This has been a challenging week, but one where it’s especially good to look for the highlights along the way. It’s not a matter of just “looking on the bright side,” but counting God’s blessings. I’m sharing with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Christmas decorating. I’m so thankful the whole family comes over to help decorate for Christmas (except for our out-of-state one 😦 ). Not only does everything get done in good time, but we have fun reminiscing over the decorations.

One tradition that arose over the years is that one of the boys–I think Jason, usually–puts one of our snowflake ornaments in an unusual place. Once it was on the ceiling above a chair. Another time it was on a shelf with some figurines. This time there was a whole line of them. 🙂

2. Mittu makes dinner on decorating night, this time a chili with cornbread baked on top dish.

3. Heating pads. My lower back was hurting last week, which happens every now and then. Usually Tylenol and Icy Hot over a couple of days take care of it. But Saturday night, one particular muscle in my back kept spasming painfully. Tylenol and Icy Hot weren’t touching it. I spent a couple of days and one night in my desk chair with a heating pad. I know they say to ice muscles, but a heating pad usually works for me. It’s much better now, but still twinging a little. So I am moving slowly and carefully.

4. My dear husband outdid himself this week, making dinner, taking care of the house, fetching things for me.

5. Cyber Monday shopping. We got most of our shopping done, finding some great deals.

Bonus: Procedure scheduled. I finally got a call back from the cardiologist’s office and have the ablations for atrial flutter and atrial fibrillation scheduled for January.

Special Bonus: My heart rate went back to normal last night after being in atrial flutter for two weeks!

How was your week?

This week is coming swiftly to a close, as is the month of November. I’m pausing for a bit with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to stop, think, and be thankful for the blessings of the week.

1. Thanksgiving Day. We had a lovely time with all the family here and talked with my oldest son in RI the day before. Lots of good food, chatting, and fun.

2. Helpers. Because my heart rate is still elevated, Mittu offered to make all the side dishes for Thanksgiving–I think Timothy and Jason helped. Mittu made a beautiful gluten-free pie crust for my apple pie. Jesse made a pumpkin pie. And Jim cleaned bathrooms and vacuumed. He also always takes care of getting all the meat off the turkey bones after we eat and then washing the roasting pan. He also washed some of the bigger dirty dishes that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher.

3. A nice Thanksgiving craft kit. I found this at Hobby Lobby–leaves that come with little bamboo sticks with which we can scratch designs. All the Thanksgiving items were half-off when I got them, plus I had a gift card.

A couple of ours: Mittu’s swirly one and Jim’s veined one.

4. This year’s thankful tree. It’s always fun to read everyone’s contributions.

5. Getting the dates set for Jeremy’s visit. It’s always good when everything is confirmed. Looking forward to his coming.

I hope those of you in the USA had a meaningful Thanksgiving, too! I’m planning on staying within my own four walls this Black Friday. How about you?

It’s time again to count the week’s blessings with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Thanksgiving crafts with Tim. I often have some little crafty thing to do on Thanksgiving to help wile away the long hours of cooking and then the time between the meal and dessert. I got a couple of kits at Hobby Lobby, forgetting Jason, Mittu, and Timothy weren’t going to be with us for Thanksgiving this year. So I got them out when we watched Timothy last Friday.

I started on the little pumpkin house, but it was hard to do! It was made of Styrafoam, with tabs from one piece going into the slots from another–but the tabs wouldn’t slide in. So I passed that on to Jim while Tim and I worked on the other pieces. Jim had to use toothpicks to push the tabs through and tape to hold them down on the inside. But it was cute when done, and everything else went together well.

I liked the little creatures, too, especially the fox.

Then we also had a kit for making fun faces with stickers and googly eyes.

I was thinking afterward that Timothy might think himself too old for these kinds of things before long. But I am glad he enjoyed them this year.

2. A free play. The Christian school associated with our church does a play a couple of times a year, and they invite the church, family, friends, etc. to a free showing of the final dress rehearsal. The kids performed a radio production version of It’s a Wonderful Life, complete with people manufacturing the sound effects. They did a great job. We were sitting near some other couples our age who joked about having a cheap date night. 🙂

3. Dinner out. After the play, Jim and I tossed around various ideas of where to go eat and ended up at Texas Roadhouse again. The food was so good. I had a grilled pork chop, baked potato, and salad, and Jim had grilled steak and shrimp with the same sides (and gave me a few of his shrimp). Plus they have these wonderful fluffy rolls and cinnamon butter. They even brought us some extra rolls and butter, so we had some to take home.

4. Leftovers. Jason and Mittu hosted their small group and had leftover roast, carrots, and potatoes, and apple pie, which they brought over to our house. They ate some with us and left the rest of the roast and vegetables for us.

5. An available appointment. In the not-so-good news department, I’ve been in atrial flutter for the last couple of days. 😦 I called the cardiologist to try to nip this in the bud this time and not let it go on for weeks like last time. At first they were talking about scheduling me for mid-December. I asked if I couldn’t get in the next few days, so they scheduled me for this morning. I’m probably going to end up having to have an ablation, which I really don’t want to do. But neither do I want to have this keep coming up. Thankfully, an ablation for atrial flutter is supposed to be a one-time thing, whereas an ablation for atrial fibrillation might have to be repeated.

I hope those of you in the US have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day next week! I wish you something good to eat, someone you love to eat it with, and much to be thankful for.

Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts a weekly opportunity to record and share blessings. She started this over 16 years ago, and I’ve enjoyed participating for most of that time. Today, though, I almost didn’t join in. It’s not been a bad week, but I just couldn’t think of anything to share. I decided to spend a few minutes thinking, looking through family texts for reminders, and jotting down what came to mind. I ended up with way more than five blessings. That’s one reason this exercise is so valuable. We can let God’s gifts go by unnoticed because we don’t take time to ponder and be thankful for them. So today, I am thankful for Susanne and Friday’s Fave Five. In addition:

1. A fairly easy return. I needed to return an item I had ordered online from a company where I shop once or twice a year. In the past, they included an invoice with the purchase that had a section to fill out for returns and a prepaid label. This time, I was perturbed to see they had outsourced their return procedure. I had to go to a website to initiate the return, get a QR code, and find where to return the item. The closest place was 15 minutes away in an area that was off the beaten path for me. But it wasn’t a bad drive, and the process was relatively painless. There was a long line, but it moved quickly. I didn’t even have to repackage the return–they scanned my QR code, printed off a label, and gave me a receipt.

Then, my GPS took me a different route on the way back to my area, and I discovered the road I was on turned into one road and then another that I was familiar with. I’m directionally challenged, so it was a light bulb moment to realize those connections.

2. Settled plans. Our Connect Four group had planned to meet this weekend to make Christmas cards. But one lady had to go out of town and left it up to the rest of us whether we wanted to reschedule or go ahead. The other ladies had not responded to a series of texts asking what we wanted to do. Since we were supposed to meet at my house, I needed to know what we were doing so I would know how to prepare. Finally I got word this week that one lady was sick and not planning to come, and the other had out-of-town family coming in. So we decided to cancel and regroup when everyone was back together. I was partly relieved, partly disappointed, but mainly glad to know for sure what the plan was.

Also in this category, we got the dates my oldest son is planning to be here in December.

3. Yard and window cleaning. Jim cleared out the dead plants, cut back the roses, and even cleaned some of the outer windows that had a bunch of spider webs in them. It all looks so much better.

4. A successful shopping trip. I got several things accomplished one afternoon. I found everything I needed for my Operation Christmas Child box at the Dollar Tree and spent gift cards at Hobby Lobby and Crumbl cookies. 🙂

5. A light snowfall. I’m very glad it was just that–a light dusting of snow.

Bonuses: I’m thankful for those who serve our country and the opportunity to honor them on Veteran’s Day. The Northern Lights were in our area again this week. It was too cloudy to see them from our house, but I saw many beautiful pictures on Facebook. Timothy got his upper braces this week, and, though they’re uncomfortable, he weathered the experience well.

I hope you’ve had a good week!

As we end the first week of November, I’m stopping for a moment to count the blessings of the week and sharing them with you all and Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Family costume party. Back during the pandemic, when all the regular avenues of dressing up and getting candy were closed, Jason and Mittu proposed having our own family costume party on Halloween. We’ve done so ever since. It’s always fun to see what everyone comes up with.

Jesse’s is some kind of medieval outfit–I told him he looked like a blacksmith. Jim’s is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’m Rosie the Riveter. 🙂 Mittu is Hot Sauce. (Jason bought the costume. 🙂 ) And Jason is a Starbucks drink.

Timothy is kind of hidden in that picture–he dressed as Granddad!

Jim usually wears a polo shirt with a pen in the pocket, and he usually has his glasses on. So this is spot on. They even sprayed Timothy’s hair with grey highlights. 🙂

I was supposed to bring dessert but didn’t want to do ghosts or mummies or that kind of thing. So I made the easiest-ever peanut butter cookies (one cup of sugar, one cup of peanut butter, and one egg) and tried to decorate them as owls.

You see why I usually leave the food decorating to Mittu. 🙂

We had a really fun time with dinner, dessert, and games.

2. An extra hour Saturday night. It takes me a while to get adjusted to the time change, but I do love the extra hour that day. I really wouldn’t mind if they left Daylight Savings Time in place, except that school kids end up waiting for the bus in the dark around this time of year if we don’t change back to regular time.

3. A change of doctor but not of time. I got a call from the doctor’s office that the person I was supposed to see for back-to-back appointments in February (yearly physical and yearly Medicare wellness visit) was not going to be in the office that day. But, thankfully, someone else was free for both appointments.

4. Yard clean-up. Our wildflowers have been past their prime for a while now, and Jim was able to cut them down and clean out the flower beds this week. He didn’t plant tomatoes this year, but he found some unripe ones growing among the flowers. It’s odd they didn’t ripen over the summer–I guess the tall wildflowers blocked the sunlight from them. The yard looks immensely better.

5. New game. My oldest son told me about an online word game called Raddle that has been fun.

Bonus: When my husband says, “Do you want me to pick up some dinner, or do you have plans?” Even if I have plans, I won’t turn down take-out. 🙂

And that wraps up another week. How was yours?

It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of October already. I’m pausing for a moment with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to share blessings of the week.

1. Annual pumpkin decorating night. Mittu brought shepherd’s pie and salad. I made caramel corn and apple cider. Here are the results of our labors:

I shared more detail about them in my end-of-month post yesterday.

2. Beautiful trees. I’ve been saying our fall color has been late coming and not as spectacular as usual. Sunday we drove around quite a bit–Jesse had flown to the wedding of friends over the weekend and came home Sunday afternoon. So we left church and ate lunch, then drove to the airport, then took Jesse home and came home ourselves. We saw lots of pretty fall foliage. Oddly, there’s still not much in our immediate neighborhood. I’m not much for taking a drive just to take a drive, so I’m glad we had the opportunity to get out for a bit in areas that had more color.

3. A $28 microwave. I mentioned last week that our microwave stopped heating–we’re still waiting for the needed part–and Jim brought in the little one from his office that we had bought when his mom was in assisted living. Then that one died. He went to Wal-Mart to look for another little one to replace it; he likes having one in his office to warm up whatever he’s eating or drinking. Plus we use it sometimes when we need extra help for big family dinners. He stopped one of their workers to ask a question, and she pointed him to a couple of microwaves that had been marked down to $28 because the boxes were dented. She said the microwaves themselves were fine because they were encased in Styrofoam. They just had to mark them down because customers avoided the dented boxes. Just finding someone to help and answer questions is getting to be a minor miracle there. Then to have her point out the mark-down was a bonus. My deal-loving husband was happy. 🙂

4. Soup. Though we have soups year round, they’re especially good when the weather turns cool. Last week we had hamburger vegetable soup (using ground turkey instead of beef) and corn muffins one night, then potato soup with open-faced English muffin sandwiches for lunch one day.

5. Rain. Overcast skies are not my favorite, but we really needed the rain. We had precipitation for parts of four days this week. I’m especially glad it was a pleasant rain rather than thunderstorms.

And that’s the end of another week–and another month! How was yours?

Friday is my weekly reminder to stop and ponder the week’s happenings and to express gratitude for them. I join Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to share.

1. Fall color, finally. It’s not as much or as vibrant as usual, evidently because of how dry it has been here. But it’s much appreciated.

2. Men and boys’ camping trip. Our church organized this on the land of one of the men. Jim, Jason, and Timothy seemed to really enjoy it.

3. Lunch with a couple from church. Jason and Mittu and Jim and I had been wanting to get together with these folks for some time, but it seemed like things kept getting in the way for one or more of us. We finally congregated last Sunday at Jason and Mittu’s house. We so enjoyed getting to know them better.

4. Impromptu dinner. Monday night, Jim brought in the leftover vegetables from the camping trip and made a salad. Then he remembered he had some salmon and trout in the freezer and offered to grill it for dinner. All I had to do was heat up some french fries in the air fryer for “fish and chips.”

5. Dinner out. Our microwave stopped heating this week. It would sound like it was running, and the lights and timer worked, but it wouldn’t heat anything. It was less than a year old and still under warranty, so Jim called the company. They were going to send someone out between 1 and 3. Then between 3 and 5. Someone finally got here after 5. He diagnosed the problem and said he’d have to order a part, which would take about a week. Jim brought over the small microwave in his office that we’d used when his mom was staying there. I had planned to wait to make dinner til after the repair guy came, since the microwave is right about the stove and I didn’t want to be in the middle of things when he came. By the time he got here, it was too late to go to Bible study. So we went to Texas Roadhouse. The only negative there is the place is so noisy. But the food was excellent and our waitress was wonderful.

Bonus: So many of my faves have to do with food this week! To balance that, my friend Melanie told me about Justin Augustin on Instagram. He has several short videos of low-impact, easy exercises for older people or those who have been sedentary. I love that he’s calm, low-key, and quiet. I don’t care for hyped-up, yelling videos. He has an app and probably some longer videos on YouTube, but I’ve saved several of these shorter ones.

Hope you’ve had a good week!

It’s another “Where has this week gone?” kind of Friday. I like to stop for a few minutes to think back through the week and remember the good parts with you all and Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Summer flowers’ last hurrah. Our cosmos looked about ready to cut back, but then they put out another spectacular round of blooms. The front planters are still looking good, too.

2. Pretty note pads and a book bought with an Amazon gift card from my birthday back in August.

3. A dermatologist visit for the first time. I really liked the person I saw.

4. A haircut coupon for $7.99 for the place we usually go to.

5. Impromptu dinner with the family. A game we pre-ordered for Jesse’s birthday a few weeks ago just arrived Thursday. I texted him to let him know and ask if he wanted to come for dinner as well as to get the game. He said yes, so I checked with Jason and Mittu to see if they were free as well. They were!

It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through October already. Sadly, we’re still not seeing much fall leaf color, but some trees are already bare. Here’s hoping we see some fall foliage before the season is over.

I was outside late one afternoon this week, and the weather was absolutely delicious–low humidity, and cool but not chilly. Fall feels truly here!

I’m sharing highlights from this week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Connect Four painting. I mentioned last month the Connect Four program our church ladies’ group does, where everyone who signs up is divided into groups of four, and we’re to meet together once a month over the next four months. Each group can do whatever they want when they get together. Last year, we just met for lunch each month, which was great. This year, we met for dinner one night. When we discussed what to do for the next meeting, someone suggested one of those places where everyone paints the same picture. But that was going to be expensive. One of the ladies said she was doing a Van Gogh paint by number painting, and somehow that morphed into getting together to paint by numbers. 🙂 There were some gorgeous kits on Amazon, but they were 16×20 and very detailed. I wanted something small. I found a pink rose set at Michael’s. It was so relaxing and fun to paint together and talk and get to know each other.

2. Cini Minis. Burger King used to make these, and I’ve never quite forgiven them for discontinuing them. I have fond memories of dividing them with the kids. But we saw a commercial this week advertising that they were back. One morning Jim got some, as well as a ham and egg croissanwich, for breakfast.

3. Setting aside things for the thrift store. I have a box where I place things to give away as I come to them. But I also had a few other things in mind to add to it. I didn’t do a massive whole-house purge, but I was glad to finally get these things boxed up to go out soon.

4. Several odd jobs completed like cleaning out my purse, a stack of catalogs, and the catch-all baskets on my desk and kitchen counter.

5. Pre-order discounts. A favorite author has a book coming out soon. I saw on her Instagram account that her publisher was offering a 40% discount and free shipping on the book.

Bonus: These gripper things that help open jars and bottles. I was trying to get a container open this morning with no success and was about to go find my husband for help. Then I remembered I had a couple of these in a kitchen drawer.

I hope your week has been a pleasant one!

This first Friday of October still doesn’t quite feel or look like fall, but we’ll get there eventually. I’ve had what I call half a headache off and on this week–not severe, not incapacitating, but just enough to make me feel draggy. But–there are always blessings if we look for them. I’m sharing mine this week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Lunch with family and a friend. One of Mittu’s friends from her hometown, who was one of her bridesmaids, was visiting last weekend. She came to church with them and then we had lunch at Mittu’s and Jason’s house.

2. Timothy’s first youth activity. Our church lets 6th grade kids and their parents decide whether they stay with the elementary kids or go into the youth group–I guess because 6th grade is elementary school in some places but middle school in others. Timothy wanted to go into the youth group, and they had their first activity at a splatter paint room last weekend. He seemed to enjoy it.

3. A refurbished dresser. I mentioned last week that Jim had started this, and he got it done this week. The process had its problems, but he persevered. 🙂

One reason it took me so long to decide what to do with this dresser is that I wanted it white, but the other furniture in the room is wooden. But then I figured the wooden items on the dresser would tie it in. Plus, we’re usually the only ones who see it, so who cares whether it “goes” or not if we like it? 🙂 Then, I had originally planned to leave the top of it stained like the desk Jim refurbished a few years ago–but I wasn’t sure if it would look right with the white mirror. So I decided to keep it all white with vintage-looking hardware found at Hobby Lobby.

A closer look:

He even lined the drawers with pretty paper.

4. A new dishwasher. Ours died on Tuesday–while fully loaded–about an hour after Jim brought the dresser in. It filled up with water to start the cycle, but then just never did anything else. We pushed buttons, turned it off and on, even turned the breaker off and on, with no results. While I unloaded dishes and started handwashing them, Jim scooped the water out and inspected it. He thought about replacing the motor. But he had said the last time he worked on it that he wasn’t going to mess with it any more. And why put a new motor in when everything else about it is old.

So we went to Lowe’s that afternoon. They had a simple one like I wanted in white, which is getting harder to find these days as most appliances in stores here seem to be stainless steel. They even had it in stock, so we were able to take it home that day. (The Home Depot here doesn’t keep any major appliances in stock any more. They just have floor models to look at, but will only deliver from their warehouse. When we ordered a hot water heater a couple of years ago, it took over a week to arrive. So we look at Lowe’s first now!)

5. Lunch with Melanie at Red Lobster with some gift cards from my family. Great conversation, great food, and we had an excellent waiter.

How was your week?