five finds friday (the right ice, a great kid, gorgeous views)

I’m not sure how quality this Five Finds can be this week.

I never enjoy the return to the work week after a fantastic vacation – but this week has been extra The Worst.

Talk about Slow Motion.  That’s my speed currently.  Or backwards.  That speed too.

Can’t seem to kick the sickies and don’t love dwelling on it.

So I’ll give it a go over here – typing as slow as I’ve been moving all week long.

funny

On the road (with nearly 5,000 miles under our belt) we listened to a variety of different podcasts.

One of the funniest was one recommended to us called Everything is Alive.

It’s this simple premise, that every single thing is alive. A Coke can. A newspaper. A bar of soap.  A painting. A stuffed alligator.

The podcasts begins immediately, no lead in, as an interview between the item and the host. “Hi, I’m Louis – I’m a can of Coke.”

We didn’t listen to all of them.  And I cannot guarantee their purity.  But the Coke can was funny.  The Jack O’ Lantern made us laugh and our two favorites were the Lamppost and the Russian Nesting Dolls.

The humor is dry and understated and it’s very very funny.

Of course, it does exacerbate my already existing personal problem.  Even as a kid, I secretly assigned feelings to almost all inanimate objects.  I often assigned them a gender and emotions and referred to them as such.  I still tend to think of items as having — I don’t know, a life.  Which is why I occasionally apologize to a chair I bump or talk to a treasured item when it moves away from me.  

There.  Now you know too much about me.

fashionable

Dresses.  

I love them.

Dresses with pockets.

I love them even more.

I recently inherited a dress from a friend. (The same friend who recommended the podcast actually, now that I think about it. She’s really taking over this week’s Fives.)

And I pulled it out when we were at the National Parks in Utah last week. (It  already seems so long ago . . . )

This dress didn’t have pockets – which is a shame.

But it did have other features.

Features like built in undergarments. (Sorry fellas, all four of you who read this.)

I don’t know why I have never worn a dress like that before.

But it is my new favorite.

I want to own a dozen.

Where do you purchase great dresses like that?

It’s in this photo too – but it was surprisingly cold at Bryce National Park so I put my sweatshirt over the dress.

Which defeats the purpose entirely of showing you the dress.  Whatever. Bryce National Park is pretty.

faithful

Everything was beautiful everywhere we went in Utah.

Everything.

Everywhere.

I had no idea Utah was such a treasure.

What a good and creative God to imagine and form all the valleys, all the mountains, all the snow capped charmers and the delicate arches, all the vast open land and the waterfalls streaming down the rock faces.

I shared this quote last week.

It’s worth sharing again.

A man can worship God among these great cathedrals as well as in any man made church – this is Zion!
– Isaac Behuni

flavorful

It’s a particularly difficult week to talk about food.

So. I’m not.

But let’s talk about what has sounded good this week.

What I’ve wanted and thought about and wished could arrive at my house.

Ice.

The exceptionally good ice.

You know that kind?

The kind at Sonic.

Maybe it’s the same kind at Chick-fil-a too.

It’s soft and crunchy and refreshing.

And I wanted some so badly this week that I found myself googling ice makers.

Ice makers for soft ice.  For good ice. For the best ice.

Apparently they are few and far between.

And the only one I found on Amazon was almost $500 and had mediocre reviews.

It’s just ice, people.

At least two restaurants I can think of serve it to bazillions of people daily.

Obviously there are loads more restaurants providing this sort of simple frozen water service to customers like me.

So – restaurant owners: teach me your ways. I need the soft ice.

Can I buy one of those soft ice makers and put it in my barn?

(This is not a rhetorical question.)

feels

This week people have been kind.

In loads of ways – but the people who have been the most generous with their time and their abilities for me have been my kids.

And – especially – THIS kid.

It’s hard to do all the day to day things when a parent isn’t feeling their best.

To keep people fed and the house basically tidy and stuff like that.

All of the kids have been great this week, but Mosely has been a shining star.

She’s missed fun events to stay back and bring me water and pat my back and clean up my messes. She’s made toast and brought endless cups of water or Gatorade. She checks on me frequently and has pulled more than her share of the load.

She’s a gift.

And I’m so fortunate that she’s my girl.

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