Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It feels like we have jumped from fall into winter already! It has been in the 30s with frost on the ground a few mornings this week, and some of my blog friends are having snow. Hopefully we will have a few more fallish days before winter sets in for the long haul.

Here are some favorites of the last week or so:

1. Trying new recipes. I’ve been taking all the recipes I’ve clipped out of magazines over the years and putting them into scrapbook-like notebooks  so I can use them more easily (but not enhancing or decorating them like scrapbooks – I’d never get done). Some I use regularly, some I haven’t tried yet, and the process has reminded me of how many good-sounding recipes I actually have. I enjoyed giving a couple a try this week, even though I wasn’t thrilled with how either of them turned out. Tater Crust Tuna Pie would probably taste better with a regular pie crust, and the Pork Roast (the first time I’ve cooked one) wasn’t very flavorful or as tender as I expected (husband suggested doubling the spices, son suggested cooking it longer, both good ideas).

2. Stir-fry leftovers. The leftovers of the pork loin made for a great stir-fry the next night.

3. Replanting my flower pots. This was actually a couple of Saturdays ago, but I forgot to mention it. I cleaned out all the dead and overgrown stuff and planted pansies for the first time – I’ve heard they are supposed to last well into the fall, and so far the frost hasn’t gotten them. They’re not my favorite flowers, but I’ve been smiling at their cute perkiness.

4. Fall decorations. I finally got the rest of them up and am enjoying them.

5. Dinner brought in. My son and daughter-in-law came over to do laundry last night and brought dinner from a favrorite Asian place as well.

Hope you are having a great week!

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

This feels like the first real week of fall to me, even though it has been officially fall for a few weeks now. Maybe because the leaves are finally starting to noticeably turn, maybe because I finally got my fall decorations up. Here are some of the high points of the past week:

1. A better knee. I had done something to it last week to cause it to hurt — I don’t know what —  and was loathe to go to the doctor and get sent off for x-rays and such, so I decided just to rest it as much as possible. It’s gradually been getting better to the point that it feels normal more often than it doesn’t, so hopefully it will be completely mended soon. Meanwhile I guess it is the appropriate time of year to walk like a zombie. 🙂

2. Oven meals. I think I list this every fall. There are some things that take an hour or so in the oven that I don’t dare make during the summer because it would make the house too hot and the AC wouldn’t catch up til the next day, so it is fun to get back to those when the weather cools a bit.

3. McAlister’s Deli. My husband indulged my request for a night off from the kitchen and brought a wrap and some soup from McAlister’s for me. I wish they sold their potato soups by the quart! That’s probably my favorite type of soup but I don’t make it from scratch very often.

4. A rainy day, not usually a favorite, but we hadn’t had one in a while, and I was able to take a cozy nap, which made it perfect.

5. A safe road trip as my son and daughter-in-law drove to OK to visit her mom.

Bonus: Books. I could list them every week. 🙂 I have to confess that sometimes I gravitate to games on my iPhone at times I would normally read, and I’ve tried to reverse that this week and get back into a book that I was lagging in. I did get over the hump and get back into it.

Hope you’re having a great week! Feel free to join in with us at Susanne‘s while we count our blessings.

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

It’s been a busy day, and I am just now getting a chance to sit down at the computer long enough to write a post! Here are my five favorites from this week:

1. An excellent caregiver. The aide who cares for my mother-in-law Monday through Friday during the day goes above and beyond the call of duty. We’re blessed.

2. A new fall TV season. Call me shallow if you want. 🙂 It’s good to see the old favorites come back, cliffhangers resolved, etc. I don’t know if we will watch any of the new series – I have a couple on the Tivo but one only has so much time for TV.

3. Getting some small tasks done –  replacing a torn shower curtain, cleaning off the laundry room shelf, even some mending.

4. Lovely weather.

5. Hershey’s kisses. I’ve been trying to cut back on sweets by not buying the kinds I like. Having a couple of Hershey’s kisses with coffee has been nice to satisfy that chocolate craving at a minimum of calories.

Happy first fall Friday! You can check out others’ faves or link up your own here today.

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

I’ve been trying to hold out until the official first day of autumn to put anything fallish up, but it’s close enough now, I think. 🙂 It’s hard to believe September is 2/3 over when it seems like it just got here. Here are some favorites from the last official week of summer.

1. A hummingbird’s visit. I don’t have a hummingbird feeder, but maybe I should get one – a little hummingbird was fluttering outside my kitchen window the other day.

2. Jesse’s birthday was Monday. Always fun to celebrate a family member and to have everyone here.

3. Lemon cake. Lemon isn’t one of my favorite flavors – I gravitate to chocolate – but Jesse has requested a lemon cake for his last few birthdays, and now I look forward to it that one time each year. I think it’s the glaze that makes it.

4. Take-out dinners. We can’t just go out to eat anymore, with Jim’s Mom here, but I had a hankering for Red Lobster’s popcorn shrimp recently, and Jim indulged me by bringing some home after work one night. Then he had a hankering for Asian food, and Jason and Mittu brought some over from a place near where they live.

5. An easy-going husband who is content with soup and sandwich on a night when I discover right at time to make dinner that I don’t have the chicken I was planning on using. I had thought there was a package near the back of the freezer – but there wasn’t!

Bonus:

I just got some photos from the phone and camera onto the computer this morning. This is one of my favorites, taken on my birthday.

Happy Friday!

Friday’s Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, who invites us to share five of our favorite things from the last week. It’s a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

Here are some highlights of the last week:

1. Feeling better after feeling pretty awful over the weekend and the first few days of this week. It’s amazing how “just a cold” can wipe you out. It’s good to have some energy again.

2. Light meals. As in light energy required. I’m glad my family is ok with them some nights. 🙂

3. Low-key projects. I have a few tasks that are aren’t urgent, therefore they tend to stay on the to-do list. But they were just right for this week when my energy wasn’t up to par, and it felt good to be productive. I got a desk cleaned out, some computer files tidied up, and some recipes that had been pulled from magazines organized. Those last two still need some work, but it helped to put a dent in them, at least.

4. Triple A. Both my mother-in-law’s caregiver and my oldest son needed their services this week. It’s nice such things are available.

5. Tiny Texas Sheet Cakes. I’m pretty sure I have mentioned them before. I LOVE this cake, but it normally makes a cookie-sheet sized cake, and it would be too much temptation (and too many calories!) for me. I was delighted to find this smaller-sized recipe a few years ago that only makes four servings. With three of us in the house, that automatically keeps me from devouring the whole thing. I’ve been craving it for a while now and splurged on it last night.

Happy Friday!

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Friday’s Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, who invites us to share five of our favorite things from the last week. It’s a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

I’m running late once again! Here are some highlights of the last week:

1. A visit from a friend of my son and daughter-in-law’s. He stayed with them last weekend and they all came here for dinner after church Sunday. I have this tendency to second-guess myself, and I was thinking maybe going to “the parents'” seemed obligatory and he would rather have spent the time with them at their place, but when he saw us at church he gave me a spontaneous hug and seemed glad to see us, so I was reassured. 🙂

2. A three-day weekend. Labor Day is one of those low-key holidays – not much expectation besides a cook-out (another fave! Grilled burgers!). We even brought Grandma out to the patio for dinner and she seemed to enjoy it though she tuckered out pretty quickly.

3. A relatively quiet week after a few busy ones…although this seemed busy in it’s own way as well and I didn’t get nearly as much done as planned. But at least there weren’t a bunch of deadlines or appointments, etc.

4. Take-out dinner. My dear husband indulged me in a requested night off from the kitchen and brought home take-out Chinese food. He actually didn’t get my text til after he got home, so he had to go back out again to pick it up, poor guy. 🙂

5. Disability aids. I often amazed when we encounter some snag in Grandma’s care and think of what would help, search the Internet, and lo and behold, someone has made it and someone else sells it. 🙂 The latest need was a safety belt for a shower chair. We had been using a gait belt, but it was just short enough to be difficult to attach and didn’t seem very secure. We used the one designed for the shower chair this morning, and it worked perfectly.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Friday’s Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, who invites us to share five of our favorite things from the last week. It’s a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

I’m late to the party today! Had a deadline to meet this morning. But here’s my first-week-of-school faves:

1. The most low-key start to school ever. My youngest son started his second year of community college on Monday. On the previous Saturday I was at the store, saw some notebook paper, and thought, “Oh! I should probably get some of that.” Got a package of pens, too, for good measure. 🙂 And had to replace a lunchbox later in the week (he had used the old one for years and it finally broke.) He had bought his books before his oral surgery, and he had enough supplies and clothes in good condition (with the exception of tennis shoes – he bought some recently) that we didn’t have to have any big shopping sprees.

2. Recovery. Jesse had four wisdom teeth and two molars removed last Thursday, and the first day was really rough (mainly from nausea), but every day since has been progressively better. He is still chewing a little gingerly, but overall is doing well.

3. Bringing church to Grandma. Our church divided into groups on Sunday night and visited the “at-home” members, mostly elderly folks who can’t come to church often, if at all. We had a pretty sizable group come here to sing and read Scripture for Grandma. There were several children in the group who also stood up together and sang. It was sweet to see Grandma singing along with some of the hymns.

4. Beginning a walking regimen. 20 minutes Monday, 24 minutes Wednesday, 31 minutes today.

5. A lamp I’ve had my eye on for three years but thought was too expensive. The store it was in is going out of business, and yesterday when I was in the area I dropped in to see if the lamp was still there. It was, and the salesperson offered it for half price. I had some money I had kept back from last December when my husband gave me a portion of his Christmas bonus and decided to use it for that.

Happy Labor Day weekend!

As foretold, I haven’t been around online much this week due to Jeremy’s being here for his birthday. I’ve been enjoying having him here and the extra time with all the family together. So here are some favorites from the last week.

1. Having Jeremy here, of course, and celebrating his birthday (lasagna and Boston cream pie!) It’s been a quieter visit since the rest of the family had to work most of the week and we had Grandma here, but we’ve enjoyed talking and eating lots of food! Jim was able to take a couple of days off, and they went to the shooting range one day and bought and installed a new router another. Plus Jeremy helped me figure out a few computer-related issues.

2. Playing games all together as a family.

3. My new iPhone case, found by Googling “iphone 5 rubber case pink floral.” Love it!

4. Grilled steaks and cheesy potatoes. Since we couldn’t easily go to Jason and Mittu’s apartment for dinner one night, since Grandma’s caregiver leaves at 6, they brought dinner here. It was wonderful!

5. Mittu liked the anniversary gift I made for them! They celebrated four years together last week. We don’t usually exchange anniversary gifts, but they’ve done some nice things for ours, and I saw an idea similar to this on Pinterest, so decided to try to do it now. This was what I used my cool hot glue gun for that I mentioned last week. 🙂 I sort of followed this felt rose tutorial but used the hot glue gun instead of stitching.

I have the hanger set so that the flowers are on the bottom left side: I don’t know why I took the picture with them at the bottom.

It has been a lovely week. Hope yours has been, too!

Friday’s Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, who invites us to share five of our favorite things from the last week. It’s a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.