Only the Good Friday and a Give-Away

Tonight, I'm doing my "Only the Good Friday" post with a little extra twist to it. A link to where you can -if you hurry -get in on a give-away for a $50 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble!.
Here's the link to the give-away, so hurry, go sign up and maybe someone will win that followed my lead to Oh Amanda's place! Not only is this a great opportunity to win a nice big fat gift certificate to one of MY favorite stores, but any one who purchases through B&N can be part of the Box Tops for Education program too which gives a percentage of your purchases back to your home school district! Isn't that a great idea too!

Boy, do I ever wish I would be the lucky person to win the $50 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble cause then, I could get more books that my oldest grandson would like to receive for Christmas along with some more books for both my daughters -and for me, too!

I really think this contest, the Box Tops for Education too, are something terrific and really deserve a mention as an "Only the Good Friday" type deal, don't you? Oh, and thanks to "Mrs. 4444" over at Half Past Kissing Time who is responsible for pointing me to Oh Amanda and this contest in the first place!

Yesterday -Thursday morning - I had an appointment over in Clearfield to go get smashed. Yeah, it was that time again for me to report in and have my annual mammography done. Lucky for me, it went pretty smoothly -didn't cause a whole bunch of discomfort even, just a tiny little bit of squishing -and now, I should be good to go for another year before I have to deal with THAT again! But you've gotta know too that this is such a very important thing that ALL women should have done -at least once a year and for all the women whose lives can and have been saved because of this test, it really ranks up there too as an "Only the Good Friday" type event.

On my way over to Clearfield -and on the way back home too -I had a cd playing in my jeep. No, not just playing but BLASTING, BLARING and I was singing along to some of the songs, humming along to others -on this cd, a really great Johnny Cash cd (sorry, but I don't remember now which one it was as Mandy has several of his cd's and we both love his music -a WHOLE LOT! The one I was listening to though -I think it was Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison though, yeah, pretty sure that was it. And it came to my mind as I was enjoying his great work what a good Only the Good Friday thing it is that we have CD players in vehicles and also, that someone with as much immense talent as Johnny Cash had could sing like he did and totally cheer me up as I drove through the cold rain, then mist along the highway. Music, just about any kind of music for that matter, tends to have the capacity to do that for me -changes my outlook, makes me feel younger, brighter, happier, able to enjoy the good as well as cope with the bad that sometimes creeps in too.

The other morning, while I was enjoying my first cup of coffee for the day -another thing to add to the Only the Good Friday feelings ya know -Mandy called to me and wanted me to hurry out to the kitchen. Well, hurry is not a word that has much use in my vocabulary as my speed is far from what it used to be, but anyway, I got out there as quickly as I could and she was pointing out the window on the kitchen door. There, in the backyard stood a lone deer -a doe (I didn't see any antlers so I presume it was a doe) and she was grazing down back in our yard! I went back and grabbed my camera, tried to open the inside door as quietly as possible so as not to spook the doe and took two pictures -neither of which turned out! Took me those two pictures to realize I was trying to take the shot on the inside, through the screen, so all that showed up was the mesh -a close up type view no less -of the screen! So I tried to quickly -and as quietly as possible -open the door and take a step out on the deck to get a shot but it was really too far away then to show up very well -therefore, I'm not posting it here today.

But, I ask you now, isn't that too an "Only the Good Friday" type moment in time -to see this beautiful animal, quietly eating grasss about 60 feet (give or take a few) from one's back door? We often see the deer in the back lot, a little bit further down, closer to the woods and the creek that runs along the back lot (no, it's not exactly the "back 40 acres -don't own but two lots with my house here) and it is so nice to feel that much closer to Mother Nature when they show up to feed. My son-in-law loves seeing them too but he just wishes he could either hunt from the deck and get his buck for the year or maybe, if he's really lucky, he'll find one of the deer that ventures forward, that close to us and civilization.

"Uncle Clate" was down tonight for supper with us and after we ate, he, Mandy and I were watching tv but Maya went down to the basement with her Dad, having some quality father-daughter time together there. Her dad drew two cars for her -not one time, but three times -and Maya then colored the vehicles and wrote (well, printed, ok?) the name of who she wanted to give her drawings to. One for Gram, one for Mommy and one that had across the top, printed so nicely, "Uncle Clate." She came upstairs and laid it on his chest. Now, you also have to realize two things there -one is that my son loves cars, volkswagon bugs in particular is a make he is extremely partial to and also, he is a total sentimental slob about Miss Maya, his only niece. As he was oohing and ahhing over her art work, you could see too the tears welling up in his eyes as he realized how much this little girl truly adores her Uncle Clate! And oh my yes, that is such an Only the Good Friday moment for me -for Mandy too! And also for Maya as he made her feel she was ultra special then for having colored in the two volkswagon bugs her daddy had drawn for her to color and present that then to Uncle Clate.

I managed to find enough time after I left the hospital lab today to do a bit of shopping too -nice, because some of the stores were having some good sales and also, because they weren't packed with frenzied shoppers looking for items to purchase with Christmas gifts in mind. My kind of shopping event there, for sure -and yes, another Only the Good Friday thing too.

On the craft side here, I have both pillow cases done now -remember the one I showed you the other day when I posted the pictures of the 52x52 tablecloth I had completed -and I am almost finished with the matching dresser scarf now too. Anytime I manage to stay with a project as long as I have this embroidery kick I've been on now since early August is most definitely in the Only the Good Friday catergory for me!

Tonight too, I want to remember the many friends and family members I am able to keep in touch with via the internet -e-mail, blogs and such -a very nice fun Only the Good Friday remembrance for me.

And for the package I received today too -with two more fairly large tablecloths, two pair of pillow cases and two dresser scarves that I was able to find and purchase online last week and to add to my embroidery stash projects to keep me -and my fingers -very busy over the coming months -that really is, for me, a very good Only the Good Friday thing to have available to do now!

So many other things and not near enough time tonight -probably never for that matter -to think of and note that they are all Only the Good Friday things.

Life, being the best of them though.