Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on November 28, 2014 by Barbara Harper

FFF fall background 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 all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Here are some of my favorite parts of the last week:

1. Our first babysitting gig with Timothy. Jason’s company has their Christmas party way early before the crowded holiday schedule, so that was his and Mittu’s first outing of significant length since bringing Timothy home. I was a little concerned that Timothy might cry and I wouldn’t find a way to calm him down – so far at that point I give him back to his parents. 🙂 But he did really well and we had a nice evening.

2. Jeremy is home! My oldest son flew in earlier this week.

3. Thanksgiving Day. Scrumptious food, lots of wonderful family togetherness, and much to be thankful for.

4. Help with clean-up. Jeremy and Jesse helped put things away and Jason, Mittu, and Jim cleaned up the kitchen while I had…

5. An after-dinner nap with my favorite little guy.

It doesn’t seem like it should be quite Christmas time yet, despite the Christmas items in stores, but we’re supposed to go get our tree today, so maybe decorating will get me into the holiday spirit. 🙂

Have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Barbara Harper

FFF fall background 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 know we frequently talk about how fast time is flying – but it seems like November is going by with supersonic speed! I can’t believe there is only one week left, and then Christmas season starts – though I know some of you have started already. 🙂

Here are some of my favorites of the last week:

1. A new CD. I just got the Wilds Christian Camp‘s new CD, “I Cling to Christ,” a few days ago, and I have played it multiple times already. Some of the hymns are older, some are newer, a couple are unfamiliar to me, but they are all instrumental pieces with guitar and orchestra. The one word that comes to mind to describe it is soothing.

2. Getting a few cards made. Not as many as I hoped to in the time I had, but I’m glad to have a few of these on hand. I don’t even remember where I got this stamp ages ago, but the sentiment just “fits” so often.

3. Throw blankets. We have them draped on almost every chair and couch, and this is the time of year we use them the most, especially in the evenings. They are so just right – not too warm or heavy, but cozy.

4. Pizza delivery. We get take-out pizza from a variety of places, and one is just far enough away to justify paying a delivery fee rather than picking it up ourselves.

5. This post, Stop Waiting For a Zap, hit me right where and when I needed. It had me smiling, wincing, and tearing all at the same time. Her phrase “self-focused grump monster” was so accurate, and will stay with me a long time.

For those of you who live in the US, I wish you an early Happy Thanksgiving! We’re looking forward to our oldest son coming in and having a great time with all the family. I’ll have the monthly What’s On Your Nightstand post on Tuesday and hope to get one more book review up next week, but between visiting and cooking, I may be a little scarce (then again, maybe not – our whole family values some computer time. 🙂 ) I’m sure it is much the same with many of you, so if I don’t “see” you again before then, I hope you have a wonderful time of eating, spending time with family and friends (virtually, if not in person), and thankfulness to the Giver of all gifts.

And…I am giving away some gently-used Christmas books here – stop by if you are interested.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Barbara Harper

FFF fall background 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 don’t know where this week has gone – I can’t believe we’re almost halfway through November already! It has been a pleasant week. Here are some of my favorite parts:

1. Family game night. Jason and Mittu brought dinner over last Friday and Jesse’s girlfriend came over, and we introduced her to Settlers of Catan. Timothy even got in on the action:

2. Reading to Timothy for the first time. I had been waiting for that for a long time. 🙂 I’m looking forward to many more times to come.

3. Pretty pens. Somehow my desk drawer supply was nearly gone, and if you have to buy them anyway, might as well buy pretty ones. 🙂

4. Getting my Christmas cards. I don’t think I have ever bought them this early. Maybe that means I’ll get them out earlier, too! 🙂 I’ve always liked getting them from my local Christian bookstore, but the one here is expensive. Last year I bought them from a local discount store, and they had some nice Christian-themed ones. I wanted to get them early this year to find the best selection, and I was glad to have an opportunity to do so this week.

5. Apple Cake With Brown Sugar Glaze, a recipe from my real-life friend, Mary Beth. I was supposed to make a dessert for the family game night when I remembered this. Scrumptious!

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on November 7, 2014 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.

Here are some of my favorite parts of the week:

1. A relatively quiet week after a couple of busy ones.

2. Getting some odds and ends tasks done – those little things you see but can’t tend to at the time. It was good to get several of those taken care of this week. Plus I was able to make definite plans for a project that has been on the back burner for years. I hope to actually start on it next week if not before.

3. A scenic route. Normally I am not a fan of going for a drive just to do so. The car is not where I like to spend time, and I like to get from Point A to Point B in the shortest time possible. But in my errand running yesterday my GPS app decided to take me on some back roads I had never seen before. About the time I began to seriously wonder where I was, I figured I was almost at the end of the route, and if I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, I’d reconfigure it. I did end up at the right place, both times, though I am still not sure how I got there! But the timing and everything worked out and the drive was truly lovely. Though some trees are losing leaves, there is still a lot of beautiful color to see. In a couple of hundred yards on one road it seemed to be raining leaves.

4. Running errands on a perfect fall day. Some of my favorite stores (Joann’s, Michael’s, Tuesday Morning) are far enough away that I have to make special plans to get over there and then try to hit all three. As it turned out, I didn’t find what I needed at any of them, but I still enjoyed the outing, along with a stroll through Babies R Us! 🙂 It was a windy, blustery day, cool but not enough to need a sweater, my hair was flying and leaves were swirling every time I got out of the car. I find that kind of weather invigorating!

5. The privilege of voting…and the fact that most of the elections I was a part of concluded the way I wanted. 🙂

My “blustery day” reminded me of one of my favorite childhood videos, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. My kids loved Pooh when they were little, and I can’t wait to show these to Timothy! Here’s an excerpt:

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on October 31, 2014 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.

Here are some of my favorite parts of the week:

1. A good report. I mentioned last week that a routine colonoscopy showed everything was fine except for one little polyp which was removed and looked to be benign. I got the official word back this week that it was indeed benign and I don’t have to deal with colonoscopies for another 10 years. Yay!

2. Oven meals. I think I say that every year about this time. 🙂 I don’t use the oven much at all during warmer weather, because the AC just can’t keep up. So adding some of those meals that take 45-60 minutes in the oven revives the meal-planning a bit, and I enjoy popping something in and then having an hour or so to do something else.

3. Pumpkin carving night. Jason and Mittu made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, and then we carved our pumpkins.

And spending time with this little punkin is always a fave. 🙂

He got a good report from the physical therapist this week that he is right on target in his development.

4. My dear husband has been on a roll the last couple of weeks. I neglected to mention last week how much I appreciated his taking care of the rest of the household while I was out of commission preparing for the colonoscopy. During his day off he caulked the area between the kitchen counters and backsplash and last weekend he painted a door and cleaned our bathroom. We have very hard water in our area and I had been scrubbing at some spots to no avail, but he got them with Magic Eraser and Lime-Away (and I am sure more elbow grease than I have 🙂 ). I don’t think our bathroom has looked this good since we moved in. He works so long and hard, I hate for him to have tasks to do at home as well, but I so appreciate them – and him!

5. The end of the 31 days writing challenge. It has been enjoyable, but it also took more time and work than I’d thought it would. It will be nice not to feel like I *have* to post every day. 🙂 The 31 Dayers Facebook group added a lot to the enjoyment. I wish I could have kept up with several of the posters there – but there is only so much time in the day to read blogs, even though they contain good stuff. But I did enjoy what I did have time to read.

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on October 24, 2014 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 has been kind of a weird week for me, but thankfully it’s about over and everything is back to normal – whatever that is. 🙂 . Here are some of my favorite parts of it:

1. Getting my fall decorations up, finally!

2. Singing in the car with Jesse. My husband stays home from church Sunday nights and Wed. nights to care for his mom (we have a caregiver there for Sunday morning). If I am driving with Jesse in the car, I usually have music from my phone playing through the car’s speakers. Sometimes Jesse dozes, sometimes we talk, sometimes he’s lost in a game on his phone. A lot of times I am quietly singing along with whatever is playing, and sometimes Jesse will join in. One song this last week was a dramatic old spiritual – kind of fun.

3. Getting medical tests OVER with! I’m at “that age” (50+) where one physical will generate 2 or 3 more “routine tests.” Thankfully the last of those was completed this week.

4. Getting a colonoscopy OVER with! I’ve had this scheduled since August and had to reschedule a couple of times and have been dreading it, but finally got to the point where I wanted to go ahead and get it done so I didn’t have to think about it any more. The test itself is no problem – the preparation is pretty miserable, and it has taken most of the week for my system to get back to normal. Thankfully the doctor said everything was clear. He removed one little polyp (not uncommon for “older” people to have) that he said was benign but is sending it off to a lab to be sure.

5. Good news from an echocardiogram. This one was not routine – some of you have been reading here for a while know that I have had troubles with SVTs – supraventricular tachycardia – where the heart rate will suddenly jump into a real high rate (180-200 beats per minute), sometimes needing an ER visit to get back into a regular rhythm. It sometimes goes for years without happening and then sometimes will happen a lot. I’ve been having a lot of palpitations lately, and I wasn’t sure if that was quite the same thing, so the dr. had me wear a heart monitor for a couple of days and sent me for an echo a couple of weeks ago. It looks like the trouble still is just SVTs (a relief), and the echo showed the heart was pumping strongly, blood was flowing well, the valves were all working right. I’m supposed to see a heart doctor that specializes in electrical problems of the heart in mid-December to see what he recommends. Years ago I was told they could do an ablation where they “zap” the nerve on the heart that they think is causing the problem. Even though I’m told that is a relatively minor procedure (compared to other heart procedures), I haven’t wanted to do it. But now I’m getting to the point where wanting relief is greater than the dread of the procedure. So I am sure we’ll talk about that then. I am on a beta-blocker that helps, but they can’t increase it because it also lowers blood pressure, and since I don’t have high blood pressure in the first place, they don’t want it to go any lower. But the good news this week is that everything with the echo looked good, and the cardiologist told me that of all the arrhythmias, this one is the easiest to fix, so that’s something. 🙂

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on October 17, 2014 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.

Somehow this last week has flown. Here are some of my favorite parts of it:

1. Blue skies after rainy days. It has been a fairly wet week here, and overcast even when it wasn’t raining some days. One day when I was washing my hands at the sink and looking at a bright, blue, clear sky outside the window, I just stood for a moment soaking it in and appreciating it – probably more so for not having seen it in a while.

2. Cooler weather. The temperatures have been just right for me this week – cool but not much as to need a sweater or jacket.

3. A fun family night. Jason and Mittu came over and brought meatball subs and pumpkin pie, and Jesse’s girlfriend came over as well. We enjoyed watching a movie and then watching little Timothy. 🙂 At one point we got out an old ragged frog puppet that Jim used to use with the kids – I don’t even know what brought it to mind. But Jim started using it to talk to Timothy, and he was laughing so much that all the rest of us were almost going into hysterics watching. So fun.

4. Organizing loose ribbons and trim in the craft room. They were just loose in a drawer.

I think I saw this idea for wrapping them around 5 x 2 pieces of foam board on Pinterest.

It’s nice to be able to tell at a glance what I have.

5. Getting a mammogram and bone density test over with, both with good results. Our doctor’s health care system has a “patient portal” that patients can enroll in online, and results of tests and labs are often there within a day, and with more detail than just “everything’s fine.” It’s nice to get that done and not have to think about it again for a while.

And finally, I just had to share this with you. My son posted it with the caption “The resemblance is uncanny.”

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on October 10, 2014 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. Here are my favorite parts of the last week:

1. A surprise for our assistant pastor. Our assistant pastor has been with our church for 10 years now, and last Sunday the church was able to surprise him and his wife with a celebration during the Sunday School hour. We saw a video of some of his testimony (he has been in a wheelchair for some years now due to a car accident when he was on college), then our music pastor “interviewed” him and his wife about how they met, how God miraculously provided a handicap-accessible van with hand controls, etc. Then we presented a check that had been collected toward an upcoming Disney trip they were planning. Someone made signs with their faces on them like those used in campaigns – some of the kids held and waved those. Someone else put together a photo of their family in a frame with a wide white mat and asked everyone to jot a note to them on the mat. It was a lot of fun, and it was a treat to surprise and hopefully bless them in this way.

2. A camping trip – not for me, but for Jesse. He and some friends had been planning to go camping Friday night, but the weather turned wet and drizzly. They decided it was dry enough to go, and the rain started coming down again just as they were finishing eating. They were able to spend the night and then went into town the next morning to eat breakfast and shop a little. I was so glad it worked out for them to go – it takes a lot of preparation to go camping, and it’s sad to go through all that then not be able to go.

3. An in-house dinner date. Since Jesse was gone, I texted Jim about the possibility of bringing home something from Red Lobster for a “date.” 🙂

4. A scheduling snafu untangled. It’s a long story and would be pretty boring to read, but suffice it to say that somehow I ended up with two appointments at the same time on the same day. The one I’d rather have put off was one where the office staff had been a little….rude, let’s say, when I had tried to reschedule once before, so I wasn’t looking forward to having to reschedule again. But this time they were kind and friendly and it wasn’t a problem at all. Must have been a different person on the phone this time. At any rate, I was thinking and dealing with this over 2 or 3 days, and it was a relief when it was all worked out.

5. An incident with a spider. Such incidents are usually far from favorites. But last night after we got Great-Grandma ready for bed, I opened the door from her room into the garage, and a spider was coming straight my direction. I said, “Oh! Spider! Spider! Spider!” (I’m so articulate at such times.) Just then he jumped straight up and then started running around like crazy, almost as if thinking, “Oh! Human! Human! Human!” Thankfully the one who promised to love, cherish, and defend me from bugs took care of it for me.

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on October 3, 2014 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. Here are my favorite parts of the last week:

1. ♫♪ It’s beginning to look a lot like autumn…♪♫ Leaves are starting to turn, temperatures are starting to lower a bit sometimes. I agree with Anne of Green Gables: I am glad to live in a world where there are Octobers! I changed my floral arrangement out front to an autumnal one, but hope to get the rest of the fall decorations out soon.

2. Ladies’ Luncheon at church. It was originally going to be an overnight retreat, which I could not have gone to, then with all that has gone on in our church this summer, it was decided to make it a one-day seminar, and then finally changed to just a 3 hour event with our speaker sharing before and after a meal. The messages, food, and fellowship were all really good and the fall decorations were just right.

3. Home-made bread. One lady at our church makes scrumptious home-made bread and made about four different types for the luncheon. There was a lot left over, and she urged us to take some home. That was a rare treat. I haven’t tried to bake bread since early marriage when my attempts did not turn out so well.

4. Our hibiscus bush. I’ve never tried one of these before, but we needed something for a couple of places around the house and got a couple of these last spring. They’ve done wonderfully with really very little care. We thought one of them was damaged due to an early frost, but it came back. I should have taken a photo a couple of days ago when it had several open blooms on it, but here is one:

It looks a little red there, I guess because it is in my shadow, but it’s pink. We’ve enjoyed watching how the flowers unfold as they bloom.

5. A visit, a meal, and rocking a grandchild to sleep. I had an appointment one afternoon, and Jason and Mittu came over, brought me flowers and made dinner for us. I got to rock little Timothy while the dinner preparations were going on and even made him laugh a few times. We also made the flight arrangements for our oldest to come home for Thanksgiving. I’m so looking forward to it!

It’s been a busy week – now I need to regroup and figure out what’s next. 🙂 Have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on September 26, 2014 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. Here are my favorite parts of the last week:

1. The first week of autumn! Sometimes I am reluctant to give up summer – even though our calendar doesn’t ebb and flow with a school any more, there is a more relaxed feel to summer and those longer evenings of daylight. But the first leaves are changing and we’ve had a few cool mornings, so I am more than ready now!

2. A near perfect Saturday. Often Saturdays are catch-up days, but last Saturday I didn’t have any errands to run and had finished laundry the day before. I had been feeling the need for some alone time – some days there isn’t much uninterrupted time in which to hear myself think, as the saying goes – and had made it a matter of prayer. Saturday morning Jim was out running errands, Jesse slept later than usual, and I didn’t hear anything from my mother-in-law’s caregiver all morning. It was bliss to compose an entire blog post for the next week in one setting rather than in pieces. Then I got to spend some time organizing in my sewing/craft room, and we got take-out barbecue for dinner. A lovely day all around.

3. More baby smiles, giggles, and “talking.”

4. Safe travels and peaceful evenings. I was sorry my husband had to travel a couple of days this week, but I am glad God kept him safe coming and going and that his mom seemed to take it in stride. Some times when he is gone she gets unsettled and gets into what I call a jag of asking to “go home” over and over or to see her daughter or whatever. I think the last time he was gone she kept asking me through the night if she was behind on her mail. I don’t know where that came from. Earlier this week before he had even left she was asking about her cat, which she left behind when she moved to be near us six years ago, so I was afraid we might be in for a rough patch. But she slept well and everything was calm, for which I am very thankful.

5. A procedure gone well. Timothy had to have a little procedure done yesterday which required him to be sedated, which was worry enough, but his history of breathing problems and heart rate drops when he was in the hospital added to the concern. He weathered everything well and is laughing today.

Bonus: Thinking over some of my “Ebenezers” this week – those times of especially sensing, knowing, seeing evidence of God’s direct care and provision in our lives.

Happy first Friday of autumn!