A Bye Bye January Hodgepodge

1. Speaking of endings....at your wit's end, at loose ends, a dead end, burn the candle at both ends, all's well that end's well, or no end in sight...which 'end' phrase might best be applied to your life lately? Explain.  

Sometimes it seems that over the past year there is no end in sight in getting things repaired around here. As I've shared before, I'm truly thankful that we have been able to keep up with the things that need to be fixed, but I'm wanting to do some other things such as buy new carpet and have the interior painted. I'm hesitant to spend money right now as there seems to be no end in sight of more pressing problems. 

2. What was a must have accessory when you were growing up?

The first thing that comes to mind would be a watch. In the 50's and 60's there were no cell phones and so I remembering wanting a watch as young as third grade. The other item might be a purse. Did you own one? Yes to both. When I was in 5th grade I got a Disney Cinderella watch. 

If so, tell us what you remember about it. 

The thing about the Cinderella watch was that I was thrilled to receive it ... that is, until we went back to school after Christmas holiday and my best friend was wearing a "real" grown-up type watch that had a pretty band and tiny little chip diamonds on either side of the watch itself. Somehow my Cinderella watch lost its charm and felt very childish.  

3. Something that made you smile yesterday? 

A video our daughter sent me of our grandson at three years singing and playing his toy guitar. His clean version of Folsom Prison Blues made me smile several times as I watched it more than once. 

4. January 30th is National Croissant Day. Do you like croissants? Oh yes. Sweet or savory? Both. We're having chicken salad for lunch...would you rather have yours served on a croissant, a wrap, a bagel, bread, or a roll of some sort?

I love chicken salad served just about any way, but in this case I will take the croissant in honor of the holiday. 
5. Sum up your January in fifteen words or less. 

My January was fairly quiet, pretty cold, somewhat productive, filled with blessings and ...

6.  Insert your own random thought here. 

A conversation this weekend about thank you notes and the different opinions about whether they are necessary. I love sending and receiving thank you notes, or really, any kind of written note. It means a lot to me and I save them. It also means a lot to me to express my gratitude to others when they have been kind to me, given me something ... whatever. Sometimes I just enjoy writing encouragement to someone. 

Part of the conversation also included a thought that it was a burden for family members to write thank you notes after the loss of loved ones. That it puts a burden on them to thank the people who reached out with flowers, food, etc. I was pretty surprised about that, but it was interesting to hear another perspective. 

My own feelings about that? I felt such love from everyone who reached out to me in so many different ways when my husband and parents died, it was an absolute joy to write each thank you because my heart was so filled with gratitude to each one of them. 

This may be a generational thing, but I think it important to teach gratitude. 

Friday Foto Friends

I did manage to take a few photos this week and sharing some beautiful photos of the Blue Blood Moon!

I took these pics with my iPhone the night before.

This was taken by my photographer friend at

Alleeoops Photography

This one was from a friend here in North Texas.

And the two above are from friends in East Texas.

Tulsa, Oklahoma skyline

from friends in Tulsa

And once again, here is Miss Cutie Pie growing up!
I love this sweet face and I think everybody loves this one to the moon and back!

Weekend Recap

Our weekend was busy with company. Sara and her family arrived Friday evening with three extra boys in tow to stay the weekend. They were here for a soccer tournament and, while I'm not a huge fan of soccer itself, I am thankful it brings them to town, and also enjoy watching our grandson play.

Playing before bedtime.

Annie loves company.

After feeding everybody a breakfast of oatmeal early Saturday morning, 6:30 am, they were off for an 8:00 game. DH and I opted to miss that game and the 2:00 afternoon game as well due to the cold and wind. I don't want DH to get sick and I certainly cannot because ... well, just because. Noah stayed home with us Saturday most of the day. We watched Iron Giant for maybe the 50th? time, played Farkle, Hearts, and then pulled out a game called Mancala, and watched a tutorial on YouTube to learn how to play. It was fun and we passed the time quite pleasantly.

After the 2:00 game, the boys came back for naps and they were off for a movie together as a team.

Our son came over to leave Kate and Jack to play with Noah for a while and then we went to church, afterward meeting Jason and Amy for Mexican food.

Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day and the boys were not scheduled to play until 11:00. I made them a big breakfast of bacon, eggs and more oatmeal (Dad's rule), along with loads of fruit before they left. Since we had gone to church the night before, I didn't feel too badly about attending the games that day. I must confess that is one reason I am not a fan of soccer. They schedule the games and tournaments having no respect for Sundays and it grieves me to see all those children and families out on the soccer fields all day on Sunday. Not judging, just sorry to see that being such a priority.

Here are some of the photos from the weekend. The boys' Dad had to return home after the first game to attend an afternoon meeting, but Sara stayed here so Brady could finish out the tournament. Barrett took Noah with him and you can see from this photo how happy Noah was to leave. Lol!

Had he stayed, there is no telling how many more rounds of Mancala we would have played.

We had lunch at Babe's Chicken House, filling up on fried chicken, chicken fried steak, fried catfish and lots of good sides. Babe's has signs all over the place with funny sayings.

I didn't realize what the sign said until AFTER I took the pic of DH and Sara.

I like the way the sun rays are coming through.

Haha!!

Actually, you know I kept them both!

Brady and one of his soccer buddies who stayed with us posing in front of Babe's.

Such a sweet boy.

They won all the games of the tournament and went home yesterday evening triumphant.

It was cold out there on the fields yesterday evening, but we dressed warm and those huge flannel gift bags we bought at Christmas to wrap the stuffed animals in came in handy not only for holding our chairs, but as legwarmers!!!

DH and I met Jason and family for burgers at Jake's before coming home to watch the latest episode of Victoria.

Today was quiet and I did work around the house. It wasn't too bad as Sara always does the laundry, putting clean sheets back on the beds, washing towels, and straightening the house in general. I try to tell her that isn't necessary, but she is just good that way. Today I also made two chicken pot pies, one of which we cleaned up at dinner. So delicious. I'm going to take the other one to my friend Victoria tomorrow as she has had so much to deal with the last couple of weeks in addition to everything she deals with on a normal daily basis.

I'm going to have to admit after all the food I've had over the past three days my jeans are quite uncomfortable. I will have to be good this week.

Birthday Parties Then and Now

I think I have enough pink here to link today with Bev at How Sweet the Sound. 

This is what a birthday party looked like at our house in the 50's. Our entertainment was a game of Drop the Clothespin in the Bottle, Drop the Handkerchief, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and Red Rover. The party was held outside, cake baked by our Mom, ice cream, eaten on paper plates and Kool-Aid to drink. My sister was 4 years old here, but her party was a carbon copy of my party at 6 years old.

See what I mean?

But my sister's cake had white frosting.

Fast Forward to 2018 and a birthday party for a 6 year old. I am not sharing all the photos of the children because they are friends, not relatives (and the number of photos was well over 100). Beautifully done. But I'm left wondering how they will top this out each year as she grows up!

Lots of photos showing all the littles doing makeup for each other, decorating beautiful cookies and enjoying sandwiches which looked delicious. The venue wasn't too shabby either. How's that for a dream birthday party fit for a little princess?

I hope this doesn't come across as criticizing because I enjoyed looking at every picture of the sweet birthday girl and her little friends having so much fun and making precious memories. It just blows my mind though how birthday parties have evolved over the years.

Our grandkids have had a variety of parties. Noah's annual party is a big party boat on Lake Travis.

with donuts

Kate and Jack's parties are usually at their home with bounce house slides and lots of water.

Last year Jack's party was at the Ninja Obstacle Course - all the kids loved that.

And Brady has had bowling parties or something similar in the past because his birthday is in the fall. The past few years, his preference is to have a few guys over to their house to sleep over and do something fun, a movie, bowling, or just playing at the house.

When we were kids, a popular thing to do was rent the birthday bus to ride around in as music that sounded like the ice cream truck blared through the speakers. It is unknown to me whether there was a destination because it wasn't something we could afford, nor did I ever attend a party on one. So nowadays, the savvy kids would want to ride around in a limo! Another popular birthday party in the 50's included being invited to  Uncle Hiram's TV show where we ate ice cream and cake and watched cartoons through a tiny little monitor in the TV studio. Most parties I attended were pretty much like ours and the gifts were very simple. Many times we wrapped up a coloring book with a box of crayons for the birthday person or some kind of little game. I really don't remember. 

 So, what kind of birthday parties do you remember attending? Do you see the one above as overkill? 

Friday Foto Friends

Our friends made a stop in Eufaula, Alabama on the way to Florida.

She knows how much I enjoy a good sunrise or sunset!

No matter what we are doing, this dog wants to be in the middle of it!

Happy Friday!!!

A Thankful Throwback Thursday

Im having some problems here. Experimenting. I'm trying to get back in the groove with blogging, but BLOGSPOT won't let me upload pics today. Apparently I'm not the only one having this problem!!! Anybody else out there? And anybody with a solution?

It's been a busy day with dentist, doctor, vet appointments and a visit from the plumber! Ta-da! Another problem resolved today. I noticed the upstairs hall bathtub faucet was cracked and loose. We are having company this week-end and several people will be using the shower in there. My fear was that the handle would break off completely rendering the shower useless or, worse, somebody would get hit with hot water straight out. (That did happen to me once long ago! It is a memory I won't ever forget and I bet my brother hasn't either since I screamed bringing the house down and him opening the door to see me naked in the shower with water shooting out of the faucet!)

The job today was so very simple and I had already purchased the parts needed from Home Depot, so those guys were in here and out in about two shakes of a lamb's tail!! They told me the normal service call was $150, but because the job was so simple, they checked with the office to see if they might do it for no charge! Thank You, God, for helping me with the day-to-day problems that arise! Since I couldn't let them go without paying, I gave them money for lunch! Fair deal!

The last year has been filled with what seem to be endless repairs and replacements. How thankful I am that we have been able to get them taken care of and had the resources to do them. 

Sooooo, I had a pic to upload of my brother and his buddies playing at the end of our street back around 1964, I'm guessing. We lived at the end of a dead end street across from a city park and rec center. There was a deep creek that ran alongside our house and we spent loads of fun times there. The banks were steep and a slick shale and I remember sliding down the hill on summer days and when the water was deep enough, skipping rocks.

Okay, late in the day, I finally think I have it resolved.

A Complimentary Hodgepodge

1. January 24th is National Compliment Day. Is it easy or not so easy for you to accept a compliment? It isn't easy for me.

Share a recent compliment you've given or received.

I try to notice and compliment people I'm with, whether I know them or not. A few days ago, I was praising my friend's ability to make the best pies and pastries. She has a gift. And yesterday, I was complimenting/encouraging a friend who shows so much strength and patience in everything she goes through. 

2. Ten little things you are loving right now.

One, two, three, four

5. This coffee cup given to me by our Sara.

6. The little bluebird that was outside our bedroom window. I loved watching it because it is an eastern Bluebird and a rare thing to see around here.

7. The little devotional I found for Alzheimer's and dementia caregivers.
8. My Kindle Paperwhite.
9. A couple of good songs ... Oh My Soul, by Casting Crowns, and Captivated by Watermark.
10.A CD by Rita Springer - Battle

3. Would people describe you as a positive person? Yes. 

Do you see yourself that way? Yes. Most of the time.
I read here a list/description of eight things positive people do differently-

Positive people find something to look forward to every day, they celebrate the small stuff, they're kind, they stay busy, accept responsibility for their actions, forgive themselves, know when to move on, and resist comparisons

Which action on the list would you say you do regularly?

Celebrate the small stuff, because sometimes the small stuff is the big stuff.

Which action could you add to your life to give you a more positive outlook?
Forgiving myself more easily.

If you're a positive person, what's something you do regularly that's not on the list?

Hang out with other positive people.

4. Homemade chicken soup, beef stew, or a bowl of chili...what's your pleasure on a cold winter's day? Beef stew with cornbread which we had a few days ago. Soooo yummy I invited friends over to share in the deliciousness.

5. The best part of my day is.... early morning.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I always thought of myself as a "jump right on it and get it done" kind of girl. One of my bosses said I "hit the deck running"! Somehow that doesn't seem to hold true when it comes to blogging. I don't have a problem keeping up with my journal.

So far this year, I won't say it's been a little boring, and maybe I could say it's been a little quiet, but then when it comes to dilemmas, we've had a few, so not totally quiet. So really, not a lot to write home about, as they say.

The weather has been extremely cold. Below is a sight I pass often and, of course, it is usually a waterfall.

I was thankful the rain held off until the sprinkler repairman was able to come work on the broken pipes. It was expensive, but it had to be done. Next on the agenda was the grout man coming to grout the showers. The big car had to be serviced this week. My computer kept going offline and the Geek Squad was able to fix, but then it wouldn't stay fixed. I've spent quality time with the online chatters there and it was finally resolved. We had to have a new router installed and it has been off and on ever since. We haven't been able to get together with our friends so far this year because of the flu affecting us at different times. The kids haven't come to visit either due to my being sick. Sooooooo, we will just wait and see and hope February brings a little relief.

In the meantime, I am having my good share of quiet time, reading my Bible, working on my homework, reading books and blogs here and there, and making lists of things that need attention.

I have been trying to figure out whether I should even continue to blog. Sometimes it seems a somewhat wasteful thing to do, but then, at the end of the year I have it printed and it's such a nice thing to have and look at all the events and pics of the past year and I'm reminded even more of all the good in the ordinary days' trials, triumphs and joys.

And speaking of joys, I'm "in joy" seeing the pics of my new great-nieces, Tenley and Londyn! I really, really want to see these kiddos in person for hugs and kisses.

 Londyn

 Hunter and Lincoln with new sister, Londyn.

Tenley feeling good after a bath.

So nice that technology allows us to share in watching these babies from a distance.

Tenley is my brother's granddaughter and one of the pics I saw of Tenley so reminded me of a pic of him at 3 months old.