My Joyful Life: Hello Monday: weekend recap and the 2016/2026 trend

Monday, January 19, 2026

Hello Monday: weekend recap and the 2016/2026 trend

Happy Monday, friends! I hope you had a great weekend! I can't wait to hear from you at the end of today's post. I'm linking up with Holly and Sarah for today's blog post. I'll jump right in!

Friday was such a great day! I was off work again that day. I enjoyed a leisurely morning at home watching The Today Show and lingering over my coffee, then I got dressed and met Marilyn for lunch at Salad Station. After lunch, we walked down a few doors and got some frozen yogurt. It was so good!

This was a fun day! I told Marilyn that I could get used to spending Fridays like this.

I picked up two of these adorable icon glasses from Target...

...then I went to get my nails done.

I was ready for color again, so I got Coca Cola Red by OPI. I love that it's a pinkish red just in time for Valentine's day.

Don't mind me, stopping to admire the new door hanger my sister Trish brought over to me! She also brought me some broccoli cheddar soup that is delicious. Mom and Bill had it for dinner the night before, and shared some with me. After all of this, I left to go meet up with Chris! We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant, did some things in the nearby town closest to him, then went back to his house to watch movies.

It was freezing on Saturday morning! Please see how the steering wheel was so cold that he wouldn't touch it all the way. I was dying laughing over this! He's such a diva. 🤣 We ate breakfast together, then went to our favorite coffee spot for iced coffee, then we ran a couple of errands. He needed some paint for some body work on one of his motorcycles; I love how he was studying them so intently. After that, we went to the cutest little town in Mississippi called New Albany. We ate lunch and walked around the town square. I love that Chris humors me for all of my pictures, and that he always wants to pose with me. I think we look cute together. 🖤 His eyes literally make me swoon.

It was a fun day! I love exploring new areas. He came to me on Saturday, and we had fun then, too. We had dinner at my house, then we went to The Orleans, the local hangout place where my sons like to go. This time it was just us, and Kendra joined us when she got off work. We ordered an appetizer and enjoyed live music; then my sons showed up! It was a fun night.

Church was Sunday, then lunch with my three Memphis sons (plus Drew's girlfriend Mallory), then I came home to nap. I said see you later to Chris, which I always hate, and we took one more picture.

He kept changing his hat/hair situation. 🤣

He sent that first picture to his dad of us in church, when he texted Chris to see what he was doing. I didn't take a nap; I ended up talking on the phone to one of my best friends Andrea for about an hour and a half. We're all caught up now and will see each other next Tuesday night for dinner. I made a fire, and then Marilyn came over for dinner!

It was a fun night!

I feel this way about my life/Chris right now. I'm grateful for all the moments! And now, for part two of this blog post...

Have you seen the 2016/2026 trend or challenge that's going around? I went down this rabbit hole early Friday morning, and well...just let me show you what I found.

In 2016, Graham was 17, Drew was 16, and Jonah and Noah were 13. Life was great! They had both Mom and Dad at home who loved them, and whose marriage was strong (not perfect) and wonderful. Life felt easy during this time, except for when their vehicles had issues. There were a lot of car problems in those days! Graham's first vehicle that he drove was a 1983 (I think?) Ford Bronco and I think it sat broken down in the driveway more than he had it out on the road. Poor Graham! I sent a picture of that Bronco to him last week and reminded him that he's always been a Ford man. He had a Ford Bronco, then a Ford F250, and he currently drives a Ford Mustang. Drew had an old Ford F150 that was also broken down a lot, but that might have been in the year 2017.

My life was full of fun moments with my boys and their friends. Most Friday nights were spent like this picture above; all these girls would come over along with my best friend Missy, and we would watch Disney movies together. I miss those days! I loved these girls so much, and still do. One of these girls is married now and has kids of her own, which is mind blowing! Some of the others are dating, another one is divorced, yet another is married with two kids. I don't know how they're old enough, because I definitely haven't aged a bit. 😉

It was the year I took this picture of my sons with my Mom; this became my favorite picture of all time!

And the first time my sons ever met their cousin (my great niece) Claire; she belongs to my niece Amanda, who was my sister Terri's daughter. Terri died three years ago next month; she had stage four pulmonary fibrosis and left behind her son Marty, and Amanda.

This is Amanda; I was at a youth summer camp with my church's high school group in the mountains of North Carolina. Amanda lived very close, so she and Claire came to have lunch with me one day! This seems like it was yesterday, friends. I don't know how the last decade went by so fast, but it did! I was 39 years old in 2016, and I remember feeling like this stage of life would last forever.

Look how different I looked back in 2016! This was the year that I went to NYC with my ex for our 40th birthdays and 20th anniversary; we took a family mission trip to a Navajo reservation that summer, and I went to summer camp at Daytona Beach, Florida with my older sons and I also went to something called Street Reach with the youth at my church. It was a fun year, albeit busy. I loved those days! This is my dear friend Abbey pictured with me above. You may remember her from when my best friends took me out to celebrate my divorce back in March of last year.