Wishing you a very happy and hopefully peaceful birthday! Your content, on PMG platforms, here and currently Momento Mori, is truly some of the best stuff in my life right now
Happiest birthday, dear Erin. You are a gift to us all ❤️
My treasure is the new book about Eugene Peterson (A Burning in my Bones). I don’t often read biographies so I was a little unsure how quickly I could get through it- but I love Pastor Pete so I went ahead an ordered it. It got here on Tuesday and I just finished it. What a gift that man was. Obviously I knew he was no longer alive, but I fully wept through the last chapter. Can someone please do a book club on this book? So so good.
Happy Birthday Erin! I’m a new participator and trying to move beyond comment reader. Last week my treasure was visiting Sedona. The red rocks and blue sky were gorgeous. The campground was fantastic and offered safe freedom for my kids to bike around and meet new friends. This allowed me time for my favorite activity: reading! Have you read the YA novel the Barren Grounds? It’s told from the point of view of a 13 year old Indigenous Canadian who is in the foster care system. Really great perspective and story.
I meant to share this earlier bc it’s an ongoing treasure in my life. When I mentioned it a couple months back, a couple people asked me to share the link and I totally forgot!
I work for the CUTEST home decor store and it’s owned by the sweetest family. It’s become my happy place and I thought I’d share it with you all because we ship! After the year we’ve all had in our homes, most of our customers have come in for a refresh for a space in their house :) https://mill77.com/shop/ols/categories/home-decor?page=2
Happy birthday, Erin! I’m thankful for your words and your presence and this community you inspired/created.
I’m back from a spring break trip with my spouse & kids to Chattanooga/surrounding area and man, the reentry exhaustion on top of regular PanDammit exhaustion on top of news cycle exhaustion....well, I’m surprised that I have the energy to type this out. But we’re making brinner tonight, my little sister is gonna bring my mail over tomorrow morning, and I’m planning on passing out for bed as early as possible. Off to read the comments now - I missed last week as I was freaking the freak out about our lack of trip plans, and I sincerely missed hearing from everyone. ❤️❤️
Happy birthday Erin! I'm so thankful for your words each week that make me not press the snooze button five times on Friday mornings. And I'm so grateful for the ways that you share yourself and what you're learning with this community. I hope you feel as celebrated and loved as you are today!
My treasures for the week are:
- I am now FULLY vaccinated and the second shot didn't hurt as badly as the first. Also, the only side effect I had was that I was extra tired, so I took a nap the afternoon after and have felt like normal ever sense.
- Also the firefighter who gave me my second dose was VERY cute, so I'm thankful for that.
- I got invited to an interview for a job I applied for a few weeks ago! The job description was kind of vague so I'm very interested to find out more and glad I have a whole week to prepare so I can feel like I put my best effort going into it!
- It's not an interview, but a job posting for my literal dream job (pediatric oncology social worker!) was posted this week at a hospital I have some connections with. I spent a lot of time today sprucing up my cover letter and let all of my contacts know in the department that I was applying, so I'm hopeful that an interview might come out of that also!
- The weather is beautiful again today in Virginia. I broke out my shorts and Birkenstocks for the first time in 2021 and went to a coffee shop to sit out side and work on aforementioned cover letter, drink an iced coffee, and eat a delicious fancy grilled cheese.
- It's Cherry Blossom season in DC, and despite living in the DC Metro area my whole life I've never seen them in person, but I'm making plans to go this year!
I don't have many turds for the week, other than the internet messing up a few ticket opportunities I was hopeful about. But all in all, it's been a really good week, and it's encouraging to have this space to reflect and see how weeks are slowly getting better.
Happy birthday, Erin! I'm still trying to get my bearings in the comments, but I'm already so grateful for this community you've created.
My husband and I are doing a 28-day reset (no added sugar, no dairy, no gluten). We're almost halfway through, and let me tell you, I. Miss. Ice cream. Any dairy-free/gluten-free recipe or snack ideas are welcome!
Happy birthday, Erin! I’m personally so happy you were born, even though we don’t know each other but it feels like I know you. 🤷🏻♀️ So one thing for your birthday? My first ever comment in this space. I’ve just been loitering until now. But it’s been lovely loitering! I’m an Alabama native, Auburn grad, Nashville is now home. Married my high school sweetheart, four kids, two rescued pit bull mixes. I’m a deep feeler and I love to laugh. I sent you the angry eagle taking a stupid walk a while back and I’m still proud you shared it in your Instagram stories.
Anyway, this place, this community, has been breathing life into my weary bones for months now. So grateful!
Happy birthday Erin! Thank you for this small slice of peace I can look forward to every Friday while my students take their math quiz (it's the little things in a middle school).
Happy Friday everyone!! First of all, I LOVE that there is now a Spotify playlist for all the mixtapes. What a delight. I will be listening this afternoon as I try to assemble new patio furniture that I got yesterday from Overstock.com. I both love and hate the furniture assembly process. Hate it because 9/10 times the instructions are awful but love it because it means its kind of fun to listen to music or a podcast but have something to do while doing it. Working from home for over a year now has made me realize that I miss my commute for these reasons.
For obvious reasons, my anxiety levels have been increasing the last couple of weeks. I get my second dose of the vaccine on Monday (yippee!) and most of my friends/family are vaccinated or on their way to being fully vaccinated. So I'm not as anxious about COVID anymore...it's now the realization that life might be going back to some kind of normalcy soon that has been spooking me. Anyone else? Right before the pandemic, I was becoming very anxious in crowds specifically at church or in movie theaters. The pandemic was a nice bandage to those stressors for awhile but now that I'm back to going to church in person I see those fears creeping their way back in to my thoughts...slap two mass shootings in a week and we're not doing great. Therapy is helpful but right now my therapist is out for a month...so I'm nervous.
Through it all there have been a handful of treasures that have helped that I would love to share with anyone who might be feeling the same way!
1. Routine- Any kind of routine or ritual has been really helpful for me the last few weeks. I started small with a skincare routine. Very simple but it consists of - washing my face, toner, and some fancy serums and oils that I have and need to use. I've been able to view it as a way of self care rather than just another thing that I "have" to do.
2. PJ Fridays- There are a lot of perks about working from home, one of them being my implementation of PJ Fridays! I only work half days on Friday, so I've given myself the permission to work my full 4 hours in pjs, wearing my glasses, no bra on. I don't have to use a video camera on Zoom for work so I'm able to get away with this. Knowing that I can just roll out of bed on Friday and grind out the last 4 hours of my work week and not have to worry about "getting dressed" has been helpful for me. That along with this newsletter makes for a happy Friday!
3. I've gotten back into running lately. I ran a half marathon a couple years ago and then just stopped running. I'm considering training for another, mainly because it's the only thing that motivates me to keep practicing and keep getting out there. Outside of dance classes I was taking pre-pandemic...running has been one of the only forms of exercise that has been therapeutic for me in times of stress and anxiety. It's hard to start running again when it's been so long, so I've been kind to myself and I definitely walk more than run. I have to run with music because that's what keeps me going and makes it more bearable. I don't advocate for forcing yourself to do an exercise that you don't like...so if you hate running definitely don't run. But it has been helpful for me to pinpoint the kind of movement that I do enjoy (even if its hard) that helps serve my head and my heart.
Good morning! Happy birthday Erin! I hope you have the best birthday available to you! ♥️
Not going to stay long, I'm listening to The Stand by Stephen King and still have 40 hours to go before April 7. I've reluctantly come to the realization that I love Stephen King. I won't read his straight-up horror, but his paranormal/thriller stuff is closer to my speed. My favorite so far is 11/22/63, although Under the Dome is really good too.
I need to talk about The Chosen. Had anyone else watched this series? Have Knox and Jamie talked about it? It's about the life and ministry of Jesus, and it's really well done. I don't even think I have to add the caveat "for a Christian TV show". There's backstory and character development and pretty good acting. Some of the dialogue is too modern-day since it's a period piece, but overall I've been surprised at how speaking the characters are. It's only available through its website, or maybe via youtube. My kids love looking for the Easter eggs ("That guy is a disciple later!"), and my husband and I enjoy looking for interpretive license, the way you do ("Mary Magdalene was the first disciple? In which traditions?").
Happy birthday Erin! My birthday is this coming Wednesday. If I believed in astrological kismet, this would be good evidence of that. Since I don’t, I will pray that neither of us drop our birthday cakes while walking into our house, and that if we do, our husbands will carry us in our grief while our neighbors bake replacement cakes. That are made of chocolate chip cookies.
I’ve had two days this week where I sat on my couch for the entire day, and did nothing except help my kids with school and all that. I just felt frozen. Pandemic fatigue, hate fatigue, the fatigue of having conversations with my parents along the lines of “Asian hate? Who hates Asians! They work so hard.” And “Meghan Markle knew what she was getting into and manipulated Harry.” How do we continue having these conversations with kindness, grace and conviction, when only one of those is given back to us in return?
Anyway. Since my birthday is coming up, I’ve been reflecting because for me, the introspection that happens for people on New Years happens on my birthday.
-I’ve learned this year that Christian kindness sometimes means making people mad. I’m coming up on 37 years, and I didn’t really know that.
- I’ve learned that my daughters will still pick up on shit cultural messages, despite my best efforts. One of my girls said, in passing, “I’ll never be a good inventor. Boys are better than girls at inventions.” I wanted to throw up. So what I see now is that job as a parent is not to prevent crappy narratives, but to dismantle them when they come up.
- as I mentioned in a previous weeks comment, I’ve learned my body is my friend. Not in a #bossbabe #lovemytigerstripes Instagram way, but for real.
-and along the lines of what Erin said, when everything is crumbling around me, I try to do one thing, and then another, to help people. I’ve loved helping people in the we got you club, filling our local Free99 fridges in Atlanta, and loving on my friends kids. Helping in tangible ways is the best way to avoid falling into traps of self pity and despair.
First, happy birthday, Erin! I hope you get to eat lots of cake or whatever treat your heart desires, get some rest, and feel loved and appreciated during your day.
I am writing this from my bed because I have the day off today! When I first got engaged, I scheduled today as a random vacation day because I figured at this point in the wedding planning process, I’d need a day to get things done, take a break, or both. I am thanking Past Sarah for making that decision!
The Boy and I drove 3.5 hours to go help his brother and sister-in-law move last weekend, and it was the most disorganized move I’ve ever been a part of and we were both so annoyed and done with the whole thing. Long story short: it involved Michael and I throwing their random stuff in boxes, cleaning almost their entire rental house for them, and then driving SIX HOURS OUT OF OUR WAY to their new house to help them unload a few things from the moving truck for 20 minutes, and then they decided they could handle the rest themselves and told us we could go. You guys. I was so angry. 😅
I’ve been exhausted this week so I’m very glad I have the day off. I have a mountain of dishes to wash by hand (usually I don’t let them sit overnight but it’s been one of those weeks) and wedding invitations to address, so that’s what I’ll be spending my day doing today. But for now, I’m going to chill in bed for a little while longer and read through the comments. Also, I have my second dose of the vaccine tomorrow! 🙌🏽🙌🏽
Wishing you a very happy and hopefully peaceful birthday! Your content, on PMG platforms, here and currently Momento Mori, is truly some of the best stuff in my life right now
HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Erin and all the Lil Swipes celebrating birthdays this month! Y’all are amazingly awesome people!
Happy birthday Erin!! Thank you for all you do. Hope you enjoy your day 🎂
Happiest birthday, dear Erin. You are a gift to us all ❤️
My treasure is the new book about Eugene Peterson (A Burning in my Bones). I don’t often read biographies so I was a little unsure how quickly I could get through it- but I love Pastor Pete so I went ahead an ordered it. It got here on Tuesday and I just finished it. What a gift that man was. Obviously I knew he was no longer alive, but I fully wept through the last chapter. Can someone please do a book club on this book? So so good.
Happy Birthday Erin! I’m a new participator and trying to move beyond comment reader. Last week my treasure was visiting Sedona. The red rocks and blue sky were gorgeous. The campground was fantastic and offered safe freedom for my kids to bike around and meet new friends. This allowed me time for my favorite activity: reading! Have you read the YA novel the Barren Grounds? It’s told from the point of view of a 13 year old Indigenous Canadian who is in the foster care system. Really great perspective and story.
I meant to share this earlier bc it’s an ongoing treasure in my life. When I mentioned it a couple months back, a couple people asked me to share the link and I totally forgot!
I work for the CUTEST home decor store and it’s owned by the sweetest family. It’s become my happy place and I thought I’d share it with you all because we ship! After the year we’ve all had in our homes, most of our customers have come in for a refresh for a space in their house :) https://mill77.com/shop/ols/categories/home-decor?page=2
Happy birthday, Erin! I’m thankful for your words and your presence and this community you inspired/created.
I’m back from a spring break trip with my spouse & kids to Chattanooga/surrounding area and man, the reentry exhaustion on top of regular PanDammit exhaustion on top of news cycle exhaustion....well, I’m surprised that I have the energy to type this out. But we’re making brinner tonight, my little sister is gonna bring my mail over tomorrow morning, and I’m planning on passing out for bed as early as possible. Off to read the comments now - I missed last week as I was freaking the freak out about our lack of trip plans, and I sincerely missed hearing from everyone. ❤️❤️
Happy birthday Erin! I'm so thankful for your words each week that make me not press the snooze button five times on Friday mornings. And I'm so grateful for the ways that you share yourself and what you're learning with this community. I hope you feel as celebrated and loved as you are today!
My treasures for the week are:
- I am now FULLY vaccinated and the second shot didn't hurt as badly as the first. Also, the only side effect I had was that I was extra tired, so I took a nap the afternoon after and have felt like normal ever sense.
- Also the firefighter who gave me my second dose was VERY cute, so I'm thankful for that.
- I got invited to an interview for a job I applied for a few weeks ago! The job description was kind of vague so I'm very interested to find out more and glad I have a whole week to prepare so I can feel like I put my best effort going into it!
- It's not an interview, but a job posting for my literal dream job (pediatric oncology social worker!) was posted this week at a hospital I have some connections with. I spent a lot of time today sprucing up my cover letter and let all of my contacts know in the department that I was applying, so I'm hopeful that an interview might come out of that also!
- The weather is beautiful again today in Virginia. I broke out my shorts and Birkenstocks for the first time in 2021 and went to a coffee shop to sit out side and work on aforementioned cover letter, drink an iced coffee, and eat a delicious fancy grilled cheese.
- It's Cherry Blossom season in DC, and despite living in the DC Metro area my whole life I've never seen them in person, but I'm making plans to go this year!
I don't have many turds for the week, other than the internet messing up a few ticket opportunities I was hopeful about. But all in all, it's been a really good week, and it's encouraging to have this space to reflect and see how weeks are slowly getting better.
Happy birthday Erin!!! 🎁🥂🎈🎂 Thank you so much for creating this wonderful space!
Happy birthday, Erin! I'm still trying to get my bearings in the comments, but I'm already so grateful for this community you've created.
My husband and I are doing a 28-day reset (no added sugar, no dairy, no gluten). We're almost halfway through, and let me tell you, I. Miss. Ice cream. Any dairy-free/gluten-free recipe or snack ideas are welcome!
Happy birthday, Erin! I’m personally so happy you were born, even though we don’t know each other but it feels like I know you. 🤷🏻♀️ So one thing for your birthday? My first ever comment in this space. I’ve just been loitering until now. But it’s been lovely loitering! I’m an Alabama native, Auburn grad, Nashville is now home. Married my high school sweetheart, four kids, two rescued pit bull mixes. I’m a deep feeler and I love to laugh. I sent you the angry eagle taking a stupid walk a while back and I’m still proud you shared it in your Instagram stories.
Anyway, this place, this community, has been breathing life into my weary bones for months now. So grateful!
Happy birthday Erin! Thank you for this small slice of peace I can look forward to every Friday while my students take their math quiz (it's the little things in a middle school).
Happy Friday everyone!! First of all, I LOVE that there is now a Spotify playlist for all the mixtapes. What a delight. I will be listening this afternoon as I try to assemble new patio furniture that I got yesterday from Overstock.com. I both love and hate the furniture assembly process. Hate it because 9/10 times the instructions are awful but love it because it means its kind of fun to listen to music or a podcast but have something to do while doing it. Working from home for over a year now has made me realize that I miss my commute for these reasons.
For obvious reasons, my anxiety levels have been increasing the last couple of weeks. I get my second dose of the vaccine on Monday (yippee!) and most of my friends/family are vaccinated or on their way to being fully vaccinated. So I'm not as anxious about COVID anymore...it's now the realization that life might be going back to some kind of normalcy soon that has been spooking me. Anyone else? Right before the pandemic, I was becoming very anxious in crowds specifically at church or in movie theaters. The pandemic was a nice bandage to those stressors for awhile but now that I'm back to going to church in person I see those fears creeping their way back in to my thoughts...slap two mass shootings in a week and we're not doing great. Therapy is helpful but right now my therapist is out for a month...so I'm nervous.
Through it all there have been a handful of treasures that have helped that I would love to share with anyone who might be feeling the same way!
1. Routine- Any kind of routine or ritual has been really helpful for me the last few weeks. I started small with a skincare routine. Very simple but it consists of - washing my face, toner, and some fancy serums and oils that I have and need to use. I've been able to view it as a way of self care rather than just another thing that I "have" to do.
2. PJ Fridays- There are a lot of perks about working from home, one of them being my implementation of PJ Fridays! I only work half days on Friday, so I've given myself the permission to work my full 4 hours in pjs, wearing my glasses, no bra on. I don't have to use a video camera on Zoom for work so I'm able to get away with this. Knowing that I can just roll out of bed on Friday and grind out the last 4 hours of my work week and not have to worry about "getting dressed" has been helpful for me. That along with this newsletter makes for a happy Friday!
3. I've gotten back into running lately. I ran a half marathon a couple years ago and then just stopped running. I'm considering training for another, mainly because it's the only thing that motivates me to keep practicing and keep getting out there. Outside of dance classes I was taking pre-pandemic...running has been one of the only forms of exercise that has been therapeutic for me in times of stress and anxiety. It's hard to start running again when it's been so long, so I've been kind to myself and I definitely walk more than run. I have to run with music because that's what keeps me going and makes it more bearable. I don't advocate for forcing yourself to do an exercise that you don't like...so if you hate running definitely don't run. But it has been helpful for me to pinpoint the kind of movement that I do enjoy (even if its hard) that helps serve my head and my heart.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Good morning! Happy birthday Erin! I hope you have the best birthday available to you! ♥️
Not going to stay long, I'm listening to The Stand by Stephen King and still have 40 hours to go before April 7. I've reluctantly come to the realization that I love Stephen King. I won't read his straight-up horror, but his paranormal/thriller stuff is closer to my speed. My favorite so far is 11/22/63, although Under the Dome is really good too.
I need to talk about The Chosen. Had anyone else watched this series? Have Knox and Jamie talked about it? It's about the life and ministry of Jesus, and it's really well done. I don't even think I have to add the caveat "for a Christian TV show". There's backstory and character development and pretty good acting. Some of the dialogue is too modern-day since it's a period piece, but overall I've been surprised at how speaking the characters are. It's only available through its website, or maybe via youtube. My kids love looking for the Easter eggs ("That guy is a disciple later!"), and my husband and I enjoy looking for interpretive license, the way you do ("Mary Magdalene was the first disciple? In which traditions?").
Happy birthday Erin! My birthday is this coming Wednesday. If I believed in astrological kismet, this would be good evidence of that. Since I don’t, I will pray that neither of us drop our birthday cakes while walking into our house, and that if we do, our husbands will carry us in our grief while our neighbors bake replacement cakes. That are made of chocolate chip cookies.
I’ve had two days this week where I sat on my couch for the entire day, and did nothing except help my kids with school and all that. I just felt frozen. Pandemic fatigue, hate fatigue, the fatigue of having conversations with my parents along the lines of “Asian hate? Who hates Asians! They work so hard.” And “Meghan Markle knew what she was getting into and manipulated Harry.” How do we continue having these conversations with kindness, grace and conviction, when only one of those is given back to us in return?
Anyway. Since my birthday is coming up, I’ve been reflecting because for me, the introspection that happens for people on New Years happens on my birthday.
-I’ve learned this year that Christian kindness sometimes means making people mad. I’m coming up on 37 years, and I didn’t really know that.
- I’ve learned that my daughters will still pick up on shit cultural messages, despite my best efforts. One of my girls said, in passing, “I’ll never be a good inventor. Boys are better than girls at inventions.” I wanted to throw up. So what I see now is that job as a parent is not to prevent crappy narratives, but to dismantle them when they come up.
- as I mentioned in a previous weeks comment, I’ve learned my body is my friend. Not in a #bossbabe #lovemytigerstripes Instagram way, but for real.
-and along the lines of what Erin said, when everything is crumbling around me, I try to do one thing, and then another, to help people. I’ve loved helping people in the we got you club, filling our local Free99 fridges in Atlanta, and loving on my friends kids. Helping in tangible ways is the best way to avoid falling into traps of self pity and despair.
HBD Erin!
First, happy birthday, Erin! I hope you get to eat lots of cake or whatever treat your heart desires, get some rest, and feel loved and appreciated during your day.
I am writing this from my bed because I have the day off today! When I first got engaged, I scheduled today as a random vacation day because I figured at this point in the wedding planning process, I’d need a day to get things done, take a break, or both. I am thanking Past Sarah for making that decision!
The Boy and I drove 3.5 hours to go help his brother and sister-in-law move last weekend, and it was the most disorganized move I’ve ever been a part of and we were both so annoyed and done with the whole thing. Long story short: it involved Michael and I throwing their random stuff in boxes, cleaning almost their entire rental house for them, and then driving SIX HOURS OUT OF OUR WAY to their new house to help them unload a few things from the moving truck for 20 minutes, and then they decided they could handle the rest themselves and told us we could go. You guys. I was so angry. 😅
I’ve been exhausted this week so I’m very glad I have the day off. I have a mountain of dishes to wash by hand (usually I don’t let them sit overnight but it’s been one of those weeks) and wedding invitations to address, so that’s what I’ll be spending my day doing today. But for now, I’m going to chill in bed for a little while longer and read through the comments. Also, I have my second dose of the vaccine tomorrow! 🙌🏽🙌🏽