Monthly Miscellany: Belated January Edition

Recent Reads and Favorite Things

Feb 02, 2024

Life Lately

I had every intention of getting this newsletter sent before January ended; I’ve had a working draft of it for almost 2 weeks. However, a couple of things got in the way of timely publication: 1) January was approximately 5 minutes long, and 2) a lot of stuff happened in those 5 minutes of January. I started a new job on January 8 (more about that soon, I promise), we had an unusual amount of snow for this area that shut everything down for a week, I dealt with several annoying health problems, and then my kids did too (nothing major for them, but I don’t feel at liberty to share since they wouldn’t want me to). Currently, our van is in the shop getting repairs whose cost has led me to consider how I could either 1) become a licensed mechanic and thereby save us tons of money or 2) become an overnight viral sensation on social media and earn tons of money. Since neither of these is likely to come to fruition, might I interest you in a paid subscription to my Substack? :) (Kidding. Sort of.)

Recent Reads

Since it’s a new year, of course that means I had to set a new reading goal! My goal for the year is 45 books. I read 4 in January, and my favorite was Same Kind of Different as Me, which tells the true story of an unlikely relationship between 2 very different men. I was very moved by their friendship and definitely recommend this book.

Favorite Music

I’m currently fighting a lot of negative thoughts, and if I am going to be diligent about combatting them, I need to fill my mind with what is true. So while I still love and listen to many different kinds of music, all of these songs are heavily influenced by Scripture.

“I Lift My Eyes Up” by Free as a Bird, Anna Palfreeman, and Gretyl Baird. The harmonies on this song, which contains echoes of Psalm 27 and Psalm 121, are lovely.
“Head to Toe (The Armor of God Song)” by Christy Nockels. This song is on an album of lullabies that I listened to when Ava is a baby, and for some reason I revisited it recently. This song in particular has been on repeat. I love imagining myself covered in each piece of armor described in Ephesians 6.
“There Is No Higher Name” by REVERE.
“The Year of His Favor (Isaiah 61)” by Caroline Cobb. Caroline Cobb is one of my favorite artists when it comes to adapting Scripture to song.
“Awake My Soul (Psalm 57)” by The Worship Initiative.

Favorite Finds Around the Web

“It’s Okay to Just Pray” by Tim Challies. “The biblical command is not to figure out prayer or iron out every dilemma of prayer, but simply to pray.
I take that to mean that we should not allow our lack of understanding to lead to a lack of prayer.”
“Meditate on Steadfast Love” by J.A. Medders. I have long loved tracing the use of “steadfast love” in Scripture.
“The Dress” by Kristen at The Palest Ink. This made me cry.
“Birthing a Mama” by Sarah Martin. I’m proud to know the writer of this lovely piece.
a contentment observed
Birthing a mama
My baby hit her three month milestone yesterday. I’m officially out of the fourth trimester though I feel like I got here a little earlier than that. I’d seen the terms “fourth trimester” and “matrescence” bandied around in different pregnancy articles as I was growing Freya and preparing myself for postpartum, and I felt pretty prepared (as much as I c…
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a year ago · 3 likes · 3 comments · Sarah (@sarahthelibrarygirl)
“What Is Tragedy’s Size?” by Brittany Allen.
Treasuring Christ
What is Tragedy's Size?
What is Tragedy’s size? The little gray mouse with floppy ears on the sidewalk, silent? “That’s sad,” my son said. Is it the weight a father leaves when he leaves his children, taking away from them the weight of him? Weightless. Is it the helpless fury of a wife…
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2 years ago · 11 likes · 2 comments · Brittany Allen
This wax warmer casts the loveliest glow in our living room (its comically long Amazon title also brought my daughter Charlotte and I great delight).

Odds and Ends

I wanted our family to be more intentional about who/what we pray for during our family devotional time instead of always trying to just come up with things to pray for off the top of our heads. I found a bag of clothespins in our laundry room, so I grabbed around 20 or so and wrote the names of different people on each one and put them all in a large cup. Each night we pull out two and pray for those people, and then we clip the clothespin to the rim of the cup. Once we pray through them all, we’ll just start over again. It’s simple but effective.
Breaking news: I made my first loaf of homemade bread! It was ridiculous how excited and proud of myself I was when I accomplished this, but as someone with culinary skills similar to that of a 5-year-old, I have to take my victories wherever I can find them. I knew I didn’t have the time or patience for sourdough, so when I saw this recipe for no-knead bread that the author even called “ridiculously easy,” I decided to give it a go. Even though I accidentally used active dry yeast instead of instant yeast (I couldn’t find instant in the store and so I just thought they were the same thing. Again: minimal culinary skills here), somehow it still turned out!

Reader Poll

That’s it for this month’s miscellany! What are you reading, listening to, or watching lately?