Another Busy But Blessed Week

Hello to Friday Fave Fives for the Third Week in October 2024.  It's been another busy week.  But now I am finally home from dropping The Professor and Tall Boy and Warrior Boy at their location for a Trail Life Campout.  Their troop is on parking duty for all the troops arriving from several states surrounding Ohio.  It's the biggest event of the year, and they are all looking forward to a great weekend.  Now I'm home alone with my books and yarn.  Happy time for me, too.  So now I have a few minutes to focus on how God has blessed me this past week with mostly small things.  Susanne is our host over at Living to Tell the Story.

Younger Daughter and I found a new local knit shop!  Before this cute shop The Yarnologist opened, we had to drive into west Columbus to visit a shop with quality yarns.  On Saturday we dragged The Professor and her fourteen year old son (at his request) there.  The guys found a new coffee shop! (Does this make it TWO faves in one?)  I might have bought a bit of yarn...   Since we loved that new coffee shop, we invited T and S to have our coffee time there this week.  All agree-- it was great, and T declared that Leonard's has the best breakfast sandwich.

Our area has had a fire ban imposed for a couple of months.  We were really missing our family bonfires.  Finally, last week it was lifted!  Yes, we had a bonfire!

Walks on the county paths are always a fave with us, especially in the autumn when the leaves are turning all the fall colors.  We walked with Younger Daughter and her dogs.  The weather was great in the morning while we were out.  Fortunately, we made it home before the rain and hail started.

yes, we had hail (after we were home from the walk, fortunately)

A local young woman is a professional harpist.  Olivia Claggett often plays at banquets and fundraisers in the community.  On Sunday afternoon she performed at a local church.  She rotated around playing four harps.  Her sisters also sang with her.  It was amazing.

Then last night, we attended a banquet for Nightbirde Foundation.  If that name Nightbirde sounds familiar... yes, Nightbirde was a contestant on America's Got Talent and won a Gold Buzzer for the season for her performance of It's OK even as she was battling breast cancer.  She was a local girl and attended the church we are part of.   Her family started a foundation in her memory to help women who have cancer.  What an amazing evening that was, to see the impact she still has on the world because of her bravery and strength in her battle with breast cancer.   This is the youtube link to her performance on AGT.

It was PAL's birthday this week!  I can't believe our youngest granddaughter is ten years old!  Happy Birthday, PAL!  (in case you don't know, PAL are the initials of her name which I think is awesome)

A few years ago...

Arizona Girl catching her first snowflakes

Bonus!  This week, I celebrated nineteen years of blogging!  I can't believe it.  My first post was October 12, 2005.  Things have changed A LOT since then.  Four homes, two states, four grandchildren.  And a whole lot else.  Happy Birthday to Willow's Cottage!  Do you want to read my very first post?  Here's the LINK.  My reference to 'inner city' is Los Angeles inner city where we were living at the time.  The next few posts are focused on what things were like living there.

Off To Ireland: Part 2

Please don't think that Dublin is all empty abandoned buildings.  It's a vibrant and thriving city.  On our first full day in Ireland, we visited an estate house turned shopping center and then the area around it.  Powerscourt House was built between 1771 and 1774 for the 3rd Viscount of Powerscourt.  The family lived in Powerscourt, Enniskerry, County Wicklow, but they would spend 'The Season' in Dublin.  So the house was built for them to live and entertain during that time.  Now it is a 'shopping court'.

Many elegant details are still in evidence.

There was a knit shop!

One of the few things I was interested in buying during my visit to Ireland was a tam.  Eleanor helped me choose just the right one.

Our day's walking tour focused on food.  We enjoyed sampling foods at various shops.  Cheese.  Bread.  Desserts.  One cafe even made me a delicious vegan cheese sandwich.  Yum!

There was even a carrot strip for Eleanor.

And she helped me finish all the desserts.

Of course, tea is the beverage of choice in Ireland.  But sometimes you just gotta have some coffee.

Are you bored yet?  Come back and see All. The. Photos of random buildings in Dublin.

Falling Leaves and Five Faves

Good Morning!  It's Friday, the second one in October.  It's time to reflect back on the week and choose five things/events that blessed me.  Here are my Friday Fave Fives for the week. (If you've been here before, you know the link send you to Susanne's blog)

1.  Sunny days.  Finally, we are able to be outside doing all the chores in our garden.  While we are still picking cherry tomatoes (yum!), kale and carrots, I have put the rest of the veggie garden to bed.  Other jobs such as cutting back bushes that overgrew during all the hot weather and then many rain days are getting done.

2.  I'm thankful that I have a strong teenage grandson who is willing to help with the heavy chores (for food and more food and a small bit of cash).  We are putting in a water catchment barrel to help with watering the garden.  It's a BIG job, almost finished, thanks to his help.

3.  On the weekend, we were able to drive to a neighboring town and then into the country a bit to pick up a baby native tree to plant in our front yard where we had taken out an aggressive species tree.  This nursery that specializes in native plants is only open one or two days a week, so we arranged our schedule to go and get a little sprout.  Hopefully, that tree will be planted today with help from Tall Boy.

 4.  An added fave to that is we found a sweet little local coffee shop.  The coffee and pastries were excellent.  In fact, we will be doing our usual weekly coffee date with T and S there next week.

5.  These sunny days have also allowed us the weather to walk on several walks on the local trails.  On Sunday, our daughters collected the three dogs and managed to corral the younger teenage grandson (Warrior Boy) and we walked a couple of miles under the trees with all the changing leaves.

Bonus:  I finally finished this 'formal dress' for PAL's (my youngest grandchild) bunny.  She requested a grey formal dress with ruffles.  It took a l-o-n-g time to figure out the ruffles without a pattern.  But it's done and will be on its way to Arizona soon.  Eleanor enjoyed being the model.

Off To Ireland! Part 1

This is the first of what will be MANY posts about my trip to Ireland, England, and Wales.  I was away for three and a half weeks making lifetime memories.

Our first part of the trip brought us to Dublin, Ireland.  We were in Dublin for maybe thirty-six hours.  Having landed on Aer Lingus at the Dublin airport, we found the correct bus that would take us to our hotel where we would meet up with the other people who were part of the bus tour.  CIE Tours was a fine company that made all the arrangements for our tour which was focused on Home Economics themes like food and fiber.  During this part of my adventure, I was traveling with a friend who teaches Home Ec classes at our local high school.

After we settled in to our very posh hotel, we were treated to a lovely dinner with our tour guides and fellow travelers.  (I'm not used to this kind of experience traveling!)

When you hear "Ireland", what do you think of?

Guinness!  Beer. Ale.

I'm not a beer drinker, but I was intrigued to see this huge Guinness warehouse.

St. Patrick's Cathedral was on our 'must see while we have free time in Dublin' list.  We were able to attend the Sunday evensong service there.  Because it is located in the middle of the city with buildings completely surrounding it, it was not easy to get a photo to show the magnificence of the cathedral. 

And tiny churches between large buildings.

The River Liffey flows through Dublin.  As we walked around to explore the city, we crossed this tidal river many times on various bridges.

Then, there were the things we didn't expect to see in Dublin.  I guess we should have since it's a large city.

Abandoned areas

Graffiti.

At least this was cute.

But even among the weeds and ruins, there was beauty.

We had a busy  day planned for the next day, so we finally headed back from our wanderings to our lovely hotel.

It's October!

Our first October Friday Fave Fives.  I love participating in this-- we choose five blessings from our week to share.  We call them our Friday Fave Fives and share them with others on Susanne's blog Living to Tell the Story.  I just checked.  This is the 806th weekly Fave Fives she has hosted!

1.  I'm a bit later than usual posting my Faves.  That's because I was out in the garden.  The edging of all the areas is finished for this time around.  Mounds of yard debris has been placed in bags ready for the waste company to pick them up on Monday.  The best part of this fave?  Tall Boy mowed the lawn.  I'm thankful for a teenage grandson who can mow our lawn for us.

2.  Yesterday our older granddaughter turned eighteen!  Pictures of ZG from homecoming a couple of weeks ago!

3.  Sometimes plans go awry but turn out different but just fine.  That happened to us on Tuesday.  We planned to have coffee with T and S at a coffee shop a bit closer into the city than usual.  We've been there a few times before and enjoyed it.  Just as we pulled onto the road where it is located, we got a text. "It's closed."  Hmmm.  OK.  What now?   We decided to drive to another coffee place, but as we passed the fruit farm, we all four just thought at the same time, "Let's just try it and see if there is coffee and snacks as well as APPLES and MORE APPLES.  We enjoyed some yummy fresh from the oven apple turnovers and I had a hot cider and the others had coffee.  Seating was different from a usual coffee shop, but the whole experience was a fun change up.  Fortunately, we are all fairly adaptable.

4.  One evening this week, I joined 4 other women to help our friend record a sample group counseling session for a class she is taking for her degree in counseling.  It was a  fun time and we discussed some good issues.  After that, we ended the evening with a yummy dinner around the table.

5.  Finally.  The photos from our trip to Ireland, England and Wales have made it onto my laptop from my camera and my phone!  It was time consuming.  But it's done and I am so thankful for The Professor who helped with a couple of glitches.  Here's a very quick glimpse.  What places and things pop up in your thoughts when someone mentions Dublin, Ireland?

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Guinness Ale 

This is a main warehouse right in the middle of the city.

Lots of pubs

Come back for more and more photos from my travels in Ireland, England and Wales last summer!