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. This has been 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 a few favorites from the past week:

1. Chicken teriyaki. Back in SC we used to love a Japanese place in the mall. It was fast food but a nice switch from burgers and breaded, fried chicken. And the people there seemed to know the families of their regular customers — I think they acted like that with everyone, really, but if I was there by myself they asked about the rest of the family. Then the guy who was assembling our food asked if we wanted “yummy yummy sauce.” 🙂 We always did. The same Japanese place is in the mall here in TN, but the mall is 20 minutes away, so it’s too far out for a quick stop for dinner. The food was still good: the people, though, were different, of course, and the guy on the end — well, I couldn’t understand exactly what he was saying, but he was holding the ladle of sauce over my plate, so I assumed he was asking me if I wanted some. So it was a little surreal in some ways, but I’d been craving their chicken teriyaki and it was good to have it again.

2. Jesse’s home! I know, I mentioned last week that my youngest son was due back after being on a mission/camp trip for ten days, the longest he has ever been away before. But I was just anticipating it last week, and this week I have the reality. 🙂

3. Air conditioning in my car. I know I have mentioned AC before, but the car is probably the place I can cool off the quickest, with the AC turned up and the vents aimed right at my face.

4. Carrie’s Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge. I’ve enjoyed getting back into these books.

5. A low-key week after a very busy one.

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. This has been 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 a few faves from the past week:

1. Protein bars. I just discovered them. I think I knew about them but just recently tried some. I have a low blood sugar, and they help over that “low” that sometimes comes mid-morning or afternoon.  And the ones with chocolate satisfy that craving.

2. The cool button on my hair dryer. Just drying my hair can induce sweatiness: it feels so good to blow some cool air after all the heat.

3. This single serving pizza has a really good flavor and makes for an occasional nice lunch along with a few carrots.

4. My mother-in-law’s physical therapist. She saw one at her last assisted living place, and he’s the one who got her set up with a walker. But the therapy stopped once she got stable with it. Now she is having an increasingly hard time getting up from her chair, and the nurse at her new place recommended a physical therapist which, thankfully, her Medicare and supplemental insurance are taking care of, plus he comes to her place rather than having to bundle her off somewhere. We don’t know how much her problem is just aging and how much is just the fact that decreased activity leads to decreased ability. But I am glad they have someone working with her…and that she’s willing, for now, to do what he says. 🙂

5. Jesse’s coming home! OK, that doesn’t happen til tomorrow, but I can count the anticipation today! He’s been away at a combination camp and mission trip with his youth group for ten days — the longest he has been away from home before. It’s been awfully quiet around here.

It will probably be later tonight or tomorrow before I can catch up with you — company coming tonight means cleaning and cooking today! Have a great weekend!

(Oh, by the way — those of you who guessed last week that my new cross stitch project, at least the part I’ve done so far, was a nest are correct. Good work!

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. This has been 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 a few faves from the past week:

1. Independence Day, all that it stands for as well as the fun part: time off, time with family, barbecue, fireworks, etc.

2. Grandma’s birthday.

3. Caramel Cake. I had seen a caramel cake mix in the store and wondered what it was like: caramel can sometimes taste too sweet or rich for me. But as Grandma did not have a preference for her birthday cake, I decided to try it. It was really good!

I hadn’t meant to make it look tiger-striped: I used the pre-made caramel icing and then tried to drizzle a chocolate glaze over it but it didn’t drizzle. Her birthday was on Saturday and thankfully all the family was over again on Sunday for dinner and more cake for dessert, so I wasn’t left alone in the house with it for too long. 🙂

4. Good deals. Jesse needed some clothes for his youth group’s combination mission and camp trip, and pants with a 34″ inseam are hard to find. But we found those as well as shorts and swimming trunks at Sears and got a gift card towards our next purchase as well.

5. Starting a new cross stitch project. Can you guess what it is yet?

Bonus: Losing another 2.5 lbs.!

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. This has been 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 a few faves from the past week:

1. Biggest Loser Power Walk video. I found that with bad knees and balance problems, I couldn’t quite do all the exercises on the Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout game for the Kinect (though it actually seems to be adapting and not bringing up as many of the ones I can’t do. One advantage to it “seeing” me, I guess.) But I was thinking that I either needed to walk more or find something that was primarily walking, and then I saw this video at W-Mart. It’s been a nice supplement, and they have “modified” steps for those who can’t do all their variations.

2. Losing 3 1/2 lbs. using both programs. Woot! My first week I actually gained almost a pound. No fun. I’m glad to be going in the other direction now!

3. Small clock radio. I’d been looking for a clock radio for my bathroom. My family found a couple that were meant for the shower, but I wanted something for the wall or counter top with big numbers so I could see it from anywhere — the shower ones had really small clock faces. And here in the South having to fight off mildew due to the humidity, even while running a fan — I just didn’t want to have to deal with that on a radio in the shower. But I found this little travel one:

Big numbers, doesn’t take much space, and the radio is surprisingly clear. It came in handy one night when we lost power because of a storm — I put it on my nightstand, and it has a little button to push to shine a light on the clock face.

4. A new Karla Dornacher print. I ordered this from Karla’s shop:

And she included a sweet note and a few extra goodies, too:

5. Productive days. I haven’t gotten quite as much done as I had planned so far this summer, but had a couple of really productive days this past week. This past Saturday my husband hung up several things for me and I got some cleaning out and organizing done later in the week. The living room looks much more finished and put together now. I had promised when we moved in here last August that I’d give you a house tour some time — I’m almost ready. 🙂 One project Jesse helped me with is the game closet:

I didn’t take a “before” photo, but it would have shown two boxes with the games we’ve played recently set on top. That set of wicker shelves is old — we got it from a friend who was moving and used it for several years, and then when we were just about to get rid of it, Jason and Mittu wanted it. They had to get rid of some things to move into their new apartment, and that’s when it hit me that this would work for the games. A new coat of spray paint, and voila!

Have a great weekend! We’re celebrating Grandma’s 83rd birthday tomorrow.

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. This has been 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 a few faves from the past week:

1. Father’s Day and the opportunity to show some appreciation and love to my husband. Not that we need a special day to do that, of course, but we enjoy those special days.

2. A task completed. I finally got my TN driver’s license. (Shhh, it was supposed to be done within 30 days of moving here last August…) I kept forgetting — and I needed to send off for my birth certificate and kept forgetting that, too. Finally got it done, and without much wait once I was there — I took a book because usually anything of that nature takes a while, but I didn’t even crack it open. My DL photo is probably the worst ever, and no, I am not showing it to you. 🙂 But I am very glad that ‘s done with for the next six years.

3. Electricity and safety. We’ve had a series of pretty severe thunderstorms every evening since Tuesday and we lost power for several hours Tuesday night. Unfortunately tens of thousands are still without power and a lot of people have trees down and parts of buildings damaged.

4. A repair instead of a replacement. A tooth in Grandma’s dentures came out a couple of times, and Jim found a denture repair kit and glued it back, but this week it came out again and got lost. We thought it was probably way past time to get her dentures checked out, anyway, and made an appointment. (Grandma, frugal as she is, protested, saying she wouldn’t live long enough to get use out of new ones…) But the dentist said it would actually be better to replace and fix the tooth rather than create a new set of dentures, and they cleaned and polished them while they had them. So that was nice in that it was a lot cheaper and it was much less of an ordeal for her (if they had made new dentures they would have had to make a new mold, etc.).

5. This guy:

That round thing is a little bird feeder that sticks onto the window via a suction cup. We have it on my mother-in-law’s window and another standing bird feeder in the grass. This guy was in this feeder when I came in, and Grandma was getting such a kick out of him, that she hardly paid attention when I said I had her new fixed dentures. I was afraid he was going to get stuck, but thankfully he got through. Personally, squirrels have kind of lost their cuteness to me over the years because they can be pests, but she got such enjoyment from his antics, and seeing him like this was pretty funny.

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. This has been 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 was one of those weeks that wasn’t bad, but wasn’t really filled with a lot of standout great things, either — unlike last week when I kept a running list all week lest I forget one of the many good things I wanted to recall. But that’s one thing FFF is good for, looking for highlights that we might otherwise miss. Here are a few:

1. McAlister’s Deli. I may have mentioned them before, but we hadn’t gotten anything from there in a long while. I almost always get a Memphian and a cup of one of their potato soups. I did notice when I went to pick up our take-out order that they have cake slices now….but I resisted. This time.

2. Rain. Though I prefer non-rainy days, we do need rain sometimes, and it’s been pretty dry lately. A brief thunderstorm yesterday helped a bit, and I think we’re due for more over the weekend.

3. The CD Wondrous Love by James Koerts. Our assistant pastor mentioned it on Facebook, and I clicked over and listened to some of the samples. I love choral music, but sometimes I love really beautiful instrumentals, too, and this CD of great piano arrangements of hymns has been played a lot at our house since I got it.

4. Jeopardy on Facebook. The last thing I need is a new game addiction, but this is limited in how much you can play, so that helps, and I set aside Wheel of Fortune to play this. Sometimes it makes me feel really dumb! But most days it helps stimulate the ol’ brain cells.

5. Willing, cheerful volunteers. Jim has always divided up the lawn-mowing with the boys, and now, of course, we only have one boy left at home. A few weeks ago when Jim had a really busy weekend, I suggested to Jesse that perhaps he could go ahead and get the grass cut on his own. This morning I was pleased when he did so on his own initiative.

Then last weekend we were getting Jason and Mittu moved into their new apartment. I don’t know why we didn’t think of calling people for help — maybe because we weren’t sure of the exact times we’d need it or more likely because we felt they didn’t have all that much stuff. But after Jim, Jason, and Jesse went to SC to get their things out of our old house there, getting off to a later start than planned, and then got back here it was after 7 p.m., and they still had to load their things here and then unload everything at the new place. While we munched on pizza, Jason texted a young couple who has befriended them to see if they were doing anything and wanted to come help. As it happened, their plans for the evening had been canceled, and they did come. Just having two extra pairs of hands helped immensely. Jim said he didn’t think we would have gotten everything unloaded that night without their help.

And now Jason and Mittu are happily setting up housekeeping in their new place.

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. This has been 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 just a few favorites from the past week:

1. My son and daughter-in-law took me out to eat. My husband and youngest son were out of town last Friday, and Jason asked me if I want to go out and try a new restaurant, Cheddars. As we drove to the restaurant, I suddenly realized I didn’t know if they were paying or if I was or if we were splitting the bill — when my husband is here he just normally pays for dinner. It turns out they were planning to pay: I think this may be the first time any of my kids has taken me out to eat, although when my oldest, Jeremy, was home he did pay for lunch a few times if he brought home fast food for us. So that was a neat experience. Great food, too!

2. Good framing coupons. I wanted to get my recently finished cross stitch piece framed, and unfortunately that can get ridiculously expensive. I had seen Michael’s coupons for 60% and sometimes even 65% off, so I was waiting for one of those. But last week both Michael’s and JoAnne’s had coupons for 50% plus 20% off framing. With those and some gift cards I was able to bring the cost down to a more reasonable level of not only that piece but another one I’ve had sitting around for a couple of years. They won’t be ready for another week or so yet. Can’t wait to see them!

3. Listening to the kids play a game. On Memorial Day, after great burgers and sausage grilled by my husband, Jason, Mittu, and Jesse played a game of Seafarers of Cataan with Jeremy in RI via Skype. I was in the next room going through old magazines, but I so enjoyed hearing them play “just like old times.”

You can’t see Jeremy’s face real well in the computer there — they had to angle it so he could see the board.

4. Booking Jeremy’s flight to come home for his birthday in August!

5. Planting flowers in my planters:

There is another one like it on the other side of the garage door. I have to confess I cheated: I wanted a mixture of different plants, and Home Depot had some in containers, and it didn’t seem to me any more expensive than buying different flats. So I just transplanted someone else’s expertise in getting different colors and heights of blooms to work together. I love it!

Hope you have a great weekend! We’ll be helping Jason and Mittu move to their new apartment — busy times!

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. This has been 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.

Love the new banner!

Here are a few favorites from the past week:

1. My son’s testimony about God’s provision of a job. Then the day he heard he got the job, his car died. God worked it out that they were able to get a new car trading in both old cars and getting a decent interest rate after some checking around for options. Though I hate that they have another payment to add on to their responsibilities, it’s good to have a reliable car under warranty with good gas mileage since they’re driving more here than they were in SC. Though they’ve had a difficult year, God is providing and things are looking up for them.

2. Chicken chimichangas from a local Mexican food restaurant. Love those! I’ve thought about trying to make them from scratch at home — but these guys do it so well.

3. School’s out! No more alarm clocks! Most days, anyway.

4. My mother-in-law’s bird feeder and a bird book. My husband had gotten her a bird feeder for Mother’s Day, and she has enjoyed so much watching the visitors. We didn’t know what all of them were, so I ordered a bird identification book for her this week which she was delighted with as well.

5. My blog returning to normal. I don’t know if any of you noticed, but for most of the week my blog format was messed up — the grey from the sidebar background was extending all the way across the blog and the widgets were not right and half of them migrated to the bottom of the blog. The WP techs worked on it and it finally got back to normal last night. (Evidently there were some unclosed HTML tags in the widgets — they didn’t seem to cause a problem til I downloaded Firefox 4). It feels so clean and neat now! It wasn’t the biggest of blog problems, but it did bug me, and I am glad to have it fixed.

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. This has been 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 will be one of those weeks where it is hard to narrow it down to five. Here goes:

1. Baby-back ribs. This has become my entree of choice at a few restaurants, and that and an excellent salad made for a scrumptious meal out last Friday night at a local place. The only bad thing about the meal was that the noise level inside the restaurant was insanely loud to me.

2. Voyage of the Dawn-Treader. We finally saw this DVD and loved it. It’s been too long since I’ve read the book to remember whether it followed it as closely as I like for films to do, but the film itself was a feast.

3. Mother-daughter luncheon at our church last Saturday. Nicely done. It was a little strange not to have a hand in this one! I did think about calling to see if they needed help, but as it turned out it was best I didn’t this time.

4. Visit from a dear friend. My friend Valorie, one of my oldest (in terms of how long we’ve known each other, not age. 🙂 ) and dearest friends, came up with her dad for just a quick visit. He was visiting her in SC and had friends about an hour from us here in TN, so they came up Sunday in time for dinner and then stayed overnight before going on to see her dad’s friends Monday, and even took me out for breakfast before they got on the road. We met way back in early married days and had kids around the same time (with her having all girls and me having all boys, you’d think there would have been one romance in there somewhere…). Val hosted my baby shower, and then when we had our first kids we lived down the street from one another and shared many walks with babies in strollers and lunches and visits to the park and breakfasts where the buffet was $2.99 and kids ate free. 🙂 It was so good to see each other and catch up a bit.

5. Unsolicited help. This past was weekend unexpectedly busy — it hadn’t clicked in my mind that with Jesse’s Junior-Senior banquet and everything involved there Friday night and then the Mother-Daughter Luncheon Saturday, time for cleaning was going to be tight. Val and I have seen each other’s houses at their worst over the years, but, still, you want to get the basics done before anyone comes over! But you can only clean so much early on without having to do it all over again before company comes. I had to head to the store after the luncheon and naively thought I’d finish my cleaning after that. While I was out my husband saw my list and got most of the tasks done on it for me. I’m not opposed to men helping around the house, but when he works 60+ hours a week and has his own lists of things he needs to do on the weekend, I figure cleaning the house on my own is the least I can do, so I don’t generally ask for help unless I’m in a bind. It was such a blessing that he pitched in and took care of those things for me.

So after a super-busy weekend, the rest of this week has been a lighter, thankfully. We have a few things coming up this next week, and then school’s out and our schedule immediately slows down! Though I miss my alone time in the summers, I do like not having to set the alarm clock and having a generally more relaxed schedule.

Hot off the press bonus: I mentioned a couple of weeks ago a serendipitous encounter that might lead to a job for Jason….I just found out that he did get the job!!! He had gone to one place to submit a resume only to find that the business he was looking for was no longer in that office. But as he talked with the man who was there, this man said he had been considering hiring someone: he had been handling his business alone and wanted to expand at some point. They talked, he had Jason do a couple of assignments to check out what he could do, he looked into what he would have to do as an employer to hire someone — and Jason just got the call this morning that the job was his. Praise the Lord!

Have a great weekend!