Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

Some weeks I have to stop and think to remember five favorite things about the week, but this week I’ll have a hard time keeping it down to five.

1. My new swing/bench for the patio. Jim got it for my birthday a few weeks ago but was just able to assemble it Monday.

It was a key factor in…

2. Sprucing up the patio, our Labor Day weekend project. Another favorite element in that was planting a new hydrangea bush.

I had been sorely wanting one because I loved the one at our old house, but there really wasn’t room for one in the front. But we found the perfect bare spot for it in the back next to the patio.

3. Labor Day is kind of an odd holiday: there aren’t any traditions associated with it other than grilling, there are no colors or symbols or decorations. It’s just a day off to celebrate workers. Yay us! I’ll take it! We went to Jason and Mittu’s new apartment for lunch and got to see what they’d done with it since unpacking moving boxes, and then they came here for dinner.

4. Closet shelves. We have a few storage closets, and I had been wanting shelves put into one of them, actually a double closet. Poor Jim — I have all these projects in mind that I can’t do myself. 🙂 But he was able to get them installed this weekend. It had one already and he added 4 that were 6′ long. It makes such a difference to have boxes and bags on shelves rather than stacked up to eye level. I sorted through, labeled, and organized them this week, and I even have room to spare, so soon some of the things tucked away in other spots will find a home here as well.

5. Checking things off the list, besides some of the above, like getting a haircut (I don’t know why I wait so long to do it that I am about to rip it out. It doesn’t take that long, but I keep putting it off), getting a mammogram and bone density test done (one of those over-50 things doctors like for women to do), and getting some lab work done to see if a an adjusted dosage is helping my thyroid levels (it is). It was nice to get all those things taken care of so I don’t have to keep thinking about them.

And I was able to cram everything into a list of five. 😀 I hope you’ve had a good week, and if you haven’t…I hope the weekend will be better! Happy Friday!