Loving Lately

Podcasts. I never miss an episode of Young House Love Has A Podcast, Happier With Gretchen Rubin, Fountains of Carrots, and Messy Parenting. My favorites probably being the last two. I love Fountains of Carrots' book club episodes - The Blue Castle was such a charming story! And I feel like their episode discussing The Crown vs. Victoria was pretty much made just for me. Messy Parenting is hosted by a Catholic couple with ten children. They share SO much wisdom in every episode! Podcasts make cleaning bathrooms and doing dishes infinitely more enjoyable. 

Take Up And Read. It will come to an end once we have a baby in our room again, but I've actually established a pretty good habit of waking up before our kids for some quiet prayer time. Claire's hiking accident inspired me to make this a much bigger priority. Being quite pregnant helps too, because when my alarm goes off in the morning I usually have to use the bathroom very badly or I'm just so uncomfortable that I spring out of bed quickly. I have been absolutely loving the Take Up and Read Catholic bible journals, written by Elizabeth Foss and a whole team of wonderful ladies.

Well Read Mom. A lovely friend started a Well Read Mom's group at our parish this fall. It is such a fantastic program! I'm a decent reader (usually averaging two months a book) but it's so nice to have a book club dedicated to reading more high-brow literature than I would usually choose for myself. The first selection was Gilead and the second is O Pioneers! which is actually free to download via Kindle. I fit most of my reading in at the gym, although in the bath (with lavender epsom salts) is my very favorite and occasionally I can sneak a few pages in the late afternoons while my kids are happily occupied (always accompanied by some chai tea.)

Read Aloud Revival. Their themed monthly picture book lists are the best! At the beginning of each month, I sit down and request them all from the library (checking the comments too for even more ideas). Then we have quality picture books waiting for us when we visit each week, simple as that. They also have some great chapter book suggestions, but I've found more recommendations from Everyday Reading (her mom's blog is great too!), from browsing homeschooling curriculum, and from awesome friends like Rosie and Bethany.

Funny TV Shows. We watch a lot of sitcoms - The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine Nine, Last Man on Earth, The Middle, The Goldbergs, Fresh off the Boat, Black-ish, American Housewife, Speechless. That really does sound like a lot, but since we watch them all on Hulu without commercials, it's only about 3.5 hours of television a week. Laughing together is such a great way to end the day! We do make an exception for one drama, Madam Secretary. We enjoy it so much we even watch with commercials on the CBS website. Out of all of these, we would most recommend The Good Place. One of the main characters actually reminds us a lot of our pastor, which makes it even more humorous. The first season is on Netflix if you'd like to catch up!

British Period Pieces. Well, you can probably guess that I'm super, super excited for the second seasons of The Crown and Victoria this winter. Somehow I haven't gotten into Poldark though. I'm very intrigued by Outlander, especially since I've read several of the books, but I've heard it's almost as graphic as Game of Thrones. I'm really looking forward to seeing these four films, all being released this fall - Viceroy's House, Victoria and Abdul, Goodbye Christopher Robin, and Breathe - although I'm betting I'll have to wait for them to come out on video.