The Saturday 7

1. This week I read three books - and none of them were my usual fluff fiction. Go me! I forced myself to finish an Elisabeth Elliot book (Joyful Surrender) I started months ago. Her writing style is not my favorite and it took me a while to power through. Then I read Ten Words to Live By by Jen Wilkin. It's about the 10 commandments, and it wasn't my favorite either. I also read another YA book that I've heard good things about: Sweet Home Alaska by Carol Estby Dagg. It was good! Very clean and wholesome, which is hard to find these days!

2. For the past couple of weeks, I've been getting nonstop texts and emails from Grapids - a local heating/cooling company - telling me that I'm overdue for a furnace tune-up, and they're running a special right now. On Tuesday, I finally responded to their text, "I'm not interested. Please remove me from your contact list." So guess what happened on Wednesday? Our heat stopped working!! Grapids sabotaged me! The thermostat said the heat was on, but it never ran and the temperature kept dropping. So I sheepishly texted them again asking for the furnace tune-up special. They came out, said our ignitor was busted, didn't have the replacement part on hand, and then said, "Honestly, your furnace is 20 years old and should just be replaced. Let's set up an appointment to go over your options for a new one." Of course, we couldn't get an appointment 'til Friday and I was worried about freezing for days. I was also panicking about coming up with money for a new furnace. So my brother said I should call a friend of his for a second opinion. Said friend came out the next day, agreed the ignitor was busted, drove to a parts place nearby, and installed it. The heat kicked right on and has been working no problem ever since then! Thanks for nothing, Grapids! I've never been so relieved to pay $145 for someone to fix my furnace!

3. Today I finally went somewhere I've been wanting to go for a year: Embrace Books - a completely FREE "bookstore." I found out about it on facebook, but didn't want to go by myself. My cousin Esther agreed to take me today, and we finally checked it out. It's actually an old church basement filled with thousands of used books that people donate. There were three rooms of books, plus some shelves in hallways. I actually only came home with about 20 books, and a good portion of those are for the school library, but I found some treasures! I was excited to find some Babysitter Club Graphic Novels in really good condition. Lena loves those. I found one Sierra Jensen book for Lucy, a dog book for Levi, and a book about D-Day for Justin. I also got Pax by Sara Pennypacker for the school library (potentially - I have to pre-read it, but I've heard good things about it). A lot of the books are very old, but I loved searching through everything. I'll definitely be back.

4. I need to hurry up and finish this post before Gonzaga loses, because I'm currently killing the family bracket. I'm the only one left with a final winner in contention. Everyone else picked Baylor, Alabama, Arizona, Xavier, or Kansas - who are all out.

It feels good up here at the top. We'll see how long it lasts. 😂

5. Levi has taken a sudden interest in reading. Usually, it's like pulling teeth to get him to read at all, but this week he whipped through all 5 books he brought home from school. He keeps me humble, because he's halfway through first grade and can barely read. I know it's not a big deal, and I'm not at all pressuring him, but I feel guilty because I think it's more laziness-related than anything else. If he would sit down and work on it (or if I would force him), I think it'd click so quickly and he'd start reading much more fluently. But I don't want to fight him on it, so I don't make him practice nearly as much as he should. Hopefully the tide is finally turning a little on that score.

6. This is another book I got for free today:

Lena and I spent like an hour quizzing each other tonight, while Levi was in the same room, and I was shocked by how many answers he knew! It's encouraging that he's always listening and soaking stuff up, even if he can't read it for himself. Lena knew more than I expected, too! Maybe that Christian school tuition is worth it after all.

7. I don't have any more pictures tonight, but have I got some memes for you! (If you didn't read that in Bob the tomato's voice, are you even a 90s Christian?)