End of March Friday Faves

Another month has galloped past.  Time to look back on some of the blessings of the past two weeks, and move forward into a new month.

We had another fun Activity Day with the 8 to 10-year-old girls from church.  Each girl made a collage that represented her unique personality and a few of her favorite things.  You can see from the pictures that they were all very engaged had a great time. 

As part of Activity Day, we had each girl bring a few Easter Basket type toys for Operation Easter Bunny - a service project that provides Easter Baskets for sick children in the hospital. The girls brought lots of things for the Easter Baskets.  I even had some other friends who aren't Activity Day girls join in and donate some items for the Easter Baskets.  Everyone was so generous. 

Here are some of the fun toys and art items that were given to help fill the Easter Baskets.  What a great opportunity to help and serve others! When my grandson was in the hospital fighting cancer, fun things like this would really lift his spirits. Little things can mean so much!

The weather got quite warm for a while and we were up to 96 degrees for several days, but then, thankfully, clouds rolled in, the temps dropped and we even had some rain.  Now we are up to the high seventies and low eighties which are very pleasant spring temperatures. 

Spring flowers are out...

...and they are quite lovely - especially these at the Gilbert Temple grounds. 

My favorite spring flower however, is this bright orange cactus flower in my own yard.  Cactus flowers are one of the best parts of living in the desert. 

I continued my book purge and donated three boxes of about 50 books to a thrift store.

I am currently reading The Overspent American  - Why we want what we don't need - and I am finding it quite fascinating, timely and relevant.  Next, I plan to read HillBilly Elegy which a friend recommended to me and I was excited to find it on the new book display in library of the school where I teach.  I immediately checked it out and will be starting it tomorrow.  There is a really interesting TED talk by the author, J.D. Vance, here.  

Yesterday on my way home from work, the low-air tire pressure indicator lit up.  I took the car to our preferred tire store and they found a nail in the tire. They also found that two tires on the car had less tread than was safe so tonight our car has two new tires.  I know that God works in mysterious ways and if it takes a nail in my tire to get unsafe tires replaced with new ones before a planned family road trip outing, I am grateful for the nail.  We should be good to go now when we have our family outing.

We have been thinking about changing our vacation plans for the summer, and were finally able to do that.  We were going to San Antonio, Texas, but decided that this year we were more in the mood for the cool, colorful, relaxing Colorado Rockies, so we changed our plans and will now be going to Pagosa Springs and Durango, in addition to our yearly visit to family in Utah.  

I am excited to go back to Durango and Pagosa Springs.  It is beautiful there, as these pictures I borrowed from the Pagosa Spring Chamber of Commerce website attest to.  It has been several years since we were there and we had a wonderful vacation last time, so it will be fun to return.

Finally, this is the thought for the week I put on the board in my room last week.  

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else.  You are the one who gets burned."  

~ Buddha

Joining again this Friday with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for Friday's Fave Five. 

Friday faves and catching up

It's spring break from school here in Arizona.  It has been a busy week, since we decided not to travel, but just stay home and get caught up on chore. As the end of spring break from school nears, my to-do list for the week is still not complete, but I am determined to take a few minutes out and remember and be grateful for the good things of the past several weeks.

*Lemon blossoms - as the air heats up here in Arizona (we are 96 degrees today) it also smells lovely with the fragrance of citrus blossoms everywhere.  The lemon tree in our back yard is out in bloom, so the back yard smells heavenly.

*Mom and son hike   - a tradition that Josh and I have had for quite a while is going on a hike together during spring break.

We had to put that tradition on hold for a couple of years while he was in Mexico serving his mission, but now that he is back, it was good to be out on the trail together again.

 We hiked the Littleleaf Trail at San Tan Regional Park which is about 20 miles from where we live.

We went for our hike in the late afternoon.

 It was sunny, but not too hot.

There were lots of flowers on the desert plants, and I love flowers.

My favorite were these lovely pink cactus flowers. 

It was a nice afternoon for both of us, especially considering that between work and school, I don't see a whole lot of this guy during the day. 

Being with my son, walking and chatting in the desert made me happy!

*Temple time - Being able to go to the temple this week also made me happy. I love the peace of the temple. 

The temple gardens were freshly planted with spring flowers.  They were lovely.  I should have taken more pictures.

*Activity day - we also learned about the temple in our last Activity Day. The girls really enjoyed making these plaques with pictures of temples on them. 

The girls always seem to love Activity Day and I enjoy working with them.  I am also happy to have a new partner to help me plan and carry out the activities twice a month.

*Traffic class - not really a fun part of spring break, but this is what happens when you don't reduce your speed in a school zone and get a ticket, like I did.   I am taking this online traffic class instead of paying the fine and getting points on my driver's license.   It is marginally cheaper than just paying the ticket, but it isn't much fun. So far, I am about half-way finished with the ten on-line lessons.  I am looking forward to having this done, and yes, I have learned my lesson, and have been watching my speed in school zones.

*Purging books - I made a goal to go through my big book case and get rid of some more books.  These are just some of the titles I decided that I really didn't need any more.

I sent these books to a friend in Wyoming who is having a hard time financially and wanted to some books to read. She can't afford to buy books, and she loves to read so she was excited that I could send these to her. Book rate isn't that much and it's always nice to make some happy.

*Conference tickets - Josh has been wanting to go up to Utah for the General Conference of our church that takes place twice a year - in October and April.  Lots of people want to go to conference (which is also broadcast on TV and the internet), because it is very special to be right there in the Conference Center when this event takes place. Tickets are free, but are required because so many people want to go, and because demand is great, sometimes they are hard to come by. 

I wasn't sure we would be able to get tickets when Josh reminded me about it last Sunday, but after a few phone calls, emails and texts, we had three tickets to the Saturday Evening session.  We are all looking forward to this event.

*Homework help - I just had to add this sweet picture I "snuck" of Charly helping Josh with some of his college math homework.  It just touched my heart that I married such a good man who is a good father. 

*Letter from my grandson - I got this nice little note from my oldest grandson in the mail yesterday.  It is always to hear from and keep in touch with my grandchildren.

*Spring break - so over all it has been a good spring break, and I feel like I will go back to school this coming Monday rested, refreshed and with a sense of accomplishment, ready for the final nine weeks of this school year.  Life is good land there are always things to be happy about. We just have to look for them.

The thought for the week comes from the bible:

Joining as always with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for...

Moving from Broken to Beautiful through Forgiveness - Book Review

In this book, Moving from Broken to Beautiful through Forgiveness, author Yvonne Ortega tells the story of her abusive husband and marriage and how she use scripture and counseling to eventually forgive her ex-husband. What I liked about the book is that is a quick, easy read and a good reminder of forgiveness is and is not. Because we all have experiences of hurt in life that cause us to need to forgive others, and be forgiven by them, reading about how to move through the phases of forgiveness is a good thing. 

The author is a professional counselor and speaker so her advice is straight forward and she sounds like a counselor throughout the book. What I did not like about the book is that the author sounds so much like a counselor having a professional session with a client, that even though her story is personal, it doesn't really tough the heart or soul of the reader, at least it didn't touch mine in that manner. Some books on forgiveness, like Forgiven by Terri Roberts are so gritty and real that it touches the readers very soul and you comes away knowing that you must forgive. This book does not have the same affect. It reads almost like a counseling text book, and while it is not bad, and serves as a reminder of important things, it may not be the life-changer that the author may think it is. 

I give this book three stars ***.

Thanks to Book Crash provided me a complimentary copy of this book, in exchange for my honest review.