Welcome to my weekly post I share a peek into our lives, talk about things I’m loving, share links to interesting articles or helpful ideas I’ve collected throughout the past week, and just talk about whatever is on my heart! ?
One night this week, we had a Clean Out the Fridge sort of dinner. The kids asked if we could eat in our formal dinner room and when I said yes, they set the table, turned down the lights, and added candles.
It felt all fancy, despite the fact that we were mostly eating leftovers! We’re definitely going to be doing this more often — especially since it maybe requires one extra minute to pull off!
(Step 1. Set the table in the formal dining room instead of the breakfast nook. Step 2. Turn down the lights. Step 3. Add candles. And you have yourself a “fancy dinner” in one extra minute! ?)
We played so many rounds of Dutch Blitz this week. And we invited some friends over for Breakfast for Dinner and taught them how to play, too.
I know I keep posting pictures of us playing this game — but I guess it’s become our summer thing. It’s rare that a day goes by that we aren’t spending at least some time playing it!
This boy got his very own library card this week! He was so excited! And I love that he is slowly starting to fall in love with reading.
If you’ve been around here for awhile, you probably know that it’s been a long and frustrating and discouraging road and he’s worked so hard to get here and it makes me so happy to find him reading multiple times per week — without me even encouraging it!
Kaitlynn’s school held a Yard Sale on Saturday morning and we enjoyed getting to help price stuff on Friday evening and help with the sale on Saturday morning.
I’m not sure what Kathrynne is doing here! 😉
One of the moms made Yard Sale signs based upon an idea she found on Pinterest. I thought these were the BEST!
Kaitlynn has been working on perfecting the art of making macarons and was so excited when she had a batch turn out almost perfectly this week! We had friends over on Saturday evening who had just returned from France and we spent a few hours getting to see all of the pictures of their trip. Her macarons were the perfect accompaniment to our evening!
“You should smile more in your pictures and videos…” “You always look sad and insecure…”
I got many comments like this for many years as a blogger. They were often sandwiched in the middle of a lot of other negative words and it would be easy to write it off as just being a negative critic I shouldn’t pay attention to.
But remember how I said that my approach is always to check critical comments to see if there’s any truth in them? Well, there was definitely some truth here and I knew it.
I had to do some deep heart work. I had to face a lot of fears. I had to take risks and unearth insecurities and cry a bucket of tears and work through old wounds and stop stuffing down all sorts of things and learn how to find my worth in Christ instead of in my work.
I had to believe that I was enough and stop living under the lie that I was broken and unworthy and not chosen.
Y’all… it’s been a journey. A long journey. But it was worth the fight. It was worth the pain. It was worth the tears. It was worth digging up stuff that I’d rather keep buried. It was worth feeling terrified as I faced fears.
It was all worth it. Because see that girl there? See the smile on her face? That’s genuine and real. She fought hard for the deep joy and wholeness.
And she’s grateful for truth from those critics and negative commentors that inspired her on this journey to joy. ❤️
Links You Should Check Out:
- Doing a $70 Grocery Budget Challenge — I was honored to be featured on Jami Balmet’s podcast all about our current grocery budget challenge!
- Fetch Rewards: Earn Money Scanning Your Grocery Receipts — Watch my video with all the details here.
- 6 Simple Secrets to Inspire Entrepreneurship in Kids — So many of you loved and resonated with this guest post.
2018 Goals Update
Personal Goals
1. Read 100 non-self-help books that will build me up/encourage me/inspire me/recharge me. (Fiction/story-driven/biographies/inspirational living books/devotionals.) See the list of 44 books I plan to read this year.
**Progress: 25 books read so far this year
2. Read through the entire Bible.
**Progress: I’m using the Robert Murray M’Cheyne plan and am all caught up— yay!
3. Write one handwritten note to someone every week.
**Progress: 28 notes written so far this year
4. Run 500 miles.
**Progress: 225 miles run so far
Marriage Goal
5. Go on an overnight trip with Jesse without the kids.Jesse and I went to NYC together in January.
Family Goals
6. Read 10 books aloud with the kids.
**Progress: I’ve finished one book so far.
7. Take the kids to South Africa.
**Progress: We bought our tickets & are planning our trip in July!
8. Go on a family road trip.
**Progress: We’ve been researching some options for this. Stay tuned!
Financial Goals
9. Save up to pay cash to finish off an office for me and workout room for Jesse and me in the basement in our new house.
**Progress: The workout room is almost done!
10. Replenish our Emergency Fund (we dipped into it to replace my car when it got totaled because of the carpet beetle infestation.)
Business Goals
11. Increase our gross income from the business by 8%.
12. Launch 5 new courses.
**Progress: We launched 4 Weeks to a More Productive Life launched in January, Content Creation 101 in February, 4-Week Blog Coaching Program in March, Email List Setup 101 in March, and Make Over Your Mornings LIVE in April.
Tyla Milian says
Crystal, once again thank you for sharing your struggles in your life journey and not being an airbrushed blogger. It’s so encouraging to me to be reminded that it’s okay to be imperfect.
I think one of the biggest myths about happiness is that it’s a result of everything in your life being exactly how you want it. However, I often find that true joy comes from radically accepting the hard stuff about your life and admitting it ain’t gonna be perfect no matter what.
Crystal Paine says
Thanks so much for your encouragement!
Jennifer R Osborn says
Kaitlynn, your macarons look so much better than mine. I need you to send me your tips!
Also, yay Silas!
Need Anap says
I hate to be a critical, but do you have an idea of what books and when you’re going to read to your kids? The year is almost half over. And I like to get your “input” on read-alouds. That’s the only goal that hasn’t had as much progress. : )
Crystal Paine says
Yes, reading aloud has been more of a challenge now that the kids are older. However, we’ve been reading a LOT more this summer… and should be finishing another book soon! I’ve found (in the last few weeks) that reading aloud in the car when we’re all driving together is what is working best. I’m hoping we can continue this once the kids start back to school so that we’ll be able to get in 15-20 minutes of reading time together most days and should have no problem hitting our 10 book goal for the year!
And here’s the list of books we’re reading: https://moneysavingmom.com/2018/01/44-books-plan-read-year.html (we’re currently working through Paperboy and The Journey Back. Both have language in them and so that’s why I haven’t mentioned them… because I need to write a full review with strong caveats and warnings and want to wait to do that until we’ve finished them!)