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 was one of those weeks that wasn’t bad, but wasn’t really filled with a lot of standout great things, either — unlike last week when I kept a running list all week lest I forget one of the many good things I wanted to recall. But that’s one thing FFF is good for, looking for highlights that we might otherwise miss. Here are a few:

1. McAlister’s Deli. I may have mentioned them before, but we hadn’t gotten anything from there in a long while. I almost always get a Memphian and a cup of one of their potato soups. I did notice when I went to pick up our take-out order that they have cake slices now….but I resisted. This time.

2. Rain. Though I prefer non-rainy days, we do need rain sometimes, and it’s been pretty dry lately. A brief thunderstorm yesterday helped a bit, and I think we’re due for more over the weekend.

3. The CD Wondrous Love by James Koerts. Our assistant pastor mentioned it on Facebook, and I clicked over and listened to some of the samples. I love choral music, but sometimes I love really beautiful instrumentals, too, and this CD of great piano arrangements of hymns has been played a lot at our house since I got it.

4. Jeopardy on Facebook. The last thing I need is a new game addiction, but this is limited in how much you can play, so that helps, and I set aside Wheel of Fortune to play this. Sometimes it makes me feel really dumb! But most days it helps stimulate the ol’ brain cells.

5. Willing, cheerful volunteers. Jim has always divided up the lawn-mowing with the boys, and now, of course, we only have one boy left at home. A few weeks ago when Jim had a really busy weekend, I suggested to Jesse that perhaps he could go ahead and get the grass cut on his own. This morning I was pleased when he did so on his own initiative.

Then last weekend we were getting Jason and Mittu moved into their new apartment. I don’t know why we didn’t think of calling people for help — maybe because we weren’t sure of the exact times we’d need it or more likely because we felt they didn’t have all that much stuff. But after Jim, Jason, and Jesse went to SC to get their things out of our old house there, getting off to a later start than planned, and then got back here it was after 7 p.m., and they still had to load their things here and then unload everything at the new place. While we munched on pizza, Jason texted a young couple who has befriended them to see if they were doing anything and wanted to come help. As it happened, their plans for the evening had been canceled, and they did come. Just having two extra pairs of hands helped immensely. Jim said he didn’t think we would have gotten everything unloaded that night without their help.

And now Jason and Mittu are happily setting up housekeeping in their new place.

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.

Here are just a few favorites from the past week:

1. My son and daughter-in-law took me out to eat. My husband and youngest son were out of town last Friday, and Jason asked me if I want to go out and try a new restaurant, Cheddars. As we drove to the restaurant, I suddenly realized I didn’t know if they were paying or if I was or if we were splitting the bill — when my husband is here he just normally pays for dinner. It turns out they were planning to pay: I think this may be the first time any of my kids has taken me out to eat, although when my oldest, Jeremy, was home he did pay for lunch a few times if he brought home fast food for us. So that was a neat experience. Great food, too!

2. Good framing coupons. I wanted to get my recently finished cross stitch piece framed, and unfortunately that can get ridiculously expensive. I had seen Michael’s coupons for 60% and sometimes even 65% off, so I was waiting for one of those. But last week both Michael’s and JoAnne’s had coupons for 50% plus 20% off framing. With those and some gift cards I was able to bring the cost down to a more reasonable level of not only that piece but another one I’ve had sitting around for a couple of years. They won’t be ready for another week or so yet. Can’t wait to see them!

3. Listening to the kids play a game. On Memorial Day, after great burgers and sausage grilled by my husband, Jason, Mittu, and Jesse played a game of Seafarers of Cataan with Jeremy in RI via Skype. I was in the next room going through old magazines, but I so enjoyed hearing them play “just like old times.”

You can’t see Jeremy’s face real well in the computer there — they had to angle it so he could see the board.

4. Booking Jeremy’s flight to come home for his birthday in August!

5. Planting flowers in my planters:

There is another one like it on the other side of the garage door. I have to confess I cheated: I wanted a mixture of different plants, and Home Depot had some in containers, and it didn’t seem to me any more expensive than buying different flats. So I just transplanted someone else’s expertise in getting different colors and heights of blooms to work together. I love it!

Hope you have a great weekend! We’ll be helping Jason and Mittu move to their new apartment — busy times!

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.

Love the new banner!

Here are a few favorites from the past week:

1. My son’s testimony about God’s provision of a job. Then the day he heard he got the job, his car died. God worked it out that they were able to get a new car trading in both old cars and getting a decent interest rate after some checking around for options. Though I hate that they have another payment to add on to their responsibilities, it’s good to have a reliable car under warranty with good gas mileage since they’re driving more here than they were in SC. Though they’ve had a difficult year, God is providing and things are looking up for them.

2. Chicken chimichangas from a local Mexican food restaurant. Love those! I’ve thought about trying to make them from scratch at home — but these guys do it so well.

3. School’s out! No more alarm clocks! Most days, anyway.

4. My mother-in-law’s bird feeder and a bird book. My husband had gotten her a bird feeder for Mother’s Day, and she has enjoyed so much watching the visitors. We didn’t know what all of them were, so I ordered a bird identification book for her this week which she was delighted with as well.

5. My blog returning to normal. I don’t know if any of you noticed, but for most of the week my blog format was messed up — the grey from the sidebar background was extending all the way across the blog and the widgets were not right and half of them migrated to the bottom of the blog. The WP techs worked on it and it finally got back to normal last night. (Evidently there were some unclosed HTML tags in the widgets — they didn’t seem to cause a problem til I downloaded Firefox 4). It feels so clean and neat now! It wasn’t the biggest of blog problems, but it did bug me, and I am glad to have it fixed.

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 will be one of those weeks where it is hard to narrow it down to five. Here goes:

1. Baby-back ribs. This has become my entree of choice at a few restaurants, and that and an excellent salad made for a scrumptious meal out last Friday night at a local place. The only bad thing about the meal was that the noise level inside the restaurant was insanely loud to me.

2. Voyage of the Dawn-Treader. We finally saw this DVD and loved it. It’s been too long since I’ve read the book to remember whether it followed it as closely as I like for films to do, but the film itself was a feast.

3. Mother-daughter luncheon at our church last Saturday. Nicely done. It was a little strange not to have a hand in this one! I did think about calling to see if they needed help, but as it turned out it was best I didn’t this time.

4. Visit from a dear friend. My friend Valorie, one of my oldest (in terms of how long we’ve known each other, not age. 🙂 ) and dearest friends, came up with her dad for just a quick visit. He was visiting her in SC and had friends about an hour from us here in TN, so they came up Sunday in time for dinner and then stayed overnight before going on to see her dad’s friends Monday, and even took me out for breakfast before they got on the road. We met way back in early married days and had kids around the same time (with her having all girls and me having all boys, you’d think there would have been one romance in there somewhere…). Val hosted my baby shower, and then when we had our first kids we lived down the street from one another and shared many walks with babies in strollers and lunches and visits to the park and breakfasts where the buffet was $2.99 and kids ate free. 🙂 It was so good to see each other and catch up a bit.

5. Unsolicited help. This past was weekend unexpectedly busy — it hadn’t clicked in my mind that with Jesse’s Junior-Senior banquet and everything involved there Friday night and then the Mother-Daughter Luncheon Saturday, time for cleaning was going to be tight. Val and I have seen each other’s houses at their worst over the years, but, still, you want to get the basics done before anyone comes over! But you can only clean so much early on without having to do it all over again before company comes. I had to head to the store after the luncheon and naively thought I’d finish my cleaning after that. While I was out my husband saw my list and got most of the tasks done on it for me. I’m not opposed to men helping around the house, but when he works 60+ hours a week and has his own lists of things he needs to do on the weekend, I figure cleaning the house on my own is the least I can do, so I don’t generally ask for help unless I’m in a bind. It was such a blessing that he pitched in and took care of those things for me.

So after a super-busy weekend, the rest of this week has been a lighter, thankfully. We have a few things coming up this next week, and then school’s out and our schedule immediately slows down! Though I miss my alone time in the summers, I do like not having to set the alarm clock and having a generally more relaxed schedule.

Hot off the press bonus: I mentioned a couple of weeks ago a serendipitous encounter that might lead to a job for Jason….I just found out that he did get the job!!! He had gone to one place to submit a resume only to find that the business he was looking for was no longer in that office. But as he talked with the man who was there, this man said he had been considering hiring someone: he had been handling his business alone and wanted to expand at some point. They talked, he had Jason do a couple of assignments to check out what he could do, he looked into what he would have to do as an employer to hire someone — and Jason just got the call this morning that the job was his. Praise the Lord!

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.

Here are some favorites from the past week:

1. These:

I’m glad they only make them this time of year!

2. Finishing my cross stitch project! More about that here.

3. A possible job lead for my son from a serendipitous encounter. I’ll say more about it if/when something works out, but I thought, “Wouldn’t it be just like God to bring it about in such a neat way?” Whether it’s this or something else, I know God has something for Him, and I guess a related praise is just the reassurance of that this week. I had been kind of discouraged when one very promising lead didn’t work out because of a new hiring freeze and because of the problems he had come up against in looking for a job, and I always knew on some level God would take care of things and open the right doors at the right time. One day this week my devotional book was full of verses about God knowing our needs and taking care of them, and that renewed my hope that He would take care of my kids’ needs, too.

4. Getting several things checked off a to-do list in one afternoon. I had some Mother’s Day shopping to do for my mother-in-law and “secret sister” at church, and then Jesse needed a new shirt and dress shoes for his upcoming Junior-Senior banquet. After not making any progress even after one trip to the mall earlier in the week, we knocked out all of that yesterday. Felt good!

5. Power naps. I was just dragging after doing a little bit of errand-running yesterday, and decided to call it a day and come home. But sleeping 20-30 minutes refreshed me enough to get back out and get everything else done later in the day. Sometimes when I take a nap, I end up sleeping too long or waking up too groggy, but this was just perfect.

We had a dreary, rainy day earlier in the week, but it’s been bright and sunshiny the rest of the week. We’ve had a bit of a cold snap, though. I actually like it in the 50s or so — the really hot weather will be here all too soon!

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.

It has been a super-busy week! Here are some of the highlights:

1. Cookies, cookies, everywhere. Jesse’s school lets the seniors sell baked goods at lunch time to fundraise for their senior trip. This year’s seniors have already gone on their trip, so now the juniors can get a head start on next year. The way they do it is that each one who wants to participate signs up to bring baked goods for an entire week — and this was our week. I’ve made double or triple batches of seven different kinds of cookies this week. Even that was less than I thought I’d have to do — the band was away for a competition a few days, which cut into his sales a bit, so he had leftovers to bring back some days. Of course the family has enjoyed a few of the extras, but I don’t want to have to make any more cookies for a while now.

2. Dogwoods after all. I feel like such a ninny — I said last week I was enjoying seeing the dogwoods in bloom around town but missed having some in our yard. Then what did I discover in my back yard this week:

I’m afraid I don’t recognize them when they’re dormant or leafy, just when they’re blooming. 😳 But I was glad to see that that’s what those trees are! They’re fairly small yet — just about 6-8 feet. So it will be nice to watch them grow.

3. Good AC with a vent right by the oven. I feel bad mentioning AC when some of you still have snow, but we’ve needed it this week. Having a vent right by the stove really helped as much as I had the oven on this week.

4. Plenty of counter space. The kitchen was one of the things I loved about this house, and when three of us were in there getting a meal ready this past weekend, I was so glad there was room to do so comfortably. That was impossible in our last house! And then when making cookies, I used to have to leave them on the table to cool, but now there is enough counter space to keep everything in the kitchen.

5. This tree, which I think my husband said was a Japanese Maple, is placed so that it gives us privacy in front of the house, plus I like the way the window on the door frames it. It’s fairly small as well now.

I’m also glad for antibiotics. My husband has a monster ear infection with what the doctor called a virulent bacteria and missed two days of work earlier in the week. His ear is still painful and swollen a bit, but it’s much better than it was and he’s feeling closer to normal than he was.

We had to get up early last Saturday to get Jesse to his ACT test, so I am really looking forward to getting to sleep in and not having any obligations tomorrow.

Happy 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.

Here are a few highlights from this week:

1. A visit with a dear friend. I’ve mentioned my friend Carol in SC a few times here and there. She and her husband were in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area over the weekend, which is about an hour or so from us, and they drove over for Sunday dinner before heading back home. It was so good to see them again and to have them here!

2. Four Layer Dessert with chocolate this time!

3. A come-from-behind Scrabble move that wins the game. One friend I play Scrabble with via Facebook used to always beat me soundly, until I learned some of her moves (bwahahahaha). Now we go back and forth. In one game she had pulled ahead and it looked like she would win — but then I was able to go out with some unlikely letters and win. I love it when the game is close and suspenseful.

4. Dogwood trees. Back in SC, after the first crocuses, daffodils, and tulips bloom, spring’s next act is the dogwoods and azaleas. We’ve had dogwoods in nearly all of our yards over the years except at our very first home and this one, and I missed them. But in the last week or so I’ve seen many blooming around the neighborhood. Maybe some day we can plant one here, but in the mean time, I’ll enjoy them when I am out.

5. Eastern Redbuds. I’ve noticed these trees with lavender buds on them along the highway between here and church, and they’ve really brightened the view since many other trees don’t have their leaves yet. I wasn’t sure what they were, but a couple of people suggested Redbuds, and I think that’s right.

Sorry, no photos of either tree — I’m in the car when I see them.

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 been a busy week! Here are a few highlights:

1. Special meetings at church with the Frazor Evangelistic Team. I had never been in a church where they held meetings before, but the leader, Jeremy Frazor, used work with the youth at the church here and used to travel with the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team. And….

2. Seeing old friends. Two of the young adults of the church we just came from in SC are traveling with the team. It was so good to see them! One in particular, Aaron, was in school with Jason, and, if there is any one person I could choose from any church we have been in to sing, it would be Aaron. And therefore…

3. A new CD. The Frazor team just recorded their first ever CD, Calvary’s Mountain, and it’s been a special blessing to have the two we mentioned on it! I’m telling myself I need to stop thinking of the CD as “Aaron in a box,” but it is nice now to be able to listen to him any time. He sings “Beneath the Cross,” and he and the other young lady we knew, Jennifer, sing “Sweet Rivers of Mercy,” as well as singing with the rest of the team on other numbers. I’m enjoying both familiar and new songs on the CD.

4. Fellowship. Jason and Mittu wanted to get together with Aaron some time this week and were talking about going for coffee one night, but they ended up coming here and asking Jennifer as well, so we enjoyed having a bit more fellowship than just chatting at church. I hadn’t been sure if they’d be able to get away since they have other responsibilities with the team, so I am glad they could. Mittu made snacks and I just enjoyed it all.

5. Good preaching. We enjoy that weekly, but we’ve been in special meetings in other churches with evangelists whom we felt were maybe a little pushy or manipulative, and it’s been wonderful to hear the Gospel preached well and clearly and strongly but also with a kind and welcoming tone.

Bonuses: The church had a Ladies’ Steak-Out Monday night and a Men’s Steak-Out Tuesday night — steak dinners and special meetings with the team especially designed to bring non-Christian friends to.. My only regret is that I didn’t know anyone to invite. It’s been nice that there have not been any other obligations this week besides the usual laundry, etc, so I’ve been able to take it a little easier in the day time. Being out nearly every night takes more out of me than it used to! Yet I am surprised the week is nearly over already. And I am looking forward to a visit this weekend from my good friend from SC, Carol!

Have a great weekend!