Exploring Ten Thousand Islands

Osprey Nest on Mangrove Island

Lonely Tree is Last Island before the Gulf...

Mangrove Roots around Islands is Natures gift of replenishment

This one is for Todd....

Arriving at Tiger Key...

                               Kurt's 'Catch & Release'

Enjoying The Good Life...

Cindy at her best!!!!

Isn't this larger than Kurt's????

MUCH larger!!!!

Tres Amigas

 Enjoying Club Everglades....our home while in Everglades City ....

Enjoying the private island condos on Pleasure Island, Everglades City.

We also explored Tiger Key, Sandfly Island, Picnic Key
 and many other Islands along  the way in our small boats...

Only 9,000 more islands more to go!!!  

This is how we recognized our 'Home' from any of the others...

Wonderful places of enjoyment with

Cindy, Bob, Melissa, Kurt, Pat, Walker, Dockie, Ann, Sally & Sam and Charlie & I... 

Pelican says 'Good~Bye' to All....

Play Video Below for a taste of the Wilderness...

 

Nena with her two 'lil angels'...Jude & Eli

Proud Nena's....Nena Lynn has Eli (more hair)
MaMa has Jude (balder than last week)

Mr. Jude is the rambunctious one....beautiful children...

Nena with Eli....he is so 'pretty' ...excuse me Daddy Matt!

A few years ago a Nobel Prize writer of poetry made these remarks,
"All my writing in the world cannot add more than a cricket’s chirp to the voice of life,
BUT no one can write as authentically about my life's experiences, my hearts feelings, my outlook on life, as I can. Therefore these same experiences of life find their way into my poetry, my communication and hopefully into the lives of others. That is why I write...."
 

Glorious Florida Sunrise~What A Blessing!

Unique

I love words:)
Some fascinate me immensely.
Some feel good just saying them: serendipity, zeal, enchantment, majestic, tenacity, serenity, El Splendito, Pura Vida(Spanish word meaning : pure life)
and then of course, the word....UNIQUE
...my dictionary tells me the information below:
adj:
1. only one: being the only one of a kind
2. special: different from others in a way that makes somebody or something special and worthy of note
3. limited to somebody or something: limited to a particular person or thing

The use of unique in its sense "worthy of note" is common in marketing and advertising (Don't miss this unique offer), as well as in conversation.
Many dictionaries and usage guides argue that unique is an absolute concept and, as such, cannot be used with qualifying words such as 'very' and 'rather', but in many cases this restriction seems to be a 'over concern of formal rules' a pedantic objection to what is a linguistic rather than a philosophical convention.

Needless to say, the word UNIQUE is.....unique!
Perhaps we are not to say something or someone is 'rather unique' or 'very unique' but just allow the word
itself to speak in plain and simple understanding of meaning.
It is safe to say that it has fallen the way of many wonderful words which have become 'meaningless'  and has been corrupted by overusage, wrong usage, distorted usage and forgotten meaning.
I want to recapture this word....UNIQUE!
For you see, it so aptly decribes......US!
Each one of us is UNIQUELY US...there is NOT another, we are 'one of a kind'.
We are 'different from others in a way that makes us special'.....UNIQUE!
How dare we try to be something or someone WE ARE NOT!!!!
The 'truerer' we are to our own being.....the more 'at home' we are in our own skin....
     the more we are at peace.  The more 'REAL' we become.
Remember Shakespeare's famous quote...
"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou can not then be false to any man."
This was  Polonius's last piece of advice to his son Laertes, who is in a hurry to get on the next boat to Paris, where he'll be safe from his father's long-winded speeches.
Polonius had in mind something much deeper and more meaningful  than the New Age self-knowledge that the phrase now suggests.
The origination of the word, UNIQUE, is aply described for me in....
Genesis 1: 27 So God created mankind in His own image,
in the image of God He created them;
male and female He created them.
NOW THAT IS.....UNIQUE


.....Let me give you a visual.  I have a pendant that I refer to as my 'one of kind' piece of jewelry.
It is unique because it represents in a symbol my 'theme' of life...my Southern spiritual life.
It was designed and sold thru  Southern Style Fashions in Okeechobee, Florida.
It is UNIQUE!

XOXOXO To YOU from me....

Greetings to some of my favorite people......YOU!
Over the years I get comments from time to time on different things that I have posted here and as any writer knows, it makes our heart 'smile' to know that our words are validated by another heart correctly.
You do that for me.  I appreciate your response more than I can say.
There are times in which I feel that I am throwing 'popcorn words' into cyber space and I think seriously about closing this blog  because perhaps its time has come to move on to another form of expression....
......and then......out of the blue one of you reach out and respond to something that was written years ago and I stand in awe! 
Realizing that this is not 'about me' at all but ALL THE INTERESTING PEOPLE IN MY LIFE AND THOSE I COME IN CONTACT WITH DAILY and write about, post pictures of and meet in our travels,
I am now renewed by that knowledge which I forget from time to time.
So this particular post is to YOU!!!!
Thank you for being a part of my life, naturally.
Thank you for allowing me to 'take your picture' even when you had rather I did not.
Thank you for sharing so much of your heart with me...sometimes in confidence and sometime in loud and joyful happy fun and sometimes in private prayer.
You....and you know who you are....are my 'gas station'.....my fuel to my own humanness which allows us to be connected simultaneously, (definition....at same time: done, happening, or existing at the same time)
LOVE puts us in 'sync' .
Today I am having to download anew.  First with God then with my thoughts of all of you.
If you are reading this, at one time or another you have touched my life.
Perhaps you do not realize it but being who you are helps make me a better person thru my contact with you recently or even in past memories of times together!
This kind of....Giving and receiving completes me.
Thank you for that dear ones.
Yep, I know, I know, we certainly are 'flawed human beings' but LOVE covers it all...
Like the Barney song says,
 "I love you, you love me....together WE are a Happy Family.
 With a great big hug and a kiss from me 2 you.... "
YOU....Yes, YOU.....are my family....the Family of Love....the family of  Faith.
P.S Just received an e-mail that expresses the above words in a picture....thanks Linda...

You have received this angel because you at some point in life have been an angel.
No one saw your wings but they felt your love.

Today was a wonderful and craZy time with our family in Brooksville...

Pop-Pop Chuck from Africa having special time with Kason...

Lynn, Pops & Carla

Christy, Lynn, & Arlene...Teachers and Nena, a 'forever' Teacher 

 

Arlene, Faith, Christy (pretty curly fries hair, Honey) Carla and Mama Terry

Kason let MaMa put a tattoo on him....then wanted it off immediately...

Lynn (Pops Princess) Pops, Carla (Pops Babydoll)
 Terry, Chuck and Kason ready to eat Mexican Food..
....along came Vinny & Arlene...and a fun time was had by all!

FAMILY....We may not have it all together....BUT....TOGETHER WE HAVE IT ALL!!!

One of my favorite 'Precious Moment' Pictures....

my Prayer Partner, Nancy with her grandson,Damien, aka: 'Peanut'. 

Girls Just Want To Have Fun....

Southern Girls having their kind of 'Fun'...

Jenn, Carla, Mama Terry, Arlene & Britt in B'ville style...

The Rest Of The Story is told by these guys....

Family bar-b-que at our house and seeing the growing Boys: Jude, Eli, Joshua and Dylan aka:TuTu

Jude pulls on brothers bib...

Dylan/TuTu pats Eli saying 'It's all right baby.' 

Wonderful healthy babies now sleeping 8 hours at night....

'Praise The Lord' says Mom, Dad & Nena 

Our Whiz Kid, Joshua, wrote a story about his hero, Tebow,

at an imagined Super Bowl and read it to his football mentor, Pops.

It was absolutely fascinating! 

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did,

but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou quotes (American Poet, b.1928)

Are you present.....to TODAY???

Unless we live fully in the present,
the future will always be a disappointment!
Each day is a new, unrepeatable, once~in~a~lifetime gift!
To waste it by always waiting for tomorrow, by thinking
that enough is never enough....
is pure foolishness!!!
                                           Chuck & Terry with Friends.....

Chuck, Kevin, Carla, Terry, Chuck III, Christy, Kason & Chuckie

in a rare moment in time....

***To see 'how rare' go to our son's page at......

http://missionarieschuckterryfernandez.blogspot.com/ 

Family Times Are Precious.....

                         Live Well....Love Much....Laugh Often

"If you love the Lord, your God, with all your hearts and souls...

and worship Him (with your life) and teach this to your children....

as long as there is sky above the earth,

you and your children will

ENJOY THE GOOD LIFE

awaiting you in the land,

the Lord has promised you...."  (Deuteronomy 11... Living Bible)