GOLD in the CLOUDS : Mid-January Faves

It's been a rather dreary, grey week with temps in the 30s and 40s so not horribly cold, but all of our snow is melted and personally, if it's going to be Winter, I want some snow. I'd like to go snow-shoeing and explore some wooded trails on them. But for now, I'll be thankful the temps haven't been in the single digits or even below 20 degrees F. (Until today)I'm also thankful for some other blessings that came into the week.

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Patti, my african violet

BLOOMS! My African Violet is doing so well this winter! Last January there were hardly any blooms but this year, it's doing so well and has gotten so big. I need to learn how to either divide it or put in a bigger pot. I just don't want to kill her. I'm so thankful for the purple color in our family room to brighten it up on these grey, winter days.

the living room from the kitchen doorway
on a bright Monday morning

our fave reading chairs

living room from the front door entranceway

the view from standing in front of the piano
and yes our staircase still has gold garland on it
which will stay up until after Valentine's Day

THOROUGH CLEANING! Our living room, which really only gets used by me, although sometimes my husband joins me in that room in the winter evenings to read....it's the warmest room on the main floor....needed a thorough cleaning. Courtney and Tyler came over after church for lunch (they brought Popeye's chicken sandwiches!) and Tyler and Dave moved the piano for me to go back into its original place in the corner. It will take a couple weeks to get acclimated and then I need to get it tuned. Since they moved it, I then gave the living room a good dusting and rearranged the furniture. I spent some of Sunday afternoon on this (Saturday was my Sabbath) and I finished the job Monday morning before dashing out the door for a meeting with an organization I volunteer with. I'm so thankful I got this chore done!

Small group Scripture study I will be leading
for women every Tuesday evening in my home for the next 8 weeks

the "logo" I use for the co-ed hiking group I lead

CONNECT! Sunday was Connect Weekend at our church where all small groups, classes, and activity groups/ministry leaders have tables in the lobby and congregants can wander from table to table to sign up for the Winter/Spring semester classes, groups, or studies after each service. Sign ups are done with a QR code and all went smoothly! I had 8 spots to fill for my hiking group and I was able to do that! I have 8 new members, with 6 names on a waiting list! (I keep the group to 50 members including spouses and children). For my ladies Scripture Study, I have 9 of us so that group is officially closed as of Thursday morning. I love the convenience of the online app we have to manage groups. I'm thankful the whole process was smooth and I'm very thankful to be in a church with so many options for groups, classes, ministries. My husband signed up for a mens group that will be studying Titus and I signed up for a Monday morning class that will be studying the book of Job (workbook style, similar to the one I'm leading). I'm looking forward to leading my groups as well as being in a class again.

TO-DO LISTS DONE! I had a long "to do" list for Monday-Thursday. We are switching banks where we have a combined checking account and we divided up the tasks for that. I had ordered new checks for myself and they came with the wrong info so I had to call the company and re-order them and because it was a mistake on their end, they are giving me the rush delivery for free. I also had 2 bags of donated clothes to bring to the local Episcopal church here in town so got that done; I had to deal with the car insurance company to get our auto pay switched (that was a ridiculous amount of time and took forever to get a human on the phone); I was also in charge of calling our Waste removal company and getting them to switch our autopay and bring us a new, smaller trash bin. We recycle more items than we put in a landfill so we are keeping our 65 gallon recycling bin. Because we are going down to a 35 gallon trash bin, our bill will decrease by about 15$. That was also a much easier phone call than the car insurance. I also had to schedule my annual eye exam, dental exam and physical/blood work. I also had "clean out my desk", "clean out the file cabinet", "organize the kitchen cupboards", "shred old documents" "pay off new car". Everything is done! I'm so thankful I did everything on that list and I'm most thankful that we paid off my new Kia Soul which I bought at the end of October. We decided we did NOT want a 3 year loan and although it cut into my savings, I'm thankful we could do it and now the car is mine!

LUNCH OUT: After a very long meeting on Monday mid-day, my younger friend Shawna wanted to eat at Appleby's for lunch and I decided to join her. I had the asian salad and it was delicious. We had a great conversation and I'm thankful this young Christian woman is a part of my hiking group and that she signed up for my small group. Although most of my close friends are nearer to my age (66) and I'm literally 20 years older than Shawna, I love that I can be friends with some younger people and hopefully share some words of wisdom. She's dealing with a lot and is new to the faith, so we invited her over for Sunday dinner this weekend as she likes to get some of her spiritual questions answered by Dave and I. I'm thankful for friends of all ages and that we can minister to this younger woman.

BONUS FAVE:

because of the milder weather this week, until yesterday afternoon, I was able to get outdoors and do some really good power walks for 35 minutes a day. It felt very good. And one of those days, I did my walk at our park in the south part of town as I had an errand to run down that way. I'm thankful for good walks in the fresh, winter air.