Welcome to Friday's Fave Five. This is up a bit late, and I apologize for that. I'll leave Mr. Linky here for you and join in with you later.
Well made it back. It's been a few days, let me tell you. So glad that I actually have this space to remind me to take a breath and pause and just remember all of my blessings during the past week. This season can get so insanely busy, can't it? No matter how hard we practice saying "no", and cutting back on the running around, no matter how we look at it, it is still a busier season than is the norm for most people. So onto looking for and being thankful for the blessings God sent my way this week.
~ I won tickets! ~ I saw that a local tv station was giving away a couple of tickets to Stars on Ice Holiday Event. So on a whim I entered. I used to love watching figure skating. Stems from my one big year of figure skating lessons and watching skating with my mom all the time on tv.. And this has one of my favorite all time skaters heading it up, Elvis Stojko. I haven't been to a live skating event in many, many, many years. Can't wait!
~ tree up and decorated, finally! ~ usually the tree and house are all decorated on the first weekend of December here at the Living to Tell household. But this year we had too many things on the go so last Friday we finally got the tree out of storage and put together to let settle for a day before I started decorating. To our dismay half of the lights did not work. We bought this tree a few years back, our first pre-lit and were so excited how easy it was to set up. Until it wasn't. What a pain it was for hubby to try and figure out where the break in connection was. After testing every single light bulb and wire to make sure there was voltage, 2 days later, TWO days of him working on it, we finally decided to just strip the tree of the lights and wrap lights around it like back in the good ol' days. He worked so hard and spent so much time, I felt really bad and seriously suggested we just skip the tree this year. In spite of all the frustration, it really is nice to have and we're doubly enjoying the warm glow of it every evening, maybe because of all the extra work that went into it this year.
~ short but good bible study ~ Monday we kept our bible study short and sweet as everyone was really feeling tired. I'm liking how flexible we can be when there is only 3 of us. What's the point of pushing through a "normal" time length if not one of us can focus properly. We were still able to get in a good study and discussion and when we felt we were fading we just wrapped it up. Harder to do that when the group is large.
~ Christmas candle ~ found a new, lovely Christmas scented candle that we've really been liking: Christmas Eve by DW Home. Makes it smell like we have a real tree in the house.
~ morning with my little friend ~ Saturday morning I got to spend some time with a special little former dayhome child. Her and I had a very special connection since she started coming at age 1 right through to when she left for grade one and even up to now that she is 7. I just love her and we always have fun together. I "borrow" her from time to time and it's always very special. Thankful she is still in my life.
Hope you all have a wonderful last weekend before Christmas. Enjoy the small moments of blessing in the busy! I'll leave the link at the top of the post for this week.
Well your tree looks lovely but how annoying about the lights! Congratulations on the competition win. Hope you can find some time to relax at the weekend after a hectic week.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great list of faves, Susanne!!
ReplyDeleteI have a balsam fir candle and it smells just like being in the wood surrounded by my beloved fir trees.
it's so funny you wrote about the shortened Bible study. I did that once when i was feeling so crappy and i was the leader and yet everyone noticed how pale i was getting. It ended up being a horrible thing (will tell you in an email) I felt so guilty but everyone said let's cut this short. The discussion was still good but sometimes you just need to end things. hahahah
Congrats on winning the tickets!! Dave and I are going to Boston for 4 nights at the end of the month and during First Night festivities we will be attending some kind of skating show at the Commons.
Hi Susanne. Your tree looks lovely. I totally understand your frustration with the lights. The two small trees we have up this year came with lights when we bought them at a thrift store, but of course the lights didn't work. We had to get wire cutters and literally cut of the old lights to put new ones on. Yes, it was a pain. That's so cool that you won tickets to Holiday on Ice. That will be a fun event. It's nice that you have stayed connected to one of your former dayhome children and got to spend some time with her. I hope you have a very good weekend. See you again soon!
ReplyDeleteHello! Your tree is beautiful!!! And I know your pain. The same thing happened to us. Our new prelit tree was perfect for the first two years, and then an entire section of lights went out. That kind of thing challenges me, so I tried everything, just as you did! I finally gave up and tried to cover it with decorations! My family assures me that you cannot even tell! Although I think they want me to stop fiddling with it. LOL. Have a cozy, joyful day!
ReplyDeleteHow exciting to win those tickets! I've never seen a live performance of ice skating but love to watch it on TV.
ReplyDeleteWhat a job with your Christmas tree! Pre=lit trees are wonderful but when the lights don't work, there goes the "wonderful"!
That is so special to have your little friend come to visit. I imagine it's just as special to her as well.
Have a lovely week before Christmas!
How fun to win tickets! I've never seen professional ice skating in person. That's my favorite winter Olympic event.
ReplyDeleteWe still get a live tree, but they are so expensive any more, we're talking about getting an artificial one for next year. My son and d-i-l have artificial and I asked them about it, and they said pre-lit wasn't worth it for the reasons you mentioned.
Our Bible study actually got done two weeks early, so they had a potluck the last day and then we got the rest of December off. As much as I loved the study, it was nice to have a little breathing room in December.
How sweet to have some time with one of the dayhome children you've known so well.
Ugh. Been there with those super convenient pre-lit trees. Whatever you've done, it looks fantastic.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on winning those coveted tickets! What a fun outing that will be.
Your tree looks so beautiful! We've had the same problem with pre-lit trees. We had to restring TWO with our own lights. The one we have now is the perfect size, so we'll just keep adding our own lights when these burn out. I hate the thought of all those broken light strings going into landfills. Maybe, one day, we'll go back to candles! LOL.
ReplyDeleteYour little friend sounds like a perfect situation for both of you. <3
Congratulations on winning those tickets! You'll have a great time.
ReplyDeleteHow sweet to spend that time with your 'little friend'. I'm sure the parents also value all that you poured in to their child.
Have a good week!
So sweet you got to hang out with the little girl and congratulations on the tickets!
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