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Hello, Reader.

Lots has been happening at my house this week. A first place victory in a national volleyball tournament. An 88th birthday. An engagement. An elopement. A harrowing mishap. An ambulance ride. A hospital stay...

It's been a roller coaster week! I'll share details on all these events and more in coming days, but right now, our family covets your prayers as we attend to necessary next steps and align our thoughts with the truth of God's Word, just as this week's link list encourages us all to do.

Free resources for you this week:

• ​Bible Verses for Taking Every Thought Captive - gentle reminders from God's Word
• ​A Prayer of Faith - because we can't overcome wrong thinking in our own strength
• ​Every Thought Coloring Page - a hand-drawn design featuring 2 Corinthians 10:5
• ​Bible Memory Tips - to help you replace faulty thinking with the truth of Scripture
• ​Words and Meditations Coloring Page - a beautiful rendition of Psalm 19:14

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What I'm reading this week:

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Nir Eyal's Indistractable offers helpful tips and tricks for directing your attention to the things in life that matter most. We live in a word that is riddled with shining objects screaming day and night for our attention, and many have found their focus so hopelessly fragmented that it becomes virtually impossible to concentrate on the less flashy tasks that deserve our best effort. Eyal accurately identifies the problem and deftly outlines a way out of the conundrum. I've found his suggestions both effective and easily implemented.

This week's reader request:

I had a reader from Canada ask me to publish links to all my Thanksgiving resources in October this year (Canadians celebrate their Thanksgiving a month earlier than Americans). Instead, I sent her a free copy of my Thankful Hearts Print Pack.

It normally sells for $15 in our shop, but you, too, can get a FREE copy through Friday of this week by signing up for Homeschooling the Heart Summit which is underway right now.

When you register, they'll offer you the chance to purchase lifetime access to the summit videos. If you are actively homeschooling, you may be interested in doing so, but no such purchase is necessary to get the free swag, which includes my Thankful Hearts Print Pack this year. Enjoy!

On the podcast this week:

We've had lots of unanticipated demands on our attention lately -- from things that matter much more to me than keeping up with an artificially imposed editorial schedule for my podcast. I'll tell you more about these new developments later, but in the meantime, I'm sharing another episode from the archives this week:

Loving Life at Home: Episode 45 ​DON'T WASTE THE CRUST​ I’ve never been one of those mothers who carefully pared the crust off the PBJ’s I served my children for lunch. Instead, I'd coax my kids to eat the crusts of their sandwiches using the following rationale: It’s wasteful to leave them and That’s where most of the vitamins are. But is that really true? My family recently had a very enlightening discussion on this topic... Listen Now

Progress on last week's goals:

Okay, this week I have successfully ✅ pared down my inbox (though I still have work to do, I've cleared out over 75% of my backlogged messages!), ✅ flown home from Kansas (after my daughter's volleyball team won first place in the national tournament), ✅ crocheted a lace edge on a thrifted tablecloth for Thanksgiving, ✅ been more intentional about my use of time, ✅ almost (but ❌ not quite) finished my lesson plans for the next six weeks, and ✅ nearly (but ❌ not completely) finished cleaning out my clothes closet.

Personal goals for this week:

With the exception of costume making and tree repotting, all my goals this week are repetitive tasks that need doing at least on a monthly (if not weekly or daily) basis.

• walk at least a mile every day (I've let this habit slip a bit in the press of recent travels)
• finalize homeschool lesson plans
• finish organizing my closet
• crochet trim on 70s costume my daughter plans to wear to a dance tomorrow
• record two new podcasts
• reduce inbox to < 50 messages
• repot fiddle leaf fig
• clear off my closet desk
• send new memory passages to kids and grandkids

If you enjoy this newsletter and would like to support my work, there are five ways for you to do that:

1. ​Pray for me & my family
2. Invite a friend to subscribe to this newsletter​
3. Follow me on Instagram​
4. ​Buy one of my books​
5. Hit reply and say hello 👋

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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. 😊