Friday Favourite Moments 2025 #9

It's already the tenth Friday of 2025. In some ways 2025 has felt like the longest year already and, in other ways I'm wondering how we're already on Friday #10 of the year?!?! Time is weird. Here are my favourite moments from this past week.

1) Most of last weekend

From the first Blue Jays' spring training game of the year to watching Rachel at dance to my friend's party, most of last weekend was actually pretty great! I blogged about it here because I wanted to celebrate the joy!

2) Retrieving Sam's housekeys

I wrote about this in my Wednesday post but, when we went to Saskatchewan over Winter Break, our housesitter accidentally dropped our keys between our house and our back step. We don't blame them at all as we have dropped other things down there. Earlier this week the snow had melted enough that I was able to fish the keys out!!! Definitely a favourite moment!!!

 

3) Sam's excitement about learning to drive

At the end of March, Sam turns 16 (!!!). In preparation for that, I bought him the guidebook to driving in Ontario. He can write the test and get his learner's once he turns 16 so he has to start studying. Yikes!

4) Evening at home

For some reason, I have had a lot of evening commitments this past week and they're continuing through this weekend. Thus, I was very excited to have an evening at home on Wednesday. I cleaned off my desk and made some progress in the basement. I'm telling you -- it was exciting!!!

So those were my favourite moments from this past week. I'm happy as it's been a better week overall so maybe some of the February darkness is starting to life, figuratively as well as literally :)

Monthly Musings: How We Show Love

It's finally the last Thursday in February which means it's time for Monthly Musings with Holly who blogs at Pink Lady and Patty who blogs at Good, Better, Best. I really love the Monthly Musings link up. This month we are talking about how we show love. Also, I didn't have great pictures for this post so I picked some of my February tulips through the years to feature :)

1) What is your love language?

I think my love language is "acts of service" or "quality time." I definitely show love through "acts of service." Dave's love language is "physical touch" but that's definitely not mine!

2) Favourite love song?

Anything from the 80s! Hahaha! Dave and I had "When you say nothing at all" by Ronan Keating, from the movie Notting Hill, as the first dance at our wedding. It just became our song through our time of dating but it was more "it chose us" rather than "we chose it."

3) Flowers, chocolate, or something else?

I don't really love chocolate so I guess flowers. But really, I like buying my own. I do feel really special when someone sends me flowers though!

 

4) Favourite romantic/rom com movie?

We don't watch that many movies anymore but I really do love most of Hugh Grant's and Meg Ryan's movies -- Notting Hill, Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral, When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail...

5) Favourite childhood Valentine's memory?

I really didn't love Valentine's Day as a kid. I rarely got cards so it just felt like a very lonely day. I don't really remember when that changed but I do love that when my kids were younger, the idea behind Valentine's Day was that every kid got a card.

I know I've shared this before but one year when I was in university, I commented how much Valentine's Day sucked as a single person. My friends went out of their way to make that day special for me. They gave me chocolates, made lovely cards, and I just remember feeling so loved. They honestly hosted the original Galentine's Day way back in 1993 just for me and I loved them for it. That's still my absolute favourite Valentine's Day memory ever.

6) How did you celebrate Valentine's Day?

It was a "blah" day. Sam stayed home from school and soccer because he was sick. It was the Friday of a long weekend and we'd just had a snow day and another snow storm was coming. We were cancelling plans to see friends and it just wasn't a great day. I honestly don't remember what we ate for supper (maybe McDonald's? Maybe grilled cheese?) and I crawled into bed early. Valentine's was not great this year :(

Our Valentine's this year was lame, kind of like these tulips! Hahaha!!! 

7) Any love or romance traditions?

We used to do McDonald's on Valentine's Day as a kind of anti-Valentine's thing -- the least romantic thing we could think of. Honestly, Dave and I show love to each other all year round and it's really not about the grand romantic gestures for us but more the small, every day things.

8) When do you feel most loved?

When I invite my community to celebrate with me and they show up! The last time I remember feeling this way was for my 50th birthday party. In the every day, it's when my family does small things for me because they know it will make me happy -- Sam clearing snow without being asked, Rachel baking my favourite cookies, or Dave driving out of his way to find tulips because he knows how much they mean to me.

9) Big night out or chill at home?

I used to think "big night out" but really, I'm more of a "chill at home" person. Big nights out are fun once in awhile but really, let me enjoy being at home in my pjs!

10) Do you wear red/pink on Valentine's Day?

No. One of these years I will buy the heart sweater shown below because I always love it when I see it on other people's blogs but I haven't done that yet!

So those are some of our traditions around love/Valentine's Day. One of these years I want to do the daily "hearts on the door" for our kids but this year just wasn't that year. I'm off to read some of the other posts in the blog link up to see what your traditions around love/Valentine's Day are.

What's Up Wednesday: February 2025

February has been a tough month for me but I'm writing this post while watching my beloved Blue Jays play baseball (Hello Spring Training!!!), and the sun is shining, so I'm hopeful that things might just be looking up.

Answering these questions monthly helps me reflect on the past month and I really appreciate having a record of what we've been up to. The questions come from Shay at Mix and Match Mama and Sheaffer at Sheaffer Told Me Too.

image from here

 

What we're eating this week... February has been all about comfort food. It's been a cold, snowy month so all the warm, hearty food has been on the menu.

We've eaten warm soup and fresh bread, as well as sloppy joes.

Beef & Guinness Stew with mashed potatoes and homemade Hamburger helper have also made appearances.

 

I realize none of this food looks all that appealing in pictures but trust me, it has been warm and yummy!!!

 

What I'm reminiscing about... Now that baseball is back (whooo hoooo!!!), I'm reminiscing about that time we got to watch our beloved Blue Jays play a spring training game in Dunedin, Florida in March 2023. I wish we were going to spring training this year.

 

 

What I'm loving... I was sick last week so I've been loving my homemade Medicine Ball Tea. I make it with a citrus herbal tea, some honey, and some lemonade. I've drank pots of it for the past week and a half or so. And I was especially grateful the day my co-worker bought me a real one from Starbucks :)

What we've been up to... February 2025 will forever be defined in my head as "The Month With All The Snow."

Rachel and I shovelling after the first snow storm of February.

Before the second storm we shovelled the snow from the edge of the yard towards the middle so we had somewhere to put the new snow. The picture on the right is after shovelling after the second snow storm we had.

 

In between shovelling, I've been reading and working on our bird puzzle.

Sam and Rachel have been playing soccer and dancing. Dave and I have been watching them play soccer and dance!

And just when we thought we might be done shovelling for this month, we realized we needed to shovel off our playroom roof. Gah... Did I mention I'm done with shovelling?!?!?!?

 

What I'm dreading... I'm dreading if we're going to get any more snow. I'm more than ready for spring now please!

 

Also, I'm dreading this next stage of parenting... :)

'Nuff said!

What I'm working on... We thought February would be a good time to tackle the back corner of our basement. So Dave emptied everything from there into our main room so we could sort through it and figure out better ways to store things. I will be happy when this project is done but we're not quite there yet...

What I'm excited about... As I mentioned on the blog last week, after a number of months we finally all got some soap again! The past few months have been super busy and trying to get all four of us to Bath & Body Works for more soap has not happened. However, last week we were able to get to the mall with all four of us. So now we're back to four soap options in our bathroom and I'm very excited about it!

Also, when we went to Saskatchewan over Winter Break, our housesitter accidentally dropped our keys between our house and our back step. We don't blame them at all as we have dropped other things down there. However, yesterday, the snow had melted enough that I was able to fish the keys out!!! Whoooo hoooo!!!

What I'm watching/reading... I'm watching baseball again!!! Whoooo hooooo!!! I can't wait until I can watch it live!!!

I'm reading such a random assortment of things right now. I've got a regency romance on the go as well as the latest In Death book, I'm still working on Onyx Storm,  and I have a couple of heavy novels to round things out!

What I'm listening to... At work, earlier this month, the Grade 8s and the Grade 7s switched for the semester and now the Grade 7s are learning to play instruments. They just started on them last week so I'm hearing a lot of beginning clarinet and trumpet! Hahahaha!!!

What I'm wearing... I'm not wearing anything exciting. Right this moment I'm wearing jeans and my green fleecy sweater, socks, and slippers. I can't wait to ditch my socks for the season but it'll probably be another month or two yet...

What I'm doing this weekend... I don't even know what I'm doing this weekend. The only things planned are a soccer game for Sam and dinner out for Dave's mom's birthday. I'll probably spend some more time cleaning in the basement! So exciting...!

What I'm looking forward to next month... I've got a couple of fun flower experiences coming up in March so I'm pretty excited about those! Also, Sam will turn 16 (!!!) at the end of the month so that will be fun :)
 

I feel like we're so close to one of my favourite times of the year -- there's more light, more warmth, and more hope as we head into spring, and I really need all of those, especially this year. February has been a tough month and I'm so glad it's almost over.

One Of The Best Weekends I've Had In Awhile

Okay, blogging friends, you have been sticking with me through some rough weeks so I thought I'd share a few reasons why this weekend was actually pretty great! After all, when life starts looking ... a little brighter ... I want to recognize, and remember, it. So here are some of my favourite moments from this past weekend:

Watching Sam on the soccer field on Friday night. We weren't standing in a great position to take pictures during the game so you don't get any of him in action. 

Saturday morning coffee-hot chocolate drinking and reading. It was such a cozy morning. 

 

We realized we should probably shovel some of the insane amounts of snow off the flat roof of our playroom. There was so much snow we couldn't open the door. I had to partially cut the screen, dive out the opening, and then shovel my way to the edge of the roof. After a couple of hours, there was a huge pile of snow in our backyard and very little snow left on our roof. To be fair, Dave did help for about fifteen minutes when he got home from groceries but the bulk of the shovelling was done by me. I am no longer worried about our roof collapsing and being out in the sun and fresh air was good for me!

FIRST SPRING TRAINING BASEBALL GAME!!! 'Nuff said!

Rachel's dance company was in a performance with a local youth choir featuring Broadway songs. Unlike most of her performances we could actually take photos during this one. On the left, is Rachel as a zebra in The Lion King medley and on the right, is Rachel performing in This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. And while I don't have pictures of them, Tim, Janice, and Janice's mom came to the performance too.

Sunday morning reading while ignoring the huge pile of laundry! Hahaha!!!

My friend Alissa has moved back to our area and is attending our church again. I was happy to sit with her on Sunday at church. Right is the two of us, about twenty years ago, in our "pretty, pink, preaching dresses" as we called them. And yes, we both preached sermons while wearing those dresses that summer :)

I folded all the laundry while watching the second Blue Jays spring training game of the year! Whooo hooo!!!

In the afternoon we went to our friend Karen's Half Life Party! Karen moved to Canada exactly half her lifetime ago and thought February needed something to celebrate (it really does!) so she had a party. She asked people to bring photos of us and her. This is me and Karen in the summer of 2003, 2004, or 2005 when we did a Super Sprint Duathlon -- biking and running. I think it was a 3km run and a 10km bike or something like that. I was too busy talking with other people at the party to take any pictures.

Any weekend which ends with being caught up on laundry is one to celebrate!!!

 

And that was my weekend! I realized as I was writing this that this is the first weekend in about four weekends where I didn't cry once so that also made it really great :) Thanks for reading today and here's hoping the goodness from this weekend continues into this week...