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,  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’ve had winter and almost-spring in the same week, with snow one day and bright sunshine today. Here are some highlights:

1. Sunday dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s. We don’t usually go out to eat for Sunday dinner after church for a number of reasons (it usually takes longer, is crowded, and I feel bad about people not being able to go to church on Sunday in order to make a meal for me), but last Sunday Jesse had an activity with his class, and as church is close to Jim’s mom’s place, it made sense to eat over there and then go visit her rather coming home and going back over. I’ve only been to Ruby Tuesday’s maybe 3 or 4 times — Jim doesn’t like the one near us. I tried their Smokey Mountain Chicken and it was wonderful (barbecue sauce, cheese, and bacon on a chicken breast) — I’ve been trying to justify going back again for more. 🙂 Plus their white cheddar mashed potatoes and grilled green beans were excellent. Plus we had a $10 off coupon! It was so nice to come back home after eating and visiting her to just rest for a bit without having to bustle around to get dinner ready and then clean up.

2. A “moment” with Jim’s mom. This is one of those mental pictures I hope will always stay with me. When we visited her Sunday afternoon, a church we were familiar with was having a service in the dining area. We decided to take her down just to see what it was like and to see if she seemed to enjoy it, as she hasn’t been able to come to church with us since she was in the hospital. She has had trouble speaking lately, but when they sang, “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder,” she was holding Jim’s hand and smiling and mouthing the words.

3. A productive Saturday. Not that other days aren’t productive or Saturdays usually aren’t, but this last Saturday I got a number of things done I had been wanting to do.

4. An especially good book. I could list books as a favorite almost every week, but The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (linked to my thoughts) will go down as one of the best of the year, maybe one of my all-time favorites. And though sick days aren’t a fave, having one this week allowed for spending extra time to finish it.

5. Snow that didn’t impact function. People laugh at us Southerners for closing down when it snows, but really, cities here can’t invest in snowplows when we only get snow maybe 1-3 times a year most years. They do put stuff on the roads to help, but still advise people staying home during snow. We had maybe an inch or so of snow Wednesday, but it didn’t stick much to the roads at all, so people were able to do what they needed to do. My favorite part of snow is when it is falling, so it was nice to see that while still knowing I could get out if I needed to.

Hope you have a great weekend! Though Jim’s birthday was Wednesday, he actually had to be out of town that day, so we’re looking forward to celebrating this weekend.

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,  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 spring one day, winter the next kind of week. Here are some high points from it:

1. Jim progressing well after surgery. He went from walking around our cul-de-sac and worked up to walking a mile and a half, drove for the first time Wednesday, attended prayer meeting, and went back to work for partial days yesterday and today. He still has a “punched in the stomach” feeling and has trouble getting comfortable in order to sleep at night, but overall he’s doing nicely. Thank you again for praying.

2. A break from cooking. I mentioned last week that my son and daughter-in-law made up a few meals for us while Jim was in the hospital, and Saturday our pastor’s wife made dinner for us. Between that and the leftovers and a few fast-food forays, I didn’t cook from Wednesday through Sunday, except for tossing things in the oven or microwave and making a salad. I enjoyed the time off from the kitchen.

3. Celebrating Mittu’s birthday. It was a little late, as her birthday was the same day as the surgery, but it was fun celebrating on Saturday. She requested mini cheesecakes instead of a cake, and it was fun to experiment with those.

4. Daffodils are sprouting around the neighborhood, a sure and cheery sign that spring is on the way!

5. Visiting Jim’s mom together. Since Jim couldn’t drive for several days, I drove him over to see his mom at the skilled nursing facility. Usually either he goes after work or I go during the day, so it was nice to go together. Plus we ran into our assistant pastor there one day and had a nice visit.

Hope you have a great weekend!

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,  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.

Thanks so much for your prayers for Jim’s surgery. Everything went pretty well. We’ll get the pathology report back in about a week, and the doctor didn’t see any other areas of concern. He was released from the hospital yesterday (Thursday) and had a pretty rough time with nausea and pain for a while, but both are under control with prescription medicines now.

Even with surgery during the week, there were highlights of God’s grace:

1. Kind and capable nurses.

2. Hospital food. I don’t know how it was for the patient as Jim didn’t get to experience much of it, but I had a great lunch of the most tender pot roast I’ve had in a long time plus a chocolate peanut butter pie from the cafeteria. When his mom was in, we had a great turkey and dressing lunch there. I may stop in even when no one is a patient. 🙂

3. Surprises. Our pastor unexpectedly met us when we first went to the hospital and stayed with us until they were almost ready to take Jim to surgery. That meant a lot. Someone probably would have stayed with me during surgery, but I had told the pastor weeks before that I’d rather zone out with a book than have to try to make conversation. But I was glad Jason and Mittu came and stayed, and Jesse came after classes. Then I didn’t know until the next day that after Jason and Mittu left they went to our house and made up a couple of meals to go into the oven and a plate full of sandwiches and brought some soup. And last weekend they had gone away for the weekend for Mittu’s birthday (which was Wednesday, the same day as Jim’s surgery. Happy belated birthday, Mittu! We’ll be celebrating later) and brought us back an order of rolls from Fatz Cafe, one of favorite places that unfortunately we don’t have here. We enjoyed them with a couple of meals.

4. People from church who have been and will be visiting Jim’s mom while he is recuperating.

5. Computer cases and fixes. Something went wrong with my desktop computer last weekend–a corrupted file, Jim thinks. He and my oldest son spent a lot of time getting it back in good working order. And I had been looking for a case for my laptop for some time and finally settled on this one, and was able to apply my gift card from Katrina’s Fall Into Reading Challenge to it. It took me ages to decide on one but I like that this is both classy and feminine and has a bit of storage room for other things as well.

Bonus: Humor helps in many ways!

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,  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 another full week, but I guess that’s better than an empty week. 🙂 Here are the highlights:

1. Mom adjusting. As far as we can tell, Jim’s mom is adjusting well to her new situation in a skilled nursing facility. She smiles and is happy to see us. She is still not eating much — that started about a week before she went into the hospital, so we don’t know if she’s still not quite feeling up to par or what. She is also speaking very little, so that makes it harder to communicate what she is thinking and feeling. Thank you for your prayers for her. One of the kids’ Sunday School Classes sent her a Valentine’s card they all signed: that was sweet, and she smiled at the kids’ signatures.

2. An Irish concert. I mentioned last week the  Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team was at our church for a week. They usually end the week with an Irish concert. I was so glad I was able to be there for that one — very enjoyable, and we had several visitors.

3. Sunday night off. After the week of meetings, our Pastor said we would not have services Sunday night, knowing that everyone would be tired after being out several nights during the week, and nursery workers, ushers, etc. would have had extra duty all week. Though we weren’t able to be at every service because of the situation with Jim’s mom, because of all that had been going on with her, it was so nice to just crash after Sunday dinner, even though we usually enjoy Sunday evening services.

4. Valentine’s Day. Jason and Mittu were able to come, we had a special meal, heart-shaped cupcakes, cards, candy, Jim brought Bojangles heart-shaped BoBerry Biscuits, and J&M brought the stuff for chocolate fondue. A fun night! Though now we have enough sugar in the house to put us all in a diabetic coma, LOL! We’ll just have to parcel it out.

5. These flowers my Valentine brought me:

I’m also very glad my oldest was safe and didn’t lose power after getting about 2 feet of snow in RI last weekend!

Happy Friday! Hope you have a great weekend!

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,  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 quite the week — snow Sunday morning that was gone by the time we got out of church, my mother-in-law hospitalized for an infection and released just yesterday to a skilled nursing facility, special meetings at church this week that we’ve had to miss a couple of nights of so far. But there are always blessings scattered throughout, and here are a few:

1. Meetings with the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team. I’ve enjoyed their music for years and referred to them here often, but I had never seen them “in person” until last spring when they were at our church for one service, and this time they are here for a whole week. I had also never heard Steve preach until last spring, though I have heard good things about him. So it has been nice to hear him more, too. I appreciate his spirit and balance.

2. Ladies’ Steak Night. The last few times our church has had a week of special meetings, they’ve had a Ladies’ Steak Night on Mondays and a Men’s Steak Night on Tuesdays. They grill steaks (free for guests but asking for donations from church members), and the idea is to invite friends, neighbors, coworkers, especially those who might not care to come to a regular church service. It was a time of good food, music, and fellowship (I sat next to one of the Pettit team members who had been an English major, and we discussed books. Lovely!), and best of all, a few people came to know the Lord both nights.

3. Friends sharing books. Both an online friend and a friend at church shared books with me after discussing them and my comment that they sounded interesting. Very kind and thoughtful.

4. A good doctor and nurse. I mentioned my m-i-l being in the hospital. When the nurses thought she would be released, the doctor kept her a couple of days longer because her white blood cell count was still high. He told my husband that there are national averages for how long to keep patients for different ailments, but that wasn’t as important to him as making sure she was all right. I appreciate a doctor who thinks that way. He was also very thorough in explaining things to us. He is not her regular doctor – he was just over her case while in the hospital –  but I am glad he was. And though all the nurses were kind, there was one that was especially helpful. As we mentioned something about his mom needing to go from assisted living to skilled nursing, she offered to get us in touch with just the person we needed to talk to. We hadn’t even known who to ask for or whether there was someone at the hospital who helped with such things, so that was a blessing.

5. Being in the right place at the right time.  I love how God orchestrates these things. One day I had gotten up to see Jim’s mom later than I had planned, but the lady from the skilled nursing facility was there at that moment needing some papers to be signed to get the ball rolling, and the doctor came in and confirmed that she wouldn’t be released that day, though everyone else had thought she would. In the hospital, especially when it comes to release time, there is a lot of waiting around wondering what’s going to happen when, so it was especially nice to get official word at that moment so we would know how to arrange our day.

It will be a busy few days helping Jim’s mom get used to a new place and sorting and moving things from the old one. The new one is much smaller, so we’re having to strategize about what to keep and what to store and what to get rid of. We’re supposed to discuss her care plan today. We’re hoping and praying she adjusts well — it’s hard to make such drastic changes at that age.

Thank you for your kind comments concerning our family news yesterday. They are much appreciated!

Hope you have a great weekend!

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,  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 wild and windy week outside: rain, high winds, flooding, and a bit of snow. I’m thankful it’s been warm and cozy inside. Here are a few faves from the week:

1. Not losing power, always a concern during storms of any kind around here.

2. Safety. Jesse had a couple of harrowing experiences in his car, hydroplaning for the first time.

3. A new nightstand. I have been wanting to get rid of the old one for ages. It was old and had problems even before we scavenged it from friends who were getting rid of it. It was intended for a living room end table and stuck out too far for a bedroom night stand, but it served that purpose well for a number of years. I had been saving up points from my Amazon credit card to buy something big with rather than piddling it away on smaller orders. It takes me ages to come to a decision about style and color, but I finally bought a new one. I had enough points to get two, but I wanted to wait and see how we liked this one first. Jim said I could buy a second one for his side — we will have matching nightstands for the first time in 33 years of marriage!

Old:

New:

4. A new Mexican food restaurant. I have to have a Mexican food place nearby! That or learn to make chicken chimichangas for myself. My husband was dissatisfied with the place we’ve been going, so we tried a new place and liked it.

5. God bringing things together. I was working on the ladies’ newsletter for church this week and had it all done except for one section someone else was writing. She e-mailed Wed. night to ask if she could wait and send it in next month, which was fine, but now I needed to figure out what to put in that blank space. Then something I read Thursday morning fit the bill perfectly, both in what it said and the length of it to fit in the needed space. Thank you, Lord!

Hope you have a good weekend! The rain has finally stopped here, though we still have lots of ponds throughout town formed by all the rainwater. We’re supposed to get snow this weekend, but they say it won’t be enough to cause any problems. Hope not!

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,  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 better week for us than the last couple of weeks have been, though we’re still heavy-hearted and concerned for a niece’s fiance who was discovered to have multiple tumors and is suffering through a heavy regime of chemotherapy this week and will be for weeks to come. The ultimate prognosis is good, the doctor says, but they’re going to have an awful time of it through treatment. Prayers are always appreciated!

The faves for this week are small ones, but they do lighten and encourage.

1. Thoughtfulness. My husband had to pick up Chick-Fil-A biscuits for a meeting at work, and time was tight between the time they opened and the time he had to be at work, but he still stopped by the house and dropped off chicken biscuits for Jesse and me.

2. Filters. When my oldest son was here he showed me how to set up filters for gmail. That has been a great help, especially for sales-related ones (coupons for the pizza place, fabric shop, etc.) I can set them to go into a folder without them cluttering up my e-mail and then look at them when I want to.

3. Hand-written notes, both sending and receiving them.

4. Downton Abbey. Yes, I’ve gotten on the bandwagon. 🙂 I was discouraged from doing so, thinking I’m 3 seasons behind and it would take ages to catch up, but then I saw each season was only 7-8 episodes long. I’ve seen some episodes through Netflix and some through the PBS site, but thanks to Lisa for sharing this link to stream the episodes (The “Behind the Drama” special was really good), and also for the warning that there is a pretty bad scene in the first episode, but thankfully nothing like that has come up again so far. I was disappointed that it seemed a little soap-operaish at first, but I liked the historical aspects, especially when WWI and the Spanish flu hit. But according to the author in the “Behind the Drama” special, what I thought was the most soap opera-like one of all about the Turk was actually based on a true story. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes!

5. A cozy, warm shelter. Our area is being hit with an ice storm with predictions now of up to a 1/2″ of ice before it’s over. I’m thankful to have a safe place to stay and pray for those who don’t.

Hope you’re having a safe and warm weekend wherever you are.

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,  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 rather heavy week for many friends and family members. In my extended family just within the last week, two have been diagnosed with cancer, one struggling with a drug addiction had a relapse, and my husband’s uncle passed away. Then there have been serious illnesses among many friends’ families. It is always good to look for and acknowledge God’s blessings, but in those times perhaps it is even more necessary and helpful than others. Here are a few high spots from the last week:

1. Snow! I think it was just a week ago that we were experiencing almost summer-like weather. I remember saying that I don’t mind a mild winter at all, but I was hoping we’d get at least one good snow before it was all over, and we got it last night.

2. Sunshine. We haven’t seen it in at least 1 and 1/2, maybe two weeks.

3. Cessation of rain. It has been raining almost constantly for days.

Sorry to be so weather-related, but that has greatly affected the last week or two!

4. Safety driving. Wednesday we had some of the hardest rains after more than a week of steady rain, and one of the main roads I travel was flooded. I had to go the back way into our neighborhood, which is made up of very narrow roads — not too bad normally, but a bit tense since all traffic was rerouted that day. I almost got side-swiped by a school bus turning onto the street I was on. Then last night hubby and kids all made it home safely in the inclement weather — the interstate my husband usually travels was blocked for 3 hours, I think due to an accident, but he got off and came the back way, so was spared that wait.

5. Good books, good food, good programs, good music, all brighten up the days.

Most of all I am grateful for God’s presence with His children and His grace for every moment.

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,  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 didn’t think I’d do a FFF today. There have been a couple of rough patches this week (nothing I can share publicly), I’ve been pretty down, I didn’t want to pretend to be all bright and happy when I was not, and I honestly couldn’t come up with more than a couple of “faves” this morning. But throughout the day a few things came to mind:

1. More daylight. I know the days start getting longer after Dec. 21, but I usually can’t really tell it for several weeks. But this year somehow there is noticeably more daylight already, even though it has been overcast daylight. Even overcast daylight is better than darkness (I’m pondering multiple meanings of that….)

2. Nice temperatures. It has been pretty comfortable this week, feeling not at all like January. I hope we do get one good snow this year, but otherwise I am all for mild winters.

3. Letterpress, an iPhone word game I play with my oldest son.

4. Talking things over. You know how when you’re married sometimes your conversations are just about everyday things — it’s been nice to have some good talks this week.

5. Humor, especially my husband’s. He can lighten almost any situation.

Above all, I am glad that Jesus is “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24) and that He invites us to cast every care on Him.

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,  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 has been a week of getting back to “normal.” Though it feels sad to put away the Christmas decorations and take the lights down, it does feel good to get the house back in order and start thinking about the new year. Here are some favorites from this past week:

1. Winning a gift card to Amazon from Katrina’s Fall Into Reading challenge!

2. Japanese food at the mall. Sadly our mall here is a little too far away to zip over to just to eat, but we needed to go to the mall to get Jesse a couple of clothes items and got dinner there. I had been longing for their chicken teriyaki. A bonus was having enough leftovers for lunch the next day.

3. A quiet New Year’s Eve. After the above-mentioned outing to the mall on NYE, we came home and watched Enchanted on TV, and then stayed up long enough to see the ball drop in Times Square in New York.

4. Safe travels for Jeremy. We had a bit of sleet and snow here and they’d had about 6″ of snow in RI, but all the flights were on time. Unfortunately his car had been towed when the snow plow needed to come through his street and he wasn’t there to move it.   That was frustrating to come home to, but he got it all worked out and made plans to park elsewhere next time he leaves.

5. Egg McMuffins for Sunday breakfast. Sunday mornings are the only time I make a big family breakfast. That got started when I started having problems with low blood sugar and needed a lot of protein to make it through the morning at church without having to munch on something, then it became kind of a tradition. But we had to get up way early to take Jeremy to the airport Sunday morning and decided to grab a fast food breakfast on the way back. It was so nice to just relax with the newspaper and breakfast instead of having to rush around to prepare one, and I was able to catch a few minutes’ sleep before heading off to church.

Bonus: I forgot now where I found the picture online for my blog header, but I love that it depicts sunshine through the winter trees. The winter months can be a little depressing for me, with the cold, lack of growing things, bare trees, often gloomy weather, but keeping busy and looking ahead to spring help, and that light shining through there is just symbolic to me that winter won’t last forever and spring is coming.

Though I was sad at the beginning of the week to transition out of the Christmas season, I’m starting to get exciting about some new projects. I hope you’ve had a great first week of the New Year!