Friday Favorites - projects, books, the lake, and connections!

 

Happy Friday All!!  A week ago right now I was preparing to go into a company I once worked for talk to a group about an opportunity they reached out to me about.  I sit here, a week later, with a signed job offer and start date mid-August!  How do you like that???  I spent months and months pursuing something and, in the end, it was a random person (who I didn't work with much when I was previously employed with the company) who contacted me on LinkedIn and, well, there you go.  I probably didn't even have job alerts set for the title because you would want someone who knows the industry and you really well for the role. . .so this is a new adventure for me!  I thrive in roles that "don't exist" and I get to build so here we go. . .the BEST part???  It is part-time :)

When I write on Fridays I link up with hosts  Andrea and Erika for some favorites from the week. Please feel free to visit their blogs -- Andrea just blogged about her amazing trip to Colorado to Family Camp and Erika is living in a construction zone :/. You can also link up there and/or comment on any  posts if you don't blog.  

FAVORITE - BEING ORGANIZED

A very "jennibell" thing to do -- I went through all of my contacts yesterday and today and thinned them out, combined them, and tagged many of them.  I've always tried to assign an emoji to a group (the rainbow is the Y, the lion a former school, the tent is camp, the balls are self-explanatory) 

One reason. . .sometimes you have a name and you can't place it, but the emoji reminds you that it was related to a business, service, or even a place you once lived (I have purple circles next to all my Rickman people). 

Sometimes, like in the above image, when someone says, "do you know anyone who can play with us tonight?" I put the tennis ball emoji in the search bar and all my tennis contacts come up.  

Anyway, it is very time-consuming if you've never started so just "start now".  I've been doing the tennis balls, soccer balls, and school mascots for some time now.  Each time I meet a new group of people (bible study, a new job) I think of an emoji that I'm going to use for the entire group and use it consistently.  As I was going through my contacts yesterday I realized how many YMCA people I had in my phone so I assigned them the rainbow.  There were also tons of people in there that (1) I didn't know who they were or (2) was something like "Seth's mom" -- ????  Must have been one of my kids' friends from years ago.  Unfortunately, there were several contacts that have died. . .that was very sad to me.  I didn't realize how many people I've lost in the last 5 years or so :(

And then there is this one - 

Two separate people with the same name.  And yes, even with the picture, I've messed it up before -- poor tennis Amy didn't understand the group text about a trip the other Amy, another friend and I were planning :/

My mom saw this once and asked for an emoji too.  This is what I assigned her:

(And yes, if you are looking at my screenshot times, it does take about an hour to write up one favorite -- texts, food to make, dog to feed, and, of course, noticing that dishes needed to be washed. . .)

FAVORITE - CLEAN, CRISP WHITE DOORS AND NEW HARDWARE

The doors are all painted and door knobs all changed out!!!

You can see that the molding on the one door isn't finished yet, but already the change is significant!!

Our garage looked like this for a little over a week -- four bedroom doors, 3 closet doors, the laundry room and two bathroom doors.  

What a difference, right?

An aside. . .my tennis game has been "eh" and my right arm, from shoulder to elbow, hurts to serve and swing a forehand.  Ha!  Turns out it was the painting!!!  My team is playing in sectionals this weekend so I couldn't paint at all this week so I could rest it up!!  In that last posted picture, it was one of two doors still left so I painted it (two coats each side) mostly with my left hand ;)

Paint used -- doors cleaned and then two coats.

FAVORITE - PEACH BUTTER

Last Monday I picked up a box of peaches I bought from a school fundraiser and asked all the family/framily down the street to come and get what they wanted. . .

And Barbara made this delicious peach butter!!!

This is my exact plate of what I am eating now. . .peach is my favorite jam flavor so this is a huge treat for me :)

FAVORITE - PICTURES FROM EUROPE

Some of my most favorite people are in Europe celebrating graduation!!  

They have included me in their shared photo album and it is so fun to look through :)

Obviously they are in France in these pictures but yesterday headed to Spain -- to the same city one of my favorite bloggers, Shay Shull, had just posted that she was there too!!  My sister follows her also and was on the "lookout" but it looks like the Shulls boarded a cruise ship before they really got out on the town.  What a small, small world blogging/SM has made :)

FAVORITE - READING

I am currently reading (and really liking) this book - set between the 1930's and 1950's.  A story about two unlikely friends whose lives continue to interchange.  

I'm currently listening to this book, set in the same time period but different area in that era.  This is the second time it's been checked out and, for some reason (probably the content), I'm not "riveted".  It's a very good book, though, and I'll keep going.  Not "summer light" at all.

I'm also listening to this one because it IS "summer light" (but a little too light??). Yes, I can read and listen to multiple books at the same time. . .sometimes I plow through (like I did with the next one) but that is rare.  

I loved this one.  Sally Hepworth is a favorite author of a lot of my favorite bloggers and she really outdid herself on this one.  Here's a post where she went to McKinney, TX and met up with a lot of these ladies that share her books on SM.

I'm also listening to this book of hers right now -- it came up on my library app and, since neither of the other books are catching my attention, I thought I'd start this one too:

Believe it or not, I am learning a LOT from the fictional characters in this book.  I struggle to understand anxiety (because I'm just not a nervous/worried person by nature) and listening to some of the characters innermost thoughts is really, really helping me to understand a bit more.  I don't know how I missed one of her books along the way, but glad I found this one :)

FAVORITE - BOATING

Always a favorite is spending a day on the lake!!!

It was just a *perfect* day

Some skiing (Robert was the only one who attempted that last weekend)

LOTS of tubing (there were four "kids" with us so plenty of opportunity)

And relaxing :)

I follow a Dale Hollow Lake group on Facebook and many people have mentioned Angel Falls.  We finally found it this week!!  

Robert, Emmie, Noah, Stephen

It was a bit of a hike and I didn't wear the correct shoes, but it was fun to find.  We'll take my sister there when she comes with us in a couple weeks -- hiking is her thing!!

FAVORITE - UNDERCOVER BOSS

I was talking to a friend of a friend last Friday and he mentioned this podcast between Jeff Hancher and his guest Joel Manby.  It was such a great episode and led me to want to watch the Undercover Boss Joel appeared in.  I forgot how much I loved that show so then I googled "10 best Undercover Boss episodes" and started watching them this week!  It's been fun to turn on the TV and enjoy what I'm watching :). The celebrity ones are a lot of fun -- so far I've done Darius Rucker and Dion Sanders.  Very fun!!

That's it for the week!!

Heading to lunch with my FAVORITE, Tom Bell, and then tomorrow head to Georgia to (hopefully) play a game in the sectional tournament.  Our captain hasn't put out line-ups yet -- they have their first match today at 11:30 EST.  It's always fun to advance this far with the USTA through the season and I'm lucky to play with super players all year long :)

Love,

Jenni