January

January was a fun, cozy month around here. I took a nice little Internet break and enjoyed focusing on the simpler things. Like...

Drinking- herbal teas galore while watching the snow fall. My current favorites are Yogi's honey turmeric chai and Good Earth's sweet & spicy tea.

Homeschooling- We're still using and loving The Good and the Beautiful for most of our curriculum and we're all still very happy with this. We're studying the revolutionary war in history and we're studying the human body with my own lesson plans. Our library put on a month of robotics/coding STEAM events so we took part in a few of those, too. We fell into a great groove in January I hope we'll keep up through February.

Writing- I was working on too many projects at once and started to feel like I was running in place with all of them. Now I'm hyperfocused on just one at a time, in a paper notebook each day at naptime, and I feel so much lighter and freer in my writing right now!

Playing- so many board games! I've always loved board games so it makes me super happy that all four of my kids love them too. In January we played Hoot Owl Hoot, Pay Day, Scrabble, Keys of History and Tree House Town for homeschool, and Guess Who? That last one... Y'all, you haven't seen cute until you've seen my two-year-old sit with a Guess Who board on her lap and ask, "Do yo characta hab a bald head?"

Listening- I listened to a couple of audio books this month but mostly I listened to Sally Clarkson podcasts. I listened to the first nine episodes of Storyformed, which I love, but then couldnt get any more to download so started At Home With Sally instead. I'm hoping to find a way to download the rest of the Storyformed episodes in February because I was really loving that podcast!

Working out- with a fun new ballet barre DVD I got at a thrift store, brand new still in the plastic but only $.50! One of my daughters loves to do ballet/yoga/Pilates DVDs with me and we're both super happy about this find.

Reading- I found the cutest graphic novel all about loving books at the library one day, Book Love by Debbie Tung. I passed it on to my son and he read it three times before returning it! We finished the read aloud Prince Warriors and he said it was the very best book he read all year.

I had the pleasure of reviewing Still* by Jenny L Donnelly and think this will make for a very helpful boom in anyone's healing journey. Donnelly is very candid and open about her personal vices and the way she overcame them by finding her peace through Jesus instead.

Claim Your Crown* is a young adult nonfiction guiding young women into better self esteem by recognizing their roles as daughters of the king. I could really have greatly benefited from a book like this as a teenager. A healthy self-esteem is so important, but often the recommendations offered in that direction have nothing to do with spirituality. I love the approach Claim Your Crown took and recommended it to any teenage girl.

*I received a free copy of Still and Claim Your Crown from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.