January is one month that I am glad to see speeding by. This has been a frigid week: you know it’s been cold when 30 degrees seems like warming up. Today, I’m looking for blessings with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Light! This is the first week it was still light outside when we left for Bible study! I know we get more daylight each day after the winter solstice, but this is the first I’ve seen actual evidence of it. On top of that, the sunset was gorgeous that day, and we got to view it on our drive.

2. An impromptu visit with the kids. Jason, Mittu, and Timothy popped in for a while one afternoon this week. Timothy made some brownies from a recipe in the Minecraft cookbook he had received for Christmas, and he wanted to share some with us.

3. A field trip and dinner out. I don’t know why I think an excursion to Home Depot is a field trip, but I do. 🙂 Jim and I had gone together to look at several things for the house. We got done right at dinner time, and he suggested we go out to the same Mexican food restaurant we had taken the kids to over the holidays. We hadn’t eaten out in a while–we usually get take-out to bring home. And though the restaurant was a bit noisy, it was enjoyable.

4. Nights off from the kitchen. When Jim was painting in the kitchen/dining area, he suggested getting takeout since everything was in disarray. He went out and got Panda Express for us. The next night we ate leftovers from that meal. Then we had the dinner outing mentioned above.

5. Another area painted. This week, Jim worked on painting another bathroom and hallway. This hallway has six doors–one to the bathroom, one to the garage, and four closet doors. We’re blessed with a lot of storage space in this house, but the doors do take longer to paint than the walls.

How was your week?

We did get our predicted snow last Friday–3-4 inches at our house. Thankfully the power stayed on. We stayed home Saturday and then ventured out to church Sunday with no problem. It’s been cold enough that some snow is still around. The roads and parking lots are mostly clear, but there’s enough ice to require watchfulness. We’re supposed to get more snow Sunday.

Meanwhile, we’re counting blessings with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. A long overdue haircut and a coupon. I had a coupon for a $7.95 haircut at a new place near us. I hadn’t had a cut since September, so it felt really good for the shaggy ends to be cleaned up.

2. An outing. Jason and Mittu invited us to Timothy’s favorite pizza place to celebrate his reaching his reading goals. It was good to get together again–somehow we hadn’t seen each other in a couple of weeks except in passing at church. Plus I enjoyed getting out to do something fun.

3. A dentist’s visit over with. Seeing the dentist is not my favorite thing to do, even as nice as she is. This time, I was concerned about a couple of bumps on the side of my tongue. When one sees bumps where there are not supposed to be any, one’s mind jumps to the worst case scenario (at least this one does). She didn’t think they were anything serious, but took pictures to research further and perhaps consult with an oral surgeon. We talked so much about my tongue that nothing was said about my teeth, but I assume they are all okay.

4. More rooms painted. We have front room that’s smaller than a living room which we have called the sitting room, reading nook, and various other designations. Jim painted that this week and is now on the kitchen/dining area. Along the way, he’s replacing old yellowish light bulbs with brighter white ones. I am so pleased with how everything is looking!

5. Spring cleaning as we go. While Jim had the curtains off the front room window, I thought to myself that I should wash the window while he went out for more paint. That window is hard to get to normally. Then he mentioned that he already had washed it. I washed and ironed the curtains while he took care of the blinds. I mentioned that I’d like to dust the top of some of the pictures before he put them back on the wall, because I had trouble reaching them while dusting. He said he had been dusting all the pictures and plaques before hanging them back up. Isn’t he thoughtful? I helped do some of that after he finished painting the front room. I’ve been astonished at how much dust was still on things that I regularly dust!

While the furniture has been moved out of the way, he’s swept and vacuumed normally hard-to-reach areas.

Probably no one will notice that the curtains have been washed or the farthest corners under the couch swept or the backs of plaques dusted. But it feels good to have them done. It hadn’t occurred to me that we’d be doing this cleaning while painting room by room, but it makes sense to do it while the furniture is out of the way and everything is off the walls. Doing a room at a time is easier than doing all the spring cleaning at once. And, to be honest, I don’t think I have ever spring cleaned this thoroughly.

How is your January going so far?

This image is apt for today, as we’re predicted to get 3-6 inches of snow. That is a really big deal in our area. I’m hoping we get less than that and that the power stays on. But Jim went to the store yesterday, and we’re ready to hunker down and see what happens.

Meanwhile, I’m dwelling on things to be thankful for from the last week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. A steak and egg biscuit. I had to go in for some fasting lab work last Friday, and rewarded myself afterward with a steak and egg biscuit from Bojangles. I don’t care for the rest of their food, but I like their biscuits. This one was so good. It’s a little too heavy to eat very often, but it hit the spot that day. Plus I got Bo-Berry (blueberry) Biscuits to split with Jim.

2. Good lab results. These days, physicals seem to consist primarily of talking about blood chemistry. I’m thankful all my numbers were good–even my overall cholesterol as well as the good and bad kinds were within normal range.

3. Help taking down Christmas decorations. Jesse came over last Saturday to help us take down Christmas stuff, which was greatly appreciated. Plus, I’ve wanted for a long time to sort through ornaments and pull out the ones that needed repair or that we don’t really use any more. Usually there’s not time in the rush of putting up or taking down decorations. But I wanted to do that even if it meant leaving that one box out for a while. I was able to get that done (which wasn’t as involved as I thought it would be) plus reorganize some of the boxes so things fit better.

4. Sorting, organizing, and purging. I don’t know what it is about January that inspires those activities, but I was glad I was able to scratch that itch a bit. 🙂

5. Painting. Jim has been painting the hallway this week, and it looks so much brighter than the Basic Builder’s Beige that was on the walls. We were going for a very light grey, but the paint looks white, which is fine. The hallway walls didn’t take long, but it was a little tedious to take down all the family pictures and put them back up. Plus, between three bedrooms, a bathroom, two closets, and a small room housing the furnace and hot water heater, he had seven doors to paint. Those were not as fun. But they look great.

It’s hard to believe we are a third of the way through January already. How was your week?

Stay warm, friends!

Though we slowed down a little from holiday festivities, this was still a pretty full week. I’m sharing blessings with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. A Lego book nook. I haven’t put Legos together since my youngest son was a child, maybe twenty years or more ago. I saw this Lego set and commented on it online somewhere, which my husband saw and then searched for it for Christmas. I put it together while Jeremy and Jesse were at the other end of the table playing games in case I needed help with the instructions or tiny pieces. But I was able to do it all by myself! The instruction booklet said a lady submitted this idea for a Lego challenge and won. How fun it must have been to see her idea turned into an actual Lego kit.

Isn’t that the cutest thing? Here’s a view with the ladder removed:

I love the details–the mail, the feather pen and ink well, the globe, the scroll work at the top of the shelves.

2. Mexican food. Jeremy wanted to go to a Mexican restaurant while he was here because the ones near where he lives in RI don’t have the cheese dip we love. We had a bit of a wait, but once we were seated, everything went well and the food was delicious. Plus some of us had enough for another meal.

3. Games. We love playing games and tried some new ones as well as some old favorites. One new one I got was Ransom Notes–each player has a metal tray and takes a “pinch” of magnetic words. Then a card is turned over with a prompt, and everyone has to try to make sentences to express that prompt. The only downside was that it took a lot of time for each player to get new words each round and spread them out. But otherwise it was a lot of fun. (We found a few inappropriate prompts in the card which we weeded out as we came to them. I’ll probably go through and eliminate any others before we play again.)

Jeremy brought Wave Length, a game where you divide into teams, and one person picks a card with a prompt of extremes, like “hot” on one side and “cold” on the other. They spin a dial and see where the points land. Then then try to give one clue so their team can guess where on the dial the highest points are. So if the highest points were on the left, for “hot” and “cold” you might say “lava” so the team knows the points are on that end of the spectrum. Each team gets points for how close they come to what’s on the dial. Plus the other team can get a point if they correctly guess whether the opposing team guessed too high or too low.

We always love Jackbox games, especially Blather Round and Drawful (Timothy likes Earwax). We play them through the Apple TV so everyone can see the game on the TV, but they cam be played through other systems as well. Each person logs into Jackbox on their phone or tablet to play. Jeremy told us about a new one called Jackbox Survey Scramble, which is somewhat like Family Feud but with several variations: a prompt is given, like “items in a junk drawer,” and we all give answers which are then ranked according to survey results.

4. Gingerbread houses. Somehow we’ve missed this the last few years.

On the left, Jeremy’s at the top, then mine, and Jesse’s. On the right, Mittu’s, Timothy’s, and Jason’s. I had to give Jim center stage because his was so elaborate. I thought his trees looked like something from Dr. Seuss, and he sprinkled everything with powdered sugar through a strainer to look like fresh snow.

5. Christmas cards and letters. I love receiving these every year–even the late ones! It’s so good to catch up with everyone’s families.

Bonus: New calendars! I love setting these up with birthdays and anniversaries for the new year.

Jeremy went home Wednesday. It’s strange how two things can be true at the same time–intensely missing all the family togetherness, yet enjoying a lower-key rest of the week. We’ll take the Christmas stuff down this weekend, which also involves mixed emotions. But I guess that’s life. 🙂

Some weeks, it takes some thought to come up with a list of five favorite things. Christmas week, though, usually overflows with blessings. I’m joining Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to cultivate gratefulness with these weekly observations.

1. Jeremy home! My oldest son flew in from RI with no problems or delays.

2. Christmas Concert. We enjoyed the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s Holiday Concert last Saturday evening.

3. Christmas Eve Service. Our church doesn’t usually meet Christmas Eve, but they decided to this year for just a short time of singing carols and hearing Scripture. To be honest, my first thought was that was a busy time for a service . . . but the pie was assembled that afternoon and most of the other Christmas necessities were taken care of before and after. It turned out to be an enjoyable service.

4. Christmas Day, of course. We were blessed to have all the family here. We had a breakfast feast and then a reading of the Christmas story, followed thoughtful gifts and cards, then a mid-afternoon lunch/dinner, with dessert in the evening.

5. Family time. Jesse was able to get several days off while Jeremy was here, and Jason, Mittu, and Timothy have been over a lot as well. We went to Jason’s one night for dinner and will go to Jesse’s another night. I love the conversations, the catching up, the games, and all.

Bonus: Pockets of quiet time. As much as I love my family, I get strung out when there’s constant activity. Having a few hours unexpected hours of quiet here and there has rejuvenated me to enjoy the times together.

Happy New Year, friends!

Thank you for your prayers for all the ailments last week. This week has been better in that regard!

Please join me in prayer for Susanne, the originator and hostess for FFF, as her mom passed away this week. It’s never easy to lose a loved one, but it’s even harder this time of year. Susanne graciously left the link open for the rest of us to share our blessings this week.

1. Feeling better!

2. A busy and productive but not stressed week–at least not too stressed. 🙂 Whenever I start to feel anxious about getting things done, I try to remember to pray, leave everything with the Lord, and remember the important things will get done.

3. Family Fun Night at church. This is a night in December for families or groups or individuals to perform in various ways–singing, acting out skits, reciting something, reading a poem or short story, usually about Christmas in some way. Some are funny; some are meaningful. Then we have finger foods afterward. It was fun!

4. Our 45th anniversary is not til this weekend, but we have family plans that night. So we went out to eat to celebrate earlier this week. We decided to go to a downtown restaurant we’d never tried before. Even though we didn’t really like the restaurant (fun nautical decor but too noisy), the food wasn’t great, and the waiter was a little weird–I was still glad we tried it.

Also to commemorate this anniversary, I shared 45 Thoughts on 45 Years of Marriage.

5. Timing. The same day as our reservations to go out to eat, I had a cardiologist’s visit that afternoon. Everything went well, even having had an episode of afib the week before, except that I waited 45 minutes before the doctor came in. His office is half an hour away, and I left right at five, in heavy traffic, with our reservations at 6. The GPS wanted to take me a back way, which I felt would be slower—but our exit ramp off the highway is always backed up that time of day, so I decided to go the back way. I got home with just enough time to change before we headed out again, and Jim dropped me off at the restaurant while he found a place to park. We made it in time!

Bonus: My dear husband cleaned bathrooms, swept, and vacuumed yesterday–all without being asked! Very helpful and much appreciated.

I wish you all a very meaningful Christmas next week, remembering the baby in the manger born our Savior.

It’s been an up and down week. I began the week with lower back pain, then on Wednesday I was in atrial fibrillation for about 13 hours. Now I have developed a cold and feel bleah. But it’s even more important to cultivate gratefulness when the blessings aren’t so obvious, as we do with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story each Friday.

1. Turkey bone soup with the family last weekend, an annual after-Thanksgiving favorite.

2. Christmas tasks getting checked off. I felt a strong urge to push through and get a lot done earlier in the month so I could relax and enjoy the rest of the month. I’m so glad I did–I hadn’t factored sickness into the equation.

3. Medicines. Icy Hot and acetaminophen for the back. Cough drops and acetaminophen for the cold (I can’t take decongestants due to the heart rhythm issues). Various meds for atrial fibrillation. Rest.

4. Snow that didn’t stick. 🙂 We’re not equipped to deal with snow down here like some of you up North are. We got some Wednesday morning, but it melted off by that afternoon. I’m glad we didn’t get any precipitation when temperatures were in the teens.

5. A thoughtful husband who took care of dishes and such and brought take-out dinner a couple of nights this week when I wasn’t feeling well.

Mittu and Timothy were sick last week, so we’re hoping everything runs its course before Jeremy comes next week.

I hope your week was better!

Although the first day of winter is two weeks from now, it seems to have crept in early. We’ve had nights in the teens and evenings feeling twenty degrees colder than the temperatures.

But we’re keeping our hearts warm by counting our blessings along with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Christmas decorating as a family. I’m so thankful all the kids still come for that. We’ve usually done it on a Saturday morning, but this time we started mid-afternoon. Mittu made dinner for us all.

I love the memories, stories, and laughter that come forth with the ornaments.

I mentioned getting an artificial tree for the first time. Though we were reluctant to for a long time, we’re glad we did. It went together much more easily that I thought it would, and there was no wrangling with lights since it was prelit. And we don’t have to water it (though I am still fighting the impulse to have it checked) or sweep up pine needles for weeks afterward. Plus this one was big enough that most of our ornaments fit on it.

2. Commemorative ornaments. I don’t really need any more ornaments, but this owl caught my eye at Cracker Barrel. My mom collected owls, and I thought I’d get this one in her memory. Then I saw the boots and cowboy hat and thought of my dad. He was something of a cowboy in his younger years, even riding in the rodeo before he was married. The ornaments were on a buy 2, get 1 free sale, so I got a little church ornament as well.

3. A new microwave. I mentioned that our microwave died on Thanksgiving Day. It was a wall-mounted one over the stove, so the replacement had to fit within certain parameters. My husband looked online, but the ones he liked wouldn’t arrive for a week in one case, and several weeks in another. He looked a couple of places in town and found one in stock. He installed it this week, and we’re quiet pleased!

4. Good sleep. I often wake up once or twice during the night, and always have to get up to go to the bathroom when I do. The past three nights in a row, I’ve slept for about five hours straight. That makes such a difference!

5. A productive week. I had prayed for grace and help to get certain things done this week, and God answered. I think the sleep helped. One goal was to get the Christmas letter and cards out this week, and they are just about ready to be sent..

Bonus: Warmth by way of sweaters, winter coats, and central heating.

That was our week. How was yours?

I chose this week’s FFF meme because winter seems to be settling in early. It’s not snowing, but we have low temperatures forecast for the next week.

This has been a full week, in more ways than one. I’m sharing blessings with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Lunch with Melanie. We usually meet for lunch once a month or every six weeks. Due to scheduling conflicts and health issues, we haven’t seen each other since August. So we had a lot to catch up on at Cracker Barrel this week!

2. The Fantasy of Trees is a fundraiser for the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital. Different groups decorate Christmas trees and gingerbread houses and put them on display for sale at this event. There are so many, and they are so expensive, I don’t know who buys them–probably businesses account for some of the sales. There are also booths for kids to make Christmas ornaments and a stage where various area groups sing or dance.

We had gone a few years ago and enjoyed it, but not enough to go back. This year, however, some of Timothy’s friends were performing there. That made it much more enjoyable.

Here are some if my favorite trees:

I liked the pink theme here. 🙂

This Snow White themed tree was in a section of fairy tale motifs.

It was hard to get a picture of this one because two guys kept getting in front of it and waving their hands–I guess the Abominable Snowman was supposed to move, or at least these guys thought it should.

And a couple of favorite gingerbread houses:

This Mother Goose house was so detailed and well done.

And I loved the pink decorations here.

3. Kern’s Food Hall is several restaurants and a few businesses in one building. Jason and Mittu have been here several times and told us about it, but it was our first time. There’s a burger place, pizza place, and taco place, but there are also a lot of ethnic foods, from Ghana, Cuba, India, and I forget where else. Being the non-adventurous eater that I am, I got pepperoni pizza. 🙂 But everyone else branched out. We’re planning to bring the whole family here again when Jeremy comes for Christmas.

4. Thanksgiving is always an enjoyable day, with feasting and family and a time to reflect on what we’re thankful for. We printed out some Thanksgiving place mats here and made our annual Thanksgiving tree.

Updated to add: I neglected to mention my dear husband cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming while I was in the kitchen Thanksgiving morning.

5. A spare microwave. Thanksgiving Day started out with our microwave dying. Not a good thing on one of the busiest cooking days of the year! Thankfully, we had a small one in Jim’s office from when his mom lived there, so he brought it up to the kitchen.

I hope you had a blessed week as well.

This has been a cold, blustery week. Thanksgiving is coming up quickly. I’m pausing with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to reflect on some of the blessings of the week. If you’d like to join in or visit others who do this exercise, Susanne has a place to share a link to your post.

1. Operation Christmas Child. I love this concept of sending useful and fun supplies to children in another country. We turned our OCC boxes in this week. I heard of some families filling a box with their children to help turn their focus on others.

2. A production of A Christmas Carol. The Christian school associated with our church is doing Dickens’ Christmas story this year. They invited the church and home school community to their dress rehearsal before the regular performances start. There were a few chuckles over missed cues or prop malfunctions, but overall, everyone did a great job. I appreciate the school giving these young people an opportunity to hone their talents.

3. A quick dinner with Jason, Mittu, and Timothy. The play rehearsal was on a Wednesday afternoon, and went overtime–and we have children’s ministries and adult Bible studies Wednesday evenings. So we dashed out for a quick dinner at McAlister’s Deli in-between.

4. An artificial Christmas tree. After 40+ years of choosing a live tree every Christmas, we finally caved in and bought an artificial one. The prices of live trees were so exorbitant last year, we figured an artificial one will pay for itself in a couple of years. I’ll miss the excursion to choose just the right tree and the fragrance it brings. But we’re already looking forward to not having to string lights and water it. We haven’t put it up yet but hope to do so soon.

5. A gift card solution. I receive a lot of gift cards from my family. They fit in a pocket in my purse, but when I need one, I have to pull out the whole stack of loose ones and shuffle through them at the cash register. Then it dawned on me to look for a small credit card-type wallet to keep them in, and I found one here–on sale and pink!

To those of you in the US, I wish you a joyous Thanksgiving with those you love.