Friday Favorites

1. My church

We have really been blessed with an awesome church.  We have so many friends and neighbors there and I am thrilled to also attend with my parents.  There were times in the past when church felt like an obligation, but it is becoming more and more a time we really look forward to.  We also just voted in a new Senior Pastor, after not having one for almost a year.  We are all really excited for the next months when his family will join us.

This church feels like I belong here...not just go here.  There is a big difference in those words, and I didn't realize it until recently.  I am so thankful the God has provided us with a place that feels like home.

We take awesome selfies with our friends in church!  We so fancy:)

2. Things that are not Time Warner Cable

I loathe our cable company.  They are soooo outrageously overpriced, and their customer service leaves a lot to be desired.  After shelling out almost $200 a month for TV and Internet, Brent and I decided to scale down.  It was definitely going beyond my comfort zone.  I loved being able to DR stuff and watch it when I want.  We scaled down to the BASIC channels (like 20 of them), and bought Apple TV.  We can basically stream anything off our phone and iPad onto the TV screen.  We have had to be a lot more selective about what we watch, and what Emma watches, but that's a good thing.  I had a bad habit of putting the TV on and leaving it for background noise.  This is fine for me, because I know how to regulate myself, but Emma does not.  We were actually able to get over 60 channels with our cable plugged directly into the wall (including NickJR, HGTV, and Hallmark....I may have screamed out loud in delight when I found that out), which is more than what we are supposed to be getting.  But don't worry, TWC is going all digital which means we won't be able to get all these come May when they make us use some converter (yet another remote and box....loathe them!)  We are trying to find away around this....without spending any extra money.  Did I mention I seriously HATE this company?  Feel free to leave me any suggestions for other platforms to try...we are currently using the free trial of Hulu and may look into Netflix.  Did I mention we are saving over $100 a month now too?  Woooohooooo!!

3. Pinterest

I LOVE Pinterest.  I check it every night.  It's kind of like Brent and I's "thing."  We love to look at the recipes, crafts, projects, etc..  We make fun of people who post ridiculous stuff...like low-fat, no calorie desserts (Puuhhhh llllleeease).  I don't have time for all that nonsense:)

I get a lot of good fashion, crafts, jewelry, and organizing tips off there too.

This is my new project this week - plastic playhouse (from Craigslist) makeover!  Emma was super excited when we picked it up!

I love that I can organize all my pins, and easily add ideas or items I want to remember to my boards.  I pin everything from recipes, parenting advice, and even secret board items - like my "Wish List" or gift ideas to buy other people.  Brent even has his own board for woodworking and other manly things:)

(I am also thankful for Brent's truck...which I happened to have on the day I saw this Craigslist ad for the playhouse...at which point the owner texted me back and said she had 7 people text her already that morning and it would go to the first person to get there....Needless to say...I scooped Emma up in our pjs and raced over there as fast as I could.  Emma hasn't stopped talking about since we got it home = success!)

4. Burt's Bees Lip Shimmer in Plum

This is my go-to lipstick.  I don't have time for lip liner, lipstick, and the gloss.  (Do women who do all that ever eat or drink???)  I like to just swipe it on, without a mirror, and go.  I wear it almost everyday, and it doesn't dry out my lips like other lipsticks do.  Sadly, the other colors don't look that great on me.  I had a hard time with lip colors because I have a lot of pigment in my lips already (or so I've been told by the makeup artists at Nordstrom).  I am also really picky about lipcolor.  I don't like it to be overdone, and I don't like sticky (so glosses are out of the picture).

5. These words.....

"The chances my African children are going to bed hungry are so high I almost don't need to waste a line space speculating.  

And tonight my kids here with me in the land of plenty threw away a pound of food because they didn't have ketchup.  How can we extract our children from this filthy engine where indulgence and ignorance and ungratefulness and waste are standard protocol?  Where they know they can throw perfectly good food away because there is always more in the pantry?  

I wept for all my children tonight, my Ethiopian children orphaned by disease or hunger or poverty who will go to bed with no mother tonight and my biological children who will battle American complacency and overindulgence for the rest of their lives. 

I don't know who I feel worse for."

I am loving Jen Hatmaker's, Seven.  It's making me think, convicting my heart, and helping me prioritize where my thoughts, actions, money, and time are going.

Happy Friday, friends!