A TEA TYME GIVEAWAY

I came over to post and tell everyone who has followed me thank you. Originally, before my make over was complete, I was able to see comments. I keep posting and I am not seeing comments, I was frustrated because I have zero skills for this type of technology. So since I am knee deep in a Tea Cup/Tea Mug Exchange with Sweet Stephanie and ran into a little glitch regarding delivery, I decided, I would remain faithful to the vendors I use and take a breathe and offer a giveaway related to tea here too.

Am I confused? Goodness, yes! Trying to make decisions with the upcoming December wedding  for Rebekah and Zach, has my brain on overload.  I thought a nice giveaway would be in order.

Chocolate may be involved too.  Here are the easy peasy instructions to enter this giveaway. Please please follow me here, leave a comment but in that comment tell me what type of chocolate is your favorite and also what is your favorite color!  Finally, do you love tea and/or coffee? Any favorites? If you do not have a blog leave your e mail so I may reach you if you are one of the winners! Just answer those easy questions in the comment section. I will make an announcement at Face Book and Instagram too so everyone can be included.

I hope you will come over and visit me occasionally.  Although  my plate is full,  filled with wedding dazes and new babies coming our way , I try to post at each one of my blogs. It is ultimately a journal for me to look back on and I love my blogs and all the friends I have made as a result of them. I hope my children and grands will use these blogs as a peek into their heritage here, I love when my relatives tell me they have stopped by. It means a lot to me to have so much love in our sometime scary world. I love knowing each one of you that do blog and hope we can all continue this journey.

P R A Y

G R A T E F U L

So much to be grateful for. Today my top three were:

1.) Faith : No matter what happens I know God is always with me

2.) Phamily: No matter how rough a day can be or things happen which I can not control,
      I know I have a support system.

3.)  Wedding Plans:  The Middle will be married before we know it. It is a great time to
       reflect on our phamily and look back on all the memories we have made.

I like laughter, whether a baby is cooing or a toddler is laughing hard! I have a couple girlfriends I can actually get teary eyed with. Laughter is good medicine. It is good for the soul. The Family Circus has always given me something to chuckle about. Sometime laughing out loud too!

Simply put, this is my life.

When I am talking on my phone and looking for it, I am always grateful God is in charge and not me! I think He has quite the sense of humor.

I felt this way after I lost my job. I knew bitterness and negativity would not help me. You do what you do because often "it is what it is" and we can not change it. One of the members of the boy band One Direction has those very words tattooed on his neck. Just a little FYI in case you wanted to know something not earth shattering today!

Pinterest makes me smile with these tea time finds. I joined Stephanie's Tea Cup/Tea Mug Exchange for the third time. I am excited to send my gifts. I always get excited like a little kid at Christmas. I am not sure everyone does appreciate it, but I put a lot of effort into finding things I think the other person will love. So far I have found some things I am hoping these two ladies will enjoy. I can never have enough tea cups and mugs and I never forget who gifts them to me.

Snoopy is one of those lovable characters from when I was a child. He has his own Instagram page. I am finding Pinterest and Instagram steer away from "touchy subjects".  I love hanging out there.

Weddings and babies, our phamily are expecting two new littles, in October 2017 and March 2018 and of course, the wedding in December 2017. Goodness I sure love my life.

M O N D A Y M O M E N T S

Have a happy Monday! Say hello to Sandee and everyone at Aw....Mondays!

Ah...something terribly terribly lacking in our world today. L O V E

On Maxine....you always have such sassy thoughts!

A man who taught me so much, everything good I know about life he was instrumental is telling me about it. Hard working, faithful, wonderful husband to our mother, humble father to his children. He loved his grand kids and would flip over the additions to our phamily today. He would be sad to see one of his favorite sports football going down the politically correct tubes. He taught me so much about sports. SONday October 1 I will feel his spirit with me as I watch our hometown Rockies in one of their last home games. He would have loved knowing Colorado had a MLB baseball team. He will be in my thoughts at that baseball game. I will remember all the conversations I had with him over it. He will be in my thoughts all winter long as I wait for Spring to return and treat me to the all American sports of baseball.

I feel so sad for our country. We are allowing others to destroy it from the inside out. Nothing matters more to me than my faith. It is hard to stay on track with all the craziness in our world. So much sadness. I wonder how many NFL players ever bent down to hand some money or even smile at a homeless person sitting on the sidewalk near their fancy million dollar lofts downtown?

A Wedding Milestone

This is my kindergarten photo. Now this post is about a wedding anniversary , but the reason I posted this photo is to show you how long ago I met this wonderful girl named Carole Dean Schnackenberg-Drummond.

Somewhere in my treasure trove of photos I have Carole's kindergarten photo too. But she was a pretty and popular girl in high school and still is one of the most kind hearts I know. Knowing someone for 57 years says a lot about the way we were raised. While I was raised with four older siblings and a mom and dad, Carole was raised a bit more unconventionally for the times. Her mom along with her grandmother and two aunties raised Carole and her two older and one younger sisters. Carole is blessed in so many ways,  Her mom Betty is 90 plus years young and still having good times with her girls and grands. They were raised in a tiny house in BoJon town, 8 women and the girls became some of the most wonderful people you would ever want to know. They were raised, very much like I was , with good strong role models and lots of love and laughter too.

Today Carole and her hubby Bruce celebrated 42 years of marriage. Don't you just love this coffee mug? I was so happy reading her social media share that my heart was smiling! Sticking it out with someone for that long says something for a sweet girl I met in 1959 when we were schoolmates at Saint Mary's Catholic School in our hometown of Pueblo.

I lift my glass to Bruce and Carole and wish them 42 more plus years of marriage with beautiful sons and grandkids.

Marriage is a wonderful institution. I am happy to be here for the long haul.

With a wedding in my own phamily (daughter Rebekah) this December 2017 and a new grandbaby in March 2018 (son Jeremy), I have to say :

Until we meet again 

Babies, Weddings, Wonderful Life Events

A baby at 17 weeks in utero is the size of a pomegranate. It is about 5.1 inches long  and weighs about 5.9 oz. I share this tiny tidbit of info with you because our son Jeremy and his wife Brittany are going to be parents in March 2018 of a baby boy. What shall they name this child? The names are already getting shared but nothing is 100 percent yet. We just hope and pray for a healthy and happy child.

My mother taught me this when I was small. It is still good advice today.

This would be Rebekah with her favorite person, her daddy dear. When our kids were small, we often cooked breakfast on the weekends and danced throughout the house.  Rebekah especially loved dancing and still does today.

We were taught from the bible  at a very early age. There is much wisdom there.

Wise words when raising children.

I had to get a new laptop and it is hard loading photos into it. My days go by so quickly, I look up and the sky is black and night falls fast. I am going to come post here as much as I can and also at my original blog. I will celebrate a blogaversary on November 1st this year. Time has gone by too quickly. I am not tech savvy so that doesn't help me. I need to scan my photos so I can make a file on this new laptop.

This small fellow can maneuver a desktop as quickly as he can scroll through photos on an iphone. He is a joy in my life even if it takes me two days to recover from his quick energy.

A Pinterest poem share. These words hold true for me. Sometime the simpliest things in life make you the happiest. God bless you all and have a beautiful week.

Happiness

Uncle Louie, my momma's older brother, married Auntie Ang (nee Jacklovich) in 1946. My grandmother looks very proud, standing next to the Catholic priest, Father Daniel Gnidica, the parish priest at Saint Mary's Catholic School and Church in my hometown of Pueblo, CO. Auntie Ang had wanted to marry in California at the San Juan Capistrano Mission.

Here is a google image of the mission. It was founded on June 24, 1797 by Father Fermin Francisco de Lusuen.

Auntie Ang wanted to be married there and the parish priest told her she would be excommunicated if she did. She loved that the swallows migrated there every year and loved California because two of her sisters lived there. She was quite a strong willed BoJon gal. I learned how to be more independent from her. Gosh I miss her. She was my shopping buddy and we went out to lunch all the time.

My grandmother's wedding photo. She lost my handsome grandfather Joseph in February 1927. He and their youngest son Anthony "Tony" were trapped and killed in a gold mine in Victor, Colorado. I often wondered how she managed to go on with five little girls and my Uncle Louie as the only man left in her phamily. I have their original marriage photo. Of course, you know Auntie Ang gave it to me. She knew I adored my grandmother. It is the only original photo of my grandparents that I have. I cherish it. I will  treasure it my whole life. It has the beveled glass and I can never get a good shot of it. But I am not a great photographer either.

My Tata Rose's wedding photo is on my new header. What a huge phamily portrait. I know she must have married in the autumn because Uncle Louie was born in May 1908 and my grandfather is holding him in the photo.

These beautiful ancestors of mine went through so many struggles and difficulties and it made them better and stronger. They picked themselves up and continued doing what they needed to do. So many today could take a lesson for all of our ancestors. They were strong and amazing people. Plus they were respectful and they had tremendous faith. I try very hard not to stray from the excellent values I was raised with.

My sister Mary and me. She looked like a real nun, very serious. My auntie Mary, momma's older sister, had a ton of All Saint costumes in her basement. We never bought costumes. Momma just sent us down the hill to Auntie's house. I am wearing my angel costume. Uncle Sam Cosimano created my halo from a metal coat hanger and tin foil. Kids today just don't know the fun we had without bankrupting our parents to buy a Broadway worthy costume.

This was my sister Mary and I just a few years ago. We were having lunch at the Cactus Flower Mexican Restaurant. In that restaurant hangs a 1930 something
baseball photo of the Water Brewing Company semi pro baseball team.

I know I have told you the story of my dad catching behind the plate when Babe Ruth came up to bat. My Uncle Rudy "Moon" Kocman is the team manager on the far right. Dad is the third player from right to left. Jacque Pechek a lifelong friend, said her dad is third player on the left side. She said he once threw to some guy named Satchel Paige. He said, Satchel wasn't all that! The artist who painted this photo is a  local  Pueblo artist Nathan Solano.

I posted this photos of my sister and other memories of my hometown neighborhood, BoJon Town. But my sis has had some health issues and I would appreciate prayer for her. Thank you.

I Have Missed Everyone and So Much More

 

I am in the process of setting up this blog. So until I have it all completed I wanted to write a post. I have missed everyone so much. I am still unable to get into my Phamily Blog and am saddened by it all. Yet this new blog will be loved as much as my other one until I can reclaim it or combine them. This is the tiny cottage my Tata Rose lived in. She and her husband John (WWI Veteran) raised two sons and five daughters. She was my grandmother Cecilia's baby sister. I lost her May 12, 1985 .

This is a tiny image from google but I have fond memories of my big cat Mr. Kitty when he would get into so much mischievous.  Please visit Sandee and share a favorite Aw....Mondays with her and all the fine folks who participate. I am going to try to go around and comment later today.

Here is a blue eyes Kitty Kat to share with Blue Monday. I love finding google images and pinterest images. Whoever took this photo, it is so exquisite.

Love the Love is....Please say a prayer for Nick. He is at urgent care. Started having horrible low back pain last night. Woke up miserable. Waited for his dad to come home from work. I guess I am too emotional to go with him. Thank you.

Oh Maxine, girl, I can relate to this today! We have a brand new cat tree yet this silly Mr. Kitty will not leave me alone.

My dad read this book of James page by page because he often quoted these Scriptures. Prayers all around for so many hurting hearts, illness, sadness, keep everyone you think of in your prayers.

I own this beautiful hand beaded bracelet from Premier Designs. I love my little jewelry business, I have lots of goodies if anyone is looking for something special. This piece will soon be retired. It says "Count it all Joy" and the beads are individually hand strung. If you need anything special in the bling department I am here:  Your Favorite Jewelry Lady if you want to view the catalog. Just private message me because I have lots on hand and will make a great deal for you!  I love supporting small businesses and always appreciate those who support me too.

Our Colorado Rockie Charlie Blackmon is at the Home Run Derby in Miami tonight. He might not be the super power hitter like many of the guys there tonight, but Charlie is first class. I watched him make eye contact and smile at the little bat girl bringing him a towel and water in his time out. Very proud of you  "Analytical Charlie".  He is one classy guy, graduating from Georgia Tech and playing baseball in his final year. We love Charlie and enjoy watching him play. Best of luck and Good wishes to ll the fine hitters tonight.