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! 🙂
This was a much quieter week for me compared to the last 4-6 weeks. And it was fantastic to have more down time, to get completely caught back up on sleep, to have some great family time, and to get to multiple get-togethers with friends, too.
I got some GREAT deals at Kroger this week! I’ve been sharing most of them in my Instagram Stories every day (I’d love for you to follow me there if you aren’t already!)
I’ll be sharing a detailed post on Tuesday with what deals I got in the last week + our menu plan for this week. I’m loving getting back to deal shopping and planning our menus based upon what I get on great sales.
We had a water leak in our upstairs bathroom and ended up having to tear out some of the ceiling in our main floor bathroom. 🙁 We’re hoping to get that fixed this week!
Kathrynne convinced me to go with her to a Women’s Self Defense class at the place where she and Jesse do Krav Maga every week. It was my first experience in a martial arts type of class and it was definitely outside my comfort zone, but also a really beneficial and educational class to attend.
I think this is an important topic and it’s definitely something I would highly recommend all girls and women look into taking in your local area. And it made me so happy that Kathrynne is learning Krav Maga — I loved getting to see her in her element!
I’m so excited to be participating in the Just Open the Door Book Club, starting on April 30, 2018! Here are more details on it:
We'd love to invite you to join us as we kick off a book club featuring our new book — Just Open the Door: How One Invitation Can Change a Generation, by Jen Schmidt!
Grab your neighbors and girlfriends, or get a quiet moment by yourself, and tune in to listen to Jen and a few of her friends chat their way through the themes of Just Open the Door.
Starting April 30th, we'll share a Facebook Live video at 9 p.m. ET (8 p.m. CT/7 p.m. MT/6 p.m. PT) every Monday in our very own private Facebook group. Not on Facebook? Not to worry! We'll email you the videos every week during the book club.
Here's a schedule of Jen's friends who will be joining us as we unpack the book:
We can't wait for you to meet them! These are dear friends of Jen and some of our favorite writers and speakers. They live out biblical hospitality in their own lives, and we can't wait to learn all their secrets!
Whether you're a seasoned host looking for renewed inspiration or a nervous newbie not sure where to begin, Jen and her friends will give you their best practical ideas that are easy for anyone to implement! You'll come away with tools for simple food prep, cleaning made easy, creating a welcoming ambiance with what you already have, and guiding meaningful conversations without a ton of stress.
It's completely free to join this book club, but we need you to sign up so we can add you to our private Facebook group where we'll share those weekly videos and other encouragement (and you need to sign up if you're not on Facebook too, so we can email the videos to you). We can't wait to get comfy and get real about hospitality — together!
Some of you have mentioned recently how happy I have seemed this year. I'm so glad that the joy and wholeness I feel in my heart has spilled out through my posts and pictures online.
Because, y'all, I just truly can't remember when I've loved my life so much.
And it's not because everything is roses and rainbows (I've walked through some really sad, painful, and heartbreaking stuff the past year that I've not been free to talk about online).
I feel like I've finally stopped living under the stress of needing to make other people happy. I didn't even realize until last year that I was living under this. And it was a huge weight on me that I carried around.
I've also stopped feeling like I need to apologize for or explain every little thing to people — just to make myself feel better or to be reassured by others that I'm okay.
I've stopped trying to hide and suppress my strong and bold personality or feel like I need to hold back my strengths as a leader.
And I've stopped believing that I'm not a good friend and that I'm a disappointment to people.
Instead, I feel FREE — free to love other people well and to be loved well by others, free to be okay if I disappoint someone or if my strong personality just isn't for someone, free to be honest and real, free to try new things and fail or succeed at them, and free to lean into my gifts and embrace who I was created to be!
I'm 36 years old and I feel like my life is just really beginning in some ways… and I'm so excited for the future!
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Speaking of happiness… I recently had a really insightful conversation with one of my kids:
"Mom, I'm so much happier now that I stopped trying to get people to like me."
The words tumbled out unexpectedly from my child. This same child who has struggled with relationships and agonized over feeling invisible and left out.
I realize that this child's journey has been my own, too.
Like I alluded to earlier, I lived so much of my life worried what others thought, how they perceived me, how I would be received, how I could exceed their expectations and impress them.
Newsflash: it didn't work. I struggled in relationships and constantly over-analyzed what I did and said, worried that I came across wrong.
My child went on to say, "I realized that when I just stop trying to fit in and be liked and do what I think other people want me to do and waste so much time worrying about what other people think of me, I have so much freedom and joy!"
I looked at my child and said, "I'm so glad you are learning this now — and not when you are in your mid-30's! The other thing I'm finding out is this: when you show up as YOU (not the version of you that you think you're supposed to be), then you know that the people who actually become your friends are truly your friends!"
Here's to more of being our honest selves and not hiding behind masks or holding back out of fear of what people might think!
Register for my Facebook Live Class on Thursday!
Bloggers & online entrepreneurs! I’m teaching a class on 10 Strategies to Master Facebook Live next Thursday evening.
It will be a 2-hour class where I’ll pull back the curtain & share all of my best tips, tricks, and tactics for being successful on Facebook Live. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I’ve learned a lot of things the hard way… & I don’t want you to have to make the same mistakes I have!
Go here to register for this class.
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: 19 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: 16 notes written so far this year
4. Run 500 miles.
**Progress: 138 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: 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, and Make Over Your Mornings LIVE in April.
I Worked Up the Courage to Go Live
