The rain and cold has given way to warmth and sunshine as I write on Thursday. Welcome changes. Not all changes are welcome, but there’s no way around them: only through them. But God is with us every step of the way. I like to pause on the journey to count God’s blessings and gifts with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.
1. A movie/symphony combo. When we went to a Christmas concert last month, we had some problems that caused my husband to call the management the next day. He didn’t want to complain, but to let them know of the issues. They were very kind and interested, and offered us free tickets to the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s next program–which happened to be a showing of Jurassic Park, with the orchestra playing the soundtrack live. That would not have been my first choice of a movie to see–but it was what they were playing. And the music is gorgeous. It had been a long time since I had seen it, and there were some fun parts. Jesse enjoyed seeing what would have been cutting edge technology when the film was made thirty years ago. Jason, Mittu, and Timothy didn’t come: larger-than-life rampaging dinosaurs would have been too much for Tim, and there were a couple of quite violent scenes. But overall, it was a really fun experience, and the orchestra did a wonderful job. And we had great seats–row Q!
2. Celebrating our first date. I hadn’t thought about our first date in years, but it suddenly hit me that it was Jan. 13—also a Friday the 13th that year (1978), which is probably why I remember the date. Inspired by Intrepid Reader’s first date anniversary celebration (at the Jules Verne restaurant in the Eiffel Tower!), I asked my husband if we could commemorate ours in a more homey way. 🙂 We decided to order take-out from Ruby Tuesday’s.
3. A half-off coupon. As my husband looked up Ruby Tuesday’s web site to order online, I rummaged through my sales offers email folder–and found one coupon for buy-one-get-one-free ribs entrees, which was what we were going to order anyway. Nice!
4. An appointment changed to a tele-health call. I was diagnosed with sleep apnea a few years ago, and consequently have to have an appointment with the sleep center once a year. Last year I thought this appointment really could be phoned in, as it was mostly just answering their questions. This year, because they were in the process of moving their offices, they did change the appointment to a FaceTime-like phone call. I asked about keeping it this way for next year, but they said no, they prefer in-office visits. But it was nice to have a reprieve from driving in this once.
5. Puttering, which for me means little jobs like decluttering my desk, cleaning out my catch-all basket, putting things in place, etc. When it’s busy, those kind of things pile up, and it feels incredibly good to get to them.
And that’s it for another week here. How is your January going?
Stray Thoughts 
This has been a good week. A new Bible study, time with grandchildren, laughing because the deer ate my newly planted pansy flowers, and enjoying the sounds of birds singing. I have to laugh at the deer because they enjoy sweets, too. I think the flowers are their desserts. Have a blessed weekend! 🙂
Sounds like a great week! Funny about flowers being the deer’s dessert!
I love that you could get free tickets to the symphony. I’ve never seen Jurassic Park!! (no interest in it and my girls had no interest when the videos came out). But how fun for you all to see it.
I LOVE that you consider puttering to be a blessing. I do too!! In fact, as i sit here waiting for time to leave for work (we have yet another 2 hour delay due to icy sleet/snow), I am creating my Sat to do list and it includes puttering in my desk and coffee table. I wanna clean up those spaces!
YAY for facetime health appts. Always nice to be able to stay in.
I love your idea of celebrating your first date. Our first official date is my husband’s birthday!
HAPPY WEEKEND, Barbara. I hope you continue to enjoy sunshines.
I love puttering too. Good to have that appointment by phone. A lot of our appointments were switched to that method during the pandemic and some of them have continued. How nice to recreate your first date. Not sure I’d want to do ours – hubby took me to see the weirdest film I’ve ever seen. Have a good weekend.
I wish more of our appointments could be by phone, especially when they are more discussion than examination. We didn’t recreate our fist date–we had gone to a college basketball game then, which my husband quickly surmised was not one of my highest interests. 🙂 But it was a nice time and marked the turn of our relationship from friends and coworkers to more. This time we just ordered take-out ribs, a much nicer “date.” 🙂
Our first date anniversary is my youngest son’s birthday so for a long time our celebration was a birthday party! I need to plan something this year. I’ll skip recreating the site — we went roller skating. Lol!
I wouldn’t want to recreate our first date, either–we had gone to one of our college’s basketball games. Eating take-out ribs at home this year was much nicer. 🙂
The symphony experience sounds wonderful! My husband and I can’t agree on when we had our first date! haha! So, we’ve never celebrated, but I think it would be so much fun to do so. Puttering is one of my favorite things to do. The cold weather of late has made it a perfect opportunity to do so.
I’ve never seen Jurassic Park and that wouldn’t have been my preference either but hearing the soundtrack live must have been wonderful! I’m with Tim. I wouldn’t like the scary scenes either.
That is so sweet to celebrate your first date! Ruby Tuesday has great food.
I’m glad that you were able to do a tele-health visit for the sleep study. I hope it was good news.
I love to go through drawers and closets and declutter and rearrange. That’s how I found the photo CDs I wrote about in my post.
Looking forward to upcoming lunch!
I agree — “puttering” is satisfying and doesn’t require too much mental effort. I’m in! My youngest daughter loves Jurassic Park (all MCrichton books, really). The music is great; what a neat experience!
How fun to enjoy great music (who knew Jurassic Park had great music?) with the movie. I went to see Fellowship of the Rings with a live orchestra. The movie’s dialogue was somewhat muted so that the music really came to the fore.
Dinner in and coupon too — what a sweet way to remember and make more memories.
I’m with you on the “minor” tidying up that seems to clear the clutter in my mind as well as my desk.
Happy first date anniversary! Our first date was to see the VERY FIRST Star Wars movie way back in 1977! Sounds like you had a good week. The movie/symphony sounds great. Our Utah symphony does similar performance, but we have never gone. SOunds like you had some good meals this last week – and a half-off coupon is always a real plus. ILots of goodness in your past week. hope you have a good weekend.
I’m wondering if puttering is a southern term or is it one that everyone uses? It’s a word I definitely use myself. 🙂 Jeff and I heard some spoken poetry last weekend and it is motivating me to seek out more of the arts this year. It’s not something we typically do. Glad you enjoyed your Jurassic Park outing. I have tickets to see the Aladdin musical in a few months with some friends.
I would totally love to recreate our first date. A play at a local college then late dinner at a restaurant in Westwood Village near UCLA. I remember the date because it was the night when an RA (me) got a demerit from the dorm mother for returning after hours. In my defense, I was 21 and on a double date with a prof’s son, another senior and a young single asst prof.
The Jurassic Park live music movie sounds fun. We enjoyed watching Empire Strikes Back the same way with our granddaughter in Phx. Amazing music!
Have a good weekend!
We never remembered the day we met we only know that we met in an Italian club and from this evening on we stayed together for 54 years, which I admit is quite unusual ! Toby loves Dragons even when he was 4 years old, I remember he asked for all occasions a dragon, it was me who was afraid !
I would love to attend a live symphony playing of Jurassic. How fun. But it definitely can be way to intense for Timothy’s age group. How fun to find the half off coupon for just what you wanted. I would love if some appts could be made face time phone calls.