Bitter Cold Week Faves

 

It's been a frigid, below freezing week here in the Capital Region of New York.  We still only have 2 inches of snow on the ground unlike the Tug Hill plateau out by my hometown, and the western part of the state!  The mountains have snow of course and the skiers are happy. 

My blessings today....five faves..center around things that are warm and/or that make my heart warm. 

I'm joining other grateful bloggers at Susanne's site where we link up our FIVE FAVES every Friday. 

• Cozy Quilts!  We are very thankful for the basket of cozy quilts and fleece blankets we keep in the family room (our coldest room in the house due to it being on a slab with bamboo flooring).  Dave won the red and cream quilt on a raffle in Maine when he was in grad school and the blue/black quilt was handmade by a woman in Guatemala that he met while on a missions trip there. The green fleece behind it was a gift from me for Xmas a few years ago and there are 2 blue fleeces similar to it, under the ones you see. We like to curl up on the couch together on the weekends and watch a movie on one of the streaming services with these blankets to keep us warm.  We needed them this past week as temps dipped into the teens and single digits!

• SUPER SOFT SOCKS!  I am very thankful for the entire drawer of super soft socks I own and that I wear from December until about April when I can go barefoot again.  I prefer bare feet but this winter has been cold so the soft socks keep my feet warm and comfortable. It's just a little blessing but I'm thankful for it. 

• CREAMY COFFEE:  There's a new coffee spot in  town and I'm all about supporting local coffee shops and this one is even nut free!  They have a good menu with many vegan options and the milk of choice is oat milk. (at home I use unsweetened almond).  I ordered a regular latte with the creamy oatmilk and it was insanely delicious. My friend Lynn joined me so we could get caught up on each other's lives since we hadn't had a coffee date in months. I'm thankful for hot creamy coffee on a frigid morning and time to chat with one of my besties. 

• FOOD, FUN, FELLOWSHIP!  One of my goals for the year is to have friends over for dinner more often. I grew up with people coming to my parents' home all the time for dinner or game nights and somehow Americans have gotten away from this. so last Sunday we invited a single mom we know from church  who is in her 40s (and she's in my small group and the hiking group and volunteers with the organization I also volunteer with) over for Chicken Curry and games. She loved it. Shawna is about 20 years younger than we are and it was nice to have her join us for Sunday dinner.  I love cooking homemade chicken curry and it came out great. And we had a blast playing this easy, quick game called Shut the Box that I bought Dave for Xmas but which didn't arrive until last week! (never will I order from a social media ad again! HA!).  I'm so thankful we could have Shawna over for good food, fun and a lot of conversation. 

• HEART-WARMING HAPPENINGS:  Lots of little blessings came our way this week through texts, phone calls, emails, conversations that just warmed our hearts and made us grateful.  One was that our youngest (Claire) called to tell us she had taken her final NYS exam to become a licensed optician (she just has her apprenticeship left..another year) and she got a 90% on the exam! This is all while also taking Chemistry 2 (where she earned a 98%) at the local university while working full time as an optometric technician for Luxottica (which, locally,  took over all the Target Opticals and LensCrafters). Praise God!  AND she reported Wed evening that her Organic Chem class she is currently taking will be a lot of reading but less written work. She's taking science classes she didn't need for her BS degree but that she needs before she can apply to Optometry School. Other blessings: a good medical report from my sister Hope regarding her husband Donny (I won't go into details); a good report from another friend of mine regarding her mental state (I won't go into details) ; a prospective new car insurance agent (too long to go into it); the new Winter/Spring semester began at church this week and my Bible study group now is full with 8 members and the hiking group is up to 54 members with 8 names on the waiting list; the town "boil water advisory" was 3 days but finally lifted as of yesterday morning, thank you God! (i know...first world problems but I will never take clean running water for granted again!) and a phone call with Dave's mom that was coherent and wonderful.  God is good and I'm thankful we had our hearts warmed with all of these happenings. 

That wraps up my week!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  As I write this post, the temps are actually warmer than than yesterday so I'm taking off to walk the bike path while the sun is shining.