Trippy Friday

Hello friends and readers!!! Welcome to the most fabulous day of the week!! Isn’t it wonderful?! On Fridays, we try to keep things light and fun here at Adulting – Second Half. On Fridays, also called Favorite Things Friday, I typically list three favorite things, whether they be products, or songs, or TV shows, or books, etc. Please add your favorites to my Comments section. Reality is, we live in a material world, and we should enjoy our things and experiences!!! Tonight, despite the mixed reviews that it is getting, I am very excited to watch the movie, Coming to America 2. Eddie Murphy finally made a sequel to his iconic Coming to America, which first came out in 1988! You can view the sequel starting today on Amazon Prime Video. Also, please note that the above meme was created by my favorite (and only) daughter, featuring one of our favorite dogs, our Boykin spaniel, Trip, whose look lives up to his name.

Today’s favorites:

Nonpareils candy – I bought a bag of nonpareils at The Fresh Market the other day and I got transported to Heaven. I bought them for nostalgia’s sake, and plus, they were beautiful pastel Easter colors, so I decided that I had to have them, thinking that the nonpareils would look lovely in a candy dish, for the upcoming spring season. Ha! I practically ate the whole bag of them on the way home from the store. I looked up the meaning of the French word “nonpareil”, and not surprisingly, it means “having no equal.” What are the nonpareils in your life besides your beloved family, friends and pets? Are you on the list of your nonpareils? You should be.

Word Genius emails – Speaking of word meanings, you probably have figured out by now that I love the written word. I also love things that make me feel smart. Every day I get a Word Genius email with a word and a multiple choice question, as to the word’s meaning. More often than not, I get the word’s meaning correct and even if I don’t get the answer right, I learn a new word, or I am reminded of a wonderful word that I had forgotten about and need to bring back into my vernacular. The other day, the Word Genius word was “Hinterland” which means unchartered territory. I thought to myself, “There is a blog post related to this word. Being an almost empty-nester is certainly entering into Hinterland.”

Reclaimed Wood furniture – My husband is reclaiming one of our bedrooms as a home office. By the time we are done setting the home office up, it will be time for him to return to his real office downtown, but still . . . . . . My husband has always fallen in love with reclaimed wood pieces which we have seen in various local, funky bars and eateries, so we went on a search to find him the perfect reclaimed wood desk. And we found it!! Friends, there is a whole other blog post story (which I will save for a later date), fully explaining how we found this gorgeous, one of kind piece. I am completely and totally in love with this piece of furniture. Sometimes, I just wander in and gaze at it. Nothing is more beautiful than nature, and nothing is more impressive than a devoted, passionate craftsman/artist who can coax out the natural beauty of the deepest center of a piece of wood, forcing you to pay awestruck attention to its divine, ravishing, unique qualities. Each layer of a tree trunk tells, a story right?? This desk tells an intimate story without using any words. Here it is:

Enjoy your weekend, my dear friends!! See you tomorrow!!

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Candy Comes in Handy

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Happy Halloween, friends!!! I remember years ago when I was just a kid, writing for the school newspaper, I decided to write about the history of Halloween. Despite all of the work that I put into the article, (this was before the internet/Wikipedia, I actually had to go to the library to research and spend daunting hours sifting through the card catalog and then, musty books) the article was a dud. Even I don’t remember what it said, or what the history of Halloween really is, because the reality of it all is, nobody cares. Holidays, like Halloween, are whatever anybody wants it to be. Little kids will not just wear their ninja and princess costumes, they will BECOME ninjas and princesses. Staunchly religious people will see Halloween as an evil holiday that serves only to worship the devil, and they will shut themselves off behind tightly closed doors and keep their lights out. Closet stage designers will use Halloween as a time to creatively turn their suburban McMansion into an even more elaborate version of Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Stressed out middle-agers will use Halloween as an excuse to blow off steam, and to eat and to drink, to all excess, hiding their stress behind goofy, all in good fun, costumes. Wiccans will likely incorporate more serious ceremony into the day.

Like all things, Halloween all comes down to the perspectives, and the projections that we put on to it, all coming from our own unique life stories and experiences and teachings. And the funny thing is, each Halloween, every year, may be a little different for each of us, depending our moods, on the age of our kids or grandkids, if we are invited to costume parties, and just our own mindset. No matter how you decide to celebrate or to not celebrate Halloween, I hope that this year’s Halloween exceeds all of our best expectations. (I know that I personally have bought some extra bags of candy this year. Even if we don’t get the big crowd of trick-or-treaters coming to our home that I am hoping for, there are no doubts that the candy will NOT go to waste.)