currently- the June edition

 

Happy Wednesday, friends, and HAPPY JUNE AND SUMMER! I'm linking up with Anne from In Residence for this month's post of things I'm currently celebrating, giving, taking, trying and wearing. 

Celebrating

I feel like I am celebrating the start of summer. I consider it to be "summer" when the pools open. I am thankful to have a pool to swim in, not in my own yard, but a neighborhood pool where my mom-in-love lives. It's so nice! We went Tuesday and we're going again tomorrow. We're usually the only ones there, or if there is someone there, it's just one or two other people.

This is what it looks like—it's really nice! It was cool when we were there Tuesday, but it'll be warmer when we go tomorrow. I love doing this both for fun and as a chance to visit with her. Additionally, we celebrated Memorial day by honoring those in our church on Sunday who had lost loved ones and also those who served our country. I do know the difference between Memorial day and Veteran's day, but it's always nice to say thanks to them and to give them the honor they deserve. We didn't do much on the actual day, though. I saw my sister one last time before she left to go home to Denver yesterday morning, and then Todd grilled burgers for our dinner that we enjoyed with 3/4 of our sons. It was a lovely day.

Giving

This one's a hard one. The only thing that I can think of for this category is that I am giving thought to something new I'm about to start doing. I wasn't going to say anything here, but since I kind of started it, I may as well finish the thought all the way through. I'm going to spend an upcoming Saturday going through an all day training class on discipling pregnant moms. There's a ministry that my friend works with called One By One Ministries that is nationwide, as far as I know, and you can sign up to be a prayer partner or a mentor to pregnant moms. The goal is to help them along with parenting and life skills, sharing the gospel, for the goal that they will thrive as parents and that their children will flourish. I'm pretty excited about this. It's a huge commitment, but I have the time to commit, so after prayerful consideration, I reached out to become a mentor and fill out an application to volunteer and I agreed to a background check. 

I don't really know what to expect, so I'm trying my best to go into this with no expectations. I am excited to train for the day so that I can find out more information. My friend said it was good for me to go in with no expectations. Other than this information, I won't really share about that here. I'm almost positive I'll have to sign all sorts of privacy agreements to protect the moms that sign up with this ministry. I'm happy to answer questions about this, or you can just Google the name of the ministry and see if there is one near you, should that be something you'd be interested in learning more about. There are other similar ministries, one being Life Choices, that do this sort of thing. It's a great thing to consider doing, if you have the experience as a mom and if you have time. 

Taking

My best friend and I are taking a day trip this weekend, and I am so excited! We were going to get away for the whole weekend, but it's just not possible right now, so this gives us the added benefit of being together for a whole day and being back home in our own beds that night and for church on Sunday.

Typically when we've done day trips, we've gone to places near Nashville. This time we're going to a couple of different small towns that are close by us—one in Arkansas and one in Mississippi. I'm excited to go somewhere new and different for both of us, but more than that, I am excited for a whole day of uninterrupted time with my best friend. It seems like we never see each other anymore, because we're in a crazy phase of life. We do talk on the phone often, though and it's never awkward or anything like that, but we just never see each other. Even at church, it's two or three minutes here or five minutes there as we we're walking to our cars, and often other people are near or they come up to join us. We decided we needed some time together, just the two of us. One thing I love about her is that even though we're just going for the day, we will both probably take a change of clothes, just in case we need them if we've been hot all day. This is to celebrate her birthday, which is Sunday. 💓 

Trying

My husband and I are still trying our best to eat healthy and to lose weight. We've both been able to keep it up, though he is doing much better than me. He's lost at least thirty pounds and is shrinking before my very eyes. I, on the other hand, am a middle aged menopausal woman (sorry if that's TMI) and it's coming off literally a pound at a time. It's okay, though! I'll take any loss over none. I'm trying to do what he does, which is that I eat every couple of hours. This means I'll have a protein drink at breakfast, a mid morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner and maybe something if I want something sweet after dinner. We're not pros at this, but we're both trying our best most of the time. 

I include these pictures, because you can tell on him from the side and in the way his jeans hang on him, and even I see a big difference in the shape of my face from this past year to now. 

Wearing

I bought another dress from Amazon! I'll be wearing it all summer. Come back next Tuesday for my Prime Purchases post for the month of May...I'll share about both of these dresses there. 

Other things I'm wearing are my hair back, funky and bright nail polish and my all time favorite wedges that I love (pictured right above that are neutral and the brown ones with the navy dress), the ones that are the Bussola brand. I'm also wearing my bathing suit and cover-up (the suit is from last year that I bought online and it arrived too small, but now fits), flip flops by Oofos that feel so good for my aching feet and the short tiered dresses that I bought last year from Walmart. When it's hot, those are my uniform, because give me flowy and breezy ANY DAY over pants or shorts that stick to me. 

See? I love these dresses and wear them all.the.time. when it's hot. They've washed and worn really well for the low price that I paid for them and haven't shrunk at all. I have one in gray (pictured above), navy blue, army green, emerald green and black. I bought two in the store that day one year ago and came home and ordered the other three online. You should check out their dresses now. They have some cute ones! 

Well, I hope this was as fun for you to read as it was for me to write. I love having these to look back on! I'll see you back here tomorrow for Rebecca Jo's and my link party for our Thankful Thursday blog series that we do each week. Thanks for reading my blog, friends! Love to all. 

P.s. If you haven't seen my other posts from this week, here are some links for you.

Monday's weekend recap.

Tuesday's the books I read in May. 

I'd love for you to check them out!