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 has been a busy week! But a good one. Here are some of the best parts:

1. Jason’s birthday!

Mittu and Timothy made that amazing cake!

2. An outing. We celebrated Jason’s birthday early over the weekend so we’d have more time. He took his actual birthday off during the week, and he and Mittu took Timothy to a children’s art and science museum called The Muse, and invited me along. It was so fun to watch Timothy engage with various displays and participate in some of them with him. I don’t have any photos – just about the time I would get my phone camera out and read, the moment passed. Then we tried a new-to-us pizza place called Sergeant Pepperoni’s. It was packed, and with one server working as hard as she could, it took about 40 minutes to get our food, but it was good. More help came in while we were there, so maybe someone had called sick or something. Then it was home for naps. Small children’s schedules coordinate nicely with Grandma’s schedules that way. 🙂 Timothy and I were both pretty wiped out by that point.

3. Lunch with Melanie at Red Lobster. Last time I was good and looked for something lighter and healthier – this time I indulged in my favorite popcorn shrimp. 🙂 We enjoyed talking so much, the time passed so fast – I was shocked when I looked at the time and saw I needed to rush home before my mother-in-law’s caregiver needed to leave.

4. A day at home. Last week, for various reasons, I was out with errands I think every single day, even Saturday, which I try to keep free of them. This week, besides grocery shopping on Monday, I had some fun times out. But it was nice on Thursday to have a full day at home. I was contemplating going to the gym, but then my mother-in-law’s caregiver had to run out to take her daughter somewhere at the time I would have gone, so that took care of that for me. 🙂

5. Mexican food. We got take-out from a new-to-us Mexican food place last Friday night, and even though we probably won’t use them again for various reasons, I enjoyed it. I grew up in southern Texas, where Mexican or “Tex-Mex” food was a regularity, and I crave it sometimes.

It’s been a scorcher this week, very hot days and no rain, so I have been exceptionally glad for air conditioning. And for good reading – I finished some excellent books in the last several days.

What are some highlights from your week?

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

Here we are almost at the midpoint of July! And here are my favorite parts of the last week:

1. An excursion downtown with Melanie. We explored the Mast General Store and then ate an early lunch at Coolato Gelato. The latter is primarily known as a gelato/dessert/coffee place, but it serves really good paninis as well as quiche (which I am going to try there someday!) and salads. And Jason, Mittu, and Timothy stopped in as well, so I was glad they all got to meet each other. I’m not usually the one driving downtown when we go, but driving this time helped give me confidence that I could do it again and deal with finding parking and such (even though I inadvertently took us on a scenic route at first…but it all turned out all right.)

2. Garden gifts. I am just not up to dealing with gardening, but I have neighbors who regularly share some of their abundance with us. They gave us some huge zucchini last week.

3. Zucchini Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies. The first time I ever went to Coolato Gelato, they had some wonderful zucchini cookies half-dipped in chocolate. I asked them about them when we were there, and they said they only had them one winter (I hope my inquiry spurs them to think about serving them again!) I searched for zucchini cookie recipes and discovered Zucchini Oatmeal Choclate Chip Cookies, which sounded good even though they’re different from what I was looking for. Since I had some fresh zucchini on hand, I decided to try them. So good! The only thing I’d do differently next time is try a different grater to see if I could grate the zucchini a little more finely.

4. Benadryl Cream. The evening of July 4th, we went outside to watch some fireworks that were being set off around the neighborhood, and I came back with 22 little bug bites on my chest! Since one cluster of them is right next to where the neckline of my dress was, I think some little bug got under there and then couldn’t get out. Oddly, I didn’t feel it happening and didn’t notice them until changing clothes, and then they didn’t itch at all unless I brushed across them. But after that I started having I can’t stand it itching. Cortisone cream didn’t help much, but Benadryl cream had been keeping it mostly manageable. They’re fading, so hopefully they’ll be gone soon.

5. Two meals Mittu made for us this week. Yum!

Have a great weekend!

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

Here we are at the first Friday of July! Here are some high points of the past week:

1. Jim’s mom’s 89th birthday. I don’t know if she quite understood what was going on, but hopefully she caught the love expressed.

She has trouble swallowing and only eats pureed foods, so instead of cake, Jim got her a caramel frappe from McDonald’s – he used to bring those to her when she was in assisted living.

2. Flourless Applesauce Spice Cake. I had wanted to have just a small cake for the rest of us on Jim’s Mom’s birthday. Mittu is gluten intolerant, and I had a couple of GF cake mixes on hand, but didn’t want a big cake. So I looked up some GF recipes I had pinned on Pinterest, and found this one. It was SO good! Tasted a lot like carrot cake, and was very moist.

3. The 4th of July. I had a pretty relaxing day until nearly dinner time. We had planned to get Timothy’s wading pool out, but it was raining off and on. Jim went ahead and set it up and put our canopy over it. Jason and Mittu and Timothy came over, and while Jim was grilling, Timothy did get to play in the pool.

The rain really poured for a while, but thankfully paused long enough for Jim to grill burgers and sausage. Later in the evening, a church near us had a fireworks display that we could just see a little of over the trees. Timothy was so excited! At least for a little while. 🙂 I’m glad he got to see them. Plus his parents took him to a parade earlier in the day, so he had just about the whole July 4th experience. I made some gluten free brownies from a mix and sprinkled the top with red, while, and blue sugar – simple, but they hit the spot. 🙂

4. A productive morning. Wednesday and Thursday I was frustrated because it seemed like I wasn’t getting anything done that I had wanted to. Then all of a sudden Thursday morning, things fell into place, and I got several things knocked off my mental to-do list.

5. Touching base with extended family. My aunt passed away earlier this week, and while we grieve, it has been good to have more conversations than usual with another aunt and uncle and my sisters and brother.

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

Time just keeps marching on, and here we are at the end of June already. Though summer technically just started last week, I always think of it as June, July, and August, so now it feels like we’re 1/3 of the way through. Here are some highlights of the last week:

1. Mulch. Ever since Jim put up our fence last summer, we’ve been wanting to make some beds for planting along the fence line. He’s had the edging there for a bit, but it has either been rainy or too hot or too busy with other things to get any further with it. This last week he’s spent almost every evening working on it, and just having the mulch in it looks so much nicer. Next he is going to transplant some bushes from their odd locations into these planting areas, and then we get to decide what other plants we want to fill in with. Since the majority of our windows look out to the fenced area, the view makes a big difference.

2. Finishing projects and anticipating others. Got a big one finished this week, and I have the urge to work next on a craft project that has been in the back of my mind for a while now.

3. Finishing a couple of big books.One wasn’t so big in its number of pages, but it was one that took some time to process. And Don Quixote was just finished Thursday, which involved a whopping 36 hours of audio time. I hope to review it next week. And my next audiobook is less than three hours! I needed a short one after such a long one.

4. Time off from cooking, once again. Jason and Mittu made dinner last Friday, we got Chinese take-out Saturday, and Jason and Mittu got take-out from a favorite barbecue place Sunday. Nice!

5. A message from Timothy. I got an audio message on my phone from Timothy saying, “Grandma, I love you!” Mittu said he was going to ask me about coming over for lunch but forgot what he was going to say. But I’ll take the “I love you” any time! And lunch other get-togethers, too, of course.

Have a great weekend, and a happy 4th of July to those in the US!

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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 Friday is here! The first FFF of the summer! Here are some highlights of the last week:

1. Father’s Day. Always a joy to celebrate my husband and son and father and step-father – as well as enjoy some good food and having the family together. 🙂

2. A “man bouquet.” My daughter-in-law made this as a centerpiece for Father’s Day dinner. I’m sure they liked this better than flowers. 🙂

3. A medical test completed. I decided to go ahead and schedule an ablation surgery for the atrial fibrillation I’ve been experiencing, which will be next month, and a test I had to have in preparation for that was a CT scan of the heart. I’m told that will provide the cardiologist a “map” for when he does the surgery. That was Wednesday, and everything went well. Sometimes technicians can treat you like a piece of the furniture, placing you where they need you but not really interacting and not pleased with questions. But this one was very friendly and efficient, explaining everything well, telling me what to expect, and answering a question I had. When I got a little lost on the way to the imaging department, a hospital worker passing by noticed me looking at the signs and helped me find my way. Normally even for familiar and simple medical appointments I have a little undercurrent of nervousness, but about halfway in I realized God was giving me a remarkable calmness. I’m glad that’s done and I hope the actual procedure next month goes as well.

4. Timothy. My daughter-in-law told me that one day this week, out of the blue, my grandson Timothy said, “Grandma loves Timothy.” That warmed my heart. I’m so glad he knows that.

5. Passing the summer solstice. I like having some extra daylight in the evenings, but sometimes it’s hard to wind down when it is light so late and mentally it doesn’t seem so late. I like the in-between rather than the extremes of summer and winter. 🙂

Happy Friday!

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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 week started off with a bang, but thankfully things seem back to normal now. Here are some of my favorite parts:

1. Feeling better after being in the ER last weekend with atrial fibrillation.

2. A good visit with the cardiologist. The last time I had seen him, more than a year ago, I felt like I really wasn’t given as much information as I needed to know how to proceed. I saw him for a follow-up visit after being in the ER and brought my list of questions and felt like we had a good discussion. Now I need to decide whether to treat it surgically or medicinally – there are risks either way, so there’s much to think and pray about.

3. False alarms. While at the doctor’s office, the building was evacuated due to a fire alarm. Thankfully we were only out maybe 15 minutes before we received an all-clear signal and were allowed to go back in. God gave me peace in a situation where I would probably normally have been frazzled and irritated, and even though the event was no fun, it’s much better that it was a small situation easily contained rather than a major fire.

4. Lunch with Melanie at Red Lobster. Normally there I have the popcorn shrimp (breaded and fried), but in an effort to be a little more heart-healthy, I got the grilled shrimp and tilapia – first time I had ever tried tilapia. It was quite good, and I had such an enjoyable time talking with Melanie.

5. Riced cauliflower. I had seen interesting recipes using this on Pinterest and was glad to find some already riced (processed very small, like rice grains) in the freezer section of the store. I tried it straight from the freezer in place of rice for a stir-fry, along with some leftover chicken and grated vegetables, and really liked it. I’m eager to explore new ways to use it.

Bonus: Timothy discovered my make-up mirror one day, with one side normal and the other side magnified. He was so tickled, saying “little Timothy” and then turning it over and saying “BIG Timothy” and laughing. Then when I looked over his shoulder into the mirror, he laughed at “BIG Grandma.” He even held up a special rock he had found in front of it, saying, “Little rock…BIG rock” and laughing.

And my lovely daughter-in-law did make dinner a couple of times. 🙂

Happy Friday!

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

Wow, the first week of June already! I always think of June 1 as the beginning of summer, thought technically it’s not until June 21. With my kids being older, summer doesn’t bring the feel of a break like it used to – and actually Jesse is taking summer classes this year to go back to work on his Bachelor’s degree, so it feels even less like a break. But I am enjoying keeping cool in the AC! Here are a few highlights of the last week:

1. A three-day weekend. We spent most of Memorial Day at Jason and Mittu’s house. They grilled burgers, sausage, corn on the cob, and carrots. So good! Rain threatened, but we only had a little sprinkle, and that was while we were eating under the umbrella, so it worked out fine. Jim and Jesse spent most of the day working on an outdoor play set we had bought for Timothy’s birthday several weeks ago – the kind of thing with swings, a slide, a little fort-like enclosure, etc. The thing had tons of pieces and maybe 20 bags of different kinds of screws and nuts and bolts. They had to do a lot of drilling of holes for those things. They ended up not being able to complete it and were pretty done in by the end of the day, but it shouldn’t take too long to finish it up this weekend. I’m excited to see how Timothy reacts – I don’t think he had the big picture of what it’s going to be yet. All in all it was a good day.

2. Good weather. We had a LOT of thunderstorms forecast for the week, but ended up with not much in our area, though some of the city did have more and some were without power. Ours blinked off a few times but thankfully came back on in about half a minute.

3. Breaks from cooking. Besides Memorial Day, Jesse and I got take-out from Red Lobster one evening when Jim was tied up at work, Jason and Mittu brought one meal over and made one here, and we got Asian take-out Saturday night.

4. Haircut. Nothing new – I can’t think of what new to do to it. 🙂 But it always feels good to get it done. My hair gets less cooperative and more limp the longer it gets, so usually by the time I get it cut, I’m pretty frustrated with it and relieved to get it done. I went a little shorter than usual this time, just so the cut will last me a little longer. 🙂

5. Trimming plants and bushes. My rose bushes were overgrown and I have been wanting to get at them for a while now, and finally did that Thursday. They usually bloom several times a summer with some cutting back here and there. Now I just need to figure out what’s eating them and what to do about it – lots of little holes in the leaves. I also “deadheaded” some other plants as well. Felt good to get this done as well.

Hope you had a good week as well!

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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 week, thankfully, had no major off days or bad days as the last couple of weeks have had. In fact, all around it has been a pretty good week. Here are the best parts:

1. Lunch with Melanie, my blog friend who moved to TN and became a real-life friend. 🙂  We met at Cracker Barrel this time. The food was wonderful and the fellowship even better. Before we moved here, I used to get together with friends for lunch pretty often, and haven’t really done that here. I didn’t realize how much I missed and needed it until these last couple of lunches with Melanie. We’re already planning our next excursion. 🙂

2. Ladies Brunch at our church. The theme was “Oaks of Righteousness” from Isaiah 61:3: “To grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified” (NASB). The decorations, speaker, food, and fellowship were all a blessing. I’m borrowing a couple of photos from their Facebook page since I didn’t think to take any.

I thought the centerpieces were especially pretty. The wood came from the church property and the flowers were donated by a local florist.

For our activity/favor, we got to choose three different herbs to plant in little containers painted in chalk paint so we could write the name of the plant on them. I’ve got mine on the windowsill right now until I decide where to put them: basil, chives, and rosemary. I have never worked with fresh herbs before, so this will be a learning experience.

3. A surprise lunch visit. Mittu texted me Wednesday to ask if she, Jason, and Timothy could bring Chick-Fil-A over for lunch and visit for a while. Sure!

4. Days at home. I consider running errands a ministry to my family, or part of my job in the distribution of necessary tasks involved in having a home and family. If I can get things done in the day time, then my husband doesn’t have to spend time doing them after long days at work, and I’m available if we do anything on the weekend instead of having to run around. And it’s nice to get out of the house some. 🙂 But some weeks, it seems like I am out almost every morning, and then I feel overloaded and don’t get things done at home. Except for a quick run to the drugstore one day, somehow this week I made it to Thursday before needing to make a major grocery expedition. It felt marvelous! And I don’t think I’ll need to run any other errands this week.

5. A mini closet project. Part of that time at home allowed for something I had been itching to do for a while now. My whole closet didn’t need cleaning or organizing, but I had some clutter in there to take care of. When I buy something online or in town, I keep the packaging for a while in case I need to return anything, so I had that kind of stuff accumulating for months, plus a wedding present to package. I had taken the heaviest of my winter things out earlier, but took the rest out at this time and got rid of one dress that was in no condition to wear again. I often vacuum the walk-in part of the closet, but this time I vacuumed under all the clothes, straightened the shoes, dusted the ones I hadn’t worn in a while. It felt good to get all that done.

Bonus: We had thunderstorms in the forecast for much of this week, but thankfully didn’t get any. We had some heavy rain one day and a bit more scattered throughout the week, with some overcast skies, but that was it. Thunderstorms always make me a little nervous about falling trees and power outages, so I was very happy not to have any. 🙂 We have more in the forecast for next week, so we’ll see how it goes.

Have a great Friday!

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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 week didn’t start off so well, with me forgetting that my mother-in-law’s caregiver had an appointment, and I scheduled  a lunch with a friend for then and had to reschedule it; forgetting that we’d scheduled the hairdresser to come for my m-i-l on Monday; forgetting that the nurse was coming on Tuesday, even though she’s been coming on Tuesdays regularly for months now; forgetting to take care of the bathroom after my m-i-l’s shower (I usually put the ramp back against the wall, mop up the floor, and replace the bath mats while our caregiver and the bath aide take her back to her room and get her dressed) so that our caregiver had to do it; putting my container of ramen soup on the end table and spilling it all over, dousing a remote control (I put it in a bag of rice just to be safe, but it ended up ok), and dropping a dozen eggs on the grocery store floor after paying for them (thankfully only two broke, but I had to rinse off all the rest). I don’t know why I was so “off” for a couple of days! But thankfully the rest of the week went much better. Here are the best parts of it:

1. Mother’s Day. I took some time to think about special moms in my own life, and my family always does a great job making it a special day for me. Jim grilled his wonderful teriyaki chicken and Jason and Mittu made salad, potatoes, corn on the cob, rolls, and  chocolate pretzel pie and banana cream pie.

Everything wasn’t on the table yet in this photo, but I love that cute little guy at the end helping himself to a roll. 🙂

My daughter-in-law picked out pretty plates for the meal and dessert, all disposable for easy cleanup:

Wishing Jim’s Mom Happy Mother’s Day:

I received some lovely gifts and cards as well. I am blessed. 🙂

2. Timothy shucking corn for the first time was absolutely adorable. He was so excited to help, and when he pulled the leaves back, he exclaimed, “There’s CORN in there!”

When he tried to eat corn on the cob for the first time, he noted, “It’s stuck.” He gave up after a bit, but made a good try.

3. Movie night with my husband. After everyone left on Mother’s Day and Jesse went back to his room, Jim and I relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, and later that evening rented and watched the movie Hidden Figures. It was SO good! (Warning: there’s just a bit of bad language, most near the beginning). It’s the true story of three African-American women who worked with calculations involved in the first manned space flights (a good article on them is here).

4. A new desk chair. Last week my desk chair suddenly broke. It had probably been on the verge, unnoticed, for a long time. My new one is even more comfortable.

5. Printable art. A lot of places online offer free frameable printable decorated Scripture verses, and for a Mother’s Day gift for the ladies at our church, our pastor’s wife printed out several she had found. This was the one I chose. It fits perfectly on my little entry table.

Happy Friday!

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