Hello friends, welcome

How’s August been treating you? It snuck up on us didn’t it !

Around here with lockdown continuing sun, sky, fresh air and sheer grace are doing the lions share of keeping me steady.

There’s lots I’m missing but there’s a lot I’m grateful for too.

Wherever this weekend finds you I hope some rest, relaxation and doing some sweet thing you love is on the menu

Hope this help too   – – –

A Good Word

If your life seems small and ordinary and your fears are big and extraordinary, I think that‘s exactly how it is. We get confused about if it should be *more*. Shouldn’t I be somewhere? Shouldn’t this be easier? Shouldn’t I stop gaining weight or losing hope or not being this afraid? Well, lovelies, if this is what it is —trying to hold it together and love who needs to be loved –  then that sounds like you’re really living to me.

Kate Bowler Author of “No Cure For Being Human”

A Good Look

How do you feel about a weekend breakfast board ? Too much like hard work OR with a bit of Friday pre planning (and egg boiling) you could throw it together in a jiffy. Image from Cup of Jo 

A Good Idea

From Marian Vischer

Naming What Matters

Something I’m struggling with is…

Naming what matters.

It’s a Lazy Genius principle and it helps me so much. When everything is important, nothing is important. We have to name what matters and that looks different for each one of us.

I know this. But lately it’s been hard for me to untangle what matters most from the things that can wait or even from the things that never need to matter.

We can’t be a rock star spouse, parent, soar in our career, keep a tidy home that’s styled the way we want, stay fit, eat healthy, cook, DIY, be spiritually disciplined, be involved in our community, serve as team parent, look cute, read to our kids, read for ourselves, care well for our extended families, remember all the birthdays, be informed about all the issues of the day, work toward necessary social change, help with homework, support our kids’ ambitions, put away money for everything, take trips of a lifetime, and make the memories…(comes up for air) all at the same time or even in the same life.

I know. You’re laughing. I’m laughing. Because when you see it in writing, it’s ridiculous. It would take an army to do all of those things, or at the very least The Proverbs 31 Woman.

But all of these perceived “shoulds” can slowly move in and take up precious real estate in our brains. The Shoulds make us overcommit, multitask, and live without healthy boundaries. We stay stressed. We walk around feeling behind when it’s not a race, less-than when we’re enough, dissatisfied when we have all we truly need.

Receiving this season of my right-now life means pouring time, energy, and resources into my children, especially the one who will be a senior and has certain goals. It means saying no to good things I love because there are people I love more.

It means waiting. (And not being a brat about it.)

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or discontent—I invite you to take an honest look at this right-now season and name what matters. If you can’t, enlist a trusted person in your life to help. I’m doing it this weekend and I hope to come out on the other side with more acceptance and less angst.

How do you name what matters?

A Few Good Reads

Ten Things I Think About Unplugging

by Timothy Willard

1. I THINK IT’S TIME TO LIVE LIFE IN ANALOG

a. What do I mean by analog? Remember cassette tapes? That’s analog technology. But I’m using the term broadly, to mean, the good ole days, when everything wasn’t digital, when the world wasn’t compressed into a rectangle that you hold in your hand, or plug in to your car, or wireless speaker.

I’m thinking of a slower time, when things seemed quieter.

b. I spent a good chunk of years in my twenties playing in a band. I remember, back in the band days, we recorded our first “demo” on some odd digital contraption called “Radar.” It was like Pro-Tools, only not.

c. Then, we spent hours “dumping” our digital tracks on two-inch analog tape. We thought that was so cool. We wanted the ease and convenience and expediency of digital, but we longed for the saturation and authenticity of analog.

c. “Hear that tape hiss? Hear that goodness?” we’d say.

That’s the two-inch tape. That’s the music embedding itself into the tape, leaving its imprint on, the tape.

2. I THINK I CAN SPEAK FOR US ALL: “GIVE ME THE TAPE HISS!”

a. What do I mean by tape hiss? Thanks for asking.

b. Tape-hiss-living means seeking those things that leave an imprint on our lives. Real things, that you can’t download. Real things you can’t necessarily buy at a big box store. Real things that take time to make, time to enjoy.

But tape-hiss-living requires intentionally unplugging from your digital so-called world. If you want a tape-hiss kind of existence, then you you’re probably going to be intentional about stuff, and make rules. Not because you’re a legalist, but because you recognize that in order to stay sane, we all need to create and participate in quiet spaces in our private lives, and work lives, and worship lives.

Rules like: no toys and no computers or digital devices at the table.

“But rules are dumb, Tim.”

I know. And so are we – – – keep reading

10 Cup Of Jo Readers Share Good Habits They’ve Kept

“A couple years ago, I moved to Denver for my partner’s work. I felt pretty lost making friends, and I also felt deep imposter syndrome with the activity culture here, where many people love snow sports, mountain biking and climbing. These are high-barrier-to-entry activities that require gear and skills that felt insurmountable. But in an attempt to fill time, I took up hiking on the weekends while my partner was working on Saturdays. I figured, how hard could walking be — you just need boots and water. I went alone, listening to podcasts along the miles, as if the hosts were my pals. Over time, I built up my stamina from three miles to 12 miles, +600 ft. elevation gain to +2,800 ft. Although I’ve since made friends, I hold my weekend hike akin to church and I prefer to worship solo. I am so lucky to have been able to keep this habit up during the pandemic, and I’m also deeply aware of the privilege I have of proximity and physical ability to hike so often. I preach the good word of solo hiking to any women who ask because it has empowered me so much”.

“My habit is to think of ‘future me’ every day. If I have an overwhelming workday ahead, I prep a meal for future me, who won’t have time to make lunch. When I don’t feel like doing the full skincare routine, I think, ‘Future me will thank you for taking care of your skin!’ We’re always thinking of what our partners, children and bosses will need in the future because we care. I’ve made a habit of doing that for myself.”

Keep reading

Recently, I’ve been spending money like a robber baron’s wayward son. I’m buying flamboyant leather boots, limited-print-run poetry collections on thick paper, tiny statuettes from the local thrift store. My pent-up energy has been directly channeled into frivolity. If you’re selling me a drink with a wild garnish (ramps, sure!), I will order one for me and one for you! This is a marked change. I used to be a woman of simple tastes: a whiskey neat with lemon, literally zero statuettes.

It seems as if many of us experienced a tidal shift in how we think about spending during the pandemic. But as fun as it is to talk about what we are buying, I also wondered what people have decided to forego. Asking around, I found that even people who feel as spendy as I do have also isolated things they never want to buy ever again. The homesteaders gained skills they never knew they could possess: They could do their own spa treatments, they could make their own pickled delicacies. The aesthetes realized they’d rather have the weird, special, real thing and never settle for substitutes. And the previously buttoned-up discovered the deep pleasures in avoiding bras – – – keep reading

That’s all for now friends. Enjoy the reads and have a beautiful weekend, rest up, do something you love xx