Friday five, Christmasy doings edition

 

Christmas 1952

Here's a quick Friday five, listing more Christmasy doings from the past week:

🎄 1. Last Saturday we found a conducive time for our Christmas tradition with four local grandkids.  We enjoyed a wonderful homemade breakfast, lots of Christmas crafting time with Grammy's crafting stash, a bit of candy making, and then a trip to Kellerhaus for ice cream sundaes.  I'll write an entire post about this on one blog or the other, but here are a couple of photos.

 

Grampa and Ari study the Rolo bag to check the candy recipe. 

The above was my sundae.  About all you can see is whipped cream, salted peanuts, and banana chips, but there was homemade vanilla ice cream under there, along with hot fudge, hot butterscotch, and warm peanut butter sauces.

🎄 2.  Our church kids and teens put on a Christmas musical play.  It was well attended and greatly enjoyed.  Below are four of our grands who took part: the older three singing and the youngest one who had an acting/singing role in the drama.

🎄 3.  My hubby helping out with lots of baking.  You can see some of the fruits of his labor below on the Christmas dessert table at our daughter's home.

🎄 4. Finding time to bake, cook, and deliver goodies to friends in this lovely season of giving.

🎄 5.  A wonderful Christmas afternoon with our daughter, her hubby and family.

 

 

There you have it!  Friday five with a Christmasy vibe!

Friday five

 

 Just a simple post today, trying to just post something every day this month as a gift to my readers and a time of thankfulness and appreciation on my part.  A Friday five suggested itself.

"By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually; that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name."   (Hebrews 13:15)

1.  So thankful for our church, our pastor, and church family.  We had a most wonderful service on Sunday, so much special Christmas music!  And lots of visitors for this special worship service.  This coming Sunday our young people are doing a Christmas musical play.

2.  Thankful for the opportunity to spend time with friends this past Saturday.  An unexpected joy in this busy season.

3.  Thankful that so many of our friends and extended family still send Christmas cards through the mail.

4.  Thankful that we had a mild December evening on Tuesday when we could spend a night at our little camp in the woods.

5.  Thankful for good walking weather.  We've been able to get out every day this week!

And there is my simple Friday five!

Friday five

 

 Just a quick Friday five today because I really do intend to post more than once a week!

1.  Getting out for a walk with a friend three times this week.  What a blessing!

A scene from our walking route -- in a previous year

2.  Having our neighbors come over to our cottage for a campfire and dessert.  So good to get to know them a little better.  I served this S'mores Pizza from Five Heart Home.

 

 

3.  Being able to spend part of last Saturday with our dear friends Syd and Cyndy, plus a visiting friend of theirs.  Christian friendship and fellowship is such a rich blessing!

4.  So looking forward to a ladies retreat at The Wilds of New England this weekend!  Getting to attend this with friends from church and learning from Denise Cunningham will be a huge blessing.

 

5. Our local daughter's family has been wondering where their cat disappeared to.  He has been gone for eight days, and there's been a large bobcat in their yard.  Early this morning the kitty woke them up by yowling under a window.  I'm no cat lover, but am so thankful he is safe!

I told you it would be quick!  But I'm thankful I could take a few minutes to post!

Friday five, vacation edition

 

 Today I thought it might be fun to do a quick Friday five just sharing a few blessings from our recent vacation.  So here goes!

1.  Time in God's creation.

We met up with friends at Table Rock State Park in South Carolina, which is where the two photos above were taken.

Sunrise from the wraparound porch of our Airbnb, above.

Both of the above photos are scenes from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

2.  Time with family.

 Scenes above from our Airbnb in North Carolina.  We were blessed to be able to have a farmhouse large enough for us, and our NH daughter's family, to all stay together comfortably.  We were even able to have Nevada granddaughter Emily with us for a short time.  Above you see cornhole on the porch on a rainy afternoon.

More grandkids posing in Mount Airy, NC.

3.  Time with friends.

In addition to our meet-up with friends in SC, Mr. T and I  spent two nights near the end of our vacation in this guest cottage where we enjoyed a visit with our good friends Judy and Tom in Pennsylvania.

4.  Time for fun.

Looks like Mayberry!

In a little town in PA, we discovered this little free greenhouse, modeled on the little free library idea.

5.  Safety traveling hundreds of miles.

This is in Greencastle, PA.

 

Where would anyone feel safer than next to Andy's squad car?

So there you have it -- a very simple Friday five.  More about our vacation next week, I hope.

Friday five

 

It's been a long time since I've done a Friday five post, and I probably shouldn't be taking time now.  But I wanted to just put up a quick post and share a few blessings from the week.

1.  My knockout rosebush is blooming again this year.  This is a big deal for me.  Our soil is pretty poor and I'm still not sure the bush will continue to survive, but so far, so good.

2.  Some productive time at home this week.  I'm thankful to have accomplished a lot on many fronts -- cleaning, Sunday School lesson prep, phone calls, and much more.

3.  Getting to stay at our little camp three nights in a row.  It's so calm and peaceful and we are forced to unplug since we don't have internet access there.  

4.  Something I've had on my list of goals month after month after month is to keep up with FlyLady's zone missions.  And I never manage it.  I'm so, so thankful that this week I was able to just jump in and do the Zone 3 missions.  That may be deserving of its own post, we will see!

5.  Increased energy, flexibility, and creativity.  Not completely sure what to attribute it to, but it might be the Redmond Relyte.   I think it really is making a difference for me.

 
As I've mentioned many times, creativity is a must in my life, something I seem to need every day, even if it's only a creative solution or approach to an everyday problem.  Recently I've begun structuring my quiet time in a different way, and it has made such a difference in how much quality time I can spend in God's Word.  I do intend to blog about this, maybe next week.  I'm wondering if I can take a similar approach to crafts I enjoy, and am hoping to work on that soon also.

And there's a simple Friday Five!

Friday five plus one: from the December archives

 

 So here are six more posts from the December archives.  We start with a wonderful crockpot recipe from 2012 for Round Steak Italiano -- just great comfort food for this chilly month, and easy too.

From 2013, A small Christmas miracle might just encourage someone as it did me when it happened.   A great reminder that God cares about little things, and He is always in the details.

My vintage shadow box, from 2014, shows off a project made from vintage bits and pieces a few years earlier.  It might inspire others to make something similar!

I will probably always love to make cut-out cookies at Christmastime, no matter how old I may grow.  Yes, it's a little work, but it's a tradition I don't want to lose completely.  In 2015 I shared some of my Favorite cut-out cookie recipes.  Check it out!  It's not too late for this year!

And speaking of cookies, The year a third-grader saved our Christmas tradition includes a sweet memory and a few related devotional thoughts.  Written in 2016, but lived years earlier.

And from 2017, A pretty outdoor decorating idea would be lovely all winter long!

Hope you've enjoyed this simple post from the December archives!

Friday five

 

Time for a Friday five!  I posted over on Instagram about these improvements at our little camp, so I will just share a little bit here as well for those who are not on IG.  Here we go!

1.  Getting two thresholds painted inside the camp.  The center section, because of its wheel wells from the when it was hauled from place to place as a lumber camp, is a step up from the kitchen on one end and the living area on the other end.  On the kitchen end, the threshold was a combination of an ugly black enamel with some unintentional green, white and gray spatters, and a piece of unfinished plywood.  On the living room end, it was an old, battered unfinished wood threshold.  I've been wanting to paint both of them gray for some time but had been dithering about paint.  Here's what I ended up using!  I did both thresholds with one 97¢ bottle!  I don't have a photo of the finished project, but will try and get one soon.

2.  Progress on the outdoor shower!  It's getting close!  Below is just a peek inside with a lot still to be done: hot water heater on the left, shower surround to the right.

 

A better look at the shower house itself:

3.  My hubby embedded these slate pieces in cement for a bottom step.  The slate pieces were in the ground in front of the door, along with the door rock partially seen at the top of the photo.  He took the middle step/set of stones from one of the many stone walls on the property.

4.  Flowers!  The plants our friend Charlotte gave us have taken hold well.  These are called Irish Eyes and I love them.

5.  (Trying not to squeal with delight over this one!)  Cold spring water piped to the kitchen sink ... courtesy of gravity and Yankee ingenuity!  What a difference it makes to have running water even if it is only cold.  Don't mind the measuring spoons in the sink.  I had been using a tablespoon to fill sachets with an herbal mixture and had placed the spoons in the sink to wash later.  They were still there when the clarion call came to turn on the faucet!

There's my simple Friday five.  Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Friday five

Trying to jump in today with a very quick and simple Friday five ...

1.  Spending Sunday afternoon and evening at our little camp.  We've never spent a Sunday night there that I remember of.   It was fun to enjoy our traditional Sunday night supper of popcorn, cheese, crackers and fruit at our camp!  Below is the view out one of the kitchen windows,  To the far left, you can just see the edge of some old stone walls that were once foundations of a farmhouse.  We visited the nursery mentioned below with the idea of getting some ground phlox that will hopefully spread over the stone walls attractively.  We got some in a periwinkle color. 

2. Visiting the Black Forest Nursery on Tuesday.  This place has expanded tremendously over the past year and is so inspiring!

3.  Spending some quality time with our friend Terry, enjoying breakfast out - as well as the above mentioned nursery visit - and later, ice cream!  The plaque below was purchased with Terry in mind, many years ago.

 

4.  Getting to attend one of granddaughter Julia's orchestra events on Monday night.  Always a blessing to listen to these talented kids!

5.  Getting to see three of our grandchildren baptized last Sunday, along with four other young people.  An added blessing is the new live stream at the church, so that their other grandmother in Ohio could watch too, as well as their cousins in Nevada!

And there are five blessings from my week!