The Saturday 7

1. I recently started following a Christian speaker/author/podcaster on Instagram because I like what she has to say about the Bible, and I wanted to hear more. I didn't realize that she was one of those Instagrammers, though. You know the one - she homeschools her passel of kids, but has a beautiful, picture-perfect house that is always clean. Her kids are well-behaved and respectful. Her business of podcasting and writing Bible studies is so successful that her husband was able to quit his job. She loves make-up and beauty and always looks so put together. Le sigh. No part of me is saying that's wrong. It's just so unrelatable. How do all these Christian authors have so much money? Are they really selling that many books? My sisters and I have joked for years that we want to write a book from a poor person's perspective. Let's talk about following Jesus even when we live in the suburbs in a house from the 70s, and our husbands have 9-5 jobs, and we can't afford fancy vacations or cars with functioning door handles. All that's to say, this new Instagrammer posted a "day in the life" video last week, where she gets up at 5 a.m. and makes coffee in her fancy french press, does her 10 step beauty routine, works out in her fancy home gym, shares pictures of her kids dutifully doing their beautifully curated schoolwork, wearing their pretty dresses and playing nicely together. It inspired me to create my own "day in the life" Instagram story that represents us "normal" people. I shared pictures of my broken bathroom cabinet, my janky backyard, my 2004 van, my 2-step beauty routine (moisturizer and blow dryer), my laundry piles and my unfinished laundry room. I even shared a fast-motion video of myself doing dishes in my scrubby sweatpants, with greasy hair in a ponytail, and my double chin flapping every time I chomped on my gum. #relatable

2. I'm a part of a women's book club at church. We just started a new book called Unseduced and Unshaken: the Place of Dignity in a Woman's Choices. We're only two chapters in so far, but we had an interesting discussion this week. This week's chapter was called Finding Your Voice and was about how women tend to self-silence and suppress their thoughts and feelings - especially in a church setting. I was flabbergasted by the whole chapter, because I have never felt that way - and I feel like in our feminist culture, it's extremely rare that women feel silenced by men. If anything, it's the other way around lately! Anyway, the author of the chapter is a college professor and she said that she's been asking one question of her female students for years: what are the characteristics of a godly woman? She said that a common response was "submissive." Again, I was shocked by that. So I decided to do my own little super-scientific-survey by asking the same question of my facebook friends. I got responses from around 20 people (98% of them women), with various responses like "loving, gentle, kind, prayerful, in the Word, servant-hearted" but not a single one said, "submissive." So interesting. 

3. This week my kids got to take part in our school's biggest fundraiser - Project Luke 9: Feeding the Future. We've been raising money for a month to pack 25,000 meals for kids in Haiti and Turkey (plus some for kids in our community). All the money we raised over the cost of the meals goes to our school. But it's cool for the kids to get to have a hands-on part in packing the meals themselves. They had the packing party on Thursday, which is a day I work, so I was only able to pop in here and there between classes. But I got to see Lena helping to measure out the weight of each meal:

And I got to watch Levi play giant inflatable Plinko. 

He got to throw six balls (based on the amount of money we raised) and ended up getting enough points for a package of M&Ms. Lucy got enough points for three popcorn coupons (popcorn sells for 25 cents a bag). And Lena got enough points for $20 cash! She was definitely the Plinko winner in our family! Haha.

4. I watched Libby's kids all day on Wednesday. They're 2 and 4, and I definitely forgot how much work little kids are. Haha. They're super good and played so nicely all day, but they got out pretty much every toy I own, and require constant supervision. It made me thankful, again, that I had kids young so I don't have to parent toddlers in my old age. 😂 Saylor and I had fun with snapchat filters while she was here:

Nash got in on the action too.

She's much cuter with #nofilter 😍

Stella was a big fan of the doll crib Saylor brought up from downstairs.

5. Last night, our whole family was invited to a birthday party for a friend, and I realized anew how different my kids are. Lucy put the skates on, stood up and said, "nope," then sat back down and took them off. She sat on the sidelines the whole night. Lena brought her own rollerblades from home and zipped around the rink with abandon all night. Levi put on the skates, cried that they hurt his feet, made us loosen and tighten the laces and get him a different size, then clung to Justin and went around the rink twice before begging to take the skates off and go play in the arcade. Haha. I fulfilled a childhood dream of couples skating with a hot guy (Justin), and then joined Lucy on the sidelines because bunions and roller skates don't mix.

6. One of our neighbors at the end of our street just put up a little free library, and Levi was so excited to check it out one day. I let him go by himself because it was too cold for me to go outside. He brought down a couple books I wanted to donate, and he came back with one for me because "it looks like your kind of book."

😂

It was sweet of him to think of me, but it'll probably go back to the free little library unread.

7. Pics and memes

Our school did a contest for March "reading month" where kids were supposed to post pictures of themselves reading on facebook. Lena got a little creative with her picture. 

Levi with his picture at the library

We went to a friend's house today, where Levi tortured loved this cat.

Sweet cousins on Sunday. 

Poor Dwayne. Sleeve buttons are hard.

Almost there!

Truth . . . except I don't think I seem cool on facebook either. Lol.

This one is so random, but it really made me laugh.

My bracket is toast after Gonzaga lost last week, but Niki, Brandy, and I were the top contenders and we know nothing about basketball. In fact, Niki picked FAU at random to go to the championship game just because she likes the number 9. She was so close! 

From Job chapter 6. This is going to be my response the next time someone offers me an egg white omelet. 😂