A Season of Reading - Free Fall To Fly

For something to qualify as a good memoir for me, it needs to be vulnerable. I need to feel the person's pain and happiness and every emotion in between. I genuinely felt like I was on a roller coaster with the woman who wrote this book, and that made me feel like I was reading a wonderful story, because life is a lot of ups and downs, so it felt true.

This woman and her husband move their family to New York City, as they are feeling led to do by the Lord, and soon learn that not all adventure is easy. They face extreme loneliness, depression, frustration and exhaustion… and it lasts awhile. While there are moments of hope, and ultimately the story ends in grace, she really wrestles with trusting the Lord in the midst of free falling, and anxiety prevails time and time again.

Being no stranger to anxiety, this part resonated with me. Although, I have never had full blown attacks like she has, I do relate to the feeling that anxiety overcomes your thoughts and you are left with only the shell of a once exuberant and thriving person. It is interesting to read her describe her emotions and how she learns to place trust in the Lord in both a physical and emotional sense.

I also love what she touches on about sharing our stories. I think far too often people are ashamed of who they are and what they struggle with, when in reality if we are honest we feel weight come off our shoulders and we can more completely be ourselves. It is a catch 22 in some ways, because in order to be comfortable you have to be honest, but most people feel more comfortable when they have their "stuff" hidden. However, this is not true relationship as the Lord designed it in my opinion, and we need to dig deeper with friends. Keeping everything swept under the rug is not helping anyone: Friends, Family, Relationships and Marriages alike.

In other words, I love that she shares her raw, emotional, overwhelming and exhausting story. She is being real and honest and vulnerable, and the world needs more of that.

I can only hope to be more like her. I admire the nature of this book and hope you take the time to pick it up and invest time reading this woman's story, as I think many can relate to her struggles and tendencies.

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In the Nursery: Whole Hearted Parenting Manifesto

I recently finished a book by Brene Brown titled, DaringGreatly.
It really moved me, and I am definitely still processing it.
At the beginning of the book I wasn’t resonating deeply with the topic of vulnerability, as most people will tell you I am an “open book”. I will answer most questions without holding back and love to deep dive into good conversation. However, what I came to realize through her many examples is that we all wrestle with vulnerability, guilt and shame throughout this book even if is more momentary than constant. I gleaned SO MUCH from this book that I did not anticipate, and I thought I would share this Parenting Manifesto that she put right at the end of the book. I am printing it and framing it for our nursery, as I think it communicates some deep parts of my heart cry for parenting my kiddos well.

I hope this resonates with someone else as much as it did with me.
I needed these words to remind me that parenting is not a checklist, it is a lifestyle. …

A Penny For Your Thoughts - On Insecurity and Looking Back

I have felt compelled to write about something lately, and been shying away from it, which is not my typical style. As I look back over my life, I have recently realized that I finally feel like "enough". I know my worth is in the Lord and I know I am beautiful and worth people's time, but that has not always been my story. Far too often from the ages of 12 to 30, I defined my worth by whether someone was interested in dating me or not and after I got married, whether people "liked me" and wanted to be my friend or to hire me. Was I pretty enough? Interesting enough? Worth someone's time? Talented enough? Smart enough? etc...
Recently, as pictures pop up in my Timehop (an app that shows pictures taken the same day as far back as it can reach through social media and the camera roll on my phone), I distinctly remember feeling like I was either fat or unattractive in most pictures. I remember being embarrassed of my pants size. I remember wearing to…

At the Library - May through September 2019 Reading

We had another baby in May (SO much more on that later) and blogging has obviously taken a back seat, but I am still reading for pleasure and have managed, in my sons first four months of life, to complete these 8 books! Y'all, I remember a time when even completing 2 books a year would have sincerely sounded daunting, much less with a newborn. If you want to read more, you can find the time! Take stock of your days and see where you are wasting hours. For some of these, I listened to the audio book while I was pumping or watering the garden.
Rather than give you an individual breakdown of each of these books, I just want to report I found them all incredibly enjoyable. A total cross section of a food memoir to a psychology deep dive to nature centric novels, I would recommend them all in different capacities.

Mrs. Rogers Neighborhood

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