Friday 5+1 (5 Things I Love + 1 Thing I Don’t) – 1.5.18

I hope it’s warm wherever you are, because it’s absolutely frigidly miserable here.  So cold, that school has been called off for today.  Not for snow, but for cold.  While I’m ready for routine and for everyone to be back at school, I do have an appreciation for sleeping in when it’s sub-zero outside.  Let’s get on to some fun stuff with this week’s Friday 5+1, shall we?  This post contains some affiliate links.

Awkward Family Photos Daily Calendar

I spotted this Awkward Family Photos calendar over the holiday break, and it made me laugh just looking at the cover.  Correction: I just laughed/cried looking at it again.  I love their website, so what’s not to love (and laugh) about with a daily dose of family awkwardness?

Inexpensive Christmas Tree Storage Bags

I don’t know about you, but I have held on to the boxes that our pre-lit Christmas trees came in, and have always shoved them back into the box after the holidays, and wrapped it up with packing tape in order to stuff it away for the following year.  This year, I said ENOUGH.  The ridiculousness has gone too far, and I need to be a Christmas Tree Ninja to try to get those trees to semi-fit into the boxes as it is.  Enter the magic Christmas tree storage bag.  And they’re cheap.  I bought these two storage bags for less than $17 – and they’re perfect for our “extra” trees that I added to the mix.  Plenty of room to put them in there, without having to be a ninja.  Plus, you can label them, and they’re easy to carry and pack away for next year.

For our larger tree, I bought this bag (with wheels).  The box that our large tree was in was just falling apart, so this makes it a lot easier for my boys to drag it up and down from the storage room next year. 🙂

Homemade Bread

Since I’m easily influenced by baked goods that are shown to me on social media, I of course decided to make this delicious homemade bread recipe from I Heart Naptime.  It was the holiday break, it’s cold out, why not make homemade bread and go into a carb coma?  It was delicious, and my family went nuts for it.  I mean, look how pretty it is/was…  Nothing like fresh homemade bread when it’s freezing outside.

The Light Between Oceans

The Light Between Oceans is a book and also a movie.  Originally, I had planned on listening to the book, but I had a hard time with the narration (the narrator kept going from really quiet to loud, so I could never get the volume to where I could hear it consistently).  So, I returned the book, and never got around to reading the actual book.  Well the movie popped up on one of the movie channels this week, so I recorded it.  I started watching it late one night, and couldn’t stop watching.  If you’re in the mood for a good movie, and a good cry, this one is a keeper.  It’s one of those stories where you can empathize with both sides of the story, and it’s just an impossible situation.  

The book is pretty much always better than the movie, so now I’m sad that I didn’t read the book.  But either way, it’s good.  Highly recommend.  I feel like I can recommend the book, even though I only saw the movie.

A brief description from Amazon – 

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

 

34 Resolutions for a Better 2018

This article, Less Phone, More Nature: 34 Resolutions for a Better 2018 caught my eye to the point that I went back and read it a second time.  One of the items that struck me the most – “Forget about getting better at what’s easy for you. Get better at what’s hard for you.”  What a great way to look at things, don’t you think?  

My +1 for the week – Naming Winter Storms

I can kind of get it when it comes to naming hurricanes – they can be highly destructive, life-altering events, so it kind of makes sense.  But naming winter storms?  That seems like a Weather Channel marketing ploy to me.  Why did this become a thing?  It’s winter. It’s snowing. We get it.  Not to mention all of the new, catchy weather terms that are showing up nowadays.  First it was a Polar Vortex.  Now I read something about a Bomb Cyclone.  What?  Is that even real weather lingo?

Stay warm and have an awesome weekend!

Jenny