I feel very lost in these comments, like I’m navigating a foreign country with a 100 year old map. I come from the time of AIM and chat rooms, this shouldn’t be so hard?!
Anyway - I survived a road trip from South Carolina to Nebraska with three kids and a husband last week and am pleased to report all who went made it back 😂 though it was definitely questionable there for a bit. Two days in a car is just not anything I recommend as “a good time.”
I have typed and erased a million things because I am so rusty on interacting with humans that I don’t even know how to interject into an online community, so I will just wish everyone a successful Thursday tomorrow and see you Friday!
Story time: I am not a plant person. However, I have a begonia that was gifted to me by a client. It thrived for many months via benign neglect, then I almost killed it on three separate occasions (twice by freeze/forgetting to bring it in, once because my dog ate it after having ignored it for weeks). After much patient instruction by my mother, I nursed it back to health and it was thriving. Beautiful. Luxurious, even. Then, last night, I forgot to put it back up on the porch and even though they have not touched it for many months, the deer ATE IT. I am so mad about it. The stalks are still green and there are a few leaves left intact, so I think it will be ok, but I have hate in my heart for the deer population of central Texas.
I really feel like Garth would appreciate both that video and actually being covered by the Killers, which is the main thing. Did anyone else watch the Kennedy Center Honors, or am I the only old person here? If you've ever watched Garth Brooks on anything, you know he's a crier and everyone's biggest fan, so the whole thing was very sweet. I always make an effort to watch it every year, and I have no idea why.
I attended my first baby birthday party last weekend, and it was a perfect Saturday. I spent the day on the river with good friends and plenty of food. My swimsuit from three years ago somehow still fits (I don't understand this, but find it best not to ask too many questions). I apparently need to go swimming more because the thought occurred to me on my way home that my back didn't hurt for once. No residual effect, but I'm still feeling the consequences of the Great Porch Incident so any relief is welcome.
First week single after 8 years is over. That's what I can say about that. I will say God provided with housesitting (so I have to get out of my apt and take care of the dog) as well as meeting a single woman at church who has introduced me to like 10 others. I am also starting the dreaded job search in another city so prayers for WIDE OPEN DOORS. There is definitely grief of thinking of starting over by myself at my age when all I've wanted my whole life was marraige/children. Good vibes and prayers for the waves of grief and loneliness wash over me but I will be going home for family vacation in a week so just have to hold it together a little longer!
Y’all. I’ve been radio silent, but I’m back and better than ever. This last month has been the best! I figured out where I’m going to college. I’m working at a summer camp as a nanny to the permanent staff! I’m in counseling and on medication for my mental illnesses! I’m legitimately thriving and it’s the most thrilling thing. I have so many new friends! We can actually have deep and honest conversations without panicking that the other one will run away. We’ve dug into trauma and mental illness and medical issues together. It’s the most beautiful community. My family is still chaotic, but I’m growing even in the midst of that. God is so good and it’s thrilling.
Greetings all! This has been a long week but it was full of happy surprises to which I give God the good credit he deserves for them. Also, for being a crazy busy week at work I got to rest in the evenings because for the first time in months there were not any events/church/errands to take care of at the end of the day!
I am moving in July to a new apartment, same Nashville, but I am so looking forward to a fresh start after moving here during the pandemic year. What is fun in the Bellevue area? What is the Loveless Café? These are things I need to get to the bottom of starting in August. :)
Also, I have a solo camping trip coming up next weekend and I need to make sure my tent is ready this week...so that's at the top of my weekend to do list! Hope everyone has a restful weekend!
Well Erin, I wish you could have been at our wedding because we FOR SURE had early 2000s line dances at the reception. No towers of fruit, but there was prime rib and way too much delicious cake?
And on that note, I'm officially married (two weeks tomorrow)!💃🤩 The Boy and I had a wonderful and beautiful wedding day, but it ended up being a bittersweet weekend because his mom passed away the day after the wedding. 😔💔
It went like this: she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in April. Despite that diagnosis, they were starting aggressive treatment and, though a terminal diagnosis, she potentially had a couple years left. Then just a few weeks later, she got Covid (and pneumonia). The cancer had already spread to her lungs, so that was...not good. She seemed to be recovering, but still was having lots of breathing issues after a month. The weekend before the wedding, they decided to put her on a ventilator to give her lungs a break. She never came off of it. She declined extremely quickly in that last week, entered complete organ failure, and we were told she'd never have a chance to come off the vent. We debated postponing the wedding, but ultimately decided that's not what she would have wanted. After a lot of debate, grief, and family drama surrounding Michael being the legal decision-maker, the day after the wedding, the decision was made to withdraw care.
We are heartbroken. Sad. Confused. But, we've also felt God's peace surrounding us since the decision was made. And in the midst of the sorrow and grief, we had a beautiful, fun, joyous, celebratory wedding. My brother-in-law was able to call in to her nurse during the ceremony and narrate the whole thing on speaker phone. They had lowered her sedation just enough that she'd be able to hear. Michael and I were able to go see her that night right after the reception, and the entire ICU team at the hospital had decorated her room for us, left us a card, and made it as special as they could. We chose to let that visit be our last with her, rather than being there when they withdrew her care and she took her last breath. The nurse who was with her holding the phone during the ceremony left us a long note and said it was the most meaningful shift he's ever worked and it would stick with him his whole career. The whole weekend was truly the definition of holding joy and sorrow at the same time.
We had to cancel our honeymoon, obviously, but both still took the week after off work to deal with both the practical things surrounding death and our grief. It didn't feel like we really got more than a couple of rest days with everything we had to do, but hopefully we'll be able to take a honeymoon soon.
All this to say, I don't know why God would choose to have our wedding anniversary and the anniversary of her death be a day apart, but we know he is bigger than it all. He has given us peace in the middle of our grief, he gave us such a wonderful and happy wedding day, and he is still good.
Now, after writing that all out, I'm going to wipe the tears from my face and get back to work somehow. One of my best friends is getting married tonight, so we have another fun wedding to look forward to tonight.
I started Barre this week again and after a year and a half of not going due to the pandemic it's been hard. It never got easier when I was doing it consistently and I'm going now, it's hard, I can barely do the workout and my pain is horrible (chronic pain + doing Barre after a year isn't fun). I'm hoping I can stick it out but let me reiterate, it horrible rn. I'd like to wait Barre for just plain old bar 🍺🍻 ATM.
Summer is here and the kids are back to fighting. One kid insisted another choked her, the other insisted she bit her. Under investigation, neither of these things happened? How do you get it wrong when you say someone bit you? It's a very specific action. Sigh. I have them separated now and I'm taking a breather in the bedroom and writing this because I'm an asshole when I'm angry. It's very hard for me to walk away because I just want to punish everyoneband take away fun things. But I'm working on being calmer when I speak to the kids about their behavior. I try to remember that the kids who are most difficult need the most love and care and I can't provide that when I'm angry.
Question: Why does summer feel like it's almost over?
Another Question: I'm looking for new healthy snacks. I've been loving the wasabi flavored seaweed chips from Trader Joe's, but I can't eat those every day. Any other ideas? I am leaning hard on snacking lately as a coping mechanism but I do not love the idea of going up a pant size (again).
Our trip to Williamsburg was awesome - we ate so much good food, and the weather was great & actually not unbearably hot. I also found a new sweatshirt to replace my old, falling apart sweatshirt, & I now wear it constantly. :)
I feel like we're getting into more of a summer groove this week. My least favorite part of being a 1 is how hard it can be for me to relax and enjoy time with the kids instead of looking at it as time I could be getting things done. But we're reading our way through Harry Potter and the Redwall series, and watching the heck out of Darkwing Duck on Disney+.
They don't know it, but we're going on our first whole-family vacation in two weeks to Lake Champlain in upstate NY. (Yes, we're definitely those people going post-pandemic vacation crazy!) I need to start packing now to make sure I don't end up with only two pairs of underwear for three days, like what happened last weekend! ha ha
First off, I MADE IT! It is the last day of school with students. My classroom is almost 50% packed up. The army crawl to the finish line is almost over!
I missed you last week when I was away celebrating my nephew's graduation and engagement. Hope you're all well!
That exfoliating tweet hit a bit too close to home for me, I once used a sugar scrub that was so coarse it left me with bleeding scratches on my legs 😬 (I have since learned to treat my skin with a bit more respect!)
On Tuesday I got to see a friend and meet her two-month-old baby for the first time. She seemed to like me 😉
My niece is 13 and very critical of well, everything, but when my sister told her she's becoming more and more like me she'd apparently replied "Hm, I don't mind that" which is probably the greatest compliment I've ever received.
The sinus infections and bronchitis I've been having pretty much constantly since October 2017 seem to finally have loosened their grip on me. Or at least taken a break. Y'all, breathing is amazing and I don't think I'll take it for granted ever again 🤗
Our family is in the midst of moving mayhem so we can list our house by next week and hopefully get started on finding the new one in our new (old) city. My kids are stressed and confused and y’all, packing is hard when I can’t even keep our day-to-day stuff picked up. MIL is taking the kids today, so hopefully we’ll get some stuff done! Pictures tomorrow afternoon. 😳 I keep getting overwhelmed and then hear Kendra Adachi telling me to “live in the season”. I am trying!
I feel the wedding tweet to my core. My husband and I love dancing on the dance floor together at weddings! However, I’m still grieving the last wedding we went to.
*Trigger Warning: sexual harassment.*
My brother-in-law continually sexually harassed me at his sister’s wedding last month. For example: they asked us to explain the IVF process we are going through this summer and he proceeded to tell me, “Just let me have a crack at you tonight and I’ll get you pregnant immediately.”
My Husband and I have been praying how to tell my sister-in-law all this. They are newlyweds (covid wedding last year). So if you could pray for that hard family situation. My people pleasing side hates confrontation but, as a woman, I will not stay silent. If this dude has the guts to say multiple inappropriate things to me and I’m his new family, what things does he say casually to female co-workers?
Thank you for letting me share that and finally getting it off my chest to someone aside from my husband and therapist. ❤️
Turd of the week: I'm 35 weeks preggo in the hot, hot Kansas summer, and my blood pressure and protein levels have started creeping up, which is not great when you have a history of preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, and are pregnant over 40. If you are the praying type, would you pray things would regulate and this babe would stay healthy (and put) for a few more weeks? As much as I would love to not be pregnant in this heat anymore, we had to stay in the NICU with our second when he was born at 37 weeks and I would not like to repeat that. Also, I still am not 100p sure about a name and we don't have a crib yet...so...there's that...
Treasures:
- We got a new backyard pool that has been the delight of this pregnant body. The water is cold, my kids wear themselves out, and yesterday I sat in it while reading a book. I will be there every afternoon until this baby boy is born, pretty much.
- Twitter: good grief, so many gems this week. My favorite was Beth Moore using the word "Cheugy" in reply to one of Tyler Huckabee's tweets; I, too, almost spit out my coffee:
- I am finally reading Inspired by Rachel Held Evans as this month's non-fiction book and, wow, I am so sad that I haven't read anything by her before now.
- My library had way too many good books available yesterday, and I went a little crazy. I am currently reading Much Ado About You, and it is the perfect summer romance...because it is set in England and makes me not feel so hot in the Kansas sun! The premise is a delight - Chicagoan decides to book a VRBO in England that includes running a bookshop for a month. I'm like, Do those really exist???? Sign me up!
Happy Friday Lil Swipes! Not much going on over here, just a humdrum kind of week, which means no real big joys, but also, no huge meltdowns, so I'll take it!
Treasures (in the midst of blah):
- We finally put up a playset in our yard, and even though it's only been there a few days, the yard already feels SO MUCH BETTER. And, as my middle said, now we never need to go to a park again!
- A nasty cold swept through our family last week and went into this week, which meant my son and I had to reschedule our trip to CA to visit my brother (hooray for late July!), but it also meant that all my kids had GREAT sleep. Kind of sad that it took a cold to get them down, but there you go. Everyone was drippy, but actually pleasant to each other.
- We put burrata on naan, grilled it, threw on some garden-fresh basil, and made THE most delicious (and wildly easy) pizza. I think we are going to grill a LOT this summer, and naan pizza may be my favorite right now. So many combinations! So many toppings! SO EASY!
Ok friends, that's all I've got. Some kids are still recovering over here, so we'll continue all the easy stuff, with lots of movies thrown in. ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!
I feel very lost in these comments, like I’m navigating a foreign country with a 100 year old map. I come from the time of AIM and chat rooms, this shouldn’t be so hard?!
Anyway - I survived a road trip from South Carolina to Nebraska with three kids and a husband last week and am pleased to report all who went made it back 😂 though it was definitely questionable there for a bit. Two days in a car is just not anything I recommend as “a good time.”
I have typed and erased a million things because I am so rusty on interacting with humans that I don’t even know how to interject into an online community, so I will just wish everyone a successful Thursday tomorrow and see you Friday!
Is there a form to fill out for the contact sheet, or can I just add myself? I need friends, please. :)
Story time: I am not a plant person. However, I have a begonia that was gifted to me by a client. It thrived for many months via benign neglect, then I almost killed it on three separate occasions (twice by freeze/forgetting to bring it in, once because my dog ate it after having ignored it for weeks). After much patient instruction by my mother, I nursed it back to health and it was thriving. Beautiful. Luxurious, even. Then, last night, I forgot to put it back up on the porch and even though they have not touched it for many months, the deer ATE IT. I am so mad about it. The stalks are still green and there are a few leaves left intact, so I think it will be ok, but I have hate in my heart for the deer population of central Texas.
I really feel like Garth would appreciate both that video and actually being covered by the Killers, which is the main thing. Did anyone else watch the Kennedy Center Honors, or am I the only old person here? If you've ever watched Garth Brooks on anything, you know he's a crier and everyone's biggest fan, so the whole thing was very sweet. I always make an effort to watch it every year, and I have no idea why.
I attended my first baby birthday party last weekend, and it was a perfect Saturday. I spent the day on the river with good friends and plenty of food. My swimsuit from three years ago somehow still fits (I don't understand this, but find it best not to ask too many questions). I apparently need to go swimming more because the thought occurred to me on my way home that my back didn't hurt for once. No residual effect, but I'm still feeling the consequences of the Great Porch Incident so any relief is welcome.
First week single after 8 years is over. That's what I can say about that. I will say God provided with housesitting (so I have to get out of my apt and take care of the dog) as well as meeting a single woman at church who has introduced me to like 10 others. I am also starting the dreaded job search in another city so prayers for WIDE OPEN DOORS. There is definitely grief of thinking of starting over by myself at my age when all I've wanted my whole life was marraige/children. Good vibes and prayers for the waves of grief and loneliness wash over me but I will be going home for family vacation in a week so just have to hold it together a little longer!
Y’all. I’ve been radio silent, but I’m back and better than ever. This last month has been the best! I figured out where I’m going to college. I’m working at a summer camp as a nanny to the permanent staff! I’m in counseling and on medication for my mental illnesses! I’m legitimately thriving and it’s the most thrilling thing. I have so many new friends! We can actually have deep and honest conversations without panicking that the other one will run away. We’ve dug into trauma and mental illness and medical issues together. It’s the most beautiful community. My family is still chaotic, but I’m growing even in the midst of that. God is so good and it’s thrilling.
Greetings all! This has been a long week but it was full of happy surprises to which I give God the good credit he deserves for them. Also, for being a crazy busy week at work I got to rest in the evenings because for the first time in months there were not any events/church/errands to take care of at the end of the day!
I am moving in July to a new apartment, same Nashville, but I am so looking forward to a fresh start after moving here during the pandemic year. What is fun in the Bellevue area? What is the Loveless Café? These are things I need to get to the bottom of starting in August. :)
Also, I have a solo camping trip coming up next weekend and I need to make sure my tent is ready this week...so that's at the top of my weekend to do list! Hope everyone has a restful weekend!
Well Erin, I wish you could have been at our wedding because we FOR SURE had early 2000s line dances at the reception. No towers of fruit, but there was prime rib and way too much delicious cake?
And on that note, I'm officially married (two weeks tomorrow)!💃🤩 The Boy and I had a wonderful and beautiful wedding day, but it ended up being a bittersweet weekend because his mom passed away the day after the wedding. 😔💔
It went like this: she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in April. Despite that diagnosis, they were starting aggressive treatment and, though a terminal diagnosis, she potentially had a couple years left. Then just a few weeks later, she got Covid (and pneumonia). The cancer had already spread to her lungs, so that was...not good. She seemed to be recovering, but still was having lots of breathing issues after a month. The weekend before the wedding, they decided to put her on a ventilator to give her lungs a break. She never came off of it. She declined extremely quickly in that last week, entered complete organ failure, and we were told she'd never have a chance to come off the vent. We debated postponing the wedding, but ultimately decided that's not what she would have wanted. After a lot of debate, grief, and family drama surrounding Michael being the legal decision-maker, the day after the wedding, the decision was made to withdraw care.
We are heartbroken. Sad. Confused. But, we've also felt God's peace surrounding us since the decision was made. And in the midst of the sorrow and grief, we had a beautiful, fun, joyous, celebratory wedding. My brother-in-law was able to call in to her nurse during the ceremony and narrate the whole thing on speaker phone. They had lowered her sedation just enough that she'd be able to hear. Michael and I were able to go see her that night right after the reception, and the entire ICU team at the hospital had decorated her room for us, left us a card, and made it as special as they could. We chose to let that visit be our last with her, rather than being there when they withdrew her care and she took her last breath. The nurse who was with her holding the phone during the ceremony left us a long note and said it was the most meaningful shift he's ever worked and it would stick with him his whole career. The whole weekend was truly the definition of holding joy and sorrow at the same time.
We had to cancel our honeymoon, obviously, but both still took the week after off work to deal with both the practical things surrounding death and our grief. It didn't feel like we really got more than a couple of rest days with everything we had to do, but hopefully we'll be able to take a honeymoon soon.
All this to say, I don't know why God would choose to have our wedding anniversary and the anniversary of her death be a day apart, but we know he is bigger than it all. He has given us peace in the middle of our grief, he gave us such a wonderful and happy wedding day, and he is still good.
Now, after writing that all out, I'm going to wipe the tears from my face and get back to work somehow. One of my best friends is getting married tonight, so we have another fun wedding to look forward to tonight.
Happy Friday, friends!
Hi All! The best thing that happened to me this week is this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CQLeGOvH1YP/?utm_medium=copy_link
I do not normally have this kind of luck but that wagon full of puppies passed right by me when I was at the park!
My dog won't even stand up when I ask him to but this dog can do this:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CPDoVvhBYoy/?utm_medium=copy_link
48 hours after the new PM of Israel got into office he started hammering Gaza. What sort of ceasefire is that?
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQMJuYZDnWY/?utm_medium=copy_link
I started Barre this week again and after a year and a half of not going due to the pandemic it's been hard. It never got easier when I was doing it consistently and I'm going now, it's hard, I can barely do the workout and my pain is horrible (chronic pain + doing Barre after a year isn't fun). I'm hoping I can stick it out but let me reiterate, it horrible rn. I'd like to wait Barre for just plain old bar 🍺🍻 ATM.
Summer is here and the kids are back to fighting. One kid insisted another choked her, the other insisted she bit her. Under investigation, neither of these things happened? How do you get it wrong when you say someone bit you? It's a very specific action. Sigh. I have them separated now and I'm taking a breather in the bedroom and writing this because I'm an asshole when I'm angry. It's very hard for me to walk away because I just want to punish everyoneband take away fun things. But I'm working on being calmer when I speak to the kids about their behavior. I try to remember that the kids who are most difficult need the most love and care and I can't provide that when I'm angry.
Question: Why does summer feel like it's almost over?
Another Question: I'm looking for new healthy snacks. I've been loving the wasabi flavored seaweed chips from Trader Joe's, but I can't eat those every day. Any other ideas? I am leaning hard on snacking lately as a coping mechanism but I do not love the idea of going up a pant size (again).
Have a great week guys! I appreciate you!
Happy Friday everyone!
Our trip to Williamsburg was awesome - we ate so much good food, and the weather was great & actually not unbearably hot. I also found a new sweatshirt to replace my old, falling apart sweatshirt, & I now wear it constantly. :)
I feel like we're getting into more of a summer groove this week. My least favorite part of being a 1 is how hard it can be for me to relax and enjoy time with the kids instead of looking at it as time I could be getting things done. But we're reading our way through Harry Potter and the Redwall series, and watching the heck out of Darkwing Duck on Disney+.
They don't know it, but we're going on our first whole-family vacation in two weeks to Lake Champlain in upstate NY. (Yes, we're definitely those people going post-pandemic vacation crazy!) I need to start packing now to make sure I don't end up with only two pairs of underwear for three days, like what happened last weekend! ha ha
Hi friends! Happy friday!
First off, I MADE IT! It is the last day of school with students. My classroom is almost 50% packed up. The army crawl to the finish line is almost over!
✨I've been in deep in an end of the school year haze, but I did manage to see this on instagram this morning and it made me tear up: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQQhe7ilmCt/?utm_medium=copy_link
I hope you all have the best weekend available to you 💜
1) I LOVED Catlick. If you come for a walking tour, I'm in too!
2) lil treasure this week: my husband and I are super fans of the avett brothers and we ran into Joe Kwon at a restaurant and he was soooo nice!!
3) also it's my birthday today!
Hi friends!
I missed you last week when I was away celebrating my nephew's graduation and engagement. Hope you're all well!
That exfoliating tweet hit a bit too close to home for me, I once used a sugar scrub that was so coarse it left me with bleeding scratches on my legs 😬 (I have since learned to treat my skin with a bit more respect!)
On Tuesday I got to see a friend and meet her two-month-old baby for the first time. She seemed to like me 😉
My niece is 13 and very critical of well, everything, but when my sister told her she's becoming more and more like me she'd apparently replied "Hm, I don't mind that" which is probably the greatest compliment I've ever received.
The sinus infections and bronchitis I've been having pretty much constantly since October 2017 seem to finally have loosened their grip on me. Or at least taken a break. Y'all, breathing is amazing and I don't think I'll take it for granted ever again 🤗
Have an amazing weekend everyone! ❤
Good morning and happy Friday!
Our family is in the midst of moving mayhem so we can list our house by next week and hopefully get started on finding the new one in our new (old) city. My kids are stressed and confused and y’all, packing is hard when I can’t even keep our day-to-day stuff picked up. MIL is taking the kids today, so hopefully we’ll get some stuff done! Pictures tomorrow afternoon. 😳 I keep getting overwhelmed and then hear Kendra Adachi telling me to “live in the season”. I am trying!
Good morning Swipes!
I feel the wedding tweet to my core. My husband and I love dancing on the dance floor together at weddings! However, I’m still grieving the last wedding we went to.
*Trigger Warning: sexual harassment.*
My brother-in-law continually sexually harassed me at his sister’s wedding last month. For example: they asked us to explain the IVF process we are going through this summer and he proceeded to tell me, “Just let me have a crack at you tonight and I’ll get you pregnant immediately.”
My Husband and I have been praying how to tell my sister-in-law all this. They are newlyweds (covid wedding last year). So if you could pray for that hard family situation. My people pleasing side hates confrontation but, as a woman, I will not stay silent. If this dude has the guts to say multiple inappropriate things to me and I’m his new family, what things does he say casually to female co-workers?
Thank you for letting me share that and finally getting it off my chest to someone aside from my husband and therapist. ❤️
Virtual Hugs to you all.
Happy Friday!
Turd of the week: I'm 35 weeks preggo in the hot, hot Kansas summer, and my blood pressure and protein levels have started creeping up, which is not great when you have a history of preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, and are pregnant over 40. If you are the praying type, would you pray things would regulate and this babe would stay healthy (and put) for a few more weeks? As much as I would love to not be pregnant in this heat anymore, we had to stay in the NICU with our second when he was born at 37 weeks and I would not like to repeat that. Also, I still am not 100p sure about a name and we don't have a crib yet...so...there's that...
Treasures:
- We got a new backyard pool that has been the delight of this pregnant body. The water is cold, my kids wear themselves out, and yesterday I sat in it while reading a book. I will be there every afternoon until this baby boy is born, pretty much.
- Twitter: good grief, so many gems this week. My favorite was Beth Moore using the word "Cheugy" in reply to one of Tyler Huckabee's tweets; I, too, almost spit out my coffee:
https://twitter.com/BethMooreLPM/status/1404789392498114561
- I am finally reading Inspired by Rachel Held Evans as this month's non-fiction book and, wow, I am so sad that I haven't read anything by her before now.
- My library had way too many good books available yesterday, and I went a little crazy. I am currently reading Much Ado About You, and it is the perfect summer romance...because it is set in England and makes me not feel so hot in the Kansas sun! The premise is a delight - Chicagoan decides to book a VRBO in England that includes running a bookshop for a month. I'm like, Do those really exist???? Sign me up!
- The Holy Post Podcast episode this week was delightful. Phil Vischer addressed the article that Tyler Huckabee wrote about VeggieTales (thanks to Erin for RT this: https://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/never-forget-that-veggietales-werent-allowed-to-show-jesus-as-a-vegetable/) and it was just a good chuckle.
- Kristen Du Mez's article about the SBC meetings: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2021/06/a-sinking-ship-or-weathering-the-storm-sbc21-in-17-tweets/ I learned a lot about the meeting, but also these maps from Andrew Whitehead really helped me understand religion/denominations in the US a little better: https://twitter.com/ndrewwhitehead/status/1404482813177602048 https://twitter.com/ndrewwhitehead/status/1404485914177556480
- Loki. So far, it is my favorite of the Marvel shows. Owen Wilson 4Evah.
Alright, hope you all stay cool this weekend. I'm excited that next week, the high is 78 one day instead of 102 (fist pump!).
Happy Friday Lil Swipes! Not much going on over here, just a humdrum kind of week, which means no real big joys, but also, no huge meltdowns, so I'll take it!
Treasures (in the midst of blah):
- We finally put up a playset in our yard, and even though it's only been there a few days, the yard already feels SO MUCH BETTER. And, as my middle said, now we never need to go to a park again!
- A nasty cold swept through our family last week and went into this week, which meant my son and I had to reschedule our trip to CA to visit my brother (hooray for late July!), but it also meant that all my kids had GREAT sleep. Kind of sad that it took a cold to get them down, but there you go. Everyone was drippy, but actually pleasant to each other.
- We put burrata on naan, grilled it, threw on some garden-fresh basil, and made THE most delicious (and wildly easy) pizza. I think we are going to grill a LOT this summer, and naan pizza may be my favorite right now. So many combinations! So many toppings! SO EASY!
Ok friends, that's all I've got. Some kids are still recovering over here, so we'll continue all the easy stuff, with lots of movies thrown in. ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!