5 Friday Favorites: October 25, 2019

Happy Friday, Friends!

It's time for my Friday link up with A Little Bit of Everything, Grace and Love, and Momfessionals. 

On Fridays I share things that made me happy from the week - a photo, a song, a quote or Bible verse, a beauty product, a recipe, a pair of cute shoes, etc. If it's a product, sometimes it's something I actually own and sometimes something I just saw online that gave me a smile. Sometimes it's serious and sometimes it's silly. I suppose I believe that God is in the simple details of life and yes, I can even find Him in a tube of lipstick.

1. Lobe Wonder Earring Support Patches

I generally have to wear very light-weight earrings because the heavy ones make my earring holes stretch too much and it gives me the creeps. As I mentioned last week though, I really, really wanted to get some Kendra Scott earrings because I feel like they are meant for my Longhorn sisters and me. So I bought these Lobe Wonder Support Patches to see if they would help. It took a few tries to get the little stickers in the right position on the back of my ear lobes, but once I did they really worked. I will say they are easier to use with hoops and studs. To wear them with the drop earrings took a lot of trial and error. Please scroll through quickly if ears gross you out, but I wanted those of you who are not ear-averse to see how well they work.

2. Skyn Hydro Cool Firming Eye Gels

In my continuing quest to throw money at the aging process, I purchased these Hydro Firming Eye Gels recently.

Do they work? I don't know. Do they have really cool words in the title that made me convinced that they might help me stop looking like I haven't slept in three years? Yes. Did the girl at Ulta tell me that they were amazing? Yes. Was she also about 19 years old with such dewy, collagen-filled skin that I wanted to reach out and touch it to see if she was real? Yes and yes.

I'm not telling you that these things are game changers. I'm just telling you that I have high hopes and also that I am a sucker for fancy words and sales girls with the skin of angel baby bottoms telling me what to do. 

3. Jo Malone Wood Sage & Sea Salt Cologne

I know that fragrances are very individual and personal, so it's hard to recommend a certain one because everyone is different. I have several friends who don't like perfumes at all. Maybe I like trying different ones because I live with a bunch of smelly boys and it's just a necessary part of my life to try to cover up their boyness. Anyway, I like different scents for different seasons and my very favorite one for fall and winter is Jo Malone's Wood Sage and Sea Salt. It is stupid-expensive, but I had a gift card recently so I was able to get it. Jo Malone has a ton of other great fragrances and the scent really stays with you all day.

4. Lysa Terkeurst Devotional on Trust

This week in both of the Bible studies I attend we talked a lot about the differences and similarities in the words hope, faith, and trust. When life changes and we feel like we are losing control of our circumstances, trust can be crazy difficult. (Spoiler alert: we never really have all that much control anyway. *heavy sigh*) I cannot tell you the number of conversations I have had lately with friends that have revolved around the issue of trust. Our minds swirl with fears and worries for our children and our parents and our marriages and ourselves. I am a champion at creating a worse case scenario in my head and seeing it through to the devastating end even when I have zero evidence that that scenario is in motion. In "I Have Trust Issues", a devotional from Lysa Terkeurst from proverbs31.org, she says this and I wrote it down and taped it to my desk:

"What we see will violate what we know unless what we know dictates what we see."

The truth is that what I know more than anything else is that even if those scenarios play out, I have a God who is faithful and who will never let me go it alone. This is why it is so important for me to continue to study Scriptures and to know what the Bible says about who God is and to know what He has done for the people I love. I have watched with my very own eyes the way He has held up friends and family members in the darkest of circumstances. I know that has happened. What I see before me is a world that can be scary and uncertain. What I know is this:

"For God has said, I will never fail you. I will never abandon you. So we can say with confidence: The Lord is my helper. I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?" - Hebrews 13: 5b-6

5. The Washington Nationals

2013: My Guys & Me at Nats Park

I often say that I do not have the mental fortitude to maintain much focus on professional sports because I use up all of my emotional energy on my Texas Longhorns during college sports seasons. However, after living in the DC area for 27 years, I have fully adopted the Washington Nationals as my hometown team. We've spent loads of fun times at Nats Park over the years and we have watched them from the very beginning. 

My boys and my husband are rabid Red Sox fans and I will jump on that bandwagon with them as needed, but this year they are fully in the tank for the Nats with me. We are beside ourselves with awe and joy at finding our Nationals in the World Series. 

As usual, I have found this week that sports are so much more than just a game. They keep me connected to my people in ways for which I am so grateful. My mom, my dad and my brother - all in Texas - are all in for the Astros which means that during the games we are trash talking and sending Gifs in group texts all night long. Add my son, Joe, into the mix and my phone is buzzing about every ten seconds. I don't think it's overstating it to say that if there is some sort of World Series for finding the best Gif for any emotion, my family would DOMINATE the series and sweep it in four games. 

We've got Game 3 tonight with the Nats up 2 games to ZERO and they are coming home to DC. I am simply giddy about the whole thing. 

Please see Steve and me smiling up a storm six months ago at Opening Day this year and ask me if we would have thunk it? I'll tell you what, we would not have thunk it, but y'all. IT'S HAPPENING!

Have a great weekend, friends. I wish you all the Baby Shark dances you can do. LET'S GO NATS.

PS If you're interested in more baseball ramblings from me I was published over at the Northern Virginia Travel Baseball League's site this week. Go here.

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