5 Friday Favorites: July 23, 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, Friends. I am back at home in Virginia after a week in Atlanta watching baseball, alternating between sweating my tail off and dodging rain drops, watching more baseball, soaking muddy baseball pants in the bathroom sink, watching more baseball, telling the front desk gal at the Courtyard Marriott that she was my very best friend when she found a wine bottle opener for me, watching more baseball, and spending a lot of time sitting in officially the worst traffic I have ever seen. Hey, Atlanta, y'all need to figure some stuff out. Goodness gracious. 

My favorite thing was watching this kid play, but here are some other favorite things from the week.

1. Marietta, Georgia

Timing of the games and the aforementioned traffic prevented me from seeing the Gone with the Wind Museum or the Coca-Cola Headquarters, but I did have some great times with Steve and Drew. We hit quite a few towns during our stay including Kennesaw, Cartersville, Alpharetta, Dunwoody, Milton, and Powder Springs. Our favorite little town was Marietta which we found had some beautiful homes and great restaurants. 

We ate at Taqueria Tsunami which was recommended to us by some friends who had been there/done that on the travel baseball circuit in Georgia a few years ago. Taqueria Tsunami is a Latin-Asian Kitchen which sounded weird and amazing all at the same time. It was so good. I highly recommend it if you find yourself in Marietta or in one of their other locations.  

Marietta also had the most adorable town square which Drew thought was the perfect place for taking a selfie with your mom. 

2. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I've seen this book recommended quite a bit this summer. Recently both my mom and sister read it and loved it, so I started it while I was away. It is by the author of Daisy Jones and the Six which I never read, but heard good things about, also. I'm barely into it, but I already know I'm going to fly through it. 

3. Summer Hair Situation

First, let's clarify that my summer hair situation is not my favorite. My hair this summer is a disaster. This could be because I've been traveling so much that I haven't been able to get to my hair stylist since February. It could be that it's 700 degrees with 1000% humidity every where I go and my hair just gives up in that type of weather. Also, peri-menopause apparently messes with your hair as much as the rest of your body. (So.Rude.) Luckily, I have found a few products that have been helpful this summer though.

I guess there are other dry shampoos on the market, but I don't think there is one better than Living Proof's Perfect Hair Day Dry Shampoo. I've used the fire out of this stuff this summer. It's great for traveling when you're sharing a hotel bathroom with too many people and don't have time to shampoo and style your hair as often. It's great for a touch up when you come back in from a sweaty baseball game or the beach. It gives texture to newly washed hair and keeps 2nd, 3rd and even 4th day hair from looking grimy. I love this stuff. 

These knotted headbands are a game changer because I am finding that I do not want my hair touching my person at all lately. You can get nine different solid colors for less than $9.99. For a patterned headband this leopard print is my favorite. I also like these bandana prints for summer.

These spiral hair ties are the absolute best. They secure your ponytail without tearing your hair. I like the clear ones. When they stretch out you just put them in hot water and they shrink back to their original size.

Even though I know that hormones are likely the cause of my hair falling out more often now, I'm still trying to do all the things to keep my hair healthy. I've never used a heat protectant spray before, but I decided that I would add it to the hair vitamins, collagen powder, biotin thickening shampoo, and pleas to Jesus that I'm using to try to keep my hair on my actual head. This Kenra Professional Thermal Styling Spray is supposed to protect your hair from the heat of styling tools. I'm going to give it a try.

4. Road Trip Snacks

While Steve flew in and out of Atlanta for weekend, Drew and I drove there and back. We stopped in Knoxville on the way there, but drove the entire 10 plus hours in one day on the way home. We were really ready to be in our own beds, so we tried to limit our stops and keep ourselves going with snacks. 

I've always thought that pretzels were the most useless snack food of all time. I could live without a regular ol' pretzel for the rest of my life. HOWEVER. We discovered these Dot's Pretzels at a gas station in Pennsylvania in the spring and now we are hooked. These pretzels are so delicious that I had to make Drew throw them in the trunk with the luggage at one point so I couldn't eat them anymore.

Drew is really into working out and eating a ton of protein. Who knew that now there is something called protein chips? Quest makes lots of different flavors. Each bag has 19 grams of protein. Drew loves these chips.

I've mentioned Lara Bars before. I started buying them when I did the Whole30 program. The lemon ones are my favorite, but I also like the Cashew Cookie and the Chocolate Coconut Chew. They are made with clean ingredients and taste great. 

5. The Holy Mystery of Today

So much of my writing in the past nine years here has been about urging people (and myself) to seek God, listen for Him, and fully expect to find Him in the most mundane, ordinary circumstances of our lives. I do not have a remarkable life spent in remarkable places. I spend lots of time sitting at baseball fields and basketball gyms, strolling through grocery stores, shuttling wet clothes from washer to dryer, and tapping out words on this laptop. I decided long ago that I would not wait to look for God only standing at the top of a snow-capped mountain or walking beside a vast ocean or just between the hours of 11:00 am and 12:00 pm in a church sanctuary on Sunday mornings.

I have come to expect Him to show up anywhere - at any time - whether I am looking for Him or not. This summer it has been in an Uber on the way to an early morning flight, on a walk through suburban streets with a friend who listens intently, on a screened-in porch with my dog, in the waiting room of a hospital, in the 7th hour of a road trip with a kid who I enjoy so darn much that I could've driven 10 more hours with him, and of course, behind home plate. 

Just as 2020 did, 2021 has brought some hard things. Things that were unexpected and difficult and required me to trust Him to be who I always said He was.  As well, this year has brought us back to our normal, ordinary routines in familiar places. God has shown up to teach me in all of it. . .so many times, in so many ways, in so many places. He's been in places where I begged Him to be near and places where I was kind of surprised to notice Him. I think facing the difficult things with Him has made me even more aware of His presence in the plain ol' everyday things. 

Frederick Buechner, in Listening to Your Life, says it this way - so much better than I could:

Who knows what He will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment He will choose to say it. Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery. . . Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance - not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days. And the words He says to each of us differently are: be brave . . . be merciful. . .  feed my lambs. . .  press on toward the goal."

This life, this day, these moments (and even this 16 year old kid of mine who gladly posed for exactly TWO pictures with me this week) are holy mysteries waiting to be discovered if I'm just willing to recognize them. Thank you for reading about the nonsense of my days and how I find God speaking words of great significance to me in the raw stuff - whether serious or silly. It's so helpful for me to work it all out here in this space and I pray that it helps you, too. 

Enjoy your holy, mysterious day. I know you'll find Him there. Happy Weekend! 

  Disclosure: The View From Behind Home Plate is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn small fees by linking to amazon.com. Post might contain other affiliate links as well.