figure will surely rise as more costs are added in preparation for the potential of future flooding. — In this Friday, May 3, 2019, aerial file photo, flood waters from the Mississippi River surround Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport, Iowa. Officials in Davenport say the city’s public works department has spent over $1 million on flood-fighting efforts and that figure will surely rise as more costs are added in preparation for the potential of future flooding. (Photo: Kevin E. Schmidt, AP)

As of Tuesday, more than 370 river gauges along the Mississippi were reporting levels above flood stage in the central U.S., the weather service said. And of those, 71 gauges reported major flooding. There is a reason the Mississippi River is called the “Mighty Mississip”.

But even with this tragedy, we can be ever thankful that there have been no fatalities. And as hard as it is, sometimes these tragedies bring out the best in us. So try to remember to always be kind. Even when frustrated beyond your means, take a deep breath and let go to allow God to shine, and be kind.

kind19

Today is Wednesday and time for Linda G Hill‘s #1LinerWed. I know mine is longer than a line, sorry. But do come join in on the fun and say hi to everyone.

Creation of Art by God, Butterflies

Spring is a time when things wake up as the quiet sleep of winter is gets wiped from our eyes. The trees are waking up and spitting out new leaves, the flowers are rising up from the ground and animal wildlife is poking out its head to see what’s new. I love watching the birds and get excited when a new one I had not seen before visits my feeder.

IMG_20190501_185805_233 — Goldfinch, Downy Woodpecker, Cardinal

The beauty of God’s artwork in nature is amazing. But the most fascinating color work to me is the butterfly. I do not have a any around yet, but I hope to once it gets warmer and drys out a bit. But Irene reminded me this morning with her photo of a beautiful butterfly just how beautiful they are and I thought I would share Butterflywebsite.com pictures since I can not go outside today because again, it is raining. So I share these few pictures for you to enjoy, then go visit their site for others. Truly amazing creatures. They listed three specie/subspecie which I will share as these are the common ones we see. My favorite is the Swallowtails, Papilionidae, of which they have 11 varieties listed. I download two beauties.

These are the Black Swallowtail and the Orchid Swallowtail. The Black Swallowtail has always been a favorite of mine.

The next group are the Whites & Sulphers, Pieridae, of which they have 7 varieties shown.

The next group are the Lycaenidae, of which they list 3 subspecie, The Coppers which they have 4 varieties shown,

The Hair Streak has 3 varieties shown,

And then the last of the Lycaenidae group is the Blue, which there are 4 varieties shown.

And there are more exotic ones I am sure that I have not pictured but these should bring a smile to you if you are having a similar wet raining day or if not maybe you are just enjoying God’s handiwork. But did you know these creatures were also educated and know their ABCs and 0-9 numbers? Yes. They even have them imprinted on their wings. As scientist began studying butterflies they started noticing shapes in their coloration resembling letters and numbers and I have always thought that fascinating. God in his ultimate creative design combined with a sense of humor. I enclose the the collage below.

butterfly wings

Always remember to smile as nature smiles. If we look hard enough we can see that God is always there even when we think he forgot about us. Always remember to show the gentle, smiling, love God placed inside you to be brought out through kindness.

kindness butterfly

Gardening Pitfalls – Too Much, Too Many

I do enjoy my gardening as it reflects the beauty of God’s many colors. But this year has been a real challenge. The temps throughout the winter were excessively harsh and planting time for spring has been delayed several weeks with cooler than average temps and excessive rain. I fell sorry for the farmers who got a jump start on planting only to be drowned with rain when the ground was already saturated from nearly 2 feet of cumulative snowmelt. Then other farmers who waited are just now getting a chance to plant due to saturated ground. While my flowers are trying their best…..

The waterlogged effects are beginning to take its toll with rotting plants and dying leaves.

Then there are in inevitable pest that you fight that dig in your plants looking for food or raid you feeders for the birds.

IMG_20190527_175629

At least the shortening greased pole keeps him out of the feeder itself. But last night I had a new visitor….ate half of my strawberry plant.

Now I wasn’t getting enough strawberries from one plant to really do a whole lot but still it’s not there to feed the deer…good grief. So I guess I am being a good subsidizer for extra tasty morsel for the animal kingdom. Not really what I had in mind. These are the pitfalls and joys of gardening but still we strive onward and try to smile.

Smiling even in the midst of disappointments is how we can keep afloat. Always remember the effects a smile can have on someone. That one smile may be the only smile that person sees that day, so smile often and let the kindness of that smile spread all about you as you go through you day.

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Memorial Day

memories1

This is one of the days where we honor our military personnel for the wonderful service they have done in giving us our freedoms we so dearly enjoy. Although I agree with this day I have to ask WHY? Why do I have to set aside a day so that I can remember what has been done for this country? Why is it not remembered at all times? Unfortunately our younger generation has no understanding of war – because our military have done their jobs well. So I guess it is important to set aside a day to show them the importance of this day because if we don’t show them they will never know. But I challenge you further for this day to remember other personnel who fight daily to keep out internal streets secure. Along with our military National Guard, we have many branches of police across this nation, many firefighters and what would we do without emergency responding medical teams.

These forces are just as important and are due recognition as well, so on this Memorial Day I salute ALL branches of personnel that serve this nation to protect it and its people – our military at home and across the seas, our police forces across this fabulous nation, our emergency personnel of fire protection and emergency medical teams. I thank you.

And in Dan Antion’s post he recalled his father making a statement when he was young concerning Memorial Day which should ring loud across this nation, “Be quiet. Show some respect!”

And in closing I always remind my readers of the power of kindness. Kindness is a reflection of the love and goodness of this nation.

Benefits & Fun With Math, #SoCS

I have never been that good with word problems but I still enjoyed them. But plays on the algebraic system or physic system of cause and effect have always be an interest. We use it daily, with our kids – If you do…then things will not be so rosy for you. And we use it in our jobs, with friends and sometimes how we assess a situation in deciding if we really want to have a rosy outcome or a non-rosy outcome depending on what may or may not happen. Fun aspects of math. So I saw this equation on Facebook and thought I would share it. It made me chuckle but it is also profoundly true.

Coincidence or Reality?

We have 26 letter in the English alphabet and if you assign each with a number 1 though 26, you get a picture like this – (I need pictures, it helps my brain work.)

IF:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

EQUALS:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

THEN:

11 + 14 + 15 + 23 + 12 + 5 + 4 + 7 + 5 = 96 (Good High Number) K N O W L E D G E (That’s cool right?)

8 + 1 + 18 + 4 + 23 + 15 + 18 + 11 = 98 (An even higher number) H A R D W O R K (Interesting – so is Hard work is better that smarts? I don’t think so. You need both.

The kicker to the equation deals more with where your mind is than your smarts:

1 + 20 + 20 + 9 + 20 + 21 + 4 + 5 = 100 (An even higher number) A T T I T U D E (Yep, that will win every time)

Final analysis of this equation = while hard work and knowledge will get you places, without the proper attitude you will get nowhere. So keep your attitude ROSY. Rosy attitudes will get the task at hand done with less stress and leave room at the end of the equation to go the extra step like…being kind. Always remember in all the you do, regardless of the difficulty of your current equation, kindness will be like butter and smooth it all out.

butter

Linda G Hill has challenged us today to use the work Rosy with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, so come on along and join in on the fun.

Smiling… and Laughter

As you go day to day do you think about the things that make you smile? When heading to work today, I passed a car that had two dogs in the back seat and both of them had their heads out the window, tongues flapping in the breeze. Dogs are so funny. I know that if Mimi gets loose which has happened a couple of times, if I go after her in the car and open the door for her, she will jump right in. The only time she has ever been in the car is when we go to the vet. Does she love going to the vet? Don’t think so, she just likes riding in the car. Her silliness always makes me smile.

IMG_20190524_183923 — On guard for anything that may be on the sidewalk

Other things that make me smile is my flowers. They bring in that beauty of creation and they seem to smile when the sun splashes in their face.

Then there is the bulb that bloomed again this spring, the angel holding a flower pot …or the birds helping to grow sunflowers.

All of these make me smile…but what makes us laugh. Why does watching someone slip, knowing they didn’t get hurt, make us laugh. Or a clown throwing a pie at someone else can make us laugh. Silliness. I have seen women get so tickled and laugh so hard they are making no sound what so ever, just tears. I want to stop them and remind them to breathe. Too funny. Laughing people make us laugh. And how about the most precious laugh that there is…a babies laugh. I don’t know too much else as sweet. About a week ago my daughter and I went out to eat and while we were there a family with a grammar school age child and a baby were eating about 3 table over from us. The older child got the baby laughing and the baby was so tickled it got that end of the restaurant snickering and giggling. It was marvelous to have so many strangers all laughing at the same time without understand what the baby thought was funny. We took that joy with us as we left. Laughter a true release of joy.

In Genesis, Abraham and Sarah both laughed at the Lord. Not something I would recommend doing but know the circumstances, I can understand. Sarah was 90 and Abraham was 100 and the Lord told them she was going to have a child. Wow. And when the child was born they named him Issac, which means ‘he who laughs’.

So I remind you to store up for yourselves the smiles of life and the joys of laughter and share them with others in kindness. Kindness shared with smiles can create laughter so smile often and be kind.

kind smile

Sun, Fun …and Doors

What a beautiful day today. Blue sky, bright shining sun, temp in low 70s, flowers are smiling, birds are singing, actually, they are raising Cain because I am out of food, I will fix that shortly. But the flowers and Mimi are happy as Mimi basks in her favorite morning spot.

But today is Thursday and Norm’s day for doors. I have been waiting since August of last year to be able to get out and look at all the marvelous older homes in our area. Some have some really interesting doors, so today, I am walking…

IMG_20190523_142246 — Not a lot of walking but some

I found interesting other things for later post as well but today is door day. It is always interesting how government building are these massive stone buildings with columns and such. Then when the building gets deemed no longer useful, they tear it down. Such a waste. We are fighting tearing down our courthouse. I didn’t take any pictures of it as its boarded up. But below is the county office building.

Then the side door to the bank which I thought interesting.

IMG_20190523_122809

Then I went down to the river front to see where I could possible set up face painting for the 4th. I took a couple of pictures to show how we on this side of the river survived Flood ’19 vs. the other side of the river, where I work. We built a wall in ’65 after a bad flood then during the historic flood of ’93 we were safe as we were this year, which beat out the flood of ’93. No wall still on the other side.

Even from here you can still see the flood waters surrounding the trees along river park that are still surrounded by water. They are expecting another rise with all this rain. Oh, well…on to houses and doors.

I could have taken pictures all day but I do have grass to cut so I didn’t want to wear out my legs. To start with, I think we should all have gargoyles on our front stoop…right?

IMG_20190523_130814 — Dare anyone to take the package from the front door

Other doors of neat vintage eras are below. Wonderful history and architecture.

I miss the era of big front porches and neighbors visiting while sitting in rockers and such. It was a more simple time I guess. But was it?

I don’t think the basic principle of love thy neighbor has ever changed. Jesus was over 2000 years ago and that was part of the great commission. So I challenge you to remember the gentleness of the seemed eras gone by and bring forth the gentle kindness that seemed to be more prominent than now. Let the kindness of Christ shine through you to brighten someone else’s day.

KINDNESS10