January is marching along at top
speed…is that true at your house, too? We felt like we were dividing and conquering
most of the week, so we were really thankful to have last night at home
together. We are looking forward to a houseguest this weekend and a couple more
next week! (Is an Indiana lake not your typical winter destination?)
Anyway, while we are
entertaining, I hope you enjoy these little finds! I have a bonus find for you before
we even get to the regular lineup. I know some of you said you missed getting
to hear me on-air this week, and I just found out yesterday that the station
put the spots on their on-demand page! Here is the page for
the day I shared with PeggySue, and I believe they will be adding the rest of
them soon! I loved listening to EVERYONE’s appearances, so I hope you’ll get to
catch them all.
Check out this beautiful mansion and even more
beautiful conservatory attached to it. While there is not a single bone in my body that would
welcome washing those windows, it really is stunning to behold. WOW! It’s in
Tate, Georgia, so we’ll have to add this to our list of places we want to visit
on our next trip to Georgia!
We rush
through life far too quickly, don’t we? We hurry from this to that, eyes always
ahead to the next thing even while we are in the middle of this thing.
Oh, how important it is to save and see what is right in front of us! Andrea’s story is a timely reminder of noticing the
present and showing up for it. I needed this, so maybe you do, too!
We
don’t have a linen closet in our house, and in fact, I think we have only had
one in one of the homes we’ve occupied. But the one we did have was
super tiny and I never figured out a truly great organization system for it.
(This was probably complicated by the truth that we really did own way more
than we needed for that space.) But Tamara wrote this helpful post about how she organized her linen
closet, and what I love about this is that she doesn’t have a particularly
grand closet. It’s small, the shape is not ideal, and the things filling it
seem normal and real, not perfectly curated. If you have a linen closet, this
might be a great inspiration for you to organize it at the start of this new
year!
I felt
like this year, more than usual, I heard people voicing that they struggled
with the prospect of returning to work after the holidays. It wasn’t that they
were lazy and didn’t want to work, but there seemed to be something in them
that longed for the continued rest they found when they didn’t have to go to
work each day. Work, even work you love and appreciate, can be hard, so if that
is the season you’re in right now, take a look at Rachel’s words and find some renewed strength to
honor God with the work you do, regardless of what those tasks look like on a
daily basis.
I
have always liked Audrey’s style and have learned so much from her about
building wardrobes and finding pieces that work well without being so
trendy that they only last for five minutes. She recently wrote this advice about key clothing pieces for women
over 40. I actually think this is good advice regardless of your age! If you’re
feeling a bit stuck in what to wear, maybe some of her words will spark an idea
or two!
Over the
last couple of years, I’ve discovered I really love the warm, clean look of
wood and white in a home. We do have a lot of blue, too, because we both love
blue and we live on a lake, so that feels just right. Suzy wrote about her simple winter
décor, and I
want to adopt most of it for our house. Most of it is simple enough that it
works year-round, and she brings in little touches of winter.
I read my first book
of 2026 and wanted to share about it today. I purchased When the Season Ends, by Stacy Windahl,
when Ryan and I visited Mackinac Island last Labor Day. I was delighted to find
the Island had a bookstore and really wanted to purchase a proper Mackinac
novel while we were there. This one was up near the register, because it had
just been released. It looked so cozy and Hallmarky, and I couldn’t resist
getting it.
The novel tells the story of
Olivia Nash, a character right around my own age, who feels a bit lost,
stepping into summer. Her only son, Luke, is spending the summer away from home
as a camp counselor, and her husband, Nate, has made plans to go to Montreal
for the majority of the summer to close a business deal. Olivia’s marriage has
felt distant, and without Luke to need her in the same way he has for so many
years, she isn’t sure what to do with her own life.
On the whim of a suggestion from
a gas station attendant, Olivia decides to spend the summer on Mackinac Island
– without telling anyone of her plan. She finds a job and place to live and
settles into the quietness and seclusion of life on the Island where she once
spent a server in one of the restaurants. The relationships she forms on
Mackinac begin to awaken the pieces of her she almost forgot existed, but she
knows it’s all temporary and eventually she has to find a way to tell
her husband and son what she has done.
What I Loved About This Book:
So many of Stacy’s storytelling techniques made me smile, and her Island
descriptions were so accurate. Even though I was only on the Island for two
days, I could easily see each of the places she described, and it made that
part of the book feel like coming home. All the things that made me want to
move to Mackinac after our visit were present in her book, and the hints of
daily life on the Island were fun to absorb alongside the storyline.
What I Didn’t Love About This
Book: While I did not come into this book with any understanding that it
would be a Christian book (and it was not), I was not prepared for the volume
of bad language and the undertones of infidelity sprinkled throughout.
Furthermore, I was surprised to see hints throughout that Olivia, the main
character, was a Bible-reading, church-going woman. It felt inconsistent with
the language and behavior in the pages. When I visited the author’s website
after finishing the book, I found a handful of blog posts that were devotional
in nature, so that was further confusing.
I am so glad to be back in the reading game in 2026!
