The Saturday Six

One.

Today's a big day!!! Happy, happy birthday to my niece, Cassie!!! Hope your day is extra sweet this year as you celebrate with your new husband! Love you!


Two.

Source

Maybe you've heard of this place, but I hadn't until stumbling across it this week through a Facebook post. Have you guys heard of Whittier, Alaska? A town housed almost entirely in one building. Residences, church, police station, store - all of it in one huge former military tower. Fascinating story. 

Three.

Source

I stumbled upon this blog this week, via another blog, and I am going to have to come back and spend some time here, for sure! This blogger lost quite a bit of weight a few years ago and now creates healthy recipes to be able to maintain the weight loss AND enjoy life while she's at it! I love finding sites like this!

Four.

Source

You know I'm a sucker for a good Christmas tour, and this week, the blogger at Between Naps on the Porch had a tour of a room in a MAGNIFICENT home. Bonus: at the bottom of the post are "related links you might enjoy" - including links to other room tours of this same home. I think this homeowner has more decorations in one room than I have in my whole house, but it's an amazing sight to behold. Enjoy!!

Five.

Source

With Christmas being...ahem...tomorrow...there might be just a few of you out there who are flat out tired today. Tired from this year, this month, this week, the shopping trip you just took to the store. Kristen Strong's words are for you. 

Six.

Source

Today I am doing something very out of character for me...and I'm telling you about a book I haven't fully finished reading yet. I'm almost there. It's actually a book Ryan and I have been reading together this Advent season. Speaking of which: you know what's awkward? A girl who wrote and Advent book choosing to read a different Advent book for Christmas. WHAT?!? I love my little Advent devo I wrote, but this year I needed another writer's perspective, so I pulled from the shelves Finding the Messiah by Jane Rubietta.

I first read a book by Jane years ago {Grace Points} and I loved it so much that I bought a dozen copies and gifted it to a bunch of friends. Finding the Messiah was a book I acquired back when I worked at the station, and I just hadn't read it yet. Ryan and I have been working our way through it, but sickness made us lose a few days so we haven't quite finished it yet.

The book is a daily reading for 28 days, and what I love most about it is its unpredictability. That's the hard thing about Advent devos. Everyone has the same material to work with and the books come out sounding remarkably familiar. It's hard to write from a fresh angle on something as frequently written about as Christmas. But Jane has done just that. She spends time focusing on people who often get forgotten entirely or just lightly mentioned: Zechariah the priest, his wife Elizabeth, Simeon, and Anna, for example.

As Ryan and I read together each day, we found ourselves uncovering new ideas we'd not considered before, seeing the familiar from a new perspective, and appreciating her viewpoint on familiar passages.

This book is a good personal reading selection, but it's also a good one for reading together as a couple or family, since each day has a reading, some reflection questions {which make good discussion}, a benediction {poem type reading} and a prayer.

The only complaint I have {which feels odd to even mention, but I will} is that for some reason, this book has been hard for me to read out loud. Some of the sentences seem to flow more easily when read silently, but since we're using this for our devotions as a couple, I read out loud, and sometimes I trip over the words. I think some books are just easier to read aloud than others - or maybe it's just user error on my part. Who knows!? But the message is still very good, even if the sentences don't roll off the tongue.

If you're looking for a new option for Advent for next year, I would recommend this one as a possibility!