Weekend Roundups

Weekend Roundup, September 30, 2017: Birthday Edition

09.30.2017 by Nicole Kristin Twedt //

Happy fall, y’all.

The y’all is a nod to my mom who turned sixty-five on Thursday. (Happy birthday mom!) She may be sixty-five, but she’ll always be a fresh-faced and bright-eyed girl from Wichita, Kansas.

It’s my personal theory that sixty-five is the new forty, anyway. Minus a bum knee, I think she’d agree. We just got back from mom and Dave’s house where we had ourselves a little birthday shindig, complete with pizza and cake. Actually, mom, Dave and Greg had chocolate truffle cake. The kids and I had Olivia Superfree cookie dough cupcakes that are basically free from all the major allergens and flavor. That was a joke. I’ve been abstaining from gluten and dairy for so long that the allergen-free cupcakes are nothing short of divine, even if a little stale. I may have heard angels singing.

I’m rambling. I need to keep this Weekend Roundup short and to the point.

But short and to the point isn’t my specialty. I prefer long and drawn out. It takes at least 1,000 words before I have a sense of where I’m headed, of where I’m going.

Speaking of rambling, in my last Weekend Roundup I got swept away describing my whimsical bird mug that matches Kate’s. So much so that I forgot to link to Kate’s essay. I was only supposed to mention the matchy-matchy bird mugs as a way to introduce Kate’s essay. My bad. I blame ADHD. And the stomach bug.

Here we go again with the essay. Before I get to it, you’ll remember that I stole a screen shot of Kate’s mug from Instagram but decided it wasn’t Kosher to do so. I deleted everything from my photo library because that’s what rule followers do. But in the end Kate made an honest woman out of me. She commented on a Facebook post and gave me permission to use the screenshot of her picture after all.

Photo by Kate Laymon on Instagram. Screenshot by me.

Anyway, let’s talk about Kate’s essay. Kate writes about how she and her husband said goodbye to weekend fights. I wish I’d know Kate when the kids were younger. Greg and I could have used the encouragement found in How My Husband & I Stopped Fighting on the Weekends. Now that the kids are older, weekends are the best. Spoiler: it’s because we don’t have babies, toddler or preschoolers in the house.

But we do have elementary age kiddos, three of them. And one happens to be a highly-sensitive tween who wears her heart on her sleeve. Vanessa Hunt featured a hilarious post on At the Picket Fence about the things no one tells you about parenting teenagers. Swoon! It really is hysterical. We could all use a good laugh these days, don’t you think? Those of you from my old church, you need to know that I’m talking about a different Vanessa Hunt than the one we know. You can read new Vanessa’s work here. If you’re curious, the other Vanessa can be found here. They’re both wonderful.

This next essay will appeal to mamas of littles and bigs alike. As a mama of three, I more than appreciate Anna Burgess’ take on helping kids develop their own faith in God. Because, let’s face it, we can’t do it for them. If you’re a parent, go ahead and check out Anna’s post right about now. I’ll wait for you.

Switching gears.

Please take a moment to read another one of Erin Whitmer’s essays. You’ll remember her from the Weekend Roundup I finally got around to publishing on Monday. I’m probably taking everything out of context; but Erin’s essay reminds me of the verses in 1 Kings 19 about Elijah seeking God on the mountain. Elijah searched for God in the mighty windstorm but God was not in the wind. Next Elijah searched for God in the earthquake. But, you guessed it, that’s not where God showed up. Again, Elijah looked for God in the fire. Surprise, surprise, God wasn’t in the fire. Instead, our loving Father came to Elijiah in a gentle whisper, which leads me back to Erin’s essay. Do you Hide What God Wants to Reveal? is about learning how God reveals wisdom and truth in the everyday. I think it’s easy to miss God when we look for him only in the grand and glorious moments–and he’s certainly there. But if we’re only looking for him in mighty ways, we’ll miss him in the mundane. I don’t mean to sound holier-than-thou but I see God in many places. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, adult ADHD is both a blessing and a curse, but mostly a blessing for it leads me back to him in random moments and random connections.

I’m just going to come out and say it: I’m nervous to share the following words by Caroline Saunders. Caroline was featured on Sadie Robertson’s website in March. I think I’m too old to know about Sadie Robertson, but here you go. Except Sadie’s name sounds familiar. I want to say from an interview on The Happy Hour With Jamie Ivey, but maybe not. By the way, if I ever get bored of Weekend Roundups (again, ADHD), then without a doubt, I’ll end up putting together some sort of Weekly Podcast Roundup. Now that would be fun. How I love me a good podcast;.enough to use poor grammar.

But the following post is from a talk by Caroline Saunders, not Sadie. I’m cringing as I type this because I’m about to share a purity talk for high school and college students. Yep, I’m gonna linky-link to a purity talk. I dare you to read about it here. I’m just going to come out and say it: I think the church gets a bad rap when it comes to purity talks, and rightly so. Telling woman they are damaged goods and such isn’t cool. Yet ignoring what the Bible has to say about sex other than “don’t do it” is also a big no-no in my book. It’s a tricky balance. Certainly, there are repercussions for risky behavior. But here’s the thing, God is in the business of redeeming; it’s what he does best. Also, I appreciate the way Caroline doesn’t shy away from addressing the guys in the crowd. Anyway, in the next few days you’ll probably find me poking around Caroline’s blog at writercaroline.com. Caroline’s voice is unique. She doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to biblical truths; but she’s funny, very very funny.

The next-to-last essay of the last day of September is about steps we can take when anxiety rears its ugly head. I found the bullet points at the end of the article extremely helpful, and I’m not a bullet point kind of girl. It sounds too much like the Bullet Journal, which is most definitely not for me. It’s as if anxiety is the latest buzz word. So many in my close circle are living with it, including myself and my favorite little boy. Gosh, even our dog has anxiety. I’ve heard it said that if you’re in the market for a Ford, then all you’ll see are Fords, Fords, Fords, everywhere you go. I’m a Honda gal through and through, but that’s besides the point. Anyway, go check out Reversing the Anxiety Tornado by J. J. Gutierrez, It’s a must-read for the brave one who struggles with anxiety. Yes, the brave one. You’d better believe you are brave if you’re living life with anxiety. In fact, you are a living, breathing example of someone who is being brave when life is hard. You can find J.J.’s essay, complete with bullet points here.

Ramblings aside, I just can’t stop myself from giving you one final essay. I mean, really, why stop at 1,000 words if you can possibly squeeze in 1,500? No, I promise to stop before then. This time. Anwhoo, Bethany Barendregt wrote a particularly moving piece called For the Late-Blooming Souls. I savored each and every word of this thoughtful reflection. Yes to this! Story of my life, right here! How I love quiet and stillness, how I thrive in slowness. I don’t think my kids got the e-mail.

In just a little less than fifteen minutes it will be the first of October. I can hardly believe it. As I said before, happy fall, y’all!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, especially Sunday. Savor its slowness. Rest up, dear ones. See you soon.

P.S. Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear mom

Happy birthday to you!

Weekend Roundup: Stomach Virus Edition

09.25.2017 by Nicole Kristin Twedt //

I’ve come to appreciate a cup or two of strong coffee each morning. Piping hot and in my favorite stainless double insulated travel mug, the lady boss of all my travel mugs (of which I have many) is how I like it. If a morning is particularly lazy and I have nowhere to be, I will splurge and use the hand-painted Polish mug from my sister-in-law Julea, a birthday present from my early thirties. The mug is actually from T.J. Maxx. But it was hand-painted in Poland so I call it the Polish mug. I love the mug (and Julea) so much that I tracked down its sisters from every T.J. Maxx in a ten mile radius to form a perfect set of six. Or I’ll fill a steaming cup of Tony’s French Royale (or Tony’s Espresso Noir when I’m feeling fancy) to the brim of one of three bird mugs: the turquoise mama bird and her nest of eggs, or the lime green mug with the whimsical bird outlined in white, or it’s fraternal mug-brother in blue.

Speaking of the whimsical bird mug in blue, I recently learned from Instagram that Kate has its identical twin. It’s worth mentioning that Kate’s mug is the more exotic of the two. Her mug is from San Luis Obispo. Mine, I’m sad to say, is from Central Market. But I can imagine it came from a far-off place other than China. I stole a screen shot of Kate’s mug for this blog post, but I have a feeling it isn’t Kosher to do so. Excuse me while I delete the screen shot from my photo library.

Back to morning coffee.

The simple fact that I’d abandoned a tumbler full of Tony’s coffee should have been the first clue that trouble was brewing on Saturday.

I will spare you the details and just come out and say it: there was a reason for my coffee avoidance. And it had nothing to do with a pregnancy. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on which camp you belong to, I am not pregnant (or trying to be). But that’s not what I’m getting at. No, this coffee avoidance had everything to do with The Great Stomach Virus of 2017.

Friends, I’m going to fast forward a few days because no one needs to read about my run-in with the stomach bug.

So here we are on Monday. As Melanie Shankle says, Monday is the new Saturday. I agree. Which is why I’m not feeling the least bit bad about publishing a Weekend Roundup on a weekday.

First off, here’s a lovely essay by Leigh Sain. You can read about it here. I’m not a fan of Walmart but I adore Leigh’s essay about her recent encounter with an elderly saint at Walmart. Leigh’s story pretty much sums up everything I love about grocery shopping. I never love the idea of grocery shopping, but once I get there, the kind of stuff Leigh writes about happens on a regular basis. I’m telling you, the aisles of Fred Meyer, Central Market and Costco is where it’s at. Let’s not forget about Trader Joe’s.

Up next is another one from The Hippo Chronicles. I’m a huge fan of Elli Johnson’s work. In fact, I’ve linked to Elli’s essays in previous Weekend Roundups. Elli is my age (okay, maybe a smidget younger) and writes regularly about life with anxiety. Here ya go. Now drop everything and take in her words like breathing in a giant breath of fresh air.

If you’re more of a type-A check list type of gal or guy, the following post kinda-sorta goes along with Elli’s essay. I still haven’t figured out if I’m type-A or B. Depends on the day, I guess. Or the moment, which probably means B. Anyway, Jill E. McCormick shared a similar message on her blog from a slightly different angle. You can read about it here. It’s about what to do when you’re overwhelmed with responsibilities.

I was intrigued by the title of the next Hope*Writer essay: That time I stalked Lisa Harper by Erin Whitmer. Here it is for your reading enjoyment. I probably shouldn’t tell you why Erin’s plug about her essay caught my attention in the first place. I’ll give you a hint to wet your pallet: My fascination with this essay may, or may not, have everything to do with one dreadfully boring summer between sophomore and junior year of high school. One of my high school besties (who shall remain nameless) and I drove shamelessly through Seattle’s Blue Ridge neighborhood in a fire engine red Subaru wagon fueled by snacks from Safeway in hopes of glimpsing a certain someone at home. We practiced the fine art of stalking on a semi-regular basis that summer, I’m sad to say. Come to think of it, the Subie was more tomato-red than anything. We were too cool to care.

Once again I’m linking to my dear friend, Jody Lee Collins. Jody wrote this essay several years ago for (in)Courage about giving up on “quiet time” with God. Jody is a kindred spirit and her words come from a tender place. I’m linking to the original version here because I’m proud of my friend. Here’s a link to Jody’s website if you want to read more. By the way, Jody has a book releasing soon. You’ll hear about it later. I can’t wait to tell you about her labor of love.

Speaking of friends, my friend Emily, the ring leader of Kindred Mom, featured an essay on her site last week by Tia McNelly. Honestly, Tia’s words grabbed me from the start. I’m not entirely sure if Emily shared this essay with the Hope*Writers. I’m sharing it anyway because it’s that good. Here’s a sample to get you hooked: “In the sunshine of a crisp April morning in the Appalachians, I smoked my last cigarette. I knew it was my last cigarette because I knew I was pregnant and once I took a test, that was it.” You can read more here. You’re welcome.

Andrea Wolloff’s essay is the final essay in this poor excuse of a Weekend Roundup. Andrea shared a truly lovely essay about God, and “how he sets our calling in us when we are little and full of wonder.” Yes to this.

When I was a little girl I adored playing school. There’s no words to describe the joy I got out of creating a daily class schedule, which I’d print in my very best handwriting on the oversize green chalkboard in my bedroom. Or was it a blackboard? All I know is that quite a bit of time was spent coming up with seating arrangements and imaginary class lists, alphabetized of course. Another biggie for me was spending time nurturing baby dolls, especially my ten Cabbage Patch Kids, yes ten. (A wee bit obsessive-compulsive, don’t ya think?) And what about Barbie? My neighbor Sharon and I played for hours and hours with our Barbies on the cold cement floor of the daylight basement of my childhood. We played the day away beneath the staircase where my Barbie house was stored. The really interesting part about my Barbie days is that I invested more time in rearranging Barbie’s furniture and thinking up story lines for her life with Ken than I did actually playing with them. As an adult, my greatest love has been teaching preschool and kindergarten, becoming a wife and mama, and realizing that I’m a writer with a constant story happening in my head. Oh, and I spend quite a bit of time trying to transform our home into a sort of sanctuary from the word. In other words, I’m moving furniture.

Enough about Barbie and me. Back to Andrea. As a writer, Andrea is new to me; but I love what she has to say. I appreciate her essay and look forward to reading more from her in the future. By the way, you can read Andrea’s essay here.

That’s all for now. My little dog is fast asleep by my side. So is my husband. Have a wonderful week. Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful fall day, at least in the Pacific Northwest where I’m from.

P.S. I have a few book reviews in the works. Stay tuned. I haven’t had time to actually write these reviews, not yet, but they’re long overdue and coming your way! Let’s see if I can type-A myself into making it happen.

Weekend Roundup, September 17, 2017

09.17.2017 by Nicole Kristin Twedt //

I didn’t offer up anything on the Hope*Writers’ share thread this week; but it’s not for the lack of wanting to write. My soul is just about always burning to write. I just didn’t have the time.

It’s just these last seven days have been filled with mundane tasks that needed to happen. More than I needed to write.

Like the trip to the Girl Scout Shop at the end of the week to get the badges and pins for Lauren’s new Brownie vest for the troop’s Bridging ceremony (where the girls move up, like from Daisy to Brownie or Brownie to Junior or from Junior to Cadet). Then I had to spend quite a bit of time sewing patches on a rather ugly brown vest. Well, that’s not exactly how it went down. It was more like this: me lugging the iron down from the coat closet because iron-on badges is thankfully a thing. I have to confess, I had to dip into my stash of Badge Magic to bind the majority of the badges because Badge Magic is also a thing (thankfully). By the way, whomever the genius is behind Badge Magic, that lucky soul is my new favorite person. Ever. Badge Magic, in case you haven’t heard of it, well, it’s sort of like a magical spell that kinda sorta turns patches into stickers. Of course, like any good mother, I recruited artsy-crafty Emily to lend a hand. She did most of the work. After all, as sanity-saving as it is, Badge Magic also happens to be a pain in the derrière, a real tool.

Back to the Hope*Writer shares that lead into Weekend Roundups. When it comes to Weekend Roundups, if I don’t share anything there if I don’t share anything here. Translation: I’m only required to share the work of two other writers if I choose to showcase my own work. And like I said, this week I’ve got nothing.

But a funny thing happened. What started as a requirement has turned into a labor of love, which is strange because I normally don’t read other people’s weekly shares around the web. In fact, I delete, delete, delete when they find their way into my inbox. But I enjoy writing them. Creating a space to share the work of others provides me with purpose, focus even and a glorious excuse to write. And for me, writing is like breathing. We all know everything goes better if one is properly inhaling and exhaling.

It’s long past 10 o’ clock on a Sunday, closer to 11, yet it’s time for another Weekend Roundup. Consider it your nightcap.

The first essay I’m going to share is a little ditty that Shawna Letellier wrote on Kate Motaung’s Five Minute Friday Blog about what she learned being an unknown first time author. It’s called Book Launch Advice from a First-time Author. You can read about it here. Most of my in-real-life friends are not writers so this one may only appeal to a few of you. But I really liked what Shawna had to say. Her words were nothing short of encouraging. I have big dreams, you see. I know I’m not really supposed to admit my wildest of wild dreams out loud, kind of like how a spoken wish isn’t supposed to come true. You know, like wishes made while blowing out birthday candles or as you drop a hopeful coin into the wishing well-type fountain at the mall. But I don’t believe in that. I believe in faith, hope, plenty of prayer, God’s timing and a lot of hard work. So I’m just going to say it. I want to write a book. Someday. When? Who knows. This is my someday maybe dream.

It seems like everyone is writing on their friend’s sites lately. Here’s Crystal Stine’s essay on Tricia Goyer’s site: Walk It Out Stories: An Indefinite Delay. Here ya go. Highly recommend this essay to anyone feeling a bit lost, torn even, over not begin able to live out a calling or serving God in the way you’d like. I’m not in this season, but boy could I relate when the kids were tinier. I couldn’t even play a single song on the piano from start to finish without a little one sneaking under one of the beds in the girls’ room to snack on fruit-flavored chap stick. Strawberry seemed to be the flavor of choice there for awhile. But even now, there are days that I’d rather just write to my hearts content but I kind of have to stop and make dinner, shuttle the kids to and from school, and make a somewhat decent, if not halfhearted, attempt at the battle of the laundry situation, and all that jazz. I don’t think it’s what Crystal meant. Her essay is more about learning to be still before God. Nevertheless, my ADHD mind related to this one.

I really liked Jennie G. Scott’s To the Parent Without the Right Answers. Hmmm, perhaps it’s because I don’t have the answers either. In fact, people who have all the answers are annoying. And boring. Anyway, you can read Jennie’s post here.

Okay, so this next item of news will take a little work on your part. You know how I keep bringing up Dorina Lazo Gilmore in nearly all of these Weekend Roundups of mine? Well, Dorina just published a new book, actually a Bible Study. It’s called Glory Chasers. I just bought it and you should too. No, really. I already have it in my hot little hands. I’m going to work through Glory Chasers with two friends in the next month or so. Here’s a link to Dorina’s website where you can get the book for yourself. Or head on over to Amazon to snag your copy. That will do. But if you’re on Facebook, head over to Dorina’s author page to view the book trailer.

Friends, I have to go. I had book club on Friday and I’m still recovering. I’m beat. I’m simply not as young as I used to be. If tomorrow morning is going to be somewhat successful, I’ve got to get my beauty sleep. ‘Night all.

P.S. It’s finally raining!