A New Year's Daybook (on the 3rd Day) 1/3/17

For Today

Looking out my window:

The skies are grey and the rain is steady.  The weather app says this will continue throughout the day. I love it.

I am thinking:

About 2017 and how that number seemed so very far away when I stared into my first born's eyes in 1998 and calculated when he would graduate from high school. I'm also thinking that 2017 marks exactly 30 years since I graduated from high school. 2017??? How in the world am I going to watch my own kid play basketball tonight at a high school gym instead of zipping up my cheerleading skirt and picking up my best friend, Lori, so that we could cheer at a basketball game at my high school gym? How in the world am I waiting for my son's college acceptance news instead of going to the mailbox hoping to find my acceptance letter to college? How in the actual world? This.is.insanity.

I am thankful:

For the blessing of the kids back to school and the man back to work on a rainy Tuesday when I have plenty of Tide and Bounce, a working washer and dryer and a fierce determination to leave no Nike sock, no Under Armour sweatshirt, no pair of American Eagle khaki pants, no musty towel unlaundered. I will not be defeated.

One of my favorite things:

Pretty paper planners and perfectly pointed pencils. I will never give up my old school planner for my Iphone calendar. Never, ever, ever.

I am wearing:

Black Under Armour joggers, a blue and white pajama top, a sweatshirt I gave Steve in 1998 and socks. I will not be answering the doorbell today. No way, Jose.

I am reading:

Steve and I actually went to Barnes and Noble yesterday and I could have stayed there for hours. I forgot how much I love a book store: the miles and miles of titles stretching out in front of you, touching the books, flipping through the books and smelling the books. I even liked the physical "searching"  for the books I wanted as opposed to typing the title into a search box. I had about seven books in hand, but only ended up purchasing Chasing Slow by Erin Lochner and Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted by Shannan Martin. I spent most of New Year's Day reading and finishing Liane Moriarty's Truly, Madly, Guilty. This is the third Moriarity book I've read and boy, can that girl can tell a story. 

I am watching:

We watched a lot of football over the vacation. Steve and I watched a few episodes of Homeland. We just finished Season 3, so I see some binging the rest of the seasons in our future. All of us watched the movie The Magnificent 7 which was both difficult and easy to watch. 

Difficult=lots of violence including death by gunshots, piercing arrows, knives and even axes.
Easy=Chris Pratt as a cowboy. ;-)

I am listening to:

I listened to both Erin Lochner and Shannan Martin on Jamie Ivey's Happy Hour podcast in 2016. As I bought both of their books  yesterday, I might go back and listen again. I know I've mentioned it a million times, but I am way late to the podcast game and I can't seem to stop talking about all the women I hear on The Happy Hour. I highly recommend it. Perfect for a rainy Tuesday when your kids are back in school and there are 432 loads of laundry to do.

I am hoping:

to listen more, write more, read more and scroll less in 2017.

I am learning:

that I actually can cook some things that aren't terrible if I just take a deep breath and believe. (And also, in full disclosure, I've gotten a little help from Blue Apron which my sister gave me for Christmas.) So far we've made seared pork chops with farro and cranberry chutney.  braised chicken with mashed sweet potatoes and white cheddar cheeseburgers with roasted sweet potatoes. Let me say this again. I MADE CRANBERRY CHUTNEY from scratch and I did not actually even exactly know what chutney was. That is a lot of learning, friends.

In my kitchen:

Um. Did you hear about the cranberry chutney? That I made? By myself? Even though I didn't really know what chutney really was? And did I forget to say that 3 out of 5 of my people ate it which is a majority of my people? Would you like to see the picture which I actually texted to at least four people the night I made it? Here it is.

Post Script:

Please don't miss this perfect piece (and peace) from my friend, Elizabeth, to start your new year. In it she says:

"Hope says life is going to get hard, sometimes very, very hard, but that’s not the end of the story. Our hearts will be burdened with heaviness we cannot even fathom, but He comes. He comes humbly into the stench of it all so that we don’t have to walk the hard journeys alone. He knows. He knows the pain of sword that pierces us. And He feels it, too. He is the compassionate Savior who speaks peace into our troubled nights. We can turn the calendar page not with optimism, but with genuine hope in the God who saves. This year, next year, this burden or the next one: we are not alone."

Read the whole post HERE.

Shared Quote:

"Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen."

-Anne Lamott

I plan to take that chance as much as possible this year.

A moment (or more specifically, a message) from my day:

Too harsh?

Closing Notes:

 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come!" - 2 Corinthians 5:17

What a perfect verse for a new year - full of hope, full of Him.

Happiest New Year, Friends. Thanks for stopping by. :-)

(Prompts from thesimplewoman.blogspot.com)