Friday Fave Five--May 25

I feel like my heart is heavy today as I write this.  It's the end of the school year which, yay! I love having my kids home for summer vacation, but honestly it's also very bittersweet.  This time of our lives slips through my fingers like sand and try as I might to hold onto it, it's elusive.  I love seeing summer come, but I'm sad that another year of their childhood is over.  They're moving closer and closer, step by step, to growing up and yes, it makes me sad.  Their lives get more complicated with every new stage, there's more room for hurt and disappointment and less room for being able to "fix" things.

Mark's hurt.  His back is acting up again.  Of course I feel awful for him.  It's been five days, five long days for him, with no idea when he will be better and when life can pick back up.  Right now everything's on hold, plans are impossible to make and honestly the longer it goes on I start to get a little frustrated, not with him, but just with the situation.  

There are things going on in Rebekah's life that are so frustrating!  There are times lately my girl's heart is hurting and it makes my heart ache.  Overall she's doing really well, but I wish things were better for her now, it's human nature, I guess.

I have some health worries concerning my children as well.  In my heart of hearts I believe it will all be fine, but sometimes your heart of hearts just can't quiet that little voice in your head...especially in the middle of the night.

I feel torn in so many directions, not so much by other people but by my feelings.  I want to be able to go visit with Rebekah, I want to go spend time with my parents, real time not just a super-quick turn around visit.  I want to spend some quality time with Matt & Lily doing some fun memory building.  I just can't seem to make any of it happen right now.  We were supposed to take Matt and Lily down to my parents tonight, spend some time with them, go to the zoo tomorrow then come back.  With Mark's back hurting him so much it's not going to happen and I completely support that but it seems impossible to make all the pieces fit of seeing/spending time with the people I love and it's frustrating.

So, there you go.  That's what's on my heart right now.  I needed to get that out before I could turn my thoughts to purely good things.  If you are so inclined I'd really appreciate a prayer for my family, God knows our needs.  Does it make me a hypocrite to ask for prayers while simultaneously struggling with just what I believe?  I hope not.  I guess the fact that I would covet prayers shows my faith is stronger than I sometimes give it credit for.

Five of my favorite things from the past week, in no particular order:

Birthdays--my oldest baby turned 28 this week.  I know it's trite, but how did that happen????  Anyway, as I've shared here before, I am incredibly proud of him and love him so much and he's truly a blessing to all of us.  I can not imagine my life without him in it and I am so thankful for the gift of him.

Borax--laundry seems like it's a constant struggle.  Stains go unnoticed, or even when they are noticed they seem impossible to remove.  Long, long ago I bought some Borax with the intention of making Flubber with the kids.  Well, we've never done it and that Borax has sat and sat and sat.  Finally this week I had an incredibly stubborn stain I just could not get out no matter what I tried, I think it was old, set coffee that Mark had spilled.  I had washed this shirt over and over again and I truly had given up on ever getting it clean again.  With nothing to lose I went ahead and added some Borax to the wash, let it soak then do it's thing, and I was so pleasantly surprised, completely clean, just like new.  Since then I've been adding it to more and more loads and I'm very pleased.  My whites are brighter, my "lights" are brighter, stains that snuck by me come out on their own, it's wonderful.

Balls--is there a child out there, maybe even a person out there period, that is not seduced by a shiny, brand new ball?  I impulsively picked up a new playground ball at Target the other night, one of those huge, probably 18" plastic balls, that are super-cheap.  We had one last year until it got popped and I never got around to replacing it.  Well, Jacob and Julianna as well as the little ones I watch have had so much fun with that ball.  It's fun to be reminded that simple things can bring so much joy.

Books-- I absolutely inhaled Nora Roberts' The Last Boyfriend this week.  The second in a three part series and I loved it every bit as much as the first one.  I can't wait until November when the third book comes out.  I also read a Jacquelyn Mitchard story Second Nature:  A Love Story.  It's not a sequel to Deep End of the Ocean but there are some characters that return and it was like visiting with people you care about but haven't heard from in a long time.  I really enjoyed both books.  I love reading, it's definitely one of the things I'm looking forward to doing more of this summer.


The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel--I loved this movie!  Last Friday night Mark and I hired a sitter, and used up a birthday gift card on a date.  We had a wonderful time.  We tried a new restaurant, well, new to us.  They source their main ingredients locally and included with the menu is a list of what farms/dairies/mills they buy from and where they're located.  Everything is made from scratch and our meal was wonderful.  I had a chicken sandwich, the Motherclucker--fried buttermilk Gerber chicken, house cured bacon, aged cheddar cheese, Chef’s Garden greens, roasted poblano chile,  garlic aioli, on a toasted challah bun.  Really, really good.  After dinner we headed out to a movie, surprisingly Mark let me choose again, (I had really blown it a couple of weeks earlier with picking one we both hated--The Five Year Engagement.)  This time, thankfully, we both loved the movie.  It was just so smart.  No dumb humor, no being talked down to.  It's definitely a film for grown ups and it embraces that.  We laughed, we were close to tears at times, we felt.  We were definitely invested in the film and it made for a great experience.  I can't wait until we can sneak away for another date.


Well, it's amazing how just the act of taking some time each week to write this list out, think about the positives can influence my mood.  My heart's definitely a bit lighter, at least for now.  Check out other people's Fave Five lists at Susanne's Living to Tell the Story.