What We've Been Up to this Spring
One of the things I do love about social media is the sharing aspect, the ability to share what we’ve been up to, what we’re reading/watching/listening to/eating/enjoying in a given season of life. I always get amazing recommendations from my friend’s pages and I hope some of the things I share inspire someone to try that recipe, check out that podcast or pick up that book. Yet, as I venture back into the world of social media I knew I wanted to make some changes as to how often I shared and utilized these sites—I don’t want to just get sucked back into my old patterns and habits, I want to come back to these tools with a bit more intentionality, only because I know how negatively I was being impacted by these sites before signing out for Lent. One of the things I’m going to try is to not post the random photos throughout the month, but to share what we’ve been up to/what I’ve been reading/watching/listening to or doing once at the end of each month in a blog post. I’ll share the photos, book recommendations, shows or podcasts that have kept me company that month and if we’ve tried any new recipes we want to share. Kind of like my old Five on Friday posts, just more on a monthly basis. I’ll be back at the end of April with what has made April awesome in our lives but today I thought I’d do a quick recap of what we were up to during Lent while I wasn’t sharing, because we had some BIG changes in our family this spring!
The biggest change is that my husband quit his job and started his own company out of our house! He has wanted to be his own boss for years now, he’s realized that is how he’s best wired and having control over the projects he takes on, the schedule he’s on and the things he can say yes or no to helps with his stress and anxiety immensely. He’s dreamed about this for awhile, and this spring he finally made it a reality. As of March 1st, Kennedy Civil Services is open for business! He’s had a fantastic response and already has more project proposals offered to him than he can accept at once. I’m so proud of him and the way he’s making this a reality. He spent this spring building his own new desk, setting up the giant computers needed to do drafting and design and figuring out all the logistics (and there are a lot of logistics when you own your own business!). Things are still in process, but it’s really happening and we are excited for him to have more flexibility in his schedule. He worked 90 hours a week more than once in January, our goal is to never have that happen again now that he’s his own boss!
The boys had spring break in March and we just stuck around here, checking out various playgrounds with different friends. I think we saw 5 different families at 5 different parks that week which was fantastic—such beautiful weather and time catching up with friends. We also visited our very favorite family restaurant, Jimmy Hula’s, about an hour from us—there used to be one ten minutes from us but it closed, so during spring break we ventured out to explore and found one even though it was a drive. The boys were SO excited to enjoy their favorite fish tacos and queso again! We played on the beach a few times, and went to the movies for the first time in over a year to see Tom and Jerry—which was absolutely delightful and all of us loved it. We played pickle ball with friends, read a lot (in two weeks I have a post ready for you with the books my kids have been loving lately in case you need some recommendations, so be on the look out for that on the 19th!), and Aidan took his next belt test in karate and became a yellow belt. We have LOVED what karate is doing for him in so many ways. We baked a cake as one of the at home activities to go along with their Sunday school theme of patience this month—baking is a great way to teach kid’s patience! And we hit up Top Golf with our boys and Aidan’s good buddy from church—all three of them had a ball and are begging to go back. It’s been a great spring with gorgeous weather (this is truly the best time of year in Florida, it’s not hot yet but gorgeous enough to explore all the outside spaces we won’t want to visit in another two months!)
I’ve read a lot over these past six weeks, I guess when you can’t reach for your phone to scroll anything a book is the next best thing right?? The two best books I read in this past season were:
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristen Du Mez. This book is literally everywhere right now, in all the book clubs and in all the podcast conversations that revolve around the faith/current events/politics topics and for good reason. It was excellent. It’s a history book, where Du Mez takes us back to WWII and traces the development and evolution of the evangelical movement through all the ups and downs in the last hundred years. She starts with Billy Graham and ends in 2019, and it is an eye-opening, fascinating and at times gut-wrenching journey. I think it’s really important for us to at least know how we got to where we are, how did the evangelical church end up married to the Republican party (spoiler alert, it hasn’t always been this way), how did the merging of God and country breed a very frighting toxic masculinity that pervades much of evangelical culture? Where do figures like Jerry Falwell, Beth Moore, Mark Driscoll, Focus on the Family, the civil rights movements, The Duck Dynasty crew, and yes, John Wayne and Donald Trump fit into the history of how the church has landed itself where it is today, with deep divides between the black and white churches in America and a deep entrenchment in one political party. I learned a ton, I kept saying to a friend “I never knew this! Why don’t we ever talk about things like this in our churches?!” and as she read it too she had the same reaction. We never get to where we are in a vacuum and the merging of faith, history, politics and yes a LOT of money and influence has shaped the white evangelical church today for good and for ill, and I can’t recommend this enough if that’s something you’re curious about.
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. This one was much lighter than John Wayne! An excellent novel that I could not read fast enough, this is a fiction story based loosely on the life of Laura Bush, one of my very favorite first ladies. You’ll recognize much of her life events and experiences told through fictional Alice Blackwell as she’s reflecting back on her life and her marriage to the boisterous Charlie Blackwell who becomes president. I’ve read Laura Bush’s autobiography and Sittenfeld wrote this before that was released, so the amount of details she got correct was almost eerie. The beautiful way she wove politics, faith, class, education and wealth made for an incredibly compelling novel. I loved the character of Alice, her depth, thoughtfulness and the way she narrated her story, and even though this was long (over 550 pages) I read it in a couple days.
I read other titles I enjoyed but I’ll save those to share more another day.
Watching: I finally made it through some TV series that have been on my list for awhile now! I finished Schitts Creek this winter and can not even begin to tell you how much I loved it. David Rose is just my favorite, and watching him come to understand he is worthy of being loved just melted me. The rest of the characters were pretty amazing as well! I also finally watched Sweet Magnolias on Netflix and adored it, as well as season 2 of Virgin River. Charles and I watched Ted Lasso on Apple TV because everyone we knew kept telling us we had to. So we did a week long free trial and binged all 10 episodes and I have to say that might be the best show I’ve seen in ages! Everyone needs Ted Lasso in their lives!
Listening: I cannot get enough of the band Tim Be Told these days. Has anyone else even heard of these guys? I adore their music and they are always on my Alexa. I’ve also been obsessively listening to the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack which is gorgeous, and music by Penny and Sparrow which is the perfect chill music for cooking on a spring day with the windows open.
I think that’s pretty much the highlight reel from around here! I’ll be back at the end of April with another “What We’ve Been Enjoying” post from the past month! But until then, I’d love to hear—what is something you’ve read/watched/listened to or done lately you would recommend??
