Hey guys! I hope you’ve been having a great day so far. Thank you so much for taking time out of it to stop by! I’m always so thankful to have you here.

I had my 28 week appointment today *shocked face*. It’s going by so quickly. I’m excited but also trying to soak up as much of this time as I can. It’s so precious to me! I know it goes by even faster when the baby is out of the womb! Everything was great at the appointment except the results from my glucose test, which is a preliminary test for gestational diabetes. I failed. I have to admit… I can’t say I was surprised for some reason but it was a bummer. I’ve had this happen with multiple friends and so many of you messaged me saying it happened to you too. I have a follow up test later this week. Either way, it will all be okay!!! In the meantime, here are five things that are bringing me joy recently:

The Bible Recap

I started this at the beginning of the year and I am so thankful that I did. I’ve set the goal for years to complete the entire Bible in a year and failed every single time. It WILL happen this year though because of this study. It makes me giddy just to think about! Every day there are assigned chronological readings. With each day, there is a corresponding 4-8 min podcast to listen to that breaks down the readings and explains it better (Scripture can be so confusing sometimes, right?! These podcasts help tremendously with that!). I shared details on how that works in THIS POST. If this is something you’ve been interested in doing, I highly encourage you to try this out! I have learned so much and have grown so much closer to Jesus. The entire journey has been so precious to me. It takes about 20-30 minutes a day and it’s worth every second.

The JJoYLs Community

I really never thought that when I started diving into research on toxins and how it can impact our gut health, endocrine system, and more that it would lead to cultivating a community such as this. One that I am so grateful to be a part of and can’t wait to watch grow and thrive. Not only are people supporting their wellness but I’ve watched so many people now supplement their incomes (by a lot, I’ll add). Feel free to let me know if you have questions about this!!!

The other part of this that has just been the absolute best is showering our new and current members with gifts. It might sound silly to you but I thought and prayed for months really over what I could gift to people that would supplement their new starter kit with even more happiness. One day it “randomly” popped into my mind – handmade garlands! I couldn’t get the thought out of my head so I spent an entire day running numbers and planning. Stephen and I agreed we’d make them ourselves so that’s what we’re doing! We just finished up our garlands (they double as diffusers too!) for May and they’re so fun. We are so excited for the three people that will get to hang these in their homes. We hope they make you smile every time you look at or smell them!

The only way to get a garland right now is by getting a starter kit and enrolling in essential rewards (which is free!). There are multiple different options for you to choose from! I walk you through how to do this HERE or if you message me on Instagram we can do it together! We can’t wait to have you join us. It’s so much fun!!!

Hiking + Strawberry Picking

One great thing (among many actually) that has come out of this whole COVID thing for us is how it has reignited our love of hiking together. We’ve been trying to go weekly if we can. We’ve had to decrease the mileage a bit as I get farther along in the pregnancy but we have a blast either way! The best days though are the ones where we can hike AND go strawberry picking! We have so much fun. It brings both of us loads of joy.

The pups are also so smitten when we go it’s pathetic. Witnessing their joy brings us more joy too.

If you’re in the Columbia, SC area, visit Cottle Farms to go picking! It’s so much fun. You pay $12 for a gallon of strawberries (roughly 5 pounds) and have at it.

Book Club

One of my best friends and I have started reading/listening to books together so we could talk about them. We live across the country from each other in different time zones with pretty different work schedules so having our books to talk about has been really sweet. We started with The Other Mrs. (that ending shocked us), then the The Tattooist of Auschwitz which we both loved and now we’re listening to Cilka’s Journey. Next up on the list: The Silent Patient! A lot of people have said that they loved that one. Do you have any recommendations for what we should listen to next? I have a long list of options but I love hearing what books you all are loving!

Baking… Breads

Laughing now because someone out there is probably thinking, “Well it’s no surprise you failed your glucose test…” Yeah yeah yeah get outta heya. Don’t get me wrong, I love sweets. I’m practically Buddy the elf when it comes to sugar BUT baking recently has been more about the act of baking than actually eating the food. Granted, I like to eat it too but really I’ve just wanted to bake and give the food to my neighbors or watch Stephen enjoy it. Maybe it’s my form of nesting right now…

In the past month or so we babied a sourdough starter that I eventually used to make some delicious bread, a couple loaves of cinnamon bread, lots of banana bread, and we recently tried making bagels for the first time. They weren’t the best of lookers but their flavor was great! We had a lot of laughs while making those, that’s for sure.

Blends I’m Loving:

What has been bringing you joy recently? Does anything on your list match up with mine? Maybe some of these will inspire you to try something new! How fun would that be…

Stay well, friends.