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:

Flashback Friday: Writing Your Story One Week at a Time

 

            As I brainstormed about the blog for 2024 and tried to imagine what mix of things I wanted to offer in this space, I came up with an idea I really wanted to try, so we’ll see if it ends up being a good fit! As you know, I have a great passion for encouraging people to preserve their life stories, and I’ve even had the privilege of teaching some classes on this subject.

            It absolutely matters. If we don’t write down the things about our lives – who we are, the things that shape us, the stories we live – those details will die with us one day. I can’t tell you how many lives of people who have gone before me have impacted mine, simply because I had the privilege of reading about them. Last year I read the love letters of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot – two people I never met in real life, but their faith has shaped mine. I’m so glad their daughter kept and shared their love story!

            So this year, on Fridays, I want to encourage you to work on putting together your own life story, little by little. Share it with your kids and grandkids. If you don’t have kids or grandkids – well, welcome to my world! And guess what? Your story still matters.

            Each week I’ll share a prompt for you and offer some ideas of things you might want to include about the topic. I might even throw in some of my own story! I urge you to capture the answer – in writing, on video or with audio, and maybe even include pictures! Even if you write less than a page or record less than a minute of information, think of how much you’ll have saved to share by the end of the year!

            So for this week, write your story answering this question: Where and when were you born?

            Here are some ideas of things you might want to include:

·         The name of the city, county, state, and country where you were born. If you were born outside the country where you’ve always lived, tell the story of why you happened to be born there!

·         The name of the hospital where you were born – and if there is anything interesting about that, be sure to include it. (Maybe you were the third generation of your family born there or it has since been torn down or someone famous was born there too.) If you were born at home – or in the car on the way to the hospital – be sure to tell that story!

·         The name of the doctor who delivered you – and if there’s anything interesting about that (like he delivered everyone in two generations of your family) mention that.

·         Talk about the year you were born, and the month or day. If there was something pivotal about that day (it was a holiday or a particularly historic day) tell that story.

Hopefully you know these answers – especially if your parents are no longer living and you can’t ask what you don’t know! If you have grown kids who have never heard the answers to these questions about their own birth stories, maybe you could do a bonus assignment and share their story with them!

I won’t write out my entire birth story here. You’ve probably heard it in bits and pieces anyway. But I’ll give you a sample of what mine might say, in part:

My poor Mom. Not only was she still reeling from the shock of a third baby so many years after the first two were born, but those first labor pains showed up the night before Mother’s Day. Her very own national holiday was hours away and so was the birth of a baby.

My sisters were in high school, and Mom was in labor. Never the story she imagined for herself, I’m sure. That Saturday night, Mom called friends who came over and timed her contractions, writing the stats on a piece of pink stationery, which I still have in my baby book. Her evening, which was supposed to be about making a peanut butter pie for the Mother’s Day family lunch the next day, was reassigned to breathing through pain. The pie ingredients were tucked into a cabinet, and Mom told me later she never made that pie. Ever. Like the whole recipe – she never made it. As prolific a pie-maker as she is, the peanut butter pie never happened. I feel that I should start a new tradition of making peanut butter pie for Mother’s Day, in honor of the pie I squelched with my arrival.

Dad took Mom to the hospital, which was about a half hour drive from their house, in “the old green van.” That relic gave new meaning to vintage, held together by rust and possessing no seats in the back. That made it the ideal candidate for labor transport: if they didn’t make it, Mom could deliver me on the floor of the van. As a child, I loved playing in the back seat of that van, but as an adult, I can appreciate how it would be the last place I would want to welcome a baby into the world.

Thankfully I held on until a much more sterile environment was available. I was the last baby born in our family, but I was the first of the three babies whose birth Dad was able to witness – a testament to the changing of times since my sisters’ births years before. I showed up in the wee hours of Mother’s Day, causing Mom to miss out on church and eating a lunch that no longer had a peanut butter pie dessert.

Because I am the family photographer, and I was still just hours old, there are fewer pictures of my first twenty-four hours than there are of the first time I met my puppy, but from the ones that do exist, I see that my big, unruly hair was with me from the start, though it is considerably lighter now than it was then.

There you go. A snippet into my birth story! Now…what about yours?

Routinely Speaking: Facial Skin Care

 

            How many of you used to read Kelly Stamps’ blog? She was one of the very first bloggers I read and felt a connection with – though I did not know her in real life. I started reading her blog when she was pregnant with her oldest child, Harper, and now that she’s a teenager, I just have to wonder how she grew up and I’m still the same age! It’s been fun to read along with Kelly’s adventures, and even though she hasn’t posted on her blog for almost two years, she’s active on Instagram, so I keep up with her there.

            A few weeks ago, she posted about her middle child, Hollis, and her extensive skin care routine. It’s extensive in process and research. Hollis is somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve, and all I could think about when I read about her skin care tips was that when I was twelve, I was riddled with acne and hated even washing my face with soap! I never would have been a skin care guru at that age – but Hollis not only has impressive knowledge, she’s something of an influencer. Women were sending Kelly messages asking her to ask Hollis about this or that.

            I may have failed at age twelve when it came to skin care, but I try to do a better job now. If I can keep my face looking a little younger than forty-five for a little bit longer, I will gratefully accept it.

            Today I want to tell you about my own skin care routine, but I also want to be clear that I understand this can be a hot-button topic. (Who knew!? But it’s true!) Different people have different passions when it comes to the products they purchase and use. For some, it’s important that they be made in our country. For others, it’s important that they are not tested on animals. For others, it’s important that they be all-natural. For others, it’s important that the company’s values align with their own. For others, it’s important that they’re affordable. And when it comes to skin care, for some, it boils down to what doesn’t irritate their sensitive skin!

I want you to know before I share my routine that I’ve settled on the products I use for a handful of reasons that work for me in this season of life. It’s okay if you would choose something else! I’m simply sharing in case you’re looking for something to try!

If you look up skin care routines on Pinterest or watch GRWM (Get Ready With Me) videos on social media, you’ll see that some people use dozens of products every day – twice a day! My Grandma, who washed her face with soap and slathered on Ponds Cold Cream before bed, would never have dreamed that such routines could take an extra half hour out of your day – on both ends of your day! I have made a personal choice not to spend that much time on washing/treating/moisturizing my face. That’s been my personal decision. So my routine is fairly simple, and in truth, if it were more complicated, I’d be tempted to skip it entirely. It’s better to buy the things you’ll actually use and then follow through than to invest in a whole kit that takes way too long and ends up sitting under your bathroom sink.

MY MORNING ROUTINE:

ONE. Rinse Face. I start my day by taking a warm washcloth and rinsing off my face to finish pulling away any dirt that showed up since the night before when I officially washed my face.

TWO. Use E.L.F. Toner. I’ve been using the E.L.F. Pure Skin Collection since last April, and I love how it works on my skin and how affordable it is for our budget. I get mine at Walmart, usually, but you can order it through Amazon, too. The toner costs about $9.00, and I’m still on my first bottle (and it sounds/feels like there is still quite a bit left.) I just apply it to a cotton ball and run it over my face, but this year I am hoping to purchase a set of these reusable makeup remover pads that I’ll use for toner application.

THREE. Use E.L.F. Moisturizer. I’ve been using this moisturizer since last April as well, and I’m just now getting to the bottom of the first bottle. I should add that the Pure Skin Collection is fragrance free, void of the bad-for-you things you should try to avoid in cosmetics and is not tested on animals. This bottle costs $12.00 and clearly lasts a while!

That’s it for me for the morning. Rinse, tone, and moisturize. Then I give my face a bit of a break before I apply my makeup.

MY NIGHT ROUTINE:

            ONE. Remove Eye Makeup Using Coconut Oil. I searched high and low for a good eye makeup remover that didn’t cost too much and didn’t irritate my eyes. I mentioned it to my sister one day, and she told me she just uses coconut oil – like the kind you cook with! So on my next trip to Aldi, I bought a little $6.00 jar of coconut oil right out of the baking aisle, and I’ve been using it ever since. It removes all my eye makeup well – including mascara – and is very affordable! I’ve been using a tissue to apply it and remove the makeup, but when I purchase the reusable makeup remover pads, I’ll use those instead.

TWO. Use E.L.F. Cleanser. I purchased this cleanser in April with the other products and I’m nearing the end of my first bottle. It cost $9.00 and is very gentle on my skin. I feel it does a good job of removing all my makeup. I wash my face at the sink using a washcloth, but you could wash with your hands if you prefer.

THREE. Use E.L.F. Toner. Yes, the same toner I use in the morning! I use it again at night after I take off the makeup.

FOUR. Use E.L.F. Vitamin C Serum. I just started this step right before Christmas, so I can’t speak to its long-term effects just yet. I purchased this Vitamin C Serum. I’ve read that Vitamin C helps with a youthful look, so I wanted to see if it works. The bottle is $16.00, and I’m guessing it lasts a while. It smells citrusy and wonderful and just takes a few drops for each application.

FIVE. Use Coconut Oil to Moisturize. I used to put on the E.L.F. moisturizer at night, but I’ve started putting on coconut oil as moisturizer instead, saving the E.L.F. product for the morning. So far it hasn’t created oily skin, nor has it left residue on my pillow. I like how it smells (like the beach!) and it helps me double-moisturize while saving money!

That’s it for the night routine. Remove eye makeup, cleanse face all over, tone, add the serum, and moisturize.

I do have one thing I plan to start doing this year: dry brushing my face in the morning. I learned about dry brushing last year and have this facial dry brush (for $13.00) from Amazon on my wish list. I love the instruction graphic in this post that explains how to directionally run the brush each day to remove dead skin cells and improve the overall health of the skin on your face. So that will be coming into my routine one of these days.

This concludes my tour of my facial skin care routine. It’s within our budget, it’s free of the ingredients I’m trying to avoid, and it works well with my skin – keeping it healthy, breakout-free, and hopefully slowing down the wrinkles!

Holiday Happenings: New Year's Celebration

 

            I really loved having both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve fall on a Sunday this year. It provided a great opportunity for me to prepare my heart for Christmas and New Year’s Day!

            We started our New Year’s Eve at church, and one of our friends from small group was a guest speaker for our morning service. He always does a great job when he shares, and I was scribbling notes in my notebook quite rapidly.

            We came home and rested for a little bit, but we had friends come over for New Year’s Eve, so I ended up in the kitchen, making these Dashing Dish Copycat Starbucks Fudge Oat Bars and some Chickenless White Queso Chicken Chili for our party. (Our friends are vegetarians, so we made the chicken separately and those who wanted meat could add it and those who didn’t want meat didn’t have to eat it!) I’d gotten some New Year’s plates and napkins at Dollar General, and though everything was simple, it felt festive and fun.

            Our friends brought a charcuterie board, and we set up camp at the dining room table for a couple of hours – eating and telling stories.

            Eventually we made our way to the living room, where we kept telling stories, played a Would You Rather game, and spent some time filling out a bucket list sheet for the coming year. It was more fun than I imagined it might be to share the stories of why we chose the bucket list items we did! I highly recommend doing something like that with friends if you’ve never tried it before.

            I’d gotten some photo booth party props on clearance at Hobby Lobby earlier in the week, so we had some fun with those – even Lexi participated!

            When we got close to midnight, we watched the ball drop, toasted with sparkling grape juice, and welcomed 2024!

            It made for a late night; we cleaned up the house after our friends left and I think it was about 1:30 before we finally fell asleep. Thankfully, we both had New Year’s Day off work, so we were able to sleep in pretty late (for us) and had the most glorious day at home together. We absolutely treasure days like that. They are rare, but we love them.

            The weather here on New Year’s Day was kind of lousy. I’d had a loosely-held idea that if it was nice, we could go for a hike on some local trails – and take Lexi – but it was too cold and drizzly for that, so we just stayed in.

            I touched up my roots, tried out my first outfit from my capsule wardrobe, spent some extra time in Bible study, journaling and prayer, and did a little scrapbooking! Ryan cleaned out his closet and reorganized everything (something I had done the week before, so now we both have a fresh start!) and we did our annual tradition of going through our memory box and reflecting on the year we just completed. It was so much fun to see some of those memories again!

            Ryan ended the night watching a documentary series and I read in a stack of books I’ve been working on.

            It felt like the perfect start to a new year. We could have taken four or five more days at home together like that, but we celebrate the chance we had to enjoy the very first day of the year in such a leisurely fashion!

Dreams and Goals for January 2024

 

            Today is a very special day in our home. As Ryan and I awaken and return to regular routines, we are also celebrating 133 months of marriage. What a gift! I never want the idea of another month of married shared to feel routine or mundane. Ryan, I love you so much, and I am excited to mark this milestone with you today. Happy monthiversary!

            Another tradition I’m keeping today is that of marking some goals for the month that stretches before us. For the last few years, I’ve chosen to create monthly goals rather than year-long resolutions, and I am excited to continue that in 2024. Today I want to share with you the goals I’m making for this first month of the year!

ONE. Go to the gym twice a week. As you might remember, Ryan and I joined the gym this past November when he began teaching a boot camp class. I have been going to his class each week for the past month and a half and have really enjoyed it. (He’s great at what he does!) But because of the busyness of the season in which we began this adventure, going to class is all I’ve done so far. I haven’t gone to do any working out on my own. But as I’ve come to learn, good habits are built slowly, so as I return to weekly classes this month, I also want to make a goal to go one other time each week for my own workout. As the year progresses, I’d love to build on this, but for now, I feel it’s manageable to add just one time each week for a total of two weekly visits.

TWO. Prepare for upcoming speaking events. I will be speaking two times each month (that I know of so far) in January through March. I have already been working hard on the material for January, but I have determined to be purposeful in working ahead for each of the events in the coming months as well. This will require carving out time on weeknights and weekends (as I’m able) to pray, research, outline, and write for each of those days. There are many hours that go into being ready for even just a half hour of sharing, and I want to do my very best with each commitment I’ve made!

THREE. Host our friends for their annual visit to our home. For the last few years, one of my friends from my Financial Aid days and her husband have stayed with us on their way to and from a marriage retreat in Ohio. We really love having them, and this year will mark the fourth home of ours they’ve stayed in during their visits! I’m excited to welcome them and even though we spend most of our time just talking and enjoying their company – I want to try to make it a fun and unique visit!

FOUR. Pick out my plants for my new little greenhouse. You might have seen that one of my Christmas gifts from Ryan was the most adorable little greenhouse from IKEA. I plan to put herbs in it so I can use them in cooking, but I need to choose the ones I think I will use the most. I want to get that filled sometime this month and get a little indoor garden going!

FIVE. Continue my garden planning for this summer. Yes, it’s “just” January, but taking the information I learned in the little garden class I took last month and adding in the information I hope to learn in webinar this month, I want to map out the plants I hope to grow this year in my outdoor garden. It may not be time to plant just yet, but it’s not too early to plan!

SIX. Use my capsule wardrobe elements each day. At the end of 2023, I assembled my winter capsule pieces, and I’m excited to mix and match them throughout this month for some comfy outfits! I’ll have to write more about this project as the month progresses, but I’m looking forward to exercising creativity with these outfits. This post from the Clothed in Grace blog served as my inspiration as I built my capsule.

SEVEN. Find a fresh routine for my time with the Lord. Our Sunday School class has committed to reading a passage of Scripture each day (all of us reading the same passage each day...see below) so we can talk about what we’re learning on Sundays. I’m excited for that – and even more excited to be able to talk it over with Ryan each day and learn from one another! I also have a new daily reading book that my parents gave me for Christmas, and I have some specific prayer topics I want to commit to each day. I need to make some new routines to make sure I’m doing these studies and prayers well…and without distraction. Having a discipline to spend time with the Lord each day isn’t new, but I need some fresh routines for it.

            So there you have it! Seven areas of focus seems like a lot for one month, but I believe these seven things are doable. Thanks for letting me be accountable in this space, and I’ll check back in at the end of the month to let you know how I did!

New Year, Same God

 

            2023 was a good year for us. We were grateful for the opportunity to find heart-healing and to settle into new routines and ways of life. We also recognize that 2023 was a hard year for others, just as other years have been hard for us. With 2019 and 2021 being particularly heart-destructive for us, it just felt nice to have an odd-numbered year that didn’t undo us entirely.

            This new year before us comes packaged with several lofty dreams. We’ll see if they come to fruition, but it’s exciting to think, from this first-day seat, that they just might. We dream of how God will use us in ministry, of enjoying (and sharing) this home God has given us, of continuing endeavors we began in the last year, and of growing even deeper in love with each other than we are today. Even writing those words makes me smile with hope.

            As we start this new year, I want to remind you (as I remind myself) of the words of Hebrews 13:8 – Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

            I am so thankful for that. When we began 2019, with Ryan’s mom so sick and her death looming, Jesus was the same. He was the One who carried us physically through those long days and nights of caring for her. He was the One who carried us emotionally and mentally in our days, weeks, months of grief and adjustment that followed her death. He was the One who carried us spiritually when our faith was rocked and we clung to the foundation of what we had always known to be true. He grew us, sustained us, carried us, healed us, and loved us through every hard day. He brought joy in the middle of grief.

            When we began 2021 at WillowBridge and had no idea the gut-wrenching hard that would be ahead of us, Jesus was the same. He was the One who carried us physically through those long days and nights of work that never ended. He was the One who carried us emotionally and mentally when tenants challenged us, made hard decisions, and caused us to question everything we were doing as building leaders. He was the One who carried us spiritually when we found ourselves empty, depleted, and rocked again in our faith. He grew us, sustained us, carried us, healed us, and loved us through every hard day. He brought joy in the middle of confusion.

            When we began 2023, packing up one house and finishing renovations on the other, Jesus was the same. He was the One who carried us physically throughout the year as we made change after change in our life. He was the One who carried us emotionally and mentally as we healed from the griefs and heartaches of years past. He was the One who carried us spiritually as we began to step forward in service and ministry again. He grew us, sustained us, carried us, healed us, and loved us through every beautiful day – and the challenging ones mixed in. He brought joy in the middle of new beginnings.

            He was the same in every yesterday, regardless of the circumstances in front of our eyes. He is the same today, as we begin a brand new year. And He will be the same forever, whether the year ahead is full of things we enjoy or things we dread.

            None of us knows, as we embark on this year, what sits before us. We don’t know if this year will end up classified as exciting, interesting, hard, or a pure trial. But we do know that our Jesus is the same as He’s always been and that won’t change.

            Happy New Year, my friends. It is always a privilege to write for you in this space. I hope God continues to keep that door open this year. I enjoy the discipline and your friendship as you read and leave notes. Ryan and I are grateful for each of you and the friendships we’ve forged through a little blog space on the web.

            May this new year with the same God be one that grows and encourages you, regardless of the details!