It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

I mentioned last week’s FFF that my mother-in-law had taken a turn for the worse. For those of you who may not have seen my post last weekend, she did pass away peacefully Friday night. We haven’t actually had the funeral yet. In order to accommodate multiple schedules, it is set for next week. Because of that, Jim had to work this week – he couldn’t take both this week and next off. We’ve been working on all that’s involved in planning a funeral – we had done some things beforehand, but didn’t realize just how much there was to do. But I think everything that the funeral home director needed is to him now.

We’re doing well. We rejoice that her suffering is over and she’s with the Lord. But we do miss her. The hardest thing this week is all the everyday changes: our schedule had been built around her care, and the first few days we kept having the feeling that it was time to make her lunch, time to change her or get her ready for bed, time for the caregiver or bath aide to come. I’m sure that will lessen as we settle into a new normal. I will probably do a post dedicated to her after the funeral, after I’ve had time to process.

In the meantime, even during difficulty, there are bright spots along the way, large and small mercies of God. Here are a few from this week:

1. Sunshine. It seems like it has been overcast for weeks, rainy many days. The bright sunshine a couple of days has been uplifting.

2. Kind thoughts and comments. Your comments on my mother-in-law’s passing, comments of Facebook friends, and cards starting to come in have all blessed us.

3. A granddad and grandson project. My husband’s brother sent him this a few weeks ago to do with Timothy, but they hadn’t had a chance til this week. They had fun putting it together and then catapulting several things. 🙂

4. New haircut and stylist. The stylist I’ve seen for years resigned to have her fourth child. She recommended one of the other stylists to me, but I either hadn’t had a chance or hadn’t felt like going. I finally went yesterday, and the new stylist was great. She’s friends with the stylist I had been seeing, so I even got to see some baby pictures and hear how she was doing. And I didn’t realize til she punched my little card (with which, after ten visits, I can get a free haircut) that I hadn’t been there since October – no wonder I felt so scraggly! Nothing like getting one’s hair in shape to make one feel freshened up. 🙂

5. Ad blockers. My computer was having problems yesterday, and while working on it my husband turned off the ad blocker add-on for Firefox. When I started using the computer this morning, I was astounded at how many and how annoying the ads were on different programs! I don’t mind a few ads – I know free sites have to be paid for somehow. But when a page is overrun with them or especially if they are moving and changing, it’s hard to get anything done. As soon as I remembered the ad blocker was off, I turned it back on! And, I might add, having a computer working like it’s supposed to greatly brightens my day as well!

I’m not sure how much I will be posting next week, but after that I should be back to a normal schedule.

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

Many of you know that we have cared for my husband’s mother in our home for the last 5 1/2 years. She has taken a sudden turn for the worse in the last few days, and it appears she is on the last stretch of her journey here. So this has been a difficult week in many respects. Because of that I almost didn’t do a FFF – I wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate. But it’s always appropriate to notice and thank God for blessings, large and small. So here are some of the brightest moments:

1. Catching up with an old friend. My husband’s pastor’s kids attended high school and college with him, and their family was like his second family. One of them was in town for an appointment earlier this week and asked if we could get together, so we had him here for lunch. It was so good to catch up with him and hear news of the rest of the family.

2. Frozen broth. When I made broth from the Christmas ham bone for ham and potato soup in December, I had a lot extra, so I put it in the freezer. It was nice to be able to pull that out for a special lunch with our friend. And I realized, as I was cutting up potatoes and thawing the broth, that I didn’t even have to add seasonings as that had already been done – another plus.

3. Encouraging words from friends at just the right moment.

4. Cleaning up bushes out front was on my husband’s agenda the last few weeks of December when he was off, but he wasn’t able to get to it. He spent last Saturday afternoon on them, and they look so much better.

5. God’s timing. Our church is reading through 1 Corinthians, and wouldn’t you know the great “resurrection chapter,” chapter 15, came up in our reading for today, when my m-i-l is in the worst condition she has been so far. Verse 26 calls death the last enemy. Whether it occurs suddenly, as with my mom, or in a slow decline, as with my husband’s mom, it’s awful either way. It is an enemy, and it’s ok to hate it. But the gospel in verses 3 and 4, that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again, takes the “sting” out of death. We know, when she passes, that some day we’ll see her again, along with our other loved ones who have gone before, though we miss them til then.

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

For some reason I am still in the “What day is this?” mode from the holidays. I don’t know why, as we’ve been back into the regular routine for a week now. But I did remember that it’s Friday, and time for FFF! Here are some of my favorite parts of the last week:

1. A valuable find. I keep some not-read-yet books in the bottom drawer of my nightstand. I hadn’t opened that drawer in I-don’t-know-when, but I did this week to see if I could make room for some new books. The books that were there were dusty, so I decided to clean them off. Then I ended up taking everything out to clean and organize and discovered – a $100 bill in the bottom of the drawer! I certainly didn’t remember missing $100. I don’t even have a $100 bill very often. After being mystified for days, wondering how it got there, I faintly remembered receiving it in a card from my husband on some gift-giving occasion. Not wanting to carry it around with me in my purse, I put it in the drawer for safekeeping. So it was like getting a gift all over again! And a smaller bonus: I got reacquainted with what I had in that drawer and did make space for more.

2. Another valuable find. I’d been missing my favorite umbrella for months. I checked the places I thought I might have left it, but couldn’t find it. It was special both because it was pretty and because my husband gave it to me. I didn’t have it on a “wish list,” which we usually exchange for gift-giving ideas: it was just something he saw that he thought I might like. So I mourned its loss for a while. But he discovered it this week – in the glove compartment of my van. I don’t know how it got there, either! I keep it on the passenger-side floorboard, and all I can figure is that one of the boys rode on the side seat once and put the umbrella in the glove compartment to get it out of their way.

These two finds make me think I should do a thorough spring cleaning! 🙂

3. Sleep. I felt like my body was trying to come down with something this week. On one particular day, every time I sat down for long, I fell asleep. But I think that was my body’s way of fighting off whatever this is. I still have a scratchy throat and am blowing my nose often, but I don’t have the heavy, boggy sinus pressure any more. Hopefully I headed a worse cold off at the pass.

4. Make your own pizza night. I found these single-serving pizza crusts in both regular and gluten-free, then set out pizza sauce and various toppings for everyone to put together their own. The downside was that some had to wait because the oven couldn’t accommodate everyone’s at once. But since they took less than ten minutes to bake, the wait wasn’t too very long. Dinner was both fun and tasty!

5. Cleaning out the sewing/craft room closet. No, this wasn’t inspired by # 1 and 2. 🙂 It’s the place I stick things I don’t know what to do with yet, and it was stuffed. I’m only about halfway done, but I feel much better about it and it’s much more usable already. I hope to finish by the weekend, if not before.

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

The first FFF of the new year! And 2019 has been good so far! It helps so much to start off the year counting one’s blessings. Here are five of mine from the last week:

1. The Dolly Parton Stampede. We’ve gone a couple of times before, but that was before Timothy came along. We felt it might be overwhelming to him in years past, but we thought he might enjoy it this year. The pre-show was a little too noisy and too much for him, but he enjoyed the rest of it. A fun family outing!

2. New Year’s Eve. We’re not big partiers, but we enjoyed bowling and lunch at a Mexican food place, then we had nachos for dinner and played games with the family. We turned on the TV just long enough for the countdown and the ball drop. We had sausage, cheese, crackers, and ham salad for snacks as well as gluten free blondies.

3. Family time. My oldest son was here through New Year’s Day, and it was so nice to have the whole family together for a while longer. My husband is off til Monday. I realized just before Jeremy left that we hadn’t gotten a family picture together, so we took a quick family selfie.

Although saying good-bye never gets easier, we were thankful that all of Jeremy’s flights home departed and landed on schedule and he had no problems getting home. That’s the first time that has happened in a long time!

4. New calendars are one of my favorite things. All those nice clean pages!

5. Home depot shopping and planning. Our master bathroom has carpet, and it has been our plan ever since we moved in to take that up and replace it. Jim has brought home samples of flooring, but yesterday was our first time to look at it together. And we made a decision! And, it looks like this will lead to something of a makeover. We looked at paint for the walls and talked about painting the cabinet and changing out the hardware on it, too. I’m so excited! Plus the outing, perusing, and planning was fun.

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Here are some of the best parts of the last week.

1. Our 39th anniversary. I know I mentioned that last week – but it was in the morning before we celebrated. 🙂 We went out to a favorite restaurant while my son and d-i-l stayed with Great-grandma. Then we exchanged cards at bedtime (our ritual for years), and on another night my daughter-in-law made us a special dinner.

2. Having all the family together. My oldest son came in last weekend and is here for several days, and Jason, Mittu, and Timothy have been here quite a bit. Though I hope we’ll always celebrate Christmas together, I don’t take that for granted.

3. Christmas Day, of course, with a special breakfast, reading the Christmas story, the happy chaos of opening gifts and sharing the details associated with them, a great dinner, naptime, and leftovers, pie, and games in the evening.

A couple of Timothy’s new gifts:

4. Christmas cards and newsletters. Though the number dwindles each year, I love sending and receiving Christmas cards, catching up with news in people’s Christmas letters, and seeing family photos.

5. A new iPad mini. I use my iPad mini quite a lot, doing most of my Kindle reading there and playing word games with my sisters, among other things. I have been frustrated with it for months due to extremely slow loading and apps crashing. One app would not update, and when I checked to see why, it said it needed a higher operating system than what I had – and my device apparently didn’t update any further (it’s operating system was 9.-something, while my phone’s is 12.1). So that was evidently what was causing my other problems with the iPad. I told my husband about the issues and asked if he could keep a lookout for a deal on a new iPad mini. He surprised me by giving me one for Christmas. We got it set up last night, and it’s so refreshing to have everything work well and speedily. So I am thankful not only for a good working device, but the thoughtfulness behind it.

Enjoy the rest of 2018!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

I imagine this week is as busy for you as it has been for me, so I’ll make it short and sweet today. 🙂

1. Making Christmas cookies with Timothy.

2. Good food and fellowship! Our church had a potluck dinner after services on Sunday, and then I had lunch out with a friend later in the week.

3. A text from my husband that he was making dinner. And not just any dinner! He had gotten some beef and chicken, marinated them, and cooked them in the sous vide cooker my oldest son had made for him. Not only was that helpful during a busy week, but it was really good!

4. A big answer to a small prayer. I’ll say more about it later, but I acknowledged while bringing it before God that my request was relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. I’d adjust if it wasn’t granted, but it would be a major blessing to me to have the answer I was seeking. To see God abundantly bless in response just touched my heart that He cares about all the concerns of His children.

5. Our 39th anniversary is today!

I hope your week is going well, and I wish you a wonderful Christmas!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

The days keep ticking by, and here we are halfway through December already! Funny how time keep the same pace, yet seems faster or slower than it really is. Friday’s Fave Five provides a time to slow down and savor a bit. Here are some favorite parts of the last week:

1. Lunch with a friend – not the friend I have often mentioned meeting with. We’ve had each other’s families over for dinner, but this was our first lunch get-together – and I look forward to more!

2. A family outing. My son and daughter-in-law invited us to a Christmas craft fair near the downtown area last Saturday. The craft fair itself was kind of a bust – a lot of essential oils, bath bombs, and home maintenance stuff, like gutter guards. Very few actual handmaid crafts (except I guess the oils and bath stuff might have been handmade, but, still – not at all like the craft fairs I used to attend. And artificial scents give me a headache anyway.) But right near the end we found some nice handmade items and a few gifts. The outing was fun even though the fair itself didn’t live up to my expectations. Timothy got some free treats. 🙂 Then we went to lunch at a favorite downtown restaurant. I’m so glad Knoxville’s downtown area isn’t overwhelming like those of larger cities where we have lived. I brought this chocolate-covered peanut butter cookie home for later from the restaurant – sooo good!

3. Ticking things off the ol’ Christmas to-do list. I finished the family newsletter and Christmas cards this week and got those sent out. I think I have most of the shopping done except for a few items I need to confer with my husband about. I’ve made a dent in the wrapping and have two packages to send out tomorrow (Friday – I am writing this Thursday). I make Christmas cards for the immediate family, so I need to start those – hopefully tomorrow. And somewhere in the next week I hope to get a haircut.

4. Free books. A few weeks back I won Adam’s quarterly mini-challenge for the TBR Pile Challenge, with the prize being the book of my choice from Book Depository (I chose 84, Charing Cross, one that has been on my to-read list for ages). I also won a copy of Karen Sebastian‘s book, The Power of Hope for Caregivers – I think as a result of a comment on her blog. An author whose newsletter I get offered a free Kindle copy of one of her books for subscribers, and Audible, as it does every December, offered its members a free gift. This year it’s The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. It’s quite good so far!

5. A snow day. I have to admit I don’t enjoy snow days as much as I did when the kids were young. Usually when it snows, my husband goes wherever he has to go anyway, and my mother-in-law’s caregivers or bath aides don’t come. But this time it snowed on Sunday. The caregiver did come and my husband didn’t have to be anywhere.

As you can see, there’s not much snow at this point, but we did get more. Since the road situation was iffy, our church cancelled services. Though I missed meeting with everyone, it was nice to have an unexpected whole day of rest. Jason and Mittu sent us a video of Timothy enjoying the snow.

And that’s it for this week! Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

The first Friday and FFF of December! Here are some of the best parts of my week:

1. “Christmas Tree Day,” as Timothy called it – the day we choose our tree and decorate it and the rest of the house for Christmas. I love that we still do this all together as a family. We set aside my oldest son’s special ornaments for him to add when he comes later this month. Mittu brought over chili and cornbread.

2. Rain holding off. The day we planned to get our tree, rain was forecast for the later morning. Then Saturday morning we woke up to steady rain. I prayed Friday night and Saturday morning that the rain would hold off at least until we got our tree home. It did – in fact, it held off until my husband got most of the outdoor decorations up as well. Our tree was pretty wet when we got it, but the drive home of top of the car dried it out pretty well. It touched my heart that God would grant that unessential, but heartfelt request.

3. Snowflakes on the ceiling – or decorating with boys. At our last house, there was a hook above where we set our Christmas tree, leftover from a hanging light or planter. One year one of the boys hung a plastic snowflake ornament up on that hook. I blustered about it but finally accepted it. Then it became a tradition to see who could get the snowflake ornament on that hook without my noticing. When we moved to this house, there was no hook on the ceiling, so one of them taped the snowflake to the ceiling. This year they took it up a notch:

If you can’t quite see them, there are snowflakes hanging all around the room. 🙂 One of the boys wanted to hang some from the ceiling fan blades…thankfully they didn’t go that far!

4. A movie with Jim. A week or two ago we watched An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, based on a Louisa May Alcott story. This week Jim and I watched its sequel, An Old-Fashioned Christmas. Jim is not all that into period dramas, so I appreciated his watching this with me. 🙂 We watched these through the Hallmark channel app on our Apple TV, but I imagine they are available to rent in the usual places.

5. Impromptu get-togethers. Besides planned outings, activities, and dinners, it’s fun when Jason, Mittu, and Timothy come over unexpectedly. Sunday nights have been “fend for yourself night” in the kitchen ever since the boys were old enough to run the microwave. We usually have something leftover or in the freezer, so everyone rummages around for their own preferences whenever they get hungry. Another impromptu gathering occurred last night when Mittu texted and asked if they could bring dinner over. Always! It was very good! And since Jim had been out of town for a couple of days, and I had the full care of his mom, it was nice to have dinner taken care of.

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

Let’s just plunge right in to this week’s faves:

1. An extra week. At first Thanksgiving felt too early, but I’m glad we had an extra week between Thanksgiving and December this year. We’ve started a bit of shopping, but it was nice to have a little breathing space between holiday activities.

2. Fantasy of Trees. We’ve never been to this before, but my son and daughter-in-law suggested going. It’s a fundraising event for the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital where area businesses decorate a tree and people can buy the whole thing. Some of the trees were just generic Christmas, and very pretty! But some had themes, like the Lego tree:

The UT tree:

The one made of cross-stitch ornaments:

One was covered in sloths. 🙂 They also had a gingerbread house contest and display and booths for kids to make wreaths, ornaments, cookies, etc.

And a carousel!

It was a fun time and definitely ignited my Christmas spirit! Then we went out to eat at a pizza place downtown.

3. A bit of straightening. I have a place in my closet where I leave packaging materials in case I need to return items and other things I just don’t know what to do with yet. That place needed some straightening to hide away Christmas presents. 🙂 So it felt good to get that done.

4. Rediscoveries. In the course of the straightening I found a clearance purchase from a Hobby Lobby trip several weeks ago. I remember I was rethinking this – it’s big and a little too shabby. But I guess the decision is made for me since it is too late to return it now. 🙂 It was marked down to $5, and I like the sentiment, a line from “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” I have some things on the other side of my laundry room, but this side was almost bare. This fit right in this empty space with a needed reminder.

5. Online ordering, both for general shopping and groceries. I’ve ordered groceries online from WalMart several times now. I have only had problems a couple of times, but they have been very quick to take care of any issues. This morning I a trying Kroger’s online ordering, and I hope that goes as well. I liked that you could apply their online coupons in the process of shopping. WalMart’s grocery pick-up is always free: Kroger’s is only free for the first three orders. I really like ordering groceries online: I hope more stores make that possible.

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

Are my American friends still in a food coma from Thanksgiving’s feasting? Or out the door at dawn to get the best Black Friday sales? Wherever you are, I hope you have had a good week. Here are some of the best parts of mine:

1. Thanksgiving, of course. Though we’re supposed to be thankful all the time, it’s nice to have this focus and to commemorate a special period in our country’s history. And to be with family and enjoy all the special foods! 🙂 I forgot to get a copy of Jason’s picture of the table spread, but I enjoyed Timothy’s Thanksgiving dish.

2. Successful experiments. Some time back I came across an easy recipe for gluten-free crescent rolls. Somehow I have never gotten them to successful crescent roll form – the first time they tended to fold rather than roll. But we remarked at the time that they were so flaky, they might be a good pie crust. So I tried the dough as a pie crust for the apple pie this year. When I took the pie out of the oven and saw the juices were boiling under the pie crust, I was fearful. But I figured if the crust didn’t turn out well, we could just scoop out the insides like a cobbler. But it was great! I liked it much better than store-bought frozen GF pie crusts. And then, earlier Jason had mentioned wanted to try roasted sweet potatoes, so I tried that for Thanksgiving dinner. Most of our family isn’t much into sweet potatoes, but those of us who tried them liked them.

3. Movies. So many movies contain unpleasant aspects these days, it was refreshing to see a couple that were both good and clean. I watched part of “An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving,” based on a Louisa May Alcott story (thanks to whoever mentioned that recently), with Jim joining me for part of it. Then we all watched “Christopher Robin” together. My kids grew up watching Winnie the Pooh, so I loved that many of the characters had similar voices as in the old videos and that songs from them were playing in the background at times. A sweet and really good movie.

4. Lunch with a friend. We had to reschedule multiple times due to one or the other of us – or both – being sick, but we finally got together last Monday and enjoyed catching up.

5. Another burlap wreath. When I got the supplies for the last one, I noticed this pretty lacy burlap ribbon. I decided I wanted to make a wreath out of it, but it was twice as expensive as the regular burlap. So I got the two spools I needed with two different 40% coupons over two different weeks. 🙂 I got the bow already-made this time, which I think is a little too big. But I wanted something simple in plain white, and this fit the bill. I put it on my mother-in-law’s door.

Since Thanksgiving was early this year, we’re going to hold off on Christmas decorating til next weekend. But we’ll likely do some online Christmas shopping over this weekend. 🙂 Happy Friday!