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.

Here are a few highlights from the past week:

1. The children’s Christmas program at church. Even though we don’t have little ones any more and I don’t know half of these little ones in our new church, it’s still so sweet to see all the miniature angels, shepherds, and wise men. They have the very littlest ones in animal costumes — so cute! I hope and pray the message they proclaim takes root in their hearts as well as the listeners.

2. Jesse’s school Christmas program. The seniors do a “reader’s theater” type play and various other classes and groups sing. Jesse was the “mission preacher,” also known as “the man in the suit,” who was able to tell little “Jimmy” how to be saved. The guy who played Jimmy is one of his closest friends at school. The whole evening went very well, and he was so glad to get it over with — though he had a pretty small part, he was nervous about it. There were a few pangs for Mama in realizing this was the last Christmas program I would have a child in…

3. Pink poinsettias. I don’t usually buy poinsettias, but when I saw this pink one in the grocery store I had to get it.

4. Sunshine. The first part of this week was dreary, overcast, rainy, with several areas flooding (thankfully not affecting roads, but we have several spontaneous lakes and ponds in the area when there is a lot of rain). But the sun shone bright yesterday and today, and it was so welcome. Still cold, but the sunshine makes a lot of difference.

5. My garage. I’m pretty sure I have mentioned it before. But after spending twelve winters scraping frost off windshields and bringing groceries in through the rain, it is so nice to bring the car into a dry and relatively warm space! And I am thankful my husband and son are gallant and chivalrous enough to let me have that space even though they leave the house earlier and have to deal with the frost more on their cars.

I don’t know about you all, but for us most of the Christmas “events” have been sandwiched into this week. Besides the pageant and program already mentioned, our ladies’ Christmas party is tonight, Sunday School potluck is this Sunday, open house at my mother-in-law’s assisted living place Sat. night, and the adult Christmas program Sunday night (thankfully I am just an observer for that!) I’ve bought Christmas cards but haven’t addressed them or done hardly any shopping. It’s a busy but enjoyable time! 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.

Here are a few highlights from the past week:

1. Christmas decorations. Jim doesn’t like to have them up right after Thanksgiving, but we thought we’d go ahead while Jeremy was here so he could participate and so we could get our family picture in front of the Christmas tree for Christmas cards. I kind of like having them up now. 🙂

We did a couple of new things outside. We have one of those big ugly utilities boxes in our yard, and the previous owners planted some little trees around it. I wanted to decorate the trees and Jim wanted to decorate the box itself.

As we were putting the lights up, we saw that the front of the box said not to plant anything around it. Ooops! It’s evidently been like that for a while and they haven’t said anything, so I guess it is ok. I asked Jim what to do  if some utility guy knocked on the door and says he needs to get to the box — he said he guessed we’d just have to unwrap it then. 🙂 😳

2. Christmas light show. Christmas Wonderland in Sevierville, TN has a place you can drive through and watch the Christmas lights blink and shimmer in time to a radio station they have you turn to. Pretty neat!

Most of the music is pretty good, some of it a little raucous for my tastes. But it was fun to see.

3. Christmas music! I like to wait til after Thanksgiving at least so as not to overshadow it. The Christian radio station I listen to started playing all Christmas music Dec. 1. I just got this new CD yesterday and have listened to it multiple times already.

4. Turkey Bone Soup. One of the best things in the days following Thanksgiving.

5. Harvest Loaf Cake— the first of the season! But not the last, as I am planning on making it again for a couple of upcoming Christmas events.

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. This has been 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.

This is a week with an abundance of favorites, but I’ll try to narrow it down to five!

1. Our church’s Fall Festival. This is the first year we’ve attended (had a scheduling conflict last year). Every year the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the church has a number of festival things set up for kids (bouncy house, petting zoo, games, a fire truck), food, a game for all, then singing and testimonies. The food this year was a chili cook-off, soups, hot dogs, and pies, and the game a version of Minute to Win It. We didn’t go to the early festival parts, but came in time to eat, and enjoyed the whole evening. My favorite part was the testimonies, reflections of God’s faithfulness over the last year.

2. Jeremy’s coming home and having all the family together again.

3. Thanksgiving foods. We tend to be pretty traditional in our Thanksgiving feast, so we look forward to the same dishes each year.

4. Games. Listening to the kids play Settlers of Catan “just like old times” and then joining them for Apples to Apples later in the evening.

5. Time to relax. Though there was a lot of cooking and dishwashing going on the last couple of days, there was time to watch a DVD together and even some time to sit and read. It’s nice when everyone is off and there are not the usual constraints on the schedule.

Though we’re to be thankful all year, it’s nice to have this time set aside specifically to focus on being thankful.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! No Black Friday shopping for me, at least not in the malls!

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. This has been 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, another week whizzed by…here it is Friday again! Some favorites from the past week:

1. Feeling much better than last week. Still having an occasional twinge or ache, but very mild compared to last week.

2. Chinese take-out. We had eaten at Wok Hay before, but Friday night I wasn’t feeling like an excursion, so we Jim got take-out to bring home. It may sound silly, but we’d never had the little boxes like you see on TV whenever anyone gets Chinese take-out, and it was fun to do that. And I love their scallion beef and fried rice.

3. Meals made by others. Jim grilled chicken Sunday and Mittu made lasagna Monday night, both very good. (Hmmm, maybe I should feel indisposed more often. 🙂 No, not really….being in pain isn’t worth it, but it was nice to have a few nights off from cooking.)

4. Quick cookies. Thursday morning there were no desserty things to pack with Jesse’s lunch, so a recipe Mittu got from a teacher came to the rescue: Mix 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of peanut butter, and 1 egg together, drop by teaspoonfuls on an ungreased cookie sheet, and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Usually we put Hershey’s kisses in the middle of them after taking them out of the oven, but there wasn’t time for them to get firm again after getting all melty, so I mixed in some chocolate and peanut butter chips. And it only makes 15-18, so there wasn’t a ton left to tempt me.

5. An invite to Pinterest….as if I need something else to tempt me to spend more time at the computer! 🙂 But it is a neat site to look at and add to in bits and pieces of time.

Gotta dash off for a meeting, but I look forward to visiting with you later in the day. Happy Friday!

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. This has been 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 did something to my back Tuesday. I wasn’t aware of pulling anything the wrong way when I was exercising that day, but afterward in the shower my back started to hurt and I’ve had trouble with it ever since. So my favorite parts of this week are:

1. Ibuprofen.

2. Icy Hot patches.

3. A heating pad. I’m thankful we still had one, and I was able to easily find it, and it still works! I’ve had it over 30 years and haven’t used it in a while.

4. A sick day. I was just thinking earlier in the week that I wished I could have a day with no obligations, without needing to go anywhere and keep one eye on the clock throughout the day, and I laughed to my myself, “What I need is a sick day.” Well….that wasn’t really a wish or a prayer, but that aspect of the week has been nice. Without exercising and running errands I feel like I have sooo much more time in the day! But I am ready to get back to normal…I hate that my not being able to do things is going to mean someone else having to do them.

5. Spiritual lessons. I was reminded of the truth that when “one member [of the body] suffer[s], all the members suffer with it” (I Corinthians 12:27). You don’t realize all the different actions (even sneezing!) that involve your back muscles until they hurt. And it’s given me empathy for a couple of people I know whose bodies are twisted in various ways, one with severe scoliosis. When I’m walking bent, it makes other muscles ache, and I wonder how those folks who live with bent bodies aren’t in constant discomfort. Maybe they are — or maybe their muscles get used to the “new normal.” I don’t know. Both of them are generally happy people — a rebuke to me because when I hurt, all of my focus is on the hurt area.

As is obvious by this fave five. 🙂 I don’t mean to have a “poor little me” attitude, but this has been the primary event of the week. I’m better than I was Tuesday and Wednesday and can putter around the house getting some things done once the ibuprofen kicks in. So I am hoping to be back to normal asap.

I’m also glad I had an urge to get the house clean last weekend!

My other main event this week is celebrating five years of blogging and 2,500 posts with a series of giveaways this week! That’s been fun.

By the way, I asked you last week to pray for a classmate of my son’s with encephalitis. Turns out she didn’t have encephalitis but had a shunt in her brain that was malfunctioning — my son didn’t quite know or remember what the original shunt was for. But his classmate is out of the hospital now and recovering: she came to school for lunch with her friends one day but is not back in classes yet. Thanks for praying.

Have a great weekend!

A Special Thank You to Our Veterans!

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. This has been 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 Friday! And I am looking forward to “falling back” this weekend and gaining back that lost hour from last spring. Here are a few favorites from the last week.

1. Mexican food. One of my favorite things in life. Our favorite place here had kind of dipped in quality and service the last few times we’d been there, and I was afraid it was headed downhill, but this last visit was back up to par. Plus, the next day my dear husband let me have his leftover chicken chimichanga!

2. Carving pumpkins for the first time ever. Well, I didn’t — I just watched and took pictures. 🙂 But it was a fun evening.

3. Going back to bed. I really hate to, because I feel it cuts into the most productive part of my day, but it’s nice to be able to do so occasionally when needed.

4. Newspaper column. I mentioned a few weeks ago having an opportunity to be a “community guest columnist” for our newspaper for about a year. My first column was published last Sunday!

5. A good meeting and a great advocate. Some of the staff at my mother-in-law’s assisted living facility were again saying she needed to be moved into a nursing home this week. Jim met with the director and shared his concern that the care-givers weren’t working with her as the physical therapist had shown them to, and she was very receptive. The physical therapist came in as well and testified that she was improving under his care and she was not at all to the point of needing to move yet. He has been just exceptional in working with her and advocating for her. I’m so glad God brought him to her. Jim arranged to go back over after work to show the main person saying she had to lift her how we help her stand, but then she had another obligation and wasn’t able to come. Frustrating! But we have another reprieve for a while, though we do see the handwriting on the wall and are looking into other options for when that time finally does come.

Prayer request: One of my son’s classmates is in the hospital with encephalitis (same student I mentioned here with some serious issues), and it’s pretty serious from what we understand. I’m hoping he will hear more about how she is doing at school today.

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. This has been 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 rainy and cool this Friday here in eastern TN. Here are some of my favorite parts of the past week:

1. Free Outback steak! Some weeks ago there was a promotion for a free Outback steak, and I noticed my coupon was about to expire, so we went last Friday, our first time there since we moved. I don’t usually order steak there, but their new Wood-Fire Grilled Steak had a wonderful flavor (no, this isn’t a paid ad 🙂 ). Plus this Outback wasn’t quite so noisy as the one we went to in SC.

2. Fall decorations. I’m much later than I intended, but I finally got them up this week. I love having seasonal touches through the house. Here are a few of them:

3. Visiting with a neighbor. A piece of our mail got delivered to my neighbor, and she brought it over to our house. It was nice to chat a bit, and I finally was able to ask someone about trick-or-treaters here. Last year Halloween was on a Sunday, and when we got back from the evening service at church, we didn’t have anyone come by. I like to pass out candy and tracts for children, but I didn’t want to have a lot of candy leftover because I really don’t need it in the house. So now I feel better prepared.

4. Time limits. I can spend all kinds of time on the computer and then get frustrated because I’m not getting things done around the house, but just setting a simple time limit has helped.

5. A little more organization. We’ve only been in this house a little over a year, so the closets, cabinets, and drawers don’t need major overhauls, but I’ve been thinking these items would work better there, some drawer dividers would help here, etc. Nothing dramatic enough for pictures, but it’s been nice to implement some of those ideas this week.

Bonus:

I hope I am not speaking too soon, but we taped and watch the premier of the new show “Once Upon a Time,” and it was wonderful! I so hope it stays that way and doesn’t get messed up with objectionable elements, but this first episode was just delicious.

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. This has been 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.

Another week flown by! Here are some of my favorite parts of it:

1. Organization. Not whole room make-overs, but just a drawer and a few shelves. I had bought some dividers for the drawer a while back but hadn’t put them in yet, and while doing that had an idea for what to do with the shelves. Just little things but very pleasing.

2. Sunday School potluck. For various reasons we hadn’t yet made it to any of our Sunday School’s activities — they usually have some kind of get-together outside of class about once a quarter. They had a potluck dinner last Sunday. I love potlucks — getting a chance to sample everyone’s best dishes. It was nice to have dinner done right after church, too — it usually takes a while for us by the time we get home, take care of Grandma, change clothes, and get started.

3. Texas Sheet Cake. My favorite cake, I think, and one of my contributions to the party. It makes a whole 15 x 10 pan full, so I can’t make it for just the three of us — I’d eat way too much of it. So it was nice to be able to make it for a group and still have some left to take home.

4. Pink products!

Didn’t notice til taking the picture that those were children’s hangers. Sigh. Will probably have to take them back as my clothes are considerably larger than a child’s.

5. Finding old love notes, this one from one of my sons. 🙂

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. This has been 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 Friday! Again! What a blessing that it comes every week! 😀 Here are a few favorite particulars from the last week:

1. A night out with hubby. Last Friday I took Jesse up to the church for an overnight youth activity and then met Jim where he works for an annual antique festival in the area. The little town where he works has a short street that is mostly antique shops, and during this weekend they all host sales, have street vendors that sell food, and live music. I’m not so much into antiques — I don’t know enough about them to know what’s valuable — but I like a vintage-y look to things. And a lot of the wares weren’t truly antique, but there was some nice stuff at good prices. Then when we went back to his workplace to pick up his car, he took me on a tour of his area, which I had never seen before. It was nice to see where he spends his days. Then we ate at a restaurant near there which we frequented a lot on our house-hunting trips. It was altogether a very pleasant evening!

1a. Finding pink rosy fabrics. It’s hard to find fabric with truly pink roses these days: most of them are either too red or peachy. But one of the stores we went to had some older fabrics with just the right shade of pink roses. I have a project in mind…if it all works out, I’ll let you know!

2. Soup nights. Last night was cool and rainy, the perfect weather for a pot of vegetable beef soup (only I use ground turkey) and cornbread muffins.

3. Applesauce spice cake. A nice flavor — it tasted a little like zucchini bread to me — and only 90 calories. I added a little glaze, so that upped the calories a bit. And it only makes a 9 x 9 pan (or 8 or 9″ round, if preferred), so there wasn’t a whole 9 x 13 panful of it to tempt me. Unfortunately neither Jim nor Jesse liked it — Jesse wouldn’t even try it, and Jim, because of the name, thought it would taste like apples and was disappointed it didn’t. I should have just called it a spice cake.

4. Seeing a son display God’s wisdom. My youngest son had a classmate confide some serious issues to him, and I was blessed and a little amazed to hear how he handled it and what he told her. He did end up needing to share it with the principal for safety reasons, but the other person didn’t take offense. I can’t disclose the situation, but this girl needs a lot of prayer.

5. My nephew’s hand healing well. I mentioned last week my nephew having an accident resulting in the amputation of his middle finger. He posted a photo, and I thought it looked amazing for only a week after surgery. I hope this won’t make anyone squeamish:

He was joking about giving high fours instead of high fives, so he seems in pretty good spirits about it. The doctor said he should be able to use it normally — but I imagine some tasks might take a little getting used to. Thanks for praying!

When I first started thinking about the Fave Fives for this week, I only had a couple in mind. But then several others came to mind — that is the best part of this meme. There are all sorts of blessings we’d miss due to not taking the time to think about them. It’s a good thing to revisit the week and thank the Lord for the good things He has scattered through the days.

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. This has been 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 funny how the same set of hours seems to fly by faster at times. I don’t know what happened to this last week, but it is gone already! Here are a few favorites from it:

1. Eating fries out of the bag on the way home from a fast-food place. One of life’s simple pleasures. 🙂 I’m trying to cut down on fast-food fries, but I grabbed a quick lunch of a junior burger and small fries on the way home from errands this week, and I love to nibble on the fries while they’re at their prime on the way home. So good.

2. A Kindle app discovered on my TouchPad and…

3. Free Kindle books! I hadn’t known that you could download Kindle books with anything other than a Kindle. I was surprised at how effortless it was to download them. Then someone on Facebook posted a link to a list of free Kindle classic books (I would share the link, but they’re up to $1.79 now — but still a good deal, so here are some inexpensive Kindle classics if you’re interested). I tried reading one on the Touchpad while using the treadmill this week, and it all worked together just fine.

4. Clearance sale. I had to stop in the Christian book store this week and found they had marked a lot of books on clearance for $5 to 5.99. Like I need to add more books to my pile…but I did. 🙂

5. Being able to share prayer requests electronically. My 20-year-old nephew had a freak accident yesterday — a ring he was wearing caught on something as he was getting out of a truck and severely tore his middle finger, resulting in its amputation down past the knuckle. From the time he was in the ER and then throughout the afternoon, my sister was able to share updates and prayer requests, which we then passed on to our friends on Facebook and also to an e-mail prayer chain our ladies at church have. Knowing that you can have prayer support in just seconds is a tremendous blessing. The last I heard, he was to go home last night with pain medications. If you feel led, I’d appreciate your prayers for him and also for my sister as she is in another state — it is so hard to have your children go through these things, but especially when you can’t be there.

Except for my nephew’s accident, it has been a good week. I hope yours was the same. I am thankful for God’s grace every week, whether they seem “good” or “bad” at the time.