JUST SOME JOURNALING TODAY

Today is Tuesday and the Mr. sun has decided to shine..as the week goes on it is to be in the mid to upper 70's. That will be wonderful and much needed.
Our Michael is in North Carolina this week for spring break with his good friend David and family. Got there safe and on first night they had tornado's touch down in surrounding areas. They are doing good. Yesterday I text him and he was just getting back from visiting Duke University, Michael really liked it. He has always liked Duke. They were heading to the hotel till dinner. I got a really good picture sent to me last night while they were eating dinner...This was a very nice place where they bring like 10 different meats to the table then all the seafood you can eat...If you know my Michael he is very plain....So of course I text back and said Michael a hot dog is not seafood...The inside joke to this is when Michael and David were in elementary school maybe 4Th grade we took them to the Cleveland Indians game and we had tickets to the Turf Club at that time, That is where you can dine in side and still watch the game or you can have your dinner then go out to the seats outside..Anyway we all ordered dinner and David ordered ( mind you he ordered by himself) he said to the Lady I will have a strip steak done medium and b. potato with butter salad..... the Mr T asked if he wanted any shrimp cocktail and David said ya sure...Meanwhile we all order the waitress looks at my Michael and asked what she could get him and he said...I'LL WAIT TILL WE GET TO OUR SEATS FOR A HOT DOG!!! we all just busted up laughing and Michael looks at David and says are you going to eat this stuff???? It was hilarious... So when he told me about dinner last night I was laughing inside...
I do miss him, but so glad he was able to get away and enjoy himself and experience different things..
This week Autumn and I are hanging out, we are BUDS for the week. Yesterday we got to go over to my cousins and help remove wallpaper from her bathrooms...You are probably thinking yuck..well first off I enjoy doing this it's like therapy for me...But the talks and the laughs us three had together was priceless....Autumn and Kelly was doing master bath and I did the main bath...They were in there talking away and laughing, every time I made a noice Kelly would yell YOU OK....yes I'm fine....we have music playing and then we got lunch...Autumn got to choose where we got lunch since it is her spring break....That's what Kelly told her so pizza it was...Kelly said you like taco pizza...I said WHAT is that....She ordered it from pizza hut with out red onions and let me tell you it was delish....I so loved it and am having it for dinner tonight..Kelly and Mike have been redoing there home and it looks wonderful, they have worked very hard and it shows..I will get some pic to post when I go back to help to my cousin Mikes office wallpaper..
Speaking of their hard work in remodeling there home they have also be doing a lot of nursing..See my Aunt Karen had fell back in January and broke her shoulder and they were taking care of her every day along with my Mom a couple days and myself she is just now getting around to being able to be alone and last week my Uncle had back surgery. We praise God it went so very good and he is doing fabulous...nothing like when my Aunt had hers it was awful...I thought she was paralyzed for life....So just saying Mike and Kelly have been very busy, and they have been fabulous to my Aunt and Uncle..
So today, Autumn and I are going to try and catch up on some cleaning, and then Autumn is having Madison over night and they will hang out tomorrow till church then we will go to church. Madison went with Autumn last week to youth service and Loved it so did another friend they have. I have no problem getting the girls to youth service on Wednesdays I am so happy they are so excited to go. I will get my food shopping done for Easter dinner on Wednesday since We are having Easter dinner at our home...
Well just thought I'd journal some things going on around here catch up with you all again soon. We are going to enjoy our week of Easter break and nice weather..
Love to All,
Jolyn

MY THOUGHTS ARE ON...

Flowers and gardening..But at 8 pm last night.
the weather had something much different in mind...I turned the back porch light on to let my girls out for night night potty...and what did my eyes see???

not this flower, not even close..oh no it was snowing so hard, that it was like a blizzard coming through. I thought I already went night night and was having a nightmare..

I went shook my head as my children are talking about a snow day...A snow day it is March 25Th, no snow day. it will be gone by morning...no we had about an inch or so and as of 11:30 am this morning it is still here...YUCK...

BUT they are calling for 70's by end of next week, meaning a nice beautiful Easter Sunday...OK I can forget about the snow today and I will go back to thinking about my wonderful flowers and planting we will do soon.

Have a fabulous weekend all.

Jolyn

Hello, today I am sharing with you day two. Today is about the Three Coins. The coins remind us of the 30 pieces of silver Judas received for betraying Jesus into the hands of the Jewish leaders. Verses Mathew26:14-16, 46-50, 27:1-5


Jewish leaders wanted to get rid of Jesus. He wasn't the kind of Messiah or Son of god they wanted. They were looking for God to send a warrior-like King, riding on a horse not a donkey, who would come and overthrow the Roman Empire that ruled over the Jews. but that wasn't Gods plan.
Instead Jesus came like a man, peaceful, humble and full of Gods love. He came to earth to show us this love, and that true goodness only comes from the Father in heaven. This goodness is what God causes to happen in our hearts and our lives when we follow Jesus. Only God can bring about this goodness. we can't do anything good without God.
The Pharisees would go around showing how good they thought they were. But their hearts were not good. They were judgemental, selfish and prideful. Jesus want the people to know that this is wrong
Jesus taught that its not whats on the outside that is important, but what is in our hearts. Jesus said if our heart is clean then we will be clean and pleasing on the outside.
Jesus told the pharisees they were wrong and needed to change, this made them mad.
They did not want Jesus telling them they were sinful.
They didn't want to change and live like God wanted them to.
This is what sin is, living our lives being disobedient to God.
Judas was one of Jesus disciples who followed Jesus but decided to be disobedient to God. So by doing this he was throwing his love away for Jesus.
He did this by betraying Jesus to His enemies, leading the Jewish leaders to where Jesus was so they could put him to death. All for 30 pieces of silver.

DAY 1 RESURRECTION EGGS

Hello, I mentioned I was going to go one day at a time for 12 days and empty a egg a day and tell it's story. I didn't get any comments on my post about the eggs, but hoping that someone will enjoy this, as I go through the next 12 days..


The verse is Mathew 21:1-9 I'm starting with the blue egg. And in the egg we find

DONKEY -- The Donkey reminds us of Christ's entry into Jerusalem.

From the verse, it is exciting that the donkey's owner freely gave the donkey when he found out it was for Jesus. It is a common tradition for a king to ride on a donkey in times of peace.

Jesus is the King of Kings, God the Father wanted him to bring peace to the earth when he came this time. The bible often refers to Jesus as the Prince of Peace. Jesus peace comes by believing He is the son of God and asking Him to be Lord of our lives.

Many people believed Jesus was the son of God. Many of them were healed of sickness and blindness.

So when Jesus rode down the street they were eager to catch a glimpse of Him.

How excited they were to see the Messiah, the Savior, the chosen one of God.

They want to be near him, talk to him, hear him speak.

They were shouting Hosanna, Hosanna,Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!

Things were going well for Jesus, it was easy for people to follow Him.

But when the Jewish leaders challenged Jesus by saying He is not the Son of God, the people were afraid,

Many thought if they admitted they were followers of Jesus and they believed He was God, they would be in danger too.

The truth is that God calls us all to follow Jesus no matter what.

Even though it may be hard at times, we need to be strong in our faith in God.

Just because some people don't love Jesus, we should not be afraid,

Jesus does not change he remains the Son of God and He will bless us and protect us if we love Him and follow Him and His word the Bible.

Thanks for reading over day one with me and tomorrow the verse is in Mathew 26:14-16, 46-50. 27:1-5

Have a wonderful day,

Jolyn

CREATING A NEW ARRANGMENT

Hello, glad you stopped by. Today is a cold rainy cloudy day, so I have been moving things around and getting some spring things out. I haven't been able to track down my Easter decor I used last year and some spring items, so I am on a hunt. Do you remember the bunnies on a stick last year from pier 1, and my bird nest and eggs...hmmm what did I do with them... Well moving on to what my post is to be about is this new arrangement I made. The picture above shows you my glass vase and I added clear cut rocks and some stones I had from a water fall I no longer use. Then some sea shells I have collected over the years. I have a orchid and some moss.

I added styrofoam to the center circle and stuck my orchid down in it.

My finished arrangement after putting moss over the foam, but seeing this picture

I need to get more moss down the sides or more stones and shells.. I added this to the dinning room along with my new tablecloth from Kohl's that has not been ironed yet, I just took it out of the packet..

I had everything right here in the house, I just pulled it from here and there..

Have a wonderful day.

BLESSINGS AND HUGS,

Jolyn

A WEEKEND OF THIS AND THAT

Hello and I hope you had a wonderful weekend. It was very nice here the whole weekend. Didn't get the rain until middle of the night...The sun is shining now and it is 52...Besides that it is now SPRING...Halaluhia..Praise God it is finally here. This was a weekend that had a lot of odd and end things going on. First off I have been looking for my fabric for the dining room chairs...About all we have around here is Jo Ann Fabrics. This fabric I picked out was 39.99 a yard...I needed about 1 1/2 yards... but it was just all white with white pattern....wasn't really what I had in mind...so I kept looking....and I found this, it had just got to the store 3 days before I saw it...

First of all it is upholstery fabric and it was only 5.99 a yard....Yes you read it right 5.99 a yard I grabbed it and ran to the cutting counter....It cost 8.66 for my fabric..I love it..Oh where did I get it you asked...WAL MART..yep..I sure did...I did find out that they are supposed to be getting rid of the fabric departments in walmart.. just fyi. I'll show you chairs very soon.

Another thing going on this weekend was getting chair rail up, and working on putting dining room back together. Here is a picture of some of my china in a curio cabinet. I do love crystal dishes.

Here you can see the newly painted wall called gentle rain and my old oak trim sanded down and painted marshmallow then gloss white. This curio cabinet was my brother and sister-in -laws. They were getting rid of things and I gained this...So this is our next project to do in this room I want to paint this black and get glass knobs to replace the two white ones. This curio also lights up. Thank you Joey for this...

A couple posts ago I posted on my newly made bird house, my hubby made for me. Take a look at this..one of our backyard friends things this is a squirrel feeder....

now he is holding on for dear life and leaning over the side to eat....if you look in the upper left of the picture you can see one of the birds in mid flight stopping when it sees the squirrel....ha ha ha It was just so funny..they are so entertaining... We did get to work in the yard this past week, I know I raked leaves out of the beds and filled 14 trash bags full. Saturday Mr. T worked in the yard from 9am till 5pm doing leaves and trimming pompous grasses and cleaning up sticks.. While I was out with Autumn....getting her hair cut and looking for a dress or shoes or both...

For her Cheer leading banquet Sunday night. These three here are just adorable..My Autumn is the one on the right and the other two are her good friends and fellow cheer leaders. They have a good smile here because they just got done doing a picture for me...(to irritate me) with their tongues sticking out...UGGGG..but it was funny. Kylie in the middle yelled this is for you Mrs. T and out came the tongue's....

My Autumn as she is getting her certificate with all the other 8th grade cheer leaders. They also got a CD of pictures done to music from the whole year. It has all the activities they did and camp, visiting nursing homes, car washes, tag day, Christmas party, games, it is from 7th grade cheerleaders all the way through the 12th grade....

Grandma came to the banquet with us. This is one good thing about having Grandma living right here with us, she gets to be involved with my children's lives the good the bad and the ugly of it all.....Of course mostly all good..Look how wonderful it was outside....

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week with your family..

Blessings an Hugs

Jolyn

MY MONTHLY FRAME...

OK I do a new frame for each month and it sits in our foyer, but since St. Patrick's day was 17th of March and Easter is 4th of April I had to change in the middle to do a Easter frame. I got my stuff spread out all ready to create....Are you ready..

Here she is... isn't that cute with the Easter grass and eggs...I put He Is Risen and added crosses to the eggs.....

So after the 4th I will need to change again hmmm...thinking April Showers....or...well stay tuned.

Remember starting the 24th of March I am doing the Resurrection eggs...One a day till Easter Sunday.

May God Bless you and may you have a terrific weekend...

RESURRECTION EGGS

Hello, I wanted to tell you about one of our Easter time traditions. Have you heard of Resurrection Eggs? It makes telling the true story of Easter so much fun to the little ones. As mine grew older then we got into the scripture and what each item represents.

You can communicate to children at their level, with objects and stories. Here you can see the twelve colorful eggs, they contain items that symbolize events in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. A book is included and explains and tells stories that reveals the significance of each object.

I was trying to show on the carton it gives the color of the egg and what is inside. So starting 12 days before Easter I will post each day starting with my first egg and going to Easter morning. That will begin on march 24. So stay tuned and comment on your Easter traditions you do now or when you were younger.

I hope you are all having the nice sunny warm (well for us its warm) weather, and you are out enjoying it..

BLESSINGS,

Jolyn

MISSING MY TWO BIRDS.....

This nest is missing two birds, and it doesn't make me happy. See I like when this nest has all four birds together.

Here besides the squirrel you see a Papa bird and a Moma bird...maybe there is know babies yet. So it is the two of them.. What I'm trying to get at is two of my family our not here this week, and they are..

Mr. T and my baby Autumn...here they are together last year in New England eating lobster out on a picnic table....

And here at the ocean.

Not this time..Mr T is in New England and my Autumn is in Washington DC so they aren't even together...nope this was last year also...

I can't wait to have them all back and us eating dinner together... And listening to Autumn tell me all about her day as she goes on an on and on and ...Oh I mean I like to listen to her day..

It is really quiet around here for my oldest and I....when he is even here...

I can't wait for the plane to come in and the bus to pull up and we are all in our own bed under our roof in our home....AWWW then it will be alright again.

I also Thank God that next week Mr.T does not have to go to New England again for another week...What answer to prayer.....Oh he has things he needs to do around here like...put up chair rail, and nail down base board and put up my curtain tie backs and take down the chandelier so he, I mean I can paint it..and then he needs to put it back up then......Welcome Home Mr. T...

As for Autumn I miss you but don't come home tired and mean and make sure you get your room picked up and since you have been gone the dishwasher hasn't been emptied and did you get your bath room counter cleaned ..

WAIT ONE MINUTE....is is them I miss or me not having any help around here???? LOL

BLESSING & LOVE TO ALL,

Jolyn

YOU SHOULD KNOW BY NOW

How much I love watching my birds. It seems people don't like them or love them. Last Friday Mr. T was up at the wood shop getting my trim for the chair rail in the dining room, and came home with this...yep he made it up at the shop. It is so heavy the one side of the top opens and the birdies can eat from both sides.. It is a lot bigger than it looks in this picture, when we filled it it took over 4 2qt pitchers. This one has black oil sunflower seeds.

If you look real close you can see a chick a dee on there. I get cardinals, sparrows, chick a dees, mourning doves, blue jays, of course robins and on other feeder my yellow finches, and humming birds. They sing to me in the morning and play and chirp all day long. Mr. T is going to make another one for regular feed, and yesterday one of our lovely squirrels was sitting on top...had to see what he was missing. We keep feed on the ground for them...And now we have a moma rabbit along with some bunnies....Yes I threw a carrot out in the yard...Mr. T does not like the bunnies...they eat the flowers..he's right BUT.....

Well enough about my animals enjoy your day...I'm going to get my shower....

BLESSINGS,

Jolyn

THE DAY WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR..

Welcome to our new church building. we have waited over two years for this day, and today was our first service at Faith Family Church.... My first picture is from our seat looking out to the platform where Pastor preaches and choir sings.

This is a picture of my parents at there seat. Sorry so dark all lights weren't on yet.

Meet our pastor, pastor Mike Cameneti and his wife Barb, my Autumn took this picture off one of the screens. You can see their little grandson in the background.

This is a picture taken during worship time. It was so neat to see and hear not only our whole choir but also our whole church family in one service. We have had three Sunday services for awhile now and the choir has been split between the services..How awesome it was to hear all of us during worship...We had over 3,300 people there today, and over 25 people went forward for salvation or rededicating their lives to our Lord..we give God all the glory and honor..

What a sweet day it was. I pray you all had a wonderful weekend and an even better week ahead.

BLESSINGS & LOVE,

Jolyn

MAKING COMMENTS TO THOSE WITH A FEED??

Just needed to say those of you that have feeds to make a comment, I have no clue how to do it. I have tried. There are a couple of you I am following that have that now. If anyone can tell me how to post a comment I would appreciate it.

Thanks

WHILE I AM WAITING FOR SPRING

I'm looking back at last years flowers in March, this is what we had starting.. First our little forsythia tree, this was it's first year here to see it bloom. we got it the year before, actually we saved it. At one of Mr.T's stores he was getting ready to rebuild on, we pulled this out and brought it home, the other two that were there were dead. So I guess you can say we have watched over this one.

I love walking around the yard this time of year when all is coming to life. This week was a first to get out after all this snow, and now the snow is all melted away...YIPPY..But I haven't got pictures yet for this year.

Our Hyacinths boy do they smell so good. I love them. Mr.T just took a rake to pull some leaves off the hyacinths and they are about 3 inches up but very yellow looking now.

Today it has rained and drizzled all day long with clouds, so Hopefully in the coming week from the rain and then some sun things will start blooming and waking up.

I love this time of year, when all comes alive. I think about Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus, HE IS ALIVE HE HAS RISEN from the dead..This time of year all of the outdoors is coming to life...flowers blooming, grass growing again and green along with the trees all the leaves coming out..it all comes alive in spring.

Have a wonderful weekend and tomorrow I will post about our first Sunday in our new church building,,we are so very excited...till then

HUGS TO YOU,

Jolyn

MMM MMM GOOD

My baby made some delicious cookies yesterday..She took it upon herself to get the recipe from her girlfriends mom.

Don't they look so yummy. She made them all so petite.

Yes, they are Nestle Chocolate Chip..but with extra ingredients to make them fluffy and real chocolaty. Not many left now after Dad, Grandpa and Michael eating them all. Thank you so much Autumn very good...

AWSOME OVERNIGHT FRENCH TOAST

This was absolutely delicious..My Autumn and I made this last night put it in frig went to bed when we got up, turned oven on and put it in....what a smooth easy fabulous breakfast.My Autumn eating away..you don't even need to add syrup to it but of course a little on the side was good to.

We were so excited to taste it, that we forgot to take a picture..So right before Hubby took another helping I yelled hold on I have to get a picture of this....Does this not look scrumptious..

I got the recipe from Tina over at MOMMYS KITCHEN you must visit her blog and see all her wonderful recipes...She is the MOM at mommyskitchen.net

OVERNIGHT FRENCH TOAST RECIPE

1 STICK BUTTER MELTED

12 SLICES OF BREAD I cut them in strips

1 CUP OF BROWN SUGAR

1 TEA SPOON CINNAMON

1/4 TEA SP. OF NUTMEG

1/2 CUP CHOPPED PECANS i didn't use these

1 TEA SP. VANILLA

5 EGGS

1 1/2 CUPS MILK

MELT BUTTER AND POUR IN 9X13 DISH

MIX BR. SUGAR, CINN, NUTMEG, NUTS

WHISK EGGS, MILK, AND VANILLA

LAYER BOTTOM OF PAN WITH 6 PIECES OF BREAD

SPRINKLE 1/2 SUGAR MIX OVER BREAD

LAYER 2ND 6 PIECES OF BREAD

POUR EGGS OVER BREAD MAKE SURE ALL COVERED

SPRINKLE REMAINING SUGAR ON TOP

COVER AND PUT IN FRIG OVERNIGHT

IN MORNING TAKE OUT PUT NEW FOIL ON AND PUT IN PREHEATED OVEN 350 FOR 40 MINUTES -- hers said 30

THEN UNCOVER AND BAKE 25 MINUTES hers said 15

REMOVE FROM OVEN POUR SOME SYRUP OVER TOP NOT MUCH PUT BACK IN FOR 10-12 MINUTES hers said 7...

TAKE OUT OF OVEN AND ENJOY!!!

Let me know if you try it....and what you thought...

HUGS,

Jolyn

WHY WAS EVERYONE OUT AND ABOUT???

The Lord sure gave us a beautiful weekend full of 40 degrees and sunshine. Now some of you might laugh and say beautiful at 40 degrees, well for around here that is a heat wave right now. This week 50's..woo whoo... One reason we were out was my hubby is painting the base trim from my dining room...YES finally I am getting rid of some of this oak I so do not like...White clean fresh trim....AWW. He sanded the stain and put 2 coats of marshmallow and 2 coats of high gloss white..It looks so very nice LOVE IT!!!!!

This is funny. as we were out and about Saturday, we were getting out of the truck and discovered this when coming home. It is a pile of acorns. As the snow has melted it has uncovered the chipmunks little stash.. There was a whole line dug thru the snow pile to this stash and out the other end... to cute...

Now this doesn't look to appealing now, I couldn't eat mine as fast as Mr. T did, but it was sooo very good. See we have this ice cream place called Taggerts in Canton that is just a little old ice cream restaurant area very popular and busy. They make their own ice cream. They also make their pecans that are roasted and salted and so very divine...I got the butter pecan ice cream with pecans and caramel topping ... this was our dinner Saturday night..The fun part was Mr. T and I were laughing and carrying on like to kids.. then I looked up and across from us were two teenage couples looking at us and laughing...I looked over and we all started laughing...I guess you needed to be there.. But it sure is nice to forget about the cares of the world and let loose and laugh...

See everyone was out and about because it was Saturday and the sun was out and it was about 40 some degrees..This is one of Mr. T's stores and we stopped to get gas and a truck wash...And so was everyone else....It was lined with cars waiting for a bath...I guess business was good!!!

When we were out we stopped for lunch at our favorite Chinese Buffet. This is a picture of our fortune cookies and fortunes mine was good Mr.T's said when a turtle looses its shell is it homeless or naked????

Mr.T is saying under his smile (you r so embarrassing put that camera away) ha ha ha luv it!!!
I just have this streak about me when someone tells me not to do something or tells me no....You can bet I'll do it....LOL

We had such a productive and wonderful weekend, but it sure did fly by very fast. I know everyone was out around here, it was like the day before Christmas at the stores and on the roads...maybe some shopping for spring break others for Easter. But mostly just to get out and take in all the vitiman D.... I hope you were able to enjoy the weather and all was good. Have a wonderful week.

HUGS,

Jolyn

I COULDN'T BELIEVE MY EYES

Stop the car and turn around...Did you see that snowman??? Is it real...Yes I saw the guy making it on my way to work ...I have to get a picture of this.... Have you ever seen Frosty this big??? The hat is made from painted cardboard box. The little one that is next door is really about 4 or 5 feet tall... His mouth is the sticks from a croquet set. Buttons are coffee can lids..And I have no clue how many red scarfs...

On the other side is another face. the lot is on a corner...Amazing...Now this is what I call a snowman....This was one of our sites today as we were out and about on such a nice sunny day. It might of got to 40 today....that is very exciting to us in Ohio...

Hope you are having a terrific weekend.

HUGS,

Jolyn