Wrapping Up September

Happy Friday!  Let's be thankful!  Here is Willow's Week in Five Faves.  Friday Fave Fives is the link to Susanne's blog and you can join in.  I know the first question is--is your house sold?  Nope.  There is an open house tomorrow (Saturday) so if you inclined that way, do pray for the right person to purchase our house at the right time.

1.  Hike to Paradise Falls.  Six miles round trip.  We often hike in Hill Canyon which is about eight miles from our home, but we had never taken the side trail to Paradise Falls.  It is definitely worth the distance.

 It's not easy to catch a photo of the whole falls (two sections) because of the way the stream drops from the edge of the canyon.  Also, poison oak grows prolifically in the area, so I don't like going off trail much even to get a picture.

I posted a couple of photos on social media and one of the responses was amazement that there was WATER in the creek.  Southern California + September = DRY.

2.  Being reminded of all the connections I have on social media, I was thinking this week about how thankful I am that I attended a small Christian college and that I am still in contact with many of my classmates. We are scattered all over the world, but through emails, letters and mostly social media, I know that one is at Rocky Mountain National Park, another has just returned home from England, and one of our professors is having health problems and needs our prayers.  It encourages me to still have those connections.

3.  What is better than several phone calls from my adult kids?  Not much!

4.  World's Best Neighbor called me and said that she was at CBTL and did I want to meet her there or should she bring me a coffee?  I elected to dash over to our favorite CBTL hangout, and we chatted for awhile and solved the world's problems and also made some short term plans for decluttering and organizing at her house.

5.  I had a doctor appointment (everything is fine!), and when I was in the waiting area, I sneezed.  Two ladies said, "Bless you!" and "Gesundheit!"  That started a conversation about language and history, and I discovered that one of the ladies was the daughter of Holocaust survivors.  And of course that moved the conversation in the most amazing directions as she told their story.  How thankful I am that I lived in a FREE country!

That wraps up Willow's Week and can you believe it that this wraps up September?

Busy Week, Still Blessed

Every week, I plan to post a couple of extra times here at Willow's Cottage, and every week, Thursday evening arrives, and I realize that I haven't done it.  Lately, my life has been so busy that I'm just glad I have Friday Fave Fives to 'force' me to stop, focus, look back, and actually write something and remember what has blessed me this week.

1.  Yeah.  The house sale.  Nope. Nothing yet.  But one thing that has been a blessing is that our house is staying clean and organized.  In fact, it was important this Monday night.  On Sunday, we all suddenly realized that the couple who usually hosts our sermon based small group on Monday evening was out of town and so...I volunteered our house.  Another sweet thing is that the others all arranged to bring snacks, so I didn't have to do that part of the hosting.

2.  AND we had such a great time together Monday night catching up and laughing and praying together.  We are so blessed by our group of fifteen friends.

3.  On Sunday after church, we invited our new Pastor of Youth and Discipleship and his wife to have lunch with us.  We have a few connections with them already (like our niece working with her) and it was great getting to know them better.  I'm thankful for that time.

4.  I'm doing two other Bible studies this semester, one on Titus and the other on 1st, 2nd and 3rd John.  These are all short books in the New Testament, but they're loaded with lots of good teaching.  I'm thankful I have time and opportunity to do these studies.

5.  The Professor and I have started reading through another series of murder mysteries.  This time it's novels written by Ngaio Marsh, a New Zealand  author of the mid Twentieth Century (1895-1982).  Her references and word use have led me on a few rabbit trails (like what is an Adam fireplace???) and that's almost as much fun as trying to decipher who is the murderer.

Thanks to all of you who mentioned our plans to sell our house.  Yes, we are moving out of the area.  It will be hard to leave our wonderful city which is so close to my beloved beach and ocean and to leave our church and friends and The Professor's family.  But we know it's the right thing to do to move closer to our children and grandchildren.  Updates will come as we know them.  And thank you to everyone who reads and comments here at Willow's Cottage.  I truly love and value each one of you.

And a couple of beach photos to enjoy.

Five Blessings

Whoa.  Life has been happening at Willow's Cottage this week.  That's why I've been MIA commenting and visiting my blogger friends.  So.  We have decided to sell our house!  Yes, there is so much stress in this process, but there are many blessings, too.  (Here is the link for FRIDAY FAVE FIVES hosted by Susanne.)

1.  Blessing number one.  Friends have come to help me pack.

2.  Blessing number two.  Friends have come to help us move a few things to temporary storage.

3.  Blessing number three.  Friends who own a cleaning business changed their schedule around and were able to come wash windows and do a bit of deep cleaning for us.

4.  Blessing number four.  A blessing in disguise.  Our house is really really clean and neat, and we are working hard to keep it that way.

5.  Blessing number five.   We have plans in place for when we have to vacate the premises.  We know we can debunk to World's Best Neighbor's house if all other plans fail (one of us might be gone with the car).

Now that we are in maintenance mode, I am hoping to catch up on posting some photos from my trip to England last spring.  I'm feeling a bit nostalgic and want to revisit my favorite vacation spots.

Happy Weekend!

Beaches and PAL and Books

Happy Friday!  Here is Willow's Week in Friday Fave Fives.  Click THIS LINK to read others' FFF and join us in sharing our weekly blessings.

1.  Our granddaughter PAL came for a Labor Day weekend visit with her mommy and auntie.  That in itself is worth all five faves!

2.  On their road trip, they encountered car trouble.  NOT a fave.  But AAA came to the rescue in the dark of night and towed their car to a mechanic's shop and delivered them to a hotel.  All worked out and they were on the road again mid day on Saturday.  I am thankful for good and faithful helpers for them!

3.  We got a text from The Professor's brother Saturday morning asking if we'd like to join them at the beach for dinner.  They had parked their fifth wheeler in a prime spot along one of  Pacific Coast Highway's beach areas.  So after PAL arrived, we packed up and headed to the beach so she could have her wish of playing in the beach sand.

And since the beach is one of my favorite places, I was pretty happy, too.

4.  Have you ever read this book?  I bought it for PAL at our local bookshop. It's so cute!  I think it blew her little math brain.  Evidently there are other books in the Sir Cumference series.  I love finding new books for kids!

5.  The Professor's sister and her son joined us for Sunday lunch at our favorite burrito place.  We chatted and chatted and we all got caught up on everyone's news.

So, these are my five favorite things from this week.  How was your week?