VACATION WEEK 1 FAVES

 

I am wrapping up week one of my summer vacation.  The classroom stuff is put away so the cleaners can wax our floors and I am feeling free!

I'm pausing today to look back on this week and share FIVE of my FAVE blessings.  Susanne is taking this week off but I decided to share anyways as I like this gratitude meme and it gets me to pause and reflect back on all the blessings God brings to me.

FIVE FAVES

image courtesy of nippert*wn site

image courtesy of the Daily Gazette

• ORCHESTRA EVENING! Saturday evening we had lawn tickets for the Philadelphia Orchestra with Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducting.  The draw for me was Joshua Bell playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto. (he also played a short piece written by an African American woman and the Orchestra finished the evening with Mozart's Symphony in G Minor which was exquisite)  I've loved Joshua Bell ever since my oldest girl started taking violin lessons way back in 2002.  Since both girls studied violin from ages 9-18, I decided, since the orchestra was back at SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center, about 25 min north of our home) this summer, I would buy 3 lawn tickets (Claire was at work).  Courtney decided to join Dave and I as did our church friends Scot and Diane and Scot's mom and my sister Joy.  What a pleasant evening of great music and the thrill of hearing/seeing Bell in person!!  I'm thankful for great arts venues and good friends to share excellent music, good food and wine, on a perfect summer evening. 

Canal Place
Little Falls, NY
Mohawk Valley region of Central NY

Heron on the Erie Canal
Little Falls, NY

Beautiful Black-eyed Susans
in the Canal Side Park

blueberry lemonade from The Cafe
SO GOOD!

• ROAD TRIP:  Sunday morning I drove out to my childhood hometown church (Oak Ridge Free Methodist..different pastor of course and different location in town) to worship with some of the old timers there and my childhood best friend Donna.  Donna and I became friends in 1965 when we walked to kindergarten together! She became a Christian many years after I did and we reconnected at my mother's funeral in 2012.  It was great to talk to some of the folks who knew my parents, hear a good sermon and then go out to lunch with another childhood friend I've kept in touch with (and who  goes to a different church).  Diane and I had lunch at this spot in their outdoor dining area and then took a canal side walk and then sat in the pretty park next to the river.  I'm thankful for a good afternoon and when I got home, Dave agreed to make dinner! (he stayed home to go to our own church and then do some much needed lawn work)

image courtesy of lovedagain media

• MOVIE NIGHTS:  Dave and I, after dinner on Sunday, wanted to watch a movie we saw on Netflix with Tom Hanks.  Somehow we had never seen this one!  What a fun movie.  It was part comedy, part drama with a little bit of romance thrown in. It was a gorgeous summer evening with all the house windows open and at one point it got very chilly so we curled up under a blanket to finish the flick.  So fun.  I do recommend this....it's a great family flick. Then on Tuesday, because it was raining and the hike I was going to join was cancelled, I started the dining room chairs project while watching a very funny comedy/drama on Netflix called The Meddler.  This was another good one.  I just laughed aloud at the mom and daughter and their texts to each other. Another one I can recommend.  I'm thankful for good (free!) movies!

  

  image courtesy of Amaz*n

2 of the 4 dining room chairs
Paint color is:  Deep Sea Diving

• PROJECTS!  Since I teach full time year round and am forced to have my vacations set for me, projects like this tend to wait until I have a chunk of time to work on them.  I decided that the light sage green of 2 chairs and the orginal white of the other 2, had to go. It had been ten years since I last painted these.  Time for an updated, fresh color.  It took 3 days of working on these 4 chairs as I needed two coats of paint.  I also bought new chair cushions for them in a deep red to match the kitchen walls (part of our walls are barn red and the other part is cream).  Even though we eat in the dining room as the kitchen is too small for the table and chairs, I use a lot of deep blue and barn red in my decor.  Here's a look at how everything came together.  I'm thankful this project (and another one involving the closet (no pic available)  in the now empty bedroom) is completed. 

the results as seen in the morning light

a different view of the dining room

• LUNCH DATE!  Yesterday my friend Cindy and I had a lunch date. I hadn't seen her since maybe April!  She works as an attendance officer for a public school system south of me and we've been friends since about 2014 when she joined my small group via church. We also used to be special education aides in the same district until we both left to get back to teaching full time.  Now that she and her family attend a different church, I hardly ever see her.  We met at this awesome wraps/salad place where I had the Cobb salad (minus the bacon and cheese) and she had the Caesar Chicken wrap.We talked for close to 2 hours!  It was so good to connect with her. I'm thankful for good friends and sisters in Christ.

That wraps it up for me and those special things that made me smile.  What about you?  What was a blessing you enjoyed this past week?