It’s time to pause for just a bit to reflect on the week’s blessings with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. A pre-Mother’s Day dinner out. We stopped going out for Mother’s Day years ago due to long wait times. But I suggested this year going out all together some time before Sunday. So we did that Friday night. Even though the restaurant somehow didn’t have our reservation listed, they got us in fairly soon. I got a piece of Triple Chocolate Cake to take home. It was such a big piece and so rich, I had to split it over two days. The meal and time together were both great.

2. Mother’s Day breakfast. We’ve usually kept our Sunday morning breakfast routine on special Sundays just due to logistics. Saturday night, I was puzzled when Jason and Timothy came over around 9 p.m. They brought a wonderful Mother’s Day breakfast that Mittu had made which I could just reheat in the morning: quiche, fried potatoes, orange slices, grapes, and carrot muffins.

That was such a sweet and thoughtful thing to do. And it was very good! We could only eat about half of it Sunday, so we had leftovers for a couple more breakfasts this week.

3. Mother’s Day. Jim grilled burgers, Jesse shucked corn on the cob and other assorted things, Jason made Chocolate Pretzel Pie.

It was nice to have the day off in the kitchen, and everything was delicious. I received some sweet cards and gifts.

4. Hanging plants. Jim usually gets annuals in hanging baskets for me for Mother’s Day. This year he asked if I wanted to go with him to pick out the flowers. It was fun to do that together (he said it was less-time-consuming and stressful, but more expensive 🙂 ).

Then, I had not yet planted the flowers I had bought the day before for the planters in front and back of the house. Jim helped with that by clearing out the old stuff. Plus he planted a few in an area by the mailbox. So often, over the years, we’ve had to “divide and conquer” things like this for various reasons. It was nice to do them together. Plus everything looks so nice with fresh flowers in.

As we were walking around the garden center, we spied this interesting looking plant. We found it was a foxglove, so we decided to get it for the front porch. I didn’t know they grew so tall–about four feet. It has become something of a conversation piece.

5. Oven guards. Somehow I came upon a reel of neat things found on Amazon–and because I stopped to watch it, my reels on Instagram were then flooded with similar videos. But this sounded great, because I frequently burn my wrist on the top rack when putting something in the oven. Our family does “wish lists” for gift ideas, so I put this on my list, and my husband got it for me. I haven’t baked anything yet since I installed them, but I am looking forward to doing so pain-free!

I could list more, but I’ll stop at 5. 🙂 It’s been a lovely week. I hope yours has, too.