Out my Window: A whole row of sunflowers, tall and beautiful.
Enjoying: Cooler nights, beautiful days, the night sky, corn, Wegmans pumpkin frycake donuts
Listening to: Brique a Braq on Spotify… I am intentionally stopping and listening on my schlogs: lots of crickets, some birds, wind, leaves, distant signs of people.
Reading: Re-reading Gods at War by Kyle Idleman for a book discussion I am facilitating.
By my bed: Re-reading Beholding and Becoming by Ruth Chou Simons (the hard copy). It released this week! Check out my full review here: https://inkblotlife.com/2019/09/10/beholding-and-becoming-the-art-of-everyday-worship-book-review/
New book launch group… so excited to get on the launch team for Kelly Minter’s cookbook, A Place at the Table. I have done a few of her bible studies and love the recipes she included in them. Looking forward to this different type of book to launch. Should be fun. https://kellyminter.com/a-place-at-the-table/.
Pondering: This morning I saw this quote from Lysa TerKeurst, “What makes faith fall apart isn’t doubt. It’s being too certain of the wrong things.” It jumped off her post at me as I have been pondering functional idols, I started thinking that has to do with idols of our hearts too. Things, people, achievements, expectations that become too important and we start leaning on them, and attaching them to God and making them into promises from Him. When we lean more and more of our weight on them they collapse and we fall, dazed and confused. When it is connected with faulty beliefs about God then He gets the brunt of the blame and seems to prove unfaithful in our eyes, when in reality we were the ones that were unfaithful. Definitely another facet of the idol making of our hearts to think about.
Learning: I need structure in order to be productive, but at times that can feel stifling to me because I love freedom and spontaneity, but I am realizing again how much I need some structure in certain areas of my life. I tend to swing back and forth between free for all, it will all work out, to needing accountability, schedules, and plans and back again. I am learning I need to find a way to put a loose structure around things and then allow freedom within it. I decided to follow, on my own, three different accountability areas to help me get some more exercise, be in the Word, and get the Word in me. I printed out the plans, signed up for the emails, but I am not joining in all the social media parts of it and the personal interaction because that feels pressure filled to me. I am remembering that I am the one making the rules, and I need to do what works to help me achieve my goals. I am slowly learning what that looks like and allowing it to look different than what I think it should look like.
Home: If you followed my saga of plumbing woes the last few weeks you will know I thoroughly cleaned much of my home, but there remained a rust type of odor that I could not get rid of. I tried all my tricks, and looked for spots I may have missed, but the smell was still in the air. My local grocery store has an end cap of this natural air neutralizer product that I have seen for a long time Fresh Wave Odor Removing Gel, https://www.freshwaveworks.com/products/home.asp# (not a sponsor, lol) I decided to give it a shot. Wow! I put it in the main area of smell and it disappeared in a couple of days and then purchased a second to place in area where there was a hint of that smell and it was gone in a day. Yay! Caught up from vacation, now trying to figure out a fall rhythm. Thinking I might need to jump into a structured program to help kick start me. I found a checklist from years ago of daily jobs and monthly chores… not sure what I will use.
Fitness and Mental Health: I signed up for a 10 day Pilates challenge with Robin Long. Each one is 15 minutes and very doable https://youtu.be/o5G0ctUCwXA. When I injured my IT band a ways back (Find saga and lessons I learned here: https://inkblotlife.com/2018/10/30/it-band/ ) they kept mentioning my core, and the need to strengthen my core and my pelvic floor. Pilates works that, so I thought I would give it a shot, plus my back is always a mess and needs help. So far, so good. I have been schlogging, and then doing the 15 min. workout. Mental Health… I have added structure to my workout, Bible reading, and Bible memory time. My brain and heart have been too scattered and out of control these days, so I am entering into a season of structure. Not sure how long it will last, but it is working for me right now.
Giving Thanks: Our time at the beach, still holding onto that, my sunflowers, all the fall colors starting to appear, the hint of summer reminding me to finish it well, corn, first day back at subbing, teens that were as happy to see me as I was them, prayer, people to pray with, a surprise visit from dear friends, laughter and memories with them, book launch teams and new opportunities
Inkblot Life 