I would like to learn what my cultural heritage is. I feel disconnected from my family’s culture as I am not entirely sure what country my family is from originally. We live in the US in North America but we haven’t learned where the family came from. I would be interested in learning where we came from and about the culture in that place.
It depends on what item I’m thinking of for use. For phones and computers, it’s Apple. For planners and notebooks, it’s Sterling Ink. For makeup, it’s Maybelline. It varies widely.
Overall, I aim for products that are relatively affordable but have good enough quality to not be a terrible disappointment when I use them. For instance, I don’t find designer clothing to be of a good use of money because they usually make products that are of average quality or less. I will buy secondhand clothing or new clothing from Target or Walmart but I wish I could afford more ethical clothing options.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
I have actually been thinking about this a lot lately. Most recently, I had gotten a job in 2022 for my dream company to work for: Neiman Marcus. I got a role as an Assistant Sales Manager for the Women’s Clothing department. It was the dream for a fashion merchandising major who had graduated during the worst part of the pandemic in October 2020.
Quickly, I learned that the fashion retail world was not what I had thought that it was during my school experience. I was also spending about 3 hours a day in my commute to and from this dream job.
I am grateful for the experience and the company was amazing to work for. But in the process, I learned that I did not fit in well.
The company also provided me with a benefit of being able to use LinkedIn Learning and I was able to start exploring IT, technology, and cyber security. I started leaning into that curiosity and I am still obtaining certificates in that field even after leaving Neiman’s a year ago. And I am thankful for that whole amazing process that looks like a failure on the outside because it led me to something that I am developing a new passion for.
My previous main planner had the goal of simplifying my life. But it began doing the opposite. I started obsessing over the daily details and then writing down the same exact things everyday, believing that it would automate my life and bring myself into consistency. I’ve been drowning in this postpartum season of life and simplifying sounded good. Then comes the Makselife planner. I had bought this planner around April when it was on sale and around the same time I bought the other planner. I’m not sure why, but I had dropped it after it came and I tried to only use the goal work in the beginning of the book to find myself again. April through July ended up being chaos and my whole life and house looked like it. I brought the Makselife planner out of my shelf and put everything else away, telling myself to only use this planner to try and level things out and it has worked for the best.
The Makselife planner was made by a life coach named Sierra Friend and it came out first in 2019. Being a planner enthusiast, I had seen it around but the relatively high price tag always pushed me away. A one-year Makselife planner is regularly $76 according to the website so it’s one of the more expensive specialty planners. The company describes itself as a luxury planner company so the price makes sense.
The purpose of putting the goal planning pages with the daily agenda pages is to keep your goals up front and plan out your days and actions with your goals in mind. Most planners keep the two separate or a goal planner company only releases a goal planner but not a daily agenda so this planner is unique in that it keeps the two completely together in one book.
There are 8 areas of life in the book that are the areas for goals and weekly actions. That may sound like a lot but in my case, most of the 8 can overlap or each can have its own goal that ties in with a goal from another life area, especially since my life has one overarching theme in it right now which is motherhood. According to the company, you don’t have to use all 8 areas if that’s too much for you but each area is important to the facets of most individual’s life and goals.
With this in mind, this planner has been my best tool for finding myself again and calming the sea of chaos around me that is my mental health, physical health, and physical environment.
They just came out with their 2024 planners at the end of September and I am anxiously awaiting being able to dive into the goal setting pages for the start of the new year.
In this day and time, it is getting more and more difficult to find Christian resources that actually use the Bible as the foundation for the material. (Shocking.) Because I’ve been running into this problem repeatedly, I’m sure many other Christians are too so I want to share a list of some channels and books that have helped me in my studies. If you have some resources as well, I would love to hear what they are.
Just a side note as well, I’m sure there are some minor issue disagreements that I have with some of the creators and authors that I’m listing here but overall, they are Christians who believe the Bible is the word of God and that faith in Christ is the only necessity for salvation.
1. The Messed Up Church YouTube Channel – This channel is run by the Kozars, Steve and Paulette. They post videos critiquing messages from mega church pastors and ministry speakers who primarily use their speaking skills to make a profit rather than to properly teach from the Bible. The videos are slightly chaotic and disorganized, but their videos feel much more like a conversation uncovering the manipulative techniques in these speeches. They are both very clear that they are not teachers but they are laypeople, which makes most of their videos easily understood and relatable. I especially like their use of humor but they’re also clear that the tactics of these speakers is very serious and ruining the lives of their followers.
2. Fighting for the Faith YouTube Channel – This channel was the inspiration for the Kozars with their channel but it is run by a Lutheran pastor, Chris Roseborough. He also primarily posts videos critiquing mega-church pastors and other church leaders who manipulate Bible verses to tell the story they want to tell or to support the life lesson they want to tell but only by ripping a verse (or passage) out of context. A bit that he also posts is called Prophesy Bingo, a game he plays with guests to essentially show that all of these self-proclaimed “prophets” use similar empty buzzwords and phrases in their supposed prophecies and predictions. This channel also uses plenty of humor while teaching the seriousness of understanding scripture to the Christian life.
3. Long4Truth 1 YouTube Channel – This channel is another married couple, the Longs, Daniel and Robin, and they also discuss false preachers from mega-churches but they have covered additional topics such as “Christian” Bible study books and cults that have started due to the misinterpretation of scripture. They are also laypeople so they can explain these topics in ways that are easy to understand while still being a broad study of the development of mainstream Christianity.
4. Counterfeit Kingdom book by Holly Pivec and Doug Geivett – In the same vein as the study of supposed “Christianity” is a book that discusses a false Christian movement that has arisen called the New Apostolic Reformation that is a branch that claims that the offices of apostle and prophet from the Bible are still active today. This is contrary to the previously well-understood role that apostles played in the New Testament. Apostles in the New Testament were in the role if they were eye witnesses of the resurrected Christ. Even the late comer Paul (previously Saul) saw Jesus Christ. This book goes into detail about the movement of the NAR and the results of the beliefs that the movement teaches to its followers including spiritual abuse.
5. The ESV One Year Bible – This Bible is the easiest reading plan for reading the entire Bible in one year. I prefer the English Standard Version translation of the Bible and the One Year Bible is offered in multiple translations including NIV and NLT. I admit that I don’t read it perfectly every single day but each reading is dated, allowing you the ability to know where to read each day, which is often the first step to making a daily habit of reading the Bible – knowing what to read or where to start each day. The readings include a section from the Old Testament, a section from the New Testament, a section from the Psalms and a verse of Proverbs, making it very easy to read through the whole Bible.
6. The English Standard Version Women’s Study Bible – This is a starting place for me to further understand some of my other reading in the One Year Bible. This Bible includes study notes and references to other related verses of the Bible such as the prophecies and their coming true. I’m building a further library of commentaries and notes regarding scripture but this Bible has been my starting place.
Please let me know of your favorite study resources and I would be happy to look into them! I also want to continue to share more resources as I find them so I may do regular posts like this one.
(None of the links in this post are sponsored)
Literally. I use it way too much and sometimes incorrectly.
As I’ve been taking a long commute to and from work, I decided to start listening to audio books and I decided to start with a book by Holly Pivec and Doug Geievett called Counterfeit Kingdom. As a Christian, I frequently watch YouTube videos regarding Christianity and Christian culture. So when channels I watch often like Fighting for the Faith and Alisa Childers began recommending this book, I added it to my reading list.
As a quick explanation, this book is a summary of the apparent beliefs of a movement within Christian circles called the New Apostolic Reformation. One of the main things in this movement is a belief that there are current-day apostles rather than just the past apostles that are described in scripture. This book explains this and other beliefs in this movement in detail.
A strange additional detail about this movement is that most of the churches that are in this movement deny being in this movement. This appears to be the heart of why this book was written, in order to show the unbiblical part of these beliefs, because many who wouldn’t normally be influenced by this movement have been influenced by this movement.
Even as someone who isn’t an expert in religion or Christianity specifically, I’ve noticed these beliefs in my local churches. One of the ways I see this myself is through the jargon or buzzwords that are used in the movement. Because our culture is so centered on hashtags, trending, and buzzwords, we all are easily able to adopt words like this even if it means something slightly different than what we think it means. An example phrase is “prayer declarations.” Many in the NAR movement just talk about prayer but in teachings from the pastors of the movement, they only talk about prayer declarations, which is to say that in prayer, the person is declaring to receive what they are “praying” for. The scriptural view of prayer is of a humble request of God, not a declaration that God must give or will give what the person is “asking” for.
A cultural example of a hashtag or trending phrase becoming popular or viral but it wasn’t understood by a large part of the population was “Netflix and chill.” This phrase is still used jokingly out of what its original meaning was, which was a code teenagers were using for sexual activity in order to hide it. But it still went viral because it was popular and people heard it often online so it caught traction. I think because we start to hear the phrases or buzzwords like “prayer declarations” on the radio like on KLOVE or in teaching videos online, they sound Christian in their use, they gain traction. They sound good but they don’t actually mean the same thing.
I could say more about how much I agree with the thoughts of this book, but I will end here. I highly recommend this book to Christians not as a blaming book or a pointing fingers book, but as a helpful tool for true discernment. Being able to understand false teachings and discern them from biblical teachings is taught in scripture in the New Testament as being an important skill for the Christian to have. (Acts, 1 Timothy, Titus, and Jude contain some of these examples.)
Over the past few weeks, I have been off work because I left my most recent retail job suddenly and have been awaiting the start of my new job. In that time, I have been focused on my home, my health, and working on my Codecademy courses and it has been amazing. This was a much-needed rest and reset time and during this time, I have also worked to find tools that will help me to maintain my helpful routines even when I start to work again. The main tool that I have now and I’m looking forward to using in the coming weeks of managing work and home life is the Simplified Planner.
I had first heard of the Simplified Planner about 5 years ago when I had first started paying attention to the planner community on YouTube and Instagram. At that time, I thought about trying the planner but I didn’t want a daily planner that had a shared weekend page because I worked a variable schedule. During Covid from 2020 to 2022, I worked from home and didn’t use hardly any planners except for my Plum Paper planner that I used as a pregnancy and baby journal.
Now I am starting a job with a consistent schedule and I’m having to manage life with my toddler as well and the idea that Simplified as a company puts forth sounded appealing to me as a relatively new mom who works and is the primary household manager. The idea of simplifying or living a simplified life sounds so good to me! So for that reason, I decided to take advantage of the sale that Simplified has on their 2023 annual daily planners to give it a shot. And I am so glad I did!
The Simplified Planner’s layout is a basic planner layout with the weekdays having a page-per-day and the weekend is on one page. Half of the daily page has an hourly timeline from 6am to 9pm and the other half is a to do list and the bottom quarter of the page is blank for notes. This layout is perfect because I can make regular to do’s and timed to do’s because I don’t have a lot of appointments. So I use the timeline for loose time-blocking. The planner also has monthly calendars which allow for planning in advance, at least that’s how I use it.
I have enjoyed this planner so much!
Not only does the company make these gorgeous planners, but they also provide tips that are so helpful. For me, the tips and life ideas help immensely after going through the major life change of having a baby and admittedly losing myself going back to work after only 8 weeks postpartum.
In the front of the planner are what are called the Simplified prep work pages which are meant to orient you into the new year. I did this at the beginning of April but it was the fresh start that I so desperately needed. These prep pages were developed by the founder of Simplified, Emily Ley, and from the stories she has shared, she GETS IT when it comes to working-mom life overwhelm. I won’t share photos of the prep work because I wrote and highlighted all over my prep work pages but they are all about Simplified’s Process of Simplifying, how to use the planner, preparing for the new year, ideas for new routines, the Simplicity Challenge, (which is also shared on Simplified’s social media) and your yearly bucket list.
When I say that I desperately needed this fresh start, I mean it. This prep work was so refreshing for me as a mom of a 16-month old who is struggling hard with postpartum depression. It makes you think about how to improve but it doesn’t push you hard into the whole “hustle” “make it work” “just do it” kind of culture that many goal-oriented planners tend to push you into.
I know that this company is also 15 years old so I’m way late to the party, but I had to share how much this planner and process have helped me out of the figurative drowning that I was struggling through. The company also publishes a podcast which I tend to watch on YouTube and that has also helped me because the whole thing is just positive and so filled with light. Emily has also published books, which once I have read them I can share more thoughts about them. I started reading A Simplified Life on Kindle but it has questions that I really want to dig into so I ordered the physical copy on the Simplified website that I’m waiting anxiously for. Even reading chapters 1-5 has continued to help me in my struggles so I look forward to being able to use it as a reference and a workbook.
I know I’m not alone as well because the company has a Facebook group for the Simplified community which is amazing. I honestly just want to thank the Simplified team and Emily for everything they do because it helped me SO much.
(This post is not sponsored. Links are not affiliated links. This post is all my own opinions and inspired by my experiences. Photos are my own. The products mentioned belong to their own company/trademark.)
