Life Update

Hey everybody! A LOT has happened since my last post. I went home for the holidays, had a really nice time back in Florida for a few weeks, was ready to come back to Lux, and now I'm here! Even though I was excited to get back to my life here it was a really hard transition. Maybe not as hard as the initial one but close. I wasn't really homesick or anything, I was mainly battling with feelings that I didn't belong here. Which is ridiculous! I know the Lord sent me here but I was finding it difficult to remember that for some reason. I've been back for almost 2 months now and I'm very happy to say that I'm finally getting out of that rut. It's HARD to trust God, it doesn't really come naturally most of the time, but I'm learning to surrender my (perceived) control of my life and trust Him. The weather here has also been a big factor in my dreary mood. I am absolutely loving the snow and cold weather but the lack of sun makes me gloomy. The last few days God has really shown up though and I've been climbing out of this hole. Even though it snowed all day today it made me giddy like a little kid! The sunlessness was incomparable to the excitement of an inch of snow.

In other news, I am starting a Hillsong Connect Group (mid-week bible study) geared toward au pairs! It will be bi-weekly and it starts in just a couple of weeks. Even though Younglife isn't the ministry I'm involved in, I didn't come here to serve Younglife, I came to serve Jesus and I'm willing to be used in whatever way he wants to. So I'm really excited about it!

I went on a week long ski trip in the Austrian Alps last week and it was INCREDIBLE. I'm going to do an entire blog post about it next Thursday (and I'll be posting every Thursday from now on btw!) so if you want to get notified when it goes up then make sure you subscribe! I also would love to know if you guys have any specific topics you want me to write about. You can comment right on this, email me, DM me on Instagram, or text me with ideas! I love that I get to connect with people and update everyone this way and since this is primarily for y'all I want to make posts that you guys enjoy.

So like I mentioned there was a lot of snow today (okay not a lot but a lot for me!) and I was really excited about it so I took this short video of me walking to my car. The noise at the end is the sound of me realizing I needed to get out in the snow and scrape my windows...

I also wanted to share a recipe of what I made for dinner tonight

because it is the yummiest meal I've ever made and it's not too hard or time-consuming. And it's keto! I did change a few things from the recipe but it's essentially the same so here's the link... https://www.chelseasmessyapron.com/beef-lettuce-wraps/

If y'all are interested in what I make for dinner, the process of finding ingredients here, or even how I make sushi (I make it like once a week lol) I would love to share about those! So let me know if that's something you'd want to hear about.

Weekly encouragement: Dolce far niente is an Italian expression translating to "sweet idleness". I have this on a sticky note on my desk because when my life feels overwhelming it is a reminder that there is sweetness in sitting still. A lot of us have thought about leaving our life behind and moving to Italy and living in a villa and eating pasta all day (or maybe it's just me). Even though you're probably not going to do that, you can bring a piece of the Italian lifestyle into your own life by practicing this dolce far niente.