The first week of February is almost behind us. My theory is if a month starts on a Monday, it just seems the dates go by more quickly, especially since February is already a short month!
What are your weekend plans? I’m so excited to be attending a IF Local Gathering on Friday and Saturday here in Winston Salem, and then I’m sure we will be watching the big game on Sunday. After all — there may be a parade and continuous celebration coming up if the Carolina Panthers bring home a victory. 🙂 I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Thank you so much for reading and sharing life with me here!! Here’s the life and links making my everyday extraordinary this week.
Life Lately
Our Personal State of the Union. We had our personal state of the union “meeting” last weekend. If you’ve missed me mentioning this before, it’s a tradition we’ve adopted from my parents. Every January they would make a point to meet together and discuss the upcoming year, sharing goals, dreams, and plans for their lives, marriage, and family. We had a great time, ate amazing(!!!) food, and just enjoyed dreaming together. (Pictured above is gluten free dessert at Harper’s and Gluten free brunch (french toast!) at Scrambled Southern Diner. Both restaurants are in Greensboro.)
Kendra Scott’s New Spring Styles. Even though Kendra Scott is a Texas based company, her designs have only recently become known to me as her company has grown exponentially. I have two pairs of earrings and two necklaces from her — it’s definitely more expensice than my usual jewelry choices, but I wear the pieces ALL the time. I love gifting her jewelry too — so unique! Her new spring line was announced recently, and I love these beautiful lapis earrings!
Random Sonic Adventures. One night after dinner this week, we spontaneously decided (ok, I decided…) that we needed ice cream. My husband was very against this 😉 , but I managed to convince him. It was such a random, fun Wednesday excursion that reminded me and my type A brain how good spontaneity is for the soul.
Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. So I made these on a whim for when a friend came and stayed with us last week. I felt I needed some type of dessert, but my pantry was pretty lacking. I found this recipe for these flourless peanut butter cookies and decided to give it my best attempt. The results? DELICIOUS. And trust me, I’ve had some horrible flourless cookies, but these are crisp, soft in the middle, and I dare you to only eat one! 🙂 (An added bonus was the dough kept beautifully in the refrigerator for almost five days, allowing us to make just a couple cookies at a time.)
Sacred Holidays Lent Study. These both came in the mail this week! Whohoo! If you missed my post this week on this incredible organization and their Lent and Advent Bible studies, please take a minute to read it and think about joining me, my husband, and many others across the country as we explore these studies during Lent.
Links Lately
Jen Hatmaker’s latest book, For the Love, came out last August. It was the very first book I featured on the blog as the Extraordinary Everyday Read of the week. In honor of Valentines Day, she is organizing a really special “Share the Love” book gifting event. This week, people could request a book or nominate someone else to receive a book; and starting today, others can gift a book to those who requested one or were nominated. I loved her book, and I’m excited for the chance to gift it to someone else! Gift a Book Here.
Do you have Netflix? If so, add the documentary, Living on One Dollar to your list. It’s about four college economics majors who live in rural Guatemala for fifty-six days on a dollar a day. Their goal was to explore extreme poverty, what helps, what hurts, and what it truly looks like to live on next to nothing. It’s a great, eye-opening, less than an hour film that leaves you dwelling on what’s most important in life and what we all are doing to help others in need.
If you ask my parents, they will tell you I’ve been reading for a very long time. When I read this article on 14 Signs You Were Born to Be A Reader, I identified with almost every single one! For the avid readers out there, do you??
Besides “Oh, that sounds horrible, what do you eat?” the question I get asked most about being gluten free is – “Do you think I should/could eat gluten free?” I really appreciated this article written by a dietitian which addressed that very question, “Should Everyone Go Gluten Free?”
Yummy Link of the Week: Besides making the peanut butter cookies ASAP I mentioned above, here’s a dinner you can make with them! I’ve been scouring the internet for new dinner ideas as spaghetti and tacos do not a balanced dinner menu make (Whyyyy???); so my sympathetic friend recommended the Budget Bytes blog to me. I found multiple new meals to try — one being these Easy Oven Fajitas — they are delicious, simple (the ingredient list may look long for those of us who like five ingredients per recipe, but they are easy ones, trust me), and gave us leftovers for lunches and other weeknight dinner.
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What’s making your everyday, extraordinary this week?? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
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***Don’t forget to check out the Sacred Holidays Lent Study! Lent begins February 10, and today is the last day to guarantee delivery of the written material by then!! You can order yours here!***
Thank you for the link love!
Of course! Thank you for the great article!
COOOooooOOOKIES! Those have my name on them! Also, I adore the pic of you and the man with your Sonic! Supes cute 😀 Ooo and remind me to order my Lent study!
You would LOVE those cookies — make them ASAP — I think I’m going to make more dough today 🙂 And yes! Get your study — I think it’s going to be awesome!