MID SPRING FAVES

 

Wow...the first Friday of May and we're about at the mid-Spring mark!  I'm loving this last week....all the sunshine, beautiful blooms, green grass and leaves popping up on all the trees...and warm temps.  How I love Spring. Cool mornings but warm sun and chilly evenings with wonderful scents of flowers blooming. 

I'm sharing five favorite blessings from the past week. It's so good for our souls and minds to be intentional about looking for things to be thankful for. Sometimes it's difficult when we're in the midst of trials...but there is always some thing to be thankful for, isn't there?  Join me and others as we reflect on our blessings. We link up at Susanne's. 

First of 2024 and Dave gets to relax in "my" chair

• FAMILY FUN!  On Saturday afternoon, my sister Hope and her husband Donny drove out from the central part of New York to join us for a casual lunch and time around the firepit catching up on our lives, etc. I had bought all kinds of deli meats and cheeses, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, cucumbers, etc etc for everyone to make their own subs.  We also had 2 kinds of chips, and homemade chocolate brownies.  The weather was gorgeous!  Chilly in the shade but perfect for a bonfire in the afternoon sunshine. We had a lot of brush to burn so we burned 3 big piles before they had to get home to their chickens and goats for milking and feeding time. I'm so thankful we had the afternoon with them. 

Albany Pro Musica 
Sunday 28 April
Troy Music Hall
photo credit to Courtney E T 

• ALBANY PRO MUSICA CONCERT: Sunday afternoon, Dave and I had tickets, along with our oldest daughter Courtney, to go hear the Albany Pro Musica choral group perform their last work of the 2023/2024 season.  Our young friend Hannah from church was singing soprano in the group. She is a fantastic musician and graduated from the Christian college that was rivals with the one I went to! The group was performing the 2.5 hour long oratorio by Bach titled B Minor Mass.  I had only ever heard (and sung!) the first part, Kyrie Eleison. I had never heard the entire mass.  It was phenomenal. And another cool blessing was that Courtney's seat was right next to her elementary orchestra teacher who retired a number of years ago.  Courtney and Claire both studied violin under this amazing Christian woman and were in the Orchestra from grades 4-12. (Different conductor  in Jr and Sr high schools).  Anyways,  Ms B was SO surprised to see Courtney and to find out she is a Gordon graduate out in the working world. Ms B herself did her undergrad work from the same college Hannah graduated from. Small world in Christian circles!  All in  all, I'm thankful for good music, old teacher friends and new friends. 

Cherry Blossom time!
Tuesday 

• CHERRY BLOSSOMS:  Our cherry trees looked half dead this past winter. In fact, Dave had to chop off large chunks of branches where he saw some rot and fungus type stuff.  These trees have been on our land since hte builders put them there. Per town code, each new house built has to have at least one tree. We ended up with TWO cherry trees in the front yard. I didn't think they'd bloom this spring. Well both have bloomed beautifully this week.  This picture doesn't capture the bright pink like I was hoping it would. I'm thankful for bright blooms that smell heavenly.

Aloo Matar and Samosas

• INDIAN FOOD!  Monday night Dave cooked dinner for us.  He wanted to try making homemade, from scratch, Aloo Matar ( an Indian veggie dish with potatoes, peas and carrots plus homemade curry sauce).  It was fantastic!! I also threw into the oven some store bought frozen samosas....they were a bit too spicy for me....but I had a couple. They were stuffed with potatoes and peas. I'm so thankful Dave wanted to try this recipe and that I had all the required spices!!

me on the left and sister Hope on the right
We're sitting on part of the chimney
from our great grandparents camp from the 1920s-1950s

more of the chimney foundation and stove pipe
at great grandpa's camp

off the old Hardscrabble Road
Northville NY
southern Adirondacks

• HIKE! Yesterday I met my sister Hope and her husband Donny in the village where our family summer camp used to be. Our goal was to hike to the end of the Hardscrabble Road where my dad's grandparents' camp was in the 1920s-1950s.  Last summer, Hope and I found the foundation. Yesterday, we walked the mile to the end of the road (we had to turn around as the end is posted private property with surveillance cameras...a wealthy family bought the land back there and built a camp.  After we turned around, we poked around a side road only to discover that also led to a rather new private camp.  We passed the old hunting camp and then found our  great-grandparents foundation again with the old chimney, some other pieces of the camp, and the stove pipe!!  I have a lot more photos on Facebook.... we had a wonderful day and are thankful that it isn't black fly season yet as we had a great walk with no bugs other than those spring time gnats which don't bite. (Black fly season for those of you who don't live in the Northeast is from Mother's Day to Father's Day typically).  

Those are five of the best blessings from the week.  I'm also thankful that I had a good chat with a very dear friend of mine whom I rarely get to see in person. 

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!