Hello, Reader.

LORD willing, by the time you read this, I will be in the middle of an Alaskan cruise with my husband of 39 years, our 16-year-old daughter, and my soon-to-be 89-year-old mother. And one of the souvenirs I'm hoping to bring home with me is a small bag of polished stones, for a craft project I plan to do in the near future.

Which is fitting, since today happens to be National Collect Rocks Day!

Kids don't usually need any extra coaxing to participate in this activity. My little boys, especially, were forever finding cool specimens to add to their nature collection. And they came up with lots of clever things to do with them, as well. I'm sharing some of those ideas in this week's link list. Enjoy!

Free resources for you this week:

• ​Rock Craft Round Up - any of these cute and clever projects would be fun to create!
• ​The Bible is the Rock Quote - Andrew Jackson was right: the Living Word is our cornerstone!
• ​Outdoor Scavenger Hunt - how quickly can you find sticks, stones, leaves, etc. on this list?
• ​Rock Quarries & Other Fun Factory Tours - some of our favorite things to do when we travel
• ​Rock a Bye Baby - my kids believe no day's complete without a lullaby & bedtime book or two

What I'm reading this week:

​Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession​ I have lots of fond memories of my mother laughing over Erma Bombeck's newspaper column which ran weekly in The Dallas Times Herald throughout my childhood. So when I spotted a copy of Bombeck's book Motherhood on the free shelf at my local library, I snatched it up to bring on our cruise this week. Sadly, the book seems to now be out of print (the humor would likely go over the heads of younger generations), but it's kept both me and my mother in stitches for days now. I especially enjoyed Bombeck's tongue-in-cheek take on whether it's harder to raise girls or boys -- and even agree with some of the finer points of her argument!

On the podcast this week:

Loving Life at Home: Episode 117 ​STAY AFTER SOULS (LIVING ON MISSION)​ In Part 3 of my series on Christian Discipleship, we're discussing what it means to "Stay after Souls" and what evangelism should look like in the life of a born-again Christian. Listen Now

Progress on last week's goals:

I finished most of the stuff on last week's to-do list: I ✅ organized and put fresh labels on all the blue storage boxes in my garage, ✅ watched my daughter compete in a local, two-day volleyball tournament, ✅ celebrated two family birthdays, ✅ recorded one (❌ not two) new episodes of my podcast, ​✅ packed for our trip to Alaska, ✅ gave my co-op books and supplies to daughter who'll teach my classes while I'm gone, ✅ stitched and stuffed all the letters in my grandbaby's name, and ✅ finished sewing a felt banner for Thanksgiving.

The remaining two projects -- ❌ starting my husband's quilt and ❌ reviewing Artza's Jesus Trail Box -- ​will have to wait until I get back, as I didn't have space in my suitcase to tote those projects along!

Personal goals for this week:

• enjoy the remainder of our Alaskan cruise
• edit 5 more chapters of audiobook
• finish stitching another Christmas stocking
• write a rough draft of this year's Christmas letter

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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, hit reply and let me know. 😊