Friday Five: Fall Transformations

RevGalsBlogPal Mary Beth writes:

For this Friday's Five, share with us five transformations that the coming fall will bring your way.

1. Fall 2008 will mark the beginning of our older son Music Man's senior year of high school. It seems as though we were just walking him into his kindergarten class...and now, we are scheduling senior pictures and college visits. It is an amazing and bittersweet time in our lives!
2. In late September, our younger son Gamer and I will be testing for our black stripe in Taekwon-Do. Provided that we pass, we will be some six months away from testing for black belt. We have been working toward this goal for nearly three years!
3. In October my mom and dad will mark 50 years of marriage - WOW!!! We are planning a weekend away together with them, once our high school finishes its game against our cross-town rivals. Go Cougars! Go Mom and Dad!
4. It's coming a bit early to be counted as a fall transformation, but our pastoral staff has been reduced by one, due to the departure of our associate pastor after 9 years of good shared ministry. We will be entering the call process, and I will be working to maintain healthy boundaries as two pastors' worth of workload stretches out before me.
5. I am beginning to get serious about the transformation of my physical health through increased exercise and healthier diet. I have joined SPARK PEOPLE.com and am tracking nutrition, exercise, and other goals for the sake of a healthier life. Goal is to lose 50 lbs by next March, when I begin my 50th year and test for black belt.
   

Bonus: Give us your favorite activity that is made possible by the arrival of fall.

The Captain and I love to watch the leaves changing color. We often try to sneak to Northern Michigan for a few days to celebrate our anniversary and witness the masterpieces that God paints there.

Friday Five: God Days of Summer

Presbyterian Gal writes: It’s August. An oppressively hot and humid month where many of us live.

I remember the Al Pacino movie though not much about the plot. Just that it was very, very hot. And he had giant sweat stains on his shirt.

As I pass through this year’s dog days in my felon ridden neighborhood (OK, just two housefuls. But isn’t that enough?), I am trying to focus on the blessings apparent around me, past and present, that I might not notice, necessarily. In that spirit, this week’s Friday Five goes thusly:

1. What is your sweetest summer memory from childhood? Did it involve watermelon or hand cranked ice cream? Or perhaps a teen summer romance. Which stands out for you?
My sweetest summer memory from childhood involves strawberries - a field with clusters of wild strawberries behind the home where we lived during my pre-school years. We lived out in the country at that time, without neighbors close by. The field was my playground, where I met my imaginary friends, and a sweet daily snack was waiting.




2. Describe your all time favorite piece of summer clothing. The one thing you could put on in the summer that would seem to insure a cooler, more excellent day.
Shorts and a sleeveless tank or polo shirt - I think this has been true all my life!

3. What summer food fills your mouth with delight and whose flavor stays happily with you long after eaten?
Caprese salad - Tomatoes with mozzarella cheese, basil and EVOO...S'mores prepared at a lakeside campfire...a Tanqueray and tonic with lime as "Captain" and I sit looking at the stars.





4. Tell us about the summer vacation or holiday that holds your dearest memory.
Wow...it's so hard to identify just one! Every family vacation has its cherished moments. Probably one of the most memorable was our family trip to the Canadian Rockies in a truck camper when I was 13. We were driving through the Beartooth Mountains in Montana - my parents in the truck cab, and my younger brother and I in the overcab of the camper. With each hairpin turn we approached, our position in the camper made it look as though we were going right over the side of the mountain. At first it was terribly frightening, but then as we realized we were at the edge but not going over, it felt like a great rollercoaster ride. In the end, our screams became too much for my dad's concentration, so we had to climb down from the overcab and sit at the table!



5. Have you had any experience(s) this summer that has drawn you closer to God or perhaps shown you His wonder in a new way?
For me, sunset views on the bay from aft on our cruiser have been holy moments. There is a time each sunset when the water takes on an opalescent hue - I can't find quite find the words to describe the color. But my heart feels especially close to God in those moments.


Bonus question: When it is really hot, humid and uncomfortable, what do you do to refresh and renew body and spirit?
We have air conditioning, so there is always a ready escape indoors. If I've got some free time or time with our family, we go to a local theatre and see a movie!

(All pictures from Google Images)

Friday Five: What You Absolutely, Postively, Can't Leave Home Without

Singing Owl writes...We will be at a chaplain's convention when you all are answering the Friday Five Questions. I'll look forward to reading your answers next week when I get home. At the moment we are trying to get the car loaded so we can hit the road, so this will be a simple F.F. This running around madly in order to leave has me wondering: what are the five things you simply must have when you are away from home? And why? Any history or goofy things, or stories?

Such a timely Friday Five, as we are on vacation in Northern Michigan, beginning our second wonderful week here. We come to the same summer cottage each year; we know its supplies and deficiencies so well now that we have a packing list on the computer that we update at the end of each vacation for the next year.

But when I travel, these are the things that I always take along...
1. My slippers - navy blue scuffs that, when I put them on, make anywhere feel comfy and a little more like home. Don't know how long ago I got into this habit, but my year as an exchange student in Japan made me very comfortable with a scuff slipper, because that is what you slip into when you slip out of your shoes at the entrance of a home. Still tend to leave my shoes at the door if allowed to do so...after 32 years!

2. A good book and a magazine or two. Leisure eading is a getaway activity for me. On this trip I brought Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Oprah, and Southern Living magazines, and Fearless Fourteen, Miracle at Speedy Motors, Whitethorne Woods, Amazing Grace, Write Yourself Right Size, and Starting Over.

3. A corkscrew - we've bought a few along the way, and so there are enough floating around our toiletry bags to never go without.

4. Make-up, or at least lipstick and contact lens comfort drops. Need I say more?

5. Blackberry Pearl - a few months ago I would have said my laptop. I used to take it everywhere. But last month our son and I took a trip to Denver, CO to see the Rockies with my mom. And because the Pearl allows me to view e-mails and scan the web, I just didn't need my laptop along. It felt good! But here for two weeks, I have the LT - it would have been too hard to do a Friday Five on the Pearl!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend, safe journeys and joyful homecomings to any and all who are traveling, and the wisdom to receive and enjoy this day for the gift that it is.

A Summer Reading Friday Five

Rev Gals Blog Pal Songbird writes: Back in the day, before I went to seminary, I worked in the Children's Room at the Public Library, and every year we geared up for Summer Reading. Children would come in and record the books read over the summer, and the season included numerous special and celebratory events. As a lifelong book lover and enthusiastic summer reader, I find I still accumulate a pile of books for the summer.

This week, then, a Summer Reading Friday Five.

1) Do you think of summer as a particularly good season for reading? Why or why not?
For the past dozen years or more, I have done most of my reading for enjoyment during the summer. I do so in part because our family vacations at a very restful place along a lake in Northern Michigan, and reading has always been central to our time there. I began reading the Harry Potter series to our family there years ago, and the reading tradition has continued.

2) Have you ever fallen asleep reading on the beach?
Yes, a few years ago when I was reading through a slow part of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Thankfully, I had lots of sunscreen on!

3) Can you recall a favorite childhood book read in the summertime?
Nancy Drew mysteries - started reading them when I was about 8 or so. Now as I look back at my sons' childhood, the evenings we spent reading the Harry Potter books aloud, sometimes with extended family there as well, will be cherished memories.

4) Do you have a favorite genre for light or relaxing reading?
I enjoy the First Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. My guilty pleasures include the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanonich, anything by Janet Cruisie, Maeve Binchy, or Nicholas Sparks.

5) What is the next book on your reading list?
I have several ready to read when we head up north- including the latest from the First Ladies Detective Agency series, Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich, as well as several others that friends have loaned to me. 21 days and counting!

A Garage-Saler's Friday Five May 30

Since will smama is preparing for a joint garage sale with her parents, and Songbird's church had a Yard and Plant Sale last Saturday, they have five enormously important questions for all of us Friday Five players:

1) Are you a garage saler?
No, I have never really been a garage sale host or buyer. I don't know why...it just has never been something to which I have gravitated. I have tended to donate things that could be sold to Goodwill and other organizations like them.
That being said, I am going to try to sell a few items next week at a neighbor's garage sale...so there's always a first time!

2) If so, are you an immediate buyer or a risk taker who comes back later when prices are lower?
I am neither, but our younger son is an immediate buyer and a regular shopper at local garage sales.

3) Seriously, if you're not a garage saler, you are probably not going to want to play this one.
(That wasn't really #3.)
3) This is the real #3: What's the best treasure you've found at a yard or garage sale?
My husband and I found an old (circa 1930's) gas stove at a garage sale in our old neighborhood. It was not anything we wanted, but just a few weeks before, my mother had said that she was looking for one for use in the bed and breakfast they run. Now mind you, all the while that my mother was going on about wanting this stove, my father was standing behind her, silently but furiously waving her idea off.
Which left us with a dilemma...do we get this stove for them or not?
We decided that we would call them, and if mom answered the phone, we would tell her about it. If dad answered the phone (which he usually does), we would know to pass the stove by.
Wouldn't you know it...Mom answered the phone. She wanted the stove, and so we proceeded.
My dad had no problem retrofitting it into their kitchen with its tin ceiling and 100+ year old wood cabinets and trim.
That was over 15 years ago...and it still works beautifully for them!

4)If you've done one yourself, at church or at home, was it worth the effort?
Members of our congregation hold a garage sale most every year, and it does net a lot of money, at least half of which we forward on to other ministries. It is definitely worth the effort...and it has built some new friendships through the years
5) Can you bring yourself to haggle?
I can, in certain settings...in the old city in Jerusalem's West Bank, in the street markets in the Caribbean, and on big ticket items!