Tag: throw pillows

I’ll Be Back! – Friday

https://twitter.com/i/status/1504426844199669762

I’m sorry to be delayed on my Favorite Things Friday post, but I just spent ten minutes watching Arnold’s thoughtful video. This video is one of my favorite things that I watched this week (besides last night’s big upset by the St. Peter’s men’s basketball team, the Peacocks, beating Kentucky – even if you aren’t a big sports fan, March Madness is a blast!). Go Peacocks!!! I hope that you had fun celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, too. I just recently found out from my DNA test that I am at least 12% Irish and that makes me proud!

Here are my other two favorites for this Friday. (Please check out previous Friday posts for more favorites and please share some of your own favorites in my Comments section):

GUND Baby Sleepy Eyes Owl Bedtime Soother Plush Owl Stuffed Animal Night Light & Sound Machine – I saw this precious owl in a local gift shop for kids recently and I fell completely in love. First, I adore owls, but second, this soother is the most comforting, mesmerizing “toy” that I have ever witnessed. I wish that I was going to a baby shower, because every baby deserves one of these darling owls. It is like the most comforting meditation you have ever experienced in soft plush form. My favorite part of the owl is that its eyes slowly close like it is going to sleep. There is a reason why 34,000 people on Amazon gave it a perfect five star rating.

10.5oz Eucalyptus and Patchouli Ceramic Face Candle Green – Opalhouse™ designed with Jungalow™ – I purchased this candle (exclusive to Target) the other day, and I adore it! The container of the candle is a woman’s face, but she also has ears, adorned with adorable beaded dangle earrings! Even when the wonderful smelling candle burns away, I will be left with a wonderful planter for a small plant. This is the kind of small, fun item, that brings me happiness every time I look at it.

Final Friday Bonus – I keep my entire blog, from the day I started to write it, online. It is always interesting to me when a post from years past pops up as having been read or is trending. This blog post (one of the first I have ever written) trends a lot, almost every day. This tells me that a lot us love our throw pillows!:

Along Came Throw Pillows

This second post popped out of nowhere yesterday, but I read it again and it really does have a helpful message, if I do say so myself. So if you are wanting to do some more reading, check it out:

Repeat Broken Toe

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!!! We have a lot going on in this world, but as the Italian proverb goes, Hope is the Last Thing Ever Lost. Don’t ever lose your hope! See you tomorrow!!

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

It’s Friday . . . Bounce!

Happy friday Jokes

Good morning friends and readers!! The best day of the week has arrived in full form. On Fridays, I don’t blog about anything serious. I don’t dwell on feelings or retell my cache of silly stories (search for my “no-horse-pucky” stories on the blog, if you are in the mood). On “Favorite Things Friday”, I discuss three things, or songs, or books, or apps, or websites, etc. that makes my tactile life a little more fun. Please check out previous Friday posts for more good ideas, and please share your favorites in my Comments section. (You guys tend to be a little stingy with your sharing of favorites. Don’t be afraid to share. There’s enough for everybody. Don’t be like Troye Sivan, who once said, “Sharing is caring, but I don’t care.” Ha!) I will now share my favorites for today:

Memory Foam Slippers – If you want to keep your feet in a perpetual hug, while you bounce around on clouds, get yourself some thick, memory foam slippers. I never knew walking could be so trampoline like, without exerting any effort. My only issue is that I tend to be a little “shuffe-ly” when I walk in mine, but I know how to prance to stop that dance. Kooba and Ultraideas are the brands of my memory foam slippers, but the true secret sauce is the memory foam. They don’t look too bad either. They have a spa-slipper appeal.

Two Favorite Questions That I Came Upon This Week – These are two questions to ask your highest self, and your inner intuition that will give you real insight into decisions to be made, and/or who you want to allow into your life on a regular basis. I hate to get so thought provoking on a Friday, but you can put these in your back pocket for when you have some soul searching to do, or for when you want something to meditate on:

“What do I need to become aware of that I wouldn’t even know to ask about?” – Rob Brezny

“If the phone rang at 11 p.m., do you want it to be that a-hole at the other end?” – Anthony Bourdain, question asked to his crew about a certain Hollywood producer, who they ended up turning down a lucrative deal with, because he didn’t “sit well” with any of them. In short, be choosy who you let into your circle, and certainly be even choosier who you let into your sacred inner circle. Life is too short to be talking to a-holes at 11 p.m. any night of the week.

E. Jean on Substack – If the only reason you ever subscribed to Elle magazine was for E. Jean’s spicy, on-point, evocative advice column, and then you realize that Elle was stupid enough to fire her, cancel your subscription and put your hard-earned cash towards her column moved to Substack. You get the E. Jean Carroll advice column every single day, right in your email’s in-box. I have always adored E. Jean’s writing style and her cocksure confidence. She’s still going strong. You can subscribe here: ejeancarroll.substack.com

Bonus fries: Have a great weekend!! If you just can’t get enough of me (I know, it happens 😉 ) here are links to two of my most popular blog posts, as trending shows, over the years:

https://kellyfoota.com/2019/09/12/thank-yourself/

Along Came Throw Pillows

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

Tidbits

+ I wrote a blog post when I first started blogging about my love of throw pillows. To this day, it remains one of my most popular posts. Apparently those of us who love throw pillows are en masse, so much so, that the latest Progressive Insurance commercial pokes fun of that love of throw pillows in their latest segment of “you are turning into your parents” commercials. My family loves to give me the side-eye with sly smiles on their faces when that commercial comes on the TV. I pretend to not notice as I closely hug one of my gorgeous, soft, luxurious throw pillows into my body, with careful contemplation of how hard to throw it at the family member who dares to chuckle too loudly. They are called “throw pillows” for a reason.

+ I start mentoring my two mentees from last year again this week. The mentoring sessions will still be via Zoom, which is not my favorite, but it is better than nothing. I can’t wait to hear all about their summer adventures. I kind of expected to continue mentoring with my elementary student. We’ve bonded and I have met her family via Zoom. The volunteer coordinator at her school is very involved and dedicated. However, I honestly didn’t know what would happen with my high schooler. The mentoring program for her is more of a box that needs to be checked, so that she can keep a scholarship opportunity available to her, that will help her pay for college expenses in the future. Unfortunately, the volunteer coordinator at her school retired due to the coronavirus situation, and no one has been hired to fill the position yet. So you can only imagine how touched I felt yesterday, when the county-wide volunteer supervisor contacted me saying that my mentee had sought her out, asking for me to mentor her again!! Friends, that made my day! When I first met my mentee, I was told that she was shy and hard to connect with, but that was not the case for us. We connected immediately and when my very talented, artistic, empathetic and observant mentee, herself, told me that she was shy, I corrected her. “You are not shy, you are reserved, and that is a big difference,” I said. I distinctly remember her sitting up a little straighter after that conversation. We also talked a lot about going after what you want, and getting what you deserve. It seems that the lessons paid off and I am overjoyed that something that she wants, and made the effort to go after, is for me to mentor her again. My heart is filled.

+ I read something this morning about the term “emotional labor.” Emotional labor is usually used in the context of a work situation, such as when a customer service agent has to keep a smile on their face and a calm demeanor, with a frothing-at-the-mouth, beet-faced, candidate for anger management classes who is snarling at them, ferociously. Still, there is a broader sense of the word. We all have been putting in more hard emotional labor than usual, in this year so filled with anxiety and animosity and fear and divisiveness. We all have probably spent more time than usual, with false smiles on our faces (even when covered by masks), desperately trying to live with “the fake it ’til you make it” mantra, in many situations. There’s a reason why it’s called emotional LABOR. Labor is work. After you do hard physical labor, your body is exhausted. After you take a big exam or finish an intricate, puzzling project, you are mentally taxed. When you are having to work hard at keeping your emotions constantly in-check and regulated, due to circumstances outside of your control, that is when you have to realize that you are doing extensive emotional labor. What do we do when we are physically spent or mentally overloaded? We rest. So, remember this also applies to emotional labor. If you are emotionally fatigued, it is important to keep healthy boundaries with temperamental people, or overwhelming experiences, or overexposure to the news and social media, or to limit exposure to other kinds of upsetting circumstances, beyond your control. When we have spent a lot of energy on emotional labor, we need to rest. We need to prioritize and to do the actions which bring us to a peaceful, calm, balanced, centered state of being. Mind, Body, Spirit. All three elements are equally important for our overall health and well-being.

Along Came Throw Pillows

Somethings that I absolutely love in life are throw pillows.  I can’t get enough of them.  I think it would be wonderful to live in piles of throw pillows with a few warm, fuzzy throws and blankets lying around to add to the soft, colorful, wonderfulness of it all.  I’m from Pittsburgh and the last time I was at the Warhol Museum, they exhibited Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds.  Basically, the exhibit is giant silver Mylar balloons floating around the room as you are walking through it.  It’s magical!  I imagine the same sort of happy effect if you lived in a pile of throw pillows.

There is a scene in the movie, Along Came Polly in which Polly (Jennifer Aniston) decides to liberate Ben Stiller’s character from his routine of removing and storing several expensive, goose-down throw pillows from his bed every night.  They end up taking a knife to the pillows and feathers are flying everywhere.  Ben’s character does the math and realizes that he spends about two days of every year of his life, removing and storing and then replacing these throw pillows on and off of his bed.  Interestingly, if you look up this particular scene on YouTube and then read the comments underneath the scene, there are a lot of others, like me, who get a bit defensive about throw pillows.  My husband would side with Polly on this one.  The few times that we have seen this movie, I notice that he laughs extra loud and hard at this scene and looks at me, pointedly.  He thinks that we have way too many throw pillows.

You can never have enough throw pillows.  They can make an old couch look new.  They add new life to frequently washed bedding.  They decorate furniture for the holidays.  Throw pillows are easier than paint to add a whole new color scheme to your room.  I get moved by throw pillows.  One time we were in Victoria, Canada and I noticed a throw pillow depicting a baby polar bear cub, featured in a shop window.  The shop was closed, but I became obsessed with owning that pillow.  I was at the shop the first thing the next morning and would have taken a later ferry and missed a flight home, just to have that pillow.  It happily perches on a couch in my bedroom to this day.  Throw pillows make for wonderful reminders and souvenirs of happy memories in one’s life!  Throw pillows purchased on vacation are like happiness squared.

I like going into stores like HomeGoods and Pier One Imports, and seeing shelves of throw pillows arranged like a rainbow.  I’m always nervous about pulling one out though, because that usually equates to all of them falling all over the floor.  Maybe that’s how I got my idea of living in a pile of throw pillows.  Throw pillows are an instant hug, softness for life’s edges, and a burst of color when you need it the most.  Don’t you agree???