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.

The weeks just keep a-flyin’. I don’t know when the laid-back part of summer will get here! But here are some favorite parts of the last week:

1. A graduation — no, not Jesse’s, but the class he had been a part of from K-5 through 10th grade in SC. Since he has many good friends in that class, we went down to see their graduation and stay for the reception afterward. I thought I would feel very emotional — sometimes when we’d see on Facebook that this class had done certain things (senior trip, Junior-Senior banquet,etc.), I’d feel pangs about Jesse not being a part of it. It’s not that I don’t feel our move wasn’t God’s will, but there was still sadness that he’d had to pull up stakes. But this time, it was all right: I felt assured that this wasn’t home any more, though there are folks we’ll always love and I hope always be friends with there, and he’s had many good experiences and developed many friendships here as well.

2. Catching up with old friends both at the graduation above and a dear friend’s daughter’s graduation party the next day.

3. A contract on our old house. We combined the visiting portion of the trip with a few tasks on the old house that needed to be done before the final inspection. We hope to close on it soon!

4. A new iPhone case. A belated Mother’s Day present just arrived in the mail this week. Isn’t it cute?

5. Memorial Day with the family. I’m not sure how Memorial Day came to be associated with grilling, but I loved my husband’s grilled burgers, hot dogs, and sausages! Plus time with the family and a three-day weekend — and the ability to celebrate these things and our freedoms because of those who fought for them. It was especially nice having Monday off after our busy weekend trip.

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, 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 week has flown by. Here are some of the favorites from it:

1. Youngest son Jesse’s graduation. More on graduation weekend and its activities and photos here.

2. Oldest son Jeremy being able to come down for graduation plus a few days.

3. Family time with Jeremy, Jesse, and middle son Jason and daughter-in-law Mittu (and husband Jim, of course. 🙂 ) Skype and Facetime are great and help, but it’s just not the same as actually being all together.

4. Playing games while all the family was here.

5. Having the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team at our church Sunday morning.

Bonus: Graduations cards and gifts. Even those are not for me, it still touches my heart. When my children are blessed, I am blessed.

I think after this week life will slow down into something like normal….at least for a while. 🙂

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 another busy week! Next week will be as well, and then things should slow down a bit. Here are some of the highlights from this week:

1. No more early classes. Jesse had one MWF class this year that met at 7:30, and that’s done now.

2. A special dinner. We had been wanting to have our youth and music pastor and his family over almost ever since we moved here, and finally did last Friday. We had a great time.

3. A celebration. Our assistant pastors planned a covert celebration for our senior pastor’s 50th birthday and 10th year with the church (we later found out this year is also his 25th in the ministry.) It took place this last Sunday with lots of special things going on throughout the day. Somehow even with everyone else in the church knowing about it, including his wife, we managed to keep it from him and surprise him. Several men attired like Secret Service people with their dark suits, sunglasses, and ear pieces greeted him in the parking lot and escorted him to the auditorium, where someone played “Hail to the Chief” and we all clapped while he was escorted, open-mouthed, to the stage. There were some fun things — pictures of his childhood and his “80s hair” — and some poignant things as well, ending with an after-church fellowship that evening. A great day overall.

4. Finding a box I had been missing. There was one particular box I hadn’t been able to find since we moved, and it had some of the kids’ school portraits through the years as well as a cross stitch kit someone had given me. I’d been wanting to work on the cross stitch, but I especially wanted those pictures since I want to work on a scrapbook for Jesse’s graduation. I was pleased to find the box this week (in my sewing room — that’s the one room that’s still not quite set up yet. Maybe this summer!)

5. A timely arrival. We ordered something online Tuesday (more on what it is next week…), and the confirmation e-mail said it would get here Monday. That was bad, because we needed it Friday, and I had even paid a little extra for expedited shipping. We decided if it wasn’t here Friday morning we’d have to run around town looking for an alternative that afternoon. I prayed it might get here Thursday just so we’d know it was taken care of — and I was astonished when it did! “Oh me of little faith.” It was very nice to have that taken care of and not to have to think about what to do about it if it didn’t get here in time.

Have a great weekend!

(By the way, WordPress has changed its default settings so that the option to get notifications of further comments on this post by e-mail is automatically clicked, and you have to “unclick” it if you don’t want e-mails. I apologize: I can’t reset it from my end. I have complained about it to the powers that be. Also, some WP users may have to “log in” to comment. 😦 I hope WP gets back to its former user-friendliness soon.)

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 another busy week! Here are some of the highlights:

1. Sundays. The last two Sundays at church have just been especially good: a visiting drama team one day, Skyping with a missionary one evening, other missionaries here another day, a rousing and heartfelt and heart-stirring rendition of “No More Night” from one of our members.

2. Mondays. I know a lot of people don’t like Mondays, but for me it’s a time after a busy weekend to enjoy the quiet and stillness and regroup and figure out what I need to do for the week ahead.

3. A call from an old family friend. One of my mother-in-law’s oldest and dearest friends called this week to see how she was doing (my m-i-l doesn’t hear much at all on the phone, so she can’t call her directly any more). It was good to hear from her and catch up a bit and then to tell my m-i-l about her call.

4. Finding an old keepsake. I was looking through a box in the garage where we keep packing materials, and discovered some things I hadn’t unpacked from our last move down in the bottom. One item was a small cedar chest — maybe 8 ” long by 4″ high and wide. I’ve had it ever since I could remember, and it used to hold childhood treasures. I don’t know where it came from: perhaps it was a bonus when my mom got hers. I had been sad that I lost track of it, so I was joyful to find it again. There’s no time to take and upload a photo of it now — it’s fairly plain and the value is sentimental more than decorative.

5. Dinner with friends. Our last “dinner for six” with our current group turned into a dinner for nine, and it was quite lively and fun and ended up with a rousing game of Balderdash. I was even winning until the last couple of turns. 🙂

I have a busy day ahead, but I’ll look forward to catching up with the FFF crowd and Google Reader later tonight or this weekend. Have a good one!

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.

Whew! It’s been a busy week! Here are some of the highlights:

1. Getting graduation announcements done. What I thought would take an afternoon took about three days, including running short by about ten, shopping a number of places for the kind you can run through the computer and not finding any I liked, making my own on the computer, having things that look perfectly aligned on screen come out off-center….so yes, I am very glad to have them all completed, addressed, stamped, and ready to mail now!

2. Scanners. Our printer is a scanner as well, and while I used it this week I was remembering the days of having to go to the library to copy things. It’s so nice to have one right here, both to copy things and to scan them into the computer. We’ve had it for a while, but my appreciation for it was renewed this week.

3. A pretty pen.

4. Sentimental notes. For Jesse’s upcoming Junior-Senior banquet, parents are supposed to write notes to their Seniors which are given to them at the banquet. I’m not sure how this custom began and would probably wait to write such a note for graduation and give it privately. But, at any rate, not wanting to buck tradition and leave him noteless at a time when everyone else is getting a note, I made a card and Jim and I wrote notes in it, sentimentally looking at how fast the last eighteen years have gone and hopes for the future, appreciation of him as our son, etc. I especially enjoyed reading Jim’s. Sniff, sniff…

5. Not losing power. I know I’ve said that before when we’ve had severe weather, but we seemed to lose power a lot our first year here, so now every storm has that additional tension with it of the possibility of the electricity going out. In addition, yesterday’s thunder, lightening, driving rain, and hail occurred just between Jim’s and Jesse’s leaving, so neither of them had to drive in it. The rain had cleared to a drizzle by the time Jesse left for school.

I’m off for another busy day. Graduation isn’t for a few weeks yet, but activities leading to it are kicking in, plus a newspaper column and newsletter are due soon, company is coming next week, dessert needs to be made for a church dinner this weekend, we’re having dinner at someone’s home tonight for which I need to make a couple of things, I have been needing a haircut for weeks…and I need to do laundry some time soon!

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, 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 actually been kind of a frustrating week for me: it seemed like every day unexpected interruptions came up and I didn’t accomplish much of wanted I wanted to this week. But it’s in those kinds of weeks that it’s most helpful to look for the good things. Here are a few from my week:

1. Getting the Internet back. It was only off for a few hours yesterday (right when I was in the middle of trying to write a post! So that one will have to wait for another day). But it amazed me how dependent on it I was! Even to the point of getting frustrated that I couldn’t look up the phone number for our provider online. 🙂 I don’t know what the trouble was, but I’m glad it is over.

2. Getting a drawer organized.

Before:

After:

I had been wanting to do that for ages and finally remembered to get the little trays to do so. It didn’t take too long: it was accomplished while I was cooking something.

3. Getting rid of some things. I don’t let go of things easily: I figure it will cost more to replace it if I change my mind, so if I have room, I’d rather keep it, even in a box somewhere. But sometimes even I have to go through and donate some excess, and it felt good to send a couple of bags and several boxes to the thrift store this week.

4. Christian music. I know I have mentioned that before in different capacities, but I especially appreciated it this week when I was very irritated over something, I don’t even remember what, and put a CD in while I started dinner. Before long my heart and thoughts and feelings were changed and the irritation had melted away.

5. Getting up later. The church that Jesse’s school is under had special meetings this week and pushed the school start time a half an hour later to help families who had been out to the meetings in the evenings. I could get used to a later wake-up time.

Bonus: I don’t know if I can honestly say this is a favorite or not — it’s exciting but also a little wistful: Jesse brought his cap and gown for graduation home this week.

And that reminds me of another favorite: going through his pictures from a babyhood through the present for a project for both the Junior-Senior Banquet and graduation. Such fun. Reminds me, though, that I wanted to have a scrapbook ready for graduation and need to get cracking on that…

So — though I wasn’t sure I was going to find five good things this week, I ended up with more than five, and I was reminded I did get some things accomplished even though it didn’t feel like it. It probably felt that way because I didn’t get the biggest thing done: Jesse’s graduation announcements. Maybe tomorrow!

Have a good 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, 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 great week. Here are some of the high points:

1. Shish kebobs. Jim got some shish kebob equipment for Christmas, and since he was off Friday and the weather was nice he tried it out.

He had three different cuts of beef, mainly to experiment to find which was best (and cheapest was not best…), chicken prepared two different ways (I liked the teriyaki best), and a variety of vegetables. I really liked the squash and zucchini. We found that the store salad bar is a good place to pick up bits of cut up vegetables especially if you don’t know if you’ll like it well enough for whole ones. He didn’t mix up the meat and veggies on skewers so as to make it easier for people to pick what they wanted.

2. Easter. It was just a wonderful day. The special morning service was uplifting and inspirational, the food was scrumptious, we had our annual egg hunt with coins rather than candy in the plastic eggs, some time with Jeremy on the phone, and a game with the family in the evening. A mix of faith, family, and fun, enough tradition to be enjoyable but not enough to get bogged down.

(Maybe it’s the sunglasses, but Jesse looks a little sneaky here…)

3. Leftovers for lunch. My favorite thing to do for lunch is just warm up leftovers, and between Easter and the shish kebobs I’ve had a good assortment to choose from all week.

4. Lovely weather. It’s been a little cooler this week but bright and pleasant.

5. The Majesty and Glory of the Resurrection CD.

It’s kind of become a tradition that I listen to it on Easter Sunday morning while preparing breakfast. I’ve enjoyed listening to it throughout this week. It’s the only CD I know of specifically focusing on the Resurrection of Christ, though there may be others I’m unaware of.

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, 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 has been kind of a different week for me! But every week has its good spots, and here are five from mine:

1. A Ladies’ Party at church to welcome new ladies. I even won a door prize — a gift card to Target!

2. Closet changeover from winter to spring/summer clothes. I love the lighter look, plus some of my favorite clothes are in there.

3. A short lull between busy weeks.

4. Not running out of gas. I was running errands Tuesday and knew my gas was low starting out, but was late getting started and didn’t want to take time to fill up first. I figured I’d have enough to get where I was going and could fill up when I got done before heading home. And I would have…except for hitting a detour and then trying to figure out another way to get where I needed to be. In the fluster of all that I forgot about the gas until I got to my destination, then I noticed my “distance to empty” sign said 7 miles. When I got done with my errand I tried to look up a gas station on my GPS, and when I followed its directions, I ended up at a place that was not a gas station and my DTE was 2 miles — and it has a wider margin of error than that amount! I was in an unfamiliar area except for one street that I had passed that I knew had stores and restaurants, so I figured it had to have a gas station somewhere. It took a while to find one but I finally did, and was so relieved. That’s much closer than I like to call it.

5. Getting my newest cross stitch project back from being framed.

I’m wishing now I had opted for more contrast in color between the mat and frame, but overall I like it.

I hope you’ve been able to find bright spots in your week as well!

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 ended up not making it for last week’s FFF just due to having a lot to get done, and I really missed it! Here are some faves from the last couple of weeks:

1. A lost book found and a fine reimbursed. I got a notice several months ago that a book I’d had out from the library had not been turned in. I thought I had turned it in, but I had returned several at once and couldn’t remember seeing it for sure. I searched the house several times over and finally gave up and paid for it. Lo and behold, I got a check from the library reimbursing me for the total. I don’t know what happened, but I am so glad it all worked out.

2. This:

I don’t know why I have never gotten one of these before! Great for dusting the tops of ceiling fan blades and getting spider webs near the ceiling and anything else up high.

3. Getting things hung up. It takes me a long time to figure out where and how to hang some things, and then all of a sudden an idea just clicks. A special thanks to hubby as well for helping me on some of these.

This is a corner of the office area where the wall space had been totally empty:

This picture was from a calendar page.

When I decided on a brown and blue color scheme for the family room, I thought this would go in the room perfectly, but it wasn’t a standard frame size, and it took me eons to decide how to frame it.

Then the little shelf was in a box in the closet without a home, and the two things on it were “lost” on other shelves but stood out here. I love it when things come together.

4. Snickerdoodle blondies. I saw these yesterday on Annette‘s blog, and just had to make them. They were soooo good. I halved the recipe because there are only three of us at home, and I didn’t wanted to be tempted by a whole 9 x 13 pan of them. Then Jason and Mittu unexpectedly dropped in and helped us eat some of them. I am definitely making these again and looking forward to the next church fellowship where I can bring them.

5. Words of encouragement. God sent some through a few e-mails this week just when I needed them most.

Bonus: Dinner for Six at our home which ended up being a dinner for ten. Much fun!

It has been a busy last few weeks! There’s nothing major on tap for next week that I know of, but I hope I don’t lose the momentum — although I don’t like the pressure of deadlines, schedules, and appointments, I do tend to get more done than when the week is just open-ended.

Happy Friday!