Friday Favorites {edition one of 2020}

New year, new graphic!  I love this one, because blue is my favorite color.  Happy Friday, friends!  I'm linking up with just one gal today~Andrea from Momfessionals~for this blog post.  Next week, I'll link up with her other friends who normally help her host this blog post each week, but today it was just her.  Go check out her blog!  She is a great one to go to for resources if you're a mom to younger kids, but she also posts about life and things like what they eat for dinner, and if you're like me, you can appreciate some dinner inspiration.

I feel like today is the last day of me wondering what day it is.  Christmas is over, the new year is over, and now it's just life as normal.  I'm ready for it, as much as I love all the time together, I also get tired of all the time together.  Especially because our sons are older now, we can all start to grate on the nerves.  A couple of times, Todd and I have escaped from it all, and we may do this again tonight.  We could use some things from Costco, and that always presents a good date night.  There is a LOT of testosterone in this house, and several times this week, I have put on headphones to drown it all out.  {This is a new thing and I'll share about it in a minute, but it's genius!}

Here's a little glimpse of life lately and some of my favorite things or moments.

Before Christmas, I ordered this book from Chatbooks.  My friend Wendy does these each month {I think}, and I've heard her mention them for a couple of years now.  I decided to give it a go for myself, and I was very pleasantly surprised!  I learned some things, though, and I thought I'd share.

One is that if you do not regularly post pictures and such to Instagram and Facebook {I think, but it may just need to be from Instagram}, this will be useless to you.  They take the pictures that you post and the captions you write, and they print them into this book.  Hence the name, Chatbooks.

Second is that you need to edit, edit, and edit some more on all of your pictures and the captions.  If you've made a grammatical error, it WILL NOT BE CORRECTED.  If you've left off a word, like I did in one of my own, they will not add the word.  They make into a book EXACTLY what it looks like on your social media. 

I think that's all. 

But now, I need to talk about their customer service.  I posted this picture on Instagram and tagged them in it, and I used #chatbooks as my hashtag, and they sent me a direct message because they caught the flaw in this book.  There is a little air bubble in the corner, and there is another little slight imperfection as well, and they offered to reprint it and ship it to me again, for free, while letting me keep this book.  {I offered to send it back.}  That blows my mind!  I saw the imperfection, but it is so slight that I wasn't going to mention it to them, because I am happy with how it turned out.  I thanked them profusely for their awesome customer service, though, and now I'll recommend this to anyone and everyone.  So, try it out for yourself! 

Pictures and books like these are one of my favorite things of all time. 

This is so silly to some, maybe, but things like this are also my favorite.  I downloaded the app just so I could have my own top nine of the year.  And then, I deleted the app.  All these little squares make me so happy!  Those were some pretty great moments of 2019 for me.  I wish it hadn't cut off Alex's head...I guess that is what he gets for being so tall.

I don't have a picture of this, but one of my favorite blog posts of the year went up this week, and it was all the books I read in 2019.  If you want to see them, just scroll down some more after you read this post and you can get some ideas for books for this year. 

Speaking of books, my first book of 2020 has been read!  Or read TO me, I should say, thanks to the idea I got from Tanya over at theothersideoftheroad.com.

This book was so, so good!  I would say it is definitely worthy of five stars.  Now, about my genius idea I mentioned earlier.  I saw on Amazon that you can download Audible for thirty days for free.  If you do that, they will give you a book to listen to for free as well.  I picked this one as my book.  I spent all day Wednesday and most of yesterday listening to this book.  On Wednesday it was particularly nice that I had headphones on, because football was on in the house, and they drowned out almost all the noise.  Noah gave me his Beats headphones to use, and I love them.  {I prefer actual headphones because my ears are super sensitive, and I don't like anything being in them.}

I can't say enough about this book, but seriously, put it on your to-be-read list.

Also, Sally Hepworth is one of my favorite authors, and she commented back to me on Instagram yesterday.  #fangirling

On New Years day, I pulled this back out of my red cabinet that sits in my kitchen, where I keep all the resources I use for quiet time and bible study.  I will be reading through the bible chronologically again in 2020, and I'm excited!  I love reading the bible in this way, it helps it to flow for me. 

When I do this, I keep my bible close by, because I like to read something in the translation I'm familiar with sometimes, and I keep a journal right beside me.  {I pay attention so much better when I take notes, and sometimes they're long and sometimes they're not.}

Also, isn't that journal cute?  My sister Lisa gave me this for my birthday, and she always picks out the best journals!  She knows what I love, and this brand is my favorite, the brand Brothers and Sisters from Hobby Lobby. 

This was me this morning for my quiet time.  I have a routine that I go through every single day.  I pray, because I think it's important to begin that way, then I write out scripture from the plan I like to use from Shannon over at swtblessings.com, and then I read. 

On New Years night, I went to my best friends house and cuddled with her pup.  I love this dog!  We "watched" a movie, but really, we just ate Chick Fil A for dinner and talked. 

Nights like that are always my favorite. 

On my agenda for today is spending time with my dad.  He hasn't been here in ages it seems, so he's coming over and we're going to McAlister's for lunch.  I'm excited to see him, and I'm thrilled he feels well enough to get out!  I was willing to go to him, but they told me he wanted to come here today.  I love that, and I thank God for it, because he has been in pain with his back for several weeks. 

Before eleven thirty, I need to do some light cleaning downstairs, so I'll end this post so I can get started on that and on the ever present laundry.  I hope you all have a great weekend!  Thanks for reading.  Love to all!