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For the Love: A(n audio) Book Review
So all of my friends are going to stop talking to me soon because I say the name “Jen Hatmaker” too often in conversation lately. For years I’ve told myself that I don’t have time to listen to audio books just for me or to listen to podcasts just for grown ups. And for years that’s kind of been true. But lately, as my Littles morph into Bigs, I find myself here and there standing in the kitchen alone. Folding laundry in the bedroom by myself. Baking cookies when no one else is around. How did this happen? I don’t know. They tell me it will keep happening more and…
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ugh . . .
Have you ever glanced at the clock – or noticed the sun sinking in the sky – and then looked down at your own attire and thought, “Well. I’ve made it this far into the day. A shower now seems pointless.”? You know that portion of the day when it appears that every single flat surface in your home is covered with …. something? There is laundry on the line and you realize that the rain has been pouring for more than two hours and it’s too late to do anything about the soaking wet blue jeans and towels. How about when your own words about The Tired & The…
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The Tired & The Worn Out
Don’t you yet understand? Don’t you know by now that the everlasting God, the Creator of the farthest parts of the earth, never grows faint or weary? No one can fathom the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the tired and worn out, and strength to the weak. (Isaiah 40:29, The Living Bible translation) To The Tired & The Worn Out, I see you. I watch you rise up in the morning and feed the hungry faces sitting at your table. I know you drag your worn Bible across the counter top and you…
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Meaningful jewelry and a discount code!
A few Five Fridays ago I shared with you the stunning pendants and jewelry available from my friends at Honor Emblem. (They actually are my friends. It’s not just a phrase I’m using. I don’t know if that really matters to you or not – but it often does to me. I love buying products that are supporting real families with real children with real lives.) Their stuff is just gorgeous. (And you have options. I heart options. Leather cords or antique chains. Silver or bronze. It’s really hard to decide which to choose though!) It’s heavy and substantial and the items feel like talismans. Their jewelry all…
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Five Finds Friday (eleven) (forgotten funny & overpriced sweaters & good dads)
FUNNY What is funny? I don’t know. Calvin and Hobbes is funny. (Yes, it still is funny to me. And my son is obsessed with the cartoon kid. Every day he reads these cartoons to me.) I’d like a new laugh-out-loud funny book to read or television show to watch. Why don’t you guys help me out this week? Fill in the blank in the comments. (Pretty please.) A funny thing you should read is ___________________________. You could watch _________________________. It’s super funny. FASHIONABLE We stopped in REI today to purchase a birthday gift for my son-in-law. (Wait! What? I have a son-in-law?? How can I be that old?) And…
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contrary truth
You want to know something true but so contrary? You can have a day that feels as if the very air of the universe is aligning and giving you good gifts. Friends can send you the sweetest texts and your grocery bill can be paid by a complete stranger. You can hold the good gifts in both of your hands and count them two by two. You can laugh a little and smile some too. You can stare into the gloriously golden faces of the stellar humans who call you “mom”. And you can feel grateful. Grateful can ooze out of your lips and off your tongue and through the…
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procrastinating, a survey for you and the ramblings of life
Procrastination is for real, you guys. I mean – you might think it’s just for college students or something. But. It. Is. Not. Right now I am putting off completing an article I need to turn in. And putting off shifting the laundry from the washing machine to the dryer. Delaying folding the heap of clean clothes on top of the dryer. The dishwasher needs to be loaded and the kitchen table is no longer a location for family dinners, but instead is a holding tank for the flotsam and jetsam of returning from a Virginia weekend. I’ve got stuff to do, you guys, but what am I doing instead?…
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to live like I mean this …
Hudson Taylor, a missionary to China in the late 1800’s said, at a low point in his life, suffering from failing health, “I cannot read; I cannot think; I cannot even pray: but I can trust.” An absolute Act of the Will. That’s what trust is. A Choice. That’s obedience. To choose to act on what you know to be true and not on what you feel to be true.
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snow matters.
All I’ve got today is this …. Snow is my favorite. Not my favorite as in I-Want-To-Live-In-A-State-Where-Winter-Means-A-Weekly-Snow-Storm-And-My-Face-Always-Feels-Frozen. More like my favorite as in Once-Or-Thrice-A-Winter-A-Good-Snow-Storm-That-Shuts-Life-Down. I love that kind of snow. I love the finality and the theatrics with which the south treats snow flakes. Lock down and stay home and eat soup and drink hot chocolate and serve up seven heaping bowls of snow cream in two days. Play games and build snow men (and snow families complete with kitty cats and snow babies) and build forts and sled down hills and don’t go to work and don’t do school and just be alive with the people you love. That’s…
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Five Finds Friday (ten) (blueberry muffins and cuddl duds)
So – here we go, Friday. FUNNY Jen Hatmaker. She’s so funny. I’ll stop talking about her one day, but I don’t know when. I’ll write a blog post soon that no one will read because I’ve talked about her too much. But I’ll still be reviewing her book For the Love which I finally finished listening to on audio version. She just makes me laugh. Her “thank you notes” are the best. (She says she stole the idea of them from a late night talk show host so I’ll steal the idea from both of them as I make up my own thank you note.) Thank you kitchen…
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so much water . . . .
I have a friend whose Instagram handle is “treading water”. I smiled when I saw it the first time. She has four young children and I understood the sentiment all too well. As I was pushing the pictures up on my phone this week and saw her name pop up, I thought of that title once more. Treading water. Yes. It’s a little less funny to me right now though. That’s precisely what I feel as if I am doing. Treading water. I mean, barely. Treading water but just hardly keeping my head up above the current and swallowing an awful lot of water and gasping for quite a bit of…
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Not My Father’s Son: A Book Review
What’s the difference between a memoir and a biography? I really have no idea. I don’t read all that many of either category, but every time I do I realize that I probably should read more of them. They’re so interesting. It’s a look into another human’s psyche – their view of the world and of themselves and the stuff that went down in their own lives. I just finished actor Alan Cumming’s memoir Not My Father’s Son. I only know Cummings from Spy Kids, but he’s been in lots of other films. Obviously all more adult and edgier than Spy Kids, I’m sure. I literally saw this on the…
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a Monday kitchen fix.
What? It was Monday? I mean, do you ever feel as if you blink and then – I don’t know – a week goes by? This morning when we left our home the kitchen legitimately looked as if a kitchen-sized hurricane had passed through. We visited the grocery store for the first time in two weeks the night before and had simply carried in the bags and dropped them on the counter. But not before we ran around gathering snacks and goodies to watch the final episode of The Great British Baking Show. And then, blink, blink, it was time for bed and I forgot about the kitchen until I…
