Faves

A small list of things that I'm appreciating these days:

• music:  Mumford & Sons, Lumineers, All Sons & Daughters, Fun., George Winston, Diana Krall & Hank Jones on Pandora, Astrud Gilberto on Pandora.  This is quite the range from new to old-time jazz, to instrumental I heard throughout my childhood.  
• books:  John.  The past 2 years our church body has read through the book of John.  My servant-hearted husband has poured hundreds if not thousands of hours into sermon prep to share Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and re-appearance with our church goers.  This book has greatly shaped my understanding of Jesus.  The summary sermon Jason preached this past weekend was outstanding by the Lord's doing only.  (Jason gets nervous when complimented.  He's funny like that.)  I'll post the link once it's up on our church site.  Another book I'm appreciating is Lies Women Believe by Nancy Leigh Demoss.  My quad finished this book a few months ago and it challenged me greatly.  I frequently need a swift kick in the pants.  This book kicked with gusto.
• food:  I love me some honey Greek yogurt mixed with Jif peanut butter.  Dip some apple slices into the dip and voila!  New favorite snack.  And then popcorn.  I use our popper 4 to 5 times a week.  Melted, unsalted, full-fat butter, sea salt sprinkled on top, with highly-processed cheese sprinkles are also a fave.  Coconut oil.  I've been using this to cook, saute veggies, bake bread, and for non-food reasons.  It's a great hair treatment, skin softener, and I'm going to start oil-pulling.  I'll write soon about some of the natural and organic facts that I've been appreciating and implementing at home.  I think this stuff is so neat.  But, back to faves...
• beverages:  do I really need to specify?  I love coffee.  Light roasts in particular because they have far more caffeine than dark roasts.  Plus, dark roasts taste bitter and burnt.  I prefer not to drink something that tastes like cigarettes.  Flavored light roasts are delightful--coconut macaroon from Target, Archer Farms, is currently at the top of the list.
• skin care:  Mary Kay.  Always and forever.
• hygiene:  I'm becoming an earth-lover and anti-chemical chic.  It's more pricey, but research has convinced me that all the chemicals we put on our skin, which soak in, because skin is a living organ, does and will harm us.  So, I've become a fan of sulfate, phthalate, paraben-free products.  (Should I have saved this for my granola-muncher post?)  All the sulfates from my old shampoos were drying me out causing me to be my own winter weather system.  White flakes falling---and it wasn't snow.  This is a weird topic to have on my list of faves.  Moving on, shall we?
• websites:  www.alaskafromscratch.com, whole-foods from scratch.  Skinnytaste.com, Pinterest.com, Etsy.com, Amazon.com.
• my family:  Jesus has given me a beautiful family.  There is no way to express the gratitude and deep appreciation I have for the four other people who live in my house with me.  I'll try to get better at expressing these feelings as I continue blogging.
• first Fridays of the month:  My mom has graciously offered to watch my kids for me on the first Friday of each month so I can have alone time to clean and organize my home as needed.  This is a huge blessing to me!  Today is the first Friday of the month which means I need to get going so I can take advantage of my wonderful mother's sacrificial offer.  I need my mother so much more now that I am a mother.