The Best of the Last Week

These are some of the things that made me happy this past week. 

We sold the last piece of furniture we had in our old house this week.  I put this old filing cabinet on Facebook Marketplace for $10 and was pleased when a young couple came and carried it out of our basement and gave us a $10 bill.   It is so good to get that last item gone from our old house.

I have a large Hibiscus plant in my front yard, and it is out in bloom, covered with these large, beautiful flowers.  I love Hibiscus.  I didn't realize that I had a Hibiscus bush in the yard when we bought this place, but having it is kind of like a little bonus. 

We bought and Charly assembled this hose cady which is so helpful to me as I water the Hibiscus and other bushes in my front garden. 

We had our annual church congregation barbeque and swimming party at a local park.  It was well attended.  

Charly and I didn't swim, but it was fun to enjoy a summer picnic dinner while visiting with some of our fellow church members. 

We went to our town's market night again, and got some more fresh-baked sour dough bread, which we have really been enjoying. Since it was dinner time when we went, we got some very delicious Philly cheesesteak sandwiches for dinner. They were made just like the cheesesteaks in Philadelphia, complete with Cheese Whiz, and boy were they good! 

I went to worship at the temple with my oldest granddaughter.  It was a nice experience for just the two of us to attend and worship at the temple on a Tuesday afternoon. 

I've been continuing to work on hanging pictures up in our home. This past week, I hung some family pictures in our bedroom and downstairs in a hallway.   We have a lot of family pictures and there isn't room to display all of them, but it doesn't feel like home without pictures of those I love on the walls. 

We went to a thrift store we like this past week, and I found all of these Nancy Drew books I needed for my collection.

This is Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys collections now.  I need just a few books to complete both collections. 

Charly and I also found another fun antique mall near our home that we enjoyed exploring. 

We got some things for the Coke shelves in our home. 

Even though it's been quite hot this week, I've been able to take both morning and evening walks most days this week.  This is a nearby walking park where I like to walk in the morning. 

I love attending church, and I am always grateful when I can worship there.  We had good messages and lessons in church on Sunday.

I've been using this air fryer that I got for $5 from a neighbor's yard sale a few weeks ago.  I love the way it cooks food. We had French fries last night and hashbrowns with our dinner tonight and they were delicious!  I'll be using this a lot more! 

This past week, I finished this book, Sandwich by Catherine Newman.  I didn't like it much.  It had a lot of bad language and adult themes and content, and I didn't really care for the story either.

I also finished this book, Don't Miss This in the Old Testament, which Charly and I have been reading together.  I loved this devotional book and gave it 5 stars on Goodreads. 

I started three new books this week, Leap of Faith by Kate Hewitt, Don't Miss This in the New Testament and Secrets of a Happy Life by David O. McKay. 

What I'm most grateful for this week:

💗Being retired. 
💗Having a good visit with Josh when he came to dinner tonight. 
💗Making some friends in our new church congregation. 

Praying for:
🙏My husband, children and grandchildren.

🙏A friend recently diagnosed with cancer. 

🙏The sale of our old house. 

🙏Help in finding good volunteer opportunities in retirement.

Coming up this week:

😊Charly has an eye doctor appointment.

😊Contractors are coming to start on our backyard project of a new deck and patio cover. 

That's all for right now.  Thanks for stopping by. See you again soon!

Until next time. 

😊Deb💖

 

Spring Break Week and Moving Day

This last week, I had the whole week off from school. This was the last spring break of my career because I am retiring at the end of May.  There were no trips and not much relaxation during this spring break, because we are right in the middle of moving to our new home.  Here's how the week went. 

Monday, we donated three big furniture pieces to The Other Side Academy which helps those overcoming addiction and incarceration.  This organization runs a used furniture store which we love, and we have bought several pieces of furniture from them, but this week it was time to give back and donate some unwanted and unneeded furniture items.  The two men who came to pick up our donations were incredibly strong and skilled at moving heavy furniture and they had our items out in their truck in no time at all.

Tuesday, we took time out of the busyness of moving to worship at the temple on morning.  The flowers in front of the temple were gorgeous.   The picture does not do them justice, but they were fragrant and very lovely. 

Worshipping at the temple with my sweetheart always makes me happy!

We made daily trips to our new home, and also to the thrift store with items to donate. 

I also went through a lot of old files and spent quite a while shredding documents and bills we don't need anymore.  I'm embarrassed to say that I found some bills from our dentist in Arizona dating back to 2002!  We paid those long ago!

Thursday was moving day. The moving van arrived at our old house at 8:45 a.m..

The moving crew was skilled, fast, and efficient. They had all of the heavy furniture in our house loaded up in the truck in about an hour. 

Here is the almost empty truck in front of our new home after everything was unloaded.  The entire process from start to finish only took about three hours. 

Thursday night, after doing some unpacking and arranging at our new house, we returned to the old house to do some yard work.  We will be staying in this house, most nights, until the school year is over at the end of May, but it is mostly empty now, and will go on the market for sale within a week or two. 

Charly and I both needed pedicures, so we took care of that Friday morning.  We have both found that getting pedicures every few weeks helps our foot health.  I haven't had an ingrown nail since I started getting regular pedicures. 

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were cooler and cloudy.  We received some much-needed rain.   We stayed both Friday and Saturday nights at our new home.

Of course, we still have lots of unpacking and arranging to do at the new place, but we are making progress.  Two projects I accomplished over the weekend at our new house were setting up our doorbell camera and, also installing a new shower head in the master bathroom.  

Sunday, we attended church in the congregation near our new home. We will go to church there from now on. This picture of Jesus was the first thing we saw when we walked through the door of the church, and I knew I was in the right place.  

This is our new chapel and congregation getting ready for the worship service to begin Sunday morning. 

We went back to the old house after church because I had listed these bookcases for sale on Facebook Marketplace, and the buyer wanted to come and pick them up.  

The bookcases are gone now, and the family room is nearly empty except for a few things that we will be taking to the new house in the next few days. 

After the bookcases were picked up, I went for a walk around the old neighborhood.  It was cloudy and windy, but I managed to finish my walk without getting rained on. 

Dinner was Asian chicken, vegetables, and noodles with French bread.    It came from the grocery store deli and wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be.  Nothing beats home cooking, and I hope to do much more of that again once this move is finished. 

Tonight, after I post this, I plan to finish this book that I have been reading for a while.  I know the author. We went to the same church congregation when we lived in Arizona.  She has written a lot of books and I have read a few, and this one is the best one so far.  Charly and I had toyed with the idea of packing the car and making one more Sunday night run to the new home, but we are both tired, and I go back to school tomorrow, so I need to get ready for that.  This has been a busy and exhausting spring break and I hope to get in bed early and sleep well. 

Gratitude:

• Being on the last spring break of my career. 
• Getting all of our heavy furniture moved to the new home. 
• Traveling safely back and forth between two homes. 
• Attending church at our new congregation. 
• Worshipping at the temple. 
• Getting rain!

Praying For:

• Our children and grandchildren.
• Help in selling our home. 
• Our nation. 
• Our military.

Looking Forward To:

• Taking Thursday and Friday off to attend a history, theology, and apologetics conference. 
• Completing the school year and retiring in 34 school days!

That's all for now.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good week. 

Until next time, 

😊Deb💖

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow:

For the morrow shall take thought 

for the things of itself.  

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Matthew 6:34 KJV

A Peek into My Valentines Week and Weekend

I had hopes of doing a post on Friday, but that didn't happen, so here's a peek into the last week and weekend

While we have been having a lot of sunny, warm, springlike weather where I live, about mid-week, clouds rolled in and temperatures dropped a little, but not enough to bring us snow. 

We got some rain off and on throughout the day, and the mountains got a couple of inches of new snow.  It was better than nothing, and I am grateful for what we got, but we need more and continue to pray for rain and snow. 

The rain ended in time for me to have a walk after dinner.  I enjoyed the beautiful sunset that I saw as I was finishing my walk and going home. 

We had parent-teacher conferences at school on Tuesday and Wednesday last week. We had a lot of parents come and very few spoke English, so I got to use some of my very basic Spanish speaking skills that I picked up in high school and college, way back in the day.  The conferences went well, and I am now finished with the LAST parent-teacher conferences of my teaching career!  We got Friday off as a comp day after staying late for parent-teacher conferences. 

We were given dinner at the school on parent-teacher conference nights.  We were able to get free street tacos at a food truck outside the school, just by showing our ID badge. The tacos were authentic and very tasty! I love street tacos! 

Our new dining room set was delivered to our new home last week.  I think it will work really well.  We are pleased that it came with six chairs, in case we want to have company over for dinner. 

When I got home from school on Thursday, this was sitting on the counter, a fun early Valentine's present from Charly!  

On Friday night, Charly gave me this little Valentine bear and a beautiful card.  I have a whole collection of the little bears because he has been giving me one on Valentines Day for years.  Charly is so thoughtful and I always feel loved on Valentines and other special days.💝

My Valentines present to Charly was some Crumbl Cookies, which he loves.  He got a big cookie in his favorite flavor and six mini-Crumbls.  

We always try to do something a little special for our children and grandchildren on Valentines Day and this year, each one got a card and a gift card to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.

It was great to be off on Friday.  I slept in until 6:45 a.m..  We had to get our Honda inspected and registered so that was the first thing on our Friday "to do" list.  Fortunately, the mechanic got us in right away and we were able to mark this chore off of our list. 

Later we took some more things to our new house. After unloading the car, we stopped at Wendy's for a fast-food lunch.  I always get a kids meal when I eat at a fast-food place and I decided today that Wendy's Kids Meals are superior to McDonalds.  

We took the new Broyhill end table that we got for only $23 at a used furniture store we like, to our new home.  It is now in our family room between  our two new recliners. 

After lunch we decided to check in at a couple of favorite thrift stores, and we had a nice time browsing and getting a couple of things. 

Charly was excited to find this vintage hula doll, which he plans to put on the dash board of his car, if he can figure out how. I remember when hula dolls on the dash board of cars were common. 

After we got home, Charly went into the office to get started on the taxes, and I went grocery shopping. 

I stayed up later on Friday night to finish this excellent book, The Opera Sisters by Marianne Monson.  I'll review it in my Reading Roundup at the end of the month. 

Saturday morning, we packed our car, once again, and took some more things to our new home.  After we had unloaded our car, we picked up our 14-year-old grandson, and took him to lunch.  His choice of restaurants was Popeyes Chicken.  We enjoy visiting over chicken sandwiches.  

When we took our grandson back to his house, we enjoyed spending some time visiting with our daughter and the rest of the grandchildren.  Our almost 18-year-old granddaughter had been out with friends at a cake decorating class and made this fun cake that looks like a hamburger.  Charly and I each had a piece and it was really good!

There was also exciting news about our almost 18-year-old granddaughter.  She found out that she has been admitted to BYU to attend college. She will graduate from high school in May, then she plans to serve an 18 month mission first, and then she will go to BYU.  BYU Provo is a very selective school and not everyone who applies gets in, so we are very proud of our granddaughter, who is an excellent student, and an all-around nice human being.  

As I mentioned, we gave our daughter, her husband and all the children Valentines cards with gift cards to Chick-Fil-A and Saturday afternoon, our son-in-law texted us this cute picture of he and our daughter and the two youngest girls at Chick-Fil-A. 

Saturday was a beautiful, warm day.  After a few hours of rain earlier in the week, the spring-like weather returned. Usually at this time of year, the mountains are white with snow, but you can see there is only snow at the very top of the mountains. 

As we went to church Sunday  morning, the skies were gray and cloudy, but our worship service was warm and wonderful, with powerful music and messages. 

After church, we once again packed up the car and headed south to our new home.  Today, we took groceries from our food storage, a small bookcase and a couple of boxes of books. 

After we unloaded the car and put everything away, we took a couple of things over to Josh.   This is the view from the apartment complex where he lives.  

Sunday dinner was a new-to-me recipe, Walking Taco Casserole. It was excellent. 

We enjoyed the Walking Taco Casserole a lot.  I had Baby Spring Mix salad and blue cheese dressing with mine. 

Here's the recipe.  It was easy to make, and very delicious. 

After dinner, I went out for a walk.   There were some blue skies and sunshine behind the clouds.  It was quite breezy and cool.  This is the flag at a nearby school I walked past. 

While I was out walking, I listened to some of this audiobook, Mostly What God Does by Savannah Guthrie. The book is excellent, especially in light of all that is going on with the Guthrie family and the abduction of Savannah's mother.  I'm about half-way through the audiobook now.  

When I got home from my walk, Charly and I watched this documentary about Bible archeology related to Moses and the miracle of parting the Red Sea.   

Weekend Gratitude:

• Seeing our grandchildren, daughter and son-in-law.
• Traveling safely to and from our new home.
• Making progress in the move to our new home.
• Worshipping at church Sunday morning. 
• Finishing a good book. 

Praying For:

• Continued help with moving. 
• My children and grandchildren. 
• Help in my classroom.
• Our nation. 

Looking Forward to:

• Two more days off this week (Monday and Tuesday). 
• Getting more things moved into our new home. 
• Getting our current home on the market. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Find something to be grateful for every day and have a good week. 

Until next time. 

😊Deb💖

"My mouth shall speak the praise of 

the LORD: and let all flesh bless

his holy name for ever and ever."

~Psalms 145:21 KJV