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! 🙂
It snowed a tiny bit on Monday! Which meant that, since we live in the South, Kathrynne’s school had a two-hour delay. Silas doesn’t have school on Mondays + it was his Spring Break (he goes to a 4-day-per-week school right now) and Kaitlynn was off for teacher in-service day, so we got to enjoy a leisurely morning… which was perfect for right after we “lost” an hour due to Daylight Savings on Monday.
Did you read my review of this book? I highly recommend it!
We all filled out our brackets for the NCAA championship this week and have a very big family competition going on for who is in first place. 🙂 We were very disappointed that WSU (the school Jesse went to for three years of undergrad) didn’t make it past the first game. 🙁
Silas & I had a fun outing on Wednesday for his Spring Break. Read all about it here.
Jesse left on Thursday to head to Peru for a few days to help put on a Discipleship Conference down there with this team from our church. We’re missing him while he’s gone, but we’re loving his updates and the opportunity he has to go on this trip and encourage and share with the church there.
While he was gone, my mom and sister came to visit for two days. It was fun to get to show them our house and have them stay with us! We took them to some of our favorite places — including the Spice Shop downtown where you can taste test all the spices! Oh man, they have some really yummy ones!
We also went to Winstead Park — which has great historic significance and beautiful views! (We took a lot more pictures from our time together, but my mom and sister said they weren’t dressed presentably enough to have me share the photos online! ;))
I got a text from a friend one morning this week. She was struggling with some big life transitions & she needed encouragement. She was feeling invisible, scared, and overwhelmed.
I texted her these words… and I feel like some of you might need to hear them tonight, too!
"I am standing with you. Well, maybe more like sitting with you! 😉
"It’s SO hard to feel out of your element and that you don’t belong. That you just don’t have what they want and you don’t know how to be what you’re supposed to be.
"As I was thinking of your text this morning, I kept hearing God whisper these words to me: 'She doesn’t feel like she belongs there. She feels like she’s an imposter. That she’s out of her league. That she’s too much or not enough. But with ME, she belongs. I’ve placed her there. She can hold her head up high and walk in confidence knowing that I have called her to this. I will be her ENOUGH. For this day. For this hour. I see her. Her work, her heart… it’s not invisible to me.'"
Over 13 years ago, when I first started blogging, I picked a lot of fights with people by blogging on hot topics. And I expended a LOT of energy defending my positions in lengthy comments & posts.
Guess what happened? Well, for one, I realized (after a few long years and a whole lot of cringe-worthy posts) that I didn't really know what I believed & needed to stop touting the beliefs & convictions of others & step back and do my some deep soul-searching & understanding of why others believed differently than I did (instead of just adopting the prideful "I'm right, you're wrong!" mentality.)
But I also realized that spending much of my time on the internet trying to defend myself and prove my point and convince those who disagreed with me to change their minds… all this was just frustrating me, zapping my time, and taking way too much of my emotional energy.
So I quit that blog and made the big decision to set huge boundaries on what I will and won't blog about (that list includes basically ALL hot button issues) and I also decided to commit to not defending myself online.
Even though I don't blog about hot button issues anymore, there are still plenty of people who don't like me online. They wish I would blog differently. They don't like it when I say this or fix my hair that way. They don't like my makeup or wish I had addressed something more clearly. They upset that I make money as a blogger. They wish I would go back to being poor. They don't like how I've changed over the years. They are disappointed in my choices. They think I'm too frugal or not frugal enough.. & on & on it goes.
It's rare that a day goes by that someone doesn't write in saying they are offended or upset or bothered by things I've put out on the internet.
I've come to peace with this. It's part of putting yourself out there. I love the sage advice, "I am not responsible to those I don't have a relationship with."
I have amazing local truth tellers in my life who check in and check up on me regularly. I need that. I want that. And it gives me freedom to let almost all of the rest of the negativity roll off my back. Because you just can’t please everyone!
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: 16 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: 13 notes written so far this year
4. Run 500 miles.
**Progress: 96 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 one book so far.
7. Take the kids to South Africa.
**Progress: We nailed down dates for our trip!
8. Go on a family road trip.
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.
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: 4 Weeks to a More Productive Life launched in January and Content Creation 101 launched in February. We launched the 4-Week Blog Coaching Program this past week and we're currently working on a new YourBloggingUniversity.com course that we hope to launch near the end of March.
