Conversations

 It seems so weird we have went thru all the Holidays already!  I feel like I can not keep up! Can you keep up? It is January 13th and I still have my Christmas decorations up. I know! Why are they still up? I have no idea....ok....well...I was sick last week and I just relaxed with my little family at the farmhouse this weekend. I walked around my lanai and watered my plants. There was time for me to be able to prune some plants and just look over all of my plants growing and talk over them letting them know  how proud I was of them. I had a cactus outside my lanai and decided to bring the cactus inside my lanai. I do not know why I did not think of moving the cactus in before because it looks amazing in my lanai. You can see the pot the cactus is in and needs to be changed to a bigger and better pot. I will make it my mission to change it to a bigger pot this coming weekend, Lord willing. I don't know about you but I love the statement the cactus makes. I told my husband I would love to get more cactus plants in my lanai. They really do make a statement! 

The 🌵 plants is where my cat Mando is at. You can see the pot the plant is in is coming apart.

 Charlie, my dog, my pets are always.         following us! You can see the 🌵 in the corner.  The perfect place since it gets all the sun it.  wants.

I am relaxing in my favorite spot in my.         lanai. 

Before I delv deeper into this blog I want to show everyone my plants. They are doing so well. A lot of my plants I started from seeds and some I just broke down and bought from the store......and thats ok too! I have to tell ya...I could not buy plants from the store for a while because I wrestled with the thought I needed to be able to grow all my plants from seed. I had to learn to admit defeat! It is ok to fail! It is a part of life! Go buy the darn plant and grow some veggies! 

All these plants are vegetable plants and I.   started them from seed. They consist of red and green bell pepper, jalapeños, and okra.

The plant in the white pot is my basil plant which I also started from seed.

My Christmas cactus plants are blooming and they are so pretty.

 I bought this thyme plant from Walmart. I did try to grow from seed but after a few tries I gave up! 

  My rosemary plant.....I did grow this from seed.

While resting this weekend I was thinking about conversations. With forty around the corner I thought about good and knowledgeable conversations I love or would like to have. For example I remember walking by and hearing some very young women talking and they all had small babies in their arms and they were taking turns discussing how many ounces their baby drank and how they slept or not thru the night. My daughter at the time was very little and I remember shaking my head and basically ran from them because I did not want to join that conversation. I at the time was a stay at home mom and I wanted to be around adults that talked about anything other than babies. I could not run fast enough from that conversation. It just was not my cup of tea and I have to say I would still walk away from that particular conversation today. Do not get me wrong I love babies and children but I am not one to fawn over someone else's child. You had your child and that's your child not mine. I never expect family or friends to be lovey dovey to my daughter...she is not theirs she is mine. I will say I am one to watch the kids play to make sure they are safe and they are not fighting while the grown ups are not paying attention. I will usually sit down with my drink and just simply watch them. 

Pictures of eggs....also on Pinterest.

Do not get me wrong I love to sit down and have a good conversation! You know! The kind that makes you want to run and put a pot of coffee on and say...ooooo...I have pastries to eat with the coffee. Would you like some? Do you want to go and pick out your coffee mug? I have mismatched coffee mugs so get the one to your liking. I want to have conversations when the sun is setting. Where you see that reddish color mixed in with orange streaking across the horizon and from the lanai you can hear the roosters crowing taking turns to crow. Of course you will hear the girls (hens) squacking because they are pecking each other. I have to tell ya the girls are so mean to each other. But I have to say the squacking is part of the experience! 

    Lets go sit in the lanai!

    My girls! They are so photogenic.

From the lanai you can sometimes see the moon up early in the sky while the sun is still out. The moon sometimes looks like it is being impatient and ready to make it's entrance, even though the moon knows it must wait for the sun to finish setting. 

I remember in college we learned about conversation etiquette. This is where each person that is included in the conversation must speak to a certain time and while that person is speaking, everyone else is patiently waiting their turn to speak. Everyone gets their turn and everyone listens politely to the one speaking. No interruptions! 

It was so hard to step in front of the.    camera....but we are not all perfection and we should take more pictures showing ourselves comfortable and wearing everyday clothes.....country living. This is what my husband sees. I want my daughter to see and know it's ok to be 100% yourself with no male up or fancy clothes. Everyday women!

Our rooster Jack whom we had named Jane because we thought he was a she! He is such a nice rooster and I am happy to have him. I luv my roosters. I luv to see them protecting their girls....such gentlemans.
    

I am missing and ready to have good conversations about life. How hard life can get and how we all got thru the hard times. I want to hear someone's testimony and see their tears because whatever they went thru really affected their heart. I want to hear about disicions that almost cost them everything but was the best division ever. There are conversations about mistakes that could of been avoided or if I could go back I would of done things differently, conversations. Genuine conversations. 

There is always that one all most important conversation that is always on going till the day we draw our last breath. The life long conversation with God.....prayer. In my past prayers, and even now, with God I have learned to treat God as a best friend. Invite God to come down and tap the seat next to you in the lanai and tell God....come sit down next to me God. The coffee pot is almost done. I want to talk to you about today. Tell him about your day and what you ate. Let him know about the conversations you had thru out the day, such as, "God did you see when I was talking to so and so and when I mentioned about this or that....it kind of bothered them or ect. Tell him about how your children were acting up all day today. I have told God about what I think about things too. I have even told God about what people say to me, such as...."God did you see what so and so said to me about such and such. Tell him about your plants and flowers and how they are growing or even if they died. "Lord, I watered that plant or flower and it still died and I KNOW you watched it die too.....did you look down and shake your head at me? I would shake my head at me too!" Talk to him about all the little details in your life. 

     Jack is so handsome! I luv having him on my arm!

The bad conversations are for him too! For the year 2024, I learned to give God all my angry conversations too. I can not tell you how hard it was for me to give God my angry conversations. I remember driving and I was upset about some bad things that were happening to my husband and I. I just could not understand why these things were happening to us. I have to add....I was not surprised about what was happening to my husband and I and how it was happening to us. I had a dream about two years ago and saw men discussing my husband and I fincances and talking about our semi. They were talking together about what should be done to us and what to do about our semi. On top of them there was a grey ugly cloud hoovering above their heads and I saw these older and young men standing in Sunday school rooms talking about us. I was standing in the hallway of the sunday school rooms and I was listening to these men talking and making plans and disicions about my husband and I. I had this strong urge to walk in the Sunday school rooms to let them know to please do not do this. As I moved my right leg in front of me to walk into the room the door slammed shut in front of me. After the door slammed shut in front of me, the dark cloud that was hovering on top of those men, when the door shut the, the grey cloud came down on those men and it revealed their ugly jelousy toward my husband and I. There was a small window on the door that God closed and door could not be opened, where I could see into the sunday school room one of those younger men came to the door where I was looking in and he was full of jelousy and he was screaming and reeling at the top of his lungs and he wanted to come out to control and stop my husband and I from what God was going to do with my husband and I, but God was holding them back. I remember asking God..."why the older and younger men were in sunday school rooms", and God showed it was because the ones that were talking and planning about my husband and I, all attend sunday school! I can say seeing this really scared me. God closed the door on those men because where God is taking my husband, those men can not come! Even with God showing me what was going to happen to my husband and I about our fincances and our semi before things even happened.....it still hurt me and  I was severely offended. Boy! I had a conversation for God...that's for sure! I did tell God about the times we had done things for a certain person and how we also loaned and when this person needed help we were there. I gave God that angry conversation. It was so hard to have that conversation with God because I felt like I had or have no right to be talking to God with anger. God taught me that I have to share my anger with him because he wants all of me and not just parts of me or just the good and hurting parts of me. You know I will say this.....God will always reveal to someone what is being said and planned in secret. Do not ever think you are getting away with something! The Bible says everything will be revealed! When you think no one knows....just know God showed someone and that someone could be looking straight at you and knows the truth! With all this happening to my husband and I my conversations stopped for a while with God. I had nothing to say. I slipped away from those I saw in the dream and stayed away because...WOW! Who wants to be around that kind of jelousy that it turns them into screaming people? NOT ME! 

I was listening to a teacher teaching about Job in the Bible and he talked about Job praying prayers of dispare and anger. How Job gave his angry prayers over to God. God wants every part of us and it amazes me how we can have a hard time giving him our ugly parts.  He simply wants everything in us. I have to be honest I hate those kinds of prayers but those prayers are prayers too and they belong to God! I pray and hope you have conversations with God and people you love for the rest of your lives. I simply pray.............conversations. 

Love,

Sonya Marie