fff dec 18

1.  Finishing the Minou picture book (last week) for my aunt’s family was just part of their gift.  I’d asked the Fabulously Talented Glo if she might come up with a poem I could tuck inside (the printed book arrived this week).  She totally blew me away with this (just an excerpt — I’ll post the whole thing next time):

And so at last, enough’s enough.
I’ve got my leash and packed my stuff,
but don’t be sad, I’m not going far;
just six miles down the road by car.

There’s Aunt and Uncle, and just me.
We’ll live together happily.
Perhaps I’ll curl up in their room…
Plumeria and roses bloom ~
I’ve seen them line the garden path.
I’m hoping they don’t have a bath!

2.  The huge smile on my elderly neighbor’s face when she opened her door and found me with a big bowl of cookies in hand.  “We look forward to them every year,” she said, referring to her grandkids, several of whom live with her.  And then a little wistfully, “You know, I don’t bake anymore.”

3.  Feeling caught up.  With a big sigh of relief, I got a couple of big projects at work done (including learning how Lightroom fit into my work flow — love the “clarity” and “sharpening” tools).  And with Bake Day done, cookies delivered and shipped, gifts for family arriving in the mail, even a few gifts wrapped — I’m feeling a lot better than last week.

4.  “Go ahead and deposit those checks,” said the administrator at my office.  Two mysterious checks arrived a couple of weeks ago from an old 401k account.  I couldn’t make any sense of the accompanying letter and called the admin.  She said there had been errors to correct over the past several years and the checks settled the accounts.  Perfect.  Just in time to help out with some medical bills

5.  The things you find yourself typing in a search field… this combination made me smile.  I’ve been looking up the ooma (VoIP) to free myself from monthly phone bills (i.e., going from landline phone service to internet-based service) and was trying to figure out if it would work with my current setup with AT&T U-verse internet provider.  So I searched on these two terms and was surprised there were 35,400 results!

6.  Notification of half (work) days on the days before the upcoming holidays.  Yipee!

7.  Some favorite readings from the week:  Noel Piper on telling the truth about Santa to her kids.  Jon Bloom about the detours in life — unplanned for us, but not for God.  Sara shows off some beautiful scenes from her visit to Salt Lake City. Tracie writes about The Gift.  Oanh writing about a gift from a child.  And this is what I’m planning to make for Christmas morning breakfast.

Samantha savors every bit of Christmas, especially the ornaments.

Don’t forget to visit Susanne to read other Friday’s Five Faves or to participate yourself!  Natalie’s daughter Maria has been singing a Christmas song she made up last Christmas that seems quite fitting for the close of this post:

“All the way to Christmas day
we go, we go, we go!”