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May 2021 Monthly Muster

May 28, 2021 by Lauren 18 Comments

a blue circle in the middle of sunflowers

Spring gives way to summer as June pushes May to the curb.  At least here in Texas.  I can’t believe another school year came and went.  And it’s been a busy one as folks seek to get back to some semblance of normalcy.  

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On the very first day of the month we invited one of our favorite couples over for game night.  They brought dinner.  We provided Celebrity Throw Down! and Code Names.  The later is one of our current faves.  So fun to play.code names board game

 

A couple of days later, my two yoga classes went live.  I have been leading them over Zoom for months, but now teach a hybrid format – some participants in person and some online.  This is quite a challenge, but one I’m thankful to be figuring out.  If a chair yoga class geared toward seniors sounds interesting to you, click this link to join my live class on Tuesdays at 1pm or choose a pre-recorded class to practice at your convenience!  I am unable to share the hatha mat class.

 

I spent my mother’s day a little stressed over some unfortunate family dynamics, but I got to see my mom.  That makes a lot of things better.  And seeing my dad, grandad and sister makes for a pretty good day, too.  If you think about it, I would love some prayers for a tough situation in my clan.  God knows and I appreciate you talking to Him about it.

 

My husband went out of town for a few days and my 16 year old had 3 AP exams.  That makes for even more stress.  But we survived and persevere.  That same 16 year old got her first vaccine so we are one shot away from the whole family being vaxxed!  Yay!  She gave her last choir performance, had her end of year choir banquet, camped out with some of the youth from church and sailed through her final week of school.

 

For a little light escapism, the hubs and I watched Sesame Street:  50 Years of Sunny Days with my 20 year old daughter.  She very much loves still loves Elmo and the whole gang.  We are in process with Big Shot on Disney+, a nice family show with John Stamos as a hot tempered NCAA basketball coach (aka Bobby Knight) who is banned.  He can only get a coaching gig with a girl’s team at the private high school.  My only advice to the show runners – don’t have Stamos jog anymore.  It’s awkward.

 

Tom Clancy's Without Remorse Movie PosterWe watched Without Remorse on Amazon Prime.  Lots of action and Michael B. Jordan!  I don’t even think Chuck fell asleep once!  That’s saying a lot.  We tried Shrill on Hulu and quit it in a matter of minutes due to language and a scene that I hope I can one day scrub from my mind.  We quickly gave up on Dickinson on Apple+ too.  As a writer, I wanted it to work.  But alas…  We went to an actual theater to see Triumph.  I love just about any overcomer movie and this one about a boy with CP is a heart warmer.  My daughter Allie and I (what?) decided to binge together the very light hearted and silly Baby Daddy.  It’s an old school sitcom and those just seem to be my favorite.

 

I read Maggie’s War by Terrie Todd.  My mom, who likes to read in bed at night, passed it on to me.  She tears paperbacks apart so she can comfortably lay on her side with a section at a time.  Yes, she’s a librarian…tearing books.  And after she finishes, she rubber bands all the dismantled sections together and passes it to me.  Although it this point, I can’t imagine chopping a book up myself, I have to admit I don’t mind reading them this way.  I can throw a small section of a book in my purse and off I go!

 

I checked out When Breath Becomes Air on ebook from the library.  I can’t remember who recommended it to me, but I can’t really recommend it to you.  Paul Kalanithi is a beautiful writer and obviously extremely intelligent, but I’m not sure how someone who says he is a believer can grapple with the meaning of life and death without talking about God or an afterlife.  For this reason it fell very flat for me.

 

The last thing I’ll share, my husband and I took another couple to the drive in movie theater for a simulcast Bon Jovi concert.  In the rain.  So we watched and listened inside our truck – even running the battery down and having to get a jump in the middle of the show.  But some good company and tunes made the evening a win.

 

That’s it for May.  I hope you cruise into June and enjoy the start of your summer.  And as always, I love you, I thank you, and I hope next month treats you well.

 

And now for this week’s featured link up post!

 

Back in January, I shared with you that my word for the year is trust.  Barbara Lee Harper of Stray Thoughts:  A Home for the Stray Thoughts of an Ordinary Christian Woman hit on the #1 thing I struggle to trust God with in this season – my children.  Read Trusting God for Our Children’s Safety for an interesting perspective.

 

Grace and Truth_Rules

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.

3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).

 

Grace Truth_Button

We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

HEATHER HART & VALERIE RIESE – Candidly Christian
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Now Let’s Link Up!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sharing is caring! If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe!  Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I will receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

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End of April…and Grace and Truth Link Up

April 30, 2021 by Lauren 18 Comments

A month that starts with Easter has to be good, right?  Mostly.  I do want to acknowledge that the celebration of Jesus’ victory over death is a joyous day.  And it should be observed every day.  It is only through His death and resurrection that I am forgiven and saved to live in fellowship with God forever.

 

If you don’t know Jesus and the gift He offers us since the very first Easter, click the contact tab at the top if this page.  That link sends me a private email and we can arrange to visit by messaging or talking on the phone.  There is nothing more important that I could do.

 

On Good Friday a couple of friends came by for a visit.  And then we drove out to my Mama and Papa’s house to see them and my PawPaw for Easter.  We sat on the deck (the weather was perfect) talking and eating ice cream.  The day after Easter, my sister and I met in Dallas for lunch and shopping.  This is a good start to the month.  Fellowship – whether it be with sweet family or friends – feeds my soul like almost nothing else.

 

Circling back to the mall trip with my sister, I feel I must be authentic and not only mention the good things, but the hot mess things as well.  Upon leaving the mall, I found a Lexus SUV parked extremely close to my driver side door.  SUV doesn’t seem quite the right word as it was roughly the size of an elephant.  I did not dare try to squeeze in by the normal route for fear that my 2013 Toyota might graze the luxury vehicle and cost more to repaint than my entire car.

 

Yep, I had to crawl in from the passenger side.  Those that know me IRL might be giggling already.  For the rest of you, let me ‘splain.  I am a large person.  And I don’t mean in that “larger than life, center of attention” kind of way.  I’m over 5ft 9.  In college, a flirtatious co-worker measured me from hip to ankle to announce that I had 6 feet of legs.  And now I’m overweight to boot.  I also have an elevated center console between the front bucket seats, making this more challenging.

 

After assessing the situation, I decided I needed to go butt first over the center hurdle.  After removing the drinks from cup holders and everything occupying my front seat, I handed them to my sister.  I almost immediately ripped the shirt I was wearing, so I took it off.  It was dripping in fringe and I didn’t want to get further tangled in it.  I eased into the passenger seat and hoisted my behind up onto the console.

At this point, my head is caught between the rearview mirror and the glass.  My sweet sister is laughing so hard that I started laughing and peed my pants.

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At this moment my sister exclaims, “Why am I not filming this?!?”  I manage to duck my head and slide my backside off the console and into the driver’s seat.  My many years of yoga practice did not prepare me to tuck my knees up one at a time near my adam’s apple so I could get them from the passenger seat into the driver’s side floor board.  Once I did, panting and sweating and still laughing, my sister asks, “Are you alright?”  “I think I may have tweaked my back”, I answered.  “But mostly ok.”

 

Thankfully, I did have a tank top on under the shirt I removed so there was no arrest on the way home.  Just a weird cat call from a dude driving a food truck.  The end.

 

My Allie girl started work at her first job.  A little ice cream and candy shop on our town’s Main Street.  So proud of her initiative and pray it continues to be a good experience for her.  I had to take off a day of my work to go get my second vaccine.  Almost exactly 12 hours later I woke up shivering uncontrollably with a headache and body aches.  It lasted about 12 hours and then pretty well disappeared as quickly as it came.  Glad to have that behind me.

 

We finished up the month with Allie’s annual high school jazz show.  It was incredible.  So much fun to see my girl and her friends in their element.  And she had a large cheering section of family that came into town to see it.  That was fun too.

 

On a trip to the used book store, I picked up Eat Cake.  Be Brave by Melissa Radke.  Am I glad I did!  This author is hilarious.  I kept retelling parts of the book to my family (I was indifferent to their indifference).  That’s how you know you have a good book.  So I  subscribed to her podcast and now want to watch her reality show!

 

I checked out Good Vibrations:  My Life as a Beach Boy by Mike Love from the library.  Can’t say that I enjoyed it.  The author’s self-importance is off putting.  And the dark subject matter?  Depressing.  Destructive drug habits, infidelities, family betrayals and broken marriages made we wish it was over.  But I have a weird thing about not finishing books.  I can’t quit unless it is extremely profane or unbearably dull.  Some applaud the commitment and discipline.  Some call it insane to waste time on something neither enjoyable nor beneficial.  Whatever it is, this is me.

 

The hubs and I watched Genius:  Aretha.  So much tragedy in the life of the queen of soul.  We enjoyed this and the first season of Genius on Albert Einstein, but didn’t make it through season 2 on Pablo Picasso.  Well look at that?  I can quit something.  We did get through The Taking of Pelham 123, even though it took three tries since my sweet spouse kept falling asleep.  (He gets up early.  He works hard.  Whatcha gonna do?) As always, I love you, I thank you, and I pray May treats you well!

 

And now for this week’s featured post from the link up!

 

I just had to share Amy Jung’s article with you.  Will I Pilot Life By God’s Truth or By My Feelings? is just what we all need to be reminded of.  We live in a culture that is screaming at us that our feelings are our truth, and we are all suffering the consequences of it.  Amy reminds us that God’s truth is THE truth, no matter how we are anyone else feels about it.  And that’s good news.

 

Grace and Truth_Rules

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.

3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).

Grace Truth_Button

We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

HEATHER HART & VALERIE RIESE – Candidly Christian
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Now Let’s Link Up!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sharing is caring! If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe!  Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I will receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

To find some great places where I might be sharing this post, click here.

Share this:

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About Me

I love Jesus, my husband and caffeine. The order of these can change depending on how tired I am. When my two daughters, stepson, and 4 grandchildren get to be too much, I practice yoga. God graciously allows me to share our adventures, victories and flub-ups from my laptop. May He be glorified here.
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