PROJECT 365...WEEK SEVEN

Come see what we had going on this week...CLICK THE ABOVE PIC TO GO TO SARA'S...IN THE MEANTIME, HERE'S some of OUR week:

2/13 brought the most gorgeous blue sky; I just love how it highlights the snow, such an awesome contrast...my front yard river birch

If it weren't for our bench you wouldn't be able to tell there's an island around these trees...I just love seeing the cleanliness the snow makes of the landscape.

What was predicted to be only an inch or so--turned out to be 4 inches confirmed...and NO layer of ice under it. We usually have more ice to deal with in this part of the state.

Below is OUR version of the neighborhood Olympics :)...they were having such fun...

WHILE THE SNOW WAS MELTING I MADE OATMEAL-CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES...YUMMO!

2/12 WAS DOWNRIGHT CHILLY, DD and I had some fun using the 'timer' on the camera and getting some shots Teens always have THE BEST ways to celebrate things...here she wanted to do a picture to send to her friend who knitted the gloves she's wearing! They're adorable fingerless gloves that have a flap that folds over to make them into mittens :)

Before the snow arrived Friday afternoon, I had made a trip to the grocery...to get my milk and bread, of course...that's a local joke here....we NEVER get snowed in enough to REALLY need milk and bread. However, while there I had to turn in a prescription for my allergies...it sure helps me breathe.

Thursday evening one of my buds gave me some buds...(dopey, I know, simple things make me giggle these days)...a very pretty kalanchoe to celebrate another year breathing in His merciful breath of life.

On Tuesday I had my salon appointment to trim my hair...I took some shots but they were SO AWFUL I wasn't about to post any one of them...

As "ARo" is SO GOOD at doing on her blogs...

In summary, I must count my snowy blessings while I have them because they quickly melt away when the temps go up; there is ALWAYS something to praise in and around a storm--the little birdies were still out and about in the snow but I wasn't quick enough to catch them; Times with my DD are fleeting--she'll be off to college in less than 6 months so I am cherishing every moment; Thanks will always be given for grocery stores and pharmacies--providence of such special things; finally, I have some of THE BEST praying mama sisters in the WORLD and thank the Lord for EVERY remembrance of them!

ENJOY WEEK EIGHT OF THE LORD'S PROVIDENCE

Jer. 33:3 "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."
Blessings,

THEN SINGS MY SOUL...marshmallow world

THEN SINGS MY SOUL...Joining Amy...

my soul is singing...singing in joy for the beautiful snow we had yesterday. We woke to the most gorgeously blue skies, so I had to take pics of that too! It'll be gone by later today or early tomorrow...but it surely has been clean, quiet and a wonderful change.GO, GOD!!!

(Down below Dean's video is a short snippet of what I found outside this MORNING...love it, love it...Did I mention I LOVE IT!!! )

If you've never seen Dean Martin or heard him sing...this song captures the way I feel about the snow...a marshmallow world...

DISCLAIMER: not endorsing his smoking nor having a holiday-decorated house in the middle of February but the words of the song are great...

captures my feel for the snow and the LOVE of the weekend with my sweetheart!!!

"A Marshmallow World" www.OldieLyrics.com(partial)

It's a marshmallow world in the winter,

When the snow comes to cover the ground,

It's the time for play, it's a whipped cream day,

I wait for it all year round.

It's a yum-yummy world made for sweethearts,

Take a walk with your favourite girl,

It's a sugar date, what if spring is late,

In winter, it's a marshmallow world.

Blessings,

"LICHEN" 'EM, MORE AND MORE

Within the last week the word 'mushroom' has come out of my mouth much more than EVER expected...with all this deluge of rain, the little LICHENS are popping up with a vengeance.

My first uttering of this word was while we were playing golf last week...on almost every hole, along the fairways and even up on the greens,there were many of these botanical sprouts...coming up.

My second uttering came while walking down the sidewalk to the neighborhood gym at BS&K's...tall, short, skinny, fat, HUGE, tiny...greeting us each day ...shriveling toward the pine straw-laden ground for their eternal rest. Their existence is so limited...gone as quickly as they come. I'm rather scared of these little/big delectables due to this happening:

My first-ever, personally-purchased yorkie-poo was Nicholas (I called him Nikki)...he was an adorable little black-curly puff of a puppy...2 pounds wet.

I had bought him with my first paycheck after graduating college...and he spent days with "grandma" Mom while I worked. (She was always going outside to enter our basement to work on her 'sewing projects' and it was common for him to run and jump through the grass while walking with her.) Unfortunately, about two weeks after I got him, he took a curious side trip en route and chewed on a mushroom...

He was so tiny and the obviously poisonous one went straight to his nervous system and he didn't make it. (The vet said it was just too much for his little system.)

Sorry I got sidetracked...but you can now understand why I veer away from mushrooms in the wild but love to eat them in my food. Continuing on:

With all the sightings during our season of sogginess in Atlanta, I wondered how to tell the difference in these little unknown fungi...

There's a MUSHROOM CLUB OF GEORGIA...they have a written purpose and everything...

...an educational organization...to promote enjoyment*, study, and exchange of information about wild mushrooms. (I personally have never thought about 'enjoying a wild mushroom' especially after my incident.

This is SERIOUS STUFF, ya'll...their calendar has field trips with speakers even.

One presentation on their site noted one titled "Medicinal, Poisonous, and Hallucinogenic Properties of Fungi". (hhhhmmmmmm)

Then, there was ... interpretive mushroom farms and myco-gardening demonstration areas (and there's a national "MYCO" group even, who knew? ...I bet they're "myco-gardening experts...

As I read along I felt like someone from BIG BANG was going to pop up on my screen and ask me for a password or something.

This is BIG BRAIN stuff, ya'll...even GA TECH had a USDA grant --to study effects of mushroom mycelium (high-oil content algae for production of bio-fuels)? (GREEN TO THE CORE...that's a mouthful, isn't it?!)

While stumbling around on the site, I found out:

Shiitake mushrooms are the third most popular mushroom species in the U.S."

health benefits: Low in calories, glucose and sodium

high in potassium, phosphorus, copper, and zinc

help lower blood cholesterol

improve the immune system

I can't end this post on such a HIGH-BROW note, so I'll share a mushroom joke...get ready, this will REALLY get you rolling (and I claim no liability to those who may 'split a side' from this one):

Did you hear what the mushroom told the dead tree?

A lichen had developed between us. :p

What 'shroom stories' can share with us today?

BLESSINGS, Skoots1Mom

Psalm 3:1-4 "Enemies sprouting like mushrooms...But you, God, shield me on all sides; You ground my feet, you lift my head high; With all my might I shout up to God, His answers thunder from the holy mountain."

MY "FRIDAY FIVE"

Quilly had this Five Word Meme on her blog and invited others to play; she sent me five words.

1.) Coffee ... I drink it most often with ice (now that I'm enduring hot flashes, excuse me, many personal tropical vacations each hour...a tall, iced coffee is hard to beat...oOnly one cup a day though.

2.) Rain...(click the pic for a BIGGER VIEW)...we've prayed for it so long. Now we have more of it than our land can take

...the disaster throughout Atlanta is definitely a site I've never seen in person. Hubby worked the Missouri floods several years ago as a disaster specialist with the American Red Cross and he brought home pictures that looked like these, but I never imagined it would every happen here. Thanks for any prayers you can send our way, and or any money you can send to the Red Cross to help with this tragedy.

3.) Closet: I need to clean several of these out sometime soon...I don't need to 'come out' of one...and I've never been locked in one, thank goodness!

4.) Furniture: When I think of furniture, I think of all the 'stuff' I have that I can't stand came with hubs when I married him 20 years ago. We don't like the same kinds of furniture taste, except a couple of antiques he had from his grandmother. This has made decorating a pain in the patooty next to impossible. I could throw out EVERTHING in my bedroom and never give it another thought.

5.) Handwriting: My handwriting was ruined once I went through four years of shorthand in high school and college...I can write 110 words a minutes in shorthand but now my script handwriting has no consistency. I often look at others' handwriting and wish it was mine. The good thing: I can take down every word of a sermon or speech and then greatly ponder what was said...it comes in handy for Christmas lists, too!

Blessings,

Skoots1mom

Revelation 1:3 "Blessed is the one who reads the words of prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near."

MONDAY MOSAIC...

JOINING MARY FOR MOSAIC MONDAY...WON'T YOU JOIN US?!!!

burgundy "volunteer" day lily...my surprise this Spring
angel trumpet bush sprouting new leaves daily
two small flags expand colors and attract each eye
hosta blooms soon to beckon bees
a "breeze-shared" shasta daisy feeling the full sun's shining
weeding awaiting beneath the foot of my bench
humble home peeking through the hues of green
bright yellow daylillies delightfully show off
butterfly bushes welcoming future fluttery feeding frenzies

(double click picuture for bigger view)

Luscious greens of spring...
Summer's sweltering heat soon
...but, today we bloom!

SIX -N- SIX...MY TURN

Saw this at Sassy Granny's site and wanted to play along...The charge was to: Open the sixth folder in my picture file...then select the sixth picture in that folder. Then talk about it... If you'd like to see her pic and read her description, go here:

http://sassygranny.blogspot.com/2009/03/six-in-six-my-turn.html

HERE'S WHAT I FOUND IN MY SIXTH FOLDER...it's not a great shot, but it's the best I could get at that moment with my little zoom. My sister-in-law heard this pileated woodpecker way up in the trees... so I ran in the house and grabbed the camera. It was early in the morning...a very cold morning, February 13, to be exact. My feet were bare as I ran back onto my back deck. She found him high up in one of our white oak trees as he was busily looking for food. Sure wish I could have gotten closer...he was jumping around from limb to limb. The crest on top of his head really does remind me of one of those "Robin Hood" type felt caps.

Here is a reference picture of a pileated woodpecker and some interesting facts:

--curious what "pileated" means? pileus "felt cap without a brim"

--digs rectangular holes in trees to find ants

--will defend the territory in all seasons, but will tolerate floaters during the winter
--prefers large trees for nesting

Do you have an interesting sixth picture in your sixth folder in your picture file?
Go ahead...play along...would like to see & hear what you've got!
Just leave a comment so we can come see your entry.

In this time of Lent, this seemed appropriate with this post...

Matthew 8:20

Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests,

but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."

Snowy Night N Jawja...

Usually our snows come in from the northwest...and they usually hit our mountains in the north-end of the state first. NOT THIS TIME...I had been in the mountains earlier in the day, and all we had was rain...

DISCLAIMERS:

• The woman in the red thermal shirt was fresh out of the car from a 2-hour trip in her SUV.
• Same woman had been at a mountain retreat for two days where makeup and hair couture were not THE priorities of the day.
• Aforementioned woman was so excited about the Winter Weather Warning and the QUICK accumulation of the white, fluffy stuff her region so rarely sees, her personal semblance was the last thing on her mind as she quickly grabbed her camera and shot the video...obviously, duh!.
• Even though narcoleptic from the previous nights' sleep, this recently travelled woman was invigorated by the falling hydration in its entirety!
• She asks you to do two things...1. forgive her unprepared demeanor and 2. enjoy her capture of this brief brush with Winter
• IT ALL MELTED THIS AFTERNOON...

SEPTEMBER BLOOMS!

SHARING MY GARDEN IN A DIFFERENT WAY...

TODAY I WAS HOPEFUL MY "TRUMPET BUSH" HAD BLOOMED...AND...

WAAAAALAAAAAAH!!!

GOD PROVIDES NEW BEAUTY EVERY DAY...

IN SOME NEW, FASCINATING WAY...

BE IT A BURSTING NEW FLOWER...

OR THROUGH HIS UNMATCHABLE POWER...

HIS HOPE RENEWS DAILY!

GO HERE TO SEE MORE "HOPEFUL FRIDAY" POSTS... http://houseinroses.blogspot.com/2008/09/hopeful-friday_26.html

(SIDE NOTE: PLEASE DISREGARD MY CALLING IT A "BUTTERFLY BUSH" IN THE VIDEO...IT IS AN "ANGEL TRUMPET"...JUST HAVING A SENIOR MOMENT, I GUESS!)

TOUCH ME NOT...WILLKOMMEN--MEIN GARTEN!

1 Corinthians 3:7

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

Another follow-up...last bits of color bursting in my front yard...tying to hang on to summer with all their might.

So glad I've been taking pictures this summer so I can go back and enjoy them throughout the fall and winter.

If the temperatures remain, I'll soon have several day lily blooms...scientifically speaking, this is the Hemerocallis 'Stella De Oro' day lily. These are so hardy and give lots of color early summer and fall.

About three weeks ago I was planting a lily a friend had given me...I was scratching around in my dirt...about a week later, these "touch-me-nots" bounded up out of the dirt...they were just lying under there waiting for me to scratch them up into the sunshine...

These used to be in my "granny's" side yard growing in and alongside her "tommytoe tomatoes"

Mine were grown from some of her seeds...so these are named "Ila Odessa"...one of those old southern names! You want to hear the best part?...she had first cousins named: Ora, Ura, Era...I promise!!!

Their scientific name is: BALSAM IMPATIENS (Impatiens balsamina) a.k.a.

Touch-me-nots...the little green seed pods you see hanging under the leaves "pop" when you touch them...spreading their tiny little seeds!

Last but not least is a picture of my front-door decoration for the new season...have to have sunflowers and scarecrows. I always have fun finding something to go in my "Southern Living" door hanger...

How are you decorating your front door or entrance way this Fall?

Visiting the Blooms....

I always love to check out http://msgreenthumbjean.blogspot.com/ to see what she has "growing"...get ready to view some awesome blooms. She has definitely received a blessed green thumb. I love seeing things grow in my yard as well... even though mine does not hold a candle to Ms. Deb's from Manitoba.


My little statue is not a bloom, although she is surrounded by my blooming monkey grass. My little lady is in my island's sitting area, and she reminds me of Susannah Wesley with her apron.
As she is holding her apron out to catch water and/or provide a place for seed...she beckons you come sit in the garden. I think I'll call her Susannah from now on as a tribute to Mrs. Wesley in rememberance of her praying two hours a day (you see, when she couldn’t find a room to retreat to for her prayer time, her kids watched her flip her apron up over her head, and knew not to bother her while she prayed....oh, for those who may not know, she only birthed 19 children!)
One of her quotes was, "I am content to fill a little space, if God be glorified."

Her top 5 rules for their home:

1. Eating between meals-- not allowed.

2. In bed by 8 p.m.

3. Take medicine without complaining.

4. Subdue self-will in a child, and those working together with God to save the child's soul.

5. Teach a child to pray as soon as he can speak.

Lord, may we join together to pray to you--

may we lift our aprons over our faces should we need Your presence in any given moment--

remind us to pray with our children, teaching them Your presence is steadfast and that all we must do is seek Your face...let them know You will never leave them or forsake them. Hide us under your wings and hold us in your might hands. May we be still and know YOU are GOD!

Amen

Acts 1:14They all joined together constantly in prayer,

along with the women and

Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

Take a moment to worship with Chris Roth...from YouTube...(2 mins 4 secs.)

GOD DELIGHTS IN HIS CREATION & Wordless Wednesday

Because God inspires us through His Word...I'm learning so much from so many as I read and blog. I want to send my thanks with a little of God's beauty to boot!

So, My Hands...His Glory will now have a "BEE-cause" Award...inspired by Psalm 91.

It will be given when there are special moments of time spent with God--"listenings" to His instructions, "restings" in His presence, or "rescues" and "shields" from traps and hazards. (God-incidences will also be included, because I love to capture and read back over God's creativity IN our lives...no coincidences, I believe they are GOD-incidences).

God truly does delight in His creation...

You are His creation--He delights in you, where you are, when you share with Him, and even when you don't share with Him--He never leaves your side. Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, Holding you in the palm of His Hand!

Many, many times she has captured my heart in her words from His Word, so my First recipient is: Elaine, at http://peaceforthejourney.blogspot.com/ for "seasons of change"

Go here to check out some great "wordless wednesday" pics

http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/?p=401#comment-23216

BABY BLOSSOM BLOOMS!... 1. Treasure the wonder

Looks like there's going to be a NEW blossom soon...I'm a little "eager" to see what God has planned.

It's been several weeks since I planted the "seeds" and I have watched over them along the way as they have developed in the rich soil...(seeds were planted on 6/18/08 ... see the difference?http://skirkman.blogspot.com/2008/07/simple-womans-daybook.html

Just having participated in the Beth Moore simulcast, the "seeds" were so much of the focus--and they are to be nurtured so they will "take root"...the WORD takes root and will grow in our lives like the seeds grow in the soil.

Treasure the wonder...see the new "coming" blossom...He's busy equipping my seeds into blooms...to be the best blooms they can be.


Gal 3:29 Galatians 3:29
If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Update: 8/6/08 FIRST FRUITS!

Here she is...

I'm not sure if there will be more, but His glory shines EVEN IN JUST ONE!

COMIN' ALONG...in word and seed!

My hanging basket is thriving--getting more abundant with every ray of sunshine and frequent summer showers.
I'm "eager" to one day sneak up on some "buds" that will be announcing future color...for a view of how far they've come, go here: http://skirkman.blogspot.com/2008/07/simple-womans-daybook.html

As I watch I'm "more eager"...not anxious, mind you...."eager" to see what color God is going to give me in each petal that He brings forth later this month.

Have you ever noticed people on television and/or in conversations saying things like, "I'm so anxious, I can't wait!"...huh??? Language Arts was one of my best and favorite classes. Were your teachers like mine? Did they teach you that words actually do have meaning and we each should know how and when to use APPROPRIATE words. So,

"Welcome to this addition of LAOnline 101, My names is Ms. Skoot and I would like to clarify the differences between two words that are COMMONLY flipped. By the end of this class, I am eager for you to be anxious no more in your proper use of each word..."

"As mentioned in previous posts, dictionaries are wonderful reference tools and help us clarify pronunciations, spelling, word forms and definitions. The definitions are usually followed by synonyms (words having same or nearly same meaning) for even further clarification. I successfully found anxious and eager at dictionary.com since I started with a "general knowledge" of how to spell them--aren't you glad I saved you this step in our lesson today?"

Assignment 1: Read the definitions and synonyms below; note: jot found information in your notebook if these words are a struggle for you to remember, there may be a quiz.

anx·ious [angk-shuhs]–adjective full of mental distress or uneasiness/fear of danger or misfortune; greatly worried; solicitous: Her parents were anxious about her poor health. Synonyms: disturbed, fearful, uneasy

ea·ger [ee-ger] adjective keen/ardent, passionate in desire or feeling; impatiently longing.

Synonyms: enthusiastic, desirous

Assignment 2: Describe how "mental distress/uneasiness" compared to "keen/passionate in desire" are the same. (take a sip of water as you ponder--this assignment may cause you some stress) Have you discovered this ...THEY ARE NOT THE SAME : )


"Congratulations! You have passed your LAOnline 101 "Magna Cum Laude", for you have achieved grades above the average , so you get a tassel!

Now... take your knowledge into the world--represent us here at LAOnline 101 proudly as you PROCLAIM and HENCE FORTH FROM THIS DAY FORWARD use the words "eager and anxious" correctly.


The bell just rang, you're dismissed for today...but come again, soon, ok?
(Sniff, sniff, wipe, wipe) I'm so proud of you!!!"

Psalm 119:130

The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.