Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 been a nice week in many respects. Here are the highlights:

1. A Ladies’ Tea at our church. The best part is that my daughter-in-law was able to go with me. I think this is only the second or third tea I have ever been to, the first one at this church. I loved the cute little sandwiches and desserts as well – not only attractive, but it was nice to be able to have a small sample of a number of things.

2. Getting a haircut. I always tend to put off it too long, so I am usually quite relieved when I finally get it done. My hair is not very cooperative in the first place, but less so the longer it gets. I went just a bit shorter than usual this time and like it much better.

3. Sunday dinner. For various reasons, my daughter-in-law and grandson were at our house Sunday morning, and when we got home she had made dinner. Always nice but especially on a Sunday – it provides a little more time to relax in the afternoon.

4. Spending gift cards. I’d had to return a Christmas gift to the local Christian bookstore and got a gift certificate for store credit since I didn’t have a receipt. I don’t shop there often (love them, but they’re very expensive, even with coupons), so I kept forgetting to go look around and spend my certificate. Then they sent me a postcard that our local branch of the store was going out of business, so I went in to see if I could find anything to use my certificate before it was too late. With several going-out-of-business markdowns, I was able to get a few books and a pretty pink scarf (why there were scarves at a bookstore, I don’t know…). I also have some gift cards to JoAnn’s from last year and was able to get things for a couple of projects. I enjoyed the outings and “free” shopping.

5. Finishing a few “heavy” books, one in length and two in subject matter. They were all beneficial, but it’s nice to move on to something lighter and shorter for a bit.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 had been a great week in many ways! Here are the best parts:

1. My little grandson’s first birthday, a celebration of how glad we are God gave him to us and how far He has brought him since his premature birth.

2. Having my oldest son home. He doesn’t usually visit this time of year but felt that waiting til his usual visit in August was just too long, that Timothy would change and grow too much to wait that long to see him, so he came for his birthday. It’s always a joy to have the whole family together.

3. Drawer organization. I hadn’t planned to do this this week, but when trying to get something out of this drawer, I decided to look for a little plastic bin for the pens and pencils so they’d stop sliding all over the drawer.

Before

But at W-Mart I found this little drawer organizer and decided to try it instead. Voila!

After

It only took a few minutes but I love it – easier to find things and much more pleasant to look at.

4. This photo that my husband took when taking Timothy to visit in GG’s room (we shortened Great-Grandma to GG and have taken to calling her that). She always lights up whenever he comes over, and I love his expression there. Thankfully he didn’t figure out the buttons on the bed controls yet. 🙂

5. And, if you’ll forgive one more photo, this one as well, snuggling with my favorite little guy:

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 been a very good and productive week! Here are the highlights:

1. Easter. Wonderful morning at church, great food, and a fun time with the family.

2. Finished projects. I wrote here about completing some window valances that have been on my to-do list for way too long and got a couple of pillows done as well. Love how they change the room!

3. Swiss-Ham-Ring-Around, one of my favorite ways to use ham leftovers.

4. Dogwoods blooming! One of my favorite parts of spring! There’s another tree with airy lavender blooms along the roadsides here – I’ve asked what they are before but have forgotten. But it makes for pleasant scenery while driving!

5. Anticipation! My oldest son comes in this weekend for a few days, and we’ve been preparing for our little grandson’s first birthday next week. Can you believe it has been a year already?!

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 been a busy week, and I haven’t been able to work any more on my “project” I’ve been talking about lately, but I should have it done next week. Meanwhile, here are some highlights of this week:

1. Sweet and Spicy Bacon Chicken. I was looking through my Pinterest recipes for something simple yet flavorful that I could toss in the oven, and this fit the bill nicely. I sprinkled bacon bits on it rather than wrapping a bacon slice around it, and sprinkled brown sugar instead of rolling it in it. This one’s a keeper. I didn’t think to take any pictures of my own.

2. Froyoz frozen yogurt. I don’t usually run errands in the evening, but one night I had a prescription I needed to pick up and had run out of time earlier in the day when I was out. I took the opportunity to stop by Froyoz to get Chocolate Milk and Creamy Peanut Butter flavored frozen yogurt topped with chocolate covered peanuts and a small bit of brownie. Good stuff.

3. Blooming trees. Several flowering trees are in bloom this week. Our neighbor’s trees turned white overnight – I don’t know what they are, but I’ve always called them popcorn trees because that’s what the round, white blossoms look like to me from a distance. After the colorlessness of winter, I love to see color springing up all over this time of year.

4. The Hobbit:The Battle of the Five Armies. Enjoyed watching this with the family. I know the films have been maligned and added elements that weren’t in the book, but I still enjoyed it, especially Bilbo and Bard.

5. Thinking about the death and resurrection of Christ. I knew one blogger who felt that putting spiritual things on a favorite’s list trivialized them, but I disagree. Though in one sense we celebrate the resurrection every Sunday, and the death of Christ is applicable every day, I especially appreciate the focus this time of year, the reminder of all He went through so that He could offer us salvation, His great love for us, and the joy resulting from His resurrection.

I hope you have a wonderful Easter!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 has been another good week – busy, but different. Here are some of the best parts of it:

1. An outdoor lunch. Great-grandma’s caregiver couldn’t come Tuesday due to having a sick child, so Jim worked from home partly to help take care of her and partly to work on something that he could do better at home without all the interruptions at work. It was a beautiful day, so we took GG (as we shorten her name in texts) in her wheelchair out on the back patio and the three of us had lunch together. It was just the perfect temperature to do that, and Jim and I don’t eat lunch together during the week very often, and I had brought Chick-Fil-A back after a trip to the store, so it was a treat all around.

2. Putting away winter clothes. Even though it’s supposed to get into the 20s again this weekend. 🙂 We still have some sweaters and jackets handy in the front closet if we need them.

3. Greening and pinking of some of the bushes and trees in the yard. More signs of spring!

4. Progress on the project I mentioned last week. I had hoped to be done with it in time to show you today, but these things almost always take longer than expected.

5. Timothy crawling! He’s been working on it for some time, though we almost wondered if he was going to skip crawling and go straight to walking, as he seems to be trying to figure out ways to pull up on the furniture and can stand a few seconds at a time without help. But somehow Tuesday night it all clicked, and he took off! And now I need to buy outlet covers and put some items out of reach. 😀

Happy Friday!

P. S. I am having a giveaway for the excellent book She Is Mine: A War Orphan’s Incredible Journey of Survival by Stephanie Fast. Leave a comment on my review of the book to enter – the drawing is Monday.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 has been another good week. Here are some of the best parts of it:

1. Pi Day. For years I have heard of other people celebrating “Pi Day” – March 14, the same numbers as pi (3.14 – even more remarkable in 2015 because the next numbers in the sequence are 15) by having pie on that day, and I thought it looked like a fun thing to do (and any excuse to eat pie is a good one! 🙂 ). But I had never done it, usually because I didn’t think about it in time. But this year I did! We had hamburger pie for dinner and then dessert via a store-bought chocolate pie and a pumpkin pie from Christmas that had been in the freezer. It was fun.

2. Cracker Barrel take-out. Love that place, but my husband doesn’t really care for it. Yet he agreed to bring some home for me one night. Nice man. 🙂

3. Mittu’s dinner. We came home from church Sunday afternoon to a dinner already made by my daughter-in-law. So nice to just come in and sit down and eat!

4. Ceiling fans. During the first part of the week it was pretty warm out (60s and 70s, even got up to 80 one day), but I didn’t want to turn on the AC yet (although I finally did when it got up to 75 in the house one evening). But for the most part ceiling fans helped cool things off a bit as needed.

5. Starting a project that has been on my mind for more years than I want to admit. Trying to decide exactly what I wanted to do held me up for a long while, and then finding the time and motivation (at the same time) to do the preparatory work was a problem. But I got that much done this week and hope the actual execution will go pretty quickly. I had hoped to be finished with it by now, but maybe I will be by next week. Meanwhile, here is a sneak peek:

Bonus: It’s officially the first day of SPRING!

It turned rainy and cooler the latter half of the week, but I’m still glad it’s not snow and ice any more, and I am looking forward to a sunny weekend. Happy Friday!

Note to Paula – I tried several times to comment on your FFF post but just kept getting a window saying “Error establishing a database connection.”

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 has been a great week. Here are some of the best parts:

1. My husband’s birthday was Friday but we celebrated Saturday. Jason picked up take-out from Jim’s favorite Asian place, and it was a joy to have the family together (Jeremy via FaceTime) and celebrate God’s giving our husband, dad, and grandad to us. One of my favorite things, too, in looking back through the pictures, is seeing Timothy at different places throughout them. He isn’t crawling yet but is quite adept at rolling all over! He may skip right past crawling and go on to walking – he can stand on his own for increasing amounts of time.

2. Wonderful temperatures. It has been in the 50s and 60s all week, so refreshing after the long cold spell we had. It’s been wet most of the week, but I don’t think we got as much rain as predicted, and I’m just glad it wasn’t ice and snow again. We did actually see sunshine for a while on Thursday – much appreciated!

3. A normal week. I dearly love holidays, birthdays, family get-togethers, and so on, but they do take some time and effort to prepare for. We have Easter, Timothy’s birthday, and a visit from Jeremy all coming up in April, but between now and then there is nothing else on the calendar, nothing extra going on at church, no appointments. I’m enjoyed this first “normal” week immensely and got to rest a bit and then tackle a cleaning project I had been wanting to get to. I have a couple of other creative projects I hope to get to in the next week or two.

4. Being done with the dentist for a while. Since a routine x-ray showed some extensive decay under a filling last November, I’ve had oral surgery plus four dental appointments to take care of all of that and get a new bridge put in. Not something I wanted to deal with, but there was nothing to do but just go through the process. It’s finally done, thankfully. And since all of this maxed out my dental insurance coverage for the year already, my dentist’s receptionist rescheduled my cleanings so that instead of having two this year, I have one during the summer and one right after the new year, so it will go on next year’s insurance claim. Hopefully I won’t have need of the dentist beyond that.

5. Removable shelves. My extra cleaning project involved taking everything out of the shelves in the refrigerator door and giving them a thorough cleaning, something I have been wanting to get to for some time. I don’t know how crumbs and debris get into those when there’s nothing but bottles and jars there. But being able to take the shelves out and to the sink helped immensely in getting them cleaned out.

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 actually had a day in the 60s that felt so wonderful – and then the next day had sleet and ice, but only for 1/2 an hour, so not too bad. I’m still more than ready for spring to arrive! Just a couple more weeks now! Meanwhile, here are some favorite parts of the last week:

1. Girl Scout Cookies, and more importantly, my husband bringing me some unasked when some girls were selling them in front of a store. He ordered some more later through someone at work. My favorites are Tagalongs and Do-Si-Dos.

2. An impromptu movie night watching The Hundred-Foot Journey recommended by Susanne. I liked all the same things she mentioned.

3. Gluten-free snacks. My daughter-in-law has been trying to eat gluten-free to see if that helps with some stomach issues she has been having. If you’ve ever tried eating without gluten, the hardest food items are breads, cakes, and that kind of thing. All that we have tried so far have been very dense and heavy. I found a few things on Amazon to try and got some for her birthday (but they arrived late due to weather). Of the ones we opened and tried that night, My Dad’s Cookies were really good and Glutino GF Chocolate Chip Cookies were tasty as well. The first ones were light and both were soft rather than crunchy.

4. The Aaron Coffey team has been at our church this week. Unfortunately I have only been able to go to one service, but I really enjoyed it.

5. Easy meals. We had enough leftovers from one meal for a complete second meal as well as lunch, enough pork chops leftover from another meal to make a stir-fry the next night, and some frozen chicken fajita meat my husband had found on sale and put in the freezer to heat up for chicken tacos one night. It helps to have a few easy meals in the rotation.

Bonus: Today is my dear husband’s birthday! We’ll actually be celebrating tomorrow when everyone’s schedules coordinate, but I am very thankful for him and his years with us. 🙂

Hope you have a good weekend. I am hoping we’ve seen the last of snow and ice til next year!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 to the party” today – it has been a busy end to a busy week. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Mittu’s birthday was last week but between bad weather and work schedules, we couldn’t get together to celebrate til Sunday. I love birthdays – the special food and treats, cards and presents, getting everyone together, and letting that person know how special they are to the family.

2. A bit of rearranging, sorting, organizing. There is not time to do that on a full scale for a while, but I had some pockets of opportunities to rearrange a few things in a couple of cabinets and in the living room in a way I had been thinking about but hadn’t had time to do yet. It’s nice when you get an idea about how things might work better and then have an opportunity to try it out.

3. Face Time with Timothy in the snow. When Jason and Mittu took him out to play in the snow and build his first snowman, they let me tag along via Face Time on our phones. Timothy wasn’t much impressed at this point, but I think next year he’ll probably enjoy it more.

4. An afternoon “off.” After getting the most necessary things done for the week, I gave myself a little time to relax and watch the latest episode of Downton Abbey.

5. Chocolate chip butterscotch brownies. I don’t bake many treats with just the three of us here, lest I be tempted to consume more than I should, but it was hard to have the wintry weather of the last couple of weeks and not do any baking. So today I made a half-recipe of these. Yum.

Speaking of the wintry weather – I could list melting snow as a bonus fave. 🙂 Where I have lived, when we get snow it is usually gone in a day or two, and that’s how I like it. 🙂 I don’t think I’ve ever been where snow has stuck around for a couple of weeks. I know, I know, that’s nothing compared to what some of you further north face, but snow is one reason I’m glad I live here and not there! 🙂

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Fives

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Barbara Harper

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 been a cold one here, with ice and snow and subzero temperatures – and another round of snow and ice is expected for tonight. I am very thankful we’ve all been safe and haven’t lost power. I was thinking this morning as I looked on my weather app that it’s funny to think of 27 degrees as “warming up.” We’re supposed to get into the 40s tomorrow – that will feel downright balmy after this week.

Here are some favorites moments of this week:

1. Fresh eggs. Some years ago was the first time I ever had eggs fresh from a farm, and man, what a difference. We’ve talked off and on about trying to find a source for them here but never really pursued it. Then I saw a friend from church on Facebook talking about where she got hers, contacted her and she was willing to pick some up for me when she gets hers.

2. Valentine’s Day is a favorite every year. We had our usual heart-shaped meat loaves and cupcakes and played some games afterward.

3. A wonderful sermon on grace, a subject we probably can’t hear too much about, from a visiting speaker at church. In one sense, if we’ve walked with the Lord for a long time we might feel like we know all about it, but we need fresh reminders, and this particular message really spoke to my heart and brought up one aspect I hadn’t really considered before.

4. Figuring out how to access photos on my WordPress app. I used to have to send pictures on my phone by email to my computer, download them there, then upload them into my blog. It was very simple to learn how to add them directly into a post with the WordPress app on my phone – I just hadn’t taken the time to look at it until this week. Should have long ago!

5. Baby’s first snow pictures. Love, love, love these!

Timothy is not really standing on his own yet except for a few seconds at a time. Jason said this heavy snowsuit and layers of clothes underneath making it hard to bend his legs helped a lot. 🙂