Welcome to my weekly Sunday post where we take a break from money-related posts and I share about what I'm loving right now and give you a little peek into our life from the past week.
What I’m Loving
The kids were SO excited about Valentine’s Day and spent hours the week before making Valentine’s for their friends, classmates, and teachers. We gave them a budget, took them to Dollar Tree, and then they did all of the work themselves (with a little oversight from us!)
I love how excited they get about blessing others and doing things for others. And I also love that they are all at the age when they can get really stoked about this kind of stuff together. I know that this won’t last forever and I sort of want to freeze time.
I think they were also pretty excited about the fact that they got some candy from friends, too… candy is sort of a rare treat around here so I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing that they are so excited about the prospect of candy!! 😉
And I just had to share this picture. I totally staged it, but it’s such an accurate representation of our life right now. There is never a dull moment. Ever.
We went shoe shopping on Thursday because Kathrynne (12) desperately needed tennis shoes as her feet seemed to grow one size in a week and she was literally about to burst through her current tennis shoes.
(She has one pair of tennis shoes and pretty much only wears them every single day unless she’s going to a wedding. No joke.)
Kaitlynn (9) was all, “Why are we shopping for tennis shoes?? Can we please look at more fun shoes? Oh, look at these! And these! And these!” And then, of course, she was trying to find a way to convince me that she surely needed some new shoes.
(This girl has five times as many shoes as Kathrynne and Silas combined and would buy a new pair of shoes every day if she had the money! Again, no joke.)
Finally, Silas (7) is all, “Are we done yet?” And then was trying to bump into Kaitlynn while she was wearing these heels around so that she would fall over.
Yup. These are my three. They couldn’t be any more different, but they bring so much life, joy, laughter, and color into our lives! And today also solidified for me why I prefer to shop for shoes from Amazon!
What I’m Celebrating
Kaitlynn is landing her axel now!!! This is a HUGE figure skating accomplishment and we’re SO proud of this girl! (Watch the video here. She’s improved quite a bit even since this video was taken!)
Now, she’s starting to work on perfecting all her doubles (double toe loop, double salchow, double loop, double flip, double lutz) and then it’s on to the double axel!
We are having trouble getting her off the ice these days. All she seems to want to do is practice, practice, practice. And then eat, sleep, go to school, and get back on the ice again!
I’m also celebrating the fact that I got to go on four different dates this week — once with Kathrynne, once with Jesse, once with a friend, and once on a double-date with some friends of ours to try our first ever Escape Room experience.
What I’m Reading
This past week, I only finished one book: Answers to Prayer. The week was full and there wasn’t as much time for reading as there usually is. Although I did read quite a bit from The Road Back to You and No More Faking Fine but both were books I didn’t want to speed through, but wanted to slowly absorb and think about.
This week, I'm reading: Thou Givest, They Gather (an old Christian reprint), No More Faking Fine (a spiritually encouraging book), Gathering Blue (a story-driven book), and Chasing Slow (a book on life improvement).
I'm hoping to finish No More Faking Fine, Gathering Blue, and Chasing Slow this week. I'll let you know how that goes next week! {See my Reading Goals for 2017. Also, see the 21 books I've read so far in 2017 here.}
What I Learned This Week
Public Service Announcement: don’t hold an avocado in your hand while trying to cut the pit out.
I was in the middle of a conversation with a friend, not really paying attention to what I was doing, and in a split second, I had jabbed the knife through the avocado and stabbed my finger.
It was such a strong stab that I was afraid I the knife had gone all the way through my finger. But nope, just a deep cut. I missed the tendon and blood vessels, so it didn’t bleed much and all it needed was a trip to urgent care.
They were able to glue it instead of give me stitches — yay! In all honesty, my finger never really hurt… and the only thing that hurt at all was my arm where they gave me a tetanus shot (since I was using a knife and haven’t had a tetanus shot since I was a kid).
Oh, and I still ate my salad I was making — before I went to urgent care. Hey, I was hungry and there’s no point in wasting a good avocado!! 😉
(It reminds me of the time I made Jesse stop for an Arby’s sandwich while I was having major contractions and writhing in pain bent over the front seat of the car while he was driving me to the birth center to deliver Silas. I knew I needed to eat to have strength to deliver Silas. Which I did — about an hour later. What can I say? Food is fuel and you gotta fuel your body — even if you are in labor or you’ve just stabbed your finger!!)
What I’m Laughing About
I did a video on Friday making Whole-Wheat Chocolate Chip Pancakes live. If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I often do Facebook Live videos.
Facebook mirrors the video image, so if you have your phone screen turned toward you for the video (letting you see what the video/image looks like), everything is flipped — meaning if you’re holding up a bag of flour that says “Whole-Wheat Flour” on it, it’s going to be backwards, etc.
This can be quite distracting when you’re doing a video that’s a recipe where you’re holding up different bags/boxes/containers of ingredients.
So I got the “brilliant” idea to try turning my camera around so that the screen wasn’t facing me but that the video wouldn’t be a mirror image. I set everything up and thought it would work well.
Ahem. I clearly think I’m much shorter than I am, because when I filmed the Facebook Live video, my head was completely cut off the entire time!!!
And then I tried to turn the camera around halfway through and things just went from bad to worse.
If you need to laugh today, go fast-forward through the video so you can see just how awful it was. And also, be encouraged: bloggers and vloggers who have been at this thing for years and years and years still have plenty of “Well that experiment certainly didn’t work!” moments.
I’ve learned that the best thing I can do is laugh at myself and invite others to laugh along with me!
What I’m Pondering
I have fallen down into the Enneagram rabbit hole… thanks to a few friends from my Discipleship Group! It’s fascinating and eye-opening and a little scary all at once.
Jesse and I spent hours last week reading about each type and it produced some incredible insights into each of our hearts and lives. It also gave us so much more clarity for ourselves and each other.
For those of you who are into the Enneagram, I’m an 8 and he’s a 5. Even without understanding the Enneagram, I look back and realize how I have fought against my eight-ness for a long time because I wanted to be a 2 or something warm and fuzzy like that. But nope, I’m an 8 through and through.
And now I want to embrace it and own it and become the healthiest version of an 8 that I can be. Because that’s how God made me and how He can use me best.
When we realized that Jesse is a 5 and have studied more about it, it’s really helping me to better understand how he processes things, what his needs are, and what his amazing strengths are.
What number are you? I’d love to know! Oh and I took the test online and it gave me the wrong result. I found this book and reading things online to be a lot more accurate and clarifying than the online quizzes. But maybe that’s just me!
(Those of you who don’t know what the Enneagram is are probably shaking your head at reading this and wondering what sort of crazy talk this is! Well, do yourself a favor. Go read up on the Enneagram, get this book, and maybe it will rock your world in profound and good ways like it has ours! You’re welcome!! ;))
In Case You Missed It
My posts from this past week:
My YouTube videos from this past week:
Want to win this stack of books?
I thought it would be fun for me to do a giveaway here every once in awhile on Sundays — giving away some of our our products, items I've been sent two of, books I've already read and want to pass on, or other items I have that we no longer need and would like to pass onto a great home!
Today's stack includes one of my books, one of my Gratitude journals, a blank journal, a few books I've recently read and would love to pass onto someone else, plus a book we enjoyed as a family!
To win this stack this week, leave a comment letting us know something that is making you laugh (a funny story, a movie, a YouTube video, a funny picture, something you have done or your kids did, etc.).
I'll choose one winner from all of the comments and will email that winner personally + post the winner next week on my Peek Into My Life This Week Post.
Congratulations to Kim (kim_redmon13@) who was the winner of last week’s stack of books giveaway. Kim, you should have received an email from me asking for your mailing address!
