Thursday, March 30, 2017

Book Review ~ Life After Heaven

Good morning Folks ~ This post is about a recent book I chose to review from Blogging 4 Books.

The book has inspired me to continue to live my life trusting in Jesus for everything, to see heaven on earth now and to experience Jesus’ love throughout each and every day.

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This book is gripping from the very beginning. Steven tells of his life as a young man, then going into the Navy and the start of becoming part of the Navy Seals. His experience with death and his experience in heaven that he had will touch your heart.  His description of heaven and being with Jesus was so real and wonderful! I read this book twice, with time in between, and have been truly blessed by reading it, it will be a book to go back to for encouragement in living this life in the present. It makes me more excited and looking forward to being physically with Jesus forever.

From the book: “God’s love transforms. How deep, how attentive that love is. How encompassing. How careful. How complex. God knows. He has a purpose. He loves each of us intimately. Nothing in our lives is wasted. Our experiences, even the pain matters. He sees them. He will use them for good. He isn’t missing a thing.

The communion between God and us should develop, deepen.

Love is the language of heaven. True, good, honest love. Love that cares and moves to redeem and reclaim pain and loss. Christ is God the Father wrapping his arm around the broken. And on the earth, he does that through his people.

Heaven intersects all aspects of our lives here. We just need to recognize it.”

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We are all important to God. He has promised to never leave or forsake us. His love is a gift.

There is so much ‘food’ for the soul in this book. I’ve barely touched the surface with these few quotes.

You can read more about the book and order it here.

Jesus is my strength each and every day. Through every ordinary day things, through joys and sorrows, He fills me with love, joy and peace. I am thankful for His many blessings.

Sincerely ~ FlowerLady

 

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

The Winner is …

Good morning Folks ~ hope you all had a great weekend.

The winner for the book give–away

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is Jessica of ‘Oregon Transplant’. Congrats Jessica. If you all have not yet visited Jessica’s blog please do so. She shares great recipes with wonderful photos of ‘food’ in all stages of preparation.

That’s it for now. I’m working on getting caught up on things around here.

Have a great week ~ FlowerLady

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Spring happenings at Plum Cottage

Good Saturday morning Folks,

It feels so good to have use of my PC again. The tablet just doesn’t cut it.

The weather has been beautiful here, not to rub it in or anything like that. It will be all too warm before too long down here in s.e. FL. I am enjoying being outdoors, working on getting outdoor garden spaces more compacted and easier to care for.

A couple of weeks back, I won a give-away from Kris at JunkChicCottage. It is a sweet tote, which I have filled with yarn for projects that I am working on. Thank you Kris for such a happy give-away.  I’d like you all to pray for Kris and her husband. They are selling there lovely home, moving to be closer to husband’s new job, so are looking for a new home to make their own. Her Mom just became very ill, you can read the post here, so she is taking a break from blogging for a bit to take care of her Mom. Kris has a wonderful blog full of the beauty she creates in her home. Give her a visit, and send her some good wishes and prayers too.  Thank you.

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Monday, the first day of spring, was my 68th birthday. That morning I had thought about going to a nursery or two, but then decided against it. A little while later, while I was out back hand watering plants in containers, I heard talking up front in my driveway. I thought, now what? Well, it was tree trimmers sent out by the electric company to trim limbs from trees away from power lines. They had done a little bit a week or so back when the transformer on the pole at the back of my property and the neighbor’s exploded. It was windy and something touched the hot wire, causing loss of power next door and all connected to that transformer. My power was still on.

I opened my gates for them, and while talking with the main guy I told him I wish they would cut the whole row of stuff down, as the neighbor did not take care of it. I told him I’m a widow, husband used to take care of our side, and now I use a pole cutter and do what I can.  He said he would take care of it. When he was getting ready to get into the bucket  to raise him up to trim, I told him it was my birthday. He got a big smile on his face and wished me ‘a happy birthday all day’.

Up he went in the bucket and started to trim. As I stood there watching, I thought oh my goodness, this is an answer to prayer, and on my birthday. A birthday present from God. I stood there with a huge smile on my face, thanking Jesus over and over again, with tears falling. It just seemed magical and wonderful to me. He cares about us and he took care of this problem on a special day for me.

Before:  Feb. 2nd.

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After:March 21st, what looks like overhang at the back by the fish, is not, but hanging into the back neighbor’s property, they are not there.

What a difference!  Thankfulness still fills my heart for this gift.

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Saturday morning, the 18th, my BIL and SIL took me to breakfast at a place called Eggcetera, I think that was the name of it. BIL and I had country fried steak, covered in gravy, cottage fries, I had rye toast, and two eggs. I also had a cranberry/champagne drink to celebrate. Smile SIL had a chicken filled crepe. We had a good time visiting. I received a set of lovely organic lotions that smell wonderful, and they are giving me a wonderful old wooden antique tool/bench of some sort. They are in the process of moving and won’t be taking this with them. I had mentioned I’d like it if they were going to get rid of it, and now it is mine. I will take a picture of it when it comes here to PC.

Monday night two girlfriends from church took me out to eat at a Greek Restaurant and then we saw ‘The Shack’ afterwards. A lot of controversy over this movie, but I had read the book and there are some great thoughts in helping to understand all of who God is. We took kleenex because we had heard the movie would make you cry, and it did. It was a beautiful movie and touched me deeply. I loved the part about the bottle for God bottling my/our tears, which He does for each of us. Our tears are precious to Him. Anyway, we were all moved and blessed as were others in the audience.

My one friend had recently remodeled her kitchen and had cleaned out dishware and some linens and was going to give them to Goodwill, but asked if I’d like to go through them first, then donate what I don’t want. She brought two boxes with her and I brought them home, then went through them before bed.

Here’s what I kept. The two blue/gold rimmed plates are Limoges. So pretty. Jessica is the ‘butterfly ‘lady’ who works at butterfly world and her new look doesn’t go with these  butterfly plates, so I took two of them. The two bits in the middle are glass bowls.

An embroidered small table cloth  was part of the goodies.

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I kept two other table cloths that have embroidery and crochet inserts. Really pretty. Below are pics of all three. the top and bottom ones are folded in half.

The first one is more of a creamy color with ecru crochet, and sweet embroidery. This is oval in shape.

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This one is white with white crochet inserts and sweet embroidery. This one is more square.

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These were taken indoors with lamps and overhead lighting. It is white like the picture above.

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This book has some delicious looking recipes that I look forward to trying.

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This platter I’m going to hang on a plum colored wall. I happened to have a plate hanger to fit. I’ll take a picture later of where I hang it.

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Ok, that’s it for now. I had a lovely 68th birthday. My birthday also marked 51 years from when my dear husband and I first met. Time is zipping right along.

Love is important. Let your spouse, family and friends know you love them.

Love & hugs ~ FlowerLady

P.S. There will be flower photos next post. This one was too long.

Have a lovely weekend.

OK, I’ll give you one flower photo.

This is coral honeysuckle, not quite opened up yet. I’ve had this two years I think and this year it has lots of blooms. Hummers are supposed to love to visit, so I’ll see if they do.

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Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Computer is working again, Garden book review & give away

Good morning Folks ~ My computer was fixed yesterday morning. YAY! I’ll write a personal post later. I have three book reviews to write and post, two will also be give-aways.

Being without a computer for 6 days was rough! Trying to do anything on a small tablet is rediculous in my opinion. I like my PC.

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Today’s book review is for the book “Garden Design – A Book of Ideas” by Heidi Howcroft & Marianne Majerus.

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This is a beautiful book, 311 pages filled with wonderful photos of gardens of all types to suit all personalities. Lots of great ideas to inspire you. A book you will want to look through at your leisure over and over again.

Some thoughts taken from the introduction:

“ Every garden, irrespective of whether it is a crate on top of a barge or parkland surrounding a country mansion, is a personal piece of paradise, tailor-made for the individual.

Some gardens are meticulously planned, while others just happen. There are no hard-and-fast rules for their design. It is all about personal taste, so who is to judge what is good or bad?

There is a garden out there to suit every one of us; it is merely waiting to be discovered.”

Below is the list of contents:

Basics
Question of Style
The Components
Greenery & Flowers
Furnishing the Garden
Difficult Plots & Tricks of the Trade

This book along with two others was sent to me by Firefly Books, for review, a give away and is/are mine to keep. Smile

For followers of my blog, leave a comment below to be entered into the give away, which will end Sunday, March 26th at midnight EST. I will do the drawing on Monday then post the winner.

The book will be sent via Firefly Books.

Next week I will post the other garden book.

Happy Spring to all ~ FlowerLady