Alright! As I type this, I am on day 27 of the Whole30. This round has been remarkably easy. I credit the ease to being a part of a support community on Facebook, Melissa Urban’s (nearly) daily livestreams on YouTube, and my intentional preparation. In October, when I planned out all my meals and my grocery lists, I had no idea how beneficial all that legwork would be. I followed the meal plan fairly closely. I appreciated the grocery list being there to keep me in line. Given current inflation and egg prices especially, the last thing I needed was to go off the deep end financially in the process of trying to complete a Whole30 and end up in financial distress.
Speaking of finances…I just sat down today to get started on our taxes. Much to my disappointment, we owe again. That is the pain of being in a significantly different pay grade than your spouse, I suppose. One of these days we will get our federal withholding right.
Jonathan and I are very excited because it would appear that we have our next rental lined up and it is a really cool situation. We will be going from this apartment, which has poor insulation, minimal natural light, neighbors all around us, and is generally ugly — to a 3Bed 3Bath house that is 6 minutes from our church. We will each have our own office. There is a huge fenced-in back yard with a two-tier porch. We have Ring camera security. We will have excellent appliances. I’m really excited about that. I am, however, struggling to figure out where we will sit to eat and also where Whimsy’s litter box will go. Those are small things but I definitely need to make a plan.
Work-wise, things are going incredibly well. We held open auditions a week ago and I got 2 acoustic players. I also have a handful of people who I expect will become a part of the team in the near future. I have a long-time volunteer who is going to be stepping into the Band Leader role for the first time in just a few weeks. I am a part of the strategy team for the creation of my church’s next (second) album. We recently went on a field trip to hear a pastor of a very influential church in Maryland speak. Got a ton of good nuggets out of that talk.
Life is continuing to go very well. I am, however, getting a bit bored because it’s so cold outside and I want to do some baking! I need sunshine and sweets!
SARAH HARPER 