Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share 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.

1. A “snow day.” We’ve already had more snow than I am used to — and I am ready for it to be gone — not to complain, but just sayin’ 🙂 — but with three days off due to snow this week, there was only one day any of the kids got out in it and played.

Jason put together all the individual videos I took into one and added music. He even smoothed out my shakiness (I have to remember that laughing while filming is not good for later viewing…). (My husband missed all the fun because he was able to get to work, but he got one run down the hill at the end, after the credits).

Another couple of pluses — I finally figured out how to record video with my camera, and a neighbor saw the kids sledding on a cardboard box and asked if they wanted to use a sled she’d bought for her granddaughter. Jason gave her some of our baked goods when he returned the sled.

2. For my part on our snow day, besides being chief photographer and videographer, I baked Double Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Then yesterday I made banana bread so as to try to use a few overripe bananas. Mittu made mini blueberry muffins partly for the neighbor but partly for us as well. It’s been a week for baking!

3. A successful experiment in mixing putting together two different recipes to create Creamy Chicken with Cheesy Biscuits.

4. Mittu’s meal. One of my Christmas presents was a coupon booklet from Jason and Mittu:

And I used this one Saturday:

She made a yummy Hamburger Pie and Lemon Cake for dessert — which I thought I had pictures of but can’t find now. Maybe Jason took them on his camera. But they were good! And it was so nice knowing all day I didn’t have to cook.

5. Jesse’s teacher. Those of you who have read here for a while know that one of our biggest concerns in moving was Jesse’s adjustment to a new school, church, youth group, etc. All of that has gone fairly well. He has especially mentioned really (really, really) liking one particular teacher, and the other night he excitedly shared how his teaching was really opening up the Bible for him in his Bible class at school. That was a blessing to my own heart on many levels. It’s not that he didn’t have good teaching or teachers or didn’t appreciate any of them before, but there is something about this one in particular that is just clicking with him. I have to believe that might be at least one of the reasons the Lord led us here.

So overall it has been a great week even if we were a little housebound due to the weather. Only 65 days until spring…..

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Barbara Harper

1. Surprise Snow as the weather forecasters called it Wednesday. It started up in the late afternoon, stopped by nighttime, and the roads were clear with a one hour delay for school.

2. Computer access to libraries. I’ve been able in other places to look up and place a hold on a book online, but the system here even lets me renew a book online.

3. Harvest loaf cake. I usually make this in November or December but just never did this year. But I couldn’t let a winter go by without it! I was craving it and made some mini-loaves this week and sent one to Jeremy. I wasn’t sure how it would do after 2-3 days in the mail, but he said it tasted fine.

4. Back to routine. I love breaks in routine but by the time the break is over I am pretty well ready to get back to it.

5. Notepads. I got this from my dear friend, Carol, just before Christmas, but I just unpacked the box yesterday.

I keep a magnetic notepad on the refrigerator all the time for grocery and to-do lists, and I use the little tab ones to mark places in books I want to remember. Plus I use post-it notes all the time. And to have them all really cute like this is so much fun! I have my January pad on the frig now!

Edited to add: Someone asked me who the artist or designer was for the notepads. I meant to take a picture with the label on, but I forgot. The designer is Debbie Mumm. I did see she had the notepads on her site here but they are out of stock. I don’t know if my friend ordered them online or got them in a store.

They’re forecasting a heap of snow here this weekend — we’ll see. I just made my run to the store this morning, so we’re pretty well set. Already we’ve gotten much more snow here that we did in SC, but I don’t know if that’s normal for TN or if they’re getting more than usual — need to ask the neighbors. But, whether you have snow or sunshine, I hope you have a great weekend.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Barbara Harper

This is a hard week to narrow the favorites down to just five! But I’ll try.

1. Christmas. Everything about it — the food, the family time, the right blend of…everything. I could make a “Fave Five” just from Christmas! It was a wonderful day — our first white Christmas with a bit of snow. Being able to have all the family together was the best part. And getting to have Jeremy home for an extra couple of days due to problems with his flight was a special bonus.

I mentioned this briefly in my Christmas post, but Jim had received a certificate for Heavenly Ham for something he did at work three years ago — only them we didn’t have one of their stores where we lived. That’s one of the hazards of working at a place where you don’t live, I guess. I suppose we could have gotten one near his job and kept it in a cooler to bring home — but we just never did. But now we live in a city where there is a Heavenly Ham store, and the certificate didn’t have an expiration date and wasn’t confined to one location, so we were able to use it. I hadn’t realized how expensive those things were — we still did have to pay some, but it was delicious.

2. Games. I mentioned earlier a couple of rousing games of Apples to Apples. Another friend told me they found that game boring. It’s always a riot with us. We always read all the descriptions on the cards (though you have to watch out for a very few of them that are inappropriate), and the voices and inflections everyone uses are so funny, and the way we each defend or try to discredit the cards everyone else plays. Then at the end we each read the cards we won as if they described us. In one game I got “Woebegone” and “Friendly” and remarked that that was an odd combination, then Jeremy said, “You are the Eeyore.” Maybe it was one of those “You had to be there” moments, but that was a time I most wish I could have recorded all the funny things people said. Then Jesse got a Kinect as his “big” present and it’s been fun as a family to play games on it.

3. Found money. This was actually before Christmas. Earlier in the year Jesse had accumulated some money from allowances and gifts, and I told him he shouldn’t carry it back and forth to school but should take it out of his wallet and stash it somewhere. So he did — and forgot about it. Even through our move it remained hidden until he discovered it in December. He was thrilled to have a little more money to use for Christmas — he said he always felt bad always having to get the cheapest things on everyone’s lists, like socks, though I assured him that was always fine.

4. Fondu. Mittu got a fondu set for Christmas and she and Jason made a meal for us with it Sunday night. It was only the second time in my life I had ever had fondu. It was good and enjoyable.

5. Mulled cider. Jim got a mulled cider mix on a recent trip and I made it one night this week. I hadn’t had it in a long time and it was so good.

I keep thinking of several “bonus” faves I could mention, but I’ll be a good girl and obey the rules this time. 🙂

Happy New Year to you all!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Wow, it’s Friday again already? Here are some favorite things from the last week:

1. On our anniversary Tuesday, Jim took me out to a cute little tea room for lunch:

Sorry about the blurriness — I’d forgotten the camera and we were trying to use cell phones. I took a picture of my lunch, but it turned out even blurrier. The proprietor was a big Paula Deen fan:

Then we had a great meal at a local restaurant for dinner, and when we got home, Mittu had made a cake for us as well as some peanut butter cookies and peppermint bark:

2. Lights!

The light over our dining room table was very dim, partly because of the covering:

And partly because it just had two little dinky bulbs in it. Jim replaced it with these:

Much better — although almost too bright now. We need to get some 40 watt bulbs! But it is nice to be able to read the newspaper or do paperwork at the table now.

Then the living room light fixture was just not to my liking, either in style or color:

The little shapes inbetween the green lines looked like rooster heads to me. Bleah. Jim put this up instead:

Much prettier and more peaceful!

And I didn’t get a photo, but I have been wanting those little battery-operated candles for the front windows for years, but kept missing them. I finally found a package of two — but I had three windows. Then I discovered Jason and Mittu had a package with some extras that they’re letting me use. I really like driving up to the house with the lights in the window.

3. A fixed dryer. It broke down Tuesday and I was afraid with the holidays that we’d be unable to get it fixed for a while, and that a part would need to be ordered that wouldn’t get here til the end of the year, etc. It’s a gas dryer and we thought the igniter was out. But someone came out Thursday, and it was just a fuse, so we’re back in business. I am SO thankful!

4. Winning! I won one of Thom and Quilly’s prizes for a 12 Days of Christmas, Island Style as well as one of Mocha With Linda’s Booked For the Holidays prizes. Plus I won fourth place in our Sunday School teacher’s annual quiz over the Biblical Christmas narratives and won a yo-yo he made. I neglected to take photos, but Linda’s prize was two books, always a good prize for me, and Thom’s was several items from Hawaii — macadamia nuts, dried mango, keychains, a note pad, a T-shirt, and my favorite, a little bottle of shells. Here’s Jesse sporting the T-shirt:

5. Jeremy’s home! It’s nice to have the family all here again. We’re very much looking forward to Christmas Day.

A very merry Christmas to you and yours!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Barbara Harper

1. The ladies’ Christmas party at church. Well, actually, at someone’s home, and we got lost on some scary, dark roads (GPS wasn’t recognizing the address), but we eventually got there. Mittu went with me. I’ve been missing the ladies’ group from my old church and the Christmas party there was one of my favorite times of year. This was different, of course, but very good and a lot of fun. And I won one of the door prizes — Lindt truffles! The testimony the speaker shared was a tremendous blessing.

2. Snow day!

We had snow Sunday night and Monday. I worked on Christmas cards and our Christmas letter and Mittu made treats:

The rest of the week we had ice — not so much fun, though Jesse enjoyed being off school for a couple more days.

3. Good shopping experiences. So far both customers and sales clerks have been pretty in good spirits, and lines have been longer than usual but not too very long. In only one store were my nerves getting frayed because the store had carts but did not allow room to get them around the aisles very well — so I left that store after just a short while. I think I am mostly done shopping — I need to sit down and take stock, but I think, except for 2-3 things, all I have left is little stocking stuffers.

4. Christmas decorations. We finally got our tree and decorations up last weekend. When I wrote a couple of years ago about our “misfit” ornaments that we still like to use, I mentioned that my kids like to do odd things with some of the ornaments. This year my husband tucked a couple in unusual places, and it was fun to discover them throughout the day. One was this sleigh on top of the log cabin:

And the other was this snowman visiting the family figurines (which my oldest keeps threatening to draw happy faces on):

5. Jason’s surprise package. We got a package in the mail addressed to Jason, but he hadn’t ordered anything that he remembered. So, thinking maybe it was something Jim ordered, I put it away until he got home. I took him into our room and asked him about it. He started to open it, and it looked like…a computer. We called Jason in and asked, “Did you order a computer????” We didn’t think so because we had just taken his Mac with a broken screen in to be fixed earlier in the week. As it turned out, he had caught an announcement about a giveaway for Google Chrome — and he had won! They hadn’t sent him any kind of notification — just the computer. He was thrilled! They’ve had such a hard year, it was neat to see the Lord bless them that way.

Since last week I’ve observed the anniversary of the passing of both my parents, which is a mixture of sadness and nostalgia, but the Lord blessed with an otherwise very good week.

Have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Barbara Harper

1. A helpful clerk and discounts. I had a pretty nice shopping excursion last Friday. One place I went to was JoAnn’s Fabrics — I decided to sew one present. I know, I must be crazy to do so at this stage. But though lines were long, customers and staff were in fairly good spirits. I couldn’t decide between two fabrics, and found when I had the one cut that it was marked down several dollars — so I got both! 🙂 Then at the checkout, I didn’t have any coupons because our newspaper somehow didn’t contain their sales flyer, but the clerk tried keying the coupons and discounts in anyway — and saved me about $20.

2. Plaques for the sewing/craft room. Found these while at JoAnn’s:

3. Christmas programs at church and school. For me, those provide the times to sit down and really soak in what the season is all about. The children’s Christmas program at church was this past Sunday night, and though mine were all too old for it, I enjoyed seeing all the little ones tell the age-old story. Then the school’s Christmas program was Tuesday night, and Jesse’s choir sang. The funniest moment of the night was when, after the kindergarten class got done with their song, one let out a very loud, relieved sigh. Everyone chuckled, and at the end of the program the pastor said he felt like that sometimes when he got done preaching, and his listeners probably felt like sighing, too. 😀 And in both programs the littlest children had on the cutest costumes like footie pajamas in animals prints and accessories (ears, tale, etc.). They were so adorable!

4. Kids applying Scripture. It’s not unusual for me to bring up Scriptural principles when talking with my children, but I was blessed to hear Jesse bring up a pertinent Bible verse and apply it to a situation we were discussing and then again in a book report.

5. A new wreath. We can’t hang a wreath on our front door because it looks like this:

I know I could get one of those over-the-door hangers for one, but I just didn’t know if it would look right with the oval there, and the previous owners had installed a hook in the brick by the door which we’ve been using instead of door decorations. I had been wanting some kind of white wreath because I thought it would show up better against the brick, and I was delighted to see one designed by Charlotte Lyons in Amy Powers’ Inspired Ideas Christmas magazine (p. 26). I finally made it last night and finished it this morning, and I’m so delighted with it! Because everything is pinned in or tied on, it went fairly quickly.

I hadn’t wanted to sew and stuff the little dove, but I think I might — I think he’d show up a little better. I like the fuller, more collage-like look of hers — but I like this one, too. 🙂

Have a good weekend! We’re planning to finally get our tree tomorrow! It was raining buckets last weekend, and I haven’t looked at the forecast for tomorrow, but it’s bright out today and I hope it continues.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Here are five of my favorites from the past week:

1. Having all my family at church with me this past Sunday, and also for Sunday breakfast and dinner. I’ve so missed that!

2. Some quiet time with Jeremy before he had to leave. He flew out Monday afternoon. Everyone else had to go back to work and school that morning, and it was nice to just have some unhurried down time together. We didn’t do anything in particular — he talked with me while I cleaned up the kitchen and then he did some laundry so he wouldn’t have to deal with it when he went home. I’m glad he got to stay for that extra little bit of time.

3. A remote computer fix. I came up with a little problem on my computer one night. It wasn’t anything major, and I could still use it, but it was an irritant and took a little more time for my computer use. I e-mailed Jeremy to ask if he had any idea what to do about it. He had a way to log into my computer from where he was and fixed it in just a few seconds. It was a little spooky seeing the cursor moving around under someone else’s control! But I am glad that my personal computer consultant was able to help from afar. (I’ve asked him, “Aren’t you glad for all the practice I gave you to prepare for your current job?” 🙂 )

4. Jesse’s basketball game. At his old school he was a starter, but there are many more students here and much more talent to draw from. He only played a few minutes in the first game, but in his game this week he played most of the second quarter and scored one basket. And his team won! So even though it was an away game on a cold and rainy night, it was still good!

5. Jason and Mittu’s replacement. They’ve been driving back down to SC for several weekends to teach their Sunday School class until a replacement could be found, and finally someone agreed to take the class. Though they’ll really miss their kids, it will be so nice for them not to have to make that trip every weekend.

And a bonus — sunshine and no flooding in our yard or neighborhood. We had so much rain earlier this week that new ponds and lakes sprouted up all over — even across some roads which then had to be closed. The next morning it was all overcast again and I was just praying it wouldn’t rain any more. I was so happy to see the sunshine later that day!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on November 26, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Here are five of my favorites from the past week:

1. Having my oldest son home for Thanksgiving!

2. Thanksgiving Day, with all the good traditional food and family time, and then a couple of days off.

3. My mother-in-law’s getting her hearing aid in this week. I had mentioned it was lost a few weeks ago. It looked like the new one wasn’t going to come in before Thanksgiving, but it did and the audiologist worked her in one day so she could have it before they closed for the holidays. That was an immense blessing to her and to us.

4. Encouraging words. Someone from our new church discovered my blog via Facebook and shared some kind and encouraging words about it as well as some other writing opportunities, and then I received an e-mail from someone new in another country who somehow found it and was encouraged by something the Lord enabled me to write. I think all bloggers get into a slump sometimes, and many of my regular blog friends are away from their computers for a time, so these encouragements were timely when I was feeling a little low. And I am always blessed and amazed when the Lord uses me in some way.

5. The garage room, or the Spare Oom, as Faun Tumnus of Narnia would say. I mentioned before we were turning part of the garage into a bedroom/office. We knew we couldn’t get it finished by Thanksgiving, but our goal was to get it habitable so that Jason and Mittu could move their things out there and have more room, and then Jeremy could sleep on the futon in the sewing room, where Jason and Mittu had been, when he came, rather than sleeping on the couch. We still need to spackle, paint, carpet, and put closet doors on, but we did get it habitable in time (I say we — Jim and Jason mainly.)

So from this two weeks ago:

It looks like this now:

Good work, guys!

I hope all those who celebrate Thanksgiving had a wonderful day! I am not sure what we’re doing the next day or two as a family, but I will be around when I can.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Here are five of my favorites from the past week:

1. Finally visiting our library. I pass by the building often and thought it looked so warm and inviting. I’ll gladly take a warm and cozy library over a sleek, modern one most any day. We finally stopped in last weekend.

The front wall of the inside is made of the same brick.

This intriguing little sculpture was out front:

2. A shiny new library card! I didn’t check out anything for me on mine yet — I let Jesse check out a couple of things on mine for a research paper. When you get a new card you can only check our four things at first, so we put a few books on my card so he could save his for a field trip with his class to a different library. I have too many books stacked up to read to be checking out any more right now, anyway, but I enjoyed perusing the shelves.

3. A favorite leftover lunch is a grilled cheese sandwich with leftover meat loaf or stuffing burgers. Kind of like what a restaurant calls a Patty Melt except without the limp, droopy onions (bleah!).

4. A little color still left on the trees. The great majority of leaves are gone, blown off with rain and wind over the past couple of weeks. But there are still bits of color to enjoy here and there, like this tree in the neighborhood:

5. Sweet messages…in more ways than one. 🙂 When Jason heats up a couple of Toaster Strudels for himself and Mittu, he usually writes little messages with the icing. I’m doing good to just get the icing on there when I make them.

Have a great Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Here are five of my favorites from the past week:

1. $400+ instead of $2,000+. A few weeks ago my mother-in-law lost her hearing aid — not a favorite thing! My husband and a couple of ladies who work at the assisted living place looked in every nook and cranny they could think of but just could not find it. We had not seen an audiologist here yet, so had to find one, and they couldn’t get her in til last week. The audiologist called the company to find out if the hearing aid was still under warranty, and it had just barely passed the end date, but they authorized covering it anyway. That was a huge blessing! We still had to pay the audiologist fees for the appointment and had to pay for the mold, the part that goes down into her ear canal, but that’s much better than having to pay over $2,000 for the whole thing.

2. Oven meals. I don’t turn the oven on much during hot weather, even with central AC, and especially not for those meals that take 45 minutes to an hour in the oven. But with our first cold snap it’s been fun to pull back out some of those oven recipes. Besides enjoying some dishes we haven’t had for several months, it’s nice to get everything in the oven and then have some time to relax for a bit before dinner.

3. A surprise package. When we moved from SC, I told my “Secret Sister” at church who I was and told her good-bye, then the plan was that the person who had my name would take the name of my Secret Sister. But when they lady coordinating the Secret Sisters tried to arrange that, the lady who had my name said she “didn’t want to give me up.” So she has sent me a couple of packages since we’ve been here. One a few weeks ago contained some nice autumn dish towels, and I’ve loved using them. Then I received another this week containing several goodies:

Though I hate to think of her paying postage, I am incredibly touched that she would want to keep up with me even though I’ve moved away. I can’t wait to find out who she is!

Oh, and the lady whose name I had was not left out in the cold — the lady who coordinates the Secret Sisters did give her name to someone else.

4. A working furnace. We turned on the heat for the first time this week. The furnace here is a gas one, but everything seems to be in good working order. I am always grateful for central heating and air conditioning — it is not something I have always had!

5. Starting on a new room. I may have mentioned that our new home has what is classified as a three car garage in an L shape, but my husband planned to turn the third car space into an office/guest bedroom. That project was planned for some time within the first year here. But with Jason and Mittu here and Jeremy coming for Thanksgiving, my husband decided to try to get that room habitable before then. The boxes from the attic were in that space, so we sorted through those and then my husband and Jesse were able to organize them into the attic (and it is so nice to have an organized attic!) one weekend. Then my husband had to take down pegboards and such from the walls and last weekend started putting up the framing for the wall and door that will be between the garage and the room. At some point we’ll put a door actually into the house from that room, but that is probably one of the bigger undertakings that will have to wait: for now we’ll have to go through the garage from that room to the house.

I wish I had a first “before” picture of the garage with nothing in it, then another one of it lined on all three sides with boxes. But this is an “in the beginning stages” picture: