Links, Books, and Other Things I Love – June 2016

My baby girl Jenna is engaged!
Trey proposed on Monday, Memorial Day, and she said yes (of course).

Some good omens . . . The setting—the same place where Jeff and I got married (his parents’ home). The swing in the background—a 50th anniversary gift for Jeff’s parents. May Jenna and Trey have 50+ years of life together too! They’re off to a great start.

proposal

group-hug

Trey-and-Jenna-engage

1 Second Everyday 

[If you can’t see the 1 Second Everyday video, click here]

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Around the Web

Do you know who Marie Kondo is?
If you’ve read (or heard about) her books, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Spark Joyyou know she’s a cleaning guru. But what about men? Who’s cleaning house anyway?

Happiness is serving
In case you are the one cleaning house, this should make you feel better.

Want to eat more apples?
A clever tweak to how apples are sold is making everyone eat more of them. (Spoiler alert: We’re more likely to eat sliced fruit than whole fruit—it’s true for me!)

How to treat a sprained ankle
We’ve been doing it wrong.

Go to church, live longer?
“The effect of religious attendance, they found, was stronger than that of any other form of participation in a social group like a book club or a volunteer organization.”

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On Reading and Writing and Blogging

Capitalize My Title
When you don’t know which words to capitalize, just copy/paste your title in here. (I had to correct a few from this post.)

The Backside Blessings of Blogging
Some of the hidden blessings of blogging that often are overlooked (but you probably already know if you blog!).

What Is the Internet’s Favorite Book? 
Um, it’s not what I expected.

Write Shorter Sentences
Our attention span continues to shrink, yes? 6 exercises to writer better short sentences.

7 Books I Recommend

Books-I-Recommend-May-2016

• Currently reading 

  1. The Picture of Dorian Gray
    by Oscar Wilde
  2. Bossypants
    by Tina Fey
  3. The Day the Angels Fell
    by Shawn Smucker
  4. The Words of Gandhi
    compiled by Richard Attenborough
  5. Entering the Castle
    by Caroline Myss

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Things I Love

Time with Morgan
Jeff and I drove to Morgan and Fuller’s house for a delicious fish fry and a fun time together right before Mother’s Day.

Morgan-and-Lisa

flowers-table-setting

Strawberries, Strawberries, Strawberries
We’ve been eating fresh strawberries all month—straight to mouth, strawberry jam, strawberry shortcake, strawberry pie.

fresh_strawberries

Kindergarten Graduation
Jenna graduated her first class of kindergarten students. I miss them already!

kindergarten-graduation

More Babies on the Way
My niece Chelsea is due with her first in July. We’re all excited! This will be our 6th great niece/nephew.

chelsea-pregnant

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On the Blog

• Don’t Save Amen Until the End of Your Prayer
What if we also started our prayers with “Amen”—so be it?

• Do You Tell Everything? 3 Questions to Ask First
What do you share publicly? Three questions to ask yourself before you hit publish.

• “My mama didn’t come” and What That Means to a Kindergartener
Dear God, please send no one alone.

• Do You Want to Be Poor?
Poverty is what we run away from, not toward. Right?

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What are you looking forward to in June? Please share in the comments.

Linking at Leigh Kramer’s
My previous posts

42 thoughts on “Links, Books, and Other Things I Love – June 2016

  1. Jenn

    Congratulations on your baby’s engagement! Loved your list of links. I’ll definitely be using the title capitalizer. I never know what to capitalize!

  2. Trudy

    So many goodies here, Lisa. My heart breaks for the little boy in “My Mama Didn’t Come.” Congratulations on the engagement of your daughter. 🙂 Blessings and hugs to you!

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      My heart breaks for that sweet child, too. 🙁 I wonder what he’ll do over the summer. Lord, have mercy! Thanks for the congrats on the engagement!

  3. Sarah Caldwell

    Great post – thanks for sharing! (I just wrote down the post links to capitalizing titles and shorter sentences – man, do I need those!). Interested to see what you think of Myss’ new book, sounds intriguing. And ‘Amen’! to Amening our prayers – lovely wisdom. Happy Summer!

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      I’m guessing that capitalization link gets used a lot. And probably should get used more. ha. So far Myss’s book has required a lot of thinking on my part! But I guess that’s a good thing. 🙂

  4. Bill (cycleguy)

    Thanks for the pictures Lisa. Can see you are very proud of your family. Can also see where they get their good looks. 🙂 My oldest graduated her K class last week and put together a little goodie bag of sunglasses and other things. One of her students, whom she has had trouble with about all second semester, destroyed them “because he felt like it.” She was heart-broken but i can honestly say one thing for sure: she loves her kids and is glad for the summer break. Okay…so that is two things.

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      Yes, I am proud of my sweet family, Bill. Thanks. Oh, I know those kinds of kids exactly who break the sunglasses just because they feel like it; I often wonder what’s really going through their heads. Praying that all our teachers get refreshed over the summer to head back into another year of loving all their students, the easy and the hard ones.

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      I was surprised at how much I loved Persuasion! Not sure why I waited so long to read it. ha. Thanks for the congrats—it’s been a year of firsts for Jenna for sure. 🙂

  5. Barbara H.

    Congratulations to Jenna! How exciting! It must be so hard to say good-bye to a class at the end of the year. Interesting about the sprained ankle. I never did like applying ice – glad I don’t have to any more. 🙂

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      I’m glad I don’t have to apply ice anymore either. ha. It can be as painful as the injury sometimes. Jenna really had such mixed feelings about saying good-bye to her class. She’ll definitely miss these kids, but she was ready for a break too. 😉 I guess teachers have to learn how to balance it all.

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      You’re sweet, Linda. Thanks. We have one son-in-law already, so this will complete our adult family! Next phase: grandkids. But that will still be awhile yet so I’m enjoying our little sweet spot for now. 🙂

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      Thanks, Michele! We’re excited about the wedding and marriage. Yes, I am planning on reading Malala’s book for July! I assume you are too? I recorded a documentary on it a few weeks ago, but haven’t watched it yet. I hope to get to that soon. Not sure if I should read the book first though….I guess there’s no real spoilers. ha.

  6. Jerralea

    Congrats to your baby girl! And to your niece and her new little one. This is such a wonderful time of the year.

    Love all your links! I always find so much here. Hope to make it back and check more of it.

    It’s strawberry time here, too. Yum!

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      Thanks, Jerralea! Lots of fun things happen in our families when our kids get out of those teen years. 🙂 Aren’t the fresh strawberries so delicious? I’ve about made myself sick from eating so many. ha. Enjoy yours!

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      Thanks, Joanne. I have fun putting these posts together (although I always think I can just do it quickly but it takes more time than I plan for, ha). We’re very excited to get a new son-in-law in the fall!

  7. Lori

    Congratulations on Jenna’s engagement! I know you are looking forward to all the planning. I have to agree about the short attention span and I can’t help but wonder if some of it is because of technology. I never could get used to using an E-reader and I have a hard time reading extremely long articles on the internet, just give me a real book, magazine or newspaper for goodness sake. The bowl of strawberries – oh my! Thanks for sharing all of these neat links, I can’t wait to go back and read more of them. Thanks for linking up with Thankful Thursdays.

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      Thanks, Lori!
      I do think my attention span is shrinking too. I can’t read long articles online either. ha. I’ll start one and then start wondering, Is this ever going to end? And just click away. But a book? I love a long book. 🙂

    1. LisaNotes Post author

      Thank you, Lori! Yes, I’ll take the congratulations for myself, too. 🙂 I consider it a win for me and the whole family that the Lord God connected with Jenna with a godly man.

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