Getting in on this one late again but Friday was filled with getting ready for our Spring Break trip. At this moment, I am sitting in a hotel bed in Atlanta but by this evening, we’ll be in Orlando at Universal Studios, staying at Dockside Inn. We’re so excited to take our 17, 14 and 10 year old kids there! We all love Harry Potter so are looking forward to that though I am a but nervous about doing some of the rides. I get motion sick. I can typically still do roller coasters but spinning and simulated things can get me good. I plan on taking Bonine and wearing Seabands but also know that I’ll enjoy just being there even if I don’t think I should ride something based on what I’ve read about it. If anyone has any suggestions on good food in the parks or around, I’d love to have them!
Then on the end of the trip as we head home, I’ll be meeting up with some good friends and heading to Birmingham for The Popcast Live Show! It’s a lot of travel all at one time but super excited to attend.
Checking in late tonight. I am 1.5 weeks out from a job change and am getting so very excited! Also sort of running out of steam in the current job so trying to make my way through.
🕯 I don’t know why 2 years into this thing, I just realized what a delight it was to have candles lit in my home office while I worked, but it’s been so pleasant! (Yes I know candles are terrible for your lungs but let me live!) I’ve snagged a great one at Target (based on birth stones, the June Pearl scent was SO good), and got one at Marshall’s today called White Flowers that smells just like gardenias.
🧖♀️ I learned about this site called Haldi that you input info about your skin and things you currently use, and they help you build a skincare routine! They leverage products you already have and recommend some new suggestions based on your budget and skin type. I tried it out a few months ago and LOVE some of the recommendations from them (they suggested a face oil that is DIVINE and the moisturizer has been a perfect fit for me). Free link to take their quiz is here : https://haldi.com/?referredBy=laurenheathfriends
No pressure to buy, but full disclosure, I get $20 off my next order if you do the quiz! I think it’s worth doing the quiz just to know what order to use your current products in - that’s been a huge help to me!
📺 I’m off to try to power through Inventing Anna so I can binge Bad Vegan later this weekend! I’ve been in a reading slump this year (so unusual for me), but I’m leaning into podcasts and TV until the right book finds me.
I moved into my new house last weekend! I am still packing/cleaning the trailer and have once again overestimated how much I can reasonably do in a short amount of time, but the first few nights back in my own bed after 8 months have been so good. I was worried about how my dog would cope after the Great Christmas Fiasco, but she has done just fine. The downside is that there is next to no storage, which after living in a house that was absolutely lousy with storage is proving problematic, but we soldier on.
Letters of Note has been around in the form of a delightful blog for many years (now on Substack, apparently) and has also done some live shows. There are lots of clips plus a couple of full-length videos on YouTube.
So, we never made it to New York last week for the half marathon. After they said we could 1) rent a car, 2) drive to Huntsville from Birmingham, 3) potentially get a hotel, 4) leave at 5:30am, 5) fly through DC, 6) be standby on the flight from DC to JFK, 7) still not get in until mid-afternoon on Saturday...we just called it. Ended up being stubborn and running a half marathon on my own in town. Very grateful for my sweet Husband for running half of it with me and my BFF who chased me down to have her and her little cheer me on from their car. Friends are good, y'all.
Some treasures this week have been in the opportunities to do some interviews and focus group for a project I'm working on around the gender wage gap in Alabama. Talking to all different women about their stories and their successes and failures. Why being a woman and a mother are assets to businesses and the economy. About knowing your value and asking for it. I am fired up!
-Chiropractic and Acupuncture visits which have helped SO much with my chronic pain. I've been dealing with one of the worst flare ups for the past two months and my doctor is kind of at the point where she doesn't know what else to do for me. We have a great integrative medicine practice in my town so I made a few appointments and I'm so glad I did. I'm struggling with the financial aspect of the treatments - not covered by insurance and not cheap - but it's definitely worth it to feel like a person again.
-I had an informational meeting with a professor from that PhD program I was looking into and I am very excited to start the next chapter of my academic career. The program is so flexible and there's a possibility of getting an assistantship placement that would cover my tuition and provide a (small) stipend. I have to take the GRE which will be a bit of a hurdle, but I'm just making myself use positive thinking on that front.
-Finally getting caught up on my homework!!!!! And getting to watch Yellowjackets with a friend now that I have time.
-I'm reorganizing my study and adding more plants and some twinkle lights in an effort to make it cozy AF in hopes I will want to be in there more and so far it's working
-I finally got a chance to do a post for the substack I started months ago!! It's a quick list of picture book biographies for Women's History month: https://talesfromabibliophile.substack.com/
HAPPIEST BIRTHDAY ERIN!!! I hope nobody sings to you in public. I am one of those strange people who loves it when that happens to me because my enneagram 3 wing just adores being the center of attention. Yes, restaurant people, do look and clap and celebrate me as I enjoy my free birthday treat. I am the main character and you’re welcome for blessing your lives with my presence 😂
*please still like me you guys*
I also IMMEDIATELY bought Letters of Note: Mothers with my audible credit because I love these sorts of things and need good books to listen to as I’m feeding my newborn daughter at 2am. If anyone else has book recs please list them! I love young adult fiction, big fan of dystopian stories, and some of my absolute FAVORITE books are:
✨The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab
✨The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
✨Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness
✨Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima
✨Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
Check those out if you wish. Please give me book recs if you wish.
My treasure lately has been my previously mentioned newborn daughter. She’s 3 weeks old tomorrow. I longed for her during an infertility journey that lasted 3 years, and she decided to arrive 4 weeks early. Because she was preemie, she struggled with Jaundice and had to spend the first two weeks of her lil life spending every spare moment on her bilibed (a blue light bed that helped her break down the bilirubin in her body)
Now she’s a healthy, happy baby and I get to spend most of my days snuggling her and figuring out how to do things one handed 😂 (I’m learning that that’s pretty much what parenting is. Learning how to what you need with only 1/2 your hands available and on only 1/4 of the sleep your body requires.) Also our rescue pit bull, Dude (who’s full Christian name, I’m happy to tell you, is Deuteronomy Jingleheimer Schmitt) is absolutely in love with her. He’s the sweetest nanny dog who is absolutely convinced we’re raising her wrong. Anytime she fusses or cries he looks at me like, “Why are you letting her cry? What have you done? For the love just give her to me. I’m certain once I lick her face and snuggle her she’ll be fine.” He’s finally learning about personal space boundaries, but he’s not happy about that.
Thanks for being a lovely space on the internet! Can’t wait to read all your comments!!
Happy Birthday Erin!! I think I speak for everyone when I say, we're so glad you were born!
The big news over here is... I'm still pregnant. 🤰🏼 We're at 37 weeks! The penguin waddle is a solid 10, cankles are loving the California Spring sunshine, and y'all I am EXHAUSTED. 😴 Monday they're going to check me and see if we've got any progress and then Wednesday the 6th they're going to try to move things along if baby girl hasn't made her appearance, and we have a plan to induce if she isn't here by her due date (the 14th). All of our growth scans have put this girl on the larger side, so I am pumped for some baby rolls fresh out of the oven.
Anyone else worried that Irish Magician has dubious plans for children? Is it just me giving him side eye? Can we get someone to run a background check on him? Do I have a general mistrust of Magicians? Yes.
Ok, but I always really liked Babylon Bee. Are we not supposed to like it anymore? Feel free to Beesplain me.
Maybe it's the two-year anniversary of The End Of All Things, but everything feels super overwhelming and needlessly complex right now. Like, I just want to read a book after dinner but instead I've got to decide when to have my parents over, plan a birthday party, convince my husband that I need a girls weekend in Taos, and assess what my kids are packing for lunch and why they have suddenly decided to stop eating fruit as well as vegetables.
I've been reading a lot lately about the Health At Every Size movement, which has been so interesting and theoretically liberating. The problem is I still have the old voice in my head telling me I'm a slacker if I don't do something to lose the ten pounds I gained last fall when I switched birth control, and now there's a new voice telling me I'm a tool if I worry about those ten pounds. Changing my attitudes and perceptions around weight and food restriction is a long process, and this week it's just a quagmire. Sigh. Some weeks are like that, even in Australia.
from the 45 year old who's neck decided to rebel on the Tuesday of a vacation week.... Thank you for some treasures while I sit with my heating pad and drink my coffee
two things stand out - honey in coffee sounds DEE-scusting, but the gratefulness thing is noted & indeed super helpful, can confirm
Erin, did an Airbnb wrong you, personally? That tweet made me lol. I have a dream of one day having a tiny house on our property we rent out, and my greatest fear is a spider will get in, or some kind of bug (we live in the woods) & it will ruin someone's day.
Whole30, day 23 (if someone doesn't say they are doing Whole30, are they even doing it?), feeling really great. The sun is finally shining here. Very few daffodils have come up in our yard this year, a sign that the Great Purging of Daffodils of 2020 and 2021 may finally have taken effect (does anyone else really dislike daffodils? just me?). We just planned a Memorial Day camping trip to Lake Champlain, where we had such a good family trip last summer. I have high hopes for this to be the waxxed & vaxxed summer we were all promised.
Diving into the comments; hoping you all have some kind of ray of sunshine this weekend.
Gah! These are great links/tweets videos. I've already shared stuff around and woke up half my friends here on the west coast. As always, thank you Erin.
My week has been spectacularly awful, due to my work environment, where I spend most of my time, so I'm not even going to talk about it. To quote Liz Lemon: "blerg."
But there were good things too:
📚I read the book club book, and then read all about the author and her family 😬 and her bookstore. And that made me think about Annie Jones and her bookstore and Kathleen Kelly and her pretend bookstore. And that made me place an order at my bookstore.
🎬 I'm trying to watch some of the Netflix movies that I've never seen that are going away before the end of the month. (And before i cancel my membership bc they were so dumb about Babysitters). This week it was Philomena. Judy Dench is just a delight.
💅 My O+J order came and I love TLG! Also their nail strengthener has changed my life. I wish I had enough $ to build O+J gift packs for people. I would do the strengthener, the cuticle oil, the clippers and a polish.
🏡 I don't have any money because our offer was accepted, all contingencies removed, and we close on our house on 4/7. I could cry. But I am too tired. The house we are in now has been a House of Sadness. It is a long story, but so many awful things happened while we lived here, and this house itself was not a refuge. The neighborhood is loud and stressful and chaotic. This new house in a super boring suburb actually feels like a place we can heal a bit. Quiet. There is a garden and a screened in patio. Trees. Friendly neighbors have already greeted us. So the first thing on my gratitude list is for this new house that I pray will be a home.
I've officially named this week "migraine week". It's been awful and today is only marginally better so I'm honestly feeling kind of pitiful and useless at the moment. I'd gladly spend my weekend lying in a dark room, maybe watching season 2 of Bridgerton, but tomorrow is my parents' 50th wedding anniversary and my niece's birthday party is Sunday. I really want to be there and celebrate with them but I don't know if I'll be able to. 😟 Ts and Ps and good vibes are appreciated!
That's it from me this week, see you in the comments! 🧡
Those Tik Toks had me rolling, and that sweet Irish magician 😭😭😭 Thank-you for this wonderful round up, Erin.
Guys, it has been quite the two weeks. Between everyone’s allergies kicking in, two kiddos waking up in the middle of the night, sick husband, I feel worn down. I finally got a good night of sleep this week and feel like a new woman. I am back in the phase of “will I ever sleep again???” and while I know the answer is “yes” the emotions I feel in the sleepless moments are real and sometimes overwhelming.
Regarding gratitude: this has been really helpful as I navigate lack of sleep. Tip: if you have kids, ask them what they are thankful for regularly. Not only does it get my kids into the habit, but it also gives me perspective when I am feeling like there is nothing to be thankful for. Their simple answers like “dinner”, “our house”, “the weather” remind me there is always something to be thankful for, not matter how small.
Okay, onto treasures I have been thankful for:
🎵: The Chilled Classical Covers playlist on Spotify allows me to listen and sing along to some of my favorite hits without worrying about my kids hearing anything questionable 😆
Guys. My anxiety about peeing in the wild is completely gone.
🫖: With all the allergies and sore throats, tea has been my favorite afternoon treat. Yesterday my big boys asked for some, and I obliged and gave them tea biscuits to go with the tea. Look, if all I do is give my boys a love of the library, reading, and having high tea, I will feel pretty good as a mom.
📖: Between Erin’s Lent study and my church’s lent study, I’ve been reading a lot of Psalms. My new (to me) favorite thing is to use the YouVersion app and have the Psalm read to me. Another favorite thing is this local duo who are putting all the Psalms to music and releasing one a week. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Bywk7V8eOM4KlPoqqP2Co?si=dKIk50dKQTGZzyM0y7kH_Q
Okay, gotta go. Cranky baby needs a nap. And so does the baby. 🤪😂 Love you all.
P.S. Will any Swipes be at the Dallas live show and want to meet up???
Erin, Happy Birthday week! You are a gift to all of us and I hope you feel so loved and celebrated (and that your day includes something Zac Efron related). You’ve made an impact on my life and speaking of gratitude, I’m so grateful for you!
Gratefulness is exactly what I needed to read and add to my life today. I need a reset.
Friends, it’s been a WEEK. I’ve moved into an apt in November and over the past month, it’s become more apparent that I can’t stay there. The landlords just don’t care, it’s not in the best shape (though I was assured that it would be fixed up) and I genuinely don’t feel safe. I’m so discouraged bc I just wanted to find a place and settle in and having to pack and move/convince my landlords that they need to let me out of my lease is making me so sad/annoyed/blah. I know it’ll be okay, it’s just been a hard few days.
The treasures in my week have been the beautiful, spring weather gracing the northeast, sweatpants from Target (joylab brand) and seeing Death on the Nile with a friend(it was SO GOOD).
Getting in on this one late again but Friday was filled with getting ready for our Spring Break trip. At this moment, I am sitting in a hotel bed in Atlanta but by this evening, we’ll be in Orlando at Universal Studios, staying at Dockside Inn. We’re so excited to take our 17, 14 and 10 year old kids there! We all love Harry Potter so are looking forward to that though I am a but nervous about doing some of the rides. I get motion sick. I can typically still do roller coasters but spinning and simulated things can get me good. I plan on taking Bonine and wearing Seabands but also know that I’ll enjoy just being there even if I don’t think I should ride something based on what I’ve read about it. If anyone has any suggestions on good food in the parks or around, I’d love to have them!
Then on the end of the trip as we head home, I’ll be meeting up with some good friends and heading to Birmingham for The Popcast Live Show! It’s a lot of travel all at one time but super excited to attend.
Hello friends!
Checking in late tonight. I am 1.5 weeks out from a job change and am getting so very excited! Also sort of running out of steam in the current job so trying to make my way through.
🕯 I don’t know why 2 years into this thing, I just realized what a delight it was to have candles lit in my home office while I worked, but it’s been so pleasant! (Yes I know candles are terrible for your lungs but let me live!) I’ve snagged a great one at Target (based on birth stones, the June Pearl scent was SO good), and got one at Marshall’s today called White Flowers that smells just like gardenias.
🧖♀️ I learned about this site called Haldi that you input info about your skin and things you currently use, and they help you build a skincare routine! They leverage products you already have and recommend some new suggestions based on your budget and skin type. I tried it out a few months ago and LOVE some of the recommendations from them (they suggested a face oil that is DIVINE and the moisturizer has been a perfect fit for me). Free link to take their quiz is here : https://haldi.com/?referredBy=laurenheathfriends
No pressure to buy, but full disclosure, I get $20 off my next order if you do the quiz! I think it’s worth doing the quiz just to know what order to use your current products in - that’s been a huge help to me!
📺 I’m off to try to power through Inventing Anna so I can binge Bad Vegan later this weekend! I’ve been in a reading slump this year (so unusual for me), but I’m leaning into podcasts and TV until the right book finds me.
Happy weekend!
I moved into my new house last weekend! I am still packing/cleaning the trailer and have once again overestimated how much I can reasonably do in a short amount of time, but the first few nights back in my own bed after 8 months have been so good. I was worried about how my dog would cope after the Great Christmas Fiasco, but she has done just fine. The downside is that there is next to no storage, which after living in a house that was absolutely lousy with storage is proving problematic, but we soldier on.
Letters of Note has been around in the form of a delightful blog for many years (now on Substack, apparently) and has also done some live shows. There are lots of clips plus a couple of full-length videos on YouTube.
So, we never made it to New York last week for the half marathon. After they said we could 1) rent a car, 2) drive to Huntsville from Birmingham, 3) potentially get a hotel, 4) leave at 5:30am, 5) fly through DC, 6) be standby on the flight from DC to JFK, 7) still not get in until mid-afternoon on Saturday...we just called it. Ended up being stubborn and running a half marathon on my own in town. Very grateful for my sweet Husband for running half of it with me and my BFF who chased me down to have her and her little cheer me on from their car. Friends are good, y'all.
Some treasures this week have been in the opportunities to do some interviews and focus group for a project I'm working on around the gender wage gap in Alabama. Talking to all different women about their stories and their successes and failures. Why being a woman and a mother are assets to businesses and the economy. About knowing your value and asking for it. I am fired up!
Hi, hi friends! Happy Friday!
A few treasures from this week:
-Chiropractic and Acupuncture visits which have helped SO much with my chronic pain. I've been dealing with one of the worst flare ups for the past two months and my doctor is kind of at the point where she doesn't know what else to do for me. We have a great integrative medicine practice in my town so I made a few appointments and I'm so glad I did. I'm struggling with the financial aspect of the treatments - not covered by insurance and not cheap - but it's definitely worth it to feel like a person again.
-I had an informational meeting with a professor from that PhD program I was looking into and I am very excited to start the next chapter of my academic career. The program is so flexible and there's a possibility of getting an assistantship placement that would cover my tuition and provide a (small) stipend. I have to take the GRE which will be a bit of a hurdle, but I'm just making myself use positive thinking on that front.
-Finally getting caught up on my homework!!!!! And getting to watch Yellowjackets with a friend now that I have time.
-I'm reorganizing my study and adding more plants and some twinkle lights in an effort to make it cozy AF in hopes I will want to be in there more and so far it's working
-I finally got a chance to do a post for the substack I started months ago!! It's a quick list of picture book biographies for Women's History month: https://talesfromabibliophile.substack.com/
Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!
HAPPIEST BIRTHDAY ERIN!!! I hope nobody sings to you in public. I am one of those strange people who loves it when that happens to me because my enneagram 3 wing just adores being the center of attention. Yes, restaurant people, do look and clap and celebrate me as I enjoy my free birthday treat. I am the main character and you’re welcome for blessing your lives with my presence 😂
*please still like me you guys*
I also IMMEDIATELY bought Letters of Note: Mothers with my audible credit because I love these sorts of things and need good books to listen to as I’m feeding my newborn daughter at 2am. If anyone else has book recs please list them! I love young adult fiction, big fan of dystopian stories, and some of my absolute FAVORITE books are:
✨The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab
✨The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
✨Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness
✨Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima
✨Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
Check those out if you wish. Please give me book recs if you wish.
My treasure lately has been my previously mentioned newborn daughter. She’s 3 weeks old tomorrow. I longed for her during an infertility journey that lasted 3 years, and she decided to arrive 4 weeks early. Because she was preemie, she struggled with Jaundice and had to spend the first two weeks of her lil life spending every spare moment on her bilibed (a blue light bed that helped her break down the bilirubin in her body)
Now she’s a healthy, happy baby and I get to spend most of my days snuggling her and figuring out how to do things one handed 😂 (I’m learning that that’s pretty much what parenting is. Learning how to what you need with only 1/2 your hands available and on only 1/4 of the sleep your body requires.) Also our rescue pit bull, Dude (who’s full Christian name, I’m happy to tell you, is Deuteronomy Jingleheimer Schmitt) is absolutely in love with her. He’s the sweetest nanny dog who is absolutely convinced we’re raising her wrong. Anytime she fusses or cries he looks at me like, “Why are you letting her cry? What have you done? For the love just give her to me. I’m certain once I lick her face and snuggle her she’ll be fine.” He’s finally learning about personal space boundaries, but he’s not happy about that.
Thanks for being a lovely space on the internet! Can’t wait to read all your comments!!
Hi friends!
Happy Birthday Erin!! I think I speak for everyone when I say, we're so glad you were born!
The big news over here is... I'm still pregnant. 🤰🏼 We're at 37 weeks! The penguin waddle is a solid 10, cankles are loving the California Spring sunshine, and y'all I am EXHAUSTED. 😴 Monday they're going to check me and see if we've got any progress and then Wednesday the 6th they're going to try to move things along if baby girl hasn't made her appearance, and we have a plan to induce if she isn't here by her due date (the 14th). All of our growth scans have put this girl on the larger side, so I am pumped for some baby rolls fresh out of the oven.
Can't wait to see what you guys are up to!
As a fellow lenter this lil treasures is all I know of the outside world.
Anyone else worried that Irish Magician has dubious plans for children? Is it just me giving him side eye? Can we get someone to run a background check on him? Do I have a general mistrust of Magicians? Yes.
For those of you wondering... Yes, I am a 6.
Ok, but I always really liked Babylon Bee. Are we not supposed to like it anymore? Feel free to Beesplain me.
Maybe it's the two-year anniversary of The End Of All Things, but everything feels super overwhelming and needlessly complex right now. Like, I just want to read a book after dinner but instead I've got to decide when to have my parents over, plan a birthday party, convince my husband that I need a girls weekend in Taos, and assess what my kids are packing for lunch and why they have suddenly decided to stop eating fruit as well as vegetables.
I've been reading a lot lately about the Health At Every Size movement, which has been so interesting and theoretically liberating. The problem is I still have the old voice in my head telling me I'm a slacker if I don't do something to lose the ten pounds I gained last fall when I switched birth control, and now there's a new voice telling me I'm a tool if I worry about those ten pounds. Changing my attitudes and perceptions around weight and food restriction is a long process, and this week it's just a quagmire. Sigh. Some weeks are like that, even in Australia.
from the 45 year old who's neck decided to rebel on the Tuesday of a vacation week.... Thank you for some treasures while I sit with my heating pad and drink my coffee
two things stand out - honey in coffee sounds DEE-scusting, but the gratefulness thing is noted & indeed super helpful, can confirm
Erin, did an Airbnb wrong you, personally? That tweet made me lol. I have a dream of one day having a tiny house on our property we rent out, and my greatest fear is a spider will get in, or some kind of bug (we live in the woods) & it will ruin someone's day.
Whole30, day 23 (if someone doesn't say they are doing Whole30, are they even doing it?), feeling really great. The sun is finally shining here. Very few daffodils have come up in our yard this year, a sign that the Great Purging of Daffodils of 2020 and 2021 may finally have taken effect (does anyone else really dislike daffodils? just me?). We just planned a Memorial Day camping trip to Lake Champlain, where we had such a good family trip last summer. I have high hopes for this to be the waxxed & vaxxed summer we were all promised.
Diving into the comments; hoping you all have some kind of ray of sunshine this weekend.
Gah! These are great links/tweets videos. I've already shared stuff around and woke up half my friends here on the west coast. As always, thank you Erin.
My week has been spectacularly awful, due to my work environment, where I spend most of my time, so I'm not even going to talk about it. To quote Liz Lemon: "blerg."
But there were good things too:
📚I read the book club book, and then read all about the author and her family 😬 and her bookstore. And that made me think about Annie Jones and her bookstore and Kathleen Kelly and her pretend bookstore. And that made me place an order at my bookstore.
🎬 I'm trying to watch some of the Netflix movies that I've never seen that are going away before the end of the month. (And before i cancel my membership bc they were so dumb about Babysitters). This week it was Philomena. Judy Dench is just a delight.
💅 My O+J order came and I love TLG! Also their nail strengthener has changed my life. I wish I had enough $ to build O+J gift packs for people. I would do the strengthener, the cuticle oil, the clippers and a polish.
🏡 I don't have any money because our offer was accepted, all contingencies removed, and we close on our house on 4/7. I could cry. But I am too tired. The house we are in now has been a House of Sadness. It is a long story, but so many awful things happened while we lived here, and this house itself was not a refuge. The neighborhood is loud and stressful and chaotic. This new house in a super boring suburb actually feels like a place we can heal a bit. Quiet. There is a garden and a screened in patio. Trees. Friendly neighbors have already greeted us. So the first thing on my gratitude list is for this new house that I pray will be a home.
Looking forward to catching up in the comments!
Happy birthday Erin!!! 🎉🎂🎁
I've officially named this week "migraine week". It's been awful and today is only marginally better so I'm honestly feeling kind of pitiful and useless at the moment. I'd gladly spend my weekend lying in a dark room, maybe watching season 2 of Bridgerton, but tomorrow is my parents' 50th wedding anniversary and my niece's birthday party is Sunday. I really want to be there and celebrate with them but I don't know if I'll be able to. 😟 Ts and Ps and good vibes are appreciated!
That's it from me this week, see you in the comments! 🧡
Those Tik Toks had me rolling, and that sweet Irish magician 😭😭😭 Thank-you for this wonderful round up, Erin.
Guys, it has been quite the two weeks. Between everyone’s allergies kicking in, two kiddos waking up in the middle of the night, sick husband, I feel worn down. I finally got a good night of sleep this week and feel like a new woman. I am back in the phase of “will I ever sleep again???” and while I know the answer is “yes” the emotions I feel in the sleepless moments are real and sometimes overwhelming.
Regarding gratitude: this has been really helpful as I navigate lack of sleep. Tip: if you have kids, ask them what they are thankful for regularly. Not only does it get my kids into the habit, but it also gives me perspective when I am feeling like there is nothing to be thankful for. Their simple answers like “dinner”, “our house”, “the weather” remind me there is always something to be thankful for, not matter how small.
Okay, onto treasures I have been thankful for:
🎵: The Chilled Classical Covers playlist on Spotify allows me to listen and sing along to some of my favorite hits without worrying about my kids hearing anything questionable 😆
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX21hEmly67Fg?si=nFo4mE5IR3akRwREJfG6uA
🚽: This treasure might be TMI, but here we are. My husband and I are going on an epic Grand Canyon glamping adventure with his company, and I was silently freaking out about peeing in the wild. Then I found this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KRH27KL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_4XGVZ65CYZ1WZ0C8XVV3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Guys. My anxiety about peeing in the wild is completely gone.
🫖: With all the allergies and sore throats, tea has been my favorite afternoon treat. Yesterday my big boys asked for some, and I obliged and gave them tea biscuits to go with the tea. Look, if all I do is give my boys a love of the library, reading, and having high tea, I will feel pretty good as a mom.
📖: Between Erin’s Lent study and my church’s lent study, I’ve been reading a lot of Psalms. My new (to me) favorite thing is to use the YouVersion app and have the Psalm read to me. Another favorite thing is this local duo who are putting all the Psalms to music and releasing one a week. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Bywk7V8eOM4KlPoqqP2Co?si=dKIk50dKQTGZzyM0y7kH_Q
Okay, gotta go. Cranky baby needs a nap. And so does the baby. 🤪😂 Love you all.
P.S. Will any Swipes be at the Dallas live show and want to meet up???
Erin, Happy Birthday week! You are a gift to all of us and I hope you feel so loved and celebrated (and that your day includes something Zac Efron related). You’ve made an impact on my life and speaking of gratitude, I’m so grateful for you!
Gratefulness is exactly what I needed to read and add to my life today. I need a reset.
Friends, it’s been a WEEK. I’ve moved into an apt in November and over the past month, it’s become more apparent that I can’t stay there. The landlords just don’t care, it’s not in the best shape (though I was assured that it would be fixed up) and I genuinely don’t feel safe. I’m so discouraged bc I just wanted to find a place and settle in and having to pack and move/convince my landlords that they need to let me out of my lease is making me so sad/annoyed/blah. I know it’ll be okay, it’s just been a hard few days.
The treasures in my week have been the beautiful, spring weather gracing the northeast, sweatpants from Target (joylab brand) and seeing Death on the Nile with a friend(it was SO GOOD).