It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

Yet anther week has flown by, and we have another opportunity to recall God’s goodness in it. Feel free to join in as we remember five good things each week:

1. Church potluck. Good food, as always, and a good time of fellowship. We were able to sit with a new couple we had been wanting to meet but hadn’t yet.

2. Yearly physical is over for another year, and all my lab numbers were good. A couple were a bit high, but stable and not high enough to be a problem.

3. Grandparents Day was last Sunday.I didn’t have a chance to do a post, but I had a good time remembering my grandparents and their impact on my life. And Jason, Mittu, and Timothy came over in the evening with beautiful pink roses for me, a bag of coffee for Jim, a cake, and a picture Timothy colored for us. His bursting in the door cheerily saying, “Happy Grandparents Day!” was the best part.

4. A pleasant evening. I’ve been commenting that it is still hot and humid and not at all autumnish yet. But one evening this week we were in the front yard watching Timothy play, and the air actually felt nice. Not too hot or cold or muggy. A good foretaste of things to come!

5. Honorable mention. I got word this week that a piece I entered in Writer’s Digest’s Annual Writing Competition got an Honorable Mention, with a prize of 20% off at their Writer’s Digest University. That’s such an encouragement that I’m making progress in the right direction.

Bonus: I’m not into pumpkin spice everything, but these are a nice treat this time of year:

I mentioned last week I had gotten some desktop shelves and was experimenting with arranging them. This is how I have them now:

The one underneath the monitor (please forgive the glare) came with a second shelf that goes halfway down, but I wanted to leave the area open to put my “In” box underneath. The ones on the right are actually two pieces that can be squeezed together, pushed apart, or separated into two pieces. I had them in two, on either side of the monitor, and I liked the symmetry of that. But I liked the shelves themselves better this way. All together they do create space for more storage and make the desk look more organized, so I am pleased.

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

It’s been a pretty quiet week. Still hot and humid and summery. No fall decorations here yet for a couple of weeks, though I’ve seen them around town for a while. But I always appreciate the opportunity to reflect on good things from the last week.

1. A haircut. I enjoy them when I get there, but I am terrible about actually making the time to go til I’m so frustrated with my hair, I’m about ready to pull it out. I was finally able to tack on a visit to the salon after another outing. My regular person wasn’t in, and the person who did my hair got it a bit shorter than I’m used to. But I am finding I like it quite a bit and may keep it this way!

2. Flowers. Some of the plants in my planters died, so I looked for a few more to fill in til winter. The stores I checked didn’t have a lot left except mums—not my favorite. I was hoping to find pansies, but didn’t see any. But I did find enough flowers to make the planters better-looking than they were.

3. Desktop shelves. I wanted to keep a few books handy, but there was no room for them on my already crowded desk. I looked up desktop shelves and found some I liked, and asked for them for my birthday. I put those together, and decided I needed another I had seen on my first search. I had enough Amazon points (accumulated through use of my Amazon credit card) to get the second shelves for free. I’ve rearranged them several times, but once I’m set with how I want them, I’ll share a picture.

4. A long weekend. Monday was Labor Day here in the States. Kind of an odd holiday. But everyone enjoyed the day off and Jim’s grilled burgers.

5. Reading to Timothy. I had not read to my grandson for a long time. It’s one of my favorite things to do, but usually he prefers activity when he’s here, which is fine. But last weekend, his dad had fixed him a late lunch here, and Timothy asked if I’d tell him a story while he ate. I asked if I could read one instead. We ended up reading three or four—one was even a chapter book. I had a lot of fun, and he seemed to enjoy them, too.

Bonus: Getting my days straight. For some reason, I thought four different functions were scheduled for four consecutive days next weekend, and I was stressing. But then I realized two of them were this weekend and two the next. Even though I’d prefer them a little more spaced out, it was a relief to realize they weren’t all back-to-back.

Hope you have a great Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

We finished out our family stay-cation last week with some more games before my oldest son headed back to his home. Then we crashed for the rest of the weekend. 🙂 It never gets any easier to say good-bye, but we look forward to the next visit at Christmastime. Meanwhile, here are some of the best parts of the last week.

1. Homemade cheesecake and compote. One of Jeremy’s birthday gifts was a set of two stacking pans that go in the Instant Pot in order to cook two different things at once. Something was said about cheesecake, so he put together a recipe from two he found and made them in his new pans in our Instant Pot. Then he made two different compotes, one with strawberries and one with blueberries. We had some chocolate syrup on hand for those who’d rather have that. So good! Jim used some of the leftover blueberry compote on pancakes and I think Mittu said she poured some over ice cream.

2. Laptop repair. My laptop had been having issues for a while, so I asked Jeremy to look at it while he was here. After trying different things, with nothing working, we copied my files there onto a flash drive and had to reset the whole computer to its initial factory specifications. Jesse finished doing what needed to be done after Jeremy had to leave. It’s working much better now than it has in ages. I’m thankful and happy they were able and willing to work on it.

3. A successful school beginning. Timothy started kindergarten through an online home school program this week. He’s been eager and excited and responding well. Jason and Mittu have had several confirmations that this is the right path for now.

4. Meals brought over. Mittu made several meals for a friend whose husband was in an accident, but then discovered the family did not want any visitors. All but one of the meals contained gluten, which Mittu and Timothy can’t eat. So they brought three of them over here. You know I always appreciate time off from the kitchen. But with getting back into the routine after the family stay-cation last week, it’s been especially helpful.

5. Lunch with a friend and free pie! A friend and I had had to cancel plans to get together a few times in a row. We finally made it to lunch this week. We took advantage of O’Charley’s Free Pie Wednesday. I had a half club sandwich and the loaded potato soup (I brought home half of each) and the French Silk pie–sooo good. I had not been to O’Charley’s in years, so it was nice to get reacquainted with them. But the best part was visiting together and catching up.

And that’s it for the last week of August! September means fall is coming soon—and cooler temperatures!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

Some weeks require more thought to come up with five good things to share. This is not one of those weeks for me! It will be hard to limit myself to just five.

1. Jeremy’s visit. My oldest son is visiting from out-of-state. It’s a joy to have him here. Jim took the week off, too, and we’ve had lots of family time, games, chatting and catching up.

2. Jeremy’s birthday was the week before, and he celebrated with friends then. But we had our family celebration last weekend.

3. My birthday. My family always goes the extra mile to give me a special day. Lunch from Chick-Fil-A brought in, dinner out, wonderful gifts, and this beautiful cake made by my daughter-in-law. The plates and napkins are so pretty, too!

4. A mini-vacation from cooking. We went out a couple of nights and Mittu cooked a couple of nights. So I felt like I had a bit of vacation time, too!

5. A family outing. Different ones have done various things in the daytime: Jim, Jeremy, and Jesse went to a shooting range, the kids went out to lunch, Jeremy and Jason’s family went to a favorite coffee shop. We had one family outing to a place that has arcade games, bowling, laser tags, etc. Timothy wanted to play the games, so Jason took him to do that while the rest of us bowled. But we visited and touched base with each other in-between activities. When setting up the names for bowling, it asked to take pictures, which we were a little annoyed about at first. But then it used the pictures for funny videos in-between turns which we got a good laugh at.

I also wanted to let you know I had an interview with author Adam Blumer yesterday, which included an opportunity to win a signed copy of his newest excellent suspense novel.

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

And just like that, we’re halfway through August! Time to take a few moments to think about the good things God brought my way this week:

1. Another good movie. I started watching I Can Only Imagine while riding my exercise bike, but then decided I wanted to see it all at once rather than in pieces. I asked my husband if he wanted to watch it with me last weekend, and he did. Wow, it was hard to keep a dry eye through parts of it. The father in the film reminded both of us of our own fathers. They weren’t physically abusive like the father in the film, but they were like him in several other ways. It was neat to see God’s grace in both father and son.

2. Jason and Mittu’s anniversary trip. To celebrate their tenth anniversary, they took Timothy on a trip to the Ark Encounter in KY. They shared their pictures when they came back. It looks really interesting!

3. A “just because” gift bag. A friend at church surprised me with a sweet card and gift bag of little goodies: a kitchen towel, some post-it notes, magnetic bookmarks, and my favorite candy. Although I loved the “stuff,” it was special to me just to be thought of.

4. A prime parking spot. Though I try to park close to where I need to go, I figure if I can’t, I need the exercise. But this week I had an appointment at a doctor’s office with a very small parking lot right next to a hospital. Usually the small lot is full, so I have to park by the hospital. Last time I ended up way out in the boonies after a lot of frustration trying to find a space that wasn’t reserved for hospital personnel. I remembered all that just before I left the house this time, and I prayed that I’d find a parking space close by the office. I did, about five spaces from the front door!

5. The “friend’s store.” My son and daughter-in-law have a friend who opened a little store several weeks ago. He finds grocery items that are about to be discontinued or are close to their “best by” date and sells them at a deep discount. My husband has started going there about once a week. You never know quite what you’re going to find, but he’s brought home everything from chips and salsa to fresh peaches to gluten-free cookies.

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

Here we are more than a week into August already. Everyone’s posting first day of school photos on Facebook. It’s still hot and humid. But fall is in sight! And we’ve got some fun family doings coming up before summer’s over.

Meanwhile, I’m grateful for a moment to stop and recount some of the best moments of the last week:

1. Good movies.

• We were getting ready for pizza-and-movie night, and I wondered aloud whether Lady and the Tramp was available anywhere. Jim said he thought we had taped it, so he went looking and found it on an old home VHS! Thankfully we still have a VHS player! It must have come on TV at some time, and I am glad we caught it when we did! Timothy seemed to enjoy it–normally he loses interest in movies before they’re over, but he sat and watched this almost til the end. It was nostalgic for me: I loved it as a child and loved watching it with my children.
• Then, while riding my exercise bike last week, I watched Saving Mr. Banks, about Walt Disney trying to persuade P. L. Travers to sell him the rights to her Mary Poppins book. She resisted for 20 years, not wanting him to turn it into one of his “silly cartoons.” But she finally gave in, as long as she was the creative consultant. Most of the movie is her objecting to most of they wanted to do (especially the animated dancing penguins–and I have to admit, that’s my least favorite part of Mary Poppins, too). But interspersed with that are flashbacks to her growing up with a creative, loving, but alcoholic father who couldn’t hold a job and how all of that made her into the somewhat uptight woman she grew up to be. I love when her armor starts to crack, especially in her relationship with her driver. (Warning: this film does contain a couple of bad words and one instance of taking God’s name in vain. There’s also an brief unsuccessful suicide attempt, for those for whom that might be a hard trigger).
• The movie I’ve been watching while exercising this week is The Case for Christ about Lee Strobel. I had read one or two of his books and knew his story: he was an award-winning investigative journalist and an atheist. When his wife became a Christian, he set out disprove Christianity, particularly the resurrection of Christ, with the drive and resources of a journalist. But the evidence he found convinced him it was all real, and he became a believer who has now written several books about his research. The movie only contains a fraction of his research, but it weaves it in such a way that it does not sound like a documentary.

2. My son and daughter-in-law’s 10th anniversary!

3. Shaping up flowers. I am neither an outdoorsy person nor much of a gardener, but I do enjoy occasionally deadheading and shaping up the roses, hydrangeas, and flower pots and keeping the ivy from taking over. It looks much better out there.

4. A root beer float is my treat after getting all hot and sweaty working outside. I don’t allow myself to have them that often, making them even more special.

5. A successful first dentist’s visit for Timothy. Everything went well, and he told me he was “very brave.” I loved that he wanted to come tell us all about it afterward.

Happy Friday, folks! Have a great weekend!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

The first Friday of August! Our family has a lot to look forward to this month. But first, let’s take a moment to look back and appreciate good things from the last week.

1. A gift of meat. Jason and Mittu bought some Balsamic Rosemary Beef Steak Tips from Trader Joe’s, then noticed the seasonings had gluten, which Mittu and Timothy can’t have. They asked us if we wanted it. Sure! We enjoyed it with some potatoes and carrots and salad.

2. A productive week. Some days–even weeks–it feels like I am constantly busy, yet never get ahead. This week I got to dig into some stuff and felt really good about it.

3. The Friend Finder app. Jim’s been on the road a lot this week, and this app on  the phone helps me see where he is and calculate when he’ll be home, so I know when to start making dinner. Sometimes he’ll call or text me his ETA, but that can vary with traffic and stops.

4. Slushy orange juice. Once I had some punch at a shower that was made by freezing citrusy juices, then thawing them out just until slushy and adding ginger ale. It was so good and refreshing. Since then, sometimes in the summer I’ll put a glass of orange juice in the freezer while my oatmeal is cooking. By the time the rest of my breakfast is ready, my juice has ice crystals in it. I’ll pour in a little ginger ale, and voila!

5. Texts about Timothy. I mentioned this in my end-of-July post, but this text from my son about my grandson cracked me up:

I know that feeling. 🙂

Speaking of my end-of-July post, I also acknowledged my blog anniversary and am holding a giveaway to celebrate it there. I invite you to enter for the giveaway drawing on that post.

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

The last Friday of July! For several days the humidity was way high, and we felt too drained to do much. It was down to a welcome 32% yesterday, but today it’s back up to 76%.

I don’t know where the rest of the month went. But here are five highlights from the last week.

1. Church potluck. After a stressful morning where every other thing went wrong, we actually made it to church on time. And we enjoyed the service and fellowship afterward. Even though we’re a small church, we still manage to sit with someone different almost every time. A good opportunity to get to know folks better.

2. Allergy-friendly recipes. Almost every family at church has a member with serious food allergies. I know their families bring food they can eat, so every dish at a potluck doesn’t have to be allergen-free. But I like to try to make what I bring as accessible as possible. I made a mini version of these apple cider donuts that were gluten-free, egg-free, and nut-free — and tasty!

3. A dinner invitation. Friends invited us to their house for dinner, and we had such a good time.

4. A sponge and scrubbie holder. I was using a soap dish left behind by the previous occupants. But it was glass and broke when accidentally knocked into the sink. I love this holder because it keeps the two scrubbing tools separate, so they dry out better.

5. Timothy’s balloon man. My grandson loves those tall, floppy air-filled contraptions often seen at car lots. We learned they are called air dancers. But he calls them balloon men. My son and daughter-in-law found a mini one Timothy could play with.

Then Jason sent me this drawing Timothy made of a “Big balloon man and baby balloon man.”

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

It’s been a fun week! Here are some of the highlights:

1. Jason’s birthday!

2. Timothy’s decorations. He taped streamers all over the house for his daddy’s birthday. In the top picture below, he asked his parents to bring in the fans from the bedrooms to blow them around.

3. Lactose-free ice cream. I didn’t have ice cream for years until this was invented. I may have had more than a couple of root beer floats and some vanilla and chocolate ice cream with Reese’s “magic shell” so far this summer.

4. A new ironing board, cover, and pad. Sometimes the little things can make a big difference. My ironing board pad was too flat to be of much use, so I got a new cover and pad. As I took off the old one, I saw that the ironing board itself was severely rusted and more bent than I had realized. So I got a new one of those as well. I don’t have to use them all that much, but when I need them, it’s great to gave good tools.

5. Timothy’s obstacle course. We don’t usually watch American Ninja Warrior, but it came on after we finished watching something else on TV, and Jason mentioned liking it. So we left it on for a bit. Then Timothy built his own obstacle course across the living room floor with throw pillows, an exercise mat, his little couch, ending with climbing over the back of our couch. I wish I had taken a picture. He ran his course several times over that night. One of the funniest moments was when, just as Timothy was climbing over the couch, Jason said, “You know, I don’t think I would have been allowed to do that when I was young.” 🙂 Probably not. Parents do loosen up a bit by the time they become grandparents. Plus, with grandkids, it’s not an everyday thing.

Happy Friday!

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne and other friends at Living to Tell the Story .

Another Friday, another opportunity to stop a moment and reflect on some of the week’s best moments:

1. An outing at the park. The one fun thing Jim wanted to do on his week off was to take the family to a park with a lakefront. Though it turned out to be too hot or too lacking in time for some activities, it was fun and the view was lovely. We’ve talked about bringing dinner there some evening, when hopefully it will be a bit cooler and the time more open-ended. We’ve even talked about renting paddle-boats next time. Can’t wait to see what Timothy thinks of that.

2. Refurbished light fixture. As I mentioned last week, Jim spent most of his time off painting the bathroom walls and cabinets. I had wanted to replace the light fixture, because I didn’t like the brass finish (especially now that we’ve gone light grey in there) and it was hard for me to reach and clean the cut glass. He decided to try painting it white, and that looked fine. Plus he took everything apart and cleaned the glass parts for me.

3. Lunch Sunday. Jason and Mittu got ready for church Sunday, but then she wasn’t feeling well enough to go. A bit later in the morning they came to our house to make lunch. Always nice to come home and find meal preparation in progress, especially on a Sunday.

4. Working AC. Our air conditioner was having trouble keeping up, so we had someone come out to service it this week. Then during a thunderstorm we lost power for a bit, and I was dreading the loss of AC – but thankfully the power came back on in just a few minutes.

5. A neighbor’s bounty. A neighbor shared some vegetables from their garden with us this week.

If you have a moment, I invite you to participate in a survey about writer or blogger newsletters. – do you subscribe to any, what things do you like in them, etc.

Happy Friday!