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Hello, Reader.

February is trucking right along, isn't it? Can you believe Valentine's Day is upon us? My husband has already offered to take me out for lunch (we prefer to skip the dinner crowd that day after waiting for over an hour for a table the year our third was born). But first, I'll attend a Galentine event one of my (single) daughters is hosting.

Whether you have a "special someone" with whom to celebrate Valentine's Day or not, I hope you will remember that you are deeply and eternally loved by God -- a love He demonstrated toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That verse, Romans 5:8, never fails to awe and amaze me, which is one reason I include it with my signature every week!

I hope you'll bask in that love as you explore all the love-themed resources in this week's link list. Enjoy!

Free resources for you this week:

• ​Love One Another Bookmarks - for all my fellow bibliophiles ❤️
• ​Valentine’s Day Trivia Quiz - how much do you really know about this holiday?
• ​Retro Valentines - old fashioned valentines, only with Bible verses instead of corny puns
• ​Valentine-Themed Gospel Tracts - so you can share the unsurpassed love of Jesus
• ​Love-Themed Coloring Pages - we have a wide variety to choose from
• ​Victorian Valentines - these lovely cards feature snippets of 1 Corinthians 13
• ​Dating through the Alphabet - a wealth of ideas to extend Valentine's fun all year long

What I'm reading this week:

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In C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, a senior demon named Screwtape offers diabolical advice to his nephew, Wormwood, on the most effective way to tempt, torment, and trip up the human in his charge. Reading through the correspondence is both eye-opening and convicting, as the familiar methods discussed are instantly recognizable as tactics that have been employed, with greater or lesser success, against me. I’ve read this book at least once or twice a decade for the past 40 years, always finishing with a fresh resolve to remain more alert against Satan’s schemes. This time, my youngest daughter read it with me, stopping after every chapter to narrate and discuss. ​

What we're eating this week:

Spaghetti has always been a huge favorite for my husband, and our older kids love it too, so I used to make a huge batch of it once every week or two. But most of our younger kids (the ones still living and eating at home) don't care for pasta OR meat, so Doug's been missing out.

But then I spotted a recipe for The Best Instapot Spaghetti Recipe Ever that literally took less than 10 minutes, start to finish, and thought I'd give it a try. Doug was ecstatic. And so was I.

Super easy: I put precooked but still frozen ground beef in the bottom of the pot, added dry spaghetti on top of that, and covered everything with water, sauce, and a couple of spices, and -- voilà! -- I had a quick and easy dinner for my hubby (with plenty of time left over to make a plant-based meal for the rest of us)!

What we're watching this week:

My husband took me to see Angel Studios' Solo Mio last Saturday. It was simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking--and 100% clean. We laughed, we cried, and we've been heartily recommending it to all our friends!

On the podcast this week:

While I did record a new episode this week, I have not gotten it edited or posted yet, so here's one more from the archives, especially for valentines...

Loving Life at Home: Episode 76 ​A VALENTINE'S PLEA FOR PERSEVERANCE​ As Valentine's comes and goes this weekend, I'd like to encourage and inspire you to keep the love flowing all year long. ​ Listen Now

Progress on last week's goals:

I'm happy to report that, by the grace of God (plus an extra day to work on all of it 🙄), I was able to mark every single item off last week's to-do list, which included: ✅ attending a baby shower for a friend, ✅ organizing the costume bins in my garage, ✅ cleaning out/organizing the consoles in two cars, ✅ finishing my embroidered felt Valentine garland, ✅ making exploding photo cards with my girls' craft class, ✅ reviewing a new Simply Draw with Bob Parsons course, ✅ recording EP 108 of my podcast, and ✅ boxing up all our Christmas books until time to read them again next December.

Whew! That feels good!

Personal goals for this week:

• take kids to the zoo
• attend my daughter's annual Galentine event
• outline a brand new course I'm working on
• prepare for next week's craft class at co-op
• restart Spanish lessons with the kids
• switch out Valentine's for springtime decor
• babysit grandkids to give their parents have a night away
• add labels to newly organized costume boxes (so grandkids won't unbox everything looking for the princess dresses or cowboy hats)

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Thanks so much for all your help! I'll be back next week with more links, reviews, and resources. If you have any special requests, please let me know. 😊