Friday Favorites
When Shane attended public school, his teacher called this day of the week "Fabulous Friday," and I have to say that she and I are of one mind on this. The weekend is on the horizon, and all signs point to relaxed time together as a family! [Well, that's the goal anyhow.] I thought I'd try to break up my Disney posts a bit with another round of Friday Favorites. Here goes!
[1] The Purpose Show podcast
I wasn't sure if it was ever going to happen, but I finally found a podcast that I like as much as Young House Love Has a Podcast! I stumbled onto Allie Casazza on Facebook, and I adore her message: mothers are not sentenced to joyless lives of servitude, and they are not excluded from the abundant life promised to Christians in John 10:10. I love her story, and she has so much wisdom to share. I'm starting with her first episode and listening to them in order. So far, some of my favorite episodes include:
- EP 003: How My Morning Ritual is Changing My Life
- EP 004: Positive Words for Your Children
- EP 006: How My Blog Got My Husband Out of His 9 to 5
(The sound quality is kind of rough in the earlier episodes, but it improves over time.)
[2] ditching plastic cups
Inspired by something Allie (see above) said in a webinar, I swapped the boys' plastic cups for these little blue mason jars. Glass is healthier for drinking, and the little jars are just stinkin' cute! The other thing I love about these jars is that they have measurement markings on the side. My kids are allowed no more than 8 oz. of juice a day, so I love that I am easily able to measure it out! (I know, I know. It's my A-type.)
[3] Lenten activities for the kiddos
In our home, counting down the days till Easter is an annual tradition that's both intentional and fun. I love finding different ways to keep our hearts and minds on Jesus!
- I adore this Lenten calendar by Catholic Icing and use it every year. After we do our morning devotion and prayer, the boys color in one block on the path each day. As you can probably guess, it's a Catholic calendar, so I just make a few tweaks to adjust it for our Lutheran family. [Specifically, I change "Holy Thursday" to "Maundy Thursday." I also used to white-out the fish symbols on Ash Wednesday and Fridays. However, Dan and I, who were both born and raised Catholic, find that abstaining from meat on these days helps keep our minds on Jesus. The boys also often choose to abstain from meat with us, but I make sure it's clear to them that the purpose of this is to keep our hearts and minds on Jesus, and it does not affect our salvation in any way.]
- We adored reading Jotham's Journey during Advent, so we were excited to read Amon's Adventure: A Family Story for Easter for Lent! We've only read the first chapter so far, but it comes highly recommended by Sarah Mackenzie (my read-aloud hero!), so I have high expectations.
- I noticed that my Bible Slime Activity was getting a lot of views shortly before Ash Wednesday. I think it's a great reminder for children, especially at this time of the year.
[4] homemaking hack: express wash on the dishwasher
If I could design my dream kitchen from scratch, I would install two dishwashers. We honestly go through that many dishes in a day, and I feel like I am constantly running the dishwasher.
One of the most frustrating things to me about our particular dishwasher is that it takes a full 2 hours and 40 minutes to run a "Normal" load. I also noticed that some of our plates were getting roughed up on the edges, probably due to high water temperatures and abrasion. One day, as I was hand-washing a plate because I couldn't wait 2 hours and 40 minutes to get it back, it occurred to me that a plate probably spends about 30 seconds in hot soapy water when it is being hand-washed (maybe even less!). Why in the world did our dishes need to endure 2 hours and 40 minutes of heavy cleaning in the dishwasher? As an experiment, I ran the next load of dishes on the "Express" cycle, which runs for only 40 minutes. Ta-da! The dishes came out just as sparkly and clean as they do on the normal cycle. I LOVE this homemaking hack because it not only saves me time, but it also saves us money! (I can't wait to see how much less our water bill will be, now that our dishwasher is running 2 hours less every cycle.) If someone in our house is ill, I'll probably run a "Sanitize" or "Normal" cycle, but "Express" is working awesome for me for everyday use.
[5] The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers by Meg Meeker, M.D.
Every mother should read this book. Period.
The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers is the only book I've ever read by Meg Meeker, M.D., but I get the idea that she is to the medical sphere what Dave Ramsey is to the financial sphere. She is solidly Christian (and an encouraging one), but she does not exclude mamas of other faiths.
What I love most about the habits Meeker identifies is that they go deep. They're not your typical, "Take some time for self-care. Get yourself a vanilla latte and a
- Understand your value as a mother
- Value and practice faith
- Find ways to live simply
To find out the other habits, I invite you to pick up a copy of The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers for yourself!
What are you loving right now, friends? Please share! I'm wishing you a delightful weekend!
XO,
Kristin
