What Made My Week Great

Want to know what made my week great? This photo did, for one. These are two of my favorite friends from my church youth group — I haven’t seen them since I was 18 years old. We reunited last weekend to see our childhood pastor speak at our childhood church. I want to write more about this later, but I had to share our photographic recreation!

But that’s not all that made this week memorable…

–If you read ANYTHING this week, read this commencement speech given recently by George Saunders. It is amazing. Inspiring. And I will never forget it. I’ve been thinking “Err on the side of kindness” all week long.

–Watch this if you have writer’s block. Then watch it again. Then bookmark it. Then share it with everyone you know.

Then you will be JUST LIKE ME.

–I received Martha Stewart’s Crafts for Kids in the mail last week and I am LOVING it. It contains 175 different projects that are super-cute and more importantly, easy to complete. Best of all, it’s all pretty enough to display in the house without secretly wincing every time you see it.

–Do you wear sexy sleepwear in front of your kids? I asked this question on The Stir and got some interesting- and hilarious- answers.

–After I returned home from BlogHer, I received a wonderful surprise in the mail — an enormous box of toys from The Big Toy Book‘s #SweetSuite13 event, hosted by Joey Fortman and Charlene DeLoach. My kids were beside themselves, and I was thrilled that out of all the toys in the box, Tinker Toys were one of my son’s absolute favorite. Not Skylanders. Not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. TINKER TOYS! They’re plastic now and more fun than ever. He has spent HOURS building all of the creations pictured on the box. This made me very happy. OLD SCHOOL FOR THE WIN.

–Another big hit with Bruiser has been Time’s Big Book series. He now has the Big Book of What? and the Big Book of Where? and we love looking through both of them. If you’ve got a kid who’s constantly asking questions, these books will satisfy their thirst for knowledge.

–The Issa Collection came out this week at Banana Republic and it made me very, VERY happy. Issa London is Kate Middleton’s favorite designer and her wrap dresses and tops look good on just about anyone. My clothing allowance is depleted, but I think Kate would be pleased with what I chose.

–How can you minimize your chances of being the victim of a home invasion? I have a few helpful tips for you in this Moms Matter video.

–I’ve been working out like a maniac lately (see below if you want to know why) and Friday Night Lights is one of the shows that’s making my time sweating on the elliptical much less painful. This show is SPECTACULAR- It’s so well done that I bought season one on DVD for my husband (I’ve been watching it free on my Kindle through Amazon Prime) and I can’t wait to watch the episodes all over again.

–The biggest thing that happened this week was my first ever photo shoot. It’s for a project that I will tell you about soon. It’s BIG, y’all, and it leaves me breathless and I don’t want to jinx it. But yeah. I’m excited.

Stay tuned.