Month: April 2017

“…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, ¹² so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

I was really hoping to resume my regular blogging schedule this month, but realistically it will probably be next month before that happens. But I wanted to check in and let y’all know that I haven’t fallen off of the planet.

Transitions are hard, y’all, and while this one is the answer to a lot of prayer and a whole lot of waiting in faith, I’m going to be real and remind myself (and anyone else reading this who’s dealing with hard times as the result of blessing and answered prayer) that it’s okay to acknowledge the hard, that doing so doesn’t make you ungrateful. I am SO thankful that all of this is happening right now and yet that doesn’t change the fact that my husband and I are exhausted and overwhelmed and there is still so much more to be done and I cried this morning and told God I can’t do it anymore before He helped me buck up and put on my big girl pants and come up with an action plan that I can live with.

At any rate, in the midst of a flurry of busy with the end looking a long way off, I’m longing to get back to a simple, slow, quiet life, and these links are all about doing just that.

What I Learned from Adopting a Simple-Living Mentality – Back in February I had the privilege of interviewing Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist for an article for Brightpeak Financial. Here’s a sneak peek:

A simple living mindset can mean different things to different people. According to Becker, simple living is “about deciding what in life is most important and then redirecting our resources towards that.” Getting rid of clutter and reducing material possessions is a big part of it, but it doesn’t stop there.

For Becker, it also meant cleaning up how he spends his time. He not only got rid of most of his television sets, but also vastly reduced the time he spent watching TV. His family also downsized their home to one that cost less in both time and money to maintain.

While some of these changes may seem drastic, it still came as a surprise to Becker how this mindset changed his life for the better.

Head here to read the rest.

What if All I Want is a Mediocre Life? – This post at A Life in Progress speaks so directly to the heart of everything God’s been dealing with in my heart for the last year and a half or so that if you take out all the parts about motherhood I could have written it myself. Seriously, y’all, I think it’s time to stop telling our kids (and ourselves, for that matter) that they have to aspire to lives of greatness and instead that they should aspire to lives of satisfaction and contentment–and that if that means lives of quiet domesticity and small, behind-the-scenes contributions, that’s completely okay.

And a book rec: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown – Like the post above, this book is about everything I’ve been trying to do by editing my life over the last couple of years. For me, while this book had some things that I can apply to help me tweak my efforts to streamline my life, it was less of a revelation and more validation of my determination to turn my back on a life of hustle. But if you’re stuck in hustle mode and feeling overextended and overwhelmed I highly recommend giving this book a look-see (and if, like me, you’ve made it your aim to stop hustling and slow down but are wondering if that makes you selfish, definitely read this book).

I’m hoping to get an April issue of Daydreamer Dispatch out later this week (…maybe), so if you’d like to know more about both what and how we’re doing, scroll to the bottom of this post or click the link in the sidebar to make sure you’re signed up.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to regular posting in another couple of weeks, but don’t be shocked if that doesn’t happen. In the meantime, thanks for hanging in there.

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!

A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.

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