5 Friday Favorites: January 8, 2021

 

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

On Fridays I share things that made me happy from the week - a photo, a song, a quote, 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.

Happy New Year! I know we might feel like this about now:

but, I think we need to buckle down and conjure up some good ol' Coach Eric Taylor energy.

Also, just in case, let's be sure we keep our receipts because this year might need to be returned for a full refund. Here are some of my favorite things from this week.

1. Things I Have Seen In Aber-Green Nail Polish

I got a manicure yesterday and I got this OPI Polish which is a mossy green/pine color. I know that sounds kinda awful, but it's kinda great. I love it. 

2. Wit & Wisdom Itty Bitty Bootcut Jeans

I bought these Wit and Wisdom Itty Bitty Bootcut Jeans a couple of years ago and they are the best pandemic jeans I have. At some point we have to face the reality that our joggers and leggings have enabled us to avoid. A friend and I discussed easing back into wearing jeans the other day and she shared this advice with me:

"You have to have jeans that will call you out to make you face the music while not going so far as to make you want to jump off a bridge and end it all."

It's a fine line. Also, in full disclosure that friend was my sister. She is wise and poetic. 

These Wit and Wisdom jeans have some amazing stretch that holds you in without cutting off your circulation. Also, let us give thanks to the Lord for the return of a flare/bootcut jean. I really believe they are the absolute best for shorties like me because they make your legs look longer. They are not crazy-expensive and come in both light and dark wash.

3. Dymo Label Maker

So I'm not sure what you do when you're stressed and sad as you watch some citizens in your country lose their ever-lovin' minds, but apparently what I do is:

 

1) Cry 

2) Pray 

3) FO SHO, keep my finger off the Facebook button and 

4) Go full on Monica Geller

Is it normal and mentally sound during a national crisis to label the crap out of everything in your house? I have no idea, but on Wednesday, January 6th, in the year of our Lord 2021, I put my tv on mute and checked in periodically, but mostly I spent hours organizing all of my Christmas decorations and various other things in my house. I did so much labeling with my brand new Dymo LetraTag Label Maker that I had to send my son out to Office Depot to buy refill tape. (The label maker is on sale on Amazon, so don't tell me the Lord does not hear the cries of His people.) Also, please be assured that if you allow your kids access to your label maker, this might happen.

Please carry on with whatever helps you cope and God bless America.

4. This Kid's Birthday/This Couple's Anniversary

The force is strong with this one. He turned 20 this week and now I have only one teenager left. It's so dumb.

I've been watching baseball games with this guy for 26 years. It's been pretty fun. I think I'll stay for as many extra innings as we are blessed enough to get.

5. Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner

I have had this book, Listening to Your Life by Frederick Buechner for years. My mom introduced me to Beuchner and has sent me at least four of his books. I've used all kinds of devotionals and daily reading manuals over the years, but this one is perhaps my very favorite. Beuchner writes often about noticing the extraordinary blessings in an ordinary day, so he's definitely singing my song. I think in 2020 (and it appears, in the first week of 2021) there have obviously been so many huge, historic, unprecedented events that it has been particularly difficult to take a breath to see the way God really has shown up for us in the small moments that make up the day to day. I found this year that I had to be more intentional than ever to notice how He has continued to be faithful to me and to my family over the past 12 months. Beuchner is a great coach in encouraging that intention. From January 1:

There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly . . . . If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

I'm not sure that I've read a better group of sentences in all of my life. Happy New Year, Friends. 

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