Four of my favorite things

At least currently. 
And in no particular order.

1.  Having my kids visit on non-holiday weekends. 
This really is number 1 on the list.  The others below can go in any order :)
My daughter has a long weekend for mid-term break from school so she drove home in nine hours.  It's been so much fun having her back!  I haven't seen her for two months and won't see her again until Christmas break, so I am enjoying this.  We spent afternoons running errands and I was soaking up the time with her.  I forced her to watch an old movie with me, Good Neighbor Sam with Jack Lemmon.  I loved this movie as a kid and haven't seen it in years.  She thought it was pretty funny too. 
I'll see my son at Thanksgiving and am looking forward to some time with him too.

2.  Pumpkin Pie chocolates from See's Candies.
Oh - My - Gosh!  I bought some candies for a friend and decided to get one of those to try.  WOW!  If you like pumpkin anything you have to try these.  I am not kidding!  This was one of the stops with my daughter just so I could buy some more.  Still so good.  Seriously, go get some.

3.  Being an empty nester.
I have to admit, I was a bit nervous about not having the kids home, but it's been really great.  Don't get me wrong.  I love my kids!  And as you read above, I'm enjoying the time with them when they come home.  But....it really has been nice not worrying about feeding them, where they are, cleaning up after them.  Hubby and I have been enjoying ourselves and I feel, two months into it, we've been doing a great job being just husband and wife with no kids. 

4.  Kettle Korn
Enough said.  But here's the great thing about this one.  I have a recipe to share.  My hubby and I went to our neighbor's home for an evening and they had some kettle korn and shared with us.  It was very good and homemade.  So not only did they share the recipe, we made two batches and they let us take one home.  So of course I've been making kettle korn almost non-stop.  It is so easy and I hope you enjoy it too.

Kettle Korn
3 Tbls oil
1/2 Cup kernels
1/3 Cup sugar
Salt to taste

In a stock pot heat oil and 2 or 3 kernels until they pop.  I put my stove temperature just past medium (I have an electric range).  Add the remaining kernels, stir.  Add the sugar and stir.  There will be a few clumps, this is ok.  I do stir a bit more then cover and shake on the stove top until popping is done.   Pour onto a cookie sheet and salt.  I use quite a bit of salt. 

Try not to eat in one sitting.  Good luck with that. 

What things you are enjoying right now?

Catching Up

What's been going on here, you ask?  Well, let me tell you (in no particular order).

1.  I/we are empty nesters!  Yes, it really is a good thing, so far.  My two kiddos (can I really call them that anymore?) are off to college.  My son is 5 hours away and my daughter is 9 - by car.  I am very excited for them and where they chose to go to school.  They are both at the right place for them.

2.  I think a daughter going to prom from the mother's perspective is practice, in a very small way, for her wedding.  We had to alter her dress.  Her dress was long and gorgeous!  She was able to get her hair and make-up done for less than half what is normally the charge at a salon.  And she looked gorgeous!

3.  Obviously from #1 and #2, my daughter graduated high school.

4.  We just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.  We celebrated by taking a trip to Maui!  Of course we left kids behind, duh.  What a great time we had.  I highly recommend snuba.  Snuba is a combination of snorkeling and scuba diving without certification.  We went on a snorkeling trip and with snuba you wear a weight belt and have a breathing regulator while your oxygen tank is floating above you with a 25 foot breathing tube.  The instructor took us around the bottom of the ocean and we were able to experience scuba diving in a very benign way.  Loved it!  Our condo was right up against the ocean and at times we could feel the mist from the waves.  Here's the best sunset view from our balcony. 

 

5.  Wind storm X 3.  We experienced three wind storms within 20 days of each other and they were all 10 days apart.  Our damage happened on the first one.  As we were watching the backyard we saw our very stable wood fence bow then break away from the fence and an 8 foot section was swept up and somersaulted in the air.  I now have a better understanding of the Wizard of Oz.  It was amazing to watch such force. 

Bye-bye fence.  Yes, it landed inches from the 14,000 gallon pool.  The two wooden posts you see in the picture are not from the fence but the neighbor's garden.  Our fence posts were snapped at the base.  After watching this damage we decided to look out front.  Oh no!  We lost four trees.  Two small ones broke and two very large ones came down - these were healthy trees.  The one in front of our yard snapped about a foot in the ground.  Not a single root was lifted as is normally the case.  Our pine tree dropped and clipped the neighbors rain gutters and fell across their driveway completely blocking off the garage. 

 

We also lost many roof shingles and many more were damaged.  The end result, we have a partial new fence.  We now own a chain saw.  Eight trips to the dump to discard of the tree limbs.  Our new roof is rated for 130 mile winds.  Let's hope we don't need to test that. 

 





6.  I missed my 30th high school reunion because we were dropping my daughter off at college but my three sisters and I did get to my step-sister's wedding.  We all came in from out-of-town (2 from out of state) and it was a great time with the girls.  Even took in a Mariner's game and saw Felix Hernandez pitch! 

7.  I tried eyelash extensions.  Love them!  But way, way too expensive for me to maintain.  Back to puny eyelashes.

8.  Even though football has started I still am watching every Mariner's game and rooting for a playoff spot.  Hey, when you name your dogs Spikes and Cleats you have to watch baseball to the end. 

I think I've caught you up on the happenings here.  Hope you all are well and would love to hear from you and what you have been doing. 



I am here

Yes, it's been way too long since I've posted.  Sometimes the everyday life takes all my time.  I've felt a bit overwhelmed, which surprised me.  Between work, son off to college, aging, daughter getting herself in order so she can go off to college this fall, and everything in between I feel like I am just barely making it. 

But after yesterday I had to post:

YEAH HAWKS!!!!!

I can't tell you how excited I am to see the Seahawks win the Super Bowl!  I have been in a great mood all day (and I had a crazy long day).  Just had to shout out a bit yippee for the team.

Our house is done

At least the paint job is done.  Really, is a house ever completely done?

My dear hubby spent the summer, on his time schedule, scraping, priming specific areas, and cleaning the entire house.  He then painted the main floor, by hand - no sprayer for him, and two coats.  He also did all the trim in two coats too.  We did hire a guy to paint the top level.  I think that was money well spent since I didn't have to worry about the height and my honey's safety.  Let a pro handle that. 

Here's our two toned home we had for awhile before the painter came.

Now that the painter finished the job it looks so much better; and I'm sure the neighbors appreciate a completed house too.

On to the next project.

Now you see it...

Doesn't that look like a nice pine tree? (It's a White Pine, I'm told.)  It's a perfect size to block the view into the neighbors yard.  And to block their view into ours.  It doesn't drop too many needles either.  Look closely.  I have a worker in the picture.  Because......

The tree leans.  It's always leaned at the base and then grew straight at the top.  We didn't worry about it until two weeks ago.  We live in an area of town that is like a wind tunnel.  It can be windy everywhere, but when you get to our area, the winds increase and blows so much harder.  And this poor tree grew valiantly against the wind for about 20 years.  But as I said, about 2 weeks ago we had some huge gusts, 60 mph'ers.  The poor girl withstood the pounding.  Then a week ago we had close to 50 mph winds and I went to check on it.  The trunk near the ground was swaying.  I don't know much about trees, but I'm thinking if you can see the base of the trunk sway, that's probably not a good thing.  If she was going to drop it was going to be in the neighbor's yard, possibly clipping their roof and most definitely taking out that fence.  We decided we didn't want to risk it.  So after a few phone calls, we decided on a local tree cutting company and today they showed up.  It was like watching a dance; so precise.

The climber clipped on his spikes and had a rope around his waste and climbed a bit, cut the limbs he could reach, moved the rope up, climbed/spiked up, cinched the rope, cut more limbs, repeat.

Such precision in cutting the back branches.  He would make a partial cut, bend the limb back into our yard, then cut off completely.  There were two other guys on the ground pulling the limbs to the front of the house and running them through the shredder.

Off came the top.  I will tell you, I was saying a few prayers as I watched the guy climb up.  Prayed for his safety and that the tree wouldn't topple over.  They estimated it was a good 40 feet tall. As he descended, he cut through that trunk in 3 foot sections.

They came, cut and cleaned in about an hour.  It was actually quite impressive.  Now we no longer have privacy and plan to plant another tree(s) next spring.  Until then, we are exposed.

Now you see it.....

Now you don't.

I was talking with the owner of the company as this was happening and he said they shred the limbs and keep the trunk.  (We don't burn wood, so we didn't need it.)  All his guys have wood burning fireplaces so they take what they need.  The owner also gives some of the wood away to charity and also sells to low income families for less than half the cost of what is normally charged for wood.  That made me feel even better about choosing this company.


Have any of you had any drastic changes to your homes recently or plan any modifications before winter?

A really nice day

Or a really nice weekend.

Last night my daughter was hanging out with her friends so my hubby and I went out to dinner.  It is so nice not having to worry about how the kids are going to eat.  I've decided a while ago that come Fridays I am not cooking.  I'll put in a take-n-bake pizza, but that's the extent of my Friday cooking.  We enjoyed an enjoyable night out - good food and drink and wonderful company.

Today we decided to go to our college's football game.  I forgot that it was homecoming, and our graduating years were part of the homecoming festivities.  We got to the game at half time and walked to the alumni area. Within a few seconds, I hear my name called and see a couple of gals I haven't seen in years!  Oh how fun it was to see these gals.  We exchange Christmas cards but that's about all the communication I've had with them.  And how pathetic, one of them lives in town here with me.  I spent the entire time chatting with them.  My dear hubby went to watch a bit of the game.  I have the local gal's email and really hope to rekindle a friendship with her.

I can't believe it's been just over 25 years since I graduated from college.  Oh my. I'm getting old.  But, my friend is my age and has kids that are just starting school where mine are just finishing.  I like the just finishing school kids better.  Next year at this time I will be an empty nester; and I'm OK with that.  Actually, I'm kind of excited about that. 

Our plans for tomorrow are to get to church then go to the traveling Vietnam Memorial that is in our city.  I never really liked history, but I sure do want to see this memorial because I am extremely patriotic and very military supportive.  My Dad was Air Force so anything that has to do with the military defaults as near and dear to me. 

To top it all off, we have have great sunny weather.  So with it being only Saturday night, I'm still predicting this to be a great weekend. 

How has your weekend been panning out?

One more hour

My baby (OK, so he's not so small - 6' 2+" and not too young - an adult, actually) is coming home for the weekend and will be here in about an hour.  I really didn't expect to see him until Christmas.  He doesn't have a car at college and I didn't know if there was anyone from our area at his school. 

Luckily, he met and made friends with another kid from our town and he even has a car. 

We received a call earlier this week from our son asking if it would be OK if he came home this weekend.  Are you kidding?  YES! 

I'm actually surprised as to how excited I am to see him.  Hopefully we'll get a few hours with him since there are a few guys from high school still in town. 

Either way, my baby is coming home this weekend and I am so excited. 

Darn those appliances

If you read the post below then you know we made it home after getting our dogs and a pizza.  Who wants to cook after 5 hours driving home?  Not me!  Problem was, the oven wasn't heating up.  Well, after 1 hour it finally reached temperature.  I'm quick - I knew right then and there we had a problem. 

I put the pizza in the oven and after the allotted time the top looked wonderful but the bottom was doughy.  Yup, we had a burned out heating element.  My very smart hubby suggested I finish cooking the pizza on the stove top.  I cut the pizza in slices and fried each slice so the bottom cooked.  Worked great! 

The next day, Sunday, I called Sears to see about getting a new heating element.  They were sorry but they don't sell those in the stores.  What??  Monday I called and ordered our part.  My worry was what should be a simple task rarely ever is.  One of our family motto's is "nothing's easy".   About 4 days later the part came.  I read reviews about how to install.  Again, sounded easy, but....
Luckily, it wasn't too bad.  We were able to get that installed in about 20 minutes.  Not to shabby for us.

Oven is working great.

On to the microwave.  Ugh.  About a week ago we tried to heat up some food and a loud pop was heard with sparks flying in the microwave.  Umm, turn it off - FAST!  Out comes the owners manual and looking up the warranty.  Of course, we purchased that bugger 1 year and 18 days ago.  The warranty was for 1 year.  Have I said ugh yet? 

I call the store we purchased it from.  "Sorry, we can't do anything for you since you didn't purchase the extended warranty.  You can come in and purchase a new one - we have 16 in stock."  Thank you, I'll try GE directly.  Why do appliances go out on the weekends?  On Monday I called and they were very nice and sent out a repair guy the next day to look at it - at their cost.  The hook that holds the tray inside burned and once that happens if you try to use the machine it will continue to spark.  He took out the plastic part and ordered a new one.  It works great now and thank you, GE, for taking care of my microwave 18 days after the warranty.  All it cost me was a few minutes on the phone. 

As of now everything seems to be in working order. 

And then there was one.

I now only have one child at home.  We dropped one off at college and now it's just the three of us.

I did exceptionally well, I must say, controlling my tears.  (I am a weeper!  I carry this family in the emotional area of tears since I tend to be the only one equipped with them.)

I took a few days off from work, we loaded, and I mean LOADED, up the car and headed off to take my son to college and then look at a couple of other schools for my daughter.  Dropping him off brought back so many memories of my college life.  So many fun times.  So many hard times, too.  But all a part of the transition from the comforts of home to eventually being out on my own.  I loved college and am excited for my kids to experience all college life has to offer.  I met my best girlfriend at school and of course the best part was meeting my husband.  We are about to hit our 24th wedding anniversary.  At 25 years we will be empty nesters!

Back to current events.  We got him unloaded, bed made, and off to the bookstore to pick up shirts and sweatshirts.  We barely saw him after that.  He got his books and took off.  We made our purchases and walked the campus.  Beautiful school with amazing views.  Met up with him back in his room to say good-bye and we were off for a three hour drive to visit a school for my daughter. 

No tears!

Next morning up and out to meet with the admissions counselor and walk the grounds of potential school #1.  Another beautiful campus.  I really liked the school and felt it was a perfect fit for my daughter but wanted to hear her thoughts.  She was feeling the same.  

Back in the car for a two hour drive to visit potential school #2.  A much bigger university, 14,000 students versus 1,000 from the school we just came from.  Very good school, another beautiful campus in a wonderful town.  I didn't get the personal vibe like the first.  My daughter liked it but felt it was quite large.  If she pursues the major she is currently thinking she wants to do, then school #1 would be the best fit - and she thinks so too. 

Back in the car for the last one hour drive back to the town my son is in.

Up the next morning to go to convocation for the freshmen and see him for the last time until, most likely, Christmas break.  We said our good-byes and prayed over him.  He told us he is looking forward to us leaving (brat :)) and my last "I love you" was a bit raspy from holding back a few tears as I got in the car.  But that was all. 

I am comforted knowing this is the school I believe God chose for him to attend.  We drove the five hours home, picked up our dogs, ordered a pizza and began to settle in as a family of three.

Waiting for my mom

My mom is coming to visit soon.  I can’t wait to see her since she lives a few states away.  I’m not sure when I’ve seen her last, it’s been too long!  She should be here in about a week.  Yippee!

Also plan to paint my daughter’s room over Labor Day weekend. 

This next week I will need to make sure my daughter has all her school supplies.  I have some but will need to do a bit of shopping before the year begins.

I’ll be busy this next week.

Technorati Tags: Family

Minor breakdown

I feel quite foolish.  I've been doing quite well, I think, with the realization that my first born is heading off to college.  To be completely truthful, I am excited for him to head off and discover life on his own; so to speak.  But....

The other day, just a few days before we were to take him to school I had a moment.  Totally out of the blue - but isn't that when "moments" tend to happen?  I am at the grocery store buying ingredients to make his favorite dinner, terriake chicken.  I'm making his last home-made dinner before we take off.  I'm OK with it.  I gather all my items and about to head to the checkout.  I end up taking the candy isle towards the registers and see his favorite candy on sale.  Perfect.  I'll grab some so he'll have some of his favorite in his dorm room.  Good plan, bad execution.  I almost lost it as I put the candy in my cart.  Go figure chocolate would bring a mom to tears. 

I gathered myself and made it to the registers.  Second round of holding back the tears happened when I put that darn candy on the conveyor belt.  Get it together, girl.  I managed to purchase my items and get to the car before the tears began to flow.  I sat in my car for a few minutes with tears streaming down my cheeks. 

As excited as I am to have my baby move on, it doesn't mean it's easy to let him go.  I am sure I will have a few more days of that, before and after he's gone.  But that is what my role of a mom is and I WILL get through it.  I'll look at it as practice for next year because I get to do it all over again when my daughter leaves next summer. 

Yummy Marinade

I was searching my pile of recipes for a new dinner option and came across this one.  The family liked it - bonus!  Let me warn you, there is a lot of garlic and ginger, so adjust as needed for your personal taste. 
The recipe was for kebabs, but I think just soaking cut up chicken and then stir-frying would be perfect.  Then thicken with cornstarch and you should have a great dinner.

Garlic-Balsamic Chicken Kebab

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar
1/4 cub dry white wine
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
4 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns (I used a few shakes of ground pepper)
1 tablespoons grated fresh ginger (I used minced ginger)
1 1/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 large red onion, cut into bite-size chunks

In a blender, combine all but the chicken and onion.  Puree until smooth.  Reserve half of the marinade and refrigerate it. Pour the remaining marinade into a large bowl or zip lock bag.  Add the chicken and onions, then stir to coat.  Cover and refrigerate for about 1 1/2 hours. 

Now you can either put the chicken and onions onto kebabs and grill or stir fry.  If doing kebabs, put remaining marinade in a saucepan and boil to condense and thicken.  If stir frying, add marinade after chicken is cooked.  Add cornstarch diluted in water to thicken and serve with rice.

I hope you enjoy. 
I found this recipe in our local paper a few years ago written by J. M. Hirsch.

BUSY

How have you all been?  It seems like we have been going non-stop but don't have much to show for it.  Ever have one of those days....or weeks?

The last couple of weeks have kept us going.  My hubby is working hours a day on painting the house.  He's painting by hand and we have boards that have grooves in them, so he has to use the paint brush for the grooves and can roll the flat; which means double the time to paint.  But it sure is looking great!  It took over 20 samples of paint to find the color we settled on.  Actually, it was one of the first we liked but needed to work through all the other colors to be sure.  Even when we decided on the color it felt more like we were settling on it and that it was the best of the bunch.  There was never a moment of, 'This is THE one!" feeling.  Now that it's on, we are loving it!  I am so happy with the color (it's a green with a bit of blue tint).  The more the house gets painted the happier I am that we chose this one.

There has also been a lot of tending to household items and getting ready for our son to head off to college.  We've been making many lists, one of the things I do which you can read more about here.  Trying to be frugal, we are using as much from home as possible (like towels, pillow, blankets, etc.).  We thought we were doing a great job by buying some sheet sets last fall for super cheap.  Come to find out, beds in colleges are twin XL, who knew?  I'm keeping those sheet sets for when my son moves into an apartment.  Plus it's been so long since we purchased them I am sure the store won't take them back. 

The gal that hit my husband and daughter finally had her day in court.  That had been pushed back multiple times.  We did not take her to court, the state did.  She was under the influence of Meth and had other drugs in the car and was an unlicensed driver when she hit them.  Plus she had been charged with a crime prior to our crash.  She is in jail for a bit longer and I do hope she can stay out of trouble when released.

We finished our softball season - didn't end well, but that's OK.  Just indicative of the way this year went.  Had a very enjoyable barbecue party after though.  That really is the highlight of the season.  The one takeaway we had for this year is we discovered a great new pizza place.  Hubby and I have gone back a few times and found a "keeper" for a go-to place for dinner. 

No big plans for the weekend.  My daughter is away at her friend's cabin and of course hubby is outside painting as I type.  My only plan is to tackle the laundry, dishes and clean up this filthy home since it's been neglected for the last couple of weeks. 

How about you?  What are your plans for the weekend?

Just Stuff

It's been a while since I've blogged so here is a bit of what has been going on in my life:

1.  We took a few days off and went to Palm Desert, CA.  Yes, we are a bit crazy to do this near July, but the rates were too good to pass up.  Check out the view from our hotel room.  Left just before it got to 117 degrees.  Good timing :)

2.  We've harvested some lettuce.

 Doesn't it look like we purchased these beautiful greens?  Yup, we grew them in our backyard.  I have to admit, I took a great deal of time of washing each and every leaf.  I am a city girl and proud of it.  Seeing a bug or two on my food does NOT appeal to me.  A few slugs were washed away (and garbage disposaled, for good measure).

3.  I am nearing the age of 50.  That just does not seem possible.  I don't think I look or feel 50, but I may be biased.  I'm not there yet, but very close.

4.  Saw my best friend today.  I am lucky to see her once a year.  She lives out of state but she has family near by.  We are only 5 days apart in age.  My youngest child will be a senior in high school; her youngest will be a second grader.

5.  Speaking of my best friend.  Her son is very creative.  It's been hot so check out his way of cooling off.
 

In case you can't tell - he put a liner in the back of a pick up truck and filled it with water.  He's lounging in an inner tube.  He also didn't like the school lunches so one day he cooked hot dogs on a Hibachi in the back of said truck.  I love that guy!

6.  One more best friend moment - we picked cherries.  They are sweet and yummy.  I plan to pit them and freeze most to put in smoothies.

7.  My "baby" heads off to college in just over a month.  I can't believe he's old enough to leave, yet I am so excited for him and all that growing up has to offer.

8.  Painting the house takes a really, really long time.  My dear hubby is meticulously working on the first level.  Slow as it may be, it looks so great.  After 20+ color swatches we painted on the back of the house we settled on one of the first ones we liked and we are very happy with the results so far.

9.  My toenail is broken too close to the bottom.  I stubbed it and now hope it can grow out before it comes off.  I keep polishing it hoping that will keep it on a bit longer.  Sorry, probably too much info, but hey, you never know what you'll get here.

10.  I am in a rut in regards to dinners.  Does anyone have any recipe ideas?

There you have it.  Anything interesting, or not, happening in your life?

Graduation

I can't believe my baby boy is now a high school graduate.  I can't express how proud we are of him - he's become such a fine young man, an honorable man, a smart man, and just an all around great guy!  We are very impressed with his dedication to school.  He graduated with honors - something my hubby and I didn't do.  He will be heading off to college in a few months and I can honestly say, as of now, I am very excited to see him go.  Not because I want him out of the house, but because this is what the last 18 years were supposed to be about: preparing him to become a self-sufficient man. 

Going away to college, while still a bit under mom and dad but in a remote way, is a great way to begin to figure out how to make it on your own.  Of course I will miss him, and his laugh.  But I am excited to see him grow into his own. 

For now, I will cherish the few months of him being home. 

Congratulations my son!

Look What We Did

We've been busy cleaning up the front and back yard.  After snowy winters I love the warmer weather and planting flowers.  This year we  cleaned up the vegetable garden and put in a few vegetable starts.  I hope they take.  I'm pretty sure we waited long enough so as not to have them freeze.  We missed out planting last year so we are excited to see how it goes this year.  We even found a guy on Craigslist who was selling his cow poop, I mean organic compost, so we got a truck load and mixed that into the dirt.   Here's hoping to a bumper crop.

During the winter my hubby and I decided to make some changes to the front yard.  We cleared out a section off the front walkway and laid pavers and put in a small patio.  We found a perfect bistro set at the home improvement store for a great price and we have instant conversation site.

            Here is what the area looked like before:

                And the transformation:

    

The final product:

We are loving this spot!  On the weekend we come out in the morning and enjoy our coffee while reading the paper.  In the evening we wind down from the day and just enjoy being together and the quiet of the late afternoon.  Notice, only two chairs.  Just for me and my hubby.

We also cleaned out an area in our backyard that had roses, but they were not good bloomers and always infested with bugs.  So instead, we put in planters and flowers.  I am very happy with the results here.

You can see my hubby's summer project - painting the house. He's done so much prep work with sanding and priming and today he is starting the actual painting.  It took us going through 20 color swatches (on the back wall) to finally decide on the color (which happened to be one of the original finalist -but we I had to work through all the options so as not to have any second guessing on color).  I'm sure our neighbors behind us thought we were trying to figure out how to make a checkerboard on our house. 

Anyone else have big summer plans?

It's not about the numbers

Before the school year winds down I always like to get in a coffee at my house.  Actually, I've been able to have two since the beginning of the year.  Summer is off limits to official coffees, though I have no objections to meeting up with friends at a local coffee house.  I'll have one in the fall again, after kids are back in school. 

Each coffee starts the same: pick a date and send out the invite then decide on some snacks.  The date arrives and I wait, usually not knowing who will attend.  It's a fun guessing game as to who may show.  I've had close to 10 show and once no one showed.  And I love it no matter what.

Last week one gal was able to come.  I felt so special having her all to myself.  I love hearing her stories and she has this wonderful way of challenging me with thought provoking questions.  She is a deep thinker, something I am not. 

My previous coffee was such a blessing to me.  Three wonderful friends showed up (clarification: all those on my invite list are wonderful!).  I was able to catch up with a couple of the gals and find out some very significant changes happening in their lives and discover what their kids were up to.  We sit at the table, nibble on treats, sip coffee or tea and enjoy each.  The time files by.

This coffee was especially touching for me because my friend, who has been in France for a few years, was back in the states and made sure her schedule cleared to come to my coffee.  This was the first time the family was back in the states since they left so they were filled with appointments and time with friends and family - and my house was one of her stops.  I am pretty sure she was tired from her non-stop schedule; rejuvenated, but tired.  Little does she realize how much she encouraged me to see her and hear, first-hand, how life in France is and how their call to love the French as Christ loved her has been going.  If you'd like to follow her adventures of loving Christ and being a French church planter, you can at her blog, Four For France.

These coffees allow me to slow down and take in life with friends.  Something I need to do much more often.

BIRTHDAY WISHES

A big shout out for super happy birthday wishes to my older sister.  I hope you are having a wonderful day!
I'm thinking of you and love you.
Peggy

1. Make a List 2. Review List 3. Complete List

The school year is winding down and it's a hectic time but somehow I always think, "this year will be different."  You would think after 12 years I'd have the end of the year figured out.  Oh, no.  I've been looking over the calendar and see all that needs to be done and accounted for. 

Side note:  I better enjoy this hectic time because I'm thinking in two years I'm going to be wishing for all this hectic too-much-to-do time.  It just dawned on me that once the kids are gone the end of the school year won't mean as much.  Tear drop.

Back to this year.  There is a lot going on.  Thankfully I'm a list maker.

Many people make lists.  I make lists.  Actually, I've been making lists for years!   I know some people like to make lists because they enjoy the cross-off.  You know, when they've finished that one task the line is drawn through the item.  I'm sure there is much joy to see the tasks being accomplished.  But that is not why I make lists.

My list making is out of pure need.  I need organization and this is my one way of keeping track of all I need to do.  I have a white board on the fridge and list out all activities for the week.  If I have a busy day, a list is made.  My list includes what needs to be done and then some.  Sometimes I have a rough draft list for the really busy days.  Then the final version includes all the tasks along with times I should be doing it.  Yes, I put in the time I want to begin the next item.  Here is what my list would look like:

1:00-1:40 Wal-Mart
        - Shampoo, milk, socks, light bulbs
1:45  Bank - deposit check, get $25 cash
2:00  Post Office
        - Mail bills, buy book of stamps
2:25  Home
        - Calls: Doctor, Newspaper subscription, order gift
        - Clean:  Dust my room; dust Living Room; Sweep kitchen; Dishes
4:00  Start dinner
 
Yes, I'm a bit of a nut.  But this is what works for me and I am so glad God made me this way to try to keep me a bit organized. 

Are you a list maker?  What does your list look like? 

Some random things I've been enjoying lately:

1.  Dave Ramsey.  He is on the radio when I leave work and I enjoy listening to his wise financial advise.  What impresses me most is his kind and merciful heart toward the callers. 

2.  Sunshine.  We have had some incredible days these last few days.  We hit 70 today and yesterday was one of the nicest Easter Sunday's we've had in years.

3.  Seattle Mariners.  Opening day for baseball today!  OK, yesterday a game was played, but today is the real opening day for the other 28 teams. 

4.  My Ninja blender.  That baby blends my smoothies like there is no tomorrow.  I love it.  Throw in some ice, yogurt, protein, fruit, spinach and juice and away I go for breakfast.

5.  The Bible series on the History channel.  If you missed this program I highly recommend renting the five-part, ten hour series.  There were some artistic liberties taken, obviously, but I don't think the integrity of the message was altered. 

6.  My small group.  We just finished studying why we believe.... the Bible, Jesus, Resurrection and other topics.  It was very interesting and affirming.

7.  The Amazing Race.  My daughter and I enjoy watching this show together.  I could never go on that show.  I'd lose any cool I had (which really is none) and show my ugly competitive side.  Plus, I over-think things all the time, which is not good if you want to do well on that show.

8.  My Starbucks app.  I recently discovered this app.  It keeps track of my gift card, my purchases and free items.  When I purchase I just show the home screen and the barista scans my phone and the charges are automatically deducted.  It was fun to go through the drive through and flash my phone and off I go. 

9.  The last few months of my son home.  I am enjoying the time with my kids while they are still home.  Soon enough they will be going off to college and moving on with their adult lives. 

10.  Bar-B-Q's.  With the nice weather we've been having, we had our first bar-b-q tonight.  Cheese burgers-yum.  I add all kinds of toppings: Gorgonzola cheese, peppercini peppers, red peppers and mix the hamburger with garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper.  Love them!

What has been catching your eye lately?