Five Fun Faves From My Week

It's time for Friday's Fave Five again - a time when we reflect on the things that were highlights from our past week.  Here's what made my week's highlights.

1.  I finished another pair of fingerless mitts.  These are from the pattern "Fronds" designed by Monica Jines.  I knit them up from Sanguine Gryphon's Bugga yarn.  I love that scarlet color and the yarn was yummy to knit up.  I'm loving these fingerless mittens.  They are such fast projects and I'm already wearing fingerless mitts on cool mornings when I have to head out early.  I can still grip my steering wheel with no problem but my hands stay warm.

2.  We're attending a film premiere tonight.  Doesn't that just sound so posh?  Yes, we're heading off to the big city to attend a film premiere and the after party.  But this one actually has substance.  The proceeds from this premiere will benefit Servants to Asia's Urban Poor, the organization that our son and daughter-in-law work for.  There will also be a small store set up with goods made by the women being helped by this project.  The film itself documents women in Kolkata who are learning to support themselves and their families through a fair trade program in textiles.    If you'd like to read more about it, you can go to this site and click on "Threads of Hope."

3.  I enjoyed a lovely fall walk this week from my house to the local Barnes and Noble, thanks to my car having to go to the service department unexpectedly.    I've always thought I could walk that far but just never did it because it was so easy to drive over there.  This time, I HAD to walk because I had a hair appointment in that shopping center that I needed to keep.  The weather was beautiful and there was a fresh breeze so I really had a nice walk and got some good exercise, too.

4.  I'm grateful for blessings from unexpected sources.  As I was walking, I found myself remembering back to a day some years ago when I was working at the reference desk at a small country library.  A farmer had walked in, still wearing his work overalls, and come up to the desk.  He asked me if I had a copy of the poem "October's Bright Blue Weather."  He explained that he'd been out plowing in his field and as he was enjoying the lovely fall weather, he'd been reminded of that poem that he'd learned so many years ago in school.  I was able to track it down for him.  I've thought of it many times since whenever I look up on a clear Fall day.  The poem was written by Helen Hunt Jackson and here's the first stanza:

O SUNS and skies and clouds of June,
        And flowers of June together,
    Ye cannot rival for one hour
        October's bright blue weather; 

5.  Our family is about to become an all-Kindle family.  I can blog about it here because I know that my daughter never reads my blog.  Yes, her birthday is early next week and when I asked her what she was hoping for, the Kindle was actually one of the first things she mentioned.  I was thrilled that she was finally ready to make the leap to e-books.  We still love hardcover books but these are so wonderful in that they are saving countless trees and they are also really helping publishers AND authors, believe it or not.  I find myself buying many more books for my Kindle than I used to buy in hardcover (and I used to buy a LOT of hardcover books).  And beginning authors are finding the e-publishing format to be much easier to get their books out in front of the reading public than trying to find a mainstream publisher to purchase their books and then print them.

If you'd like to write about your own Friday's Fave Five, visit Susanne's blog at Living to Tell the Story.   She hosts us each Friday and it's a great way to reflect back over your past week or to focus on the week to come.