One thing this Five Fridays is doing for me is reminding me that Friday comes fast.  

Really fast.

Kind of.

 

 

FUNNY

How about we talk about what’s not funny instead?

 

 

(You see my redirection there?  It’s a parenting staple, is it not?)

Ryder came in from his bathroom break tonight with a sloppy grin and something weird hanging out of his mouth.

And then he ran to my bed and dropped the something weird that was formerly hanging out of his mouth.

I don’t remember much after that but I’m pretty certain it involved tears and screams and cries for help and a changing of the sheets on the bed and a lot of disgust.  Yeah, I pretty much was the one crying in the corner and the kids were the ones rescuing the situation.

I don’t care for gross things.  Or dead animals.  Or unhappy surprises.  And I certainly don’t care for any of those dropped from a dog’s mouth on my bed.

 

FASHIONABLE

 

See the corner of the t-shirt I am wearing?

 

 

Yeah.  Okay.  I know you really can’t.

It’s my favorite t-shirt.

 

.

 

I love this shirt.

And I love that the money from the purchase of this shirt goes to SariBari – a real organization that supports women in India and provides a job for them making handmade items using recycled cotton saris.  SariBari now has more than one hundred women working for them who were once trapped in the sex trafficking industry.  My friends Jane and Amanda and Myra and Lucy all traveled to India last year to volunteer and to see the work SariBari is doing in the lives of women who have been ostracized and abandoned and left defenseless.

You can also find gorgeous blankets (I just love these so much) and other beautiful items on their website.

 

 

FLAVORFUL

 

On a day filled with food failures (two “f’s” right there for you) we finally got a win.

First failure: hard tack candy like my momma used to make.

Ours – melty gooey corn syrup mess like nobody’s momma used to make.

 

 

Second failure: homemade marshmallows.

Ours – homemade sugar-scented concrete.

 

 

But this — when the website said, “homemade yeast rolls in less than half an hour” I assumed it would be another failure, but hey – three strikes, might as well try.

Wrong.

Success!

 

 

AND I even messed up the recipe (because I was on the phone FOR AN HOUR with an insurance guy and I was making this while answering his questions and waiting, all the waiting) anyway – I left out an egg and they still turned out delicious and pretty and popular.  All the things I wanted to be in high school.  Well, not delicious.

We ended up baking ours in muffin tins, which explains their unique shape, because all of our pans were being filled with obey gooey messes.

 

FAITHFUL

 

This one on this week is kind of easy.

And it even starts with an “F” too.

Friends.

You know I’ve got reason to be wary of female friendships.  But, my goodness, God is redeeming and restoring and refining me through exactly those friendships right now.

Well, not exactly those friendships.  But through friendships with women.

Women who answer their phones early in the morning and who respond to texts late in the night and who point me to Jesus, always to Jesus, and who let me talk and who tell me my feelings are okay to have and who listen – so much value in the listening.

 

FEELS

 

Last week we visited a nursing home at the invitation of Amanda.

I should know better (and I do) but I tend to shy away from nursing homes.

Amanda invited us to join her family and several others as the kids sang Christmas songs to the residents and then spent a few minutes chatting and visiting with everyone.

 

 

My mom worked in nursing homes off and on throughout her nursing career.

She loved old people.

(And, Lord willing, we will all be old people one day.)

As kids, Mom forced nursing home visits on us like parents force vegetables at dinnertime. We visited frequently.  And we had ground rules too.  I clearly remember my mom’s stern look as she told us how we would be behaving as we visited her friends at the nursing home.  We would be smiling and we would be outgoing and we would be willing to hug and pat and touch hands and talk and engage and act like generally happy and pleasant children.

Riley visited nursing homes with my mom so she remembers the experience.  And the babies in strollers certainly made their rounds but they have no recollection of it.

So when Amanda asked me and I had no excuse on the calendar I said yes and tried to channel my inner mom and encourage my children to be friendly and to chat with the residents.

And here’s where the feels come in.

All of the kids did great.  Truly.  They sang.  They smiled  They walked from resident to resident and shook hands and patted arms and talked about Christmas and looked genuinely comfortable and my heart wished my momma could have stepped around a corner, dressed in her nurse’s attire with her smile wide and her face lit up.

(And I had ALL of the kids and even handsome Maddox together in one place and that was pretty sweet too.)

 

 

But there was Piper Finnian.  My little Willow.  And she was smiling her biggest smile and she was walking right up to elderly women.  She put her hand on their arms and smiled broadly and said, “Hi.  I’m Piper.  Merry Christmas.”  And then.  As she chatted with one guest, Piper said sweetly, “I really like your shirt” and the lady asked her to repeat what she said.  And when Piper did, this woman just smiled so big that her face changed shape and she reached for Piper’s hand and said, “Thank you” as if that was the best compliment she had received all day.  You know, of course, that I had tears in my eyes watching that simple exchange between a nursing home resident and my littlest daughter, born on the birthday of my mother, bearing even the name of my momma and seeing, for just a second, a glimpse of one of the things that made my mother so special – an ability to give kind words like a gift to others.

 

 

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