Hi Friends,
Last week, my husband was in Chicago at Mid-winter, a conference by our denomination. When he’s away I try to get every single home project on my to-do list completed, one year I reorganized our linen closet, another I turned our bedroom in a romantic love nest complete with twinkle lights and new lamps, this year I wanted to cover our dining room chairs, but when I asked my husband where his staple gun was, he was like, “wait? I have a staple gun?” So, yeah, there went pretty new chairs idea. Instead, I planned our ten-year anniversary celebration. For our anniversary, we’re staycationing here in Boston for the weekend at this amazing Moroccan themed suite, booked through AirBnB:
So this month’s submission (well into Feb mind you) to Leigh Kramer’s “What I’m Into” will include a couple of my favorite wifey/romance resources. Maybe some of them will inspire you this Feb.
You can see all the products here on my What I’m Into Pinterest Board. I’ve also included my new favorite coffee shop here in Boston (Bourbon Coffee) and a recipe for homemade spaghetti sauce because in keeping with this year’s OneWord365, I’m trying to embrace slow food by making more things from scratch. 
Products I’m Into:
First of all, have you seen this International Delight Pumpkin Pie Spice commercial:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZis7QiII4A]
This was me, on January first at Target when I saw they marked all their Method Peppermint Vanilla Dish Soap down to $1. There were 15 bottles. I bought them all (there’s only ten, left…what? Since it smells so good, I’ve been washing dishes like A BOSS):
Also, in the winter I always suffer from dry and cracked heels. I’ve tried everything from Aveeno to homemade foot masks, but last week, I tried Burt’s Bees Coconut Foot Cream. Oh my goodness! It smells amazing (like a tropical vacation even though its 20 degrees outside) and it worked almost instantly. The bottle I have is a trial size, but I’m already planning on buying the full size when I get back to Target.
Which brings me to my next new favorite thing, since we don’t have a car right now, we’ve been using Lyft to get around—you know, those cars with pink mustaches that have been pooping up around Boston lately. Lyft’s motto is: “Your friend with a car.” Which has so been the case for us. My kids and I have received fours “lyfts” as they call them, and every one was with a fun, super friendly driver. Every single of one of them greeted me with a fist bump. Every. Single. One. Of them. That’s good people right there ;). The last one my kids and I took, the driver had a stick on mustache that he gave to my son, T.J.—that was seriously the highlight of his night. If Lyft is in your city and you’re interested in trying it out, you can click here and get $25 off your first ride (and full disclosure our family gets a $25 credit towards future rides).
Books:
Last month I got into Mercedes Lackey’s Five Hundred Kingdom Series. I read book one, “The Fairy Godmother” and book two, “One Good Knight”. Both are excellent! I love interesting spins on fairy tales and in this series, Lackey does not disappoint. What I appreciate most about the books is how every heroine is strong, intelligent, and subverts the traditional Happily Ever After.
My favorite wifey book right now is, “The Sexually Confident Wife” by Shannon Ethridge. I’ve read it a couple times and it’s one of the best books on sex for wives. Shannon’s writing is approachable and well-researched. It’s like having a best friend who loves Jesus and sex write you a encouraging letter from wife to wife. Get this book!
Movies:
Ok. I watched “The Butler”. A line from the movie keeps coming back to me spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King:
“The black domestic play an important role in our history….Young brother, the black domestic defy racial stereotype about being hard-working and trustworthy. It slowly tears down racial hatred because it’s an example of a strong work ethic and dignified character. Now while we perceive the butler to be mainly subservient, in many ways they are subversive, without even knowing it.”
That feels like Jesus’ teaching, in Luke 9 about the least becoming the greatest. It’s really resonating with me and quite possibly will become a blog post. I am something of a black domestic, I nanny for a few families and I help clean the house of a new mom twice a week, so “The Butler” and that scene in particular has invited me to do a lot of soul-searching.
Websites:
Rent the Runway is a shopping site, where you can rent designer dresses at a fraction of the cost. They’re like, “your best friend with a much bigger closet”. All while the hubs is away, I’ve been searching and searching through their extensive “closet” and at first I was overwhelmed, until I found this feature: Our Runway. After you enter the right info, you can see pictures of actual customer with similar body shapes as you in their rentals! How cool is that! No more comparing ourselves to super hot, skinny models, I can actually see if that dress would look good on a woman like me.
I’m thinking about choosing these two dresses:
This one for our date to a Moroccan restaurant, Tangierino.
Neither one of us have had Moroccan food, but given that our suite is Moroccan, we thought visiting a restaurant within that theme would be fun. Plus, it’s rated as one of Boston’s most romantic restaurants.
And I’m thinking about this one for our anniversary dinner at a jazz club. We got married in New Orleans (birthplace of jazz) and our colors were red and gold, so I thought this would be a fun dress with a nice gold statement necklace.
(note that I used pics of ACTUAL WOMEN in these dresses. How cool is that? I can’t get over how Rent the Runway wants us to all have our “Cinderella moment” in these beautiful dresses in real woman size). Plus they have this nice feature where you can chat with a personal stylist who will make suggestions based on your account. Mine suggested the red dress as my husband and I might go ice skating before dinner and she said this one would go from day to night pretty easily. I’m totally in Rent the Runway.
Finally, this month I’m totally into my friend, Nicole’s ecourse, “Love and Making it: Valentine’s Day Edition”. If Shannon’s book is like having a best friend who loves Jesus and sex cheer you on from the page, this class is like having a best friend who loves Jesus, sex, AND you, cheer you on in person. She sends daily, “passionals” to your email, (devotionals that help us access our passion for joyful intimacy in marriage), we have a secret Facebook to process the passionals in community and once a week we have a virtual meet-up on Fuze. I’m loving this class that at first I thought would help be find my brave in bed by accepting my body, but now, I’m thankful for the sacred space to be transparent about sex that Nicole has created. Enrollment for this month’s course is closed, but next month, Nicole is starting a spring course. I highly recommend enrolling now. Click the pic below to go to her site and register.
We’ve got some car drama to manage, so I’ll be back on Monday with some new thoughts and maybe that post from ‘The Butler”.
Shalom,
Comments (5)