Mid-February Faves

What a week!

Another snow-day on Monday that brought another foot (about) of snow to us.  And then Tuesday it warmed up enough to create lots of sloppy roads and driveways.  Then back to frigid temperatures!

But in all this mid-February messy weather, I can find some definite blessings so I'm going to share FIVE of them and link up over at Susanne's with other writers finding FIVE FAVES from the past week.

FIVE FAVES

Dave and I on Saturday 7 February
Photo courtesy of Carla W

• DOUBLE DATE!  Saturday morning Dave and I met our good friends Carla and Bob at this art gallery about 40 minutes north of our town.The main exhibit for the next couple of months features paintings from the Adirondack Museum.  I was the only one who had ever been to the gallery so we all did the entire gallery/house tour after viewing the Adirondack paintings.  (Dave and I have been to the ADK museum before with our daughters and highly recommend it if you are ever in the mountains of NY)  After we toured the Hyde House, we went downtown to this amazing pub. We had awesome food, drinks and shared one dessert, a very rich and creamy Stout Mousse.  Oh. my.  We were stuffed. It is always so much fun doing things with our friends and the double date was perfect for our feelings of "cabin fever".  Since we are all hikers, we really enjoyed the paintings of the various mountains and lakes featured in the exhibit.  It's a blessing to have some fun time in the midst of winter!

• SAFE RETURN!  This blessing makes my list because Sunday's weather was just awful and our daughter wasn't home from the winter youth group retreat until 4 hours after their planned return.  Basically, the bus that was supposed to pick them up in the Berkshire mountains (an hour east of us in the state of MA) got stuck in a snowy ditch.  So...it took awhile for the bus to be pulled out, then all the teens and staff (75 teens from church went on the retreat) piled their stuff on and in and away they went.  But because of the falling snowstorm, they had to go slow.  They pulled into the church lot at 6 pm on Sunday (they were supposed to arrive at 2 pm!) and all of us parents were so relieved and thankful that no more mishaps occurred.  

• COUCH DATE:  Claire and I had a Netflix/couch date Monday afternoon during our snow-day.  The snow was falling steadily but we were cozy with fleece blankets, popcorn, and a good romantic comedy.  I love these special times with my teen girl.  The blessing for me is that she still wants me to hug her and curl up on the couch with her.  I treasure these times with our "baby".

• NO MORE PLASTIC WRAP!  I finally found something that a half grapefruit will fit in!!  I spied this near the fresh grapefruit at a local grocery store I frequent so I grabbed it, because I am so tired of using plastic wrap (which is so awful for our environment) every other day to wrap a half grapefruit in. I felt like it was such a waste!! I eat grapefruit just about every morning from November until about April.  But I can't eat a whole one every day so I save the other half for the next morning.  It's the little blessings that are important, too, ya know!!

Carla (left) and I at a Paint and Sip fundraiser project
11 February
photo courtesy of Carla W.

• PAINT AND SIP/SERVICE PROJECT!  Oh what fun the paint and sip events are!!  They are quite trendy here in the Capital Region of New York State and I'd love to know if they are springing up in your area of the USA/Canada/Europe.  Basically, it's a place where you go to paint with no experience necessary,  from an artist who has a theme for the evening, and sip wine (or non-alcoholic beverages).  I hadn't been to this one in our area yet,  so when I saw that a co-worker was raising money at her church for this organization that her mom heads up, I was sold!!  I thought it would be a perfect service project for my small group from church.  Sadly, only 2 of us were able to go!  But we had a blast!!  The artist walked us through on how to mix the colors.  The theme for the evening was "Creating Hope" (for the children of Haiti and Zimbabwe) and we had so much fun painting and sipping delicious wines.  Here is my final product.  And yeah...I'm keeping my special ed job because as you can see I am no artist!  but it was fun!! (the children were done by stencil!!).  It was a blessing to help support this wonderful ministry AND to have another chance to hang out with my friend Carla.

"Creating Hope"

That's just a glimpse into some special blessings from the week.

I'm looking forward to Valentine's day tomorrow and some traditions we do on that day as a family and also to next week because I am officially on WINTER RECESS from work!!  An entire week off!!  If you think of it, could you lift our ballerina girl up in prayer?  She has to get all 4 wisdom teeth removed on Tuesday......and I remember how it went for her big sis, the princess.  I am praying Claire's recovery is better than Courtney's was!!

Enjoy the weekend everyone!