ICY WEEK FAVES

 

What a week of winter it has been!

I know those of you who live in the southern/mid-west states have seen blizzards and flooding. 

Up here in the eastern part of New York State, we had some major ice to deal with. Our driveway was icy all week long and is just now starting to melt. And apparently rock salt is hard to come by this winter. Not sure why my county doesn't switch to sand like up in the mountains!  I'm blessed to be retired though and don't have to commute on these wintry roads.

I'm also blessed with other things that God brought to my week. They're really just simple things/answers to prayer. But God's Hand is in them and here are FIVE of my FAVE ones from the past week. Join in by linking up at Susanne's site.

image courtesy of google: the Westin at Copley Place
Boston

• SAFE TRAVELS:  Dave left for Boston early Friday morning and the above pic was his destination. Yup, he was right in downtown for a convention until Sunday night when he then traveled to the south shore to stay in a different hotel and the next morning visit his mom and have lunch with her before heading back home. I'm so thankful he was safe on  all those interstates in that horrible weekend weather. I'm also thankful he finally got to attend the Science Fiction Writers convention he's been wanting to go to.  Although the accommodations were pricey, it was a special treat for him as he works hard all year. 

• TREAT BAGS:  On Valentine's evening, my oldest daughter and I were supposed to participate in a luminary hike at our fave state park to the north of us. Courtney left work early in order to ride with me. We got all the way there only to discover that the event was cancelled due to the ice. So we ordered a veggie pizza, drove back to my house and watched this classic movie which she had received as a Christmas gift and which I hadn't seen in over 30 years. I also gave her a treat bag:  chocolate shortbread cookies I made that morning, a fave chocolate bar she likes, a chocolate scented candle and a magnet with my life verse on it from Proverbs 3:5-6.  My other daughter picked up her treat bag before work on Tuesday and hers contained the same candle, heart socks, a baggie of the shortbread cookies and an oat milk chocolate bar. I'm thankful I could spend some time with both daughters this past week and treat them to some goodies. 

the backyard/deck as seen from family room door

• SUNSHINE!  I'm thankful we've had a mostly sunny....although single digit temps at night....week.  There's nothing like the sparkle of ice and snow where the sun hits it.  In some places in my backyard the grass is showing...in other places there's a pile of about 5 inches...the wind really shifted the snow around.  Everything is a layer of ice. But I'm so thankful for sunshine and that the temps will be in the 40s all next week!

Patti blooms again!

• BLOOMS! My African violet, every winter for the last 3 winters, looks dead come mid-January.  I started growing this 3 years ago and it's doing well now that I've researched how to keep African violets healthy.  Basically, she needs to always be in an east facing window which is easy because the back of our house (family room, kitchen, dining room, and deck) face east. She's on a wooden plant stand in the family room. She also needs plant food specifically for African violets every 6 weeks or so.  Once I "fed" her the end of January, she perked up and showed me these gorgeous blooms which popped out earlier this week. I'm thankful for spots of Spring on cold winter days. 

pages 4-5 of the Andante Favori
by Beethoven 

• PRACTICE TIMES!  One of my 2025 personal goals is to  get back to practicing classical, baroque, and romantic era music. I might even throw in some stuff from the modern era like Bartok and Shostakovich. My current practice music is a piece I played for my Senior Level Piano Recital in college in April 1982. This was a 10 min piece, fully memorized. In fact, senior recitals at RWC had to be 30 min long at least. I chose to do a piece from each major era.  This met my late classical/early romantic era. I still can't understand how I memorized every piece and yet today I struggle with it. So I'm practicing 2-3 days a week for about a half hour each day.  Gone are the days I can sit for 80 minutes at a time at the piano. My back just can't take it. But I'm thankful I found some of my music in a basement bin and pulled it out to start working on it again. These 2 pages are the killer ones for me. (for those of you who don't know: I earned a BS in Music Education/Piano and a minor in Voice/Alto before getting my MS in EdPsych/Special Ed birth-geriatric). One of my own family members ( a cousin) had no idea I had been a piano major until he saw me post this music on Facebook haha. I'm thankful for good music and time to play it!

These are not major blessings, but they're five things that make me say, "Thank You, God".  It's good to give thanks even in the small things. 

ENJOY THE WEEKEND, EVERYONE!