five finds friday (my weakness for hair products and my friends Jane & Walter and my kids reading classic novels)

I’ve had to do a LOT of writing for Travelers Rest Here this week and sometimes I can only write so much so I’m afraid over here had to suffer a little in the mean time.

Let’s see – this week included:

Driving places often. Per usual. But my attitude about it is improving. So – progress.
Poison ivy smack dab in the center of my left hand. It’s so itchy and uncomfortable. Or poison oak? Or maybe some other bizarre thing?
Bergen fracturing his toe because he was fooling around in the kitchen late one evening.
Two different days in the same week where I got to sit in the glorious green nature around us with a friend and be grateful we live in an area so abundant with natural beauty.
And school.  Of course.

funny

What’s funny is that we celebrated London’s 16th birthday party about one month late.

Because that’s when her friends could all get together.

What’s funny is that she wanted to have a “throwback” party and theme it all rainbows and unicorns and kids party games and silliness.

Which was a-okay by me.

What’s funny is that in a house with six kids and so many birthday parties over the years, this was only our second piñata ever.

fashionable

Some people like shoes. Some people spend their extra cash on coffee at Starbucks. Some people have a monthly allowance for iTunes.

I like hair products.

I’m a sucker for anything that says this will make my hair curlier, shinier, wavier – you name it. I like fun packaging and I like products that smell nice and I like to try a lot of different options.

I think it’s fun.

I haven’t brushed my hair for the past – I don’t know – four years? Since I started using the Curly Girl method – which recommends not brushing curly or wavy hair.  

But because of a special code and too many Instagram videos, I ordered a special hairbrush.

It’s called behairful and I think the name is cheesy but I’m curious about the brush.

On their IG feed you can see a bazillion videos of how it’s working for others – so I am jumping on the bandwagon and giving it a go.

It arrived in the mail this afternoon so tomorrow maybe I’ll give it a shot.

faithful

These are my friends Jane and Walter.

We’ve been friends for SO many years, through so much thick and so much thin.

I love them both.

They are some of the best cheerleaders of other people’s lives and other people’s successes that I know.

And they are solid folks to have in your corner when the s hits the fan.  Or – as we like to say in our family – when the peach milkshake spills on the shoe. 

(And yeah. Our family has known some s hitting the fans.  And some peach milkshake spilling on some shoes.)

So when Walter and Jane have something to celebrate – I am thrilled to jump on the Happy Train and toast to the goodness in their lives.

They’ve been looking for a new home (their first home purchase) for years.  It has been a slowwwwwww process and at times it seemed an impossible task. 

But the plan God had was a good one and the home waiting for my buddies Jane and Walter is just right.

So when they texted me post bedtime this weekend and told me they were standing inside their new house and asked me if I wanted to come see it – the only answer, pajamas and all, was YES.

I grabbed whatever I  had – which turned out to be a jar of goldfish and two Capri Suns – and headed over in the dark to see this charming house that will soon be a warm and welcoming home for two people I think are fantastic.

How good and wonderful it is to stand on the mountains with friends who have stood in the valleys with you.

flavorful

For some dumb reason, I let my girls convince me to live one week without sugar.

It’s been a year since we did Whole 30 and I forgot how hard it is for me to say no to my favorite thing. Sweet food.

Plus, with the start of school we deeply need to get back to the routine of regular and well thought out meals for the consistency of our home life.

Which brings me to this question:

Week Night Dinners.

What do you love?

I’m pretty much tired of all of our regulars.

Would you share your regulars in the comments and maybe your choices will be new to us and can kickstart our options again?

Thanks!

feels

You know what’s fun – having kids read literature that you loved or that feels iconic for some reason. It’s kind of exciting. (Yep, English teachers get excited about stuff like that.)

This week Mosely finished To Kill a Mockingbird and London finished Great Gatsby and started Of Mice and Men. It’s not that I actually adored those last two options, but they are such integral parts of the American Literature canon that it seems like a rite of passage to read them. Like Drivers Ed and baby sitting alone. You just need to read about George and Lennie and the tragedy of their lives and the depravity of the glossy Roaring 20s in Fitzgerald’s novel.  Meeting Scout is critical to your high school experience and if you don’t love Atticus, well – it might reveal a character flaw we need to fix.

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