Once again, I find myself asking, “Is it Friday again already?” And this Friday is the first one in a new month. I’m thankful Susanne at Living to Tell the Story started this weekly exercise in pausing from life’s busyness to look for God’s blessings. Last week was her 800th FFF post!

1. Another quiet week. As I mentioned last week, these are my favorite.

2. Family well again. I’ve shared that Mittu, my daughter-in-law, has been sick for several weeks, and then Timothy was. They were all at church Wednesday for the first time in almost a month. Jason said he felt like they finally turned a corner. Thankfully, he didn’t get sick.

3. Labor Day.We don’t really “celebrate” this except that most of the family has the day off and we get together to grill burgers. It’s kind of like the last hurrah of summer.

4. Not one, but TWO Chick-Fil-A biscuits in one week! 🙂 Jim brought one home for me after he went to the gym, and another after he met a friend from church at CFA for coffee.

5. Our writing critique group usually meets every other week. But during the summer, we cut back to once a month because so many of us were going to be in and out over the summer. We ended up having to cancel August’s meeting altogether–which actually helped since August was my family’s busiest month. We got back to our regular routine staring this week. Not only do I enjoy all the ladies in our group, but it’s stimulating to talk about writing and share our thoughts on each others’ work.

How’s your September going so far?

Here we are at another Friday already. Let’s slow time a moment and savor the blessings from the last week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Family outings. My oldest son, Jeremy, was with us through last weekend before going back to RI. Friday night, Jesse, my youngest, had us over for jambalaya. This was the first time Jeremy had gotten to see Jesse’s new house.

Then Saturday we went to a Hummingbird Festival at a local nature center. Didn’t see any hummingbirds. 🙂 But we did see some owls, turtles, and other nature displays. The guys went on a guided nature hike.

Then we went to the new-to-us Mexican food restaurant I mentioned a couple of weeks ago where I had the scrumptious shrimp, onion, rice, and cheese dish. Yes, I had that again, and Jesse tried and loved it, too.

2. My birthday was after Jeremy was scheduled to leave, so we celebrated it the Sunday before he left. After church, we went to one of my favorite restaurants, then headed home for presents and cake. Mittu usually makes my traditional birthday Texas Sheet Cake, but she was still sick, so Jim and Jeremy made it.

On my actual birthday, Jim brought me flowers and a Chick-Fil-A breakfast biscuit. 🙂

Then Jason, Mittu, and Timothy dropped by after the Kid’s Club at church with a card made by Mittu and a couple of Chick-Fil-A goodies (a chocolate chunk cookie and a brownie).

Then in a fun coincidence, the Strands game had a birthday theme on my birthday. At first I thought maybe that was on purpose, though I couldn’t remember having entered by birthday on their site. But when I looked it up, I saw that was just the theme that day.

3. Luscious weather. The day of the Hummingbird Festival was pretty fair weather. We still got hot and sweaty, but some delightful breezes blew occasionally. Rain had been predicted but didn’t come, except for a few drops. The cloud cover helped a lot.

Then Sunday afternoon, we went into the back yard for family photos and for Jeremy to try out his new drone. Rain was forecast again and the clouds looked threatening. But the wind and temperatures felt so good. I know we’re a long way from fall and we’ll have a lot more hot and humid days til then, but that respite felt so good.

4. Family humor. We laugh a lot when we’re all together. 🙂 As an example, when we went to the bird festival, the volunteers explained that a bird banding event was extra–they try to catch a hummingbird in a net and attach a band around its leg. That doesn’t sound too pleasant for the hummingbird, but the sessions would explain why it’s done. We didn’t sign up for that part. After we paid for our general admission tickets, volunteers placed a band around our wrists. Jeremy joked that when you’re a nature center and banding is your only tool, you band everything and everyone, including visitors. 🙂

Then while waiting in line, I pointed out to Jesse one of the features the sign listed was a “live animal display.” I commented that the wording seemed funny–why would they designate “live?” The first display we saw had a stuffed bat and bat skeleton and a glass case with pinned butterflies specimens. Jesse said, “What happened to the live animals?” 😀 We did see some later.

5. Connect Four is a program at church were ladies who want to participate can sign up, then they are divided into groups of four. Each group is supposed to meet once a month over the next four months, to do whatever the group wants to do. Probably most meet for lunch at someone’s home or at a restaurant, but some do other activities like hike or play games. Our group had they first get-together yesterday. Thankfully I had at least met and talked with everyone, so none was a complete stranger to me. But it was fun getting to know everyone better. The conversation flowed for a couple of hours.

It’s been a nice blend of activities and rest. I hope you’ve had a good week as well.

It’s Friday again, when I pause with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to reflect on the good things from the week.

1. My oldest son is home. He came in last Friday from RI. It’s been a low-key week so far—Mittu has had a horrible respiratory infection (tested negative for Covid, flu, and strep), and Jim, Jason, and I have had touches of various things through the week. But we’ve enjoyed being together and talking, and we hope to get out to do some things later on.

2. Clingman’s Dome is the highest point in TN. There’s an observation tower with a great view of the surrounding area. Jim and Jeremy hiked the trail to the tower Monday and enjoyed it the scenery.

3. Jeremy’s birthday. I’m glad he could be here to celebrate it!

4. An easy fix. I was having trouble with my most-used outlet in our bathroom working intermittently and then not at all. Jim took his tester in there, thinking he might have to replace the outlet. After he unscrewed and tested it, he found an inner screw was loose. That took care of the problem!

5. A revitalized hair dryer. In the course of trying to fix the above problem, we thought at first my hair dryer might be having trouble. It was what worked the least in the outlet before it went kaput. Jim opened it up and cleaned out the lint and dust. Now it blows better than it has in a long time!

That’s our week! How was yours?

The first full week of August has been a hot and busy one. I’m pausing with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to deliberately look and be thankful for the good things of the week lest we overlook them.

1. A baby shower for a family at church. This is the first one I’ve been to at this church–actually, the first one in a long time. It’s fun to get together with ladies outside of church and oooh and aaaah over all the baby things.

2. A new handrail. One day this week as I stepped out onto the ramp from our house into the garage, I almost fell. I didn’t trip or stumble–I just started sliding like Tarzan’s tree surfing in the animated movie (though without his style). Jim heard me yelp, and I told him what happened. We’ve had that ramp since we moved his mother here over ten years ago, and that has never happened before.

The next day I opened the same door and found Jim installing a handrail alongside the ramp. ❤

3. Lunch with Melanie at Cracker Barrel. We always enjoy both the meal and the talk.

4. Ruby Tuesday’s rewards. We don’t get take-out from there often, but every now and then we want something besides fast food. When Jim suggested it, I looked through my e-mails from them and found a buy one entree, get another for $3 offer.

5. Jim’s help. My oldest son is coming in this weekend, so we’ve been in flurry of cleaning. He’s lived in my less-than-spotless house and even helped clean it for company. But someone coming in provides a good time to get to some of the housecleaning tasks I don’t do every week. (The problem is . . . I still have all the regular weekly things to do. 🙂 ) Jim surprised me by cleaning all the bathrooms, and did a much more through job than I could have (he’s got a scrubber thing that he uses with his drill–the showers have never been so clean!) Then I asked him if he would clean the ceiling fans–my little Swiffer wasn’t getting all the dust off. So he did that and went to the store for me as well.

Bonus: Jason and Mittu celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary this week!

That’s my week. How was yours/

This is one of those weeks where I get to the end, sit down to write a Friday’s Fave Five post, and think, “Wait . . . what did happen this week?” 🙂 I try to keep a running list of things to mention on Friday, but failed to this week. I appreciate this weekly exercise in gratefulness with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story. Sometimes I have to look and think a little harder, but there are always blessings to be found.

1. Internet issues fixed. We’d been having weird Internet issues for a while now. My husband replaced a part–a signal distributor, I think. But everything works fine now.

2. An updated bathroom. We’ve been in this house almost fourteen years, and the whole interior needed repainting. Jim did two bedrooms and our bathroom while he was still working, but decided to save the rest til retirement, when he could work without having to stop and start on weekends or evenings. This week he painted what we call the “guest bathroom” and replaced the flooring there. It looks so much brighter! The old walls were a yellowish kind of beige, and he’s covering them with a light grey.

I didn’t take a before picture, but here’s after:

3. Hashtags. I don’t do a lot with my Instagram account besides post a link back to my Sunday posts and some books reviews. But it always took a long time to add the appropriate hashtags. I finally did something I’ve thought about for a while: I made groups of hashtags for different posts (blog post, quotes, book reviews, Bible verses memes) in the Notes app on my phone. Now I can just copy and paste them.

4. The Olympics. I’m not terribly interested in athletics most of the time, but I do like watching some of the Olympics. We just see the NBC coverage in the evenings. As I said in my end-of-month post, I only saw the last hour of the opening ceremonies, so I missed the controversial parts. But I heard about them the next day. Though I experienced several emotions, I didn’t feel I needed to boycott watching the coverage. It’s not the athletes’ fault that the program directors did what they did.

5. Avoiding rain. I was going to run errands Tuesday afternoon, but then we were hit with thunderstorms. More were in the forecast Wednesday, but I had to get things done, so I headed out, hoping for the best. Thankfully, I only caught a few raindrops between the car and a store.

That’s my week. How was yours?

It’s hard to fathom we’re at the last Friday of July already. I like to intentionally pause with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to look back at the good things of the week and cultivate thankfulness.

1. Hot spots. Our Internet access was wonky one day this week, so I was glad I could set up a hot spot between my phone and iPad to do the things that needed to get done online that day.

2. A safe trip for Jason, Mittu, and Timothy. They drove to OK for Mittu’s cousin’s wedding reception and saw Mittu’s folks and several friends while they were there.

3. Jason’s birthday was actually last week, the day they left on their trip. So we celebrated last night. Mittu made a banana split trifle instead of a cake. Delicious and pretty!

4. Family group texts. Jason and Mittu shared things they saw on their trip in real time, making us feel a part of it. Pus we all share news or funny memes or reels or concerns that way.

5. Rain. Our area had a dry spell for quite a while there. We haven’t had as much rain as was forecast, but we’ve gotten a good bit.

Happy Friday!

I’m pausing for a moment with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to look back at the good things of the week.

1. Freezer organization. We have a side-by-side freezer and refrigerator. I keep the frozen items I use most often in this freezer and save the bigger or lesser-used frozen foods for the chest freezer in the garage. The one in the kitchen was full of bagged things that probably save space, but slide around. Plus I couldn’t see what was in the very back and bottom. So on Saturday, I dragged the table over, put most of the freezer contents on it, and put like things together. I got rid of a couple of things. Jim unstuck the bottom drawer for me, and I pulled it out out to clean it. It felt good to get reacquainted with what was there and have things in better order.

2. Surprise sausage. One of the freezer items I hadn’t realized I had was a partial roll of ground sausage. I’m not sure what it was doing there—I don’t get it often, and I usually brown it all at once when I do have it. I thawed it out, browned it, used some for these crescent sausage rolls for dinner, some for a breakfast burrito the next day, and sprinkled some on a couple of pieces of leftover pizza. And I still have some left!

3. Trying something new. After church on Sunday, Timothy suggested going out to a restaurant. 🙂 We hadn’t done that in a while–often their care group or ours meets for Sunday lunch. But none of us had anything scheduled that day. Our first choice of restaurant was crowded, with a line extending out the door. So they suggested a nearby Mexican restaurant we hadn’t been to before. The menu didn’t have my usual Mexican food entree choices, but something called Cozumel Rice caught my eye–grilled shrimp with Mexican rice, topped with cheese sauce. It was so good.

4. A good visit. Mittu’s aunt and uncle from OK were traveling nearby in TN and stopped to spend a few hours at Jason and Mittu’s house. J&M invited us over as well. We enjoyed the time visiting with them–we hadn’t seen them since Jason and Mittu’s wedding.

5. Lindor Lindt Milk Chocolate Truffles, my favorite candy. Jim saw them on sale at the grocery store and brought back a couple of bags. I try to keep consummation of them under control by rationing one or occasionally two a day.

Bonus: We had much-needed soaking rain yesterday.

Any special blessings from your week?

Friday is here again, time to pause with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story and count the week’s blessings. Mine are mostly simple pleasures this week.

1. A grocery delivery snafu that worked out. On Saturday, I stopped to look out the front door window, and noticed a bunch of groceries on our front porch. We hadn’t ordered any. The name on the bags wasn’t anyone we knew. I called the store, but they said we could keep them–even if they came to pick them back up, they couldn’t deliver them to the original customer after the goods had been out of the store’s hands. They said they’d send the customer a refund.

Before we brought the groceries in, though, we decided to call one neighbor who knows everyone on the next three streets to see if she knew the name on the bags. While we were doing that, someone pulled up and said she thought the groceries were hers. She turned out to be the granddaughter of one of our neighbors. I’m glad it all worked out okay and she got her stuff without having to order them all over again.

2. Flowers. We had planted wildflowers from seeds, and they are really taking off now! It’s so pretty to see them from the kitchen window.

As they were coming up, we weren’t sure what was flower and what was weed until they started blooming. So I think some weeds are mixed in there. 🙂 I’m not sure what that tall feathery thing is.

In addition, the planters are filling out nicely. We had planted zinnias from seeds for the first time, and they’re coming up well, too, though they haven’t bloomed yet.

I’m thankful my husband faithfully keeps everything watered

3. Our first squash. We haven’t planted vegetables in many years, but my husband planted yellow squash and tomatoes this year. Both are coming along, and he brought in our first squash today (Thursday).

4. Hummingbirds. We didn’t see any even though I put the feeder out several weeks ago. I decided to make a new batch and have seen several now. The wildflowers we planted are supposed to be the kind that attracts them, so hopefully we’ll see more.

5. An Apple gift card. I’d had one for some time, but hadn’t loaded into my account so it wouldn’t get frittered away. I wish Apple and Amazon would let us adjust settings so they don’t automatically use gift cards as the first payment option. The Apple gift card can be used for iTunes, and I was able to buy a few songs this week.

How was your week?

We’re officially halfway through 2024. Can you believe it? On Fridays I take a few moments to join with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to slow down and be thankful for the good things of the past week.

1. Guys’ camping trip. Jim, Jason, and Timothy went camping for a few days about an hour from here. I drove up on Friday for a few hours and ate dinner with them. Jim made what his mom used to call hobo packets: a burger patty (we used turkey burgers) with potatoes and vegetables seasoned and wrapped with foil, that could be given out, and these men would cook them over their campfires. Jim put frozen French fries in his, which I thought might get soggy. But they didn’t, probably because the turkey burgers were less greasy than ground beef. It was a good meal and a nice time to visit outdoors. Then I got to come home to my own bed and AC. 🙂 (Mittu didn’t come because she wasn’t feeling well.)

I passed a Dunkin Donuts on the way there and decided to stop and get a box of Munchkins on the way back. I don’t actually like their donuts much, but I like the Munchkins. Plus their box triggers special memories for me: when my mother’s father used to come visit us, he always brought a box of Dunkin Donuts. I can hardly see their logo without thinking of him.

2. Easy meals. Monday, Jim said he had a couple of his uncooked “hobo packets” still in the RV refrigerator and asked if I wanted to use them for dinner. Sure! Then Tuesday night, I came into the kitchen to start dinner and saw that he already had. Wednesday night, I used a package of frozen shredded chicken to make chicken tacos.

3. Lunch with a friend. Melanie and I used some accumulated gift cards for lunch at Red Lobster. Thankfully, most restaurants that we go to don’t mind if we hang around and talk for an hour or more after we finish eating (and the places aren’t crowded at lunch time, so we’re not keeping anyone else from being seated). We even thought to take a picture this time.

4. A love note with a newly-bloomed wildflower. We planted wildflowers from seeds this year, though we probably started them a little late. This one was one of the first flowers to show up.

5. Independence Day. Our country is not perfect and has its share of problems, but I am immensely glad that I was born here. We enjoyed burgers and sides with the family and played games. They brought over sparklers and “Pop-its.” We saw a few bigger fireworks displays, but most were obscured by trees.

Bonus: Catching up on housework. With the last several weeks being extra busy, I had gotten behind on things that didn’t absolutely have to be done. Housework is not my favorite thing to do, but I do like the results. And dusting gave me a chance to listen to my Dickens audiobook.

Another bonus. A literal empty nest. I’ve shown pictures over the last few weeks of a bird’s nest, then eggs, then baby birds in our front flower arrangement. I think they were house finches. They are gone already! That was quick. They left quite a mess. I thought I could salvage some of the flowers, but I ended up throwing them all away. Even though we enjoyed having them, it will be nice to use our front door normally without fear of startling the mama bird.

That’s our first week of July. How was yours?

Here we are at the end of June already. Pausing to reflect on the blessings of the week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story helps slow time just a bit–or at least it helps us enjoy the good things a bit longer.

1. A fairly quiet week after two busy ones.

2. A routine dentist’s visit. Though the dentist’s office is not my favorite place to be, even just for a cleaning, this appointment was about as non-problematic as it could be.

3. Rain has been much needed around here, and we got a bit this week, with more forecast for the weekend.

4. Visiting with CA relatives. All of my husband’s extended family lives on the west side of the country. We learned that the husband and son of his niece in CA were going to be about two hours away from us here in TN last week. Both our nephew-in-law and great nephew have been involved with the high school robotics team for several years and were going to be in TN for a MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education) ROV competition. The teams built their own robots and had them perform underwater tasks based on real-life scenarios.

I had thought we’d only have a brief time with our family members, since they’d be busy with the competition. But as it turned out, only six members of the team could be on the floor during the competition, minus their coach. So not only were we able to visit, but Mike, our nephew-in-law and also the coach, was able to give us a play-by-play commentary during the team’s turn–which was very helpful, as I did not know what was going on. 🙂

None of these is my great nephew’s team, but it gives you an idea of the setting. The robot had to go in and out of the water from the white square.

Split screens in the bleachers showed the activity from a live feed from underwater cameras. Again, these were not for the team we were rooting for, but it showed two teams at a time, side by side.

My great-nephew’s team was one of only a couple of high school teams: the rest were college teams from all over the world. And his team had one the last three years! They came in second this year, but that’s still a record to be proud of.

Jason, Mittu, and Timothy came as well. I think Timothy had a different kind of robot in mind before we went. He asked if they were going to do battle bots. 🙂 But I think he enjoyed the experience, especially some little dolphins our great nephew made for his team’s display table.

5. Baby birds in my front flower arrangement.

Happy Friday!