This is the last week of summer break for us, and it’s certainly had its highs and lows – though I guess truthfully you could say that of most weeks. 🙂 Here are some of the highs:

1. A lovely Saturday. Saturday was my oldest son’s last full day of vacation here before having to head back to his place on Sunday. We took a picnic lunch and kayaks out to the lake for a few hours, and though the skies were overcast, it didn’t rain while we were there and the temperatures were wonderful. Then we went to an Asian place for dinner, and the dish I chose this time was just right (the one I had chosen last time was too sweet for my tastes). Then Jason and Mittu took us to the Orange Leaf for dessert, a frozen yogurt place, and they had a couple of nondairy options I could try. All in all a wonderful day!

2. My birthday was Wednesday, and my dear family made it very special for me.

3. Dinner at Cheddar’s for my birthday. Yum!

4. An iPad mini. This wasn’t even on my radar, but my husband thought I might like it and got it for my birthday. And I love it! The screen is bigger and easier to read than my phone’s, but it isn’t as heavy as an iPad and can fit well in my purse.

5. Greetings. I have a handful of friends who still send birthday cards via snail mail – so nice to receive something written by hand in the mail! And Facebook birthday greetings add a lot to the day as well.

The main “low” for the week was that Jesse had four wisdom teeth plus two molars removed yesterday, and though the pain didn’t seem to be a problem for him, he wasn’t able to keep any food down until late that evening. I think it was a combination of the effects of anesthesia, perhaps a bit of dehydration (the surgery wasn’t til 1 and he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since the night before), and bleeding. He’s asleep now, and I am going to let him sleep as long as he wants to. I hope his stomach is settled today. I’m also praying he doesn’t have any complications, which I would probably do anyway, but his college classes start Monday and that’s added impetus.

Hope you’ve had a great week with more highs than lows as well!

Friday’s Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, who invites us to share five of our favorite things from the last week. It’s 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.

Friday’s Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, who invites us to share five of our favorite things from the last week. It’s 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.

Thankfully this week has been a bit quieter than the last several. Here are some of the highlights:

1. An early birthday present. I had been hoping for a new iPhone with more storage space for my birthday in a few weeks. A couple of weeks ago the one I had stopped playing sound, other than the regular phone ringing and speaking, except through the headphones. My son looked online for fixes and we tried them all, but nothing worked. When my husband took the phone to the Apple store, he was told that they replace them rather than fix them, but mine was out of warranty. So Jim went ahead and upgraded to the new iPhone 5 with the next level of storage space for me. So nice to have sound back and more room to work with!

2. A Gifts basket for Grandma. Jason and Mittu brought some yellow flowers for her (her favorite color) and some very practical and helpful items. One, in fact, was very timely because we were running low on it.

3. The right tools. My husband has often said that the right tools make all the difference in car or home repairs. The same is true for kitchen and craft room! I’d had a cordless hot glue gun with a stand as well as a mat and other hot glue gun helpers for a while, but yesterday was the first time I got them out and used them for a project. (Said project has to remain secret for now. 🙂 ) They helped the whole hot glue gun experience go so much more smoothly than usual.

4. A wand or immersion blender has been another wonderful tool for pureeing Grandma’s food. Much better than the big blender. Wish we’d had these when we had babies – homemade baby food would have been a breeze!

5. Fun moments with Grandma. Sometimes when we get her ready for bed, she’s sleepy and groggy or just patiently enduring. Sometimes she is in more pain than other times – she is so arthritic that you can’t really move her without hearing and feeling snap, crackle, and pop throughout her body. But one night recently she had the giggles. We never could understand what she thought was so funny (though I thought our saying, “OK, time to wake up so we can get you ready for bed” was rather amusing), but she has us giggling as well. Then another night Jim said at about 2:45 in the morning, she very earnestly and a little agitatedly said, “How do you spell Ovaltine?” (So that’s what she thinks about when she’s quiet. 🙂 )

All in all a good week. Jeremy is coming next week for his birthday, so I may not be online as much – although he likes his computer time as well, so I may be here about as much as usual.

Have a great weekend!

It seems like I say it has been a busy week every Friday, and so far it has been a busier than usual summer. But this is probably the busiest week so far. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Jason’s birthday celebrations. His birthday was Thursday, we took him and Mittu out to eat at a new-to-us Chinese place Friday and then went to their place for cake and presents, then Saturday Mittu threw him a surprise birthday party with friends at our house. Each event was much fun!

2. A good session with the doctor. I had my yearly physical Monday and was able to discuss some concerns that, for whatever reason, I hadn’t wanted to bring up before, but we were able to have a good discussion and he gave me some practical solutions.

3. A friend indeed. A friend at church who has taken a special interest in Grandma, always greeted her at church, and has visited her on occasion, was asking me about her on Sunday. She hadn’t heard that we were planning to bring her home, and as I was telling her about it and admitted I was struggling a bit with having my peaceful solitude at home “invaded,” I got unexpectedly emotional. She didn’t judge, just hugged and understood and said…I don’t even remember what, but it helped. 🙂

4. A word in due season. Either the morning we were to bring her home or the morning before, I was seriously wrestling with how I’d be able to handle it, and God gave me just exactly what I needed in my morning devotions and gave me a calmness of heart.

5. A smooth transition for Grandma. We moved her home Wednesday, and she seems to be doing well so far. Change, even positive change, can be hard, especially at her age and situation, but she seems happy and peaceful, and she’s very patient with our bumbling attempts at her care. The home health aide has been great with her and we all seem to connect well. The nursing home gave referrals for a physical therapist, a home nurse to visit a couple of days a week (they came yesterday), a speech therapist, and an occupational therapist (still to meet them). I was very glad – otherwise we, or at least I, would have felt set adrift after leaving the nursing home. We have been very pleased with all of them so far. Health care workers who are compassionate, caring, and competent are worth their weight in gold.

I’m understandably behind with reading and commenting on blogs, but I hope to catch up this weekend, when some of the extra therapists and such won’t be here and it will be a fairly regular day – at least as far as I can foresee just now. 🙂

Friday’s Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, who invites us to share five of our favorite things from the last week. It’s 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.

I don’t know what happened to the “lazy days of summer.” July has barely started and I’m tired already! 🙂 But it has been a good week. Here are some of its highlights:

1. My mother-in-law’s 85th birthday.

2. Getting word that my niece’s fiance is CANCER FREE!!!!! Some months ago I had mentioned that my niece’s 19 year old fiance had been found to have multiple tumors in various places. After a surgery and then months of grueling chemo, scans last week showed no sign of cancer. Praise the Lord! He has to go back to the doctor every six months for the next two years just to check on things.

3. Independence Day. I am so thankful that our country is free and that people have sacrificed to make and keep it that way. A day off in the middle of the week is nice, too. 🙂 Our neighbors planned something of a block party that went well despite frequent rain. I only knew two neighbors before, so it was nice to meet and get to know others. We ended the night with a family game of Settlers of Catan.

4. Getting some overdue phone calls made. For some reason I am getting terrible about that, especially in regard to appointments. I finally determined to just sit down and plow through all of them.

5. A hopeful prognosis. One of those phone calls was to an orthodontist. Jesse’s previous orthodontist in SC had recommended waiting until he finished growing to try to begin work on his needs. He had also said he would likely need surgery to remove part of his jaw to correct his particular problem, which to us sounded like a drastic measure (though we don’t question his judgement – he had been great with our older two boys). The orthodontist we saw here said there is a good chance we can correct the problem just by removing some extra teeth and positioning others. They took x-rays and such, and we won’t know the best course of action they’ll recommend until we see them again next week, but it’s a great relief that we might be able t get away without that kind of surgery. Plus it is just good to get the ball rolling on all this.

Hope you have a great weekend! It’s due to be a rainy one here, but we’ve got lots of indoor projects we can work on.

Friday’s Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, who invites us to share five of our favorite things from the last week. It’s 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.

Wow, I don’t think I have ever been away from my blog for a whole week before! My step-father, two of my sisters, and one nephew from TX came for nearly a week-long visit and just left this morning. We had a great time with a balanced amount of just hanging out and talking and then going and doing some fun things. All of us except Jim, Jason, and Mittu, who had to work, drove a couple of hours to meet up with another sister, her significant other, a niece, and her daughter from SC in Asheville, NC. for  few hours yesterday, and one night we got together at a restaurant with an aunt and uncle from across town that we’d been trying to get together with for three years – we joked that it took family coming from TX to make it happen. We did a lot of talking, eating, and laughing all week.

This has been a whole week of highlights, here are five of them:

1. Visiting with extended family, of course. 🙂

2. Meeting my great-niece for the first time. She’s two and absolutely adorable.

3. Playing games. We had several rousing hands of Apples to Apples one night and Taboo another night.

4. Going to Jason and Mittu’s for dinner one night. She makes a wonderful easier and lighter version of Chicken Cordon Bleu that is one of my favorite dishes, had some neat egg salad bites for appetizers, and chocolate waffles with ice cream for dessert.

5. Dixie Stampede. A rootin’, tootin’, wild west revue type of show is not necessarily my favorite, but the whole experience  of a dinner show with the family was great fun. We had a fun, wonderful waiter. One of the food items you get is a whole small rotisserie chicken, and as he was serving those he was calling out, “Chicken nuggets!” I had seen on the web site that they don’t offer serving utensils as part of the experience, so I slipped some plastic ones in a plastic bag for us. When our waiter saw them, he said, “Cheater, cheater!” and when he was gathering up plates afterward joked about not wanting to touch the “contraband.” They serve one food item at a time (which works out well, because they serve a massive amount of food, and you’d never be able to eat it all at one time), and when he delivered the corn on the cob, he joked, “Try eating that with a fork!” They do give you a warm, wet cloth at the hand to wipe your hands.

All in all it was a great week! But I am officially giving myself the day off today, except for laundry, and I foresee a nap in my future since we got up with them at 4 a.m. to see them off. And I will try to catch up with you all throughout the day.

Linking up with Susanne‘s Friday’s Fave Fives today: