Here we are at another Friday and the end of another month. Time just keeps marching on, doesn’t it? That’s why it’s good to pause occasionally and reflect on the blessings of the week before they pass out of memory. I’m joining with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story. You have a standing invitation to join in!

1. Ladies’ Brunch at church. This is the first ladies’ function I’ve been able to attend at this church. I love brunch foods. They played a variation of speed friending. I enjoyed getting to know the ladies at my table as well as talking with people I hadn’t crossed paths with yet during the game. Through the game, I found a number of other readers, as well as some who liked the classics!

2. A good visit with a new doctor. I was sad that my former gastroenterologist retired last year. He had done some testing and ruled a few things out, but hadn’t really figured out yet what my issues were. I wasn’t looking forward to starting over with someone new. But I was impressed that the new (to me) doctor actually read my file before coming in to see me. It seems like, usually, no matter what’s on file or what you’ve written in the multitude of forms you have to fill out, the doctor still wants you to start from the beginning. But we were able to jump right in. She recommended a couple of things to try that were non-prescription (which I was thankful for), and I am supposed to check back with her in six months.

3. My husband has done most of the grocery shopping since he retired in December. I was feeling guilty about that, but he assured me he doesn’t mind. Then this week he took some things to the post office for me and ran some other errands.

4. Family text threads. We have a group text for our immediate family where we share everything from family news to funny memes to pictures of weird things we see out and about. Then my siblings and I have a group thread on Messenger.

5. Sunshine. We’d had cold, overcast, rainy days, so it felt good to see the sun again.

I wish you all a blessed Easter remembering God’s great love in giving His Son to die for our sins so we could be forgiven and have a relationship with Him.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
(2 Corinthians 5:21)

I often remark how the week has flown by, but this one seemed faster than most. I often keep a running list of what to include in each week’s Friday’s Fave Fives. Somehow I didn’t this week, and I am scrambling to remember what actually happened. 🙂 That’s one of many things this exercise is good for: encouraging us to stop, consider, remember, and be thankful. I’m grateful for our hostess, Susanne, at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Strands, another once-a-day game from the NY Times in the same family as Wordle and Connections. It’s sort of like Boggle or Ruzzle in that you find words in a grid of several letters. But each letter is only used once, and all the words have a common theme. Jesse, my youngest son, introduced me to it. I like these things not only because they’re fun, but they’re good brain exercise.

2. Taco or pita holders. My husband made these with his 3-D printer. I told him he should make more and sell them on Etsy.

The one on the right holds two, or it can be turned over to hold three.

3. Another quiet week. Some of the spring-break-canceled activities were back this week, but otherwise, there were no events or appointments til this weekend. I enjoy activities once I’m actually there, but I *love* quiet weeks. I’ve got some medical appointments over the next three weeks and had several earlier this year, so it was nice to have a couple of appointment-free weeks.

4. Our writing critique group. I may have mentioned this before. We meet every other week via Zoom and take turns offering our edits and critiques on one person’s work each session. Then we added a fifteen minute free-time extension for those who could stay just to talk about writing or publishing, ask questions, etc. I’m so inspired by the discussions, no matter whose work we’re discussing.

5. Prayer. Some in our church are going through rough times. It’s such a blessing not only to pray for them, but to hear the care and concern as people ask about them.

And that’s a wrap for this week! How was yours?

It’s Friday once again, time to share the blessings of the week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. A clear week. Our church has a school which is out this week for spring break. So our usual Wednesday night activities were canceled this week, too–I guess because so many people travel this week. Plus our writing critique group meets every other week, and this was an off week. I enjoy all of those activities, but it’s also nice to have some extra time. And, for the first time in weeks, I haven’t had some type of appointment to get to. Lovely!

2. Free books. Our church’s school library was thinning out some books and left them on a table in the church lobby for browsers to pick up. I got three classics.

3. Pi Day. We had a pie potluck for Pi Day (3.14). I made hamburger pie and Mittu made a Chicago-style pizza for dinner. I made Chocolate Pretzel Pie and Mittu made banana cream pie for dessert. We had talked about going to Blaze Pizza that day, as they have their pizzas on sale for $3.14 then. But we figured they’d be swamped.

4. A clever and hard-working husband. I mentioned being the recipients of my youngest son’s fairly new washer and dryer last week when he bought a house with a stackable set. His dryer is electric, and our current one is gas. We talked about whether to sell his electric one and buy a gas one. I proposed the idea that it might help resale value to have an electric line for a dryer as well as a gas hook-up, so the laundry room could accommodate either one. I didn’t realize how involved that process would be. Jim had to run wire from the laundry room up to the attic and across to the breaker box, set aside a breaker especially for the dryer, install the outlet especially for the dryer, and change the plug on it to a four-pronged rather than a three-pronged one so it would be up to the current code standards. In one significant blessing, when Jim was at Home Depot, the worker there who asked if he needed help finding anything knew just what he needed, where it was, what the current code standards were, etc.

5. Getting rid of the old washer and dryer. I knew Jim wouldn’t want to just trash the old washer and dryer, since they still had some life in them. But we didn’t think it would be a good idea to donate them to the thrift store since there was no telling how long they’d last. So he listed them on the local sales page on Facebook with an honest description. We had a few offers right away. Someone bought them for $75 and came and picked them up. It was nice to have them taken away so quickly.

And that wraps up another week! It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through March already!

This week has been a mixture: sunshine and clouds, high points and low. I guess that’s life, isn’t it? We like to take time on Friday’s to count the blessings of the week. It’s amazing how many we find when we start to look. Susanne is out hostess at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Moving day for Jesse. Our youngest son moved into his new-to-him house last weekend, and we all pitched in to help. Jason and Timothy weren’t feeling well, but made it our for the afternoon, thankfully. Jason and Mittu thoughtfully brought cleaning supplies, paper products, and brownies. By the end of the day, we had the major furniture in place and the kitchen and bathroom unpacked. So we left him in pretty good shape.

2. New-to-me washer and dryer. Jim has worked on our washer and dryer many times over the years. He said the last time was the actual last time—the next time something went wrong with either of them, we’d replace them.

The previous owner of Jesse’s house left the washer and dryer there. It’s a stackable unit, fitting perfectly in the closet space provided for them. Jesse offered to trade his washer and dryer, but they didn’t need them. So he gave them to us! They’re only two or three years old. Jim hasn’t had a chance to change them out with our old ones, but I am looking forward to them.

3. Jim’s birthday. Always a joy to celebrate him.

I got those cute candles, along with plates and napkins with a camping theme, at Party City. I don’t have Mittu’s cake-decorating skills, but I borrowed one of her ideas to chop up Reese’s cups to make a path, and sprinkled green sugar to look like grass.

4. Something found. When I started decorating after we first moved in almost 14 years ago, I couldn’t find a particular favorite piece of wall art that I wanted to put up. I assumed it somehow got lost in the shuffle. Jim found it in a box in the garage last week. I’m not sure where to put it now, but I am happy to have it again. It’s small, about 5×6″. So I should be able to find a spot for it.

5. Everyone better. All of us except Jeremy have wrestled physical issues this week. Jason and Timothy have colds. Mittu had a fever a couple of days. Jesse had nausea and vomiting earlier in the week; Jim was nauseous yesterday. I’ve had a toothache, which led to antibiotics for a tooth infection and an appointment for a tooth extraction in a few weeks. Thankfully, everyone is doing better now, though Jason and Timothy still have a lingering cough.

Happy Friday!

I love to turn the calendar to a new month’s page. In one sense, it’s just the next day after the last one. But there’s something about looking ahead to birthdays and holidays of the month as well as the unfilled days.

Fridays, though, we look back at the week that so quickly passed by to search for and acknowledge the good things before their memory slips away from us. Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts this weekly gathering. Feel free to join in!

1. A visit to the Ark Encounter in KY, which I described here. (My apologies to those of you who have seen this referenced three times this week. 🙂 Some who read my monthly recaps or Friday’s Fave Five only visit here for those posts.) The opportunity came through a friend of Jason and Mittu’s offering us free tickets, good through February.

2. Amazon gift cards. I was looking through gift cards I had received but had not put in my purse yet, and was surprised to find two Amazon gift cards I had forgotten about. It was like receiving a gift all over again.

3. Hand towels from Mittu’s mother. She visited them for a long weekend and gave me some hand towels that she had crocheted a strap for, as well as some trivets. These are nice to keep the towel from sliding off the rod.

4. An agreeable prescription. I mentioned last time that my bone density test had shown “a little thinning.” I was called in to talk to the doctor about it and was a little miffed that we couldn’t just discuss it over the phone. But he agreed that since the bone loss was so minimal at this point, I could just take calcium supplements and engage in weight-bearing exercises. He mentioned a few available medications, but I didn’t want to start those if I didn’t have to. One bonus about being there in person, though, was that I was able to ask him about the wounds that caused me so much trouble over the last several weeks. They had healed over but were still discolored. The doctor said they looked fine and the redness in some areas did not indicate infection.

5. Closing for Jesse’s house. We had a couple more hiccups in the process this week, but finally all the papers were signed. He’s excited to move in this weekend.

Bonus: Daffodils are blooming already!

That wraps up February!

It’s astonishing to me that February is almost over. Busy days make the time fly faster. I’m pausing today with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to share a few favorite parts of the past week.

1. Lunch with Melanie last Friday. We usually get together once every 4-6 weeks. But due to illness of one or both of us and bad weather, we hadn’t seen each other since early December. We had a lot to catch up on.

I had gift cards to Cracker Barrel, making our get-together a double treat. I usually choose from regular favorites there, but tried something new this time: a platter of sirloin tips, grilled chicken tenders, and shrimp. The sirloin was a bit disappointing, but everything else was delicious.

2. Mittu’s birthday. It was a joy to celebrate my daughter-in-law. (Jason made the cake!)

I have no idea about Timothy’s expression. 🙂 He’s at that age where he likes to make funny faces for pictures.

3. Church missions conference. In other churches I’ve been in, missions conference is three to six nights long. The church we’re in now has a missions conference on Sundays over three weeks with different missionary speakers. I love that it’s spread out rather than so much crammed together. The speaker last Sunday had been a missionary in China for several decades. Hearing how God was working and what people would risk just to be able to hear God’s Word taught was both inspiring and rebuking.

4. Scans done. Getting the yearly mammogram and biennial bone density test over with is always a pleasure. But it was especially so this year because they’d had to be rescheduled several times. It’s nice to have them DONE and off the calendar. I just heard back this morning (Thursday) that the mammogram results were fine, but the bone density test showed “a little thinning” for the first time. I’m supposed to go in next week to hear what to do about it–hopefully nothing worse than taking calcium supplements. I asked if we couldn’t just discuss it over the phone, but that doesn’t appear to be an option.

5. Fencing. Longtime readers may remember a few years ago that a row of 50 trees across our back property line got some disease and died. After the ordeal of getting them cut down and hauled away, my husband found some vinyl fencing on Craig’s list which he cleaned and put up in place of the trees for some privacy. We’ve talked about someday adding to the fence line to enclose the back yard and sides. But new fencing is expensive. This week, my husband found the same type and color used fencing for sale on Facebook. He drove two and a half hours today to pick it up.

Bonus: Good news. My oldest son had undergone a series of medical tests and got word this week that the problem is none of the scary things we were concerned about. My youngest son’s loan was approved for his first house purchase, so he’s all set for closing.

Happy Friday! I hope you’ve had a good week!

Happy Friday! I enjoy this weekly gathering to recount the good, the blessed, the positive parts of our week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story. Please feel free to join in.

1. Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. We enjoy celebrating it as a family with heart-shaped treats on heart-shaped plates, cards expressing love and appreciation, food, conversation, and fun.

2. Cute, creative garlic bread made by Mittu:

3. Parchment paper. Growing up, the only parchment I knew anything about was used for calligraphy. I didn’t know anything about parchment paper for cooking. Even once I knew about it, I never used it because I didn’t know its advantages. I’ve only recently begun to use it frequently to help food not stick to pans and make cleanup easier. Wonderful stuff!

4. Conflict resolution and good customer service people. There was a mix-up on eBay with something my husband sold, and it was going to cost him a few hundred dollars. Multiple attempts to communicate failed to yield any results. Finally he got hold of a real person who listened, understood the issue, and was able to rectify it.

5. Everyday love. As much as I love Valentine’s Day in all its expressions, it wouldn’t mean as much if love weren’t shown in everyday ways. I’m thankful for family and friends who are thoughtful, helpful, prayerful, loving, and kind in everyday ways.

The Fridays just keep coming faster and faster. I’m thankful Susanne at Living to Tell the Story encourages us to pause for a few minutes every week and focus on the good things that have happened. This practice reminds us that good things have happened, that we can be thankful for them, and helps them last a bit longer before we pass to the next week.

1. Dinner and game night. Last week, Mittu and Jason brought over dinner and Settlers of Cataan. They had taught Timothy to play while they were snowed in a couple of weeks ago. We had not played it often as a family the last few years because it’s a long game, and we didn’t want to leave Timothy out while the rest of us were playing. So it’s nice he can participate now.

2. Gas discount. This happened last week, but I forgot to mention it. Getting gas was among my errands one day. We shop at two different grocery stores, both of which have gas stations and gas reward points. I usually get gas at one, but this time decided to stop at the other. I didn’t know that I had enough points for $1.20 off per gallon. Plus they expired the next day! The other station only allows $1 off at a time, no matter how many reward points you have. But this one allowed for the whole $1.20. This amounted to about $18 savings for almost a full tank of gas.

3. Jesse’s house. I mentioned that my youngest, Jesse, has been house-hunting. He put an offer on one, and things have been falling into place. The inspection showed a few problems, but nothing major. The seller was willing to take care of the one thing we most wanted her to. Then the appraisal came in just a bit below the asking price, but the seller was willing to drop the price to the appraisal rate. So it looks like everything is a go!

4. Nice weather. We’ve been in the 50s most days, even the 60s some days. I know winter hasn’t had its last hurrah yet, but I am enjoying the moderate temperatures while we have them.

5. New routines. I don’t like a rigid schedule: it feels too pressured. But I operate best with some kind of routine. Since Jim retired at the end of last year, and with all the sickness of January, we’ve not known what to expect every day. But now we seem to be settling into something of a flexible pattern.

How was your week?

Yay for the first Friday in February! The weather is cold, but after single digits in January, 30+ degrees doesn’t feel so bad. I’m joining Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story in sharing five good things from the past week.

1. Bird feeders. I had been neglecting them, but my husband filled them the last couple of weeks. The birds are slowly finding them again, mainly chickadees and cardinals so far.

2. Getting back to church. I’m abundantly thankful church is available live online. We benefited from it through weeks of illness. But it was so good to be able to be there in person again.

3. An outing. I had a doctor’s appointment Tuesday, then went to Hobby Lobby to get some supplies for Valentine’s cards. I had a gift card, so I indulged in some pretties for the kitchen as well.

4. A long overdue haircut does wonders in helping me feel put together rather than a mess.

5. A good visit with Timothy. I mentioned in my end-of-month wrap-up that our church held a parenting seminar last weekend. We watched Timothy so Jason and Mittu could go. Though he’s comfortable with us, he had never been with us quite that long before–one evening plus the next morning and early afternoon. But he did fine. He and his Granddad played games, including checkers–the standard way at first, then making up their own rules. 🙂

How was your week?

I was so sorry to miss Friday’s Fave Five last week. It’s the first time in ages I’ve missed. I wrote a family update to share that we’d had layers of sickness and happenings. Thankfully, we’re doing better, though we’re still not 100% healed.

I’m glad to share again with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Hot water. Our hot water heater died on Jan. 3. The new one didn’t arrive until Jan. 14. But with snow and ice that next week, Jim wanted to wait to start work on it until he was sure Home Depot would be open and accessible in case he needed anything while working on it. It was finally successfully installed last Friday, the 19th! I’m thankful we had a camp shower, but even more thankful to have a regular one back. Plus it’s nice to wash our hands in warm rather than freezing water.

2. Safety in snow and ice. It’s unusual for our area to get almost ten inches of snow. It’s even more unusual for it to stay around for more than a week. But single-digit temperatures not only kept the snow, it turned it into blocks of ice. We have trucks that put salt and sand on the main roads, but otherwise we’re not equipped to deal with ice and snow since we don’t often have it. School was out for more than a week (though they probably had online classes). Mail trucks didn’t run those days, either, at least not in neighborhoods like ours..

I was thankful that none of our family lost power or had pipes break. In fact, I didn’t hear of anyone we know of experiencing that.

3. Normalcy. I didn’t lose my sense of taste with Covid, but certain things regular things just didn’t have any appeal or hit wrong (that may have been due to illness or medicines as well). My taste is pretty much back to normal and my digestive system is getting there. It’s been nice to get back to normal energy levels and routines. Two of the four infected wounds that set off cellulitis are healed; the two biggest ones concern me because they still look infected. They are improving steadily, though, if slowly. (I’d appreciate your prayers for that to heal completely.)

4. My dear husband took care of me, did all the errands and grocery shopping, heated frozen entrees for himself when all I could eat was canned chicken soup, and figured out how to install a hot water heater, all while he wasn’t feeling well, himself. He’s doing better and tests negative for Covid now, but still has a lingering cough and congestion.

5. A picture of my grandmother. One of my cousins sent me some old photos this week. I asked if he had any of our grandmother, particularly one that looked like it was for a church directory. I’d seen it but somehow never had a copy. Within minutes he messaged it to me. That’s such a treasure. Previously, I’d only had one old blurry one of her on a beach and another about thirty years ago when we visited her on our way to see my family in TX.

I hope you’re staying warm and safe and well where you are