I am IN LOVE with these flowers. Every January I find myself wishing February would hurry up and arrive, and then it does… And usually (not always) the weather is worse, I feel more tired (tired of winter, tired of cold, tired of being tired. Ha!) and at some point I am grumbling about stupid February and how much I hate February, etc…
But then I make my way to a super market or shopping center somewhere, clad in winter boots and braving the elements for something entirely necessary like dish soap or brown eggs, and my senses are straight-up attacked by flowers.
FLOWERS EVERYWHERE. And I melt and fall in love.
February is the beginning of fresh, beautiful flowers.
So yeah, I could talk about a hundred topics right now, and they would mostly end in grumbles or grunts, but then… FLOWERS. Flowers win.
Other than the Flowers (which are the obvious gold medalists in my life right now) there are a few things my week has held, which I’m excited to share with you.
Speaking of medalists… How about those Ice Dancers earlier in the week! Amazing…
1.) We ran to Chick Fil A for breakfast the other day, which might seem pretty basic to many of you. I get it, I used to live near one too. In those days it was grabbing Chick Fil A while heading to do something else. During this season though, Chick Fil A has become a coveted destination in which we wrap other errands and stops around. (but seriously, their Chicken Minis are worth every single liter of fuel we burn to get there) Anyway- while this was a tasty highlight to reminisce, it really has nothing to do with CFA at all… (you are SO welcome for this ramble) While we were out that way, I wanted to run into Cost Plus. I am looking for a particularly awesome thing, and figured if it actually existed, this would be the place in which I would discover it. (It may not, because I did not…) As I, belly blissfully happy on Chicken Minis, disappointedly rounded an aisle corner (so incredibly defeated in my search for that which does not exist) I stumbled upon these…
Just in case you are reading this, and you knew me between the ages of 14 and 18, I know you are exhaling loudly because you know EXACTLY how much this discovery made my world! (I mean, I knew they “came back”, but I stopped looking for them (in every single convenience store) ages ago.)
2.) Since we are talking about things that we devour because they are delicious… Have you tried this? I mean, SERIOUSLY, you guys. And in a crackable tub… (that tub is probably the closest I will ever come to actual crack, which is ok because it was pretty great.)
3.) My Lent commitment, this year, is a little different from years past. I have vowed to spend 40 hours reading books which are more life helpful than fun. As a full-fledged grown up, reading seems to have become a big struggle for me. (Give me options and I will choose Netflix or Instagram every single time. SMH) But when the challenge is to read those things which will NOT capture my imagination and entertain me? Ugh. Fun fact though, so far I am loving it. I curl up in my awesome chair (see Instagram post) and more days than not (so far…) I am sad when the hour timer long goes off, because I might be contemplating staying there forever. (confession: a couple of times I felt like that hour lasted fourteen years and leapt from the chair as if it were about to swallow me whole.) First I read Uninvited. I genuinely like Lysa. Sometimes reading her feels a bit like a chore, but that could totally be on me and my Twitter sized attention span for reading. This book captivated me heart and soul. There is so much highlighter on these pages now, that I think the book itself doubled in thickness. GOOD STUFF, and this current season of isolation- that I’ve felt stuck in for far too long now- made nearly every page in that book so ridiculously relevant.
After I finished that book, I moved on to Of Mess and Moxie. And seriously, while I adore Jen Hatmaker, I can honestly say I have never read any of her books. (remember my whole adult struggle with reading part from before) I was a little nervous (it’s true, I won’t lie.) But honestly, I LOVE this book. It was the perfect book to follow Uninvited. In amazing fashion, it taps into all of the same raw places and balms them (while challenging me) just a little bit differently. I DEFINITELY recommend it.
4.) Oh so long ago, in a hobbling attempt to pick up a prescription that I did not want, at a pharmacy which I did not prefer to frequent, my eyes fell on a tiny little display of this… This stuff sold itself well, and it knew its target audience (obviously me, in so much pain I wanted to leap into oncoming traffic, except I couldn’t really leap due to the pain) and so naturally I bought it on impulse. The entire drive home (this was September, you guys) I thought about how I could not wait to get home and let it cure me of pretty much everything. By the time I was home, however, and settled in for a spell, I was beyond intimidated by it. Like an obedient little fraidy-cat, I put it on my bathroom shelf where my eyes would notice it whenever I walked into the bathroom.
Oh, they did. EVERY. TIME. And the guilt I felt over impulsively dropping $25 on something I knew the likely hood of me ever actually using was daunting. The longer it sat there, the more it resembled something completely unsafe and dumb to waste my time on. And then, the other day my back was screaming with the agony of someone 3 or 4 times my age (sad, I know) and in an attempt to do pretty much anything to get it to calm down, my eyes caught a glimpse of this brown bottle. I scanned the medicine cabinet before I willingly plucked the brown bottle from its dusty place on the shelf, (though honestly I am unsure what I was hoping to find- as the strongest meds in there are 800 MG Ibuprofen and that hasn’t touched my back pain in pretty much ever) but relented and read the instructions.
Pretty much the nutshell of this insanely long point: Get the Frankincense & Myrrh. (By the gallon, if you find that option, and then tell me about it because I might just like to bathe in it, daily.)
5.) The other day I got all fancy and roasted a chicken. Because the delicious chicken deserved something equally as tasty to accompany it into our bellies, I made this Asparagus recipe. When I grow up more than I am now, (to the be the full-grown, responsible adult who LOVES non-fiction books, that is) I want to be able to afford to eat asparagus every day. THIS asparagus, because it was seriously bright green heaven, in the form of a vegetable.
In fact, it was so vibrant that it was not unlike a beautiful stemmed flower, which brings us full circle and that is a truly lovely thing!
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What have been the best parts of your week? Show and tell, you guys, so show me while you tell me all about it! (Last week I had seven different people tell me Black Panther was theirs and they were sure it would be mine too. I did see it. It isn’t. My theory here is that one can read too many “great” things about a really good thing, thus leading to it being a little ruined. I know (and I’m so sorry!) …
Rainy Day in May... 