Saturday Suggestions: Inspirations for your Weekend

 

            Ryan and I decided this short week sure felt like a long one! Maybe it was that way for you, too? Here we are, wrapping up the end of the first week of 2024, and I have some fun finds for you! 😊

            ONE. 

I shared Hebrews 13:8 with you on Monday – a verse I’m trying to keep at the front of my mind as we head into this new year. I know coloring isn’t everyone’s first love, but if you find coloring to be relaxing and helpful in learning a verse, here is a one-page coloring sheet you can download that has this verse on it. Maybe you can color while you watch TV or listen to worship music, and it will help this verse settle into your mind as you start 2024! (And if you have children or grandchildren, this is a good snowy-day activity to do together. Add hot chocolate and some snacks, and it’s an event!) BONUS: If coloring pages really aren’t your thing, but you do want to work on memorizing verses this year, here are some beautiful, printable calendar pages (one per month) that have a verse for each month. You can use them to guide you through memorizing 12 new verses this year!

            TWO. 

In my list of goals for this month, I mentioned picking out the plants I want to put in my little greenhouse I received for Christmas! Here is a post I found with some great suggestions for indoor herb garden plants – as well as how to care for them. I want to pick the things I use the most – because the space is still small. I have ideas for even more herbs once warmer weather arrives and I can use my outdoor beds again! BONUS: Here is a link to the greenhouse Ryan gifted me for Christmas. Mine is white.

            THREE. 

Sure, New Year’s Day has passed, but it’s not too late to do some dreaming for the year. Here is the link to the 2024 goal/dream/bucket list that we filled out at our New Year’s Eve party. I know I said it before, but I’ll say it again: it blew my mind how much fun it was to fill this out and then share about it with friends. It was fun to hear all the answers and create a space safe enough for people to boldly share dreams. We are tucking away our completed copies of this list to revisit on New Year’s Eve 2024 and see how we did with our dreams! I hope you’ll try it too!

            FOUR. 

If you made it all the way through my skin care routine post this week, you receive a thousand invisible points. I know that was a LONG post! One thing I did not mention in there is that I feel strongly that my habit of drinking a lot of water every day also helps my skin in positive ways. As a girl who did not like water until well into my late 30s, I am grateful it is now something I prefer to drink. Even though I do drink a good amount of coffee every day, I still consume close to 100 ounces of water daily. (And I like it!) If staying water-hydrated is a goal for you this year, check out this post of how it can also help you have healthier skin! BONUS: If you’re trying to drink more water, then here’s a post that offers 8 different printable trackers to help keep you accountable. It’s so easy to lose track of how much you’ve had, so this can be a good way to stay in the know!

FIVE. 

Yesterday I talked about why our stories matter, and I hope you’ll think about sharing some of yours with the people in your life! I found this post this week, and while it’s not the story of the author’s birth, it is a raw and vulnerable story about how someone’s words wounded and eventually shaped her. Pieces like this are hard to write and share, but being brave enough to do so can mean helping someone else who needs to hear a word of encouragement when walking a similar road. I have been deeply, permanently wounded by the words of others, and I know that even when I didn’t realize it was happening, my own words have hurt people dear to me. That breaks my heart because it was certainly never my intention. (I want to believe those who hurt me also didn’t mean it, but I know in some cases, they honestly did.) It’s good to be reminded of the power of our words so that we wield them carefully, but it’s also good to be reminded of the power of sharing our stories and how we can help those around us in THEIR stories.

SIX. 

And just for fun…KariAnne from Thistlewood Farms shared this post this week. Her craft-lovin’ sister MADE her this paper replica of their childhood home. I don’t have these kinds of skills but what a GIFT (literally and figuratively) it would be if you could create something like this for people in your life. It would take time and creativity, for sure, but the cost would be low, and the sentimental value would be off the charts high!! What a great gift for any occasion – Christmas, birthday, moving, anything!

CAPSULE RECAP: I am experimenting with a capsule wardrobe for winter, and on Monday, New Year’s Day, I started with my first ensemble! I thought I would share my daily photos here, and later this month I will share with you the pieces I chose for my capsule and how I acquired them. I do want to make note here that it was intriguing to me how increasing my purposeful composition of outfits this week went a long way in making me feel put together and inspired to do more work. I will have to ponder this more as time goes by.

January 01, 2024:

January 02, 2024:

January 03, 2024:

January 04, 2024: 

January 05, 2024: