“It doesn’t need to be a great day, as long as it is Friday.” – upJourney
Happy Friday, readers and friends!! Here at Adulting Second Half, Fridays remain fun and frivolous!! We don’t take anything seriously on Fridays. On most Fridays, I list three Favorites (whether they be things, books, music, etc.) and I strongly encourage you to share your favorites in the Comments section. Please check out previous Friday blogs for other excellent ideas to brighten up your living experience!
Here are this Friday’s Favorites:
Toffee-To-Go – I adore toffee. I love Heath bars. However, this Toffee-To-Go is the best toffee that I have ever eaten. It is the best combination of chocolate and nuts (which is the best combination in the world to begin with). It is totally impossible to not eat a small box of this mixed perfection in just one sitting. Go to their website now and order yourself a little box to be delivered to you or to your friends and associates, straight from Heaven.
Ballard Designs Clothes Drying Rack – A very wise, creative closet designer suggested that we add this dream contraption to our newly remodeled laundry room and I am so happy that she did! (shout out, Jo Anne) This drying rack hangs on the wall of your room and you pull the racks down from their magnetic closures, to dry your socks and intimates and whatever else you prefer not to put into your dryer. When you are finished, you just close the racks back up and they fold nicely back into the frame on the wall. Before this, we used to haphazardly dry our things on various pieces of furniture and unfortunately, some of the wooden furniture shows that we did that, with ugly water wear marks. (so sorry, my lovely, beloved rocking chair) This rack comes in all different sizes and is sturdy and attractive and yet, still extremely useful.
Madonna’s Medellin video – Love or or hate her, you have to hand it to her, Madonna remains transformational, relevant and interesting to this day. She came on to the scene when I was just 12 years old and now at age 48, I am encouraging you to check out her new video. The video is raunchy and racy and controversial (would we expect anything else from her?), but it’s fascinating to watch and I do really like the beat of the song. I watched a little bit of her MTV interview about the video and here are a few interesting tidbits that I took from it:
Madonna picked the directors for this video because she wanted it to look “painterly” (her words) and surreal. It does seem otherworldly.
Madonna currently lives in Lisbon, Portugal. She moved there so that one of her sons, who wants to become a professional soccer player, can get his best training. In her words, Madame X (her new persona) is a “soccer mom” at heart.
Madonna believes that it is MUSIC that universally connects all people of the world. “We were connected before Instagram, people, seriously.” (her words)
Finally, Madonna told one of her fans that she wanted to get back to her naivety. Now, most people don’t look at Madonna and think, “naive and innocent.” She explained that what she meant is the naivety that she had when she just started out and didn’t care, at all, what people thought of her or of her work. Madonna explains that when she was young and starting out, she created herself and her craft, out of pure passion and inventiveness, without giving much credence to other people’s influence and criticisms.
I have never found Madonna to be a particularly warm, ingratiating person, but I really do respect her vision and her daring and her inspiration. She is encouragement for all of us Second Halfers to keep on creating, doing and exploring what makes us alive and “naive”, in the best sense of the word. And for that reason, I’m grateful for her influence.
