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

We’re just zooming right through this month, aren’t we? Here are some favorite parts of the last week:

1. Generosity of my son and daughter-in-law who made dinner twice this week and brought me flowers and my husband chocolate-covered peanuts plus a card from Timothy.

2. A Little Casar’s pizza place with a drive-through. For various reason’s we don’t like them for dinner but think they are perfect for after church on Sunday nights, and there is one on our route now with a drive-through window. 🙂

3. A whole weekend without cooking. Between the first two entries here and then my husband getting McAlister’s Deli for lunch Sunday, I had the weekend almost completely “off” in the kitchen.

4. Fall color. If it’s not at its peak, it’s pretty close to it. Sometimes it goes by pretty quickly but this year it seems to be taking its time, and I love it. I love seeing how our neighbor’s tree in particular looks every morning and wish I had taken a photo of it day by day for comparison.

5. Two favorite foods. I’ve mentioned both of these before, but it’s ok to be thankful for them again. 🙂 One of my favorite things to do with leftover meatloaf is to make a grilled cheese sandwich with the slices for lunch. Kind of like a patty melt you can find in some restaurants but without the droopy onions.

Then I also made Choco-Peanut Butter Dreams (recipe here).

They’re not specifically fallish but I tend to want them in the fall. So Mittu would have a gluten-free option, I also made Quick Peanut Butter Cookies (recipe on the same link as the other) except instead of drop cookies, I put dough in mini cupcake pans and then after taking them out of the oven, I placed a mini Reese’s peanut butter cup in the dough and then let them cool. After this and making cookies a week or two ago, I decided I need to lay off the cookie baking for a while – it’s too easy to grab a couple off and on through the day. But they were good while they lasted!

Hope you’re having a wonderful 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.

I can’t believe we’re almost halfway through October already! We’ve had lovely fall weather this week: 40s or 50s at night, 70s during the day. I don’t think we got above 80 degrees all week. Here are some highlights of the last week or so:

1. Pumpkin decorating night. I wrote more about it here, but we enjoyed having the family together to paint or carve pumpkins and eat goodies.

2. Ready-made slow cooker meals. I found at W-Mart some prepared, just dump in the crockpot meals in the freezer section. Great for when you know you have a busy day ahead.

3. Getting some mending done. Items needing mending tend to sit there for…much longer than I care to admit. I didn’t get as far as I wanted to, but getting started propels the momentum to get finished.

4. Fall decorations. I hadn’t been feeling very autumnal, but decided that preparation for our pumpkin decorating night should probably include some fall decorating. I’m glad I have them out now. I love my everyday “stuff,” but it’s nice to change things around for the season.

5. A rainbow. While bringing dishes to the counter after dinner one night, I noticed part of a rainbow through the kitchen window. My husband and I went outside to look and saw the rest of it arcing to the right. And it hadn’t even been raining!

Bonus: There was an Amber Alert in our area this week, but the child was recovered and the suspect arrested pretty quickly.

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.

Here we are, a week into October already! Here are some highlights of the last week.

1. The ending of the UT/UGA football game. We’ve never been major football fans, but living in the midst of UT Vols fandom, we’ve watched a few games the last couple of years. Last Saturday we turned on the game in the third quarter, and UGA had led the whole game. But, man, the last minute was as exciting and dramatic as they come!

2. Offertories. A couple of years ago for various reasons our church went to singing a congregational hymn during the taking of the offering rather than having instrumentalists play an offertory. I always felt the offertories were one of the most worshipful times of the service that especially ministered to me, and I’ve missed them. Just this last Sunday offertories were played at both the morning and evenings services! Such a blessing. I hope they are back to stay.

3. Cookie sharing. This is not something new this week, but we keep a few “Lunchables” on hand for my youngest son and husband to snack on. I don’t know how it got started, but Jesse always shares one of the cookies in it with me, and sometimes Jim does as well. ♥

4. Lunch with Jason, Mittu, and Timothy. I got a text this week that Timothy wanted to have me over for lunch the next day. ♥ I was happy to oblige.

5. Getting errands done on a tight schedule. I had a few things I needed to get done before a dental appointment this week and wasn’t sure if I’d have time, but figured I’d head out and get as far as I could. It would not have been the end of the world if they hadn’t been taken care of then, but it just would have been nice to get them all wiped out in that time period when I was in the area needed for them all, so it was a small but gratifying mercy that everything worked out.

Favorite photos of the week:

Timothy mowing with Granddad:

I saw this at a local grocery store and it cracked me up. I was trying to come up with a catchy caption, but all I could muster was something about children mourning everywhere.

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.

Another week, another month coming to an end! Here are some of the last week’s blessings:

1. A (long overdue) nice raise and promotion for my oldest son. So happy for him! Besides the helpfulness of having a bit more money to work with, it’s an encouragement to know that your boss is pleased with your work.

2. Cool mornings and evenings. I’ve been a bit envious of those of you talking about nice fall weather. 🙂 Now it has finally arrived here. The mornings in particular have been deliciously cool.

3. A delayed appointment. I had a lot to do this week and was chafing over a dental appointment scheduled right in the middle of it. Then their office called a couple of days before and asked if they could reschedule for next week. Sure, no problem! 🙂

4. Curling up with a book and a blanket on a rainy Sunday afternoon and drifting off to sleep.

5. A tape player to phone connector. I listen to music and audiobooks in the car on my phone through a device that connects it to the cassette tape player in my car and plays the phone through the speakers. After a very long and useful life the connector failed, and I was afraid they might not make them any more. I was glad to find that they did!

Bonus: The Christmas in Mitford album. Normally I would scoff at listening to Christmas music so early…but Timothy was here one afternoon and I was looking through our music library on the Apple TV for him to take a nap to, and for some reason this was the only instrumental album to come up.Gorgeous!

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.

After a busy weekend, it’s been kind of a quiet week. Here are some highlights:

1. Jesse’s birthday. It’s a joy to celebrate my youngest son plus all the other good components of a birthday – having the family all together (one via FaceTime) and lots of talking, visiting, fun, and cake!

2. A surprise birthday party. Jason and Mittu wanted to give Jesse a surprise party with his friends, so planned it at their house for the day after the family celebration. They invited him over under the guise of playing games with them and another couple, and Jim and I were supposedly going out on a hot date since all the kids had plans (thankfully Great-Grandma’s caregiver was available to stay with her that evening), so we left early to go over to J&M’s. He didn’t suspect a thing til he drove up and saw cars – there was no way to hide them in the neighborhood. It was a fun evening.

3. Bath aide. I mentioned last week our favorite bath aide for my m-i-l had been out with an injured hand. She’s still wearing a brace but was released to resume work this week.

4. Pudding Chip Cookies. I don’t do much baking for just the three of us – because we I can’t seem to keep my hands off of it, and we can’t send many home with J&M since she is gluten intolerant. But my husband mentioned recently that I ought to make some chocolate chip cookies, and it had been a long time since I had, so I finally found an evening to do so. Scrumptious!

5. The first day of fall. It’s still not feeling and only barely starting to look like fall, but it is official now, and I am looking forward to the rest of the season, trusting it will feel like it soon! I may get out my decorations this weekend.

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.

It’s been a fairly nice week. Still hot and humid in the day time but fairly pleasant in the evenings and mornings. I’m still longing for fall coolness, though! I feel like my body has been trying to come down with something, but I’ve gotten some extra rest to try to head it off. Here are some of the best parts of the last week:

1. Grandparent’s Day. I know that’s a holiday that hasn’t caught on in a big way yet. But I am thankful our son and daughter-in-law remember it. 🙂 We came home Sunday afternoon from church to dinner already made, flowers for me, and jerky for Jim, and I wondered what the occasion was. Then they showed us a Grandparent’s Day card Timothy had “signed” for himself. Awww! And earlier in the week Mittu had tried a new recipe and wanted to bring it over to share – Mexican Chicken Casserole. It was very good!

2. AC fixed. We noticed around bedtime last Friday that the AC had been running constantly that evening, and when I woke up in the middle of the night, it was still running. But it wasn’t putting out much air, and the air’s coolness was decreasing. We do have a service contract with the company who sold and installed it, and called them Sat. morning. Thankfully they did work on Saturdays. We hoped it just needed freon, but something with the compressor wasn’t working – a switch, if I remember correctly. Thankfully the guy had the part on his truck. So by the time it was just starting to get uncomfortable, it was fixed. I’m thankful it was done so quickly (my m-i-l has a window AC unit in her room, so she was fine.)

3. Lists made and checked off. I don’t make lists every day or every week, but if I am really busy, or the stuff I list is very important, or if I’m afraid of forgetting something, then I do. This week it wasn’t anything urgent: I just felt a bit scattered and kept forgetting to take care of some little things. So I finally put them down, and it was nice to see them crossed off one by one. One of life’s little pleasures. 🙂

4. Timothy “fixing”. He’s at that age where he learns or says something new every week, if not every day. One day he was tinkering around his little mini lawn chair saying, “I fix it!”

5. Seeing our favorite bath aide. You don’t think of being a bath aide for elderly people as a particularly thrilling job, but one lady from hospice is just superb at it, always cheerful, efficient, caring. She’s our regular person for my m-i-l twice a week. But a few weeks ago another patient grabbed her hand and wrenched it in such a way that it has been swollen and in pain ever since. She’s going to see an orthopedic surgeon next week. So we’ve been missing her. And then she suddenly showed up on our doorstep Thursday! The hospice agency sends the doctor out once ever few months to check on my m-i-l (a nurse comes once a week, and we can call any time we have a need). The doctor always has someone with her, and this time it was our bath aide! She helped take and record vitals for the doctor. It was just so good to see her and hear from her directly how she’s doing.

Hope you’ve 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.

Let’s jump right in:

1. A long weekend. Having everyone off for Labor Day makes it feel like we had an extra Saturday in the week. But it means all the other days of the week I’m having to ask myself, “What day is this?” 🙂 I don’t even remember now what we did except for grilling burgers for dinner.

2. A thorough car wash. My dear husband gave my car the deluxe treatment, washing it, vacuuming the carpet, cleaning the mats, even dusting the dashboard.

3. A breakfast biscuit. When I was driving my kids to school, I used to treat myself to breakfast out about once a week. Those days have been over for years, and though I’m up at 6, I’m not usually out and about until a few hours later. But I had to fast for lab work before my physical and got breakfast afterward at a drive-through to bring home . Delicious!

4. Seeing Timothy play with a friend. My son and daughter-in-law had friends in town with a son just 7 months younger than Timothy. I was over for a bit and it was so fun to see the boys playing together like they were old friends, too.

5. Cracker Barrel. I still had a gift card for them from I don’t know when – I think two Christmases ago. I love them but my husband’s not crazy about them, and I’m not usually near one at lunch time. But I was on Wednesday! So I got their meat loaf plate and a slice of Coca Cola cake and brought it home to eat. Plus I got a couple of items in their shop – and still have a bit left on my gift card!

Bonus: We got Mexican Food take-out one night and watched Toy Story – our old video tape of it on our old VHS player. One of the best movies ever, and it was fun to introduce it to Timothy.

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.

It’s been another busy week. One reason I love FFF is that it helps me recount blessings that I might otherwise gloss over. I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to work in an FFF post, and thought about just skipping it because I didn’t have anything off the top of my head to share. But after just a few minutes of thinking about it, I came up with more than five. I love this opportunity to stop, think, and be grateful for God’s gifts, large and small.

1. Paying only 80 cents a gallon for gas. Our local grocery store has reward points for their gas station based on grocery purchases. This summer they’ve been offering double reward points if you shop on weekends and coupons good for 100 reward points. So at my last gas stop, I only paid 89 cents per gallon. It’s been a long time since that has happened!

2. Safe travels. My husband and youngest son both had trips this week, and for my son, it was his first time to drive a road trip by himself (which made his mom a little antsy). But all went well.

3. Brunch or a late breakfast at my son and daughter-in-law’s house. Most of our get-togethers are here just due to my husband’s mom being here, but we have someone with her in the mornings, so it was fun to go to their place and especially to have Timothy show us around.

4. Help at home. When Jim is gone, his mother’s care falls to me. One of the nights he was away, Jason and Mittu came over and made dinner and cleaned up the kitchen afterward. That’s a blessing any time, but especially when Jim’s away and I’m feeling overloaded.

5. Shopping with Jesse. We had to take Jesse’s car in to be serviced before his trip, and I followed him when he dropped his car off, then he rode back with me. But that meant he had to accompany me on my errands, which he hadn’t done probably since early high school when I’d have errands after I picked him up from school. It was fun taking him in to the baby department at Target – that’s something he generally wouldn’t be interested in, but having a little nephew now, he was showing me clothes he thought were cute and finding toys he wanted to get him at Christmas. It was fun. 🙂 Plus I found this adorable shirt for Timothy.

Happy Friday!

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

It’s been a great week in these parts! Here’s why:

1. My birthday. My husband made his famous Grilled Chicken Teriyaki, everyone contributed to the rest of the meal and set-up/clean up, and Mittu made the GF Texas Sheet Cake. Yummy! Plus they took me to Cheddar’s the night before! It wasn’t our best experience at this restaurant, but the food was great. And I loved everyone’s thoughtful cards and gifts.

2. The rest of our stay-cation. I wrote about it more here, but it was a nice blend of activities and relaxation. I enjoyed the time with the family so much. My oldest son headed back to RI Monday – that seems so long ago already! I think this is the first time I have adopted the mentality that I’m on vacation, too. Usually I don’t feel that way because I still have my regular tasks to do. But really, the housework was done before my son came, and besides dealing with meals and dishes, which others helped with, and a bit of laundry and occasional crumb sweep-up, I was pretty much “off,” too. I enjoyed a lot of reading and resting when we weren’t doing other things.

3. 4 days off from cooking. Between my birthday, getting meals out, and other people cooking during the ten days or so everyone was here, I think I had about 4 days in a row that I didn’t cook. It was nice to have such a break!  And that helped me feel a little more like I was on vacation, too.

4. Learning that the print could be enlarged on my phone. I was lamenting that I couldn’t make out much on my phone without whipping out my glasses, and my husband told me I could enlarge the text. On the iPhone you go to Settings, click General, click Accessibility, then Larger Text, and you can manage how big you want it. That has helped a lot!!!

5. The car starting – after it didn’t. I had just loaded a huge supply of groceries into the back of the van and got in to start the car, and it just clicked. I tried several times and the  tried to call and text Jim. I was just getting ready to call my youngest son, Jesse, to come and rescue the groceries and me when I decided to try one more time. It started rather weakly, and I gave it a little gas, and it did fine. Jim took it to have the battery tested when he got home (it started fine for him!), and found that was the problem. It had a two-year warranty, and we’d had it four years, so it was about time to replace it. It was a relief to know it was fixed and not fear to drive it in case it wouldn’t start again. And though I was distressed (not to mentioned drenched in sweat in a hot car in August), it relatively was short-lived.

That’s my week. How was yours?

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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.

It’s been a great week! You’ll understand why from the favorite parts of it listed below:

1. My oldest son is home! His flight was delayed due to weather, which caused him to miss his connection, which bumped him to a flight the following afternoon. But he finally got here last weekend, and we’ve so enjoyed having all the family together again. Lots of talking, eating, and a little bit of playing games. That’s also why I have been mostly absent from the blog this week, except for a post about bookcases. 🙂

2. His birthday was this week!

3. A family outing. My husband had found a deal on tickets to the Ripley’s attractions in Gatlinburg, so we all went to the aquarium on Monday. The best part was following Timothy around and seeing his excitement. Then we stopped at a Mellow Mushroom in Pigeon Forge for lunch on the way back. It’s almost become a tradition to stop there since some years ago we got caught in non-moving traffic on the way to that area to look at Christmas lights and finally gave up and stopped to eat.

4. Finding a frame. I’ve had this Karla Dornacher print for a long time, planning to pair it with a piece I had cross-stitched a couple of years ago. I just recently found a frame that goes in the family room perfectly and got it hung up.

5. Rearranging. I don’t rearrange furniture much, but every now and then as I look at the decorating, I realize something would work much better in a different place. I had several such light bulb moments recently, and it helps me appreciate what I have all the more and see it in a new light.

Sometimes I can get into a “poor me” attitude when thinking that everyone else gets a vacation from their regular duties, but I don’t except in small doses. But, really, I do in some ways: one afternoon when thinking that I should be doing something productive, I thought, You know what? It’s vacation week: I can just relax until the next meal time. And we do tend to have a few more meals out when all the family is here, so there’s a break in that regard as well. Even though it’s been a busy week in some respects, there’s been time for relaxation, naps, and even curling up to read in the middle of the afternoon, a rarity.

Happy Friday!

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