Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week,  wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It’s been quite the week — snow Sunday morning that was gone by the time we got out of church, my mother-in-law hospitalized for an infection and released just yesterday to a skilled nursing facility, special meetings at church this week that we’ve had to miss a couple of nights of so far. But there are always blessings scattered throughout, and here are a few:

1. Meetings with the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team. I’ve enjoyed their music for years and referred to them here often, but I had never seen them “in person” until last spring when they were at our church for one service, and this time they are here for a whole week. I had also never heard Steve preach until last spring, though I have heard good things about him. So it has been nice to hear him more, too. I appreciate his spirit and balance.

2. Ladies’ Steak Night. The last few times our church has had a week of special meetings, they’ve had a Ladies’ Steak Night on Mondays and a Men’s Steak Night on Tuesdays. They grill steaks (free for guests but asking for donations from church members), and the idea is to invite friends, neighbors, coworkers, especially those who might not care to come to a regular church service. It was a time of good food, music, and fellowship (I sat next to one of the Pettit team members who had been an English major, and we discussed books. Lovely!), and best of all, a few people came to know the Lord both nights.

3. Friends sharing books. Both an online friend and a friend at church shared books with me after discussing them and my comment that they sounded interesting. Very kind and thoughtful.

4. A good doctor and nurse. I mentioned my m-i-l being in the hospital. When the nurses thought she would be released, the doctor kept her a couple of days longer because her white blood cell count was still high. He told my husband that there are national averages for how long to keep patients for different ailments, but that wasn’t as important to him as making sure she was all right. I appreciate a doctor who thinks that way. He was also very thorough in explaining things to us. He is not her regular doctor – he was just over her case while in the hospital –  but I am glad he was. And though all the nurses were kind, there was one that was especially helpful. As we mentioned something about his mom needing to go from assisted living to skilled nursing, she offered to get us in touch with just the person we needed to talk to. We hadn’t even known who to ask for or whether there was someone at the hospital who helped with such things, so that was a blessing.

5. Being in the right place at the right time.  I love how God orchestrates these things. One day I had gotten up to see Jim’s mom later than I had planned, but the lady from the skilled nursing facility was there at that moment needing some papers to be signed to get the ball rolling, and the doctor came in and confirmed that she wouldn’t be released that day, though everyone else had thought she would. In the hospital, especially when it comes to release time, there is a lot of waiting around wondering what’s going to happen when, so it was especially nice to get official word at that moment so we would know how to arrange our day.

It will be a busy few days helping Jim’s mom get used to a new place and sorting and moving things from the old one. The new one is much smaller, so we’re having to strategize about what to keep and what to store and what to get rid of. We’re supposed to discuss her care plan today. We’re hoping and praying she adjusts well — it’s hard to make such drastic changes at that age.

Thank you for your kind comments concerning our family news yesterday. They are much appreciated!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week,  wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It’s been a wild and windy week outside: rain, high winds, flooding, and a bit of snow. I’m thankful it’s been warm and cozy inside. Here are a few faves from the week:

1. Not losing power, always a concern during storms of any kind around here.

2. Safety. Jesse had a couple of harrowing experiences in his car, hydroplaning for the first time.

3. A new nightstand. I have been wanting to get rid of the old one for ages. It was old and had problems even before we scavenged it from friends who were getting rid of it. It was intended for a living room end table and stuck out too far for a bedroom night stand, but it served that purpose well for a number of years. I had been saving up points from my Amazon credit card to buy something big with rather than piddling it away on smaller orders. It takes me ages to come to a decision about style and color, but I finally bought a new one. I had enough points to get two, but I wanted to wait and see how we liked this one first. Jim said I could buy a second one for his side — we will have matching nightstands for the first time in 33 years of marriage!

Old:

New:

4. A new Mexican food restaurant. I have to have a Mexican food place nearby! That or learn to make chicken chimichangas for myself. My husband was dissatisfied with the place we’ve been going, so we tried a new place and liked it.

5. God bringing things together. I was working on the ladies’ newsletter for church this week and had it all done except for one section someone else was writing. She e-mailed Wed. night to ask if she could wait and send it in next month, which was fine, but now I needed to figure out what to put in that blank space. Then something I read Thursday morning fit the bill perfectly, both in what it said and the length of it to fit in the needed space. Thank you, Lord!

Hope you have a good weekend! The rain has finally stopped here, though we still have lots of ponds throughout town formed by all the rainwater. We’re supposed to get snow this weekend, but they say it won’t be enough to cause any problems. Hope not!

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week,  wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It’s been a better week for us than the last couple of weeks have been, though we’re still heavy-hearted and concerned for a niece’s fiance who was discovered to have multiple tumors and is suffering through a heavy regime of chemotherapy this week and will be for weeks to come. The ultimate prognosis is good, the doctor says, but they’re going to have an awful time of it through treatment. Prayers are always appreciated!

The faves for this week are small ones, but they do lighten and encourage.

1. Thoughtfulness. My husband had to pick up Chick-Fil-A biscuits for a meeting at work, and time was tight between the time they opened and the time he had to be at work, but he still stopped by the house and dropped off chicken biscuits for Jesse and me.

2. Filters. When my oldest son was here he showed me how to set up filters for gmail. That has been a great help, especially for sales-related ones (coupons for the pizza place, fabric shop, etc.) I can set them to go into a folder without them cluttering up my e-mail and then look at them when I want to.

3. Hand-written notes, both sending and receiving them.

4. Downton Abbey. Yes, I’ve gotten on the bandwagon. 🙂 I was discouraged from doing so, thinking I’m 3 seasons behind and it would take ages to catch up, but then I saw each season was only 7-8 episodes long. I’ve seen some episodes through Netflix and some through the PBS site, but thanks to Lisa for sharing this link to stream the episodes (The “Behind the Drama” special was really good), and also for the warning that there is a pretty bad scene in the first episode, but thankfully nothing like that has come up again so far. I was disappointed that it seemed a little soap-operaish at first, but I liked the historical aspects, especially when WWI and the Spanish flu hit. But according to the author in the “Behind the Drama” special, what I thought was the most soap opera-like one of all about the Turk was actually based on a true story. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes!

5. A cozy, warm shelter. Our area is being hit with an ice storm with predictions now of up to a 1/2″ of ice before it’s over. I’m thankful to have a safe place to stay and pray for those who don’t.

Hope you’re having a safe and warm weekend wherever you are.

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week,  wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It’s been a rather heavy week for many friends and family members. In my extended family just within the last week, two have been diagnosed with cancer, one struggling with a drug addiction had a relapse, and my husband’s uncle passed away. Then there have been serious illnesses among many friends’ families. It is always good to look for and acknowledge God’s blessings, but in those times perhaps it is even more necessary and helpful than others. Here are a few high spots from the last week:

1. Snow! I think it was just a week ago that we were experiencing almost summer-like weather. I remember saying that I don’t mind a mild winter at all, but I was hoping we’d get at least one good snow before it was all over, and we got it last night.

2. Sunshine. We haven’t seen it in at least 1 and 1/2, maybe two weeks.

3. Cessation of rain. It has been raining almost constantly for days.

Sorry to be so weather-related, but that has greatly affected the last week or two!

4. Safety driving. Wednesday we had some of the hardest rains after more than a week of steady rain, and one of the main roads I travel was flooded. I had to go the back way into our neighborhood, which is made up of very narrow roads — not too bad normally, but a bit tense since all traffic was rerouted that day. I almost got side-swiped by a school bus turning onto the street I was on. Then last night hubby and kids all made it home safely in the inclement weather — the interstate my husband usually travels was blocked for 3 hours, I think due to an accident, but he got off and came the back way, so was spared that wait.

5. Good books, good food, good programs, good music, all brighten up the days.

Most of all I am grateful for God’s presence with His children and His grace for every moment.

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week,  wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

I didn’t think I’d do a FFF today. There have been a couple of rough patches this week (nothing I can share publicly), I’ve been pretty down, I didn’t want to pretend to be all bright and happy when I was not, and I honestly couldn’t come up with more than a couple of “faves” this morning. But throughout the day a few things came to mind:

1. More daylight. I know the days start getting longer after Dec. 21, but I usually can’t really tell it for several weeks. But this year somehow there is noticeably more daylight already, even though it has been overcast daylight. Even overcast daylight is better than darkness (I’m pondering multiple meanings of that….)

2. Nice temperatures. It has been pretty comfortable this week, feeling not at all like January. I hope we do get one good snow this year, but otherwise I am all for mild winters.

3. Letterpress, an iPhone word game I play with my oldest son.

4. Talking things over. You know how when you’re married sometimes your conversations are just about everyday things — it’s been nice to have some good talks this week.

5. Humor, especially my husband’s. He can lighten almost any situation.

Above all, I am glad that Jesus is “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24) and that He invites us to cast every care on Him.

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week,  wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It has been a week of getting back to “normal.” Though it feels sad to put away the Christmas decorations and take the lights down, it does feel good to get the house back in order and start thinking about the new year. Here are some favorites from this past week:

1. Winning a gift card to Amazon from Katrina’s Fall Into Reading challenge!

2. Japanese food at the mall. Sadly our mall here is a little too far away to zip over to just to eat, but we needed to go to the mall to get Jesse a couple of clothes items and got dinner there. I had been longing for their chicken teriyaki. A bonus was having enough leftovers for lunch the next day.

3. A quiet New Year’s Eve. After the above-mentioned outing to the mall on NYE, we came home and watched Enchanted on TV, and then stayed up long enough to see the ball drop in Times Square in New York.

4. Safe travels for Jeremy. We had a bit of sleet and snow here and they’d had about 6″ of snow in RI, but all the flights were on time. Unfortunately his car had been towed when the snow plow needed to come through his street and he wasn’t there to move it.   That was frustrating to come home to, but he got it all worked out and made plans to park elsewhere next time he leaves.

5. Egg McMuffins for Sunday breakfast. Sunday mornings are the only time I make a big family breakfast. That got started when I started having problems with low blood sugar and needed a lot of protein to make it through the morning at church without having to munch on something, then it became kind of a tradition. But we had to get up way early to take Jeremy to the airport Sunday morning and decided to grab a fast food breakfast on the way back. It was so nice to just relax with the newspaper and breakfast instead of having to rush around to prepare one, and I was able to catch a few minutes’ sleep before heading off to church.

Bonus: I forgot now where I found the picture online for my blog header, but I love that it depicts sunshine through the winter trees. The winter months can be a little depressing for me, with the cold, lack of growing things, bare trees, often gloomy weather, but keeping busy and looking ahead to spring help, and that light shining through there is just symbolic to me that winter won’t last forever and spring is coming.

Though I was sad at the beginning of the week to transition out of the Christmas season, I’m starting to get exciting about some new projects. I hope you’ve had a great first week of the New Year!

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was great. Here are some highlights of the last week:

1. Christmas, of course. I could make a “fave five” list just from Christmas Day, but I’ll include the family time, great food, presents, and contemplation of our Savior’s birth all in one.

2. My new PINK laptop! I’ve always used the desktop, and some of my portable devices are fine for reading but not so great for posting or commenting. I’ve already put this to good use.

3. The Hobbit, followed by dinner and games at Jason and Mittu’s house with friends. Didn’t like this film quite as much as The Fellowship of the Rings, but it was fun.

4. Swiss-Ham-Ring-Around, one of our favorite Christmas leftover meals.

5. Time off. Jim is off through Tuesday and Jeremy is here through the weekend, so we’re enjoying just hanging out most of the time with some excursions here and there. Yesterday we did something I have been wanting to do since we moved here: we went to the World’s Fair Park and went up into the Sunsphere. I feel much more Knoxvillian now. 🙂

Here’s the view down below of the amphitheater and part of the park from the observatory:

Then we stopped in at the nearby Museum of Art (because they had a sign advertising free admission and because I needed a bathroom…), and they had a really neat display of miniature rooms.

All in all a fun outing.

Hope you’re having a great week, too!

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It’s been a busy but lovely week. Here are some of the best parts:

1. Our 33rd anniversary is today!

2. A night on the town. We went to a concert earlier in the week to celebrate our anniversary. We didn’t like the concert so much (left at intermission), but we loved the building it was in, the Tennessee Theatre.

Before the concert started we were turning in our seats, gawking, and taking pictures like country cousins coming to town for the first time, but didn’t care. 🙂

And we very much enjoyed walking around the older part of downtown (I love looking at old buildings) all dressed up for Christmas (the building and trees, not us. 🙂 ) and stopping for a bite to eat at a hippie-ish pizza place. One group of couples looked at us and smiled as we walked in, and I wondered what they were thinking. Maybe they were just being friendly, but we imagined them thinking, “Aw, look at the ‘older couple’ out on a date.” 🙂

3. Christmas films and specials and programs. We caught “It’s a Wonderful Life” earlier in the month and “Elf” this week (I’ve only seen the TV version and it’s pretty clean — can’t vouch for the DVD) as well as “White Christmas” and “Rudolph.” Fun to watch while working on a Christmas stitching project (for a present, so no sneak peeks!) Plus our adult Christmas program at church was last Sunday night, always enjoyable. For the past couple of years instead of a cantata they’ve just done a series of songs and readings from different folks at church.

4. Jeremy (oldest son) came home last night and is here for over a week!

5. A Christmas gift sewing project has been going relatively well. I’m not the best seamstress — I do literally pray over it, especially the trickier sections —  but I have only had to rip out a few stitches so far. I keep telling myself, though, I should have started this way back in the fall!

Bonus: Christmas bonuses from my husband’s company, and a generous husband who shares a portion with his family: he gave us each a bit of Christmas “mad money.”

I am not sure how much I will be online between now and Christmas except for the “Fall Into Reading ” wrap-up tomorrow, so I’ll take this opportunity to say I hope that all your remaining preparations go well and that you have a wonderful Christmas time remembering, especially, that a Savior was born in order to eventually die for us in order that we might believe in and live with Him.

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It’s been a busy but enjoyable week. Here are some favorite parts of it:

1. Jim is feeling much better. Still runs out of energy by evening and still has a cough but he is much better than he was last week.

2. Unexpected refunds. One company I ordered from online for the first time sent me an e-mail that they hadn’t gotten my order out when originally planned, so they refunded the shipping charges. Since I had ordered early for Christmas and it wasn’t “crunch time,” I hadn’t even really noticed that the order wasn’t in on time, but I appreciate the integrity of this company. Then we decided that something we ordered from another company wasn’t what we needed, and when I contacted them to send it back, they sent us a refund but said we didn’t need to return it.

3. Another bird feeder. I put a feeder containing suet up just outside the window by my desk, where hanging plants were in the spring and summer. It took a while for the birds to find it but now I see them there regularly and more close-up than the bird feeder by the tree. But I can’t seem to get a picture — I guess they’re close enough that they see or sense movement and fly off when I reach for the camera. Maybe they’ll get used to me after a while.

4. Caroling for “at-home” members. Last Sunday night our church broke up into smaller groups and took care baskets to some of our older members who can’t get out to church much and sang Christmas carols to them. My mother-in-law was one of those whom they went to. I wasn’t able to go but Jim said it went really well. Sometimes she’s too sleepy to interact much, but he said she sang along with some of the songs and enjoyed the visit.

5. Pumpkin Spice Swirl Bread. I passed by a display of this in the grocery store and then went back to pick one up. It’s more like regular sandwich bread with a bit of pumpkin and cinnamon flavor than regular pumpkin bread, but it makes good toast and is a nice seasonal change.

Hope you have a great week!

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It’s not been one of the very best weeks — poor hubby has been sick for a week now. Some weeks you have to look a little harder for some good points, but there are almost always some to be found.

1. Medicine. Jim had been holding off going to the doctor, figuring if he had just a cold or even the flu it would just need to run its course. But it had gone on a long time and the weekend was coming up, so we thought maybe he should try to get in in case of strep or an infection. He was given an antibiotic for bronchitis and prednisone for swelling and inflammation, so hopefully once those kick in he’ll start to mend.

2. The Children’s Christmas program at our church Sunday night. They do the exact same program with kids each year (except they may do different songs): a portrayal of Christ’s birth with Mary, Joseph, the inn keeper, shepherds, wise men, angels, etc. The cutest are the little ones in animal costumes made like footie pajamas. I wasn’t even sure I was going to go that night — Jim was home sick, I hadn’t been feeling all that great that morning, I thought, “It’s just going to be the same thing as last year…” But I am glad I did. It was enjoyable and those programs help set the tone for the season.

3. This sweet carol sung by some of the older girls in the children’s program.

4. Cozy books are always a fave, but I just finished an audiobook of At Home in Mitford and started Little Women. They make me want to curl up with a blanket and keep listening, but I try to keep them to when I am driving or curling my hair, etc.

5. Watching Little Women (the Winona Ryder version) with my daughter-in-law one evening when they were here to do laundry. My son was there, too, but I think he was working on something on the computer most of the time. I had been wanting to watch it in conjunction with reading the book (no worry about spoilers since I had read the book and seen the DVD many times before) and because, though it’s not specifically a Christmas story, it begins at Christmas and has another significant Christmas in it. It was fun to watch it with Mittu.

Hope you have a great weekend! I’m hoping to catch up on what I didn’t get done this week: Christmas cards!