Catching up on favorites

It has been almost two weeks since my last blog post - time to take account of my blessings and share some of my favorite things from the past couple of weeks.

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you will know that I am a hard-core sky-watcher. I love sunrises and sunsets and interesting clouds.

These pictures are from one of my favorite sunsets, a few days ago.

We had some cloudy and rainy weather which has now been replaced by sunshine, but temps are a little cooler and we have had several days when we came in under 100 degrees.

The Saturday before Labor Day, Charly and I drove up to Show Low, which is in the mountains about 3 hours north east of here. It was a cloudy and overcast day, but the drive was really beautiful.

We loved being in the green coolness of Show Low.

We went there to meat up with some friends of our who have just purchased some property. We wanted to see their property because we were considering purchasing the lot right next to theirs, and putting a cabin there..

Unfortunately, the lot we were most interested in sold the day before we went up to see it.

We had a nice lunch with our friends and enjoyed seeing their property and the improvements they have made to it.

We considered making an offer on the lot on the other side of our friend's property, but it is much more expensive. Although we didn't come home with mountain property for a cabin, we had a very nice day and will probably go back again soon.

I've had a cold this week - it has settled in my chest, stolen my voice, given me a hacking cough and totally wiped me out. I made it through the week with the assistance of Airborne and Zinc Cold Therapy, and although I 'm not really sure either thing really helps, I am feeling just slightly better today than I have felt all week. I plan do a good amount of resting the rest of the weekend.

Cold or no cold, I do look forward to my early Saturday morning walk. I am blessed to live in a very "walking friendly area" with lots of sidewalks, parks and green spaces.

This morning, despite my cold, I walked 2.2 miles.

Charly has been spending some time in the yard trimming back the overgrown Mesquite trees in our front yard, as well as the palm trees in the back yard.

It's hard work to stand on a step ladder holding a chain saw on a pole above your head, cutting branches off of a tree, but it's hard to find reliable people to hire for such a big job, so Charly usually does it himself.

here's the pile of branches he removed, ready for the green waste truck which will come this week.

My blogging friend Tracey over at Clover, has asked blogging friends to help with a service project to donate at least 100 pairs of socks to the homeless. Tracey is a talented knitter, so she is knitting socks for the homeless. I do not knit, but purchased some socks which will help keep some homeless feet warmer in the coming winter months.

The socks are now packed up and will be in the mail within the next few days. I really appreciate the opportunity to help out where there is a need. Thanks, Tracey for sharing this wonderful service project and letting your blogging friends participate.

While Charly was working in the yard this morning, I ran some errands. I ended up at the grocery store, where I found this soda on "Manager's Special." I am not a huge soda drinker, but I do like creme soda, so I decided to give it a try.

Since I am trying to count calories and loose a few pounds and also limit my caffeine intake, the fact that this soda has no sugar, artificial sweeteners and caffeine appealed to me, but would it also lack taste? I was pleasantly surprised that it is the best tasting soda I've had in a long time. It is sweetened with Stevia, which I know pretty much nothing about and will have to research, but I will be looking to buy this soda again.

Another stop on my errand running was the bank which was near one of my favorite Ross stores, so of course I had to go in and have a look to see what they had. I wasn't expecting to find anything, (I usually don't), but today, I found a pair of my favorite Gloria Vanderbuilt "Amanda" color jeans (I wear these kind of jeans to school almost every day) and a Claudia Richard top in my favorite style (cool and loose for Arizona heat). Both were on clearance and I love a great deal, so I brought them home with me.

I've been reading this book, which I checked out from the school library a couple of weeks ago. I haven't been reading it very quickly and I almost decided to give up on it a couple of times because it was moving so slow, but the story has picked up now and I am enjoying it, although it is still going pretty slow.

Other things that are are going on that I don't have pictures for...

A good friend from church has spent literally hours here at our house helping to rebuild an old computer and bring it up to date. This guy is one of those "computer genius" types and he is doing all of the work for just the cost of the computer components. What a nice guy.

Charly and I are taking a real estate class at a local community college. For a while now, we have been thinking about buying some income property, so becoming licensed real estate agents seemed like a good thing to do. Neither one of us plan to quit our day jobs, but it will be nice to be able to buy and sell our own property, should we decide to do it. It is also kind of fun to take the class together - it's really almost like a weekly date.

And speaking of dates, Charly and I will be heading out on a little date in just a few minutes (going to get Chinese food) so I will wrap up this post with this thought: