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

Here we are at the first Friday of July! Here are some high points of the past week:

1. Jim’s mom’s 89th birthday. I don’t know if she quite understood what was going on, but hopefully she caught the love expressed.

She has trouble swallowing and only eats pureed foods, so instead of cake, Jim got her a caramel frappe from McDonald’s – he used to bring those to her when she was in assisted living.

2. Flourless Applesauce Spice Cake. I had wanted to have just a small cake for the rest of us on Jim’s Mom’s birthday. Mittu is gluten intolerant, and I had a couple of GF cake mixes on hand, but didn’t want a big cake. So I looked up some GF recipes I had pinned on Pinterest, and found this one. It was SO good! Tasted a lot like carrot cake, and was very moist.

3. The 4th of July. I had a pretty relaxing day until nearly dinner time. We had planned to get Timothy’s wading pool out, but it was raining off and on. Jim went ahead and set it up and put our canopy over it. Jason and Mittu and Timothy came over, and while Jim was grilling, Timothy did get to play in the pool.

The rain really poured for a while, but thankfully paused long enough for Jim to grill burgers and sausage. Later in the evening, a church near us had a fireworks display that we could just see a little of over the trees. Timothy was so excited! At least for a little while. 🙂 I’m glad he got to see them. Plus his parents took him to a parade earlier in the day, so he had just about the whole July 4th experience. I made some gluten free brownies from a mix and sprinkled the top with red, while, and blue sugar – simple, but they hit the spot. 🙂

4. A productive morning. Wednesday and Thursday I was frustrated because it seemed like I wasn’t getting anything done that I had wanted to. Then all of a sudden Thursday morning, things fell into place, and I got several things knocked off my mental to-do list.

5. Touching base with extended family. My aunt passed away earlier this week, and while we grieve, it has been good to have more conversations than usual with another aunt and uncle and my sisters and brother.

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

Time just keeps marching on, and here we are at the end of June already. Though summer technically just started last week, I always think of it as June, July, and August, so now it feels like we’re 1/3 of the way through. Here are some highlights of the last week:

1. Mulch. Ever since Jim put up our fence last summer, we’ve been wanting to make some beds for planting along the fence line. He’s had the edging there for a bit, but it has either been rainy or too hot or too busy with other things to get any further with it. This last week he’s spent almost every evening working on it, and just having the mulch in it looks so much nicer. Next he is going to transplant some bushes from their odd locations into these planting areas, and then we get to decide what other plants we want to fill in with. Since the majority of our windows look out to the fenced area, the view makes a big difference.

2. Finishing projects and anticipating others. Got a big one finished this week, and I have the urge to work next on a craft project that has been in the back of my mind for a while now.

3. Finishing a couple of big books.One wasn’t so big in its number of pages, but it was one that took some time to process. And Don Quixote was just finished Thursday, which involved a whopping 36 hours of audio time. I hope to review it next week. And my next audiobook is less than three hours! I needed a short one after such a long one.

4. Time off from cooking, once again. Jason and Mittu made dinner last Friday, we got Chinese take-out Saturday, and Jason and Mittu got take-out from a favorite barbecue place Sunday. Nice!

5. A message from Timothy. I got an audio message on my phone from Timothy saying, “Grandma, I love you!” Mittu said he was going to ask me about coming over for lunch but forgot what he was going to say. But I’ll take the “I love you” any time! And lunch other get-togethers, too, of course.

Have a great weekend, and a happy 4th of July to those in the US!

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

Another Friday is here! The first FFF of the summer! Here are some highlights of the last week:

1. Father’s Day. Always a joy to celebrate my husband and son and father and step-father – as well as enjoy some good food and having the family together. 🙂

2. A “man bouquet.” My daughter-in-law made this as a centerpiece for Father’s Day dinner. I’m sure they liked this better than flowers. 🙂

3. A medical test completed. I decided to go ahead and schedule an ablation surgery for the atrial fibrillation I’ve been experiencing, which will be next month, and a test I had to have in preparation for that was a CT scan of the heart. I’m told that will provide the cardiologist a “map” for when he does the surgery. That was Wednesday, and everything went well. Sometimes technicians can treat you like a piece of the furniture, placing you where they need you but not really interacting and not pleased with questions. But this one was very friendly and efficient, explaining everything well, telling me what to expect, and answering a question I had. When I got a little lost on the way to the imaging department, a hospital worker passing by noticed me looking at the signs and helped me find my way. Normally even for familiar and simple medical appointments I have a little undercurrent of nervousness, but about halfway in I realized God was giving me a remarkable calmness. I’m glad that’s done and I hope the actual procedure next month goes as well.

4. Timothy. My daughter-in-law told me that one day this week, out of the blue, my grandson Timothy said, “Grandma loves Timothy.” That warmed my heart. I’m so glad he knows that.

5. Passing the summer solstice. I like having some extra daylight in the evenings, but sometimes it’s hard to wind down when it is light so late and mentally it doesn’t seem so late. I like the in-between rather than the extremes of summer and winter. 🙂

Happy Friday!

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

This week started off with a bang, but thankfully things seem back to normal now. Here are some of my favorite parts:

1. Feeling better after being in the ER last weekend with atrial fibrillation.

2. A good visit with the cardiologist. The last time I had seen him, more than a year ago, I felt like I really wasn’t given as much information as I needed to know how to proceed. I saw him for a follow-up visit after being in the ER and brought my list of questions and felt like we had a good discussion. Now I need to decide whether to treat it surgically or medicinally – there are risks either way, so there’s much to think and pray about.

3. False alarms. While at the doctor’s office, the building was evacuated due to a fire alarm. Thankfully we were only out maybe 15 minutes before we received an all-clear signal and were allowed to go back in. God gave me peace in a situation where I would probably normally have been frazzled and irritated, and even though the event was no fun, it’s much better that it was a small situation easily contained rather than a major fire.

4. Lunch with Melanie at Red Lobster. Normally there I have the popcorn shrimp (breaded and fried), but in an effort to be a little more heart-healthy, I got the grilled shrimp and tilapia – first time I had ever tried tilapia. It was quite good, and I had such an enjoyable time talking with Melanie.

5. Riced cauliflower. I had seen interesting recipes using this on Pinterest and was glad to find some already riced (processed very small, like rice grains) in the freezer section of the store. I tried it straight from the freezer in place of rice for a stir-fry, along with some leftover chicken and grated vegetables, and really liked it. I’m eager to explore new ways to use it.

Bonus: Timothy discovered my make-up mirror one day, with one side normal and the other side magnified. He was so tickled, saying “little Timothy” and then turning it over and saying “BIG Timothy” and laughing. Then when I looked over his shoulder into the mirror, he laughed at “BIG Grandma.” He even held up a special rock he had found in front of it, saying, “Little rock…BIG rock” and laughing.

And my lovely daughter-in-law did make dinner a couple of times. 🙂

Happy Friday!

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

Wow, the first week of June already! I always think of June 1 as the beginning of summer, thought technically it’s not until June 21. With my kids being older, summer doesn’t bring the feel of a break like it used to – and actually Jesse is taking summer classes this year to go back to work on his Bachelor’s degree, so it feels even less like a break. But I am enjoying keeping cool in the AC! Here are a few highlights of the last week:

1. A three-day weekend. We spent most of Memorial Day at Jason and Mittu’s house. They grilled burgers, sausage, corn on the cob, and carrots. So good! Rain threatened, but we only had a little sprinkle, and that was while we were eating under the umbrella, so it worked out fine. Jim and Jesse spent most of the day working on an outdoor play set we had bought for Timothy’s birthday several weeks ago – the kind of thing with swings, a slide, a little fort-like enclosure, etc. The thing had tons of pieces and maybe 20 bags of different kinds of screws and nuts and bolts. They had to do a lot of drilling of holes for those things. They ended up not being able to complete it and were pretty done in by the end of the day, but it shouldn’t take too long to finish it up this weekend. I’m excited to see how Timothy reacts – I don’t think he had the big picture of what it’s going to be yet. All in all it was a good day.

2. Good weather. We had a LOT of thunderstorms forecast for the week, but ended up with not much in our area, though some of the city did have more and some were without power. Ours blinked off a few times but thankfully came back on in about half a minute.

3. Breaks from cooking. Besides Memorial Day, Jesse and I got take-out from Red Lobster one evening when Jim was tied up at work, Jason and Mittu brought one meal over and made one here, and we got Asian take-out Saturday night.

4. Haircut. Nothing new – I can’t think of what new to do to it. 🙂 But it always feels good to get it done. My hair gets less cooperative and more limp the longer it gets, so usually by the time I get it cut, I’m pretty frustrated with it and relieved to get it done. I went a little shorter than usual this time, just so the cut will last me a little longer. 🙂

5. Trimming plants and bushes. My rose bushes were overgrown and I have been wanting to get at them for a while now, and finally did that Thursday. They usually bloom several times a summer with some cutting back here and there. Now I just need to figure out what’s eating them and what to do about it – lots of little holes in the leaves. I also “deadheaded” some other plants as well. Felt good to get this done as well.

Hope you had a good week as well!

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

This week, thankfully, had no major off days or bad days as the last couple of weeks have had. In fact, all around it has been a pretty good week. Here are the best parts:

1. Lunch with Melanie, my blog friend who moved to TN and became a real-life friend. 🙂  We met at Cracker Barrel this time. The food was wonderful and the fellowship even better. Before we moved here, I used to get together with friends for lunch pretty often, and haven’t really done that here. I didn’t realize how much I missed and needed it until these last couple of lunches with Melanie. We’re already planning our next excursion. 🙂

2. Ladies Brunch at our church. The theme was “Oaks of Righteousness” from Isaiah 61:3: “To grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified” (NASB). The decorations, speaker, food, and fellowship were all a blessing. I’m borrowing a couple of photos from their Facebook page since I didn’t think to take any.

I thought the centerpieces were especially pretty. The wood came from the church property and the flowers were donated by a local florist.

For our activity/favor, we got to choose three different herbs to plant in little containers painted in chalk paint so we could write the name of the plant on them. I’ve got mine on the windowsill right now until I decide where to put them: basil, chives, and rosemary. I have never worked with fresh herbs before, so this will be a learning experience.

3. A surprise lunch visit. Mittu texted me Wednesday to ask if she, Jason, and Timothy could bring Chick-Fil-A over for lunch and visit for a while. Sure!

4. Days at home. I consider running errands a ministry to my family, or part of my job in the distribution of necessary tasks involved in having a home and family. If I can get things done in the day time, then my husband doesn’t have to spend time doing them after long days at work, and I’m available if we do anything on the weekend instead of having to run around. And it’s nice to get out of the house some. 🙂 But some weeks, it seems like I am out almost every morning, and then I feel overloaded and don’t get things done at home. Except for a quick run to the drugstore one day, somehow this week I made it to Thursday before needing to make a major grocery expedition. It felt marvelous! And I don’t think I’ll need to run any other errands this week.

5. A mini closet project. Part of that time at home allowed for something I had been itching to do for a while now. My whole closet didn’t need cleaning or organizing, but I had some clutter in there to take care of. When I buy something online or in town, I keep the packaging for a while in case I need to return anything, so I had that kind of stuff accumulating for months, plus a wedding present to package. I had taken the heaviest of my winter things out earlier, but took the rest out at this time and got rid of one dress that was in no condition to wear again. I often vacuum the walk-in part of the closet, but this time I vacuumed under all the clothes, straightened the shoes, dusted the ones I hadn’t worn in a while. It felt good to get all that done.

Bonus: We had thunderstorms in the forecast for much of this week, but thankfully didn’t get any. We had some heavy rain one day and a bit more scattered throughout the week, with some overcast skies, but that was it. Thunderstorms always make me a little nervous about falling trees and power outages, so I was very happy not to have any. 🙂 We have more in the forecast for next week, so we’ll see how it goes.

Have a great Friday!

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

This week didn’t start off so well, with me forgetting that my mother-in-law’s caregiver had an appointment, and I scheduled  a lunch with a friend for then and had to reschedule it; forgetting that we’d scheduled the hairdresser to come for my m-i-l on Monday; forgetting that the nurse was coming on Tuesday, even though she’s been coming on Tuesdays regularly for months now; forgetting to take care of the bathroom after my m-i-l’s shower (I usually put the ramp back against the wall, mop up the floor, and replace the bath mats while our caregiver and the bath aide take her back to her room and get her dressed) so that our caregiver had to do it; putting my container of ramen soup on the end table and spilling it all over, dousing a remote control (I put it in a bag of rice just to be safe, but it ended up ok), and dropping a dozen eggs on the grocery store floor after paying for them (thankfully only two broke, but I had to rinse off all the rest). I don’t know why I was so “off” for a couple of days! But thankfully the rest of the week went much better. Here are the best parts of it:

1. Mother’s Day. I took some time to think about special moms in my own life, and my family always does a great job making it a special day for me. Jim grilled his wonderful teriyaki chicken and Jason and Mittu made salad, potatoes, corn on the cob, rolls, and  chocolate pretzel pie and banana cream pie.

Everything wasn’t on the table yet in this photo, but I love that cute little guy at the end helping himself to a roll. 🙂

My daughter-in-law picked out pretty plates for the meal and dessert, all disposable for easy cleanup:

Wishing Jim’s Mom Happy Mother’s Day:

I received some lovely gifts and cards as well. I am blessed. 🙂

2. Timothy shucking corn for the first time was absolutely adorable. He was so excited to help, and when he pulled the leaves back, he exclaimed, “There’s CORN in there!”

When he tried to eat corn on the cob for the first time, he noted, “It’s stuck.” He gave up after a bit, but made a good try.

3. Movie night with my husband. After everyone left on Mother’s Day and Jesse went back to his room, Jim and I relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, and later that evening rented and watched the movie Hidden Figures. It was SO good! (Warning: there’s just a bit of bad language, most near the beginning). It’s the true story of three African-American women who worked with calculations involved in the first manned space flights (a good article on them is here).

4. A new desk chair. Last week my desk chair suddenly broke. It had probably been on the verge, unnoticed, for a long time. My new one is even more comfortable.

5. Printable art. A lot of places online offer free frameable printable decorated Scripture verses, and for a Mother’s Day gift for the ladies at our church, our pastor’s wife printed out several she had found. This was the one I chose. It fits perfectly on my little entry table.

Happy Friday!

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

Thursday morning as I was thinking about what I might include in this week’s FFF, I thought, “Well, I don’t know. It’s been a pretty bad week.” And then I had to correct myself, as it was really only one bad day, and that wasn’t even the whole day. So I am thankful for the FFF, because otherwise I would have let that one day shade all the rest.

1. My mother-in-law’s regular caregiver. Most of you know we have someone from a health-care agency in our home a few hours a day to take care of my mother-in-law so I can run errands, make and go to appointments, or just have a break. Our regular helper is wonderful – the best we’ve had either at home or in any facility. She needed a day off this week, so the agency sent a substitute. We’ve had this substitute before, and while she was not our favorite, we figured she could handle the basics well enough. But she was the source of my Very Bad Day this week. She won’t be coming back. And she made me appreciate our regular person even more. It was so nice, the day she came back, to be able to relax and do whatever I needed to do, knowing that Jim’s mom was in good hands.

2. Pool time with Timothy. The little wading pool we had for him is cracked and too small now, so his parents brought theirs over. It was fun to get the little pool toys out again and to show him a couple of new ones I had gotten. I may be a grandma, but I still get excited about little wind-up animals that “swim” in the water. 🙂

3. Pleasant evenings. Both during the “pool night” and one other evening when I was refilling bird feeders and watering plants, it was so pleasant outside. Just the right temperatures, little humidity, and a little breeze.

4. Time off from cooking. I know I say this frequently – but it’s a favorite whenever it happens. 🙂 Jason and Mittu brought barbecue from a favorite place one evening last weekend, and Jim and I brought McAlister’s Deli home for Sunday dinner since Jesse had plans with friends. Then Mittu brought dinner over for the “pool night.”

5. My husband’s thoughtfulness. He had to leave early one morning to go out of town. He usually makes his mom’s breakfast, but I would need to that morning. But he set everything out, crushed her pills (that always takes me a long time), measured out her coffee, and got as much ready as he could ahead of time. And then he even got the bathroom set up for her shower (towels on the floor under the ramp, shower curtain tucked out of the way, etc.). He’s a keeper. 🙂

Happy Friday!

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

Wow – May already! I am enjoying this spring so much, I’m not eager for summer yet. So I’m trying to  treasure the days as they go by. Here are some favorites parts of the last week:

1. Meeting Melanie! We’ve been following each other’s blogs for…I don’t know how many years now. She recently moved to TN after caring for her mom for many years until her mom’s recent passing. We got together for lunch, and enjoyed talking so much. We had our faith in common as well as caregiving, and as we talked, we just seemed to find more and more areas of similarity. She’s a sweet lady. It was such fun to meet her in person, and we’re already planning our next get-together!

2. Clean curtains, windows, and blinds, at least in three rooms. These weren’t originally on my agenda this week, but some spatters on the valance above the sink led to taking it down to be washed (actually, asking Jesse to take them down – I found I couldn’t reach them even with my step-ladder), which led to taking down the curtains in my bedroom and bathroom to make a full load, which led to cleaning the blinds and windows while I had everything off of them. You don’t notice how much dust, spiderwebs, etc., have accumulated on those things til you get up close! And I thought all but the kitchen valance would be ready to hang back up from the dryer, but they all needed ironing. Even though it’s not something immediately noticeable, it’s a nice feeling to know they’re all fresh and clean. And since I’ve made that start, I am planning to do some of the other windows in the next few days.

3. Sheet pan meals. Have you heart of these? I’d seen them mainly on the Skinnytaste blog and then searched for more. The basic idea is that meat (usually chicken) and vegetables and sometimes potatoes are all baked together on one cookie sheet. I printed off a few different recipes, which all had different cooking temperatures and spices, and drew from the different ones to make my own creation. 🙂 I cooked the chicken a bit too long, but the roasted broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots turned out really well. Jesse isn’t usually crazy about broccoli, but loved them this way – less crunchy than raw, but not limp. Plus it was nice not having several pans to clean. I’m looking forward to trying more variations of this.

4. Neighbors coming together. One neighbor lost half of a huge tree in his front yard during some strong winds this week. It was so neat to see many of the neighbors pitching in to help cut up and clean up the debris. When Jim got in from work, he took his chain saw over and helped.

I hope it survives. It’s my favorite tree in the neighborhood, beautiful especially in the spring and fall.

5. Cute Timothy moment of the week. Timothy and his parents were over last night and went over to look at the tree. He was taking various sticks from one of the piles of debris and playing with them, pretending the kinds of things little boys do with sticks. Then he took his stick and put it into a crack in the bark of the “broken” tree – to “fix” it by trying to put some branches back in. ♥

Happy Friday!

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