It’s May! Wow, spring is going by fast. It’s nice to pause for a moment on Fridays and look back over God’s blessings from the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, who hosts this beneficial practice.

1. A mall shopping excursion. I have not been to a mall in years. But I had ordered something from a department store online that I wanted to return. I could return it for free at the store or pay a $12.95 flat fee to send it back through the mail. So I went to the store. 🙂 I was afraid they would give me trouble returning it,. because there was nothing wrong with it and it fit fine–it just wasn’t what I thought it was. But they returned it with no problem. Then I went looking around at the multitude of pretty spring dresses. Some of the racks had a sign that said “60% off with coupon.” I heard the sales clerk tell someone else that if they downloaded the store app, they could access the coupon there. So I did that while in the changing room. 🙂 It’s also been years since I tried on clothes in a store, since I buy mine online. I had forgotten how much fun it could be to shop and try on clothes in a mall.

2. Dinner from Sarku. While at the mall, I got chicken teriyaki from Sarku to bring home. Theirs is my favorite, but they only exist in malls, so I don’t get it very often.

3. A Jane Austen-themed Lego set finished this week. I shared about it and some other bookish projects here. (Those who read here regularly, forgive me for mentioning this three time this week. 🙂 Not everyone reads every post.)

4. Timothy’s birthday party with friends. The week of his birthday was a busy one at church and school, so they waited to have his birthday party this week. I think everyone who was invited came. His parents invited us over afterward to eat leftover nachos and cupcakes and hear about it and see pictures.

5. Family time. Jason and Mittu had asked us to watch Timothy on Friday. I had a couple of appointments, but Jim said he’d be happy to watch him. He found that the Oak Ridge science museums were free that day, so they spent the afternoon visiting a couple. They went to Chick-Fil-A, then came back to our house so Timothy could gather his things. I decided to join them to take Tim back home, them we were going to get some fast food for me, since Jim had already eaten. We ended up staying a while at Jason and Mittu’s house, and she put together a nice impromptu light meal. Plus she had some lemon blueberry bread–or cake–I think from Costco she wanted us to try. It was good! I felt bad about missing out on the afternoon with Tim. But I’m glad we had some family time together afterward.

Bonus: My peonies are popping! It had even more blooms, but I had cut some off to put in a vase. This photo reminds me not to cut blooms from the front!

Happy Friday!