women in the Word Wednesday

 

I was thinking about what to write for today's post and I immediately thought of the phrase, proceed with caution. You don't need me talking about this time we're living in today to know how things are going, but may I encourage and challenge you for the next few moments? 

Social media has so many great sides, but we all know there is a huge downfall to it right now, because everyone is always so quick to state their opinions. I keep on thinking of something I used to tell my boys when they were young: before you speak, THINK.

Is it True?

Is it Helpful?

Is it Inspiring?

Is it Necessary?

Is it Kind?

I know it's so tempting to always bite back really quickly, but as believers and followers of the Lord Jesus, we are to look differently than those around us who are unbelieving and we are to shine the light of Jesus. 

Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world, by holding firm to the word of life. Philippians 2:14-16a

That certainly reiterates the fact that we are to point other people to Jesus. Our lives and characteristics should actually provoke people to jealousy to be like we are, to have what we have, as in the peace of Jesus. Isn't that interesting to think about? 

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand.  Colossians 3:1

I love the verse above in the New Living Translation, perhaps because it seems to set things in perspective. In light of the reality of heaven, it helps to see what's important and what's not. And if it's not important in light of eternity? Let it go. 

What that looks like in my life is this: I don't really post about controversial things. I talk a lot about Jesus, so maybe that is controversial, but I stay away from current events and politics. Personally, I like for my social media to feel fun and lighthearted, with things thrown in to make people think about where they're going to spend eternity. I know that's just how I am, so I'm not saying that you should do the same thing. But it is worth thinking about what your posts are truly "saying" without actually using your speaking voice.

Right still needs to be stood up for and truth still needs to be spoken, so I'm not saying don't do those things—but just like before I speak sometimes I pray about it, maybe we should all do a little more of that. 

And somehow, in remembering all of this, we are all also to display all the fruits of the Spirit, if we are believers and followers of Jesus. In case you need a refresher, they are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. 

I know that our future is still uncertain and that everyone is losing their minds all over the Instgrams and the Facebooks, but stand firm and resist the temptation to spew off something you'll regret later. So, dear friends, in these rocky times, proceed with caution. I am cautiously optimistic that things will not always look like they look right now at this moment in time. I'm not saying things will look a whole lot better, but I'll take baby steps in that direction. 

In the meantime, I'll be praying as usual. I will pray for the light of Jesus to push back the dark, for strength to face whatever may come, for the love of Jesus to shine through those of us who know Him and that He will use these dark days to draw lost people to Him. If you know Jesus, I encourage you to do the same.

Thanks for reading. Love to all. 

Tuesday Things

 

Happy Tuesday, friends!

Three years ago yesterday was a really fun night I spent at a nearby church with my best friend. One of my favorite bloggers and authors, Sophie Hudson, was there speaking for their women's event and we got to meet her. 

It is hands down one of my favorite memories with Missy. Apparently, we stalk people like Sophie. (I'm laughing.) When we got to the church, we found a table full of our friends! Two we knew and one I knew via Instagram, so we sat with them and laughed ourselves silly.

I miss nights like that—nights when I could hug people and not feel weird about a large amount of people in one room. It makes me sad for our future, but also thankful for the memory. I am very hopeful things will return to normal again someday soon. 

Speaking of that, I sat down to watch a show that I like on Sunday night and found out it was all about the corona virus. I mean, I get why they have to make it like this, because they were social distancing while they filmed it, but I don't know that I'll watch my old shows I loved when they ended in the spring. I watch television to escape reality, so I definitely don't want to watch it and see more of what we're going through! I will be sticking with the Hallmark Christmas movies, please and thank you.

I love this tree lined street we live off of. I need to remember to take a picture when the sun is out, because it was overcast on this day. I love driving down the streets and seeing leaves all over the ground. I think they're so beautiful! 

While grocery shopping yesterday morning, I found a new treat!

Have you had this? I found it at my Kroger yesterday and enjoyed some for an afternoon treat. It is so good!

These memories are killing me of Crash and Andy lately! Crash was so cute when he was so little and as far as I'm concerned, there will never be another dog like Andy the Wonder Dog. 

Well, I need to hop back off of here because I have to run in just a few minutes. Thanks for reading! Love to all. 

weekending

 

Happy Monday, friends. I'm linking up with Tanya from The Other Side of the Road for this blog post.

My weekend started with my dad coming over on Friday. I made us a yummy lunch consisting of grilled cheese sandwiches and roasted red pepper and tomato soup. The weather here is WAY hotter than I like, so even though it was hot outside, inside the house it was nice and cool. I took him home, then ended up staying in all night while my husband went out with three of our sons—Graham was working. I didn't feel great and just wanted to eat here, so I watched tv while I ate dinner.

On Saturday morning, I met my sister Trish out at my dad's and we hung Christmas lights on his property all. day. long.

The trees out there were showing off for us! And leaves were all over the place. This was me at the end of his driveway with a wagon loaded down with Christmas lights.

I mentioned the weather—I feel like I got sunburned, but I really didn't, maybe just a little windburned. I also think I got slightly dehydrated and felt weird for part of the time we were at his house. I was home around four, showered and eating pizza for dinner by four forty-five. And all night I watched Hallmark movies since Todd was working and the boys were all out.

I felt so much better when I woke up Sunday and was at church by 8:30 for praise team rehearsal and sound check. 

I was on a praise team here in our fellowship hall (we're still spaced out and have different locations inside our church because of Covid). I was sitting at a table with a chair that I sat in earlier and did my Bible study homework at while I waited on the service to start. I like to make the most of my time and either do that or I'll take a book I'm reading and pass the hour reading while I wait on the service to start.

I came home for lunch and watched another Hallmark movie—Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater—then went to my mom's house for dinner. I marveled over all of her beautiful Christmas decorations and she sent me home with stuff for our house when I put ours up this week! I am planning on doing ours on Thursday and cannot WAIT.

How was your weekend? I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading my blog, love to all.

Friday Favorites

 

Happy Friday, friends! I'm linking up with Andrea from Momfessionals and her friend for this blog post.

Considering the craziness that this election has brought, the week has been pretty good! I thought I'd share a little about some of the highlights. 

First up are these new favorite stockings! I ordered them last week off of Amazon. I saw one picture on Pinterest that got me to thinking how old our stockings were and so I decided to replace them with something more modern and new. I love these! The shape looks weird here because I'd just pulled them out of the box, but they're normal shaped and 18 and 1/2 inches long, which is normal stocking length. I found a three pack of them for $10, so I ordered two of them. 

Although this older movie wasn't my favorite, what IS my favorite still is watching a Hallmark Christmas movie everyday while I eat lunch. I am telling you that Jesus and doing this has completely saved my sanity. This is the movie Northern Lights of Christmas and I texted this picture to Todd to tell him that the couple did in fact fall in love and live happily ever after.

I went to my happy place again this week! I haven't been since February! Can you even believe that? I sure did get a stack of Christmas fiction books to read. I am about four chapters in that top book called Marry Me at Christmas. Christmas is my FAVORITE and so is reading.

Speaking of Hallmark Christmas movies and favorites, I have this thing I do that is kinda snobby. If I don't like the people that play the characters, I won't watch the movie. Or if they're too cheesy, it grates on my nerves and I'll move on to a different one. I like this guy, I don't know his name, but he's always a favorite male lead. My female favorites are Jill Wagner or Ashley Williams.

My favorite author released this book a couple of weeks ago and I started it Sunday night and finished it Wednesday afternoon. My name is in the back of her book as one of her top fans! A while back she asked readers to submit stories about how her books have impacted their lives and my name was one (of tens of thousands) that was picked and there are about a thousand of us listed in the last pages of this book. Isn't that cool?!

This book was outstanding, by the way, so I encourage you to read it for yourself. It's very relevant to today and is about law enforcement officers.

Favorite Christmas coffee mug: check.

Look at how little and precious Crash was as a three month old puppy! But man, was he a hellion. This dog drove me absolutely batty and I tried unsuccessfully to get rid of him. He has turned into the best dog ever and I have actually written some children's stories about him. I didn't do anything with them, but I did submit them to some publishers and they all wanted to publish them. (The books would be a series of books for younger elementary aged kiddos called A Day in the Life of Crash and then each book would get it's own second title like, Crash Comes Home!, Crash Goes Camping!, Crash Goes to the Doctor!, or Crash Gets a Sister!. Publishing a book, particularly an illustrated one is STUPID EXPENSIVE. Maybe someday.)

I sent this picture to my friend who shares my love of nailpolish to show her my latest color, my old favorite, Lincoln Park After Dark by OPI. 

Later on Tuesday, I went to dinner with a couple of young ladies, so that night was one of my favorites.

Saturday made my favorites list, because I went out with my Mom and Trish. Trish and I loved this snowman! This weekend she and I will be putting up Christmas lights for Daddy. He won't turn them on until Thanksgiving night.

Well, that is about all I have for this week—like I said, despite the trainwreck we're all watching play out in the news, it was a pretty decent week. 

It bears repeating: no matter who sits in the oval office as our next President of the United States, Jesus is King. He is faithful and He will help us through, no matter what may come. 

Thanks for reading, friends. Love to all. 

Thankful Thursday

Because it's November, because it's been a rough year, because we can always find something to be thankful for, because it's the month of Thanksgiving and because all of these things and gratitude go hand in hand, I thought I'd start a new weekly series. I used to keep a gratitude journal in this month, then when I started the Scripture writing plan, that kind of took its place. Like we all do, when I need an attitude adjustment, I do a couple of things: I pray and I praise God and I look for things to be thankful for.

The prayer and praise to the Lord takes my mind off of MYSELF and focuses on God. And being thankful has proven time and again to accomplish the same thing. Do you want to join me? This idea is something I saw on another blog, but you can do this same thing in a journal. Here are a few things from my week that I am so thankful for:

The Lord is faithful. He is trustworthy. He is sovereign. I am reminded of this every single day of my life and I am so thankful that I have Him to depend upon. I shared this picture on Instagram on Tuesday with this caption underneath:

Jesus is the only One I have put my hope in and He is King of kings and Lord of lords. No matter who wins whatever election now or in the future, He is good and Worthy of praise! Our problems in this world aren't because of any one man in office or any pandemic- our problem in the world and in our nation is a SIN problem. Sin is what separates us from the love of God, but once you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, He bridges that gap between God and us and according to Romans 8:38-39, nothing will be able to separate us from Him ever again. Do you know Him? Don't wait; we are not promised tomorrow. No matter who wins the election, even if it turns out differently than I'm hoping, God is still good! His goodness isn't based on any circumstance, He is God and He is good all the time and all the time, He is good. I am so thankful for the fact that He is my Savior and that He abides within me everyday of my life. I could never walk through life without Him.

I am thankful for opportunities the Lord gives to me. I had dinner with a couple young ladies last night and it was so good to see them both. We had Mexican food and caught up from the months we missed seeing each other and hopefully I shared a little bit of wisdom with them—one of them is getting married in a few months. I always ask the Lord to use me any way He sees fit and He is always so sweet to give me moments like Tuesday night. Hopefully we'll do this a little more often, at least that was what I told them.

I was also thankful for the distraction that dinner out with them gave to me! It looks like I need a distraction every night for the unforseeable future, though.

I am so thankful for my husband. It's no secret that I love being alone, but when I have too much of that, I miss him. He makes me laugh like nobody else can and I enjoy how we sometimes just sit in silence together. I love telling him about things that excite me and when I am anxious about something, he's the only person who can calm me down. The older we get, the more things change with our relationship and in a great way.

I am thankful for these grown up years we have with our sons. We've always said that we do love them, of course, but we also genuinely like them and enjoy being around them. I love the relationship they each have with my husband—I feel like that is such a rare thing.

I am so thankful we have dogs! They bring us immense joy and it's like they're our babies now that all the boys have grown up. Just the other night I fell asleep with Chip in my bed and he was like a little heater beside me! I'm pretty sure I fell asleep with my arm around him and with him right up beside me.

I am so thankful for great books like the one I finished yesterday. In this time of needing distraction from the chaos and ugliness around me, it's nice to have a way of escape. (Karen Kingsbury's Truly, Madly, Deeply is a book you need to check out for yourself!)

I am thankful for godly friends and the gift of fellowship. My friends Missy and Teresa and I went to Lenny's last night after church to catch up, because it's been a few weeks. We ate and laughed and shared things we can each be praying for our families.

Well, I'll wrap it up with this for now, because I need amy second cup of coffee...but I'll be back here next Thursday for the same. Thanks for reading! Love to all.

Prime Purchases for October

 

Happy Tuesday, friends! It's the day I've been dreading for months—election day. So many of my friends and all the voting members in our home have voted already, but I'm the weird one who likes to go on election day. I'll be slightly busy today with things to do during the day—voting, nail appointment, Bible study homework, reading, a Hallmark Christmas movie, cooking dinner for my family, dinner out with two young ladies tonight—so I am grateful for the distraction. I already know I won't get much sleep tonight, I never do on election nights, so I spend that time when I'm awake praying. 

In the meantime, I thought it'd be fun to share some Amazon purchases from this month. Who doesn't love a good Prime Purchases post?! I'm linking up with Tanya from The Other Side of the Road once again.

I'll start with my most recent post that I got off the porch just last night. It's this Ilumminating Face Primer by Elf Cosmetics. Here is the link for it on Amazon. I love this stuff and have used it for over six months now, with no plans to quit anytime soon. There is an expensive version of this from other high dollar makeup brands, but I'm convinced that for every expensive product, there is an inexpensive version. I pump two drops of this into my foundation, of which I use an amount less than the size of a pea, rub my palms together and apply it to my face. It gives me a slight shimmer and I love it.

Last week I bought us new Christmas stockings for the fireplace. I told you, Christmas is going up in the next seven days. Ours were cute, but now that the boys are all grown up, I went with some that are newer and more trendy. They look exactly like these. Here's the link for the actual ones I bought—a three pack for $10! 

I can't wait to get them and put them up. They're arriving today sometime.

I bought some precious gifts for a baby boy that will be born in December for my friend at church who's expecting. I love shopping for babies! Because he's a December baby, I had to go with Christmas themed everything, so I purchased two fleece zipper onesies, a reindeer wub-a-nub thing for his pacifier and a soft and fuzzy white blanket to bundle him up in. 

I ordered my second set of Amazon Basics colored pens. I underline in my Bible with these and I've been super impressed with the quality and how long they last. They're way less expensive than the Papermate Flair felt tip pens I replaced them with. 

I also ordered some black Papermate Flair felt tip pens with these, which are much more reasonably priced. Don't ask why.

I got a new phone in October and my husband ordered me this phone cover that is the same color of this picture below. 

It's a really dark forrest green. I love it, but my only complaint is that it won't hold a pop socket.

I ordered this cute garden flag and already have one for when I put up Christmas decorations that I bought Saturday at Hobby Lobby. 

And lastly, I purchased some shaving cream to replace what's been used by all the guys in the house and some gifts that I took to my sisters in Colorado when I went there. The more the days go on, the more I'm using Amazon Prime! I never see this changing. What are some things you bought? I'd love to hear about them! Thanks for reading! Love to all. 

weekending

 

Happy Monday, friends! I'm linking up with Tanya from The Other Side of the Road for this blog post. 

Our weekend was really good, a mix of alone time and fun times with my husband and family. I feel like our home has a revolving door in it and most of the time I would not trade that for all the money in the world. Unless it's midnight and I'm trying to sleep and my dang phone keeps waking me up because of people coming and going and the garage going up and down.

I'll miss it someday. I keep telling myself this. 

My dad came over on Friday to get the weekend kicked off and after I took him home, Todd and I found out we were home mostly alone. Drew really didn't have plans until later, so we went and got sushi for the three of us. For Todd and me, it was the second time this week. We have a local place that we LOVE for sushi and we order takeout at least once a week from there. If you live near me, it's Tao that is in the shopping center near Academy Sports. My favorites are spicy shrimp and spicy crawfish. Todd likes those as well, along with spicy tuna and the snowcrab roll. Drew got a dynamite roll.

On Saturday, my mom, sister and I went out for part of the day. We went to Hobby Lobby, then to Huey's for lunch, then Marshall's and I made a quick run through Kroger before coming back home. Todd ended up riding a shift with the sheriff's department and the boys were all in and out, so I didn't hand out candy. It's not as as fun if you're alone, but if you know me, you know it's never a hardship for me to be at home alone.

I watched two Hallmark Christmas movies (Jingle Bell Bride and Christmas in Homestead) and was in bed by eleven. (Later than normal!) My husband didn't get home until four in the morning, so he was BEAT all of the next day. We were up early for church and there by eight fifteen, then we came home and relaxed the rest of the day. 

This was the coffee cup I used Sunday morning. (Christmas will be put up soon!) We had leftovers for dinner Sunday night and again, the boys were all in and out. 

I picked this up that afternoon to start reading and quickly made it to the halfway point. Karen Kingsbury's books NEVER disappoint. This one is incredible!

I'm sharing my car right now because Jonah's and Noah's truck is in need of some repair. Todd reached out to the mechanic we use, but hasn't heard back from him yet. This is usually never a big deal, we just have to think about timing and when we have to have transportation. When Todd is home, they just use his truck, but when we're both gone it gets a little tricky. Hopefully the truck will be worked on very soon. 

(Another Saturday, another Christmas store. I met and fell in love with this handsome fella.)

I'm posting this once again, because we're only two days in to November and it's never too late to join in this month's Scripture writing plan. The topic is so good! 

How was your weekend? I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading my blog, see you back here tomorrow. Love to all!