Category Archives: five on friday

Five on Friday: Sept. 25, 2015

Life is starting to take control to the point that finding time (or more like energy and focus) to blog has taken a backseat. And I truly hate that. Time for some time management adjustments!

Five on Friday gives me a chance to hit on a whole bunch of topics all in one post without looking too scattered. Or at least I hope I don’t look too scattered.

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  1. The pope in in the US this week. As I watched coverage the other day, I was moved to tears. I was moved by the thousands of Christians gathering. I was moved by messages of humility and and to not judge others. I was moved by images of peace and excitement. I was moved by the number of YOUTH in attendance. I was moved by thousands unabashedly bowing their heads in prayer to God… on American soil.

    Then I visited Facebook. And my happiness and overwhelmed feelings of hope turned to disappointment. I saw friends fighting among each other over the pope’s messages. I saw people attacked over their belief in God because they dared to be excited to see the pope in America. I saw distrust and dislike. I saw anger and hatred. I saw claims the world is coming to an end. I saw anger at the idea of everyone getting along. And my heart began to hurt.

    I wanted to blog on this, but I honestly don’t even know how to end this bullet point. I guess I just wish more could see the positive of this visit by the pope. Instead of being leery of the pope, pray for him. Pray for him to be the leader the Catholic church — and the world — look for him to be. That we need him to be. Pray he leads with God’s word in his heart. Pray he helps us all find our way to a world with more compassion, love, and understanding.

  2. On a much lighter note, my summer guilty pleasure came to an end this week. Yes, I am a Big Brother watcher. I started watching it from Season 1, but took a break for a few years through college and other life events that kept me from it. But the last several years, I’ve found a comfort in these crazy people as they helped filled my home with chatter when my husband has been on the road. I am reminded every year that I really should have minored in psychology, because the dynamics of the relationships and the individuals fascinate me. Especially when in relation to the fact that they are playing a game. Call me crazy, but I’m going to kind of miss them.
  3. Autumn is here, and there is one thing I do love about living in Tennessee now… we actually get all the seasons. The leaves on the trees are changing colors quickly, and I almost feel like I can sit and stare at a tree and watch it change before my eyes. I love it. I absolutely love it.
  4. This is happening tonight and I LOVE my high school (even more) for this…
    CodyCody is my nephew… and here is the Muscle Walk Link.
  5. I had point five all typed out and that got canceled before I hit post. So I guess I’ll end it with… have a great weekend!

Sofa@Low

Five on Friday: Deadhead edition

My husband and I are wrapping up a cross-country trip on an empty bus… Aka deadheading to Nashville. Now this didn’t quite go as planned. We were supposed to be home on Wednesday, but life and the bus engine decided that, no, we needed to sit in California a few extra days. (We broke down and had to be towed back to the bus shop, and it took three days to fix everything. )

We are about half-way through our trip… I’m somewhere in Oklahoma as I write this. With nothing but time and miles on my hands, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on this trip. So today’s Five on Friday is a few lessons I’ve learned over the last week…

Beachy

  1. A positive attitude really is the best attitude.  At one point my husband stopped, looked at me, and went, “You’ve been so agreeable to everything this week…” I shrugged and went, “And being bitchy would get us what? Me being upset would just upset you and we’d be miserable! It’s an adventure. Let’s roll with it and make the best of it.” And we did. And it was great!
  2. Pack for the unexpected. My mom always taught me to pack for extra days “just in case” any time we took a trip. I’ve been teased many times for over packing, but I didn’t care. Always be prepared. Mom said so, and Moms are wise. So I packed for 6 days instead of the projected 4. As such, I’m only one day short of all fresh clothes. Not bad! AND I always expect to not have food access, so I almost always have granola bars on me. A good thing when we got stuck on the side of the interstate for 11 hours. Score one for me!
  3. Live in the moment. I struggle with this one at times. Okay most of the time. I’m a planner. I am good at changing directions on a dime and thinking on my feet. But I am always looking ahead and planning. If there is one huge thing this adventure has done to me is it has forced me to live in the moment, find the peace and joy within it, and give the rest to God. It is what it is and trust it’ll all come together in its own time.
  4. I don’t deal well with not knowing. This somewhat contradicts the last point.  The only — THE ONLY —  time I had any negative feelings on this whole trip was in those hours sitting on the side of the road. Thank God we had cell service because we were in the middle of NOWHERE. Stuck at 2 am. About 4 hours from the nearest tow service. Oh and in the desert. We started feeling very forgotten and helpless for awhile.  But as soon as the phone rang and we were told help was on the way, I felt my stress level drop by 90%. So maybe I found it easier to live in the moment when I knew someone was working on the problem at hand. (Baby steps… but a big deal for a control freak!)
  5. We live in a gorgeous country.  There is a whole lot of this country I haven’t seen yet, which is almost as humbling as experiencing how much of it that I experienced this week. I had never seen the west before this week, and I frankly hadn’t thought much about it either. But I feel incredibly blessed to have seen what I did. I also feel incredibly humbled. We get so wrapped up in our personal issues. We bury our heads in Facebook, Twitter, etc. and we fail to look up and out at the world. We fail to see the bigger picture. The red rocks of New Mexico, the deserts of Arizona, the open lands of Oklahoma and the powerful Pacific Ocean will definitely take your breath away and make you realize there’s so much more to lice than getting likes on your Facebook post.

Have an amazing weekend, everyone. Take a moment to stop and just take it all in…

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