It’s nice when my end-of-month post lines up with the actual last day of the month!

Once again, the month has flown by. May is not the busy month it was when we had kids in school with all the end-of-year programs, recitals, etc. It’s odd how I am mostly glad not to have those activities any more, yet I still miss them sometimes.

Also, with all my mother-figures no longer living, I don’t have to do anything for that day except make a card for my daughter-in-law. While I miss my mom and other “moms” in my life, I enjoy the fact that the rest of the family makes plans for that day. They do a wonderful job making me feel special. My husband used to take me out to dinner that day. But the restaurants were so busy and waits were so long, he began making Mother’s Day dinner at home and employing the kids to take care of different faces of it. Nowadays he usually grills something. The last two years, Jason had made Chocolate Pretzel Pie, one of my favorite desserts (probably second to Texas Sheet Cake, which Mittu usually makes for my birthday).

The other big event this month was a road trip with my husband and my friend, Melanie, to Jan Karon’s Mitford Museum in Hudson, NC. Jan Karon authored a slew of best-selling books set in the fictional Mitford, based on the town she grew up in. I posted about the trip with lots of pictures here. It was something we’ve been planning and looking forward to since last fall, and it was so nice to finally go.

I also had a colonoscopy this month–not fun, but I was glad to get it over with and to have clear results. We’re still trying to figure out my stomach issues, but I am glad the procedure ruled out some major concerns.

We got wills and living wills and such made us and notarized, something that’s been on our need-to-do list for ages.

So I guess May was still busy in a different way!

It also seemed like this month turned from spring to summer quickly. Even though it’s not officially summer until later in June, we usually count summer as starting from the Memorial Day weekend. This year, however, it has started to feel like summer the last couple of weeks.

Timothyisms

My daughter-in-law sent me a couple of exchanges with my grandson, Timothy.

One day they were talking about roadkill. Timothy asked, “Do people eat bear?”

Jason said, “I don’t think that’s allowed in America.”

Timothy responded, “Maybe in Texas?”

🙂

Another time, Timothy asked his mom if it was fun in the 90s. She said yes and asked what he thought they did in the 90s. “Probably watched TV and wore cool clothes.”

Creating

I only made one card this month, for my daughter-in-law for Mother’s Day.

She likes sunflowers, as you might guess. The arrangement in the center is a multi-layered sticker. I was very pleased with myself for learning how to arch text on the computer without having to ask one of my sons! I did find a YouTube video that helped.

Watching

I watched Spiderman 3: No Way Home and loved it (except for a bit of language). I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen it (and have missed spoilers everywhere), but it had a lot of neat parts.

As a family, we watched the first live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie and Clifford movie. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the Sonic one, but I did. Clifford was a disappointment in that they changed just about everything from the books except the dog’s and girl’s names.

Reading

Since last time, I finished:

• “Don’t Call Me Spry”: Creative Possibilities for Later Life by Win Couchman. Excellent book about perspectives on aging.
• The Winnie the Pooh books by A. A. Milne. All four reviewed together. Loved these.
• Ten Time Management Choices that Can Change Your Life by Sandra Felton and Marsha Sims
• Be Responsible (1 Kings): Being Good Stewards of God’s Gifts by Warren Wiersbe.
• The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper, fiction. Set in the late 1800-early 1900 Australia, a businesswoman and philanthropist suddenly breaks down at the sight of a painting. Her ward tries to find out why.
• Mourning Dove by Claire Fullerton, fiction. Growing up in Memphis elite in a dysfunctional family in the 70s and 80s.
• Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell, fiction, audiobook. Part helping rich and poor understand each other, part coming-of-age, part unraveling a crime.
• Eugene Onegin by Pushkin, audiobook, not reviewed yet.
• IBS for Dummies by Carolyn Dean and L. Christine Wheeler. I didn’t review it per se but said a bit about it on Goodreads. I gleaned some ideas and information but was also greatly frustrated by the format and the New Age influences.

I’m currently reading:

• Be Distinct (2 Kings): Standing Against the World’s Foes by Warren Wiersbe
• The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis
• The Confessions of St. Augustine, audiobook
• Shadows of Grace by Cara Putnam
• Shadows in the Mind’s Eye by Janyre Tromp

Blogging

Besides book reviews, Friday Fave Fives, and Saturday Laudable Linkage, I’ve posted these since last time:

• Content . . . with Thorns? A look at why God allows weaknesses and needs in our lives and how Paul could say he was content with his.
• Ministry in the Mundane. We want to get past the everyday necessary tasks in order to do something meaningful and important—yet our ministry most often is in the everyday mundane details of life.
• Our Responsibility to Discern False Teaching. False teachers are accountable for leading others astray and misrepresenting God’s truth. But God also gives us plenty of warnings about them. We need to know His Word well enough to spot false teaching.
• Assorted Stray Thoughts. A collection of random things I wonder about.
• Encouragement in the Fight Against Temptation. I get discouraged that I am tempted by things I should have victory over. But I can use those temptations as a call to arms and defeat Satan at his own game.
• Are You a Big Z or an Ordinary N? We can’t make words in Scrabble with just the high-scoring letters. We need the ordinary ones. People, too, don’t function alone. The stars and executives have a whole support staff. Even if we’re just an ordinary “N,” God has essential things for us to do.

And that just about wraps up May. I hope yours was good as well!

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)