"Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name." --- Psalm 103:1
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1.) Ten years! Ten years ago this past Tuesday, Tom and I moved to Hobbit Cottage. If you're a longtime reader here and can't quite believe that, neither can I.
We'd planned this as a temporary place before moving onto something larger and niftier, but we all know what God does when we make our own plans. ツ
Right now color us super grateful God brought us here, instead. One reason? Had we moved back to our Autumn Cottage town (5 miles away), we'd have paid an extra $18,000 in property/school taxes by now. Unbelievable, right?
But believe it. Whew. Again, much gratitude.
2.) Okay, here's my last photo of books I mean always to keep. This is kids' lit. centered:
The Margaret Sutton and Carolyn Keene and Lois Lenski books represent more of each which I'll be keeping.
Oh! And recently I discovered Open Library has many of Lois Lenski's regional books so now you, too, can read them and perhaps see for yourselves why they give me such gratitude for this life I've been given.
Here are a few which I've read an embarrassing amount of times and also? These books were written the way I wish history had been taught in school. Always, I longed to read how families coped with the happenings of the times.
3.)
Right?
4.) What a gift is September! At least here in New York, for on September's first day our weather cooled and is slated to stay. Ol' Debra finally returned to her non-cranky, energetic, pleasant self. Thank-goodness.
What. A. Brutal. Summer! I survived, but just barely. ツ (And let this be a reminder to never lose hope that things of all sorts can someday change!)
5.) Thanks so much for helping me pray for Chester, CA! They were (mostly) spared from the Dixie Fire and a couple weeks ago it became easier for me to believe the town will remain safe.
I followed a couple fire-related Facebook pages and was blessed to see many names of folks with whom I went to school and church way back in the 70's and 80's.
Again, thank-you for praying and oh! While reading about the fire activity I discovered that extra Vitamin C is helpful in repairing internal smoke damage. Just thought I'd mention that in case it helps anyone.
6.) Don't you just love folks who think outside the box?
Always got to be one step ahead these days, right?
8.) Oh and my longtime online friend, Tracy, has a new Youtube channel! So many helpful hints in one place. You can find her at Journal To Success.
Keep up the terrific work, Tracy!
10.) Years had passed since Tom and I worked our way through the tv series, Fringe, so guess what we're watching each evening lately? What a delightful show for sci-fi fans like ourselves.
9.) Did I tell you we had our Hobbit Cottage power-washed? Our (excellent) carpet cleaner guy branched out and hired a couple young men and well, they did a wonderful job.
(We'd procrastinated doing this since our house is vinyl-sided and we thought the 9 year-old paint might flake off, but it didn't. At least, not more than a three inch spot on the garage, so no big deal.)
We'd considered re-painting the entire house next year, but can probably wait awhile longer now. We'll see.
Oh, and it's reminded Tom and me of one huge benefit of growing older: we tend to forget the shows/movies we've watched, so viewing them again is like watching for the very first time(!)
Hey, it's the little things. (Oh, and we're watching Fringe via Prime Video.)
11.) And you won't believe this, but we received another totally wrong order from Aldi's home grocery delivery! I think that makes 3, not to mention at least 3 other out-of-the-blue orders from Walmart and even Taco Bell.
Each time we were told to just keep the wrong delivery which, hey, ok, no problem. ツ
Why has this happened so often? I'm not sure, though from our house I'm able to see two other's with our same house number. One delivery guy blamed it on the GPS. Naomi chuckled and said maybe delivering groceries is harder than we all dreamed.
Another possible reason? Perhaps this happens so to remind you that God is not limited in the ways He can provide for all His kids. Mysterious, odd, what-the-heck kind of ways.
So there you go.
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Please remember: My posts are always about more than they appear to be.
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"For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ... Matthew 6:14,15
This is such a happy, upbeat post Debra. I think the cooler air is doing you good! :-) We had one day of coolness yesterday. I even opened the window. We had thunderstorms move through during the night and we're back up to 97% humidity and warm today. Oh well, it was a glimpse of things to come.
ReplyDeleteBlessings and hugs,
Betsy
Blog-snatching??? What is that?
ReplyDeleteClearly, we are in book AAAAAARGH of Revelations, by the way! 😂
Betsy--yes! This cooler weather has changed absolutely everything for me as it always does this time of year. Boy oh boy. :) May I never complain about winter again! I feel so much better the cooler it is. Anyway, I'll be praying your area cools down comfortably for you soon!
ReplyDeleteSandi-- well, Blogger accused me of phishing, though I think it was more like someone reported me. My blog disappeared! But after sending an email, I did get it back. I blogged about this and I think I'll add that link to my post for more clarity, so thanks for your comment!
Thank, Ladies! Blessings, Debra
Aldi's is too far away for me to shop regularly. Wonder how I could get on that "list" you're on?🤣 My strength/energy is slow to returning after the Big C Virus. Hoping my sense of taste and smell return soon too. I'm missing my good, bold coffee flavor! And hey, NO complaints about our cool down in NE Indiana! ( Now if we can escape the invasion of army worms!)
ReplyDeleteYou are blessed to be enjoying your Hobbit Cottage, and wow, you even saved $18,000 in property taxes over those 10 years. I am happy you got your blog back. All summer I thank God every day for our ideal temperatures staying in the 70s, too hot and I would melt!
ReplyDeleteWell doggone. I tried to leave a comment but it disappeared, so I'm gonna try again. I just can't believe you've been in your home for 10 years! You've worked hard to make it work for you and your family. We're just starting to figure out how to make the little home we bought for retirement work for us. It's only 1330 sq ft, so we're looking forward to lower taxes and insurance costs. Saving $18,000 in taxes is huge! Thanks for this uplifting post, Debra.
ReplyDeleteRebecca--thanks for making me smile! I'm not sure how we got on that list, but it's been nice, indeed. Often we give away things to our neighbors' and that's fun, also. And yikes! I'm so glad you've recovered from covid. Whew. May you be totally back to normal soon and I know your joy about cooler temperatures! :)
ReplyDeleteTerra--how wonderful to have a summer in the 70's! We did have 3 weeks like that and I made the most of them, but the rest of the weeks, oh dear. And yes! We're very grateful about all the financial savings we had here the past ten years. Hooray! :)
Pam--I'm sure you're getting more excited about moving into your smaller home! 1330 square feet would be huge for us these days. :) We're at just 860 (not counting the basement which I wish we didn't have), but as we age here, some days even this feels too large. At least we've stopped collecting things, well, mostly! It really is true that aging and living through different seasons can change who we'd always thought we'd be.
Thanks so much, Ladies! Blessings, Debra