5 Friday Favorites: June 11, 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 Friday! I'm off to Knoxville to visit a kid and watch some college baseball this weekend. (Go Vols, sure, but mostly, GO HORNS.)  I hope you all have a lovely weekend and find some favorite things! Here are a few of mine from this week.

1. The Guest List by Lucy Foley

I've seen The Guest List around a lot lately on best seller lists and recommended by a number of people. I read it last week. It's set at a wedding on an island off the coast of Ireland and each chapter is told from the perspective of different characters present at the wedding. Thrillers/Mysteries aren't usually the genres I'm drawn to, but I liked this book. I read it pretty quickly and did not see the twist at the end coming. After finding that The Four Winds which I read the week before was so long and drawn out, I appreciated the quick pace of this book.

2. Two Amazon Finds that Get 5 Stars

As I've mentioned before, sometimes I see things that pop up on the Internet that I think look great, but I don't necessarily buy everything that I share, so I can't always vouch for the quality. So . . . when I purchase things that I really like, I want to let you know. There were two items I've mentioned in the past few weeks that get 5 stars from me. I got this short "jogger" set earlier this week and I love it. The shorts are not too short and the material is kind of a thin sweatshirt material which is very comfortable. The top is a bit oversized. There are a lot of colors to choose from. I ordered the black, but I also really like this khaki color. Could be a summer staple around here.

The 2nd item that I loved is this swimsuit cover up that I mentioned back in April. It is exactly the right length. The material is thin enough to be really comfortable in the heat, but not so thin that it's see-through. This was a great purchase. Lots of solid colors and some patterns to choose from.

3. Trader Joe's Stuff

Here's the thing: I loathe grocery shopping with the heat of a thousand suns, so the fact that I get excited about going to Trader Joe's is really saying something. I went this week and found some old favorites and some new ones. Here are (more than) a few things that I love from the best grocery store on earth (not all pictured):

Everything but the Bagel Nut Duo, Chile Lime Chicken Burgers, Organic Riced Cauliflower, Plantain Crisps, Frozen Sweet Potato Fries, Cauliflower Gnocci, Trader Joe's Mandarin Orange Chicken, Crisp Crunchy Crisps Pea & Chickpea Snack Crackers, Everything but the Bagel Greek Yogurt Dip, Soy & Flax Seed Corn Tortilla Chips, Frozen Turkey Meatballs, Hot & Sweet Pepper Jelly, Cocobon Roasted Oak Buttery Chardonnay, 

4. Kelly Corrigan's Graduation Speech - 2021

You can take your William Shakespeare, your Winston Churchill, your Jane Austen, your John F. Kennedy - any speaker, writer, or poet you can think of. I will trade them all for Kelly Corrigan. She is brilliant. This eight minutes is so very much worth your time.

5. On Not Being Afraid to Blink

A couple of years ago  - only a few weeks away from my 2nd son's high school graduation - I went for a Saturday morning run. I ran by the tee ball field where all three of my boys had played their first games of Little League. This turned out to be a mistake since I ended up standing on the sidewalk like a lunatic stalker crying my face off. I wrote about that experience and the ensuing plethora of feelings it drummed up here.

As it is warm once again and my running path remains the same, last weekend I found myself heading toward that same tee ball field. I dodged mini-vans and parents pushing strollers with one hand and holding tight to their little players with the other. It's graduation season once again, but I was determined not to make my emotional breakdown an annual event, so I glanced over at the field and commanded my feet to keep moving. 

Unlike last time, I didn't cry as I continued my run. I don't think I've matured or grown stronger. I don't think I am less sentimental than I used to be. It's not that feelings of longing don't well up in me as I recall sticky fingers wrapped around mine and belts cinched tight around tiny waists. 

It's just that on this particular day, I made a decision to refocus on the present. As a person who writes her feelings, I am drawn to reflection. As a person of faith who believes fully that God is irrefutably present in even the most ordinary circumstances of life, I find that it is most often in retrospect that I am able to recognize a lesson He meant to teach me during a certain time period or even during a solitary moment. 

But what if in so much reflection and re-examination, I am missing what God has for me in the now? What if in the lament, I miss out on this season - a season that in four or five or ten years, I will have wished I would have appreciated more?

My sister and I had talked about this recently. Because sometimes God comes in a still, small voice and sometimes He comes through your air pods in your sister's voice. She reminded me that with too much looking back or forward, we dismiss what's right in front of us. One of the greatest gifts of that run that day, I think, was that I allowed God to speak right away. Not after the run as I stood in the shower. Not a few weeks later as I wrote in my journal, but in the very moments of my feet moving one in front of the other. This is what He taught me in those last two miles.

A typical refrain of moms of older kids to moms of younger ones is "Don't blink." I've said it a million times. And while the sentiment is innocent and encouraging, it has an underlying insinuation that if and when you blink, you'll open your eyes to find there's nothing beautiful or worthy left to see.

That's a mistake. And it's also a lie.

We like to scare people about the teenage years. To be sure teenagers are straight-up weirdos a lot of the time. They are quite certain they know everything about everything, but then turn around and somehow conveniently forget how to turn off the lights in the basement or pick up a towel. They are messy and moody and also, weird. Did I mention weird? But here's what I love about my teenager and my two twenty-somethings:

I love their sense of humor. I love that I don't have to stick a straw in their juice boxes or tie their shoes. I love that I don't have to put a sticker on a chart every time they make use of a toilet. I love how they can make a sandwich on their own even if most of the time they beg me to do it for them. I love how they can grab me a large diet Coke from McDonald's on the way home from their workout. 

I love how loyal they are to their friends and especially the way they choose cheering for them over being jealous of them. I love that our conversations can be about topics beyond who the best Star Wars character is. I love how I see them beginning to question certain behaviors of adults around them while still remaining respectful. I see how they are mentally taking notes of who they might want to emulate and who they might not. And even better, I love watching as they start to understand that they don't have to emulate anyone because God made them exactly the way He meant to make them - wholly and completely unique. I love that they are wickedly smart about subjects and theories that I have barely heard about. I love that we can talk about racism and politics and history. 

Don't get me wrong. We also share funny Tik Tok videos about dogs and Twitter accounts that walk the line between being somewhat to incredibly inappropriate.

"Don't blink?" Of course. At any age, in any season of life, don't wish the time away. But maybe, also recognize that when you do blink, you won't necessarily open your eyes to something scary and sad and unmanageable. You might find that it's equally beautiful and interesting and fun.

Because I was here.

And then I blinked and I found myself here.

And this season with this boy and his older brothers is a beautiful, exciting, hopeful season. It's a season during which my attention to them is just as necessary, my presence with them is just as worthy, and my gratitude for the gift of them is just as great. And even though, to be honest, there will be times you want to, you really don't have to tear up your "parent card" when they turn 18.

Stay present, Young Mamas, but do not be afraid to blink. There is beauty and joy and fun and hope waiting for you when you open your eyes. The good Lord is not finished with a single one of us yet. And that is the best news of all.

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