Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

baseball

First Friday Five {May}

The last month has had some wild ups and downs for us. Usually, I’m thinking about my list of favorite things off and on throughout the month, but this month is a little different. Many of my favorites this month are within the last week or so.

Still, I hope you enjoy!

  1. Birthdays! Mine was yesterday and even though this was a birthday ending in “9” for me, I’m excited for the year and decade ahead. I also love celebrating with treats and birthday freebies from restaurants and hearing from a variety of friends and family on Facebook. The celebration was nothing fancy, but it was just right.
  2. Boston. My husband and I just took an early anniversary trip to Boston, Mass. and although Chicago will always and forever be my favorite city, Boston is a close second. We experienced history, culture, food and drink, and baseball, among other things. We can’t wait to take the kids back and do the historical stuff with them as well as experience other things we just couldn’t fit in to this trip. (I’ll have a separate post wrapping up our Boston adventures in more detail.)
  3. Baseball. It’s back in full swing (ha-ha) and we are still riding the high of the Cubs winning the World Series. Our kids are more interested in listening to games with us, and while my husband and I were in Boston, we got to go to a game: Cubs vs. Boston. And it was so much fun, even though it was cold and the Cubs lost and we were, in our section, surrounded mostly by Boston fans.
  4. Spring flowers. Our lilacs bloomed already and the lilies of the valley are popping up on the side of our house. We’re getting ready to start planting some of our favorites to bring color to the earth, and everywhere I go I see these bursts of spring color. I love how everything turns green finally after a gray/brown/white winter, but the color that precedes the green is such a treat. (Pictured above is a lilac bush at the Adams house in Quincy, Mass. These are Abigail Adams’ lilacs!)
  5. Marriage. Later this month, my husband and I will celebrate 10 years of it, and believe me when I tell you that marriage has not always been my favorite thing. We have survived some tough stuff in those 10 years, and I finally feel like we’ve found solid footing, a good groove. I’ve heard that the 10-year mark often signals a shift. I’m looking forward to the next decade of marriage, also.

What have you been enjoying this month?

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First Friday Five {November}

Once a month, I’m taking time to tell you five things I’ve been loving in the past 30 days or so. You can catch October’s list here.

And now, November!

november

  1. Soup. Chilly temperatures, finally, mean that soup is on the menu at least once a week, but usually more. I love all kinds of soups and making all kinds of soups. There’s something satisfying about stirring together a bunch of ingredients and slurping the warmth straight out of the bowl. Pair with crackers and bread. Heaven. Do you have any favorite soup recipes? I have a hard time choosing just one!
  2. Fall foliage. In the last week or so the colors have really popped around here. I love the burst of colors as I round a bend in the road. Or the way the sun illuminates the leaves first thing in the morning. Fall temperatures took their time getting here this year, so to see the trees change colors was confirmation that the season had officially arrived. I know it’s just leading up to winter, but I mostly welcome the changes each season brings. wp-1477672775000.jpg
  3. Cubs baseball. We are unashamedly Cubs fans, and October gave us more baseball to watch than we’ve had in past years. We donned our favorite shirts every day they played and watched highlights with the kids when they couldn’t stay up for games on school nights. wp-1477672928274.jpgWe put together a Wrigley Field puzzle and kept it on the table throughout the playoffs. And sure enough, they won the whole darn thing! Go Cubbies!
  4. The ’80s. I was born just prior to the ’80s so there is a special place in my heart for certain aspects of this decade which seems like an eternity ago. Especially the music and movies. I stream the All 80s station on Amazon frequently, and I’ve found myself taking comfort in movies like Adventures in Babysitting, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off lately. Thank you, Netflix. (A side note: Amazon Prime includes a streaming music service, which is one of the major benefits of Prime, in my opinion. Also this is an affiliate link, which costs you nothing but offers a small amount of compensation for me.)
  5. My kids. I’m not super-sentimental most of the time, but lately, I’ve really been enjoying my kids. They are 8 1/2 and almost 7 and they are so much fun. Whether it’s hanging out with them on weekends, seeing what they make and do in school, or watching the Cubs with them, we just laugh and smile so much with them right now. (There is also some yelling and frustration and lots of drama, so please don’t interpret this as some kind of perfection. It’s far from it.) I’m glad when they go to school, but I look forward to their company, too.