5 Friday Favorites: October 2, 2026
It's time for my Friday link up with A Little Bit of Everything and Momfessionals.
On Fridays I share things that made me happy from the week - a photo, a song, a quote, a beauty product, a recipe, a pair of cute shoes, etc. If it's a product, sometimes it's something I actually own and sometimes something I just saw online that gave me a smile. Sometimes it's serious and sometimes it's silly. I suppose I believe that God is in the simple details of life and yes, I can even find Him in a tube of lipstick.
Happy Friday, Friends. Well, in football news, the Texas Longhorns pulled out a win at Neyland Stadium over the Tennessee Vols and I was quite relieved. This weekend we have a bye week which means I’ll be super easy breezy all day on Saturday. This will be a welcome change for my husband who thinks I’m a weirdo, even though I remind him that there are many gentlemen who would be thrilled to have a wife who loves football as much as I do. I’m not sure I heard him right, but he might have said, “Be careful what you wish for, guys.”
Drew is home from college for Fall Break, so I’m so excited to see him and we’ll be spending lots of time on the lake. Here are some favorite things from the week.
Doc
I’m a sucker for a medical drama so I was excited when I saw the trailer for this show this week. It starts when the main character, a brilliant doctor with terrible bedside manner (and a tragic past), wakes up after a car accident to realize she can’t remember the past 8 years of her life. Very intriguing start.
2. Mississippi Pot Roast
image from spendwithpennies.com (Her recipe uses an Au Jus packet instead of Dry onion soup)
I haven’t cooked a pot roast in years, but this recipe was recommended to me by a friend recently and then in a delightful coincidence my brother-in-law made the exact same one last week. It was delicious. I thought it would be the perfect thing to make for Drew’s first night home for Fall Break. It’s so easy and so good.
Here’s all you need: 1 3-5 lb chuck roast, 1 packet dry onion soup mix, 1 packet dry ranch dressing mix, 6-8 pepperoncinis, 1 stick of salted butter, salt & pepper.
Salt and pepper both sides of the roast. Place in the crockpot. (Some people brown the roast on both sides in a skillet with olive oil before putting it in the crockpot, but ain’t nobody got time for that) Sprinkle with ranch and dry onion soup mixes. Top with stick of butter. Throw 6-8 pepperoncinis on/around the roast. Cook on low for 8 hours.
3.Vibration Plate
I just bought this vibration plate on an impulse because I heard it could potentially help me with back and neck pain and also with lymphatic drainage. Do I know exactly what lymphatic drainage is? No, I do not, but it sounds important. I also heard it is supposed to help with weight loss which seems utterly ridiculous, but here I am with this thing out of the box and plugged into the wall next to my desk.
Obviously, I don’t know if this is a favorite yet and I need some guidance. If you are someone who is acquainted with this device, PLEASE comment and let me know how you use it. Do you have any youtube videos to share? How has it benefitted you? Is this a scam? Help a girl out.
4.Fringed Tank Top
I don’t have this top, but I came across it on someone I follow on Instagram and I cannot remember who. I think it would be so pretty for a holiday party with black pants or a skirt. It also would be cute with jeans. It comes in four colors.
5.Thoughts for Which I Have No Title
I don’t generally write about current events because if I did these newsletters would be hundreds of pages long. This week has brought some bad news to our news feeds. As if there’s ever a week without bad news, I suppose. But this week the news highlighted people participating in a range of misbehaviors from crass conduct on a football field to fraudulent business dealings to horrific, brutal crimes.
24/7 news like this inevitably leads to viral reactions on social media. And while I rarely consider it my personal responsibility to comment on every news story I see, I do believe that every person has a right to do that. This week there has been a lot of reaction. Some folks using their own words. Some folks re-posting the words, memes, quotes and thoughts of others.
There is a common reaction to bad behavior - especially when it involves young people - that has bothered me for many years. And I noticed this reaction on my feed this week over and over again. In a nutshell, it’s the “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” argument. And while it might be true in some cases, I think it’s impulsive, dangerous and cruel to automatically assign blame to parents who we have never met.
I think I understand why it happens. As parents we want to believe that our children would never because we are the right kind of parents. Shouting, “WHO RAISED THESE PEOPLE?” or “TEACH YOUR CHILDREN X,Y, Z” on social media makes us feel better. Certainly these posts are born out of a desire to support victims and to share important information. But I can’t help but see an underlying message to parents in these posts: “THIS IS YOUR FAULT.” Are we so well acquainted with the families of those in the news this week that we are certain that their parents neglected, or even more alarmingly, intentionally chose not to teach their children to be kind, courageous, trustworthy, decent, law-abiding citizens?
Let me be clear. I was heartbroken reading the news this week. Depending on which story I was reading I was filled with all kinds of emotions: annoyance, disappointment, shock, fear, rage and deep sorrow. Teaching our children to be dignified in celebration, to be honest and trustworthy in school and in business, to respect the dignity and humanity of others, and to stand up for the vulnerable and mistreated are all vital parts of the great responsibility of raising humans. But in our outrage and in our honest desire to respond in a way that might affect change, I think we must be very careful that we aren’t too quick to place blame on people who are highly likely as disgusted, devastated and filled with sorrow at the actions of their kids as anyone else is.
I have friends and family members who to this day, I count as some of the best parents I know and yet some of them have children who’ve been charged with DUIs, children who’ve been arrested for shoplifting, children who’ve been the school bully, children who’ve been involved in cheating scandals, and children who’ve been drug addicts living on the street. And when I heard about these behaviors, it didn’t change my opinion of their parents.
Many years ago when my boys were still in elementary and middle school, my friend Elizabeth Foss wrote: "Children - even carefully raised children - grow into adults with free will. Every choice a child makes is not a reflection of his parents. It's a reflection of that child's own relationship with his Creator. God isn't finished yet."
It’s something that has stuck with me for almost 20 years. It’s something I remind myself of when I think about my children, my friends’ children and children around the world. It’s something I thought about a lot this week. I hope I never forget.
Y’all have a good weekend.
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