On the Porch
Onisha Ellis
God is the Light and I long to be a moon that reflects him.
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Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years
Fun in the Whirlwind
6 DecOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
This week is shaping into a whirlwind of a week. My daughter, Rebekah, is the coordinator for a community outreach and fundraising event at our church this weekend and I volunteered to be her chief helper and errand runner. The event, Gateway to Christmas will feature a Christmas Tree Walk. We will have 25 freshly cut Christmas trees delivered on Saturday. Each tree has been sponsored and will be decorated, then auctioned at the event. Today we went to the church and sorted the items donated by local businesses for raffling and assessed the supplies we have for the children’s activities.
Rebekah counting boxes of stickers
It was also decision day on whether to continue with the plans for the event to be held outdoors or moved inside. You know how the weather forecast seems to change daily and sometimes hourly? Well not this week. Thunder showers have been in our forecast for a week! The tension was high as Rebekah struggled with the decision but she put on her thinking cap and found a compromise solution.
Rebekah’s long time friend is a professional photographer and volunteered to shoot green screen photos during the event. He drove over from Orlando today to scout out the location and while he was here, he took some photos like the ones above. He also took photos of some of the raffle items so that we can share them on the church Facebook page. The fundraising component of the event is to raise money to replace the roof of our gym that was damaged in Hurricane Irma last year. The gym houses our totally free to use fitness center. Currently, approximately 100 people from the community exercise there.
This is one of my favorite. Rebekah won the bear when she was visiting us in North Carolina a few weeks ago.
It’s never too early to start thinking about beach days and tightening those abs!
The event is certainly a lot of work, but a lot of fun too. A lot of people are volunteering their time and resources. To take a line from one of my Children’s Christmas program, Angels, Lambs, Ladybugs, and Fireflies “When everyone works together a lot can be accomplished.”
After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience. Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites, Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix
In addition to blogging, I work as the publicist/marketer/ amateur editor and general “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books where we frequently host the best in up and coming authors.
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Today I Choose to Remember God
30 NovOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
This is from the Jesus Always. I read from the Jesus Calling app and love that it allows me to share their branded content.
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Edisto Island Get Away- The End
29 NovOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
As Hurricane Michael made its way ashore in the Florida panhandle, we followed its projected path on the television. According to the forecast we would begin experiencing tropical force winds during the night. By the time we were ready to retire for the evening, the winds had begun to pick up. At some point during the night, I think around 3 am the electricity went off. I lay there waiting for the emergency power to come on. Nothing happened. Surely a resort would have back up generators! Apparently not. As I went back to sleep, I wondered how long the condo would remain cool without air-conditioning. To my surprise, my room remained cool to the point it felt as though the air-conditioning was on.
We arose around 7:30 am and I looked around hopefully to see if the electricity was back on. It wasn’t. Which meant no coffee. As we shared our experiences during the night, it became clear that husband and I fared the best. Our room remained cool and we didn’t hear the wind howling. Not so for our daughter whose room faced the exterior walkway. The winds roared down the walkway and shook the windows. She ended up sleeping on the floor, just in case the windows blew out.
I was a trifle miffed that the resort did not reach out to any of the guests before or after the storm. There were no updates on the power outage or suggestions of what to do about check out. We were due to check out this morning. Were we supposed to venture out into the storm to avoid being charged for another day?
Around 9 am as we sat around, trying to figure out what to do, the electricity came on. Our first thought was COFFEE! Once we all had cups we gathered around the television to learn the status of the storm. Even with the restored power, still no phone call from the resort and they were not answering their phones.
We decided that if the bridge to the mainland was closed, the news would be reporting it. Gradually we began to see a few cars on the road outside our window. Rebekah and Pam were heading south to Florida and should be fine once they were off the island. Husband and I were kind of stuck. If we decided to abandon our plans and head back to our home in Western North Carolina, we would be crossing the path of the hurricane. If we continued with our plans, we would be driving north with tropical storm force winds. Having spent over 50 years in Florida, we had plenty of experience with tropical storms, so we felt confident that we should continue with our plans to spend two nights at a hotel on the North Carolina coast.
The previous evening, in between rain, we had loaded the majority of our luggage in our cars. This morning, we waited for a lull in the rain, then made a dash for our cars. We followed Rebekah and Pam’s car and were pleased to see that the bridge was open and the winds were not bad at all. Soon after, they turned south and we headed north.
Photo credit edistoscenicbyway.org
I’m glad we didn’t allow the less than ideal weather spoil our visit to Edisto Island. My favorite comment to my husband when we are meeting friends for a meal out and he isn’t fond of the restaurant is “it’s the fellowship, not the food.” In this case, it was the fellowship, not the weather and the fellowship was worth every rain drop.
For photos of Edisto Island visit edistoscenicbyway.org
Previous installments
After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience. Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites, Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix
In addition to blogging, I work as the publicist/marketer/ amateur editor and general “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books where we frequently host the best in up and coming authors.
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What Thanksgiving Meant To Me This Year
23 NovOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
What did Thanksgiving mean to me this year? It meant I made it through a year of deep, personal pain and am far stronger in my faith The brief moments of dipping into past memories, were nostalgic rather than tragic. I took joy working in the kitchen, side by side with my daughter to prepare our Thanksgiving meal. It was a soul satisfying day. My life and relationships don’t have to be perfect for me to experience hope and joy.
Romans 15:13-May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
To all my friends on Facebook who shared pictures of their families , thank you for including me in your celebrations. I enjoyed them all. To my friends who shared pictures of food……well that is a different story! Just kidding.
I made my first cheesecake this year. Low carb pumpkin. It was amazing.
The recipe is from Cooking Keto with Kristi on You Tube. If you want to try it, click the show more button to get the recipe.
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Go Through His Gates and Give Thanks!
22 NovOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
I decided to share a different version of Psalm 100. This is from The Voice. Psalm 100 is one of my favorites.
4 Go through His gates, giving thanks
walk through His courts, giving praise.
Offer Him your gratitude and praise His holy name.
5 Because the Eternal is good,
His loyal love and mercy will never end,
and His truth will last throughout all generations.
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Today I Choose to Take Heart
16 NovOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
I remember in my journalism class how the teacher drilled in elements of a news story:
Who-What-When-Where
I can’t remember if how many was part of it. The glorious truth that sets my heart to soar is that no matter who, what, when, where or even how many, God has overcome every-single-one.
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Favorite Things
13 NovOnisha Ellis
On the Porch
This is one of my favorite paintings by DiVoran and my favorite scripture of the week. They both make my heart sing.
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Fred Remembers~Part 11
4 NovSUNDAY MEMORIES
Judy Wills
Back to our stay at Tyndall AFB, Florida.
Photo credit WJHG.com
Credit Google search
We were there from summer of 1951 through the first of February of 1955. I attended 6thgrade at Cherry Street Elementary School. From there I went to Jenks Junior High School. [It was spelled Jenks when I attended, but now it looks like it is spelled Jinks, don’t know why]
Credit Google Search
Jenks was a new school that year, and had been planned for 750 students. The first day there were 930 students attending. They had to quickly put up portables for some of the classes. I had my health class in one of them. I attended Jenks Junior High School for 7th,8th, and 9thgrades, and one semester of 10thgrade at Bay High School.
Credit Google Search
We lived in the house at 107 Cove Lane, as I recall, until sometime in 1954. Then, because of Dad’s job, they wanted him to live on the base.
Charles wrote: …Tyndall became for me the longest assignment in the Air Force. I was the senior chaplain at Tyndall during the period 1951-1955 and, as such, the Base Chaplain.
Chapel, Tyndall AFB, Florida
So we ended up getting quarters on the base, out on what they called Beacon Beach. It was an old, old , fairly small house, right on the beach, maybe 50 or so yards from the actual Gulf of Mexico. There was some protection there, because out about a mile or so there was a sand bar. I remember that Mom and Dad and the girls lived in the house, as it was just a two-bedroom house. And out in a separate building – a detached building or shed – which had two fairly small bedrooms and one really tiny bathroom. That’s where Larry and I lived. I had one end of the building, which was away from the door and it kind of slopped down a bit, but it was big enough for a bed and a small chest of drawers. Between my room and Larry’s room was a small bath with a shower. Larry’s room was just barely big enough to have a bed in it. He also had the door that went out.
One of the interesting things about living out there by the beach was that, out in the water there was a lot of grass growing, about 8″ or 10″ tall grass. I would wade out about waist deep and, if you were careful, either with bare feet, or preferably with some old sneakers, you could step on scallops. So I could go out there and in maybe an hour or so could pick up a whole bucket full of scallops, probably 3″-3½” in diameter. I would take them back to the beach where I had a hose, away from the house, and we could clean out the scallops right there, take out the muscle of the scallop, put them in a separate bowl, take them back in the house, and we would have fresh scallops for supper. If we got tired of scallops, we could wade out with a spin-casting reel and catch Spanish Mackerel
Atlantic Spanish Mackerel – Credit Google Search and Wikipedia
and occasionally King Mackerel with a spinner.
King Mackerel – Credit Google Search
Once in a while we would even get a Flounder, if we let the bait fall to the bottom. So we enjoyed that.
Flounder – Credit Google Search and Diane Rome Peebles
It was probably a four or five mile trip from the house back to the main part of the base. We rode the bus in to the schools. We enjoyed our stay out there at Beacon Beach.
~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~
Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many yearsJudy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing.
Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.
After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.
She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins.
She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.
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Old Things R New 