New Five Favorite Things

Hallie's all wrapped up with her very excellent new favorite thing, so maybe she won't notice the two months between my first and second Five Faves posts. I'm a little sporadic about posting and joining. I know you know. But in this case it's because I find it difficult to find things I'm enthusiastic enough about to call "favorites." I guess I'm just good at that "detachment from worldly goods" thing. Yeah. That's what it means.

But I think I have some good ones here. In fact, it's all the more reason to share my little treasures now that I'm finally getting with it—who knows when she will need them! (See my #1.) So here goes.

#1

We're going to start with chocolate.

My most recent love is this gorgeous, delectable find: these chocolate-covered açai-blueberries. Something Jason found. (He always finds the best goodies and brings them home to me.) I've had chocolate-covered blueberries before but the addition of açai is a novelty. I don't really know if it made a difference in the taste for me. All I know is it was hard to make them last longer than a day.

#2

I just bought this panel (actually, it's twice what the image shows) of fabric blocks of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Etsy. I have high hopes for a project I'm dreaming up—simple enough for you real crafters and sewists out there (by the way, is that the term you prefer?) but for a non-finisher like me, it's ambitious. Still, I was happy when it came in the mail. If I ever do make it, I'll show you.

#3

Bolthouse makes the most delicious mango lemonade. But it's never available on sale the way some of their other products are in my grocery stores. And then it's gone so fast.

So I came up with the idea to mix my own.

Just pour them together in a pitcher. So delicious.

I also will sometimes mix some lemonade using 6 parts water, 1 part lemon juice, and 1 part sugar, and just throw in some of the mango drink. I may even graduate one day to mango puree. But right now that 2ish cups of Bolthouse's Amazing Mango is key; and using the two bottles together gives me a more consistently pleasing balance. 

#4

This would be a favorite if I had it. Remember my last Five Favorites when I said I wanted a honey jar?   I love to have butter at room temperature, just ready to be spread over homemade bread or fresh, warm banana muffins. But I don't really want it sitting out open on a plate (or more likely, just sitting in its wrapper) cluttering up the counter. It would be lovely to find a pretty, covered butter dish in glass or ceramic for the table. And if I had that and the honey jar, I would likely be inspired very often to make some delicious honey butter...

#5 

I'm just going to give a shout-out to the track Night Prayer on this Martin Doman album, Praying Twice Vol. II. (You can hear a preview at the link.) It is part of a sung night prayer I prayed sometimes at college, based on the Liturgy of the Hours. I bought the track on iTunes a while ago and introduced it to my kids at bedtime. Now they frequently ask for it; I'll play it softly on repeat and they go to sleep listening to it.



Today's Five Favorites link-up is at Camp Patton today. Go check everybody out!