Apparently, I’ve been remiss in keeping up with Weekend Links. The last version, Weekend Links {22}, was published in March—of 2017!!!!!!

Ahem.

You may be asking yourself, “What in heaven’s name is Sandy doing with all her time, if not curating for us a weekly list of worthy weekend reading material?????”

And that brings me to the theme of Weekend Links {23} and the answer to that question:

Update on Sandy’s Life:

Well, since my last post, May happened.

When kids are still in school, May is just a whole thing…mostly a blur…I don’t know.

June was a month of extremes.

On the good extreme, Jon and I took advantage of our two youngest kids being at church camp during the same week and flew to New York City to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary a little early. In 21 years of parenting, we have never, ever been away from our kids longer than 3 nights. This is mainly because we don’t live near family, so leaving longer than that involves paying someone a crap-load of money to live at my house for days and cart my children everywhere, or it means farming out kids to various homes. It aways seems like more trouble than it’s worth.

But, alas, 25 years of marriage is worthy of a proper celebration…so we did.  We will celebrate again in October, for our actual anniversary. Because: omg…25 years!

On the bad extreme, my brother Mark died, suddenly, unexpectedly.

This happened days before our NYC trip, so we ended up going on our trip, coming home, and immediately leaving for Ohio for the funeral.

Mark was 12 years older than me, never married, had no kids.

Of the seven kids, he is #3…I’m #7.

Since my dad died last summer, Mark and I texted almost daily.

He was insanely intelligent, musical, opinionated, kind, and hilarious.

I miss him so much.

***

In the midst of all of that, I’ve being speaking and writing a little here and there.

Everything Sandy Has Been Working On:

1. On Mother’s Day, I had the distinct privilege of speaking to our congregation at my church. I have spoken many times at my church (to the women, teaching Wednesday night classes, leading Bible Study, even sharing the stage with several other women on a Sunday morning), but never had my pastor given me the entire sermon to address our congregation on a Sunday morning. It was so fun.

Since it was Mother’s Day, I spoke specifically to all the tired moms and the people who love them (this includes everyone). If you are a tired mom, and you have people in your life who love you, encourage them to listen. You may also want to slip this under your husband’s pillow and play it while he sleeps.

You can listen in here:

How to Breathe Life into a Tired Mom

 

2. A few weeks ago, a freelance writer contacted me regarding a post I wrote back in 2001 (Sam-e For Depression) where I talked about my success in using Sam-e to manage my depression. She called and interviewed me, and then used my story in her article.

You can read her article here:

Everything You Need to Know About Using Sam-e For Depression.

 

3. Last week, I was interviewed by my new friend, Nickilee Gurovich, on The Healthy Happy Mommy Podcast. We talked all about my book, Finding Your Balance, chatted about priorities, gratitude, learning to say ‘no,’ and really zeroed on on Comparison. It was such a fun conversation!

You can listen or watch here:

listen to us on the podcast

watch us on YouTube

 

4. In case you missed this, I wrote a guest post for The Glorious Table about what my daughter Elliana is teaching me about approaching God.

You can read that here:

When We Ask

 

5. And finally, I learned something valuable this month: it takes me approximately 273 hours of focused work to create an online quiz–give or take.

No, seriously.

I love taking online quizzes (I mean, how else would I know what Disney Princess I am?) and so I had this crazy idea that I’d create one for you! Except I sorely misjudged the amount of time it would take to create. I thought maybe a day or two, tops.

Little did I know, creating that darn quiz was all I would do for two weeks straight.

It was so. much. work.

But, it’s finished now!

Yay!

(she says, as she lies breathless and sweaty on the ground…her kids, glassy-eyed…foraging around in the pantry for food…).

If you haven’t taken it yet, you can take it here:

What’s Your Busyness Personality?

 

***

And don’t forget, if you haven’t yet picked up a copy of my book

Finding Your Balance,

you can buy it on

Amazon

for $14.99.

 

Have a peaceful weekend, friends.

Love,

Sandy