I saw this on Amy Voskamp”s website Monday night. During a difficult period in my teens, I lost all confidence in myself. As I began to think on my past and what had precipitated my crisis, I realized that as I drew away from God, so my confidence fell away. Eventually I learned the only identity that mattered was my identity in Christ.
Last week our daughter in Florida came to visit us in Western North Caroina and we took a mini road trip to Alabama. When we stopped at the Unclaimed Baggage and Freight Store in Scottsboro, Alabama on our road trip last summer, I thought she would enjoy exploring it as she is a serious bargain hunter. Before we arrived at Unclaimed Baggage, we made a stop at the Lodge Factory, just over the line into Alabama from Tennessee. The people who work in the store are super friendly and always seem to be happy. Their smiles are worth the stop!
Check out the kitchen tools on the statue
Here is a little from their website. If you use Lodge cast-iron, you should visit their site.
Originally named The Blacklock Foundry after Joseph Lodge’s friend and minister, the company gained success until May of 1910 when it burned down. Just three months later and a few blocks south, the company was reborn as Lodge Manufacturing Company.
The drive to Unclaimed baggage from the Lodge store was uneventful except that we gained an extra hour of shopping time when we crossed from Eastern Standard Time to Central Standard Time. Here is a short excerpt from their About page.
In 1970 Doyle Owens headed to Washington D.C. with an idea, a borrowed pick-up truck and a $300 loan to pick up his first load of unclaimed baggage. Selling the contents on card tables in an old rented house, the venture was an instant success.
We walked into the huge store with seemingly endless rack of clothing. Our daughters face had look of someone who is overwhelmed. Sensing her confusion, I suggested she start looking at hats as she loves collecting them.
Her “finds”
Our stop for the night was Huntsville, Alabama, home of the US Space and Rockert Center, the Redstone Arsenal and Marshall Space Flight Center. Husband and I had only driven through the city on our road trip last year, so we were looking forward to touring the next day. As a bonus, our daughter would be able to pick up some background information as well as absorb the culture of the area for the sequel to her award-winning novel , Jessie.
We chose an early start the next morning for two reasons, first to buy tickets for the daily bus tour and second to see as much as possible before the oppressive heat was in full force. We were successful at snagging tickets but not so much at avoiding the heat. It was a hot, humid day and neither the buildings nor the bus had adequate air-conditioning. (Tip: Don’t visit during the summer!). The Rocket Center had some interesting exhibits as well as hands on activities. Husband and daughter took a go at attempting to land a Space Shuttle.
Rebekah crashed in a spectacular manner. Her dad landed successfully but “ground control” had some serious comments about his landing skills.
We marveled at the cramped conditions ithe early astronauts endured n the space capsules . Rebekah slid into a Mercury capsule but it was so tight, she didn’t slide all the way into it. While she was in , several people approached and we urged them to take a turn inside. They all backed away with panicky looks on their faces.
I think our favorite stop on the bus tour was at the ISS payload building. We were able to view the command center which is staffed 24/7 to communicate with the station. We were fortunate that one of the staff came out and gave us an interesting talk about the work of the ISS ground communications team. There were several children in the crowd and they asked great questions.
As we were leaving, husband snapped a picture of our daughter in a space suit. It was a fun day, even with the heat . Rebekah was able to check off another item off of her Space bucket list. She toured Johnson Space Center a year ago and holds an annual pass to Kennedy Space Center. Next on her list is Greenbelt, Maryland and the Goddard Space Flight Center.
As I said, this was a mini road trip and the next morning we were headed home to our beloved mountains and cooler temperatures.
PS: I forgot to mention that our daughter, Rebekah is participating in a promotion that is giving away a copy of The Magnolia Table cookbook by Fixer Upper star, Joanna Gaines as well as a $25.00 Amazon gift card. Click below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js
On the Porch
Onisha Ellis
Today I choose to walk in God’s love rather than the world’s anger.
“The more you look for good things in your life, the clearer your vision becomes..” This morning as I read these words in Jesus Always by Sarah Young, I pondered on how true this is in my life. My friend and fellow blogger, Janet Perez Eckles shared this on Facebook.
Just think, every single hurt or aggravation is the past, even if it is only seconds old. I confess to needing to inhale a lot more of Jesus daily.
Focusing on good things
Earlier in the week, I snapped pictures of the blooms in our yard as well as the progress of our tomato plants. The Dahlia is the first we have managed to bring to bloom. When our daughter comes to visit, I hope she can get a better picture with her camera. The plant has more blooms waiting to open!
We have had abundant rain, bordering on excessive and our tomato plants are doing well. So far, the Tomato worms have not climbed the table to eat them. I wonder if I scatter Diatomaceous Earth around the base of the table, if it will deter them. The basil we planted in one of the boxes on the advice of our daughter, is doing well too and I look forward to some tomato, basil and mozzarella Caprese salads!
From my kitchen window, I have been noticing a bright splash of yellow. As I walked the yard, I was thrilled to see that it was blooms on my newly planted yellow Knock Out Rose. Since it wasn’t planted until recently, I didn’t expect the blooms yet!
In the same area a couple of Day Lillies are blooming and down below the Hydrangea are showing off their blue beauty.
When we built our house in North Carolina, our friend Bill, who owned a summer home here, was a master gardener and gave us many cuttings to add to our landscape. Our Rose of Sharon plant is one of them and its blooms herald the beginning of summer. Also from Bill, our Butterfly Bush is making a decent comeback after a hard freeze two years ago.
Update on my computer refusing to give up its data to my new one:
The new computer is now the owner of the old computer’s data and I am enjoying the speed of the new one. My husband was right, this is the oe I should have purchased.
I’m sure you have heard the saying “Good things come in small packages.” But good things aren’t limited to a package are they? They are everywhere. What good things are you focusing on this week?
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.
On the Porch
Onisha Ellis
Have you ever been in a difficult situation and you have cried out for help, waited on a word of encouragement and felt despair attempting to wash your heart in endless tears? In my Monday morning quiet time, this verse resonated with my heart. I found this picture of my husband. It brought a smile to my heart so just for fun, I created this graphic and decided to share it with our readers. Just in case you have ever felt this way. You are not alone.
On the Porch
Onisha Ellis
My current computer is not willing to give up its data. In fact, it will not even agree to join the same network. It seems computers have control issues too. Fortunately, I had scheduled a session with tech support to give me a tour of all the new bells and whistles today and I will ask them for help. I will post an update after the session.
The bells and whistles session was a dud, but the gentleman was very kind and sent me to Teach Support with instructions to schedule a new learning session. First level tech support was stumped. He transferred me to escalated support who suggested scrapping the whole computer to computer route and using my back up drive. That worked perfectly EXCEPT Microsoft Word didn’t make the cut and I need to reinstall. Oh joy. I am pretty sure the program was a download. What to do???
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 this 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.
My computer is a 2009 model. It began getting cranky and running slow, but a RAM upgrade about a year ago made it happy again. I know its life is coming to an end but I love it. I know where everything is stored on it. I know its quirks.
Then there is the issue of having to move content from my current computer to a new one. To me, it is like packing up a home and moving to a new one. You don’t want to take all of the unused, accumulated stuff from the old place, but feel sure that if you throw it out, you will surely need it. My husband still bemoans the items from his backyard shed he tossed to the curb when we moved eight years ago. On the positive side, I plan to keep my “Old Faithful” computer so I can access whatever I did not transfer.
I blame this quandary on Groupon and our daughter. She found an amazing deal on a refurbished laptop and sent me the link. The computer was an older model but it was exactly what I had been wanting. The newer Mac computers don’t have the ability to upgrade the hard drive size and I need a large hard drive due to my work on videos and marketing graphics. I checked with the husband to see if he agreed with the purchase before clicking the buy button.
He suggested I check on the price of a new computer or a recent refurb. As I clicked over the Apple store, I inwardly fumed. He is not listening to me. I told him I don’t want that model. We found a refurb that had a large hard drive and at a good price. I decided to just give in and get the one he wanted me to have.
Later, after my turmoil passed, I thought about how I respond to God when events happen in my life that I don’t want to experience. God, you aren’t giving me what I want. How silly of me to demand to have my way, when God says in Isaiah 55:
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
I am glad my husband pushed me to choose the newer model. He knows me well when it comes to tech. I would have been happy to have the type of hard drive I wanted, but I love techy things and was sure to regret not taking the opportunity to use newer technology.
Once I upload this post tonight, Wednesday, I plan to begin the transfer of data to the new machine. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Photo by Ricky Kharawala on Unsplash
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 this 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.
We have been enjoying a visit from my aunt and cousin this week. Today we drove up to the Cherokee Indian Reservation to play tourist. While we were at a park by the river, a group of ducks came to visit us. I am sure they were hoping for handouts. They had baby ducklings and they were adorable! My cousin was brave and waded in the chilly water.
On the home front, I found this cute water fountain at Lowes but it was too small for the purpose I had in mind. After a day or two of pondering, my husband and I decided it would work if we used a wine barrel planter, that had been purchased when we were in Florida, and added an unused cement plant stand to give the fountain the needed height. I had my heart set on Geraniums but had no idea it would be difficult to find individual plants. When I finally located some at Wal-Mart, the daily rains had saturated the plants and I didn’t want to put sopping wet plants into my car. The first sunny day that rolled around, I zipped to the store and grabbed the plants before the rains returned.
I am pleased with how it turned out.
We are settling into our home in the mountains of North Carolina where we look forward to spending the summer and fall. We decided to stay in Florida until after Mother’s Day to spend it with our daughter.
Peonies are my favorite flowers and I have sweet memories of rocking on the porch of my friend, Karen’s home in North Carolina, and enjoying them. They don’t grow in Florida and Karen’s peonies were the first I had seen. Before she passed away, I asked if I could take a piece of one of her plants, so that I could savor the memory of those summer days in the coming years. Since we were late arriving in North Carolina, the flowers were past their prime, but I did cut some and bring them in. The white ones are from Karen’s stock.
Our daughter gave me two raised bed planters for Mother’s Day. They come complete with a watering system. My husband set me up with tomato plants and built a perfect height table to place them on. I am thrilled with the table. It will save my back and hopefully discourage the nasty tomato worms.
It’s good to be back in the mountains. The mornings are soft and I enjoy watching the mists float across the peaks and down through the valleys. The hydrangea are starting to bloom and will last all summer, along with the roses.
Old Things R New 