Hi friends! Happy Groundhog Day! I had myself a little consult with Google to find out if today is Groudhog Day, Groundhog’s Day or Groudhogs Day. According to the fine folks in Whatever-it’s-called, PA, the first one is the winner. But who really cares? Anyway, I have much to share with you this fine Friday in February. My mind is going in a million directions. (Hello adult ADHD!) I’m more scattered than usual because it’s been awhile since I’ve had a good night’s sleep. The hours from 11:00 to 5:00 have been dicey since Greg and I started co-sleeping with one of our babies.
Co-sleeping? Wait a minute. I thought your children were in elementary school, you may be thinking.
I’m not talking about the children I birthed. Oh no, the eleven, nine and six-year-old are sleeping just fine. I’m talking about the eleven pound fur baby (who technically has hair not fur, but WHATEVER). Never in a million years did we think we’d share our bed with a non-human mammal. But co-sleeping with Chloe is what’s happening these days. I’m loving every second of having our sweet dog in our bed, except in the middle of the might when I’m not sleeping because the sweet dog is in our bed.
Enough about my nighttime woos. If you’re new to this corner of the internet, you should know that a “Weekend Roundup” is what happens when I share the work from a few of my friends at Hope*Writers.
The first piece isn’t exactly an essay or blog post or anything like that. Alana Dawson announced that she’s starting a podcast called Moms Want More. You can listen to the intro here. I hardly need another podcast in my life, but I find the subject of moms wanting more intriguing. Now that the Twedlings spend several hours a day at a magical place called elementary school, I have a bit of free time to establish a loose writing schedule. But someday I’d like to take my dream of the writerly life a bit further. Anyway, this podcast is for women like me who want to follow a dream but also happen to be in the middle of the muck of parenting and life.
Speaking of life with kids, how many of you are parenting teenagers? Anyone, anyone? We don’t have a teenager in the house, but I loved the following article by Karen Gauvreau. In fact, I embarrassed myself in the school parking lot the other day with all the LOLing coming from my van as I read Why Parenting Teenagers is Exactly Like Having a Mammogram. I don’t even have a teenager and I’ve never had a mammogram, but the article was absolutely hysterical. I shouldn’t have laughed about it. I recently learned that I’m middle-aged, which means the mammogram is on the horizon. Anyway, Karen’s latest article is titled Marriage: Where Mopping Is the New Sexy. You can find more of Karen Gauvreau here.
I’m not one to rock the boat. In fact, I will risk everything to ensure smooth sailing. Lanie Anderson isn’t rocking the boat either. However, she lovingly and respectfully disagrees with John Piper’s statement against women teaching seminary in her thoughtful essay, “John Piper, Jesus And A Woman’s Place.” You can read it here. Highly recommend. Lanie is a new-to-me writer. She also happens to be a youngish seminary student pursuing a master’s degree in Christian apologetics at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
As for me, I’ve been busy driving three kids to and from school, and basketball practice and Girl Scouts. Cookie season is about to start. I’ve spent quite a bit of time (for me) on social media trying to persuade people to buy Girl Scout cookies and to gush about Jamie Ivey’s book, If You Only Knew: My Unlikely, Unavoidable Story of Becoming Free, which released on Monday. It’s one of my favorites already. Not just the part about becoming free, but the message that even those who are free in Christ will mess up but are not failures. Anyway, I set out to write a review of Jamie’s book but felt God nudging me to share my own story to freedom instead. The links are below the image of the goose (or duck?) lifting off to flight.
The Instant Pot just beeped, announcing that dinner is ready. Those of you who know me in real life know how much I feared my Instant Pot in the beginning. The darn thing stayed in the box for the first year. I even named it Voldemort or “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” I finally dusted off the Dark Lord’s box in January. I’m pleased to announce that we haven’t had a single explosion in our tiny kitchen due to the Instant Pot, as I once feared was my destiny. In fact, Emily and I changed the Instant Pot’s name to Mrs. Weasley. Anyway, we need to eat quickly because Steven has a basketball game at the middle school, and we have snack duty. I’ll publish the Roundup when we get home because everyone knows it is stupid to announce to the world that you are stepping away from home for a basketball game on a dark Friday night in February.
N.
P.S. Do you have a story to freedom to share? What about a dream you have in the middle of the mess and muck of life? Do tell! Oh, and have a wonderful weekend!
Sweet you to send readers my way for not one but TWO posts. You are an amazing cheerleaders of women, Moms, writers…and random combinations of all three. Can’t imagine cosleeping with a dog. I mean, it sounds lovely until the part where the dog prevents you from sleeping. I’ve got insomnia at the best of times and nightly snoring competitions with my husband, so I could NOT add a sleep-interrupting-dog to the mix. Another baby? Maybe. (don’t tell my hubby)
Funny you should mention it, Karen, but the snoring from the other mammal in the bed was a big part of the problem!