3 Books for This Season

Everybody warns you that your first year of work life is going to be tragic and completely overwhelming. So far, my first year teaching is far from tragic but it is so easy to become frantic and overscheduled in the few hours of free time you manage to find in an effort to invest in old relationships and simultaneously foster new ones. The single biggest goal of managing my day-to-day scheduling has been to build in rest as I’m tempted to commit every minute of my time to maintaining and progressing all at once. I’ll be writing a lot more about my pursuit of rest in the coming weeks but today I’m sharing about my reading: one way that I’m making simple and small choices that create space.

Lately I have been so into reading that I have three books going at a time. I had noticed that I had developed the bad habit of turning to Netflix when it was time to really relax and I decided there were better ways to occupy my time and my brain. So I finally really committed to conquering my giant stack of books that I’ve always sworn would get to someday.

At this minute I’m reading these three books and loving them. I've developed the discipline of reading almost every night for 30 minutes before bed at minimum and trying to completely eliminate screen time as I wind down for the night. I’m rotating through one fiction, one cookbook (yep for real), and one Christian living book.

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First, I’ll be writing more about the crazy inspiration I’ve received from Dinner: A Love Story later but my mom and I have totally fangirled about this. I’m reading it cover to cover, soaking in every piece of advice this genius but very real woman is giving. In any season you are in, this is the book to give you the motivation to commit to family dinner, whether your family is 2 or 12 members strong.

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My novel right now is the perfect story to escape into. It’s such a poignant love story mixed with the tragedy of World War II. That combination would be so cliche if it wasn’t for the quick witted and deeply poetic writing that has enchanted me from the first sentence. This one is all the hype said it would be.

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Lastly, I’ve incorporated Present Over Perfect into my quiet time and I am probably deeply convicted by every other sentence. It is as packed with wisdom as it comforting. I love her unique but patient voice. If you are a busy working woman, you probably need this message as much as I did.