Friday's Fave Five #867

Welcome to the first Friday of December.  How can that be?  But it is.  We are almost done another whole year of thankfulness.   Have you developed a habit of looking out for the blessings God sends your way?  Has thankfulness and gratefulness come more naturally to you on a daily basis?  If so, then FFF is doing it's job. If you, like me,  sometimes forget or fall off the train, don't give up.  Just get right back on.  It takes time and effort to build an intentional habit.  And while some habits are not good for you, the habit of sincerely being grateful & thankful to God for His blessings will make your life more joyful and fulfilled.  So thank you for joining in with me and keep on keeping on!

This week I'm thankful for:

~ safe travels ~ we were supposed to leave for the OCC Processing Center on Friday last week but a huge snow storm blew in.  It snowed and it snowed and it snowed some more.  My son was texting me in the middle of the night that the roads were pretty treacherous, even the ambulance was sliding around.  Then warnings of blowing snow on the sections of the highway started.  So mid-morning we made the decision to not go that day but to wait until Saturday morning because the weather reports were much better.  Saturday turned out to be a sunny beautiful morning.  The highways were clear and by the time we arrived the city had already had the chance to start plowing and salting the main roads.  So thankful we made the decision to wait and that we had safe travels there and back.

~ volunteering with my group ~  Saturday was our shift at the Operation Christmas Child Processing Center where they check all the lovely shoebox gifts people have packed.  This year along with Hubby, my son and his girlfriend joined us as did 3 ladies from my bible study group.  It was so much fun having them along and getting to share this step in the journey of a shoebox with them.  And if you are wondering, items are never removed from shoeboxes unless item that is not allowed.  The shoebox gift is kept the way the giver intended.  Sometimes if the boxes are a bit on the sparse side they will add filler items to make the boxes nice and full.  Then they are taped shut, indicating to the receiving country's customs that the box has been checked, and packed into cases to be put on flats for shipping.  Thankful to be able to participate again this year and to have friends along with me.  Unfortunately, I forgot to get everyone's permission to post their pictures so here's Hubby and I.  And per usual I forgot to check if I was holding the box right side up.  Every. single. year.  An upside down box is apparently my signature move.

~bed to sleep in ~  a local street mission is asking us to reflect on our blessings by posting a different item each day during advent that we probably have and take for granted that their clients probably do not have.  Yesterday's question was "Do I have a warm bed to sleep in?"  With the cold, snowy weather we have had over the last couple weeks, this really hit home.  I am so very thankful that yes I do.  And I pray I am more aware that not all others do and to walk with more grace and mercy and a giving attitude towards those who don't.  

 

~ celebrating Hubby's birthday ~ after our shift at OCC we all went to The Old Spaghetti Factory for supper to celebrate Hubby's birthday.  It's one of his favorite places to eat and we all enjoyed our well earned meals after working all afternoon.  

~ beautiful drive home ~ on the way home, God treated us to one of the most gorgeous skies and then astounding sunsets we have ever seen.  I have never seen such a blazing red sky and then just for a minute it got this bright yellow center.  What a blessed way to end a great weekend.

The pictures just don't do it justice.

What have been your favorite blessings from the past week?

Friday's Fave Five #866

Happy Friday!  I hope all my American friends had a lovely Thanksgiving Day yesterday!  Thanksgiving holiday rolls around once a year but here at FFF we are endeavoring to be thankful as a daily lifestyle.  So join us in our pause to take note and be thankful for five blessings from the last week. 

~ persimmons ~  had my first persimmon ever in my life and I am hooked.  So sweet and smooth and delicious!  The dayhome kids were unsure of it, but that's ok, more for me.

~ helping with the intake of boxes ~ Sunday I helped with the intake of shoebox gifts at the main drop off location.  It was the last drop off day so it was a big one with several surrounding towns bringing in their boxes.  It was nice to meet a lot of project leaders and others involved with organizing for their churches.  I'm thankful to work alongside so many great volunteers.

~ encouragement given and received ~ At ladies bible study this week there was some really great back and forth on the topic being studied and it was great to see encouragement being given and received as some of the questions really asked us to do some soul searching.  I love and am thankful that our group is a safe place to share our thoughts and our struggles and our victories knowing we will lift each other up.

~ winter tires on ~ I'm thankful for my hubby who worked hard to get my winter tires on for the season.  And just in time for the snowfall we got this week.  

~ evening tea ~ with the weather cooling off evening tea has been a welcome and relaxing ritual.  So nice to curl up with a good book or fave tv show and that hot tea to warm up with.

What have been your favorite blessings of the last week?

 

The Secret War of Julia Child by Diana R. Chambers ~ Book Review

Julia McWilliams is 30 years old, single and at a bit of a cross roads in her life.  Born into an aristocratic Pasadena family, she earned at degree in history in college. Determined to achieve something of worth  she moved to Washington to take a job under General "Wild Bill" Donovan in the Offices of Strategic Services.  Highly ambitious she quickly moved up to Head of OSS Registry of Secret Files.  But she wanted more.  She wanted to go overseas and help somehow with the war effort.  But her 6 foot 2 height disqualified her from enlisting.   General Donovan, seeing her hard work,  rewarded her motivation and optimism by sending her to Ceylon to set up offices for their war effort there, where eventually she was assigned to India and China.  While there she met Paul Child, a very talented and dedicated map maker, but the two were very different and like oil and water.  Eventually they form a begrudging friendship as they are thrust into working together, sometimes in incredibly dangerous situations where they start to see the qualities that begin a lifetime love.  "I was never a spy" Julia takes on the challenging tasks given to her with her trademark gusto and  with no idea of the impact her assignments will have or where these experiences would eventually land her.

This was a work of historical fiction centering around Julia's time with the OSS in India and Asia.  Though the author did extensive research there are many missing parts to Julia's story especially because she refused to admit she was a spy.  The author took many liberties to fill in the gaps and she freely admits to doing so.  With this in mind, some of the things told made me wonder how far an event or incident was pushed for story's sake or if it even happened at all.  A few of the parts dragged a bit and though the number of characters is large and at times confusing it was still an interesting story as I have never read of the history of British colonialism as it pertained to the war nor of the resistance against Japan in Asian countries.  It was an interesting speculation of what might of happened in the war to make Julia become the person we all eventually came to know as the person who brought French cooking to the home cook.

I rated it a 7.5/10 

Friday's Fave Five #865

Welcome to Friday's Fave Five.  Thank you for joining me in pausing our hectic weeks leading up to the holidays and looking for those blessings we are grateful for.  It has been a very busy week for me, so I'm thankful for this pause that helps me notice blessings in my life.  

~ Occ Boxes loaded and delivered to the drop off location ~  Sunday was collection Sunday at our church and we prayed over the shoebox gifts as a congregation.  Then we loaded them up for the next step in their journey into the hands of a child.  Tuesday I dropped them off at the main collection center in town where next week they will be loaded into a semi for their journey to the processing center in Calgary.  I love every step of the shoebox journey.

~ work Christmas party ~  last night was our agency's Christmas party.  We had a lovely turkey dinner and got to meet and interact with some of the approximately 70 educators that have family dayhomes that are licensed with our agency.  It was a fun evening and I'm grateful for all the work the admin ladies did it putting it together.

~ gift of beef ~ One of my dayhome families gifted us with a roast and some steaks from a cow they had butchered.  With the insane price of beef around here this was such a blessing!

~ Christmas shopping started ~ I've been dreading the holidays coming up, in fact the whole month of December.  Last year was when my Mom went into hospital at the beginning of December and passed a week before Christmas.  But I picked up gifts for the dayhome kids this week and a couple of others on my list.  I'm trying to keep it simple and not second guess myself this year like I usually do.  So I've got those and moving on.

~ a three year old's belly laughter ~ such joy it brings.  I love when one of the dayhome kids gets the belly laughs or something silly.  It's infectious.  You can't help but laugh along.

What have been your favorite blessings that you are thankful for this week?

The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain ~ Book Review

The summer before she goes off to college, Ellie Hockley has applied to volunteer helping register black voters, much to the great dismay of her parents.  Their plans for her are more along the lines of college and a good marriage to a certain local bank manager.  But that doesn't line up with Ellie's ideals.  It is 1965 and her heart is to fight for civil rights which puts her not only in danger, but has brought scandal to her family as working for the Scope project entails living with black families.  When she falls for a fellow volunteer, Ellie has no idea the wheels she has set in motion in her town.

In 2010, architects Kayla Carter and her husband have bought property in the town's new development and have started to build their dream home.  But when her husband dies in a freak fall at the construction site Kayla's world changes forever.  She now has a 3 year old daughter to raise by herself and a semi finished home on a property reputed to be haunted.  When she gets a strange visit from a woman at work warning her against moving in and vandals target the new home, Kayla doesn't know what her next steps should be.  And after meeting her strange neighbor, Ellie Hockley, Kayla doesn't know what to think.  Ellie is very distant and seems to be hiding secrets about the history of Kayla's property and what happened there.  

 Told in dual timelines, this story of a town's sordid and sad history brought out all the emotions.  The Scope Project is something I have never read about before so it was a learning experience for me to read about the brave college students and the trials they faced to get black voters registered.   The characters and what they went through broke my heart, made me mad and shocked me.  The author definitely takes on the horrible things that happened during that time of the civil rights movement without sugar coating it.  The involvement of kkk in spreading hate through a community and the uneasiness of pitting neighbor against neighbor never knowing who might be involved with such a vile group definitely brought tension.  The story definitely makes one think and reflect.  It was everything I love in a historical fiction.

I rated it a 10/10

Friday's Fave Five #864

Welcome to Friday's Fave Five.  It's that time in the week to slow ourselves down and pause to look for th blessings God has granted over the past week.  

~ successful move to w1ndows 11 ~ my computer has been trying to get me to upgrade to the newer version almost since the time I purchased it 3+ years ago.  I've avoided it right to the bitter end and then some.  I hate the learning curve that comes with technology stuff and it always stresses me out.  Well the due date of mid-October came and went and I still didn't upgrade.  But I finally decided I should.  Hubby backed up my whole computer just in case and we bit the bullet.  I'm happy to say it was a relatively easy transition and so far haven't found anything too hard to find or relearn.  

~ lunch with our friends/neighbors ~ Tuesday our neighbors, who are also friends, treated us to lunch at an all you can eat Sushi/Thai restaurant.  It was so much fun getting to visit with them and catch up.  It was also an adventure trying some new items we'd never ordered before that were favorites of theirs.  

~ night out with my sister ~ both of our birthdays are in December and this year we decided we no longer want to do gifts of stuff but we wanted to go out and do something together.  A Bee Gees tribute band was coming to town so we got ourselves some tickets.  We made a whole evening of it and went out to eat before hand.  It was so nice doing something like that with her.  We've never really done that kind of evening out with just us two before.  Dinner was full of laughs and relaxing, and the sold out show was fun too as all the Bee Gees music is so nostalgic for me.  

~ Turtles cheesecake ~ I think it was the very first flavor of cheesecake I ever had.  Of course, when out for dinner at the restaurant that originally had it on the menu before it cheesecake became super popular as a dessert,  I had to get a slice.  I haven't had it in many, many years and it was as yummy as I remembered.  It's not a dense heavy cheesecake but light and very creamy. Though it was sweeter than I remembered probably because I have cut sugar back a lot since my younger days.   

~ gorgeous blue sky ~ though it brought an insane wind (gusts up to 100km - about 60 mph!) hiding behind the chinook arch was a very picturesque blue sky making a nice picture.  

 

~ taking a moment ~ Tuesday was Remembrance Day where we take the time to pause and reflect on the sacrifices made by so many and honor the men and women who have served Canada and fought for freedom.  It is with a grateful heart that we take that 2 minutes of silence on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11 a.m. 

What were your favorite five blessings of the week?

Friday's Fave Five #863

Welcome to Friday's Fave Five.  It has been a crazy busy weekend and week so I am especially glad to be taking this intentional time to stop and refocus and take note of what were blessings in my week.  Please join in with us sharing five of our favorites.

~ OCC kickoff Sunday ~ a little later than usual this year but we finally had our kick off Sunday at church.  The announcement went well, I think, and now the fun begins filling up the shoebox gifts with special items.   It's always a favorite for me as I love supporting this project bringing joy and Jesus to kids around the world. 

~ supportive ladies group ~ as a Connect Leader volunteer with OCC I get the opportunity to apply for spots at the processing center before the general public does so this year I took a step of faith and asked for 12 spots on a Saturday.  I was approved.  My family will take up some of those spots but I put it out to my ladies study group and already 4 of them have committed to come.  I'm so excited to be able to introduce them to another step in the shoebox journey.

~ surprise lunch ~ my thoughtful hubby surprised me with a sushi lunch yesterday.  There is a little place in town that does a lovely tray for a reasonable price.  It's delicious, fresh made and the owner is a lovely lady who goes the extra mile.  A quiet sushi lunch in the kitchen with Hubby with the dayhome kids in the next room having their afternoon rest is a real blessing.  

~ fresh local honey ~ we ordered a fresh batch of local honey from our favorite honey farm this week.  There is nothing like a local honey.  

~ evening tea ~ with the nights cooling off a hot cup of tea in the evenings is making the comeback.  This week I've been enjoying a pineapple pear infusion tea.  So relaxing and warming while the wind has been howling outside.  

What have been your favorite blessings in the last week?