Our rainy winter weather here on the Central Coast brought forth a lovely springtime with gorgeous green hills and blooming flowers everywhere. Now here we are saying goodbye to spring, well almost because it ends June 20th, and waving hello to summer. This quarter has been a busy one, one full of learning, of waiting, of heartache, and of joy. Today I am joining Emily Freeman as she invites us to share the big and small lessons of the last three months. Here I go! What I Learned This Spring: 1. I have a thing for the sky and find myself looking up all the time. I often exclaim, "Look at the sky!" I scroll through the photos on my phone and see so many of clouds, sun rays, and blue skies! 2. I realized I feel better about my day if I write down ... View Post
THE LONG SUMMER OF HELLO AND GOODBYE
As I pulled away from the coffee shop after saying goodbye that Sunday afternoon, I began weeping. With tears clouding my eyes, I managed to navigate onto the freeway for the long drive home. Alone. I thought of all the people around me driving to their various destinations and wondered if any felt as sad as me, or were they all happy on this sunny summer Sunday? Because of my husband’s job, he and I had been living four hours apart for several months. His help was necessary at another facility, and while I was proud of his skill-set, it broke my heart for us to be separated. I hated saying goodbye on Sundays. I came to dread the end of every weekend because it meant a week of being alone, of worrying about my husband working incredibly long hours, and of dealing with all things ... View Post
Chatting with You About My Life Right Now
As the school year comes to a close, it seems like a good time for some self-reflection. My thoughts are caught between the present and the future. As a teacher and a mom, the school calendar has always been my marker. The academic year is scheduled, rigid, and busy, whereas summer days are more fluid. I thought it would be fun to chat with you about my life right now, and hope you will share what's going on currently in your life. Let's get chatting. Here we go: What I am reading~ I just finished three books: Undone: A Story of Making Peace with an Unexpected Life by Michele Cushatt, The Magnolia Story by Chip and Joanna Gaines, and At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe by Tsh Oxenreider. All three were great reads, and I would recommend each ... View Post
10 Delicious and Easy Soups I Make All the Time
As promised in my "10 Tasty Dinner Recipes I Make All the Time" post, here are ten delicious and easy soup recipes I make all the time. Every single Wednesday is “soup night” at my house, no matter if it’s winter, spring, summer, or fall. It’s a tradition I began many years ago, and it stuck. My family knows what to expect for dinner on Wednesdays, and thankfully, they love it. Soup is such a comforting meal, isn't it? Making it is therapeutic I think, you know when you chop the vegetables and go back to stir the soup every so often? It simmers on the stove, making your house smell so homey. Soup doesn't have to be only a fall or wintertime meal. You can eat soup any time of the year. Some of the soups below are light, and some are more filling. All of them are ... View Post
What to Do When Your Marriage is Under Attack
No marriage is perfect. We all have our times of joy and seasons that are hard. There are those instances, though, where we know our marriage is under fire. Please welcome my friend, Madison, and enjoy her essay on what to do when your marriage is under attack. She offers some practical and worthwhile suggestions. "It happened as I was standing beside my couch folding laundry on a random Tuesday. Something triggered a memory. A memory I thought I had forgotten about several years ago. My husband did something that hurt me badly. We talked about it, worked through it, and moved on; or so I had thought. This had not bothered me for years. Why am I all of a sudden thinking about it again? Feelings of bitterness slowly started creeping up in my heart once again. The emotions I ... View Post
Defiant Joys in the Depths of Suffering
Daisy Love became a very familiar name to me- one that I saw regularly on my church's prayer chain, one that I prayed for corporately and privately, and one that I typed often in my computer's search engine (prayfordaisy.com) for updates and anecdotes. Daisy was the daughter of a local pastor I knew through youth ministry and my church. Her cute name seemed to fit her cute personality. Daisy's mom, Kate, wrote a beautiful, honest book about defiant joy in the depths of suffering. She describes the loss of her five-year-old daughter, Daisy Love, and how it affected her. Kate so kindly sent me an excerpt from her new book, and you'll find her heartfelt words below~ (have tissues on hand!) "I’ll start at the beginning of the end. In September 2009, Daisy Love, my darling girl of ... View Post
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