Friday Favorites, 11.18.22.

 

Happy Friday, friends! I'm linking up with Erika and Andrea for this favorite weekly blog post. I'll jump right in!

Last year for Christmas, the boys bought two hand-drawn prints from this wonderful company. Look how beautiful the package was! When companies spend extra time and attention on details for their packaging, it's my one of my very favorite things. Have you heard of this company, Lindsay Letters? The artist Lindsay does amazing work. If you've not already followed her on Instagram, you should follow her story about their journey with their daughter Ava. They're such a sweet family, so I love that their gift helped support them. Here are the two they bought me for Christmas.

Both of these are very meaningful to me! The one on the left is a song from the movie White Christmas that I grew up watching at least once a week with my dad. My dad loves Bing Crosby and actually sounds a lot like him when he sings...I can read those lyrics and hear Dad singing this song. This is one of our favorite scenes in the movie! It makes me emotional thinking about it and the years I spent at his house over weekends. The second is one of my favorite passages in Scripture, which talks about the character of God. Knowing me, I will just let these hang in their new places all year long, because I love them so much. Yes, I just put them into frames a couple of days ago. 

I received a very thoughtful gift this week. These are my FAVORITE candles of all time!

This is my favorite scent. It's also the favorite of my husband and our sons. 

Oh, my goodness, I have a new favorite song that I discovered on Wednesday night. It's called The Building and it's by Emily Ann Roberts, who was a contestant on The Voice a couple of years ago. She is also part of a band, High Road Music, who sang at our women's event Tablescapes last year. You should listen to this, if you have a few minutes, but you may need to grab some tissues first.

This song made me so emotional! I'm not really a fan of country music anymore, but I think she has such a beautiful voice. The lyrics are significant to me because it's how I feel about going to church regularly and as often as possible. There are so many wonderful things that happened there and it's so very special to me. 

For the love of everything that is holy, don't ever tell my husband that I shared this picture here, but it's my favorite! First off, he looks like a mountain man and I'm smiling even as I write. Secondly, seeing him having so much fun is my favorite thing. He's been doing a bit of role playing over the last two weeks and last night was the last night they had for him to role play as a bad guy trying to take down law enforcement. Local law agencies here had these training sessions over the last two weeks and they needed people to play the role of a bad guy...he was invited because of his affiliation with our county government. He told me he felt like he was in a live X-Box game! He has already been invited back by the owners of the establishment where this was held, because they're always looking for role players. 

This moment and our closing prayer were my favorite moments from Bible study all semester. We wrapped up our study on the books of 1, 2, 3 John and Jude that I helped write, and it was a wonderful semester. The ladies were faithful in attendance and in study and our hearts as writers were blessed beyond measure. 

These were the closing pages of our study, along with a list of the others we've written and finally, there's the book I just put back on the shelf in the living room. It's an honor to help write these studies, but it's an even bigger blessing and privilege to be a student of God's holy word. I will never take these years for granted that I've spent doing this! I'll continue for as long as the Lord will allow me. 

Monday was one of my favorite days of the year on social media. It was the day that Laura Tremaine hosted #onedayhh (one day, hour by hour) and a bunch of us joined in and posted from our daily routine. I plan on making that into a blog post sometime soon, so stay tuned! I will say that as fun as it is for ME, I know it's not for everyone...and I was given a hard time about this by someone. I let it mess with me for a good 36 hours before I completely let it go and surrendered it to the Lord. I will make that the last thing I say about that, but I was reminded of the power of our words and how vitally important it is to be kind always!

I cannot encourage kindness enough to anyone reading this. We never know what one person is walking through in their life and we should never judge them for what they choose to do or not to do. The Lord is sweet, though and He prompted me to pray, so I spent time praying about my heart and the hearts of everyone that I know and love. I have said it before and I'll say it until the day the Lord calls me home: Life is hard. Even with Jesus, life is so very hard...but without Him? I can't even imagine. I know I wouldn't be able to stand. I am thankful for Him, for His love, for His free gift of salvation, that His Holy Spirit leads me day by day and that He is always with me. Do you know Him? (This is my favorite question to ask.) Don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have questions. My email address is allboys@gmail.com.

Moving onto lighter and brighter topics, this outfit was my favorite from the week. The cardigan wasn't something I'd ever paired with this shirt, but I love the look of it all pulled together. I was comfy, warm and cozy—on a day when I needed to be! It was freezing on Monday and this was me headed out the door to work.

This might just be my favorite Christmas book that I've ever read. Have you read this? If not, you should! 

I spent a fun few minutes on our town square with one of my best friends last night! That is always a favorite. 

It was the annual girl's night out on the town square, when the shops are open later than usual. This is the second year Andrea and I have done this together! We had to cut it short very early, because she had a family emergency. I am praying for her family member who is in the midst of that emergency even as I write this. My poor, sweet friend kept apologizing profusely, but I told her repeatedly that family ALWAYS comes first. Also, it's never a hardship for me to end something early and come home to get comfy, especially on a freezing cold night! It was fun while it lasted and I'm so glad we stopped to take that picture...even if it took four attempts and this was the only non-blurry one. 

I am grateful that today is Friday. It was a busy week at work, particularly Monday! I plan on working one or two days next week, then will enjoy a long break. Did you catch any of my other blog posts this week? I shared about the weekend on Monday, my morning and nighttime routines on Tuesday, some personal growth on Wednesday and my Thankful Thursday post was yesterday. (Click on each day of the week and you'll be re-directed to the link for that day's post.) Come back next week and visit! I will be blogging on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and taking the rest of the week off to enjoy family time. I hope to see you here! That next week I will be back to my regularly scheduled posts on Monday through Friday. I'll also be sharing the details for this month's Currently post if you're interested...so come back to check on what the prompts will be for December. 

So how was your week? Do you have a favorite activity or product that stands out to you? I'd love to hear from you! Thank you for reading my blog, friends. You all are THE BEST. Love to all!