Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts this opportunity to look back at the previous week and appreciate the good things in it. Sometimes we overflow with things to give thanks for; other times we have to dig for them. But this is a good exercise either way.

1. A long weekend. My husband took Friday off before Labor Day to have a four-day weekend. We had the kids over for grilled burgers Monday, and Mittu made a gorgeous cheesecake. Jason and Mittu brought over gluten-free cheese pizzas and assorted toppings Friday night and then had us to their house for Sunday lunch after church.

2. A new light fixture above the sink. The one we had was broken and held together with tape. Jim used one of his days off to replace it. I always feel bad when a home project turns into a bigger deal for him than we thought it would be. He had to make four trips to Home Depot. The first light he bought didn’t work with our configuration. The second turned out to be an off color. I don’t remember what the other two trips involved. But he finally got it in. Not only is it more pleasant to look at, but it’s much brighter.

3. A super clean tub and sink. My cleansers and scrubbers weren’t taking complete care of the stains in the sink and tub. Jim has a drill with a brush attachment and scoured both fixtures til they were gleaming.

4. A breakfast biscuit. Somehow in talking with the kids I mentioned that when I used to take them to school, I’d “reward” myself by getting a breakfast biscuit once a week or so. But because I’m not usually out early in the mornings any more, I hadn’t had one in a long while. The next morning, Jim had to go out for something and surprised me by bringing back Chick-Fil-A biscuit.

5. A good critique session. I mentioned recently joining a writing critique group. Everyone in the group has a chance to “present” several pages of their work for others to edit and offer suggestions. It does feel very vulnerable, but it is so valuable. Even with running our pages through a spelling and grammar checker, mistakes are missed. And then there are larger issues, like when a phrase or paragraph is confusing or something hits in an unintended way. This past week was my turn to present, and the comments were so kind (as I knew they would be, even though I felt nervous beforehand). I had a chance to ask for feedback afterwards and got lots of good ideas.

Bonus: We watched Timothy last night while his parents went on a date. They brought me this wonderful cookie in the cutest little box:

Just before sitting down to start this post, I heard of the passing of Queen Elizabeth. She was such a stabilizing factor over the course of such a long reign. My heart goes out to her family and British friends.

This is one of those Friday mornings where I sit down and think, “OK, what did happen this week?” I’m thankful that the Friday’s Fave Fives causes me to look back and evaluate and thereby see blessings that otherwise would have been missed in the blur of time passing so quickly. We join up with our hostess, Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story, to share the best parts of the week.

1. Quiet weeks. As much as I love having all the family here and doing lots of activities with them, and I’ve missed all that, it helps to have some quiet days with nothing on the calendar.

2. Help with a computer issue. I needed to do something simple: put a document in a particular group folder. But I couldn’t figure it out with the program I was using, and Google searches and tutorials didn’t seem to match what my screen was showing. When my husband got off work, I asked him if he was familiar with the program. He said, “Just barely.” But he looked at what I was trying to do and helped me figure out how to accomplish it. I not only appreciate having the problem solved and knowing what to do next time, but I am thankful for his willingness to help.

3. An impromptu get-together. We met Jason, Mittu, and Timothy at Olive Garden one day this week. That’s not a place we go often—I think this is maybe the fourth time in my life I have been there. But the food was good and the time together even better. Jim and I tried some Italian doughnuts for dessert–very good!

4. Encouraging words from a couple of directions.

5. Some new fun pens. Sometimes it’s the little things. 🙂 I saw some Flair pens advertised that are regular pens on one end but have designs on the other end–one color prints little flowers, another squiggly lines, etc. I got them to add fun little touches to notes.

I had mentioned some family outings briefly the last couple of weeks. I shared more details and photos about them here yesterday.

What’s something good from your week?

I enjoy this weekly tradition of stopping with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to remember and acknowledge the best parts of the week, to thank God for them and savor them just a little longer by sharing them.

This has been another very full and very good week.

1. My birthday. My family does a wonderful job making me feel special on my birthday. Their love and care took a bit of the sting out of this being a milestone birthday. We went out to one of my favorite restaurants for lunch, and Mittu made my favorite Texas Sheet Cake.

2. More family time. My oldest son was here for about ten days, and my husband was off for a week. The rest of the family was here more than usual, and we packed a lot of visiting, feasting, and game playing into our time together. Mittu made dinner a few times and Jesse had us over to his place for one dinner.

3. Fun outings. I’ll share more about these next week, but we had several outings together. One was a hot air balloon festival.

4. The family all together at church. Jason and Mittu and Jesse attend elsewhere, but while Jeremy was here, we all attended together on my birthday. That was a special blessing to my heart.

5. A made-for-me cup-holder. I like my cold drinks super-cold, so I often put them in the freezer for a bit. It’s even better if they get a little slushy. It’s never been a problem before, but last week my glass of orange juice tipped over and dripped down the side of the freezer, on every shelf below, and made a little puddle at the bottom. My husband has a little 3D printer and made this cup holder to keep spills from happening in there again.

I hope you’ve had a great week as well!

Once again we’re pausing for a bit with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to recount the blessings of the week. This has been one of those weeks with much more than five faves, but I’ll try to narrow it down. 🙂

1. Having the family all together. My oldest son came in from RI for a visit last Friday night and will be here a few days more. We’ve had lots great time all together chatting, eating, playing games. Then various combinations of family members visited in smaller groups. I love it.

2. Jeremy’s birthday. I’m so glad he could be here for it.

3. Several fun outings. We went to a car show, which included a kids’ area with Nerf target shooting, balloon animals, and other similar things. Then over a couple of days we went to a BrickUniverse LEGO Fan Convention, a bubble tea place (I didn’t try it, but everyone else enjoyed theirs), a French creperie, the art museum . . . I think that’s all so far. I’ll elaborate on a couple of these on my end-of-month post or in a post of their own. It’s been nice to chill at home between outings.

4. A new critique group. I’ve been praying about finding a group to exchange writing with and get feedback from. I was invited to participate in one via Zoom and was delighted to see a few fellow bloggers there I have known a long time. We had an introductory meeting, and I am looking forward to future meetings.

5. Password is a show I watched as a kid, and there is a new iteration of it that just started airing last week. It’s a little too hyped-up, but otherwise I love the game itself.

What’s something good from your week?

It’s been a good week, but a busy one between an online conference last weekend and getting ready for my oldest son’s visit this weekend and his birthday a little later. I’m thankful to pause a moment with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and friends to note the blessings of the week.

1. The Enrich Conference for writers, speakers, and teachers hosted by the Kauffmans of Lighthouse Bible Studies and Refresh Bible Study Magazine. It was totally free (except the in-person attendees had hotel and food expenses)—the Kauffmans just did this as a ministry. The sessions were all so good.

2. Takeout dinners. The one problem with attending a conference online is that you still have home responsibilities to take care of between sessions. My dear husband graciously got dinners out for us so I could rest a bit between afternoon and evening sessions.

3. Jason and Mittu’s 13th anniversary. It’s been fun to have memories of their wedding week popping up on Facebook. Then and now:

4. A boys’ camping trip. Jim, Jason, and Timothy camped overnight at a place that was not exactly a “glamping” site, but was more than a sleeping bag on a tent floor. They had a good time.

5. A pretty view. Our crepe myrtle must have just grown out enough to be seen from my sewing room window—I don’t remember seeing its blooms there before this year. I enjoy the view not only when I am in the room, but when I walk by it as well.

What’s something good from your week?

It’s August! Many schools here have started or will next week. But to me, August still seems like summer. We seem to be in a pattern of high heat during the day and thunderstorms at night.I’m thankful we didn’t lose power one night during a torrential rain storm, though it blinked off for a few seconds several times. I wish I could send some of our rain to friends in TX.

We pause on Fridays with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to think over the blessings of the week lest they slip by without notice or thanksgiving.

1. A government phone call went well. Odd how you have to go to an agency, then have a phone appointment, then they send you a form, instead of doing it all at once. But it all went well and didn’t take very long.

2. Hummingbirds. We got our feeder up late this year, and it usually takes them several days to find us. But right away we had a little family of them (at least I think it’s a family) visiting several times a day. I see two flying around together frequently. Another one looks like a youngster since he’s smaller than the others, and he’s not as skittish as they are. Most of the time, the adults are flapping their wings and darting in and out as they drink. But the little guy lands and sips and looks around and sips some more. It’s fun to watch them.

3. A virtual conference. The Kauffmans of Lighthouse Bible Studies and Refresh Bible Study Magazine are hosting an Enrich Conference Thursday-Saturday this week for both in-person and online attendees. Katy Kauffman is one of my favorite writers at The Write Conversation and Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer’s Conference Blog, and I’ve taken one of her classes at the Carolina Christian Writer’s Conference. For all the negatives of the pandemic, one of the positives is being able to attend conferences online.

4. Feedly is working again. Feedly is the blog aggregator I use, and it was leaving out several blog posts over a few days. Then one day all the backlog came flooding in.

5. Our Ring camera. Jim was away one night when the Ring app alerted him that someone was at our door at 3 a.m. He called me and had me call 911 to have the police check around. As we looked at the Ring camera video, we saw a woman leaving something on our porch. When it became clear she wasn’t still around, while still on the phone with Jim, I opened the front door to find…a Door Dash delivery for someone named Elizabeth. Either Door Dash was given the wrong address or the driver didn’t find it. But while it was scary to wake up to news of someone on the porch in the wee hours, it was a relief to find out the situation was not threatening.

And I did turn my own Ring notifications back on!

Have a great weekend!

I’m thankful we’re at the last Friday of July. I know we have several weeks before temperatures start cooling off, but each day brings us closer! We pause on Fridays with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to think over the past week and commemorate the blessings, large or small. Otherwise, we’d too easily overlook or forget them.

1. Lunch with a friend at Red Lobster. Great fellowship and wonderful food.

2. Gift cards from my family that I save up for lunches with friends.

3. A good haircut. I go to a walk-in place because it works better for me to go when I can rather than making an appointment. But even when the same person cuts my hair several times in a row, and even though I’ve had the same style for eons, the haircuts can vary. I was especially pleased with this one.

4. Good weather. Last weekend, my weather app showed potential thunderstorms every day this week. Thankfully, we’ve only had one, and it wasn’t bad.

5. Providence. My oldest son’s good friend went to the ER, and the doctor who “happened” to be there that day was an expert in the young man’s particular issues. It was a situation that could have gone undiagnosed and gotten much worse before anyone figured it out. Though the situation is quite serious, getting immediate help and treatment is a major blessing.

What’s one good thing from your week?

Here we are at another Friday. Time to pause for a few moments with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to think over the past week and remember the good parts.

1. Jason’s birthday. Always a joy to celebrate his arrival into this world.

Mittu made the cake. Isn’t it cute?

And, because this is the kind of family we are, I have to include Jesse’s photo bomb. 🙂

2. Lunch with a friend. I think this is the first time I’ve gone out with this friend since last fall—because she had a baby in the meantime. 🙂 We’ve been in touch and seen each other at church, but it was good to have an extended visit.

3. A technology fix. My toolbar on my blog went missing, and every time I replied to a comment on my blog, it made me log in again. I asked my oldest son about it, and he sent me this article about Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection. I had gotten a notice from them asking if I wanted to turn off sites’ ability to use tracking cookies. Well, sure. But evidently it’s a little too aggressive. The article showed me how to disable it for individual sites, so I did that on my blog. My tool bar came back and I was able to comment normally again. Plus it seemed to fix the problems I was having commenting on a few sites. It’s definitely a first-world problem, but an annoying one, and it’s such a relief to have it fixed.

4. Safety and electricity. Wednesday night, we had one of the most intense storms I’ve experienced in a long time. Torrential rains and almost constant flashes of lightning, but not much thunder. We lost power for almost 24 hours. A neighbor’s fence was damaged on one side of his yard. A lot of people reported downed trees and branches and flooded roads on our community Facebook page.

We’re pretty well set when the power goes out. Jim has all kinds of camping equipment, and he powered up the RV Thursday morning with its generator for a few hours in order to do some work and have access to make breakfast, dry hair, etc. But it’s still a relief to have everything back on and back to normal.

I’m also thankful he was here. He was due to travel this week, but his trip got canceled.

5. A new discovery. Jim was on the patio one day when he noticed a weird bug flying around and sipping from some flowers in one of the planters. He filmed it in slow motion and showed the rest of us later. It looked like a cross between a hummingbird, a bee, and a moth. Jason looked it up, and it’s a hummingbird moth. I had never heard of them before. Ours was a pretty good size and had clear wings and looked like the ones in these pictures. I wish I could put Jim’s video up, but this is one I found on YouTube:

It’s fun to discover wonders in your own back yard!

Bonus: We watched Timothy for a few hours Monday night while Jason and Mittu had a meeting. He and Granddad enjoyed some Kinect Sports (video game) competitions.

How was your week?

Time just keeps ticking away. Funny how it always does so at the same rate, but feels fast or slow. I’m thankful Susanne at Living to Tell the Story started this tradition of pausing for just a bit on Fridays to think through the blessings of the last week. If we don’t deliberately look for them, we too often miss or forget them.

Here are a few of my favorite moments of the last week.

1. The radio interview I mentioned last week went well despite scaring me by starting off with some technical glitches. Thankfully everything suddenly started working right (thank you, Lord!), and the interview was able to continue. Here’s a link to the interview, recorded by my oldest son.

2. A visit. Mittu texted one night that Timothy said he “really needed to see Gran and Grams,” so they asked of they could come over and bring chicken fried rice and banana bread. Well, of course! The banana bread was more like banana cake, with chocolate chips and a glaze on top. So good! Then another night they brought some gourmet popcorn and flavoring.

3. Indulgences. Jim has been very nice to acquiesce to my requests for takeout when I’ve been busy, tired, or very hot.

4. Sweet gestures. When Jim came in from the yard one day, he brought one of these little flowers because the darker pink looked like a heart, and I like heart-shaped things. I put it on my desk these week, and have enjoyed marveling at how detailed it is.

5. Relief. I’ve had some kind of weird off and on headache this week. At first I thought it felt like a sinus infection, but it hasn’t been behaving like one. It’s lessening a little each day, but still fades in and out a little.

How about you? Have you had highlights in your week?

We’re a week into July already. Time goes by so quickly, it’s nice to pause for a moment and recollect the best parts of the week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Safety and comfort. This has been a week of extremes. We had heat warnings a couple of days as the heat index made the temperatures outside feel even higher (108F one day). Then we had strong thunderstorms three days, with 1-inch hail one evening. I’m thankful we didn’t lose power, though the lights flickered a few times. I’m thankful also that we didn’t sustain any damage from the wind or hail.

2. The 4th of July. Freedom, family, food, and fireworks. Doesn’t get much better than that. 🙂 We can’t have fireworks in our county, but we could see some displays from our back yard. Thankfully, the weather was nice that day.

3. Favorite Asian take-out. There is an Asian restaurant we like, but it’s a little too far away to get take-out. But it’s not as far from church, so we stopped there to get dinner and bring it home Sunday. Good stuff–and the servings were enough for two more lunches of leftovers.

4. Free prescriptions. The last time I picked up prescriptions, there was no charge, even for a very expensive one. I didn’t process things enough in the moment to ask why there was no charge. When Jim picked up some others this week, he asked. They said that happens when our deductible is paid with our insurance. I had a colonoscopy back in January which met our deductible. But I don’t remember this ever happening before. He confirmed that the drugstore was getting paid what they were due. I guess that’s one advantage to having a procedure early in the year!

5. Things to look forward to. We booked my oldest son’s flights for his visit in August. Plus we’ll see some of my family later in the fall.

To let you know: The folks who interviewed me a couple of times before, Kurt and Kate Mornings on Moody Radio Florida, asked to interview me again on Tuesday, July 12, around 8:10 a.m. EDT or shortly thereafter. They want to talk about my blog post on regret. There’s a link on their page to listen live if you’d like to. Plus I’ll try to have someone record it like we did before. I’d appreciate your prayers!