Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Barbara Harper

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 highlights of the last week:

1. My dear hubby’s birthday.

2. Spring break! It’s a little earlier than we’re used to, but I enjoy it any time. 🙂 My favorite part of spring break: no alarm clocks! (Funny how 6 or 7 a.m. is “sleeping late” these days.)

3. Jesse’s visit. For months now Jesse had been wanting to go visit his old school in SC over spring break because theirs isn’t until later. Jim had some work he needed to do on our old house, so they went down for a couple of days this week. Jesse told one of his friends (both to arrange to spend some time with him at his house after school and to make sure the class wasn’t going to be away on a field trip or something), and we contacted the school office ahead of time, but otherwise he wanted to surprise the rest of his old class. What was really funny was that one girl wrote last week on his Facebook page that they all missed him and he should come down for lunch Monday — not knowing that he was planning to do just that! So that added some fun to it. A bunch of them even got together with him for dinner one night. He had a great time.

4. Daffodils. I mentioned before I had wanted to plant some daffodils last fall, but then thought maybe I should wait to see what might already be here — this is our first spring in this house and I don’t know what might already be planted. But so far I hadn’t seen any signs of them — until yesterday. As I pulled up into the driveway, I saw a whole patch of them — behind the shed, of all places. Would it be silly to say they almost brought tears to my eyes? They’re not my favorite flowers, but I love them because they’re a cheerful first sign of spring.

5. My blog host, WordPress, survived an attack with relatively little trouble. I was working on my Marriage Monday post when I noticed it wasn’t auto-saving like usual. I clicked on “Save Draft” — and poof, everything but the first paragraph disappeared. I was….upset, to put it mildly. But later I learned that WP was subject to a large attack of some kind. So losing one blog post and having some slower than usual loading times on other WP blogs were comparatively minor annoyances. Thanks to those at WP who worked so hard to keep it up and running. And I DID learn to copy my text first in case anything like that ever happens again.

I could also add I’m glad we did not have any serious flooding this week — we’ve had a bunch more rain, and the ground was still pretty saturated from last week’s flooding. There were roads where the water was almost to the edge of the road, but at least in out area, that was mostly it: only one road on my regular route had some standing water on one side. I am more than ready for a little sunshine!

Have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Here are some highlights of the last week:

1. A Ladies’ Birthday Party! We had an activity at church last Saturday celebrating all the ladies’ birthdays at once. We signed up under the month our birthday was in, and everyone in that month got together to decide on table settings and decorations to somehow reflect that month, and the tables would be judged in a contest. (Months with not as many people were combined together). People in the different months were designated to bring different foods (finger sandwiches, pasta salads, and fruit trays).

I didn’t think to bring a camera, but took a few shots with my cell phone. Our August table had a picnic theme:

One lady made these super-cute place cards:

I didn’t get a picture of every month — some were still working on their tables when I took pictures. But here is February:

And April:

And November:

So elegant! But I have to say, I was very glad at clean-up time that our table had used paper plates. 🙂

And the winning table was May — I’m sorry this one is so blurry!

Someone made this tree and had birds and fruit in it and verses about fruitfulness.

A very talented lady made cakes that looked like gifts:

We played a few games, sang happy birthday to each other, and then two ladies gave their testimonies of their spiritual birthdays when they came to know the Lord. They were from different backgrounds — one was a “good church kid” who was doing right for the wrong reasons (approval, etc.) but didn’t trust in Christ alone for salvation til her college years. The other was from an atheistic family in another country whose brother was saved, but the family wasn’t interested. But on an internship to the States she met other Christians and was given a Bible ad eventually came to believe. It was such a blessing to hear these two accounts! The whole event was very enjoyable.

2. ISI — which in my son’s youth group stands for Iron Sharpening Iron, what they call their occasional fellowships after Sunday evening services. And every now and then they invite parents. I hate to admit that at first I didn’t want to go — I wanted to go home and kick off my shoes and grab a book and get comfy. 🙂 But I am glad I did go — it was a very enjoyable time of singing, testimonies, and information about a summer mission trip.

3. Safety during the flash flooding we had earlier this week. Thank you, Lord!

4. Signs of spring. A tree outside my mother-in-law’s window is starting to bud, and a yard in the neighborhood has a row of daffodils across the front starting to blossom. The grass is getting greener. These little flowers are the first things I saw blooming at our house:

I don’t know if they’re violets or just weeds — but they brightened up the back yard!

5. This quote from a friend’s Facebook status:

“Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.”

Have a great weekend! I’m getting ready for hubby’s birthday on Sunday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on February 25, 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. The birthday of my daughter-in-law, Mittu. We went out to eat at Olive Garden Friday night — only my second time ever to have eaten there. Then on Sunday when the whole family was here we had a special meal, cake, and presents. Jeremy was able to join us via Skype.

It was such fun to buy girl things and wrap them in girly paper!

2. The end of basketball season. I do love that Jesse gets to play, but it’s always kind of nice when it’s over and we have practice and game times back.

3. A new Dinner For Six group. I’ve mentioned “Dinner For Six” before — it’s a program in our new church where people who want to participate are divided into groups of six and they take turns hosting each other for a meal for a few months, each bringing different parts of the meal. Our whole group in the last rotation ended up getting together only once due to illness and holidays and one family forgetting an appointed time. We signed up for the new rotation and met for dinner with our new group this week and really enjoyed getting to know them better.

4. Getting some organizational projects done. It would be too long and boring to give a detailed account, but I’d had a couple of ideas to try around the house and finally was able to work on them this week. One turned out well, the other I’m still contemplating and may have to try something different.

5. A writing project. I’ve had several ideas for writing floating around in my mind, and one just came into clear focus this week and I was able to make a beginning. I’ll tell you more about it if/when it comes to anything. 😀 In the meantime, if you’re so led, I’d appreciate your prayers.

Bonus: I finished a great book this week! I wanted to read it over again, but have too many others waiting for me.

Have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Barbara Harper

1. A perfect Saturday: didn’t have any place I had to be, got some work done, but had time to read and relax, too.

2. Sunshine and 70s! There was only one time I noticed the temperature was up to 70, but it was in the high 60s for much of the week. I’ve known that the daylight has been increasing ever since Dec. 21, but this week is the first time I’ve really noticed that it has been getting dark later. Spring is coming soon!!!

3. Wellness. As I mentioned here, both Jesse and the dog have been very sick recently, and it’s nice to have everyone doing better — and nice as well that it didn’t spread to all the rest of us.

4. Our Valentine’s Day.

5. Emile Pandolfi. I have a few of his CDs but somehow had forgotten about them for a while. I wanted to play some love songs while making our special Valentine’s Day meal and dessert, and went through parts of The King’s Singers‘ Chanson d’Amour and the Irish Tenors‘ Heritage CDs, then decided I wanted just something instrumental, flipped through my CDs, and saw a few of Emile’s. Love his style and can’t believe I hadn’t played these in so long. Perfect. Beautiful, Peaceful. Just what I wanted. This first clip is from one of the songs I listened to, the second is one I discovered while searching YouTube, excerpts from one of his concerts. He even lived in our area of SC when we were there, but somehow I never went to see him. Wish I had now!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few favorites from the past week:

1. Blue skies. It’s still been cold — in the 30s most days — but it has been so uplifting to see blue sky instead of gray overcast.

2. New uses for old things. We talk with my oldest son via “face time” on the iPod 4, but you get tired of holding it after a while, and it’s not easy to prop up. He sent us this business card holder, which works great to hold the iPod while we’re talking.

3. New, eagerly anticipated books —

— even though I already have a stack more than twice that high on my nightstand….

4. Finishing two non-fiction books. It’s unusual for me to have two non-fiction going at a time — they do usually take me a little longer to get through, and I’ve been reading a little here and there from one for months. I enjoyed it, but it felt great to get it finished. I reviewed it earlier this week and hope to have a review for the other one soon.

5. This, in light of Sunday’s big game.

And a bonus — peanut butter Rice Krispie treats with melted chocolate chips on top:

🙂 Hope you have a great weekend. Thanks for those who prayed for Jesse — he was doing better yesterday but was sick again this morning. I am praying he is back to normal soon — and that none of the rest of us gets it.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few favorites from the past week:

1. Fifth Sunday Fellowship. Our church had one of these last Sunday night. It’s kind of funny that I can approach these things with a first-day-of-school type anxiety (“Will I find anyone to talk to?”) But some people did sit with us and talk to us, and we had an enjoyable time.

2. Thoughtfulness. My husband had to eat dinner with a visitor at work but brought a piece of chocolate cake home for me. Very sweet. Both hubby and the cake. 🙂

3. The end of January! One month closer to spring! We had a few nice days in the 60s, but now it is back to the 30s. Thankfully the big “snowpocalypse” missed us. But my daughter-in-law’s mother lives in OK and was stranded at the hospital where she works for four days. That’s not a bad place to be stranded, but still, no one likes to be stranded anywhere.

4. Living room chairs. Finally. We had ordered them months ago, but first one problem after another came up — first the manufacturer ran out of the material we ordered, and then the store delivered the wrong chair –with several weeks of waiting for each problem to be resolved. We got two just alike which face each other. They’re very comfy, and it’s nice to have that room be more usable and closer to being finished — now I can figure out where to place the rest of the wall decorations.

5. An adorable commercial. I included this in my previous post — but I love it, and not every one who reads that post will read this one, and vice versa.

And a bonus: this sign, seen on Facebook:

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Here are some standouts from this week:

1. We finally joined the church we’ve been attending since we moved here. We had been planning to for a while, but various things came up. Even though belonging to a church doesn’t “earn” you any merit before God, and even though people were very nice to us as it was, and even though we had had some good talks with the pastor, there is just something special about taking that step and having an official church home and being pastored. My heart was especially touched when our pastor got down on one knee beside Grandma’s wheelchair (we use that on Sunday’s rather than her walker) when we came forward to welcome her and tell her he wanted to be a good pastor to her.

2. Safety, especially when I do something stupid. I was talking on the cell phone while driving yesterday, which isn’t usually a problem on familiar, straight roads. I usually pull off to talk if I feel it is not safe, but for some reason I was on the phone while trying to turn into a busy store parking lot on a busy street. There was someone facing me in the turn lane whom I couldn’t see past, but after several cars passed and then there was a lull, I decided to go for it — but there was a black car, I think an SUV, coming at me who thankfully swerved — and thankfully had room to swerve — and I instinctively hit my horn, not because he did anything wrong, but just to warn him. He was probably horrifically angry at me — I wished I could apologize! Believe me, the lesson has been learned. I thank God for protecting me and the other driver from my own foolishness.

3. Heart pan and dish towels that Jason and Mittu saw and got for me:

4. New frame. I’d been wanting some sort of photos of my family on my desk. I saw something similar to this in gold at Hobby Lobby and almost got it, but I was glad I waited, because I saw this in a Lillian Vernon catalog. The lighter color helps show the photos better plus doesn’t get lost in the darkness of the desk.

5. I forgot to mention last week that we were privileged to have the Galkin team visiting our church then. They weren’t there for meetings — they were taking a week off to get some much needed work done on several projects — but they did sing a few times on Sunday night and Wednesday. I got their new CD, Consider Him, and have been just about wearing it out. The title song as well as “More and More Like You” (very convicting, especially the line “Do whatever you must do”) and “There Is a Higher Throne” have stood out to me, but my favorite is “Does Jesus Care.” It is an old hymn, but the new melody brings out the meaning and makes it new again. You can listen to a portion of it or any of the songs here.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Barbara Harper

It’s been a good week.

1. I made progress on several fronts after a week or two of feeling foggy.

2. Jason (middle son) had two job interviews last week and was called back for a second interview with one company this week.

3. Sunday nights are some of my favorite times. Though we’re not legalistic about it, we try not to do regular work on Sundays and try to keep the TV off that day, so after a big breakfast and dinner and kitchen clean-up, I’m “off” the rest of the day. We come home from church Sunday night and everyone gets a snack and we either play games or read, or just generally relax. And lately Sunday nights have been time for…

4. Face time. All the males in my family have an iPod 4 which has a feature called Face Time — kind of like Skype except on the iPod. Jeremy has been calling on Sunday nights and it is nice to talk as long as we want for free and to be able to talk to all of us at once or to pass the iPod around.

5. A new Bible. The cover on my old one was staring to tear. I’d been wanting one with a more decorative cover but at first had only seen them on versions other than the KJV. I use the NASB sometimes and my kids have an ESV, but I use the KJV most of the time and especially at church. I found this one during a Bible sale on the already marked-down price, plus it is large print without being too big and clunky — so I don’t have to put my reading glasses on and off between reading the text and looking at the preacher. The brown part of the cover is really soft — I have to keep myself from rubbing it.

I asked Mittu if it looked too teen-ager-ish, and she assured me it looked fine for any age. 🙂

Have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Barbara Harper

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.