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

Some Fridays, it takes time and thought to come up with five good points from the previous week. Other times it is hard to contain the blessings into just five points. This week I have the latter good problem.

1. Jim’s mom turned 90.

I went to a party supply store specifically to look for plates and candles with “90” on them, but all they had was a package of black napkins! So we improvised. I don’t know if she quite understood the hoopla, but I hope she enjoyed it. A bonus: I had ordered a couple of hospital-type nightgowns from a place not known for its speedy delivery, and I was afraid they wouldn’t get here in time for her birthday. But they did!

2. Time off and a lunch date. Jim took time off work on Monday and Tuesday and got a number of things done around the house, mostly in the garage. The garage looks really nice now! We went out for a lunch date Tuesday. We tried a new restaurant and ended up not liking it (too-loud music and soggy, lukewarm food), but enjoyed the outing and time together.

3. Independence Day! Though our country has its flaws, I still think it’s the best in the world, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else (no offense to friends from others countries – I hope you feel the same way about yours). We had quite the feast, and even got to see a few fireworks in the distance from our front yard.

4. Not losing AC. After a loud clap of thunder during a storm, our air conditioning was still blowing air, but not cold air. My husband checked fuses and other issues, but couldn’t find a fixable problem, so we were resigned to calling an AC serviceman out the next day. Thankfully ceiling fans in a few rooms kept the temperatures manageable. By the next morning, the AC seemed to be back to normal on its own without a service call and has been working fine ever since.

5. Sunday lunch. For various reasons, my son and daughter-in-law ended up not being able to make it to their church last Sunday morning. They came over to our house and made lunch. It’s such a nice feeling to come home and have a meal already in process. We enjoyed a good visit.

Bonus: Jim and I watched “The Book Thief.” Wonderful movie, without the profanity of the book (unless it was in some of the German words I couldn’t understand)

And that wraps up our full 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.

I’m late today! Had a project to finish up. Here are some of the highlights of the last week or so:

1. Finally using a gift card. Someone gave us a gift card to a restaurant so long ago that I can’t even remember when. The restaurant was not nearby, and of course arranging care for Jim’s mom outside the usual time gets expensive, so we just never went. But we pass by this restaurant on the way to the church we’ve been visiting, and I commented a while back that we ought to stop there one Sunday after church. It finally worked out to do that this last weekend. The food was really good, and I enjoyed the time out – and of course someone else doing the cooking and cleaning up.

2. Air conditioning. I’ve seen this floating around Facebook.

3. Finishing books. I love reading, but I like completing a book as well. I had been plugging away at some and finished three within two days of each other this week.

4. Scrapbooking paper. This is an odd one, I know. I have not done much scrapbooking, though I need to. But I use the paper to make cards, and there are just so many beautiful options. I wish I could find fabric in some of the paper designs.

5. A community Facebook page. Someone just told me this week about a Facebook page for our little area. It’s nice for things like finding out where the power is out, where traffic snarls are, lost or found pets, etc.

Bonus: not losing power during the several thunderstorms we had this week. The lights flickered a bit, but thankfully never went out.

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.

Though I am writing this on the official first day of summer (Thursday), it has felt like summer here for weeks already. I hope your longest day of the year was a good one! Here are some of the best parts of the last week:

1. Visiting a Bounce House place. There’s a place nearby where one can rent those inflatable bounce house contraptions for kids to play in at carnivals and such. They also have a room on the facility for “open play,” where parents can pay a fee for kids to come in and try several different kinds – a castle, a basketball court, a super slide, etc. My son and daughter-in-law took my grandson, Timothy (age 4) there last Saturday, and he wanted Grandma and Granddad to come, too. ♥ It was fun to see him conquer some of the ones he was a bit scared of at first.

2. Father’s Day. We enjoyed time with the family honoring all the dads, especially my husband.

3. Humor. I had gotten my husband a Father’s Day balloon while at the grocery store on Saturday morning, but it started deflating before I even got home. I took it back to the store to exchange it for one that had not been previously inflated, like this one had been. But the girl said she had no more there, they were in the back, and she didn’t look particularly eager to go back and get one. Being hot, tired, and frustrated at that point, I just got a refund. Father’s Day afternoon at lunch, I noticed my husband had amended the Mother’s Day balloon he had gotten me more than a month ago (and which, for some reason, was still good, though it had been purchased at the same place):

4. Thoughtfulness. Saturday was “one of those days,” with the balloon situation, dropping the newly-purchased eggs on the garage floor (breaking only half of them, thankfully), spilling my lunch down my front, finding out I needed socks at the Bounce House just to walk around and observe, going back home to get some, coming back to find out they sold socks there, and ending the day with a big ugly bug on the bathroom ceiling. I mentioned part of the day’s frustrations on Facebook, and a friend said I sounded like I needed chocolate. She brought me a chocolate bar to church the next day. Besides the chocolate itself, always a soother of ruffled nerves, the thoughtfulness meant a lot to me.

5. A meal and cool breezes. My daughter-in-law, Mittu, had made a lot of food for a lunch play date and had a lot left over since one family couldn’t come. She texted to ask if they could bring the leftovers over for dinner on Wednesday. Sure! Then Timothy wanted to play outside on his little car, but I had been so hot and uncomfortable my last few times outside that I stayed in at first. When I did venture out a bit later, the temperatures were really nice, and the occasional breeze was even cool. A real blessing in the South at this time of year.

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.

Somehow we’re halfway through June already. Whatever happened to the lazy days of summer? At any rate, I  welcome the opportunity to reflect on and recount the blessings of the past week lest I forget them completely.

1. Lunch with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. They invited us for lunch on Saturday. Really enjoyed tostadas and churros, and it was fun to see what was new and play with Timothy in his room.

2. A church potluck lunch after the Sunday morning service. Good food and fellowship.

3. An impromptu family get-together.  We had some leftovers from the potluck, so we invited my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson over to help us work on them. Then my oldest son Facetimed, so we all got to talk a bit.

4. A free haircut. The place I go gives out these cards that you have initialed each time you get a haircut, and the 10th one is free. I forget to get it initialed most of the time, but thankfully my stylist reminds me. This week my 10th cut came up, so I got it free!

5. Return of our favorite bath aide. Last week our regular bath aide for my mother-in-law was assigned to another area due to one aide being on vacation and another out sick. We had two different substitutes, so the timing was different, and neither of them brought the supplies that our usual aide does. I wasn’t sure if things would be back to normal or not this week, and I was so glad to see the regular lady. I don’t know why they don’t send the substitutes where they send her instead of rearranging so many, but I am sure it’s a complicated business to cover all the bases.

I could add so many more – air conditioning on hot days, root beer floats, good books, music, to name a few. There are good things about every day if we stop to consider them.

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.

Although the official first day of summer isn’t for a couple of weeks yet, to me June 1 begins summer. And my first week of summer by my reckoning has gone quite nicely. Here are some favorite parts of it:

1. Extended book reading time. Most of my reading is done in shorter bits of time here and there. Sunday, in between church, naps, meals, and Face-timing with my oldest son, I finished 2/3 of a book. It felt so luxurious. But my eyes were really blurry afterward, so it’s probably good I can’t do that too often.

2. Pain relief. I occasionally have shooting pains from my knuckles through my fingers in my left hand. It only lasts for seconds, so I haven’t thought much about it. I’ve assumed maybe it was the beginning of arthritis. One day last week, that kind of pain started up in my pinkie knuckle and persisted all night, bringing tears to my eyes as every few seconds pain would whoosh down that pathway. The next day my doctor wasn’t available, but I saw the nurse practitioner. She said that kind of pain was more indicative of nerve inflammation – arthritis is more of an ache in the joints. She gave me an anti-inflammatory prescription, but the pain started subsiding on its own. I don’t know what I did to set that nerve off, but I hope it doesn’t happen again.

3. Frozen meals. I discovered some new frozen meal entrees in the grocery freezer section that only took 15 minutes in the skillet to warm up. They’re probably too expensive to have too often, but they’re cheaper than eating out. It’s nice to have a couple of quick meal options on hand for really busy or tiring days. This one was pretty good:

4. A new file box. I’ve had this file box for scrapbooking paper that I use for cards for years. It’s faded, which is not a big deal, but it started falling apart.

You can find letter-sized file boxes everywhere, but it was hard to track down one that could accommodate the 12×12 scrapbooking size. I finally found one on Joann’s web site. I thought it was too expensive, but a 40% off coupon helped, and I had gift cards there for Mother’s Day. I enjoyed transferring my paper over to its new home. Unfortunately the new files don’t have tabs, but I’m going to see if stick-on labels will adhere to them.

Being able to remove the files from the box helps, too. (Forgive the messiness of my work desk.)

5. A nice summer family evening. My son and daughter-in-law brought dinner over one night along with their inflatable swimming pool for Timothy. He played in the water a while, then rode his little vehicle, then we threw “Pop-its” on the road – these little noisemaker things that sound like little firecrackers.

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.

Happy first day of June! Here are some of the best parts of last week:

1. Memorial Day with the family. We had the traditional burgers and sides, then enjoyed a movie with the family along with gluten-free shortcakes and a variety of fruits for dessert. Even though it rained, Jim faithfully grilled his wonderful burgers. Pulling the patio umbrella over helped a bit.

2. The PBS Memorial Day concert comes on the Sunday evening before Memorial Day. I’ve watched parts of it before, but this year I watched the whole thing. Some of the stories of our service men and women were quite moving and helped me remember the reason for this holiday.

3. Patch work. My husband was able to get to several patching jobs of cracks in walls and ceilings around the house. Looks much, much better!

4. Delayed rain. We have had an abundance of rain this week due to the subtropical storm Alberto’s passing by. One morning I had to get to the store, even though thunder sounded nearby. I figured I’d just change once I got home if I got drenched. But thankfully, the rain held off until later in the day. And my husband got a lawn-mowing in on the day he wanted to before the rain came down too hard.

5. Lunch at Cracker Barrel. We rarely get to eat out, due to my mother-in-law’s situation, and almost never at Cracker Barrel. It’s one of my favorite places to eat, but my husband doesn’t care for it. But he indulged me last weekend. And I got a slice of Double Chocolate Coca-Cola cake to bring home and savor.

Bonus: I love when two different sources in my devotional reading reinforce each other. Some of my devotional books correspond to the date, but others are books I just “happened” to be in at the time or a Bible passage I navigated to at my own speed. When they intersect unexpectedly, it seems like that’s God’s particular message to me for the day.

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.

This time next week, it will be June! But for now, let’s enjoy what’s left of May. Here are some favorite parts of the last week:

1. Patio additions. Jim had bought this bench to provide a place to sit at the edge of the front yard when we watch Timothy in his riding toys on the cul-de-sac. But we pulled it back to the patio for our first grilled meal, and we decided we like it there. Then, I used my Amazon points to get a water table for Timothy, and he has enjoyed using it several times already.

2. Watching a movie with Jim. Last weekend we found ourselves alone for the evening with nothing on TV to watch. Someone had mentioned the movie “Wonder” to me, and the previews looked good, so we watched it together. So good. Even though it’s primarily about a boy with a disfigured face, the theme can be summed up in one of the precepts that his teacher conveys to the class: “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a tough battle.”

3. A satisfactory ending to a dispute. An item I had bought online had a problem, and after several emails the dispute was finally settled to my satisfaction. I usually ask my husband to handle these kinds of things, but I was pleased that I saw it through and that it worked out well.

4. Mending done. I tend to put off mending as it’s often a headache. But one item needing attention was my husband’s most often worn sports coat. So I worked on it and a pair of pants with the cuff coming undone. They both came together about as easily as they possibly could have, much to my relief.

5. Checking off the to-do list. I had a number of minor tasks around the house that I had been putting off. When I finally got to them one day this week, it only took around an hour to take care of them all.

Here in the US we have a 3-day weekend with Memorial Day on Monday. It’s usually a time of get-togethers and cookouts, the kick-off to summer. But we don’t want to forget those who helped to make such days possible.

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

We’re halfway through May already. It has been a good month so far. Here are some of the highlights of the last week:

1. New flowers. Usually my husband gets new hanging baskets and sometimes new plants for some of the other planters in conjunction with Mother’s Day.  This year he proposed that we choose them together, so Saturday morning we went plant-shopping and then spent the rest of the morning putting them in their respective places.

2. Mother’s Day. My family always does a wonderful job making me feel special on Mother’s Day. Jim grilled teriyaki chicken, I think everyone pitched in making the cheesy potatoes, salad, and rolls, and Mittu made chocolate pretzel pie.

My hair is a little wonky – we had been outside and I didn’t know it had gotten windblown.

3. Ladies group. This was actually from almost two weeks ago, but I forgot to mention it. The ladies from our church met to discuss the first five psalms, not in a formal Bible study, but just sharing what we learned. It has been a long time since I have been able to participate regularly in any kind of church ladies’ Bible study or discussion due to scheduling conflicts. This is only my second time to attend here, but I enjoyed it very much.

4. Jim washed my car. This was also from a couple of weeks ago. My car has some pieces on the outside which my husband doesn’t think would fare well in a commercial car wash. So he washed it himself, and it looks so much better.

5. Abiding Radio. I had this on my computer at one time, but I never listen to music while on the computer, so I forgot about it. Then recently someone mentioned their app – since the advent of smart phones, it hadn’t occurred to me to see if they had an app. I’ve enjoyed listening to it a few times.

Bonus: My roses are still doing nicely, in spite of me.

I thought these looked especially pretty after I watered plants one morning.

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.

Another week is almost down for the count. Here are some of the best parts of it:

1. Roses blooming. My rose bushes have been leafing and budding for weeks and they finally exploded.

2. Sitting on the patio. My dear husband has been hard at work getting the patio cleaned up and ready for usage. We enjoyed sitting out there last Sunday night as Timothy drove his little car around. The weather has been gorgeous most of the week.

3. A quiet week. For me, anyway. Jim had to travel a couple of days, but I didn’t have anything extra on the schedule this week, and I was able to put some quality time into some projects.

4. Books. I could list them as favorites every week. 🙂 But for some reason I seemed to make more headway with a couple than I have been able to for a while (maybe because of #3).

5. Meatloaf is one of my favorite meals, but we don’t have it very often because we only eat red meat occasionally, and lean ground beef doesn’t go on sale very often. But I snagged some a while back. We enjoyed it one night this week. Then, one of my favorite lunches is to take leftover meatloaf and put it in a grilled cheese sandwich. Yum!

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.

It’s the first Friday in May, and it has been a wonderfully springy week! Here are some of the best parts of the past week:

1. Lunch with a friend. Melanie came over for a potluck soup and sandwiches lunch and then we delved into some card-making supplies. Fun! Somehow we hadn’t seen each other in a while.

2. Catching up with an long-time friend, one I’ve known since early married days. I got a Facebook message asking if I had time to talk, and I did, so she called. We had been messaging on Facebook about the desire to actually phone each other some time, but it hadn’t worked out until this day. I so enjoyed catching up with each other.

3. A dinner get-together. We had my son and daughter-in-law and grandson over along with the pastor of the church we’ve been visiting and his family, with all of us contributing parts to the meal. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting together and ended with a rousing game of Telestrations.

4. Nostalgic discoveries. I caught sight of a box of children’s books I had forgotten about in a closet, so I pulled it out to see if any of the books would be suitable for Timothy’s age now. Some of them were favorites I remember reading to my kids, and it was fun to find them again. Some notebooks of my kids’ drawings, mostly Jason’s were also in the box, and I enjoyed looking through them and then showing them to Jason the next time he came over.

5. A repainted swing. The seat that my husband had built for our patio swing looked weather-beaten, so he sanded it and painted it this time with outdoor paint rather than staining it. It looks much better, and hopefully it will hold up better. I need to make a replacement for the cover it used to have, and that should help even more, as well as providing shade.

Happy Friday!