The Saturday Six

One.

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I feel I would be out of line if I did not pause to remind you that Fixer Upper starts NEXT WEEK! {Tuesday, to be exact.} Poor Ryan - he'll be losing the remote for that hour. It's the one show I have to watch live, because I have to chat about it on Facebook with my fellow Fixer Upper junkies. Can't wait to see what they come up with this season. Welcome back, Chip and JoJo!

Two.

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Yes, yes!! This!! Putting boundaries on the holidays so you can enjoy them instead of feeling overcome by them. Well said, KariAnne!

Three.

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I think this post has some powerful {and necessary} points about focusing on what is holy instead of trying to make everything perfect. It offers all kinds of grace.  

Four.

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One thing Ryan and I really appreciate about our church is the music. Our worship pastor, Jordan, is gifted. Not just gifted musically, but gifted in her soul. She's insightful, she works hard, and whenever we are away from our church, we sorely miss the music. I just saw this week that she's released some music of her own! These are songs that she wrote and recorded, and many of the worship team folks from our church are part of this project with her. I'm excited for her that she's had the opportunity to share her talent in this way, so I wanted to share it with YOU! 

Five.

It's been a while since I shared an embarrassing photo of the Bekah of yore. One of my high school friends had a birthday this week and another friend posted this one in honor of that day. I'd never seen this picture before. Can you find me? 

Six.

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This week, I took a break from Hallmark Christmas movies {sigh of happiness} to read the fun, feel-good novel Every Girl Gets Confused by Janice Thompson. This book is the second in a series called "Brides of Style" - and even though I had not read the first book in the series, I was able to jump in easily and learn the characters.

While I enjoyed the read, I will begin by saying the book was nothing like what I expected based on back cover synopsis. The back cover focuses on Katie Fisher and her new relationship with pro-basketball star Brady James, and while they are significant characters in the book {the story is actually told in first person by Katie}, the bulk of the love story centers around Katie's 80 year old grandmother, who has found love again, after being a widow for several years. She's not even mentioned on the back cover.

I've actually never read an octogenarian love story before, so I giggled over and over as Queenie {Katie's grandmother} went through the process of finding a dress, having bridal showers, and sharing the details of falling in love with a local minister of a different denomination. It was cute and funny.

Additionally, Katie worked at a bridal shop, so reading about the behind-the-scenes stresses of designers trying to please brides and the in-the-shop stresses of families at odds with each other and bearing strong opinions over dresses and weddings was a fun twist in the story.

Some things, to me, didn't feel entirely natural, but they weren't so over-the-top that I couldn't enjoy the story through them. Sometimes the story line of Queenie and her senior citizen cronies felt a bit too eccentric, but I still found much humor in their eccentricities. Sometimes I wasn't sure I believed that Brady's character was normal for a pro-athlete. Sometimes the push-and-pull issues of one of the main families shopping in the bridal store seemed completely unrealistic. And sometimes I wanted to know more of Katie's emotions, since I saw the story from inside her head. I felt like I got to know what happened around her more than I got to know her, which felt awkward for a first-person narrative.

Despite those things, I enjoyed the story, I appreciated its light-hearted feel, and I thought it was a fun, easy read.

* Thanks, Revell, for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. *