Fave Fives Whirlwind

 Yes, my week has been a whirlwind.  Our calendar was crazily full every day.  Last night, as I was checking to see what we had on the schedule for today, I realized that I needed to stop and take a breath and jot down my Friday Fave Fives to refocus my attention away from chaos.  And so I wrote my FFFs on a 3x5 card before I fell asleep.  These are what popped up in my memories.

1.  Friday night, we joined our two daughters on a night at the local theater for a musical performed by all local actors.  I knew two of them! One was our former mail carrier!  And we enjoyed the play, too.

2.  During the past week, I have walked/hiked six days.  Sometimes, we walk in our neighborhood in the evenings.  Three times this week.  Our other walks were with Nurse Daughter and her two dogs.  Athena and Sawyer love to walk and it gets their wiggles out.

3.  This week our featured birthday boy is Older Son, Chaplain Dan.  Happy Birthday, Chaps!  This- is what I wrote on Fa-ebook:  

Today is our oldest's birthday! Happy Happy Birthday, Dan! You have gone from Southern California (and other places in the US) to Indonesia, to Oregon, back to Southern California, to Arizona, and various and sundry spots all over the world for military assignments. There's more to come, I'm sure. And everywhere you go, your smile brightens everyone's day.

One of my most favorite photos of him.

Sitting on a basketball in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia

4.  A friend texted me and asked, "Do you want basil?"  "Yes!"  (mine is under performing this year)  She picked a bunch of me and handed me a kitchen trash bag FULL of basil.  I spent the evening processing it all and making pesto.  I think I have enough frozen cubes of pesto to last me until next summer.  Yum!

5.  Honey!  Our bees provided abundantly again this spring/summer again this year.  You can't have more local for your honey than your back garden.  It tastes SO SO SO good!

Bonus Fave:  I spent one afternoon at our daughters' home and helped Nurse Daughter do some organizing in the garage.  Double joy for me-- spending time with her and doing an organizing project.

I hope you can slow down and step out of the whirlwind of life and remember the blessings.

Summer Solstice Fave Fives

Another week in June has flown by.  And today is the Summer Solstice!  How has the year gone by so quickly?  I have to slow down every Friday and focus on what has blessed me during the week; otherwise, I just keep going and don't think about how grateful I am for big and little things.  Friday Fave Fives really helps me do that.

1.  The absolute best fave for this past week is the first thing I will mention.  Our older son Chaplain Dan flew in to visit us on Saturday!  We have been having the best time.  He has helped so much with 

2.  His sisters have been able to spend some time with him.  It makes my mama's heart 3/4 full.  (why only 3/4?  because Younger Son wasn't able to join us)

3.  The Professor is doing well, healing more daily.  We've been able to take a couple of short walks in the neighborhood.  He has daily exercises to help him regain strength and better use of his left hand.  His appointment with his primary care physician went well.

4.  On Sunday, after church, we enjoyed a family dinner at Olive Garden.  Younger Daughter's boyfriend joined us and we had a wonderful time celebrating The Professor.

5.  Our usual weekly coffee time with T and S was especially fun because Chaplain Dan was with us.  Since all three guys are military veterans, they had the best time just talking about the Navy and the Army.  S and I sat and listened and enjoyed the conversations.

How was your week?  How were you blessed?

Remembrance Day, Veterans Day

It is important to recognize and honor those who have fought for our freedom.  That's why I appreciate celebrating Veterans Day (Remembrance Day).

NEVER FORGET!

Also,  November 11th is Chaplain Dan and his lovely bride's wedding anniversary!

Eighteen years!

This photo isn't all that recent (2021).  I just don't have a newer one to share.

August, Second Week

 We are traveling.  Again.  This time, we are on a road trip.  This trip had been planned before our adventure in Ireland, England and Wales.  So we wanted to keep our plans in place.  Yes, it has been a busy summer, but we are enjoying it.

And now it is Friday already.  Time for me to stop, breathe, and ponder all the blessings of this past week.  That's what Friday Fave Fives is for.  To help us slow down, think, and be thankful.

1.  Older Son's (Chaplain Dan) birthday was on the 3rd.  We had good conversations with him and found out he will be in the area that we are passing through on Saturday!  He is a US Army Reserve Chaplain and is spending some time on duty in Kansas.  So we will be able to see him!

2.  Older Daughter's birthday will be while we are gone.  So after church on Sunday, we took her and Tall Boy to lunch at her favorite restaurant, Olive Garden.  It was good to spend that time with them and celebrate her life.  (our rocket science girl)

3.  Books on Kindle.  I appreciate having so many more books available to read through our local library.  And I can put many of them on my Kindle to read and not have to carry all the heavy volumes while we travel.

4.  A safe car to drive.  I am thankful for our 2023 Honda CRV.  We had basic service done on it (oil change) and know it is in great condition to take us on our road trip.

5.  I know I chose this as a fave last week, but truly I am thankful for air conditioning.  It has been so hot and humid this past week that I don't know how I could have handled it and home and in the car without AC.

I hope you take time this week (today) to remember all the ways you have been blessed this week.

March on in

I have a few minutes before I drive off again to pick up my granddaughter from track practice.  It may be raining buckets but there are ways to keep up the momentum in track even in the gym.  So I'm posting my Friday Fave Fives quickly.  Willow's Week was again busy with lots of activities.  But it is important to stop, breathe, and focus on the goodness in my life.

1. Two reminders that the 'Art Girls' shared as we talked about the book we are reading for Lent of how we should live:  Never hurry. Never worry.  Live in an attitude of gratitude. Great statements to ponder when I stop to take a breath during the week.

2.  We had several days this past week when it wasn't raining, so we were able to get out for some good walks/hikes.  There is a local park that has so many paved and unpaved trails that wind through the woods and around a small lake and up a few hills.  We love to walk there.  Bonus is that it has a dog park, so the crazy grandpup can get most of his wiggles out there first and then walk with us after.

3.  The daffodils in my garden are starting to bloom!  I brought two in and placed them in a vase so I can enjoy them all day inside.

4.  Lunch with a friend.  We both love Asian food so we met at a local Thai place.  An extra fave is that the people who own the restaurant speak Indonesian, so I had opportunity to use my second language.

5.  I saved the best until last!  Our older son is an Army Reserve Chaplain.  He has been deployed on active duty out of the country for several months.  Finally, I can say this:  HE'S BACK ON US SOIL!  It will be a bit before he is home, but this is a big step!  Welcome home, Chaps!

A Potpourri Post

Willow and The Professor are home from another adventure. We are, as always, excited to go and happy to come home again. We flew Long Beach, CA to Phoenix, Arizona to Detroit, Michigan. Then we flew back again the same route. Going both directions we were delayed, mostly by weather which often happens when one travels in the winter. When we arrived in Detroit at our hotel, it was 5am. We had missed the whole night's sleep. Maybe that's the best way to quickly adjust to the three hour time change. When we returned we were late leaving Phoenix because, while the plane was there, the crew was not. And you can't fly a plane without a pilot.

Normally we fly in and out of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). This trip we drove a little farther south and flew out of Long Beach Airport. This airport looks just like airports did in the 1950s. In fact, if you watch a movie made to look like it was set in the Fifties or Sixties, and there is an airport, you will most likely see Long Beach Airport. There is one small waiting room on only one level, outdoor-only baggage claim. The staff is friendly and helpful and the atmosphere is a little more low key, more laid back, sleepy town. High powered flyers don't fly out of Long Beach.






Detroit was cold! The Professor and I lived in Illinois for four winters so we do know about cold and snow. But we are Southern Californians now and our bodies just aren't used to freezing temperatures. The Princess is a Southwest girl and she had never seen it snow before. We felt so sorry for Big Boy! Snow on his head and icicles on his ears!






There had been a storm on New Year's Eve that dropped twelve inches of snow on Detroit. I had forgotten about how the snow plows remove the snow from the roads and parking lots, but the stuff has to go somewhere until the temperatures rise enough so it will melt. I remember the winter of 1985 in Illinois when the city of Chicago simply gave up plowing most city streets and kept only the main roads plowed because there was so much snow.





I had also forgotten that midwest houses are mostly made of brick. I tried to take photos, but it's not easy when you are in a rental car driving along unfamiliar roads and peering through the snow. There were lovely brick houses, covered with snow, looking like they were waiting to be featured on next year's Christmas cards. I even caught a glimpse of a picturesque red barn, perched on the hillside, a brilliant cardinal sitting in its nest of white fields, but I didn't have time to even point and shoot as we whizzed by. Another thing I had forgotten was the stark black and white landscape of a midwest winter. Black, white, gray, brown. Especially when it's cloudy and there is no blue sky to add a punch of color.

No green lawns or green leaves. No green palms waving in the breeze.

Just ice, snow and brittle branches.

The reason we went to Detroit in January was Chaplain Dan. Sending him off at the airport helped prepare our hearts for this separation. It was something we could do for him, for The Princess and for ourselves.

Godspeed, Dan.

Ten Degrees and Counting

Memo: Pls B kind to Wllw. She had a tuff day.

The weather outside is frightful.

Last night it was 10 degrees fahrenheit.

WHAT?! And we thought global warming was the problem. Honestly, Michigan could use some global warming.

I did write Michigan. And yes, that's where The Professor, Chaplain Dan, The Princess and I are right now. We are here to bid farewell to Chaplain Dan for awhile as he goes away on a deployment with the US Army.

We left our wonderful sunny Southern California 70+ degree weather and flew to Phoenix to get our connecting flight to Detroit. The flight from Phoenix was two hours late so we landed in Detroit at 3:20am Detroit time. By the time we got our luggage, waited at the shuttle, picked up our rental car, drove to the hotel and checked in, it was 5:00am. Wake up time was 9:00am.

This was the view out the front windshield before The Professor scraped the ice off.

And this was the view from my side window. At 4:30am.

Speaking of ice scrapers--Southern Californians do not understand the concept of an ice scraper. The stores don't sell them. When we lived in Oregon we had ice scrapers, one in each car. When we moved to Los Angeles, we gave them away. We had a lovely little going away ceremony for them.

Anyway, here we are in the land of ice and snow until Saturday. After I've had a little nap I'm sure I'll be interested in the surroundings and activities.

Soldiers and Princesses

Dan and Jennifer came this weekend to go to the Festival of Books at UCLA. Dan, Jennifer, Meli, John and I spent most of Saturday there, attending panel discussions, walking around looking at the book publisher booths, breathing the wonderful scent of paper and ink bound together with glue and string. Words, words, words on parchment!

Sunday was spent with them, also.

Brave Men and Lovely Ladies

Chaplain Dan and Chaplain Assistant David have a common goal--helping soldiers in their spiritual life. They will be spending a lot of time together over the next year or two, so I am very happy to have met David and his fiancee Christine. As the time draws near for the deployment of these two brave men, I'll be asking all my dear readers to remember them in your prayers, just as you did our Tim last year.