March Faves!

March has arrived and tomorrow night before bed we turn our clocks back an hour and yay for longer days of light!

I'm counting my blessings from the past week and sharing FIVE of my FAVES by linking up at Susanne's site with other like-minded folks.  How about joining in?

FIVE FAVES

• SPRING DECOR!  Last week I started putting away the winter decor (except for a wall hanging and a pillow in my living room and a blanket for the family room) and getting out some early Spring items.  I found these silk green and white carnations in the St Patrick's Day section of a local craft store and bought them for $1.00 each!  I replaced the red berries I had in a jar next to the kitchen sink with these silk flowers.  I bought a new pillow for the living room chair that has a bike with a basket of flowers (forgot to get a pic of it!), and hung up a new "Welcome" sign on the front door (it has 3 pretty light green shamrocks on a white background).  I'm thankful I had some time to change up the home decor!

a "Jamaican Sunset" cocktail and my husband Dave

• DINNER DATE NIGHT!  Last Friday evening, Dave and I had a dinner date night.  It had been quite awhile since we had one at a nice restaurant.  We chose this new-to-us place because our absolute fave Indian-Pakistani place closed down in November.   This place is fancier, on the southern end of town,  and was recommended by some friends.  It's also a bit pricier for the same food items and the drinks were more like downtown Boston prices!  (but it was SO worth it).  We both had had rough weeks at work so this was a great way to end the work week and relax.  The food was excellent and filling. We ordered Naan stuffed with spinach (excellent!), Garlic Naan (just ok), Chicken Tikka Masala (the other place had better and thicker sauce) and Aloo Mater (excellent but again, thinner sauce than our fave place). We had iced water and I ordered a cocktail (pictured above) and Dave ordered one of the mango -yogurt drinks.  (similar to a smoothie).  We chatted about work situations and started planning for our anniversary trip in June/July.  I'm thankful we had a relaxing evening out.

Our Marriage Symbol from our first date!

 one of my hashtags

• COFFEE TRAVEL MUG:  One of the moms of a student we've had for 3 years has gifted me with this mug.  It was made by a friend of hers and she told me to choose any color and symbol plus name or saying.  I chose our marriage symbol from our first date (for those of you who know us very well you know the story about the dragonfly we saw in the Berkshires of MA) and I chose "Hiker Mom" as that is one of my hashtags on Instagram and everyone calls me that who hikes with me.  I love how this mug came out!!  So thankful for thoughtful parents of our special students. And it's a double blessing as she brought it to me after a particularly difficult day with a student last week. Perfect timing...I told her this brightened the whole week!

Red-winged blackbird...first I've seen this season!

frozen pond is starting to melt...
love how the sun was shining on it

The Erie Canal and a flock of geese

• AFTER-WORK WALKS:  How wonderful the sunny days have been this week!  We only had 1 grey day so far.  I'm loving the signs of spring I've seen:  buds on my pear and cherry trees, crocuses beginning to spring up, and the red winged blackbirds are back.  I power- walked on the town bike path this week after work and  I walked 2 miles!  It felt glorious.  I'm so thankful for pretty places to work out and that it's almost Spring!

• ENCOURAGING NOTE:  This past week a parent from another classroom wanted to know if I could recommend some easy hikes in our area for her family. I printed out a list with some hiking tips and gave it to her the next day via her son's teacher.   She responded by buying me a lovely little wall plaque based (I forgot to take a pic!)  on II Corinthians 5:7 (I have no idea if this mom is a Christian or not).  I thanked her and told her she really didn't have to do that but that it was very sweet.  I didn't think anything of it until I received a very encouraging note from our site supervisor thanking me for going the extra mile and helping out a parent.  I'm thankful I was  able to help and I'm thankful for a boss who notices things like that even though to me it was no big deal!

That wraps up my fave blessings from the week.  Of course there were many others: sunshine, warmer temps, a bill that was paid, a reimbursement check, head cold getting better. There are blessings every where we look.  We just have to pause and take note.

Happy Weekend!