Photographic check in

I may not be thinking cohesive thoughts much, nor writing them down, but I am snapping lots of photos. I can tell you about my current life with them easily. Watch this.

How did your May goals go? You never told us.

How do people even do that? There are so many things online that need me.

What’s the best part of your life these days?

Walks, walks, and more walks, with some assortment of these people, in the glorious world. We walk to the lake and we walk to the park and we strap the baby to our chest and we soak in the sunshine and we feel the wind and we walk and walk and walk.

What’s the worst part of your life?

Knowing we’ll be saying goodbye soon, barring a miracle I hesitate to ask for. She is five months old, and her heart and mine are intertwined.

What are your two favorite phone apps at the moment?
(I tried taking photos of this and failed.)

• Dwell, an audio Bible app with good read-aloud voices, background music, repeat settings, and more.
• And Noom, an app that tracks my health with daily step count, calories, water intake, and more. And lots of education and rewarding feelings.

Neither is free, or even cheap, but they have been worth every penny. And I am not getting a financial kick-back for telling you so.

What’s your current hobby?

Savoring and photographing all the textures.

What’s your pet peeve?

Answering questions multiple times. I do this a lot, summers. No photo on this one, because the steam coming out of my ears doesn’t show up on camera. The follow up questions tend to involve some variant of “Are you sure?!” and “I forget what you said the first time,” and “To be clear, you really meant…?”

“Mom, can I blah blah blah?”
:Yes
“Really?”
:Yes
“REALLY????!”
:I told you yes two times and if you ask again it’s no.

How has someone blessed you lately?

Our family has been blessed repeatedly this summer by an old woman who loves to give good groceries.

What are you reading these days?

Favorites are from bottom to top, all non-fiction.

Bearing the Unbearable is a grief book and makes me cry. In Other Words is written side-by-side in Italian and English, the story of a woman’s love affair with a foreign language. Quiet and enchanting. Maya Angelou* goes without explanation. Comparison Girl is the follow-up to Control Girl. And The Strange Case… could be written better, but it’s the story of a man who saved preemie babies before saving preemie babies was a thing.

*(Caution about explicit and heartbreaking sexual abuse scenes in Caged Bird.)

What’s the best mission statement you saw lately?

Look at the central paragraph: “We seek to follow Him…” This statement of faith is from my local Pregnancy Center, where I will be volunteer teaching for one day in July. I was asked to sign agreement to these words, and it wasn’t hard.

How many book sales did you get out of that “bite-sized promotion” last week, with the notes and teabags?

Final count: 71 books sold that week. I was greatly surprised, thoroughly delighted, and extremely writers-crampy. Do you know how long it takes to write seventy personal notes? I think I can uncurl my fingers again, just. THANK YOU for your response! I’m so pleased. And a sweet friend sent me a book of stamps in case I was running out, bless her. I was.

Note: If you told me you bought a copy and you don’t hear from me by the end of next week, please reach out to me again. I think I caught everyone, but I don’t want to be wrong.

Now it’s your turn. Pick a question or so from my list… would you? Favorite apps? Current hobby? Best/worst part of your life? Blessing from someone? Pet peeve? Reading material? I’d love to hear.

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