life lately

This has been a really good week.  I have loved (most of) the weather.  Yesterday was cool!  It felt like the perfect fall day.  Here are a few things I or we have been up to so far.

The moms received flowers from our church family as they honored the graduates this past weekend.  I am still enjoying this beautiful gerbera daisy!  These are my favorite kinds of flower.  It is thriving where I put it on the kitchen table.  It loves the filtered sunlight that comes through my kitchen windows.

This is a bonus, because it doesn't have anything to do with this week, but I am on my third of fourth copy of this lovely devotional book.  I don't love devotionals all the time, often just preferring the bible, but lately, I've been struggling with quiet time first thing each day, so I will read the page for that day and pray, and then later on, I'll have a more quality quiet time.  I'm on my third or fourth copy because I love it so much that I'll buy one and then give it away.  It's about sixteen on Amazon, it never really goes on sale.  But I love the theme of friendship woven throughout.

I spent the day Monday with one of my very best friends, Abbey.  It was unexpected and quite lovely.

I love my newest nail polish.  It's more of a dark lavender than this picture looks, or a light to medium purple.  After having on white for two weeks, I love seeing the bright color.  (I LOVE bright colors.)

I ran errands with Mom that day, because the boys were gone all day long.  Literally, from nine until ten thirty that night.

Also on that night, I went to book club!  I'm in a weekly summer book club with four of my friends, including the sweet lady who wrote this beautiful book.  It's all about the Jewish-ness of Jesus, and we sat and talked about the first four chapters for hours on that night.  That is my favorite kind of night!  I could sit and talk about Jesus and how wonderful and mighty and majestic He is all the time.  I'm buying a copy for my dad.  He will LOVE it.

These books are what I've been reading lately.  I love Robin Jones Gunn!  I'm on my third book in the trilogy, and then I'm passing them on to Missy.

I also preordered a book from Karen Kingsbury last night, one that will tell the beginning of the love story between John and Elizabeth Baxter.  I'm so excited to get it in the mail!

After that, I'm buying the next three of the books after these above.

I buy my favorites and borrow the rest.  If they're written by an author I love, I always buy them.  I re-read them, too, so I'm not wasting money.  Although, money spent on books is never wasted.

This was a snapchat I received from Todd Tuesday morning.  He and a few others had some training from the Coast Guard for work with the sheriff department.

I love this quote I found on Instagram this week.  Marriage can be so very beautiful (and so very hard), and it deserves being honored every single day.  I would love to go back and tell that to my twenty year old self.  I was very selfish early on in our marriage, and the older I get, the more I realize this.  I love growing older with my man.  The older we get, the better we get, I feel.  We're much more wise now, we're kinder, we're gentler, we are just better versions of ourselves.

This was my view for quiet time yesterday.  I love to make things pretty in our home, and I am all about a pretty space for my morning quiet time.  I love the flower, and I love this candle!  It's one my mom in love bought me for Christmas that I had picked out for myself, and I started using it yesterday.  The scent is Island Margarita, so it smells like lime and coconut.  It's delicious smelling and beautiful, all at once.

Today I am spending time completing some of the bible study homework that I'm doing on my own, I plan on reading the third book in my current series, and I'm going to read some of that Tapestry book I pictured from our book club.  I am so glad I love to read...I failed at making my boys love to read, I feel like, and I shared that with my best friend Christa yesterday.  I told her to read to her little girl now, that way, Annaliese will love to read someday.  They're never too early to be read to!  I did read to my boys, but not as often as I would have liked.

Also, I forgot to mention that Christa and Annaliese spent the afternoon with me yesterday.  It was LOVELY.  I made us lunch, then we had coffee, and just sat and got all caught up while Annaliese watched a cute movie.  I love afternoons like that!

It's important to invest in our friendships.  I'm thankful I have the opportunity to do that.  My friends are just one of God's many gifts to me.  I thank Him for them all the time.

Well, I need a second cup of coffee, so I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Thanks for reading my blog!  Love to all.