It’s been a good and relatively quiet week here. We’ve had a slight break in temperatures–80s instead of 90s–and a bit of welcome rain. I’m pausing once again with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to recount the good things from the week.
1. Independence Day. The kids came over for burgers, made by Jason, Mittu, and Timothy this time. They also brought over some non-fireworks fireworks–“Pop-its,” which you throw on the ground, where they make noise when they hit, and these other things shaped like a cone or bottle where you pull a string, and it makes a loud pop and shoots out colored streamers. We saw a few larger fireworks from other places in-between trees. We played a few games and ate cookies with red, white, and blue sugar toppings. A good day, all in all.
2. Sunday lunch. We usually get take-out on the way home from church. This last Sunday, I wasn’t in the mood for any of our fast-food choices. I had a hankering for Cracker Barrel’s meatloaf, so I asked Jim what he thought about eating there. That’s not his favorite place, but he’ll indulge me every now and then. 🙂 Thankfully, his food was great (as was mine, but I always like the food there) and we had an excellent waiter, so it was a fun experience. There was a long wait, so I don’t know if I’d suggest it for Sundays again. But by the time we were finishing up, the restaurant was starting to clear out and quiet down.
3. The Princess Bride was scheduled to be on regular TV last Sunday night. Even though I know it well, I thought it would be fun to watch it again. Coincidentally, our pastor had made a passing reference to one of the characters in the movie that morning. So when I asked Jim if he wanted to watch it, he said, he needed to because he didn’t get the pastor’s reference. 😀 Once we started watching, he remembered having seen it before. It was fun seeing again and anticipating favorite parts.
4. Good lab reports. I had a six-month follow-up visit from my physical with my doctor this week, which mostly involved checking blood work. I’m not diabetic, but my blood sugar is slightly elevated. I get the lab work done a day ahead of time, so I got the results before I went in. I thought I read that my A1C, which measures blood sugar, was 7, which is way high–they want you to be around 5.7, and my last test was 6.2. I was bracing myself for a scolding. But when I got there, they said it was 6, lower than last time. Whew! I looked back at the report when I got home, and it did say 6–I don’t know how 7 got into my mind. And my cholesterol and everything else was normal. So the doctor and I were both pleased.
5. Picture hung. I found this picture online and requested and received it for Mother’s Day. I hadn’t hung it up yet because it turned out to be a little small for the space I had in mind. So I was pondering other places to put it, then finally decided to go ahead and put it where I wanted it in the first place, in my bedroom above a small bookcase.
I love the verse, the colors, everything about it. I love that it looks like it could have been painted in our area, with the Blue Ridge mountains in the background.
Bonus: Jim is cleaning out our shed and brought in some boxes for us to go through. One contained mostly school and Sunday school papers from when our oldest two were younger, but we found some treasures in their notes to each other, Jeremy’s plans for a boys club with “no girls aloud” and “no smoking” but with snacks, postcards Jim had sent from his travels, etc. Another box had some of Jim’s and my high school and college notebooks. My high school Algebra and college Zoology notebooks went straight into the trash (I was never sure why Zoology was needed for a Home Economics major. All I remember from it was some worm that could get into people’s skin in tropical watery places, grow the length of their leg, and have to be slowly pulled out centimeter by centimeter lest it break. Bleah.). But we found some fun treasures in that box, too, like this unusual to-do list:
Miss Barker was the Dean of Women. We got married over Christmas break my second senior year (I crammed four years into five, as the saying goes . . .). I had to see her for “permission” to get married and do whatever paperwork was involved. Then Mrs. Forsythe was the director of the girls’ extension ministries–groups from the college that went out to various places, like kids’ Bible clubs and nursing homes. I was going to need to drop out of the nursing home ministry I was in after we got married. We both had a laugh over this list, especially seeing the Dean about marriage.
Well, that wraps up another week here. How was yours?
Stray Thoughts 
Hi Barbara, I see you went to Bob Jones University! Miss Parker and Mrs Forsythe gave it away. Ha. I graduated from there in 1980 with an accounting degree. What year did you graduate? I was only there 3 years plus summer school because I did my first year at the University of Akron in Ohio. Both of my daughters and their husbands graduated from there too.
God Bless, Renee
🙂 I graduated in 1980, too, though I should have in 1979.
Wow this is so amazing that I found your blog -and we were college kids together! Please let me know your maiden name (privately if you wish) and I’ll look you up in my yearbook!
I was Renee Reining (pronounced with a long “i” sound) …
What fun to find long ago treasures! I don’t blame you about throwing away the math and zoology notebooks.
Sounds like a very nice July 4th!
Good job with the A1C! I’m glad you’re watching all this very closely.
Have a wonderful weekend, my friend.
I did keep a couple of notebooks to look through–speech and English, I think–but I will probably end up throwing them away. It’s weird that so much of that information is online now. Jim came across some research notes from one of his previous jobs, and whatever it was about is no longer in use any more. That’s probably true of a number of businesses.
I so enjoyed this post, Barbara. I love the food at Cracker Barrel, but the noise level is bit high for my liking…as well as my husband’s. But I’m glad that you were able to enjoy your Sunday dinner there. It’s those little things that mean so much.
I love the note to see the Dean of Women about marriage! SO cute! You may have only remembered one thing from your Zoology class, but it remembered it well. Gave me the creepy crawlies just reading about it. lol
Glad you had a good report from your lab work. That’s always a relief. I had the same thing this week with the exception of one thing. My Dexa scan showed that I now have osteoporosis. I was pretty much expecting that one though.
Have a great weekend, Barbara!
We had a good laugh over that note. I did flip through some of my other old notebooks, but didn’t keep many. It might have been fun in some cases, but probably all that information is online now. I kept one paper I wrote titled “My Philosophy of Christian Dress” just to see what I wrote then, but I haven’t looked through it yet.
I’ve only been to Cracker Barrel once and it was pretty good although our service was SLOW! it was about 10 yrs ago! Haven’t been back since but mainly it’s because our town doesn’t have one. It’s a ways away.
I LOVE that Scripture AND the painting! So beautiful. That entire Psalm is one of my faves
How fun to look through the old boxes of stuff!
I’m glad your blood work was normal and all is well.
I hope you have a relaxing weekend
Thank you, Faith. I hope you do, too. Cracker Barrel has a reputation for food that’s heavy and not so good for you, but they do have some healthy choices. I love their grilled chicken.
Your July 4 sounds fun! Yay too on good lab tests; I’m glad you “read” the one test incorrectly 🙂 I like Cracker Barrel as well, but here too it’s often so crowded and has long waits. Prayers appreciated this weekend as I drive down to help my mom pack and then move up about 100 miles away to an assisted living. To add to the chaos, yesterday her water pump stopped working. We’ll have to eventually get her house connected to city water (instead of the well she had for 50 years). So, she’s drinking bottled water and “flushing” using gallons of water. Oh my …
When it rains, it pours! Praying for you!
Princess Bride is one of our favorite movies also. Every now and then some of the classic lines still turn up in our conversations: “As you wish!’ “That’s inconceivable!” “It’s only mostly dead!”
That one had a lot of memorable one-liners! A couple of my favorites were “Get used to disappointment” and “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
Isn’t it something when we’re happy to see the 80s again? Congrats on rain, too!
My city is one of the few still allowing fireworks, right next to one that does not. So standing on our neighbor’s driveway and looking southward, we see quite a few shows. And cookies are always part of our evening together — like yours!
Nice you had a good lunch with good food and good service. That husband of yours is a keeper 🙂 even if he doesn’t remember Princess Bride references.
Hurray for those lab results! Isn’t it amazing what bits of ephemera get saved? I hope you’ll save this to-do list.
Yes, it is weird that 80 feels like a respite now that we’ve gotten used to 90s–when just a few weeks ago, the 80s felt insufferable.
We’re not supposed to have fireworks in our area, but it doesn’t seem to be enforced. I think the police see it as a losing battle. But if someone caused some damage, they’d probably have to deal with breaking the law as well. I’m glad we can catch a glimpse of bigger fireworks from our yard.
I still haven’t watched The Princess Bride all the way through. Am I the last person who hasn’t seen it? lol. My blood sugar stays around the 6 mark too, no matter what I do. I cleaned out some files not long ago and found some priceless notes from my kids (but most of the other stuff could be thrown away). Always nice to get rid of some clutter!
Yes–we kept out a small pile but got rid of three boxes of stuff. It’s a little frustrating to go through it knowing that most of it will be thrown away–but we have to for those hidden treasures. Finding those and then clearing clutter makes it all worth it.
I’ve only seen Princess Bride one time– my college kids loved it.
You had a wonderful week with the good medical news, 4th of July fun and that clean out of the shed. I giggled over your old notes. Willow
Hi Barbara,
I love the beautiful picture! Lovely! So glad that your bloodwork numbers were good. We are trying to clean things out of our shed this summer too. I cannot always comment on your posts, but I enjoy reading them! I don’t think our blogging platforms are compatible somehow. Thanks and have a good week.
I’m sorry you’re not always able to comment. I have my blog set up that it is only supposed to require a name and email address, but it still sometime glitches. I have problems commenting on some other blogs, too. Thanks for persevering!
I love how you always celebrate family style. So fun! Yay for good labs. Those were fun finds. I need to go through the file cabinet and boxes of kept stuff. I know there will be fun memories but also a bunch of now meaningless stuff. Love your scripture picture!