weekending/Hello Monday/Prime Purchases 2.6.23.

 

Happy Monday, friends! How was your weekend? I hope it was wonderful, restful, fun, and productive. Isn't that always a perfect mix of things for a weekend? Mine was fun! More about this in a minute. I am linking up with three bloggers for today's post—Holly, Sarah, and Tanya. 

I started the weekend with going back to work after a three day break due to icy roads. It was so good to go back! It was a beautiful day, and the fact that it was a palindrome day made my heart happy. Does anyone else love these, or is it just me? The date was 2-3-23. And to top off a beautiful day, our PTA gave us Sonic drinks this week! Diet Coke has never tasted quite so good.

Anyway, it was good to get back to work. I celebrated the cold day by wearing my favorite cozy sweater, since it was wear red day.

This is an old picture from December, but with the same sweater and pants, and with leopard print shoes instead of black flats. This sweet girl pictured with me is one of "my" girls who I helped lead in high school. I rarely get to see Em these days since she no longer lives here.

After work, I went straight to my dad's house. We enjoyed eating pizza together. It was week two of our new tradition, and it was fun being together. I'll be honest here and confess that he is struggling with the change in our weekly plans. He is very confused by all of it, and it's been a lot to take in, even though he is so happy about me working in a school again. I pray that I don't regret my decision to do this and make a big life change. I'd love your prayers for this, honestly, both for my dad and for me in my struggle with thinking I made him worse. I always claim to keep things real here on my blog, so this is just a truth about me that I'm battling right now. Anyway, and on a lighter note...

My husband was working that night, so I came home after that and watched this movie.

Have you seen this? Holy macaroni, I wouldn't watch it if you're feeling at all emotionally sensitive. I bawled my way through this movie, and even thought it was a beautiful story, it was a very sad movie. It also hit a little too close to home for a couple of situations I'm finding us in at the moment. I went to bed shortly after this and was up early on Saturday to make some quiches for the baby shower I was helping host.

Then I got dressed and headed to my friend Carol's house.

Carol and I decided we make a great team! We made all the food, she hosted it at her house, I bought and mailed all the invitations, and our goal wasn't perfection, but to shower the sweet new mom with the love of Jesus in a tangible way. The Lord answered every prayer, and it was a beautiful day! Our brunch foods consisted of fruit salad, waffle sticks with warm syrup, cinnamon roll casserole, spinach and cheese quiche, cheesy grits, coffee, orange/apple juice, sweet tea and water. 

In lieu of cards, we gave Katelynn our favorite children's books, either new or well loved. I enjoyed passing down one of the books that I loved as a young girl, the Berenstein Bears book, as well as some that my boys loved. I loved the idea of giving baby Byrd a full nursery of books, and her elementary school teacher of a mom also loved this idea. 

We had a great turnout, and I had the sweetest helper in the form of sweet Lilly, a fifth grader from the school I work at. She helped me with a couple of younger kids and she helped me pass out gifts to Katelynn. I'm pictured above with the mom to be! It was such a fun and meaningful shower. I'm so grateful to have been a co-host with Carol, and believe it or not, it was the first time I've ever hosted something like that. Like I said, Carol and I made a great team, and I'd do it all over again. It was simple and very low key, because perfection wasn't our goal. 

After I helped get things cleaned up at her house, and after we sat and talked for another hour, I finally came home to get comfy, then I went to Mom's and Bill's for dinner.

I took this picture, because I could see the moon, even though it wasn't even dark yet. Do you see it above the power lines in the middle of the picture? We had a delicious dinner (Thanks, Bill!) and it was so good to see Mom, Bill and my sister Trish. I feel like I haven't seen much of them in the last few weeks! I came home and read some, then went to bed pretty early, since I had to be at church by 7:40 on Sunday morning. 

I sang on the praise team, which I always love doing. It was a great day at church! After this, I came home to quite a mess from the dogs involving dirt all over our downstairs, so I cleaned all of that up, and finally drank a protein drink for lunch at two! I had planned to go to a tea at church, but I skipped it since the afternoon turned out so differently. I got comfy after cleaning up all the mess, plus the rest of the house (I dusted our room and cleaned our bathroom and vacuumed the whole upstairs), then came to sit down at three. Todd called me on his way home asking if I still wanted to go out to dinner, which I'd forgotten, so I got dressed again and we went out.

We were going to eat at a new place we heard about that has dim sum, but they were closed for a private event, so we went to plan b and went our new favorite Vietnamese restaurant about thirty minutes away. We had spring rolls with peanut sauce, and I had the chicken vermicelli bowl this time. I was going to have the leftover today for lunch at work, but Noah was hungry when he got home from work, so I gave them to him instead. I don't regret that! 

Todd ran his truck through the car wash, we picked up my grocery order for the week, then came home to unload and put them away. I meal prepped for lunch tomorrow, I got comfy, then sat down to work on this blog post. I went to bed early, because this mama is tired. Whew! I thought Sundays were for rest...but that is certainly not the case anymore! I'm not complaining, though, I'm just grateful that the Lord has given me great health and the energy to do everything I'm able to get done. It's only with His help that I can do these things! I don't take that for granted. 

And now for the Prime Purchases part of this post...I have made way too many in January, even though they were things I actually needed. Because of that, I'm giving you my top favorites, starting with these glasses! Click the picture and you'll be directed to Amazon.

I bought this six pack of oversized readers in the 1.5 strength. I love them and ordered a second pack for myself now that I'm working. I'll leave a pair there at school, and the rest I will spread all over the house, to my car, and inside my purse. I get complimented on them every single time I wear them! This pair is dark at the top and then they fade into pale pink on the bottom. 

I also love this tortoiseshell pair that I wear when I'm reading in the living room. 

Secondly, I've ordered two of these handles recently. One was to replace an old one that was fading, and the second one was for the big 40 oz bottle that I take to work everyday. 

 

You can see it in this picture above. 

And lastly, I ordered this comforter again, because Crash tore the one I ordered for Noah's bed.

Noah uses the white side on his bed, and keeps it covered with a blanket with that same darker teal color on it, to protect it from hair and dog nails. This is the sixth time I've ordered one of these comforters, either to buy a new one or to replace one that was torn because of our dogs. The price for this queen sized one was under $33! The quality is excellent, and so is the price.

What have you ordered and loved lately? I also have a non-Amazon order coming in this week. Thanks to my friend Amy, I ordered some things from Old Navy last week. I'm excited about all of them, but one item is a rattan fabric covered headband, and the other is a kelly green button down shirt. I cannot wait for the order to get here! I'll probably share those on Thursday of this week. Come back tomorrow and Wednesday, I have some new fun content that I have planned to post on both of those days. I hope your day is great! Thanks for reading my blog, friends! Love to all. 💚💙