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 going to be hard this week to figure out which five things to draw from the last week as favorites, as nearly every aspect of Christmas would qualify. But I’ll do my best.

1. Christmas, of course. Though things were different this year, even a little disjointed, it was a lovely day. I wrote more about it here. The family time, love expressed, wonderful foods and smells — the whole month, really, has been a nice celebration of Christmas.

2. A new iPhone! I didn’t think I’d be getting one til later in the year, so I was very surprised! Love it.

3. A Tivo. I’ve wanted a DVR for years. So frustrating to tape things and then have to search which tape it’s on and where on the tape it is. This eliminates that, plus it’s really nice to pause a network show in play whenever you need to why you take care of other needs and then come back to it!

4. Days off. Jim was off all last week and this week, and Jesse is off until next Wednesday. The week before Christmas was pretty busy, but this week after has been like a whole week of Saturdays. We’ve had some time to rest and some time to get things done, but at a generally relaxed pace.

5. Hearing all the kids play games together again. One of the things I love about when we’re all together.

It’s been a great week! I hope yours has been as well.

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 very full week with both ups and downs. Among the downs, which all happened to occur on Wednesday: not feeling well, hearing that a college friend had passed away, and our dog, Susie, whom we’d had for almost 14 years, dying. I plan to write a post about her next week.

But here are some of the favorite “ups”:

1. A fun family evening making gingerbread houses for the first time.

2. Our 32nd wedding anniversary. Jason and Mittu came over the night before and made dinner, cheesecake, and a giant peanut butter chocolate chip cookie to celebrate. Mittu made this for us:

She took a photo from our 30th anniversary trip, painted a canvas, and applied the photo with Mod Podge so it looks like it has been painted on the canvas. I’ve seen tutorials for this online but haven’t tried it yet. It turned out very nice!

On our actual anniversary, I was having some pretty severe tummy troubles in the afternoon. By dinner time I was feeling better but not sure I was up to dinner out. Jim suggested getting take-out from a nice local restaurant. When he came back with the food, he said the restaurant was so jam-packed he didn’t think we would have enjoyed it there anyway, so we were very happy to have a quiet evening at home with good food (that I enjoyed not cooking!)

3. Jeremy’s home!

4. Time together as a family. Jason and Mittu are going to her mom’s for Christmas, and it’s sad that we won’t all be together, but we do have to share them sometimes. 🙂 I am glad they are able to go, and I’m very glad we got to spend some time all together after Jeremy got here before they had to leave. Our Christmas is going to be in several stages this year: Jason and Mittu exchanged their presents with Jeremy then, and we’ll exchange ours with them after they get back.

5. My second newspaper column ran a couple of Sundays ago. I forgot to mention it last FFF. It contained the hope of the gospel amid the loss of family members during December, and I wasn’t sure how much the editor would let me include, but thankfully he didn’t edit out any of it. I got a number of positive responses from it: I’m thankful it was a help to people.

I hope you all have a wonderful, Christ-centered Christmas!

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.