🏆 Lil Treasures #65: It Was Hard, But We Did It
There's a movie about youth camp, clementine margaritas, and freelance hotness.
Some snippets from my week:
My grandmother got the vaccine this week. She wasn’t going to take it because she has a history of allergic reactions to shots, but her doctor convinced her and she got wheeled into a line with some other seniors and ten minutes later was inoculated. I cried, thinking about the culmination of years of medical school, line assembly machinery, and God’s common grace that it took to get this into her arm and into her veins. I remember when all of this started and she called to check-in, telling me about how she was one of the nurses who administered the polio vaccine, what a relief it was when it became available. She told me: “it was hard, but we did it.” Look how cute she is (that’s her in (what else?) the glasses:
I know we’re not done with this pandemic, but this was a win to celebrate for me. Now I need Alabama to get its act together.
I got to spend a lovely hour with the Faith Adjacent Book Club this week talking about one of my very favorite books, Inspired by Rachel Held Evans. Reading the book leading up to the livestream and discussing it with those beautiful folks was like drinking a perfect wine on the back deck with friends, a delight to share something so beautiful with such curious and thoughtful people. If you were there, you gave me such a gift. Thank you. Something we talked about was how when you start to take ownership of your faith, whether that’s through deconstruction or untangling or just coming into your own, someone will be disappointed in you. Someone will be mad that you ever doubted or questioned, they will think you went too far. And someone will always think you didn’t go far enough. This constant movement of faith is often not tweetable or ‘grammable, they happen in the quiet moments or in the margins. They are not necessarily for public consumption. You will feel behind, you will feel alone, you will feel too far out. You are not. You are not. You are not.
We are 90% fully out of diapers in the Moon household as of this week, and I just want to offer a hymn of praise unto the Lord for He is good.
Shall we promenade to the treasures?
My love language is Geoffrey calling Pauline a “happy bunny.”
🍸 My lovely friend Bri McKoy posted this clementine margarita recipe for those times when you want a margarita, but are tragically out of limes - and my world is changed! Adding this to my to-make list for this weekend.
💀 For those of you participating in the Memento Mori Lent study this year, you should read this fascinating article about how the symbol of “memento mori” has been used in art over the last few centuries.
💆🏻♀️ My hair magician @helloimahairdresser told me about these Kristin Ess color depositing conditioners and I’m currently enjoying my lavender smoke hair (I think I’ve taken out all my pandemic angst on my hair, but it is what it is).
🤝 If you are looking for continued growth in your journey towards anti-racism, Faitth Brooks has a self-guided Ebook journal called Is Your Allyship Conditional? And other questions for white people. You can pre-order it now, and it will be officially available on March 1st!
❤️ I will be the first to admit I know almost nothing about immigration policies and reform. Let me tell you who does: Sarah Quezada. She is an excellent guide, and I’m so grateful for her public work in this area, teaching earnest dummies like myself about how and why we should care about these types of issues. If you’ve been confused by some of the recent news surrounding Biden’s immigration bill, I HIGHLY suggest checking out her story highlights and just following her!
🚶♀️ For my fellow Stupid Walk™ fans, please read this hilarious “letter” from an afternoon walk to you.
☕️ Instagram pushed these Milk Street coffee sugars on me hard. I recently folded like a cheap suit and decided to try them. I got the sampler, and while I like all of them (except the Coconut Ginger Cream, it’s fine just not my fave), I am definitely re-ordering the Burnt Sugar Orange Spice. S’good. I think you could technically zest an orange, get a few drops of vanilla, add some allspice and cinnamon to some sugar and blend it up all nice, if you’re more of a DIYer.
💅🏻 I’m also pretty dadgum obsessed with Olive & June’s new spring colors (specifically Lava and Pink Sands (I’m wearing Lava in the pic above). So much so that we haven’t done a fun giveaway in awhile, so if you share the newsletter today on Instagram (my apologies to those who are giving it up for Lent, I’ll do another one post-Easter!), I’ll pick one person to win a mani or a pedi set (your choice). Just make sure to tag me so I can put your name in the hat!
📚 I’m in the middle of reading about five things: NT Wright’s biography on Paul (👀), The Heiress by Molly Greeley, A Rhythm of Prayer by Sarah Bessey. Okay. That was three. Numbers are hard.
Shall we do some good tweets?
(Side note: @LeahBSassy is a new favorite follow👇)
This comes out the day before my birthday, which I’m taking as proof God loves me and wants me to be happy:
Okay pals. Proud of you for every tiny thing you did this week to take care of yourself and take care of your people. See you in the comments.
The camp musical is the day AFTER my birthday! What a gift! Probably the only one I get, cuz, you know, COVID ☹️
Bless it. It's Saturday now.
I'm up early before my kids for the first time in what feels like weeks. I should be using the time to catch up on the Bible study I'm 6 days behind on, but here I am.
Treasures: 1) My preschoolers went to school this week for the first time all month. The big one ("potty seat boy" for those who remember) had been going in person since Oct. The little one started in Jan. Well, we caught a cold on the first few days of Feb and stayed home for a week, went to visit a friend over valentine's weekend, then found out they had been exposed to the c-virus. So we had to stay home another week and a half. Thankfully they got better pretty quickly and we didn't catch anything, but that was a long 3.5 weeks that we didn't go anywhere or see anyone or have any break from managing preschoolers and their fickle feelings.
2) The littlest preschooler, who is not quite two, has been studying toilet training from her brother. She is picking it up faster than her brother and has had multiple successes, including 💩 and I know this should be in the turd category simply because of its content, but I'm just so proud of her and anticipating the end of diapers being within the next three to six months instead of years down the road.
3) I turned 40 on Thursday! I'm all for getting older and I have embraced my grays and I'm not mournful about any of it, so I'm rather excited to have reached this milestone. We got tacos (like good ones, almost like TX ones), and I got lots of Marco Polo messages and I didn't have to visit my family because we were still coming off the ten day quarantine and didn't make plans. Is that mean?
4) My mom has had her second vaccine, my dad is scheduled for his first on Monday.
5) Potty seat boy turned 4 this week, too, and I made him a terrible ugly cake and slapped a dinosaur on top and he was happy. We went to see the Hot Wheels Drive Thru on Sunday and he was beside himself with awe and excitement. Only bummer to him was that he couldn't actually drive them.
6) This video of typewriters from films set to music (the classical composition The Typewriter) is just mesmerizing. I honestly came here just to share this but got carried away and already finished my whole cup of coffee while composing my treasures and turds.
https://lithub.com/watch-a-supercut-of-typewriters-being-used-on-screen/?fbclid=IwAR06M1baiN-DI9all34f6-FoIIemSNwj25MugdpoRi2s-o8yegHrEg5f9jk
So you can just click this and move on with your life, and I'll be satisfied.
Mixed feelings:
1) I turned 40.
2) My baby is growing up very quickly. We also took the side off her crib because she was jumping out of it every single time she didn't want to stay in it and while she is the most physically capable of all my kids, it didn't seem safe. So naps and bedtime have been a struggle but it's settling down. Also she can open doors so now she gets up at any old time of the night and comes into our bed like a spider monkey and sleeps on my actual face.
3) my husband flew to TX (we live near Atlanta) to meet the insurance adjuster re: his parents house that flooded in the snowpocalypse. He and his brother were planning to renovate in order to sell it, so this will accelerate those plans and if (please pray) they don't deny the claim, the floors, paint, and a lot of various other repairs will be paid for by insurance. But his parents have been in assisted living for almost a year, so they might try to classify the house as "vacant" which would allow them to deny the claim. It still had all their things, furniture, etc, and had been maintained while they were out, so they shouldn't be technically able to deny it. 🙏
Turds:1) I'm parenting solo this weekend.
2) Preadolescent hormones are the worst and the big girls are almost-12 and almost-10 and the feelings are so big and involuntary and easily offended. Lord help me.
3) I turned 40 in a pandemic and it's lame.
4) We've been out of our church home group for several months for various reasons and connections where it is normal to ask "how is your heart?" are rare. I'm feeling out of sorts and disconnected with what's happening in my heart, and out of regular accountability to keep moving forward, so it makes me sad. 30-year-old me would have blamed everyone/thing else for my lack of well being, but age and experience with myself has shown that I make my own choices and I do things like write on internet forums instead of taking the same 45 minutes to connect with God in the quiet of the morning, and deal with my heart.
Signing off and probably about to be interrupted by one or more children. Happy Saturday, friends!