I'm back this week to share three little things making me happy this week, along with Amy from MomAdvice.
Three Little Things
1. Community.
It's pretty impressive to watch a blog post or meme "go viral" through social media, but it's quite another thing to see a much-needed prayer request go viral. In the last week, since my pastor's daughter went into the hospital for a brain tumor, my church's Facebook page has gotten over 10,000 hits (this is a smallish church of around 500 people give or take).
People from around the world have been praying for sweet Katherine, and her family can feel the power of that. She's not out of the woods yet, but we're hopeful. And to see our local community rally around them with support, in addition the world at large praying and sharing concern for them has been really moving.
Do you have a passion for community? Check out my free prayer calendar that's available to my newsletter subscribers.
2. Party prep!
Tonight we're having a little birthday party for Gigi. We're keeping things pretty simple, and I've been having a lot of fun thinking about the "camping" theme. The only real décor will be a couple of paper buntings made with my Cricut Mini. Dessert will be s'mores, activities will include rainbow looming, friendship bracelets, a scavenger hunt, a few other things. She's beyond excited. I'll share details about it with you next week. :)
3. "Bubbly water"
I can remember when I studied abroad in Chile in college that you had to order your water "sin gas" if you wanted it still, otherwise the default would be mineral water. At the time, the idea of "bubbly water" (which is what we now call it with our kids) totally grossed me out. But how I love a little Pellegrino over ice mixed with juice, or with a half of a lime or lemon squeezed in. We've been having ourselves a little heat wave around here and it's been just the thing this week for a little glass of refreshment. (That, and dipping our toes in the cool ocean water.)
This & That
I'm still recovering from the bundle sale, and haven't been reading around the internet much this week to have anything interesting to share with you.
The first of the month always seems to sneak up on me. So early next week, I will try to get my May goals posted (since I was hoping to persevere with that), and I will also get a Pinterest to Real Life post up, although I'm brainstorming changing things up a bit with that...
State of the blog
I wanted to give you a little bloggy update on me. I've been thinking a lot about what role I want blogging to take in my life and how I want to make time for blogging. A lot of this thinking stemmed from reading Laura's blogging series over at Hollywood Housewife.
I think for now, my goal is to post here at least twice a week. I'm going to try to consistently post on Tuesdays and Fridays, and then leave room for spontaneous extra posts in between when I'm feeling inspired.
I've gotten pretty active on the Facebook page-- I'm posting there multiple times a day usually which is fun. This week we talked about what we make for dinner when it's too hot to cook, among other things..
I also love sharing Amazon finds and deals there. As I've shared, those are affiliate links (I take them on FB with #afflink) and whenever you click through on a product or book I love, you support what I do here with your purchases. I'm really grateful when that happens, and it helps keep the lights on, as it were, around here. Affiliate money, mainly Amazon, is how the main way I make any money blogging. It pays for my hosting service, and any other blog expenses I might have.
Of course, I'm always pinning things I'm into or inspired by on Pinterest. Are you following me there? And I'm trying to get back into checking and interacting on Twitter. It was my first social media love. Do you tweet? I'd love to connect there.
And my favorite way to connect online is definitely Instagram. That's where I share snippets of my life with you guys on a regular basis. You might see me posting there with the hashtags #pinteresttoreallife, #motherhoodandjaneausten, or #sewingschool101.
As always, I'm all ears to know what content you love (or don't) here and what you'd like to see more of. You can always send me an email.
So let's hear it, what's making you happy this week?
Affiliate links included.