Saturday Suggestions

 

Happy end-of-the-first-week-of-January! How has this new calendar year been for you? Ryan and I appreciated a shorter work week since both of us had Monday off as the observed New Year’s Day. (There are perks to holidays falling on Sundays!)

Today I want to offer to you some ideas/resources/suggestions based on things I wrote about this past week on the blog. I hope you find something helpful tucked in here!

ONE. 

Last Sunday, I wrote about the wild – yet ordinary – faith I hope to live. I find that when I’m really pursuing something, it helps if I have reminders of it right in front of me. I found this water bottle from Dayspring, and it says “Faith” right on the bottle itself. I chose it because I know many of you (and I was once among you!) don’t hydrate as much as you should. The general recommendation I’ve read is that you should drink half your body weight in ounces of water every day. I do this and have found it much easier to keep track of it when I use a water bottle. I add up the ounces the bottle holds and see how many bottles I need to drink per day to equal half my weight. This bottle is 20 ounces, so it’s easy to measure. It’s glass, so you don’t have to worry about plastic-laden chemicals. It has a silicone protective sleeve over it (which is where the “Faith” inscription is located) and it has a bamboo lid. I know some people can’t take glass bottles into the workplace (schools, for example) but if you can, this is a sturdy bottle with a great message reminder stamped right on the sleeve! Remind yourself to live in wild faith while working on your hydrating health!

TWO. 

Goal setting, by default, requires documentation. The goals we don’t write down, we’re more likely to ignore, forget, or simply abandon. You can find a thousand resources out there to help you keep track of the goals you’re making this year, but I’m going to share these from the Scattered Squirrel website. I found Scattered Squirrel probably ten years ago – or more! – and I have LOVED using various resources from her site. I even interviewed her when I worked at WBCL! Everything on her site is free, by design, and she makes adorable resources. You can find planner pages, calendars, and lots of other things there, but this link will take you to her goal-setting pages. I hope this year is full of intentionality for you and that you find success in reaching the goals you set!

THREE. 

You read about our monthiversary date this week, and one of the new-to-us things we tried on that date was a hot chocolate bomb! I know they are not new in this world, but we had never had one before, and a cold January celebration felt like the perfect time to try! Now, if you have a local source that makes them, absolutely try those. I’m learning more and more the value and joy of supporting local businesses. But if you can’t find any around you, check out this site! (I found them on Etsy, initially, but they have a regular website too, which I’m linking here.) They have several flavors, including a chai version, and they are SO PRETTY! A set of two is $15.00 (plus shipping) and you can choose two different flavors if you would like. They also have a video so you can see how hot chocolate bombs work if you haven’t tried one before!

FOUR. 

Earlier this week, I shared a quick bread recipe, and I wanted to give you a link for a bread tin liner that is on my shopping list! My least favorite part of quick bread baking has always been getting the baked bread out of the tin without losing a middle chunk to the pan itself. About the middle of last year, I learned that if I lined my pan with parchment paper, I could lift the loaf right out after baking it, and that solved all my problems. But then I learned you can purchase parchment tin liners! They’re already shaped for the tin, so you don’t have strangely shaped scrap pieces of paper hanging over in the oven. At the moment, I’m still cutting parchment paper to fit my tins, but this is on my to-purchase list! (They also make them for mini loaf pans if you bake with those more often.)

FIVE.

Last summer, I had so much fun making a dessert board of fondue-dipping foods. We had our friends Jonathan and Julie over for an evening of fellowship, and we did a dessert fondue. It was delicious, but my favorite part was the board presentation. Before we knew we were going to have plans on New Year’s Eve, I had settled on making this healthier, protein-laden version of a charcuterie board. It has fruit, vegetables, cheese, and healthful dips on it. Even though we ultimately decided on a different menu plan with my friends, I still wanted to share the post that was my inspiration for the proposed board. She has some helpful tips included in her writing, so if you want to make something similar, use this as your guide! (Note: I follow a lady on Instagram who has said before that she and her husband have a simple charcuterie board as their meal every Sunday night. It’s easy and offers everything they need to have a snacky sort of meal. This could be a fun new tradition for your family, too!)

SIX. 

If you’d like to try your hand at journaling, you can obviously use any supplies you have around your home. A good, old-fashioned school notebook works just fine! But if you want a “proper” journal, this is a great one. I love writing in spiral bound journals (and planners!) because I like the flexibility of a fully open spine and pages that lay flat. I also like the option of being able to fold the book in half. This one has a hard cover, which makes for a solid surface if you’re writing in your lap. The lines are all blank, so it doesn’t require you to fill or limit you to only one page per day. There are many other cover styles you could choose, of course, but this one has a classic look to it. (And it’s on sale right now, so that’s an extra win!)

Enjoy the week, my friends! I hope you’re inspired to try something new!