Tuesday, July 31, 2018

What I Read & Watched Last Week and more...

Welcome to my weekly Book-ish post where I share what I've been reading and watching recently. If you missed it, you can see my Reading Goals for 2018 and 44 Books I Plan to Read This Year.  (Note: Some of the links in […]

Intentional finance. Intentional family. Intentional business.

What I Read & Watched Last Week

Welcome to my weekly Book-ish post where I share what I've been reading and watching recently. If you missed it, you can see my Reading Goals for 2018 and 44 Books I Plan to Read This Year

(Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and we will be compensated when you make a purchase by clicking through our links. Read our disclosure policy here.)

And it's week #4 of reading 3 books in a week! I'm so excited that I'm continuing on with this trend! Here are the three books I finished this past week:

1. Paperboy

I finally finished read aloud #2 this year with the kids! (I’m hoping that once our school schedule begins in August, we’ll be going through books much more quickly because I’ll be read aloud to the kids every morning on the way to school drop-offs and then again in the evenings after dinner. My goal is to make it through at least 8 books with them by the end of the year. We’ll see!)

Paperboy wasn’t anything like I thought it would be and I almost stopped reading it after we encountered some language right at the beginning of the book. It had some kind of unexpected and “heavy” things in it for a kids' book and I wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend it because of that (I’d recommend reading it first to see if you think it’d be a good fit for your kids or not).

However, it opened up the door for some good conversations on topics that I felt were worthwhile and I’m glad we ended up finishing the book. But Silas did say, “Mom, I can’t believe that a book with multiple bad words in it would have won the Newberry Award.” I agreed with him!

2. Refresh

This book teetered very close to the line when it comes to self-help books (which I’m not reading this year) and I almost felt a little guilty reading it because of that.

If you are feeling drained and exhausted and burnt out, this book has some helpful ideas and suggestions for how to stop living life feeling so exhausted and start feeling more energy and zest for life.

I was so encouraged by reading it to realize how the changes I’ve made in the last few years have made such a difference in how I feel. I still have days where I’ll feel really tired and worn down, but that’s always a sign to slow down and make room for rest. And I now pace myself in a healthy way so that I make time for rest and restoration, even in the middle of really full weeks. This book was a good refresher on living a life of feeling refreshed! 🙂

3. Against the Tide

This was my favorite book of the week — and I actually listened to it for free on Overdrive. It was well narrated and a great story on a historical topic that I wasn’t very familiar with (the opium trade).

If you are looking for a good, clean historical fiction book to read or listen to, I’d definitely recommend this one. I’m not surprised that it won the awards that it did!

I also watched this 20/20 show on the Thailand Cave Rescue and it was fascinating. I would highly recommend it if you haven’t watched another documentary on the story… it filled in a lot of details for me that I had wondered about and also just made me feel pretty in awe of those divers who rescued the boys!

When I Find Time to Read

People are always asking me how I find time to read. Honestly, it's because I love to read, because I've chosen to prioritize it, because I don't have a lot of other hobbies, and because I can't not read. Also, when you love something, you usually can find ways to get creative to find time to fit it in — even if it's in the little nooks and crannies of life.

I wrote a post on 3 ways to find more time to read — even when life is busy. And here are 7 more ways to find time to read.

What did you read and watch this past week? Any books or movies or shows you really think I need to read or watch?

 

    
 

A Peek Into Our Lives Last Week (+ an update on my goals for 2018)

Welcome to my weekly post I share a peek into our lives, talk about things I'm loving, share links to interesting articles or helpful ideas I've collected throughout the past week, and just talk about whatever is on my heart! 🙂

My sister and her family were driving from South Carolina to Kansas, so they stopped at our house to spend the night. The kids were SO excited and loved getting to have their cousins stay with us for the night.

Clayton is such a sweet boy and he and Kaitlynn hit it off!

We aren’t exactly sure when Quill’s birthday is, but Kaitlynn decided it was this past week and made a birthday hat for him. 🙂

I flew to Kansas with Silas on Tuesday afternoon and stayed until Thursday morning to celebrate my sister’s 40th birthday. You can see a peek into our visit here.

And then we drove to Arkansas this weekend for our annual vacation at the lake with all of my extended family.

My dad is an incredible water skiier!

Hanging out on the boat.

Kaitlynn just can’t get enough of Genevieve.

This was one of my most favorite pictures from the recent photo shoot.

From my heart…

I don't know what kind of pain or hurt or heartache or sadness you are carrying today. I don't know the loss you have suffered or the disappointments you've endured.

But today, I want to whisper this to you, "Don't give up."

As long as your heart is still beating, there is hope, there is a future, there are possibilities.

You are not alone. You are not forgotten. You are not a failure.

Keep going. Keep clinging to hope. Keep reaching out. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep believing that there is going to be a beautiful ending to your story… don't give up.

P.S. If you would love for someone to pray for you today, I would be honored to do so for you by name. Leave a comment or send me an email.

2018 Goals Update

Personal Goals

1. Read 100 non-self-help books that will build me up/encourage me/inspire me/recharge me. (Fiction/story-driven/biographies/inspirational living books/devotionals.) See the list of 44 books I plan to read this year.

**Progress: 39 books read so far this year

2. Read through the entire Bible.

**Progress: I'm using the Robert Murray M'Cheyne plan and am all caught up— yay!

3. Write one handwritten note to someone every week.

**Progress: 30 notes written so far this year

4. Run 500 miles.

**Progress: 281 miles run so far

Marriage Goal

5. Go on an overnight trip with Jesse without the kids.Jesse and I went to NYC together in January.

Family Goals

6. Read 10 books aloud with the kids.

**Progress: I've finished two books so far. (I have a plan for how we're going to incorporate more reading into our schedule once school starts and we're all driving in the car to school drop-offs every morning. For now, I'm just happy that we're fitting in a little family reading a few times per week when we're all in the car together driving to the pool or somewhere else. Something is better than nothing, right??)

7. Take the kids to South Africa. We took this trip in July. What a memorable experience!

8. Go on a family road trip.

**Progress: We've been researching some options for this and are hoping to make this happen over Fall Break. Stay tuned!

Financial Goals

9. Save up to pay cash to finish off an office for me and workout room for Jesse and me in the basement in our new house.

**Progress: The workout room is DONE and the office is getting close to being done!

10. Replenish our Emergency Fund (we dipped into it to replace my car when it got totaled because of the carpet beetle infestation.)

Business Goals

11. Increase our gross income from the business by 8%.

12. Launch 5 new courses.

**Progress: We launched 4 Weeks to a More Productive Life launched in January, Content Creation 101 in February, 4-Week Blog Coaching Program in March, Email List Setup 101 in March, Make Over Your Mornings LIVE in April, the Facebook Live Masterclass in May, and we launched Build Your List 101 in June!