Tag: favorite things

First Friday!

Hello! Happy Friday!! Happy First Friday of 2024!! Welcome to the best day of the week during the best year of your life!! (don’t doubt it, make it so) On Fridays, I discuss my favorite stuff which helps to make life more fun. Today’s favorite is a last minute extra Christmas gift that I purchased for each of our four kids who all moved into new apartments last year. These portable Acacia Wood sofa arm tables make a stable place to put a drink or a small meal or the remotes and they include a holder for your phone or your iPad. They are made of hardy acacia wood and are movable to any kind of arm, on any kind of chair, due to the spring action of their holders. This is the modern day version of TV trays. You can purchase one of these handy tables on Amazon for $30. Here is a link:

www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQRJZVYF?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Have a fun first weekend of the year! Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2166. When you lose touch, what snaps you back into reality?

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

Friday Fire

On Thanksgiving evening, a few friends and I were texting and it turns out that we were all doing the same thing in different places, from all of the way up in Massachusetts, down to Virginia, and finally all the way down to here in Florida. We were all outside, sitting around fires with our families and we sent each other pictures of our families, with everyone’s faces glowing in the beautiful, flickering firelight. I love beautiful, intriguing fires. I am a Sagittarius, which is a fire sign. My husband is a fire sign. Five out of six of our immediate family members are fire signs. (Yes, things can get really loud and bold and igniting at our house, really quick. I do sometimes feel sorry for our poor little less combustible Cancer son, who does his best to put the fires out.)

So with firelight in mind, my two favorites for Favorite Things Friday on the blog, involve fire. My husband reads the paper version of the Wall Street Journal every day, so he decided he would make use of the paper, by making newspaper briquettes to burn in fires. So every once in a while he sits with a pile of newspapers and a bucket of water and he uses his heavy steel newspaper briquette maker/newspaper log maker, to make bricks/logs to help fuel our mini-bonfires. You can find different models of these ” newspaper brick makers” on Amazon. Ours is made by a company called “Bits and Pieces.” To get the fire started, I like to use Maxwell’s Mystic Matches. These matches are admittedly a bit of a splurge. They are wide, thick sticks of Palo Santo wood that when struck, make an enormous, immediate flame. I love the smell of the Palo Santo as it burns. To start the fire with flames from these matches, makes the fire seem extra special and almost “sacred” in a way.

I hope that you enjoy a warm, passionate weekend, with the homefires burning! Happy Friday! Have a great weekend! See you tomorrow, fireflies!!

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

That Friday Look!

Happy Friday!! I’ll get right to my Friday Favorite for today because Ralphie and Trip are modeling them for me. (Josie, our rough collie, has too much mane to don an original Daisy’s Dog Collar) Our boys are looking fancy with their new seashell collars that we recently purchased for them at a local beach fair. These cowrie shell, patent-pending woven collars are unique, attractive, waterproof, guaranteed for life and such a fun conversation starter with other dog lovers and enthusiasts. The owners of Daisy’s Dog Collars are recent empty nesters from New Jersey, who sold everything and now sell their collars at various venues all over the United States. They also give a portion of their profits to animal rescues all over the States, as well. Good product. Good cause. Good people. Good looks. Good dogs!

You can get your favorite canine a Daisy’s dog collar at their website:

https://daisysdogcollars.com/

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

Nutty Friday

Friday is the day for surfacy, lightness on the blog. Fridays are for favorites. On Favorite Things Friday, I share one of my favorite things and I ask you to share your favorites. Before I actually get to sharing one of my favorite physical things, I want to share a great quote by the author Byron Katie:

Don’t be afraid to question your own beliefs. Make sure that these beliefs are truly yours, and that they from that all-knowing, wise, comforting voice from inside of yourself and from the depths of your own heart.

My favorite for today is Skinny Dipped Almonds. They are chocolate covered nuts which are thinly dipped with just a light covering of chocolate. They are just the right mix of sweet and salty. In my mind Skinny Dipped Almonds are amazing-tasting-candy-with-less-guilt. My favorite flavor would be the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter variety. So good!

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

    Kind Eyes Friday

    So, if you clicked on the Google Doodle this morning, like I did, you will see they are celebrating the posthumous birthday of this man, Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi is the professor and the psychologist who coined the term “flow” which is that state of being we get into when we are completely focused and immersed and creative and productive. When we are in our “flow” it is almost like we leave our bodies and become one with our projects. The first thing that I notice when I looked at pictures of Dr. Csikszentmihalyi are his beautiful, soulful eyes (Robin Williams had these same kind of “kind eyes”). His eyes seem to come out from something deep and soulful within himself and then they penetrate something deep and soulful into whomever he is looking at with a soft, knowing intensity. When glancing over his Wikipedia, this information intrigued my interest:

    “One state that Csikszentmihalyi researched was that of the autotelic personality.[19] The autotelic personality is one in which a person performs acts because they are intrinsically rewarding, rather than to achieve external goals.[21] Csikszentmihalyi described the autotelic personality as a trait possessed by people who can learn to enjoy situations that most others would find miserable.[22] Research has shown that aspects associated with the autotelic personality include curiosity, persistence, and humility.”

    I honestly believe that if you can live your life with an autotelic personality, you will achieve true peace. Live in the moment, and notice everything. The process of living is its own reward. That’s really all there is to it.

    Okay, I know that this is a little deep for my Favorite Things Friday blog tradition. Sometimes my “inner deep” just keeps seeping in. On Fridays, I usually keep things light and I talk about the tactile, sensory stuff in life that makes “the process of living” wonderful. So without further ado, my favorite for today is a device I purchased from my acupuncturist to help with pain and discomfort in my neck. My favorite for today is called the CranioCradle. You can buy a CranioCradle on Amazon. It seems pricey for a firm piece of foam, but so far, I’m finding my CranioCradle worth its price. I’ve used it for about a week now in various positions on my back and my neck, mostly at bedtime, and I do find it helpful and enjoyable and relaxing when using it. My acupuncturist also recommends using the CranioCradle in the car.

    I hope that you have a wonderful weekend – one that is full of flow, friends. May the eyes of life look upon you kindly and may you seep it all in. See you tomorrow!

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

    Pumpkin, It’s Friday

    Hello!! Happy Friday!! On Fridays, I keep it on the surface and I discuss the stuff that I like. Fridays on the blog are all about my favorites. Please add your own favorites to my Comments. We all love the joy of finding new favorite things to help us to enjoy life on an everyday basis! It’s all about the little things, isn’t it?

    Sadly, we don’t have a Trader Joe’s close to us, but we were visiting my daughter at her university last weekend and she and I could not resist a visit to one of our favorite shops. True to the season, Trader Joe’s is not immune to the pumpkin craze. There was pumpkin everything, everywhere you looked. So, my daughter and I loaded up the cart with pumpkin stuff (and even an actual, real pumpkin for her balcony). My favorite out of this lot (and my daughter’s, too) is Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Body Butter. Surprisingly, this body butter does not smell like pumpkin. In fact, it has very little scent. The secret ingredient, however is the pumpkin seed oil, on top of coconut oil and shea butter. These ingredients combined make this cream easily absorbable, long lasting, and particularly emollient. As usual when it comes to Trader Joe’s, this big jar is a bargain at only $4.99!

    Have a great weekend! See you tomorrow!!

    Credit: Courtney W. May, Pinterest

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

    Friday C.R.A.P.

    credit: THE-KEEP-CALM-O-MATIC

    Here’s a couple of really good perspectives, for going into the weekend:

    “When things are at their worst, you are at your best.” – what the extraterrestrial said about us humans, after visiting Earth, in the movie Starman

    “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” – Pablo Picasso

    Happy Friday!! Happy Best Day of the Week!! On Fridays, I keep the deep thoughts for Jack Handey. (If you ever need a deep belly laugh for laughing at a statement that shouldn’t be funny, look up some of Jack Handey’s deep thoughts. They are hilarious and ridiculous and easily a favorite of mine, when I’m in the right snarky mood for them.) Anyway, today’s favorite is a technique I heard about in a podcast. It’s a way to get rid of your negative thoughts and worries and ruminations, devised by people who study neuroscience. It’s called the C.R.A.P. board. C.R.A.P. stands for Conflict/Resistances/Anxieties/Problems. If you write all of the situations down in your own life that would fall under any of these categories, on to a piece of paper, and then do a few relaxing things like yawning, stretching, deep breathing, while looking at your C.R.A.P. board, supposedly this tricks your brain into believing that it can stop ruminating on, and trying to fix all of your C.R.A.P. because your C.R.A.P. is “stored”, and really not such a big deal. The three minute video below by the creator of the C.R.A.P. board, Mark Waldman, goes into more detail with it. I’ve only started mine this week, so I can’t attest to how well it works, but it was a worthwhile experience for me, just to put my own C.R.A.P. into perspective. For instance, lately I have been telling myself and anyone who is willing to listen to me, just how “stuck” certain things have been in my life. Interestingly, though, when I took a relaxed, detached look at “the stuck list” which I had written on to my C.R.A.P. board, I noticed that nothing there on the list was truly stuck. Every situation on the list is progressing, just not as quickly as I deem it should be going. The experts on the podcast I was listening to, kept repeating the idea that our beliefs and our stories that we tell ourselves are just thoughts that we keep thinking repeatedly, until they become embedded as our beliefs and stories about ourselves and life in general. Making a C.R.A.P. board can help you to find and weed out some of the faulty belief systems you may have programmed into yourself with your repeated, unexamined negative thoughts.

    https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153317002418658

    Get rid of your C.R.A.P. and have a great weekend, friends!! See you tomorrow!

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

    Hip Hoppity Friday

    Yesterday, during a text conversation with friends, when one friend remarked about how it is interesting to note the things that really excite us now, as we are older, which may not have excited us as much when we were younger, I enthusiastically agreed and I then sent this picture (above) to the group. This big boy decided to visit me on my side porch, out of nowhere yesterday. And yes, I got excited. Really excited. I decided that the toad was a good luck sign. Then, my very practical friend, who has lived in Florida a lot longer than I have, warned me that it looked to be a poisonous Bofu toad, whose poison could easily kill my dogs if they messed with it. So then it became obvious to me, that the only good luck was that our dogs were inside when the Bofu showed up. I was reminded of the Chinese parable about the farmer who goes through a series of experiences that show that good luck can be bad luck and vice versa. As my husband often likes to say, “Don’t get too high with the highs, and too low with the lows.”

    Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! My favorite for today, is supposedly an old, classic beauty secret which I only recently discovered. It’s called Bio-Oil Skincare Oil and it has been used for scars and stretch marks for decades, but what I find its best use to be for me, is for my legs when I shave them. The skin on my low legs has become thin and dry and so lately, when I was shaving them, I ended up with itchy scrape marks. Bio-Oil Skincare Oil took care of that problem for me. (Just be sure not to get it on your clothes, for it will leave oily stains.) The nice thing about Bio-Oil, for an oil, it melts into your skin fairly quickly and it leaves long-lasting moisture. (perhaps my toad friend could use a bottle of Bio-Oil)

    Have a wonderful weekend! See you tomorrow!

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

    Nail It, Friday

    Happy Friday!!! Happy Weekend!!! On Fridays, I stay on the surface, and I discuss stuff that I like. We have bodies for a reason, right? We like to enjoy the full use of our senses, correct? Life is about the experiences. And most experiences include all of the “stuff” outside of ourselves.

    I found today’s favorite at my hair salon. My hairstylist is one of the most artistic people whom I have ever met. She just has it – that essence which we call “flair.” On my last appointment, she was wearing a sheer, iridescent toenail polish that looked so subtle and yet unusually eye catching, at the same time. I commented on how much I liked it, and she said that she has gotten so many compliments on it. “Would you believe that I got it at Sprouts?!” she laughed.

    “Sprouts, as in the grocery store?!” I asked her.

    “Yes, five bucks,” she said with a self-assured smile on her face. (when you have “flair” you can find panache at all different price points, and wear it with confidence)

    She texted me the color, and I immediately ordered it from Amazon, since Sprouts is a little bit out of my way. The color looks pink in the bottle, but I promise you that it is sheer and sheen and shiny, on your nails. The brand is Mineral Fusion, and the color is Pink Fire Opal.

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

    Goodr/Better/Best Friday

    I had a doctor’s appointment this week and the doctor was probably in her early thirties. At one point she said to me, “You’re young. You’ve probably got about thirty years left.” And that last part took my breath away a little bit (I wish that she had just left it at the first sentence). First, I felt indignant that the doctor was writing me off at age 82 (even though the current life expectancy for women in the United States is 79). And second, she struck my panic button.

    “Yikes! I’ve got “a lot of a lot” to pack into my next thirty years (or more, fingers crossed),” I started thinking to myself as I could feel my heart beating in my neck, and at that moment, I started wondering if perhaps the doctor had made a terribly inaccurate estimate, and maybe to the surprise of us both, I was about to stroke out and die, in her office, right there, on the spot. But, thankfully, I caught my breath. I decided to give the woman a pass. She’s a good doctor. These are the kind of dumb things that I said to older people when I was younger, too. Karma is a b*tch.

    Since it turns out that I have a good thirty years left in my lifetime, I must take care of my eyes, and so this brings me to today’s favorite on Favorite Things Friday: Goodr Sunglasses. My friend has been wearing a pair of these shades that are amazing looking. She looks absolutely cool and badass when she wears them, and so I asked if I could copy her (since we live in different states). She kindly obliged. Her style is called “Amelia Earhart Ghosted Me”. Goodr Sunglasses were originally created by runners, for runners, so that runners could have more stylish and affordable sunglasses options than were currently available at the time. But these Goodr sunglasses are so good, so light, so comfortable, so stylish, so affordable (and they’re polarized) that even us non-runners are flocking to their website. Check out their website. I am willing to bet you won’t be leaving the website without purchasing at least one pair.

    Have a “goodr” weekend than you ever had in your life, friends! See you tomorrow!

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