Good Friends!

I'm following Linda Vater's Bucket Brigade Planting Challenge on YouTube. Here's my April tubs. So be sure to follow along. One of the stipulations was to use food plants in them, so in the left one I've planted lettuce. And in the other one, I planted kale. On the other side of the sidewalk, we bought a tomato and planted it in a large plastic pot that I found at a thrift store and my hubby spray painted the pot to look like granite. I have another galvanized metal tub (Home Depot) that I want to set next to that pot and plant with cucumbers, but got to go get some more cinder blocks to stack it on. A girlfriend at church was looking for a paper recycler to take her shredded paper and I spoke up and said I will take it! It's under the dirt to take up space and will eventually compost down. In the smaller brown pot, I planted tulips that I had in the frig all winter. They came up and look so pretty. 

YAY! I completed:

YouTube's Crafter's Academy "Create Great Content" Workshop. 

I'm reading:

When to Walk Away by Gary Thomas. 

GOOD MEMORIES:

I remember my Kansas grandfather standing in his living room in front of the piano and just swinging his arms back and forth while he twisted the trunk of his body. Funny what you remember. He liked to do that I guess. He was a farmer and wore blue overalls most of the week except for Sunday. Sunday he wore a nice dress shirt and tie with his Sunday suit. 

He once told me to drive his pickup for him (stick shift) while he threw out hay for the cattle from the back. Then he sat down on the tailgate, just in case, he said, so if I accidently ran into something,  he could jump if he needed to. I didn't wreck it - I did good! 

My Oklahoma grandfather was a gentle man. He made pets of all his critters and I never saw him hit anyone until one day when we were climbing over the fence in his barn that separated the animal part from the garage part of the barn where he parked his pick-up. I began to climb over and my brother, impatient, pushed me as I began to swing my leg over. I lost my grip and did a face plant on the gravely dirt below. Grandpa immediately picked up my brother, gave him a good squat on the behind with his size 16 ring hand and told him that he wasn't to treat girls like that. My brother ran to mom to tattle on grandpa, crying all the way from the barn to the house and mom said to him, "If Grandpa swatted you, he must have had a good reason, so don't come crying to me." Yay! Grandpa, 1 point, Brother, none! 😁 I was always so grateful for Grandpa sticking up for me and teaching my bro some manners! 

This same set of grandparents came up to help my mom with all us children when we passed around the chickenpox one winter when we were of elementary school age. Grandma was in charge of the calamine lotion and she got to dot the itches away with the pink stuff. And boy, did the poxes itch! I also had a birthday during that time. What a way to spend a birthday! At least it was memorable!

INSERT: When I was ten, I became a friend of Jesus. It was as easy as ABC! 

A = First I had to Admit that I wasn't perfect.

B = Second, I had to Believe in Jesus.

C = Third, I Confessed my faults to Jesus - the little white lie I knew was wrong, the fight I had with my sisters, the homework I didn't do,...

I still wasn't perfect, but my heart was washed clean!

I was baptized soon after, read my Bible from cover to cover and continued to attend a Bible believing church with my family.

Jesus and me became best buds because I knew, in my heart, he loved me!

SAYINGS & QUOTES: 

Card - Good friends provide each other with comfort, support, and a feeling of well-being.

Farm Fresh Sticker. 

Art Journaling Page: "I am a BBW - Big, Beautiful Woman!" 

Planted with Love, Garden notes.  (see above)

Text Encouragement Card - May you - Be Happy, Be Safe, Be Well, Have comfort, have strength, have courage, have peace, have joy. May you be blessed Today and Everyday. Good Morning! 

Text Encouragement Card - In a World Full of Roses, Be a Sunflower!

The smile on your face is the light in the window that tells people that you are home. 

"When Satan huffs and puffs and tries to blow out the flame of your joy, you have an endless supply of kindling in the Word of God." (John Piper).

"Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck. It's what you're put here on earth to do with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling." (Vincent Van Gogh). 

SCRIPTURES:

Exodus 33:14 = "The Lord replied, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." 

Isaiah 40:11 = "He tends his flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young." 

Matthew 22:37-39 = Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the 1st and greatest commandment. And the 2nd is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."

Philippians 1:3-4 = I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy" 

1 John 3:1 = How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God.

POSITIVE WORDS: Love, Friends 

POEM:

The Friend Who Just Stands By.
By a Williams, either Bertye Young Williams or William Carlos Williams. (I've seen both names attached to this poem.)

When trouble comes your soul to try,
You love the friend who just "stands by."

Perhaps there's nothing he can do --

The thing is strictly up to you;

For there are troubles all your own,

And paths the soul must tread alone;

Times when love cannot smooth the road

Nor friendship lift the heavy load,

But just to know you have a friend

Who will "stand by" until the end,

Whose sympathy through all endures,

Whose warm handclasp is always yours --

It helps, some way, to pull you through, 

Although there's nothing he can do.

And so with fervent heart you cry,

"God Bless the Friend Who Just Stands By!"