I've been in a rut lately. A meal planning, writing, reading, outfit-wearing rut. That means I don't have much to write about. The heat must be sucking out my motivation! That means the things that have made me smile in the last month or so are even more special. The rut makes me grateful for the little things. 1. Two new meals we've tried have been awesome! These ground beef gyros from Mashup mom are delicious. I used Penzey's Greek seasoning in them. We also just tried Instant Pot ragu from Damn Delicious. My son literally cried for 10 minutes when dinner was over. This is a keeper for sure. Both take a little bit more time than I'd like for a weeknight meal, so they'll be double batch weekend dinners for sure to give us some awesome leftovers. 2. This book captured my heart and made it so I didn't want to read anything else for a while. I learned a lot about another culture and got caught up in a beautiful but sad story. I couldn't stop talki...

Whew! It's been quite a month! I left my old job at the end of May, then had a crazy four-day long weekend filled with travel, going to an amusement park with extended family and being asked to be a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding! Then it was off to out-of-state orientation for two days with the baby and my mom coming down to help. Then, immediately after that, two days at the new job. It's taken a few weeks to get a sense of our new normal and our new schedule. I'm learning a lot at the new job which is exciting, but I also miss the sense of security the old job gave me where I really was confident in what I was doing! In the midst of all of that, our baby boy started walking and we both celebrated our birthdays! This past weekend was the first weekend in a long time where I sat and did a whole lot of nothing for most of the time, and it was glorious. Here's some things that have made me smile this month: 1. This book . My son got this for his birthday fr...

This will never be a legit fashion blog, but What I Wore posts are just too much fun! Here's a sampling of some of my favorite outfits from June. It's been fun to dress for a new work environment and play around with a bunch of new clothes this month. My mom got me clothes for my birthday, I bought some new workwear for the new job and I got a big bag of hand-me-downs from a friend. If you follow me on Instagram , you've already seen these. There were other favorites that I just forgot to photograph. When I take records like this of my outfits, I definitely see that I tend to always want at least one pop of color, a print, or both! Top left: This was a Saturday of errands. I've had those shorts for at least four years and it never ceases to amaze me how versatile that color can be. The shirt is from J Crew and I've been wanting that shirt for YEARS. My mom snagged it from ThredUp for my birthday. [Shoes: Payless hand-me-down; shorts: old from Kmart;...

So remember earlier in the week when I wrote about having grace with yourself in whatever season you're in when it comes to spending time with God? I promised you a post with some practical ways to apply that; ways to squeeze in that time during your days. No matter how busy you are, there's got to be some sort of time you can repurpose to get in some prayer or Bible time.  You're in the season you are in for a reason. If you find yourself thinking "well, that's now how time with God is supposed to look like," I encourage you to reframe your thinking. It's supposed to look like how it is right now in the God-given season you're in! In the car: 1. Listen to the YouVersion Bible app. The Bible audio is a bit more than 70 hours long. If you have a half hour commute every day, you could listen to the Bible three times each year just in your daily commute. 2. Listen to sermon podcasts. I like The Village Church's podcast . 3. Liste...

Babies are just lumps of cuteness that sleep, eat, cry and poop for months. They don't understand your words, but you still talk to them, right? While they don't understand the stories in books, it's still important to read to babies. Research finds that early exposure to language has a “profound influence on children's learning through life,” according to this NPR story from 2014 . There's nothing to lose by reading to a young baby, only something to gain. To read to a baby or child, you are close to them, which is a bonding experience too! The article states: "Just one-third of children in families below the poverty threshold are read to daily. That statistic improves as family income rises. But less than two-thirds of children in families making $95,400 for a family of four are read to daily, according to the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children's Health. As a result, children in poorer families lag behind in language processing as earl...