Hi everyone and welcome back to week number 55 of our Good Morning Mondays Link Up.

The year is fast ending and Christmas is definitely in sight now and then comes the New Year.

Are we ready to face the New Year or do we have unfinished business at hand??  When the first of January kicks around we always think of new beginnings and a fresh start to try again to be better or kinder, but we don’t need to wait for the first of the first to try again.

God forgives us and each moment is a new one, a new opportunity to give our hearts and lives to Him. A new opportunity to be forgiven and to forgive others. Let’s not wait…

Ephesians 4:32 – And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

This week has been good, and very exciting as we were getting ready to celebrate my husbands 50th birthday. He is such a wonderful, caring man and I have been blessed to be married to him for nearly 27 years. My love for him grows stronger each day and I look forward to many more years together.

He has been busy getting our crop baled which was completed on Tuesday, all done and carted in, ready to be fed out when necessary. Our son also finished our shearing for us this week and that’s another seasonal job completed.  Sometimes we give a huge sigh when it is done because these jobs are very weather orientated and this year is has gone smoothly.

We have had our wonderful son-in-law, daughter and their children here for a few days to help us and also to celebrate with us. They are a wonderful gift and it is always good to spend time together. Our daughters have been great organising the food and getting everything ready for the party and our son-in-law was a wonderful help getting the outside all cleaned up and looking great.

We had nearly 100 people here on Saturday night and all the children had a wonderful time together, and it was almost like thanksgiving in that we are so thankful that my husband has reached this milestone and also thankful that family and friends could help celebrate with us. We are a big party family and always enjoy getting people around.

Now, because I know you are so interested, below are some pictures of our beautiful grandchildren.

Our top three link ups were….

Dealing With The Challenges of Homeschooling by Miranda at Drops of Learning

One Reason You Should Show Kindness by Ifeoma at Purposeful and Meaningful

The Right Response To The Paris Terror Attacks by Woman Abiding

What a wonderful community this is and I appreciate every one of you who stop by and link up and I have, and do enjoy getting to know you all better. We don’t have to live close to be close, do we.

This coming week is a bit quieter for me. I don’t have to have the screw removed from my ankle now which I am rather thankful for. It seems I stressed out the anethetists too much and they didn’t want to touch me again, seems my veins wouldn’t behave, so our trip to Geelong is off.

We have a church leadership social evening on Friday night at our Pastor’s house and we do this at least a couple times a year. It’s good to know that the men in leadership support and care for each other.

We have our local show on Saturday morning and No 2 daughter is getting geared up to do some cooking to enter, and No 1 son is going into the shearing comp again. I think I may take my gopher and scoot around on that this year as I’m not quite up to walking it all and it is hard work on uneven ground pushing a wheelchair.

Oh and I think we have our Revelation study on Tuesday night, which we missed last time due to my husbands work, but hopefully we will make this one.

Like I said before we don’t need the New Year to start again and we don’t need to wait for the beginning of a new week, we can start again right now. Please Lord help us not to harbour bad feelings, resentment or unforgiveness in our hearts.

Have a great week.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my dear friends. xxxx

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, hey, hey everyone, welcome to another Good Morning Mondays link up.

Guess what ??? I can walk. Yay!!!

We went to the specialist on Wednesday and after a couple of x-rays he decided that I could start weight bearing on my leg. I was a bit concerned after the ankle x-ray because it wasn’t showing any healing (me of little faith). It was more important for the knee to be improving for me to start walking and it had improved enough.

I started by taking steps with my pick up frame around the lounge room and now I can walk up the hallway to the bathroom. It is so exciting and I never knew walking could be so much fun.  For the first 2 weeks I can put 20% of my weight on my leg and then 40% and then 60% and so on.  I will still need my frame and probably the wheelchair for a while longer but the new normal is definitely in sight.

We serve an awesome, faithful God and I am so blessed with the healing of my leg.

Do you all know that there are only 4 Fridays until Christmas!!! Actually I am saying this for our No 1 daughter as they are hosting Christmas this year!! (only joking daughter).

I really enjoy Christmas, not the commercialism though –  but I love giving and getting together with our family and even friends if we can. I love the Christmas Eve service where we remember what it is all about – that Jesus is the Reason for the Season.

Maybe the dates aren’t correct and we should remember Jesus’ birth every day and we should remember all that He has done for us every day also, but one day where we put aside everything else and focus on Him, what a blessing.

It has been a busy work week for my husband and he has spent a fair bit of time fixing hay balers and hay rakes around the district. He really enjoys his work but sometimes the pressure is on because it is peak hay season and everyone wants their hay done now and break downs keep happening.

Our No 1 son managed to shear our lambs this past week and will hopefully be able to shear our older sheep this coming week. It is hard for him to fit it in when he is so busy shearing for everyone else. It is great that he can do it for us though and we don’t have to find anyone else to do it.

Our peas, corn, cucumbers and zucchinis are up and they look really healthy, it is great to see the little shoots poke their way through the soil. The tomatoes are looking good although we have lost a couple, we have just planted the rest of the ones our daughter grew for us, so hopefully their will yield a bumper crop.

Okay onto our link up…

Our top three this week were….Saving Money with Jars by Laura at Harvest Lane Cottage

Gift Ideas from the Homestead by Kathi at Oak Hill Homestead

30 Things You May Want to Know About November by Latisha at Ask Latisha

My husbands 50th birthday party is this coming Saturday night and we have about 100 people coming for a BBQ tea, mind you over 30 of them are children.  We are all looking forward to it and our son-in-law and daughter and their family will be coming down earlier to give us a hand. Actually my daughters will be managing the food and mainly everything else and I will just be socializing this time, but next time (our son’s 21st) I should be back on track.

Our Aunty was airlifted to Geelong hospital on Tuesday and needs to have heart bypass surgery. I am thankful that another Aunty happened to ring and tell us so we were able to go and see her whilst we were down there for my appointment. If you have time I am sure that they would appreciate your prayers.

I think we constantly need to be reminded that God is in control. So often we worry and fret (I know I do) about how things are going to work or turn out, but we need to remember the following scripture.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

With God we have an amazing future, let’s remember to trust in Him, give our days to Him and he will definitely direct our paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6  Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

Have a blessed week and may you feel God’s love surrounding you.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my dear friends. xxxx

 

 

Hello to you all my dear friends and welcome to another Good Morning Mondays Linkup.

Thank you all for the posts that you shared with us all and also for your kind and encouraging comments. I am so blessed by you all and so very grateful and thankful for the friendships that we have made over the last 12 months.

One lovely blogger commented that it is amazing how much we care for each other even though we have never met, and she is so right. It is an amazing reality that just touches my heart.

What I really enjoy about this linkup is the variety of posts that we have.  There really is something for everyone, from devotionals, to cooking to crafting and gardening.

What have you been up to this past week?? Did you get to read any exciting or challenging posts??

We have had a good and productive week. We were able to get some more vegetables in and we now have, tomatoes, corn, a variety of pumpkins, zucchinis, and cucumbers. My husband had already sown peas and planted our raspberry canes a couple of weeks ago.

It is exciting to get outside and see everything happening.  We have also done some sheep work this past week and sent some lambs to market. We were really blessed with good prices and see God’s hand over us constantly.

I have been doing lots of thinking lately about how we present ourselves and our problems to people. I definitely don’t want my attitude to be a whining and complaining one, so when people ask me how I am, I say good, because really I am.

I just step outside and feel totally blessed by what we have around us. We have a lovely family and helpful children, a lovely little farm that supplies our needs and helps us to supply the needs of others. We have a church family that cares for us and friends as well. God has blessed us with rain right when we needed it and good lamb prices, which is an added bonus.

So how can I say that I am sick of sitting around and sick of not being able to do the things I want and sick of hopping around on one foot. These things will definitely pass and I will return to normal but not the old normal, but a new normal. A normal where I have learnt things because I had to sit around and I have not been able to do everything I want.

So really I am good and going well, how could I be anything else.

This past week has been quite normal, school, cleaning, outside chores and music lessons, church and bible study.

So let’s get onto our linkup….

Our top three posts this week were…

Why I Still Stay Home by Elizabeth at Guilty Chocoholic MamaLittle House Thoughts…Ma is the True Heroine by Laura at Harvest Lane Cottage

The Minimalist Guide to Being a Thankful Wife by Woman Abiding

Once again a big thank you to you all for taking the time to linkup, I hope you have been blessed by stopping by here.

This coming week I have a specialist appointment in Geelong and an x-ray. Hopefully that will show healing to my bones and give me the ability to start weight bearing on my leg, now that would be exciting.

The children will get to stay a night with some very good friends and they have been counting down the sleeps until they go.

The rest of the week is just normal stuff, like school and music lessons and church. We are starting a new Bible Study at church which sounds like it should be interesting and our Revelation study is also on this week.

What’s on your agenda??? Even though we don’t celebrate thanksgiving here I think it is a lovely most important tradition. It is always good to remember how blessed we are and be thankful for all that we have, but to have a special day seems just wonderful.

What do you have to be thankful for, let’s make sure we take the time to remember.

I also want us to remember our French brothers and sisters who have been affected by the awful terrorist attacks that have happened in Paris. Let’s join together in prayer for those affected.

Have a blessed week and may you feel God’s love surrounding you.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my dear friends. xxxx

Welcome back to Good Morning Mondays this week, and guess what??? it is our 12 month anniversary of the link up.52 weeks, wow I am amazed at how quickly it has gone by and I am also blessed by the friendships that I have made just through this link up.Thank you to everyone of you who continually stop by and link up your posts and thank you for sticking with me, even when I had to go off line for a few weeks.

You are all amazing and that shows through in your posts and your kindness.

I am looking forward to continuing this link up and maybe doing something different in the new year (I’m not sure what yet).

Like last week, this week has been quiet, but that’s okay. On Monday I was tired from the weekend and I kept my leg up for most of the day.

My husband and I went to our Revelation Study on Tuesday night and although we were tired we really enjoyed it. We are nearly finished the book and we hope to get it done by Christmas and we are all looking forward to studying something new next year. We have such a lovely group of people who come along, and we have such wonderful discussions.

Wow next year is only a couple of months away. We have a lot happening before then. We have my husbands 50th birthday party and another few birthdays and then of course Christmas and New Year.

It has been a tradition each New Year that we host a bbq for some of the people at church.  We normally invite mainly the older generation (our parents age) and we really enjoy getting together with them. They are so nice to talk to and have so much wisdom. Our younger children and their father normally do a musical item and with our No 2 son practicing his harmonica, I am sure it will be good this year.

Our No 2 son has started breeding meal worms. My husband bought some at our local pet food store and he was going to feed them to the fish but I remembered a post by Mindie at Born Again Farm Girl about breeding them. My husband did a bit more research and he has changed it about a bit to suit what we can get here and the ones we bought have already started to turn into the pupae stage. Very exciting and a great science project.

Our aquaponics system is going really well at the moment and my cauliflowers are coming to head which is great. The silverbeet that I planted months ago is still growing and we keep picking off it. Our No 2 daughter has become an expert at sauteing it with garlic and butter and it is a great side dish to the lasagnas that we have been blessed with.

Below is a picture of the silverbeet and carrot bed. The carrots are looking great and it will be interesting to see how big they grow.We are hoping that this system will supply our daily vegetable needs during the year and that hopefully it will grow tomatoes and salad vegetables year round.

Okay enough about us, onto our link up….

Our top three posts this week were… Your Esther 4:14 Moment by Cheryl at Homespun DevotionsMonthly Book Giveaway –Keep a Quiet Heart, by Elisabeth Elliot by Rebekah at Ready to be offeredWhy Do Marriages Get Stuck in Survival Mode? By Sue Detweiler – guest post by Ifeoma at Purposeful and Meaningful

Thank you again for faithfully linking up each week. I am looking forward to what you all have for this week.

I am off to see the physio this week and it will be interesting to see what he has to say and hopefully my movement has improved and increased.

I am thinking we will start making Christmas Cards this week also so that we have them done and ready to go.

What’s on your agenda for this week???

Have a blessed week and may you feel God’s love surrounding you.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my dear friends. xxxx

Welcome back to another Good Morning Mondays. The weather here has been just beautiful, although dry. Cool mornings and lovely warm spring days. It is hard not to be happy with the sun shining.

Have you ever just sat back and thought about how blessed you are. Some days I find it overwhelming when I think of how blessed I am.

What position would I be in if I didn’t have a strong, caring and loving husband. I would probably still be in hospital in a rehab unit with my family visiting ocassionally, but because God has blessed me I am able to be home with my family and they are caring for me to the best of their abilities.

I have wonderful children and they are doing their best to keep the house running and do their school work and chores.

None of us are perfect (that’s for sure) and we do have squabbles and arguments and disappointments, but God’s grace and love is always there and repentence and forgiveness are an important part of our days.

Once again I am blessed by their forgiveness and their help.

We have been having a very dry winter and spring so far and it has been quite concerning.  My husband was going to sow summer feed but it was just too hard and dry, which is just not normal for our area. We have really needed rain and God blessed us with over an inch on Friday night. We had a massive thunderstorm during the night and then it just poured. Our back verandah flooded and all the boots were filled with water and the back lawn was underwater. This is definitely a season changer for us and now we can go ahead with planting our vegetables with a little more enthusiasm.

I have sent out the invitations for my husbands birthday party and they ended up looking good. We seem to be a party family, and we are due to have another one mid next year for our No 1 son’s 21st birthday. At his 18th he had a BBQ and a clay bird shoot, even most of the ladies had a go, now I have my own shotgun and when we can we enjoy this sport.

We spent Saturday with our son-in-law and daughter and their beautiful children. The children are growing so quickly and we always have a lot of laughs together.

On Sunday we worshiped with another congregation and then enjoyed a lovely lunch together. There were quite a few of us who managed to go and the fellowship was very enjoyable.

I must admit that Mondays are a very slow day for me and I need to spend quite a bit of it with my leg up to reduce the swelling from my getting about over the weekend, but it is well and truly worth it.

What have you been up to this past week, do you feel God’s blessings around you?? Do you need to refocus your thoughts onto God instead of your burdens???

Okay onto our link up…

Our top three posts this week were…

Modest Monday by Heidigirl at The J-CrewWhy I Don’t Let My Children Win When We Play Games by Miranda at Drops of LearningBuilding Life With Your Own Two Hands by Tammy at Taylor Made Ranch

I managed to read a few posts and I definitely enjoyed them. I pray that you will continue to link up and share with us all.

I have another relatively quiet week this week, although we have our bible study on Tuesday night.

We have been busy planting vegetable seedlings in the aquaponics and now we have a heap of tomato plants to put in the ground. I’m good at directing and encouraging from the sidelines (on  my gopher), and my husband and the children do a great job planting. We are now praying for a good tomato growing season, which would be almost a first since we came here.

My husband has cut our grass hay and now he is getting ready to cut our oat and wheat crop. It is looking really good and we hope to get a heap of small bales from this to feed our stock over the summer.

Have a blessed week and may you feel God’s love surrounding you.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my dear friends. xxxx

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.