Here we are in August already! I’m joining with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to share our blessings of the week.

1. A helpful neighbor. This happened last week, but I forgot to mention it. While we were celebrating Jason’s birthday, a neighbor noticed that Jesse’s brake lights were on and called us. Jesse went out to turn them off–but they remained on. Jim went out to look, and there was some problem with the fuse box. They removed the fuse–which meant having no brake lights for the drive home. But God kept him safe. We were so thankful for the neighbor, because at least we were able to keep Jesse’s battery from running down.

2. Car fixed. Jesse made arrangements to have his car worked on at a place near us. We loaned him one of our cars while his was being worked on. While it was in the shop, he asked them to change the oil and investigate a weird noise upon starting (a frayed fan belt) as well as replace the fuse switch. They got all that done in a day, so he came back the next day to get his car and return ours. It helps to know his car is in a safer condition than it was. Bonus: getting to visit a little with him both mornings. He lives farther away than Jason and Mittu and has a weird work schedule, so we don’t see him quite as often.

3. An impromptu visit. Jason, Mittu, and Timothy came over one afternoon.

4. The last boxes from the shed have been cleaned out! Out of three boxes, I only saved about a 7-inch stack of papers. Some of those will likely be tossed out as well, but I wanted to look at them a little further. There are some cabinets I need to go through out in the shed when we have a cool day. And we have a big trunk that one or the other of us used in college that Jim’s going to bring in to go through one day. Then he wants to finish the walls, put in shelving, and make it a more workable space.

5. Cardioversion scheduled. Atrial flutter began July 14. It took almost two weeks for the scheduler to call me about setting a date for a cardioversion. And then earliest time available is Aug. 22. That’s when Jeremy will be here from RI. I almost rescheduled it for after he leaves but figured I’d better go ahead and get it done. Atrial flutter can resolve on its own, and I am praying it will soon.

Thanks so much for your prayers and kind words about this the last two weeks.

Well, I am still experiencing the atrial flutter I mentioned last week, with my heart rate bouncing from 110 to 123 beats per minute. We tried increasing the medicine I am already on, to no avail. I called the doctor’s office at the requested time, and they advised skipping the step of going off the current medicine and trying a new one. Instead, they thought I should go ahead and do the cardioversion. Their scheduler was supposed to get back with me. She didn’t. I called earlier this week and was told all the cardioversion slots in their schedule were filled. I asked through the patient portal if I could go ahead and get on the schedule for next week, and received no response. So I guess we just wait.

I’m frustrated. But this is not as urgent a situation as many others the doctor’s office deals with. I feel okay and can function pretty well–I just feel like I am not operating at full capacity and need to rest after exertion. I’m praying that God will direct to the right time or even help my heart to go back to normal without the procedure.

Meanwhile, I’m sharing some of the blessings of the week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Jason’s birthday was last week, but we celebrated on Sunday. It’s always a joy to celebrate my children. But it was a special blessing this time because, in an effort to keep life low-stress while my heart is acting up, we’ve pretty much stayed home. It almost felt to me like Covid isolation. So I especially appreciated the gathering. Jesse came over as well and we FaceTimed with Jeremy.

2. Wildflower bouquets. Mittu cut and arranged these from our wildflower patch. Then she cut some sunflowers to take home. It was good she did, because we had a strong storm the next day which did a number on the flowers outside.

3. Electricity. The power went out briefly during the storm, right as I was making dinner. We have a gas stove and oven, so the burners stayed on. But it would be hard to be without air conditioning this time of year. I was glad the power came back on soon.

4. Easy meals. Jim got several frozen heat-and-eat meals to make dinner prep easy this week. It’s not good to eat that way all the time, but I’m glad such options are available when needed.

5. Finishing a long book. Books are a favorite every day! I’ve been reading the third volume of the Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis for months now, and finally finished it this week. I enjoyed it a lot, but I am read to move on.

How was your week?

I’ve had better weeks. 🙂 I’ve had an elevated heart rate since Monday, 105 to 119 beats per minute. I saw the cardiologist’s PA on Wednesday, where they did an EKG and diagnosed me with atrial flutter. He said it wasn’t uncommon after an ablation for atrial fibrillation, which I had eight years ago.

The first step for treatment is to increase a medicine I am already on for a few days. If that doesn’t work, they’ll try a new one–but I’ll have to be off the old one for three days first. because they can’t both be in my system at the same time. So it might get worse before it gets better. If the new medicine doesn’t work, the next step is to go into the hospital to have my heart “shocked.” And if that doesn’t work, I’ll probably have to have another ablation.

My hope is the first option will work, though it doesn’t seem to be having an effect so far. Prayers are appreciated! (Update: Just heard from my doctor. They want to go ahead and do the cardioversion, shocking my heart back into the right rhythm, rather than trying the new medication. Someone is supposed to call me next week to schedule it.)

In the meantime, even with this new complication, there have been bright spots along the way. I’m sharing them with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. The cardiologist’s physician’s assistant. I had never seen him before, and he’s very young, but he was great at explaining what was going on and what the options are. Jim took me to the doctor since we felt I probably shouldn’t drive, and he was able to ask some questions to help understand some of what happened with my heart in the past.

2. No cooking except heating up leftovers. Mittu sent dinner over a couple of nights. Timothy made cookies. We’ve gotten take-out a couple of nights and Jim made dinner last night. I always appreciate a night off in the kitchen. 🙂

3. Understanding family. We were supposed to watch Timothy while Jason and Mittu went to a meeting Monday night. I think we probably could have, but Jason and Mittu felt it would be better not to in case things escalated. Then the guys had planned to go camping the latter half of this week, but canceled it. I felt bad, but they were good sports.

4. Going through more old boxes from the shed and finding more old treasures. One was a sock monkey I’d had since childhood and lost track of. I thought it had been lost or tossed ages ago. He’s got patches and holes and has kind of an icky feel to him. I’m going to try soaking and washing him out to see what happens. I may end up having to throw him out anyway, but I figure I’ll give him a chance. Another was an invitation to a Valentine banquet from Jim when we were dating. It was done in the style of a knight to a lady, lettered on parchment paper and stained. Fun!

5. Goldfinches. I rarely see them at the bird feeder, but they like the wildflowers. They usually come as a couple.

How was your week?

It’s been a good and relatively quiet week here. We’ve had a slight break in temperatures–80s instead of 90s–and a bit of welcome rain. I’m pausing once again with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to recount the good things from the week.

1. Independence Day. The kids came over for burgers, made by Jason, Mittu, and Timothy this time. They also brought over some non-fireworks fireworks–“Pop-its,” which you throw on the ground, where they make noise when they hit, and these other things shaped like a cone or bottle where you pull a string, and it makes a loud pop and shoots out colored streamers. We saw a few larger fireworks from other places in-between trees. We played a few games and ate cookies with red, white, and blue sugar toppings. A good day, all in all.

2. Sunday lunch. We usually get take-out on the way home from church. This last Sunday, I wasn’t in the mood for any of our fast-food choices. I had a hankering for Cracker Barrel’s meatloaf, so I asked Jim what he thought about eating there. That’s not his favorite place, but he’ll indulge me every now and then. 🙂 Thankfully, his food was great (as was mine, but I always like the food there) and we had an excellent waiter, so it was a fun experience. There was a long wait, so I don’t know if I’d suggest it for Sundays again. But by the time we were finishing up, the restaurant was starting to clear out and quiet down.

3. The Princess Bride was scheduled to be on regular TV last Sunday night. Even though I know it well, I thought it would be fun to watch it again. Coincidentally, our pastor had made a passing reference to one of the characters in the movie that morning. So when I asked Jim if he wanted to watch it, he said, he needed to because he didn’t get the pastor’s reference. 😀 Once we started watching, he remembered having seen it before. It was fun seeing again and anticipating favorite parts.

4. Good lab reports. I had a six-month follow-up visit from my physical with my doctor this week, which mostly involved checking blood work. I’m not diabetic, but my blood sugar is slightly elevated. I get the lab work done a day ahead of time, so I got the results before I went in. I thought I read that my A1C, which measures blood sugar, was 7, which is way high–they want you to be around 5.7, and my last test was 6.2. I was bracing myself for a scolding. But when I got there, they said it was 6, lower than last time. Whew! I looked back at the report when I got home, and it did say 6–I don’t know how 7 got into my mind. And my cholesterol and everything else was normal. So the doctor and I were both pleased.

5. Picture hung. I found this picture online and requested and received it for Mother’s Day. I hadn’t hung it up yet because it turned out to be a little small for the space I had in mind. So I was pondering other places to put it, then finally decided to go ahead and put it where I wanted it in the first place, in my bedroom above a small bookcase.

I love the verse, the colors, everything about it. I love that it looks like it could have been painted in our area, with the Blue Ridge mountains in the background.

Bonus: Jim is cleaning out our shed and brought in some boxes for us to go through. One contained mostly school and Sunday school papers from when our oldest two were younger, but we found some treasures in their notes to each other, Jeremy’s plans for a boys club with “no girls aloud” and “no smoking” but with snacks, postcards Jim had sent from his travels, etc. Another box had some of Jim’s and my high school and college notebooks. My high school Algebra and college Zoology notebooks went straight into the trash (I was never sure why Zoology was needed for a Home Economics major. All I remember from it was some worm that could get into people’s skin in tropical watery places, grow the length of their leg, and have to be slowly pulled out centimeter by centimeter lest it break. Bleah.). But we found some fun treasures in that box, too, like this unusual to-do list:

Miss Barker was the Dean of Women. We got married over Christmas break my second senior year (I crammed four years into five, as the saying goes . . .). I had to see her for “permission” to get married and do whatever paperwork was involved. Then Mrs. Forsythe was the director of the girls’ extension ministries–groups from the college that went out to various places, like kids’ Bible clubs and nursing homes. I was going to need to drop out of the nursing home ministry I was in after we got married. We both had a laugh over this list, especially seeing the Dean about marriage.

Well, that wraps up another week here. How was yours?

Not only is is a new month, but we’re officially halfway through the year! Time’s a-flying. But in an effort not to let the blessings of the week fly by unnoticed, I join up with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story on Fridays to share our blessings.

1. Visit from a dear friend. One of my friends since early married days was traveling from SC to OH and went out of her way to stop and see us in TN. It was so good to visit in person and catch up with each other. She took us out to lunch at a nearby local restaurant, and then my kids came over for dinner while she was here.

2. My dear husband’s help in preparing for my friend’s visit. He cleaned bathrooms and vacuumed, among other things.

3. A dinner gift. I forgot to mention this last week. I got a text from Timothy saying his mom was making dinner for us that day. A pleasant surprise!

4. Impromptu lunch out. Our church has “care groups” that meet a couple of times a month. Jason and Mittu are in a different one than Jim and I are in. Both our groups meet after church for Sunday lunch. Sometimes our groups meet the same Sundays–sometimes we meet on different Sundays. This last Sunday, none of us had our care groups, so we went out to lunch.

5. Applesauce cake made with oat flour. Such good stuff. We had this while my friend was here. I don’t make the cream cheese frosting in the recipe–I make a vanilla buttercream from my forty-plus-year-old Betty Crocker cookbook. In the past, I’ve ground oatmeal for the flour. Oatmeal is gluten-free in itself, but some brands say their oats are grown near wheat fields, so there might be some cross-contamination. I found Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Oat Flour at the grocery store–not only did that save time, but I was assured it was gluten-free for our gluten-sensitive family members.

Bonus: A couple of times a year when I have early-morning fasting lab work at the doctor’s office, I reward myself with a breakfast biscuit. This time it was a steak and egg biscuit from Bojangles along with their Bo-Berry Biscuit. Those are the only things I like there.

Funny story: one time when Jim and I went through their drive-through, Jim asked for a couple of blueberry biscuits. The person at the window said, “Two BO-Berry biscuits. Anything else?” Throughout the rest of the interaction, he kept emphasizing the “BO.” That’s (however much money) for your BO-Berry biscuits, sir.” “Here are your “BO-Berry biscuits.” We got the idea–they’re BO-Berry, not blueberry biscuits at Bojangles. 🙂

Happy Independence Day to my American friends!

It’s hard to believe we’re at the last Friday in June already. Even though we’re only officially into summer by a week or so, to me it seems summer is a third of the way over with the end of June in sight. I’m fighting the heat wave and fostering gratitude by pausing for a few moments with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to focus on the blessings of the week.

1. An old video. My Facebook memories pulled up a video Jason published eleven years ago. Timothy had been born ten and a half weeks early and spent that amount of time in the NICU. He got to go home on his original due date in June. Jason made a video showing Timothy’s progress and homecoming. It always makes me a little teary and abundantly grateful.

2. Amazon gift cards. I had a couple on hand for a few months, waiting to enter them until I knew what I wanted to spend them on. Otherwise they get frittered away. I finally used them this week. It’s like extending Mother’s Day and Christmas.

3. Air conditioning and ceiling fans. I imagine a lot of us will list those this week. I don’t know how people survived summer heat and humidity before AC.

4. Nowhere to go this week. First time that’s happened in a long time.

5. Getting “extras” done. One of my dearest friends is coming to visit next week. I got over the idea that I needed to practically spring-clean when company was coming long ago. But there are always little extras we like to tend to before they get here.

How was your last full week of June?

Whew, this week has been a blur. Thursday, as I write this, is my first day all week without something scheduled. I thought I’d get a lot done at home today; instead, I’ve been wiped out and took a nap. 🙂

Thankfully, much of the busy stuff has also been good. I’m sharing highlights with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. First birds in the birdbath. Some had perched on the side before; one had taken a drink. But finally a couple of birds splashed around in there. That was fun to see.

2. Wildflowers. The ones Jim planted from seeds around Mother’s Day are blooming nicely.

3. Father’s Day. We enjoyed celebrating my husband and the son who is also a father by getting the family together for lasagna and presents. Mittu made lemon pound cake.

4. Timothy. Jason and Mittu asked if we’d watch Timothy Monday night so they could go on a date. They brought pizza as well. We worked on the Lego-type camper van they had given Jim a while back. Then Timothy showed us how to use his 3-D printing pen. I’ve mentioned before that he likes tornado sirens. I am amazed by how much he knows about them. He was telling us all about where Knoxville used to have theirs and even knew what brands they were.

5. Appointments done. I see my cardiologist twice a year and just had one of those appointments this week. Then I also had the appointment to apply for my Real ID. Both went well, and I am very glad to have them behind me.

Happy first day of summer! How was your week?

The first week of June turned out to be a quiet week, which is fine by me. Though this week seemed fairly uneventful, there are always blessings along the way if we look for them. I’m sharing a few with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Impromptu get-together. Sunday evening, Jason texted to ask if they could come over. I love that they live close enough to do that. Organized dinners and outings are fun, but so are the unexpected ones.

2. Flowers inside and out. Jim brought in the first wildflowers to bloom from the seeds he planted and placed them on my desk. These are tiny–the “vase” is the cover to a hair-spray bottle. 🙂 Cute and sweet.

Jason, Mittu, and Timothy brought these gorgeous peonies when they came over Sunday night.

Our hydrangea bush is thriving, as are the “bargain” plants in the planter.

The front planters are doing well, too. The yellowish-green stuff in front, which my Picture This app tells me is Creeping Jenny, came back from last year. The ones in the back were another of the bargain arrangements Jim found several weeks ago.

I love seeing plants blooming when I go outside.

3. Shelves cleaned and reorganized. I was able to work on a few closet shelves this week.

4. Ironing is not a favorite activity, but I am glad to have put a dent into the pile this week.

5. Sorting and organizing toys. For a long time I have wanted to sort through Timothy’s toys that we have here and pull out the ones he has outgrown. I specifically wanted to clean and set aide the “baby” ones for when we have people over who have infants. It was good to finally tackle that.

There was a song some years ago about simple pleasures being the best. The big ones are pretty nice, too, but I think most of life is made up of simple everyday pleasures.

What are some of your simple pleasures this week?

We’re not only nearing the end of the week, but also the end of the month. I’m not eager to transition to summer: I’d like for spring to stretch out a bit more. I know summer doesn’t officially start until June 20, but I always think of summer being from June through August. But we don’t really have a choice about how long a season is. We can only take a day at a time and pause along the way to take notice of the blessings God bestows on us. I’m doing that today with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. End-of-school-year party. Timothy completed fifth grade, so we got together to celebrate with Mexican bowls (seasoned chicken, Mexican rice, and toppings) and banana cream pie (all made by Mittu).

2. Memorial Day. I am thankful for those who fought and died for our country.

3. A long weekend. We had the kids over for my husband’s scrumptious grilled sou vide burgers along with the usual cookout accoutrements.

4. An $8.99 coupon for a haircut, which I used this week.

5. Dinner outing. When I came back from my haircut, it was nearly dinner time. We talked about whether to bring something in, but then decided to go out to Texas Roadhouse. Everything was great. Then we went to get the rest of the plants we needed to finish out our planters and flower beds. We could see storm clouds on the horizon, which I assume were responsible for the delicious cool breeze as we looked at plants. We got home well before the rain. It was a pleasant evening overall.

How was your week?