Still waters...

...He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul...

Josie and sunshine..

As you all know, since baby Josie's birth 3 weeks ago, Dave has been under the weather. He was sick with flu-like symptoms when she was born and since then has had the blood clot to deal with. Yesterday the doctor released him to go back to work and since we had a few hours before he was to be called to work, we decided he could finally go to see the baby. Here is Dave holding our granddaughter for the first time. As you can see, it was love at first sight!



She is growing and doing so well. She listens intently when you talk to her and tries to follow voices, especially the ones she recognizes like Mommy and Daddy's. She is such a sweet and cuddley baby!

We were having thunderstorms yesterday when we went for our visit. On the way home, the rain stopped and the sun popped out for a while from behind the clouds and touched the mountaintops.



I took this picture from the back of our house to try and avoid all the power lines. If you look over the top of houses and into the distance you can see our big mountain.



After the drought we had in the summer we still need lots of rain and I'm thankful for it. But when it stops for a while it's as if God is smiling down on us. :)

I'm back...

I am back in Blogland today! Hopefully things will get back to at least semi-normal now. My company left this morning. Dave is doing better and is hoping to be released by the doctor today to go back to work. They are still trying to regulate his blood thinner and he should find out today how that is doing. Thank you all for your prayers.

I have been keeping a tight rein on Dave for a week..keeping his leg elevated. Over the weekend I gave him a reprieve to go to an auction and of course he went nuts and bought a truckload of stuff which we didn't need. But he did find one item that we've been wanting for a long time...an old sideboard!! We had found several with BIG price tags so we kept looking to find a cheaper one. A couple of month ago he went to a flea market and found a huge buffet. The same dealer had 2 bookshelves that we had also been looking for. She told Dave if he bought the bookshelves that she would throw in the buffet for free!! It was too big and not what I wanted but we have been using it. Here is a picture of our mismatched dining room with the monster buffet taken just after Christmas:



As you can see, not one piece of our furniture matches. We bought the table with no chairs, then he found a set of 6 tiger oak chairs and bought them. Then he called from the auction and said he was bidding on an old sideboard made of tiger oak. I never know what I'm getting but this time he got it right! Here is the new/old sideboard:



It has a few dings but that's to be expected for an old piece especially at a good price! I love the old, original mirror in the back. I couldn't get a decent picture yet and we haven't moved out the monster to make room for the new one. It's in front of the fireplace right now. I'll take more pics when I get it all situated. I just couldn't wait to share it with you.

I'm off now to catch up with each of you and see what's happening in your world. I know there's been a lot of sickness going around and I hope you're all better now.

The Valley of the Shadow

Psalms 23:4 KJV

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

I heard a preacher say one time that without the Son there would be no shadow. I had always interpreted this scripture as death is only a shadow when Jesus is right there walking through that valley with us. Either way, He is right there with us!

Thank you all my dear friends for your prayers for this family.

Cleaning....

Some of you already know that my DH developed a blood clot in his leg last Saturday. The doctor put him on blood thinner, pills and shots he has to give himself in the stomach. He's been out of work all week and still hasn't been released by the doctor. His blood still hasn't thinned enough with the medicine.

Then this morning we got a call from his sister in Ohio. Her mother-in-law who lived here died this morning. They are coming in tonight to stay with us during the funeral.

I've been cleaning all day, changing beds, doing laundry, etc.

I ask that you pray for both situations that we are dealing with. I will try to check in over the weekend with all of you if I get the opportunity. Love to all!

Hope

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KIAN

Yesterday was my grandson, Kian's, 8th birthday. Due to unforseen circumstances I didn't get to spend time with him on his birthday like I wanted, or get pictures like I wanted either. We have plans to do this later on. So today I'm honoring this very special boy here on my blog.

On a cold, snowy, January day, Kian came into this world. He was born a month premature with lungs that weren't developed enough and immediately taken to another hospital and put in an intensive care unit. Here he was attached to every tube and wire imaginable and the only contact we had at first was just touching his little hand. A very scary and heart wrenching time. It was about a week before I got to hold him the first time and then it was with all those tubes and wires still attached. But God had plans for this baby boy and in his short 8 years, he has blessed so many people especially his Granny.

When he was still a baby and came over for a visit, he would reach for me as soon as he saw me. When I took him in my arms, the first thing he would do was lay his little head on my shoulder and pat me gently on the back. He was saying "I love you, Granny" even then, without words. As he got older I would tell him I loved him and he would say, "Lu you too!"

This kid is a nut:



He's right out of a cartoon and makes me laugh:



He's such a cool kid:



He loves being silly with his cousin Claire:



And adores his cousin Collin:



Last year he lost his first tooth, and unlike most kids, loved to show off the gaping space:



Now he's looking so grown up..but he's still Granny's little man:



HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KIAN! GRANNY LOVES YOU VERY MUCH!

Blessings..pay them forward..

Brandy and Jennifer both chose me for this award and I am honored. Thank you both for thinking of me. Here's the idea behind this award:

The idea…it’s a game of tag with a difference, rather than looking inwardly, we look outside ourselves and bless, praise and pray for 3 blog friends. By participating in this endeavour we not only make the recipient of the blessing feel valued and appreciated, but we are having some fun too. We’re going to see how far the bloggin’ blessings can travel around the world and how many people can be blessed! Recipients of a bloggin’ blessing may upload the above image to their sidebar if they choose to. If you receive a bloggin’ blessin’ please leave a comment on this thread here so that we can rejoice in just how many blessings have been sent around the world.Now, I am to pass this Award on to 3 ladies.

I want all my Bloggy Friends to know what a blessing each of you have been to me and each of you deserve this award. But I am only suppose to pick 3 people to bless. I thought about this for a while and I chose 3 ladies who have not always had it easy, or they are still going through some trying times. But in the midst of it all, they keep their chins up and do what they have to do. They have had sickness, financial problems, or just plain heartbreak and worry, but they just trust God for their needs and perservere. Grams, Karen and Brenda..I want you all to know that you've been a blessing and encouragement to me.

Thanks again, Brandy and Jennifer. I hope my little blog corner of the world will continue to be a blessing.

A New Award and an Old Town

First of all, I have received this award from Sandra at Nora Lee's Nook. Here's what she said about me: "Hope at Second Time Around where it is always fun to stop by and see what she is up to, and also for some laughs!" I am so glad that I can bring a smile to the ones who visit here. As I told Sandra, laughter is good medicine, and I'm a firm believer in laughter! If you haven't visited her at Nora Lee's Nook, you must run on over there and check it out. Sandra has many old items which she shares passed down through generations of her family. She's also a girl after my own heart who loves junkin' and she also shares many of her great finds!! Thanks you so much, Sandra, for this honor. When you drop in on her, tell her Hope sent you! :)

Next, an old town! This past summer DH fulfilled one of my dreams by taking me on a trip from VA to Maine. It was a long, tiring trip but we saw so many interesting places along the way, as you can imagine. There's no way I could get all this into one post so I'll break it down so that you don't get "picture overload"! As I mentioned in one of the meme's I did a while back, I love the movie Baby Boom with Diane Keaton, about a devoted career woman who "inherits" a baby and leaves her city life for the country. The name of the area in the movie was Hadleyville, Vermont, but in real life, it is a very small town called Peru, Vermont. This little town consists of a town center:



an old cemetary behind the towncenter:



a post office:



a beautiful, old church:



and my favorite place, the old general store:



In the movie, Keaton's character buys a farm, sight unseen, complete with a beautiful old farmhouse and an apple orchard. With so many apples laying around going to waste, she decides to make baby food apple sauce for her newly inherited baby.
Being a sharp business woman, she also decides to try and sell some of this baby food so she takes some to the local general store. Tourists drift through this small town from a much larger, neighboring town which is a resort area. (We actually stayed in the resort town for one night. Very expensive place but nice.) This little store is the actual one from the movie.



It took me back in time for a while. The lady who now owns the store was very friendly and told us all about the excitement that went on during the making of the movie. I was amazed at all the goodies sold in this one small place. Fresh muffins and coffee in the morning, cheeses, pizza and of course, Vermont Maple Syrup. It even had the old wood stove still used for heat where the old men use to sit around, swapping stores and spitting tobacco juice in the spittoon!



Notice the original old wood floor around the stove. The original wood counters are still in use too, along with the old cash register. (Oh yeah, they also sell night crawlers and worms!)





A sign is still displayed over a doorway showing the original owner.




When Keaton's character was driving to her new home in the film, this is the beautiful tree-lined road she was on:



The store owner told us that the house used in the film was just a few miles down the road but was too far back to be seen from the road. We left this town by way of the tree-lined road on to our next destination. I was amazed at all the dirt roads in this area which are main routes! We use to have a lot of these in our county that have now been paved.

I hope you've enjoyed your little tour today. I want to show more of the places we visited at a later date. I also hope my pictures aren't chopped up a lot. The only thing I could do was resize them but then when I loaded them to Flickr they were bigger. :( The only other way I could find to change my template and make it wider was with HTML and I know nothing about that! Oh well, maybe sooner or later a more computer literate person will be able to help me!