Days of my Life - Window to My World: Weekending

Showing posts with label Weekending. Show all posts

Sunday, August 2, 2026

End of July, First of August Catch-Up

Here are some of the things that have been going on in my world this hot summer week.

Our backyard project is continuing. We are having a new deck and patio cover built. This is what the project looks like at the end of this week. Work will continue on Monday, but because there is a delay getting the materials for the roof, it probably won't be finished until the end of next week. We are so impressed with the quality of workmanship the contractors we hired are doing. This is going to be a great addition to our backyard.

Charly had his annual eye exam last week, and I am so grateful that his eye health is good. It's my turn to go to the eye doctor next week. I don't love going to the eye doctor, but I know that it's important to get my vision checked once a year.

We had a couple of days of cooler temperatures last week, and even got some rain, which was great. Today the heat is back, but it was nice to have at least a couple of days with cooler, cloudier weather.

We went to Market Night on Wednesday of last week.

Our favorite thing to buy at Market Night is Sourdough bread, and this last week we got Cheddar Cheese Sourdough bread. Delicious!

Charly and I tried a new sandwich place near our home on Friday, and it was reasonably priced with good excellent sandwiches.

This is the BLT on wheat that I had for lunch. It was huge. I ate half for lunch one day and saved the other half for the next day's lunch.

Saturday was a low-key day for us. It was a very hot day with temperatures over 100. We went for a walk in the morning, then we were home almost the entire day until we went to the grocery store in the evening.

Charly hung my book clock on Saturday. It wasn't easy to hang because it is a very heavy clock. I bought it at a thrift store for $14 when we were in St. George earlier this summer. It didn't work, so we had to take it to a clock repair shop. We were able to have it repaired for a reasonable price, and now it is hanging in our basement family room. I really like this cute clock which, the clockmaker told us dated back to the 1960s or 1970s.

I went out for an evening walk on Saturday after we got home from the grocery store. I have been noticing that it's getting dark a little earlier each night, now that we are moving toward fall.

Sunday morning, the flowers in my front yard garden looked so pretty. I took this picture as we were on our way to church.

We went to church. I passed this beautiful painting on my way into the chapel. After the main worship service, we attended Sunday School.

Sunday, we got the news that our dear friend Ron, (second from the left in this old picture), had died. He is a long-time friend of Charly's and we have known he and his wife since before we were both married. Our children were similar ages. His wife (on the far left) passed from cancer about two years ago, and then his son (on the far right) passed from colon cancer just a few weeks after his mother. It was all very sad. We had seen Ron just a few weeks ago when he was in a hospital in Salt Lake City. He was then released from the hospital and went home to Wyoming where he died this morning.

Sunday dinner was Cowboy Breakfast Casserole, with green salad, coleslaw and fruit. I thought the casserole was very good, but Charly said it wasn't one of his favorites. Josh joined us for dinner as he does most Sundays.

I did quite a bit of reading last week and finished this book, Leap of Faith by Kate Hewitt. It is about a typical suburban family who decided to leave the stresses of modern life behind and move to a homestead in West Virginia. I really quite liked this book. My reading has drastically fallen off this year due to a number of things, but I was pleased that I finished four books during the month of July.

Also last week, we finished watching the series on Netflix about Teddy Roosevelt and started watching this documentary on FDR. I love history documentaries and these are both excellent!

Gratitude for this week:

😊Making progress on our deck and patio cover project.

😊Having a productive week.

😊Being retired.

Praying for:

🙏 My children and grandchildren.

🙏 Health for Charly and I.

🙏 Help with making some important decisions we are facing.

🙏 The family of our friend who passed on Sunday.

Looking forward to:

🠞 The completion of the deck and patio cover project.

🠞 Seeing our grandchildren next weekend.

🠞 Not going back to school next week!

That's all for this week. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the week ahead.

Until next time,

😊Deb💖

" Be not afraid

nor dismayed...

for the battle is not yours, but God's."

2 Chronicles 20:15

Sunday, July 5, 2026

250th American Anniversary Weekend

Our 4th of July was really a good one. Here are some of the highlights.

Saturday morning, I was up very early, at 5 p.m., to pick up my granddaughters and take them to the Freedom Festival July 4th Parade in Provo, Utah. Getting up early paid off and we were able to get good seats to watch the parade.

Here we are together in our front row seats getting ready to the see all the fun parade action.

Here are some scenes from the parade that, I have heard, is rated as the #1 July 4th parade west of the Mississippi. It usually draws quite a crowd - about 300,000 spectators, according to the city of Provo website. It was a fun parade and I enjoyed being there with my granddaughters.

After the parade, I took my granddaughters home, then went home to rest. After rehydrating and taking a short nap, Josh and I went to another fun July 4th event in our community - the Colonial Heritage Festival.

Josh's bishop (pastor) was one of the directors of this event, so Josh had been wanting to attend since he heard about it.

The entire event centers around reenactment of colonial culture. There were lots of "soldiers" and military reenactments.

There were all kind of interesting colonial period exhibits.

There were also some lectures and talks about the history of that era.

Later, we went to our daughter's home for a special 4th of July family dinner. This is my son-in-law and daughter. They are a lovely couple and are raising a wonderful family.

There was lots of American themed food, including this fun fruit salad that my granddaughter made to look like a flag.

We enjoyed eating and visiting over a very delicious July 4th dinner.

After dinner, we played badminton and cornhole in the backyard.

Jumping on the trampoline looked like lots of fun. I wanted to try it, but I also didn't want to break something.

It was so much fun to have a fun evening with these people that we love so much.

No fireworks for us on July 4th because personal fireworks were banned by our governor due to recent wildfires in our state. Our community's fireworks and patriotic drone show took place last month, and while there was a big fireworks show in Provo, it could not be seen from our house. Josh really wanted to see the WWII movie Lucky Strike, so he and Charly went to a late showing of that. They both liked the movie and said they would like to see it again.

Sunday was a low-key day. Because our 4th of July was so busy and Charly got home so late after going to a movie with Josh, we did not go to our Sunday morning worship service. I really miss church when I don't go, and I look forward to being there to worship next week! We had to go to our old house again Sunday to take the garbage cans back to the backyard after garbage day. Back home, we had a restful day, mostly inside because it was 99 degrees outside. Our Sunday dinner had a summer Independence Day theme - hot dogs, baked beans, macaroni salad, and chips. Josh came over for dinner and we enjoyed eating and visiting with him.

After dinner, Charly and I settled down to watch another American history series about Ulysses Grant on Netflix. It is a very good series.

When we finished the series on Ulysses Grant, we started another one about George Washington. I love history and found the series very interesting.

Later, when it was a little cooler, I went for a walk around the neighborhood.

Weekend Gratitude:

Living in the United States of America.
Having a wonderful weekend celebrating this nation's birth.
Spending time with our children and grandchildren.

Praying For:

Our nation.
My children and grandchildren.
The sale of our home.

Looking Forward To:

Lunch with my cousin this week.
Seeing our daughter and her family again next weekend.
Getting our house sold.

That's all for now. I hope you have had a good weekend and that the week ahead is a good one for you.

Until next time

😊Deb💖

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Weekend Update

Now that I'm retired, weekends aren't much different from the rest of the week (except the Sabbath on Sunday). I'll start this post with Friday, which was (as usual) another busy day.

I had an appointment for a haircut on Friday. This is a picture of the salon where I go. I hadn't been in for a while, and I needed a good trim and "shape up." I am trying to grow my hair longer, but it doesn't seem to be growing as quickly as it used to. My stylist says I am using too much heat when I do my hair in the morning. She is probably right, so I need to change that.

We had to go to our old house because our realtor had an open house scheduled for Saturday. The place is completely empty of our furniture and belongings now, except for a few remaining things in the garage and shed. This is the living room.

This is our old bedroom.

Here's the kitchen and dining room and the entrance into the back family room.

Here's the family room. The whole place is empty and clean and ready for new owners. Thanks to those of you who are praying that we can sell it soon. We had a showing Friday, but apparently nothing came of it.

Also on Friday, we had this very nice young woman clean our windows. I saw her cleaning our neighbor's windows last week and asked her if I could hire her to clean ours as well. She did an awesome job. She also cleaned out our big window well and cleaned the basement windows! I paid her more than she asked for because she did a great job!

Our town is having a patriotic festival this week and Friday night, there was a drone show at the park which is about three blocks from our home. We had a great view of the drone show from our back deck. Here are some more pictures.

I had never seen a drone show like this and and I thought it was pretty cool. It was even better that we had such a great view from our back deck!

Saturday morning, Charly and I got up and went for a walk around our neighborhood. It was a nice day and a lovely morning to walk.

I worked with the plants in my little backyard on Saturday.

The plants in our container gardens are doing really well.

I also planted some more flower seeds on Saturday.

Meanwhile, our realtor had an open house at the old house on Saturday. Unfortunately, we didn't get any offers on the house.

Saturday evening, I went for a walk by myself. It was a nice evening walk.

Saturday night, there was a traditional fireworks show at the same park where the drone show was on Friday night. Again, we had a perfect view from our back deck.

We went to church Sunday morning. The worship service and lesson afterwards were excellent. I always look forward to church.

After lunch on Sunday, I went out and watered our plants and walked around the yard. These roses are not in our yard, but they are in my next door neighbors and I think they are stunning. I also have some roses, and I need to figure out how to make them look like this.

This interesting bush in our yard was almost dead when we moved in, but it is coming back. It is a pretty bush with lots of little yellow flowers. It is St. John's Wort.

Josh came over for Sunday dinner. He had requested lasagna, and it was really good.

Later, after dinner, I went for a walk. It was a beautiful evening, and I enjoyed walking around the neighborhood, while listening to an excellent Christian podcast.

Weekend Gratitude: