Hello, everyone! I hope you all had a good February! Today, I am going to be sharing some of my highlights from the month. It was a busy, but good, month for me!

Life Updates

• A new semester of college started up for me, so between classes and homework, that has been taking up the majority of my time (along with my part-time jobs).
• Because of school and work, I haven’t had as much time for most of my usual hobbies. However, one of my goals for this year is to spend more time outside, so I have been prioritizing that. As a result, I have picked up a new hobby- sunset photography! I have been having a great time going to a nearby lake at sunset and taking photographs when I have a free evening!

• The gates for King’s Daughters Writing Camp opened on February 25th! For those of you who haven’t heard of it, KDWC is a virtual writing camp for Christian young ladies run on Slack. There are different “tents” (smaller channels with a handful of ladies and an assigned “Auntie” who keeps everything in order) and whole-group channels for various writing activities or discussions, and some just for fun! I am excited to be participating in the camp again in Auntie Erika’s tent, Prayerful Pens. KDWC is always a great time of encouragement in my writing and a lot of fun! I set my goal for 10,000 words in March, primarily focusing on my short story set in WWII Maine.
• I was also very excited to have my first short story published at the end of February! Of course, I had to celebrate getting my story published with some ice cream!

Writing Updates

Writing-wise, February was a very exciting month for me since I got my short story, “I Heard the Bells,” published in the KDWC Peace Collection! I also have made some slow but steady progress on the first draft my WWII short story (which unfortunately still doesn’t have a name). I’m over 2,000 words in, which is worrying me a bit because I have hardly gotten to the real action of the story, and the anthology I’m hoping to submit it in has a 10K word limit. 😅 I also worked on brainstorming ideas for the second draft for The Sullivan Six. I have realized there are some aspects of the story that weren’t given as much attention as I was wanting, so I am working on figuring out how to incorporate them into the story better!

Total word count for the month: 2,876

Etsy Updates

I added five new listings to my shop! These include a set of prayer journal lists, a printable craft planner, book review templates for kids, an Easter Sunday meal and shopping list planner, and an Easter-themed to-do list.

Books I Read

I finished 5 books in February! These books were:

• Love Needs No Words by Faith L. Potts (reread; 3.5 stars)
• Lore in Love by Kate Willis (4 stars)
• Waltraud by Tammy Borden (4 stars)
• We Will Not Be Silenced by Erwin W. Lutzer (4 stars)
• Outdated: Find Love That Lasts When Dating Has Changed by Jonathan “JP” Pokluda (audiobook; 4.5 stars)

Here’s my reading wrap-up from the StoryGraph!

Favorites This Month

Book: My favorite book I read (or rather, listened to) this month was Outdated by Jonathan “JP” Pokluda. I would recommend this book for Christians who are single or dating. This book had a lot of good, solid relationship advice and was well-grounded in the Scriptures.

Blog Post: A blog post I enjoyed this month was Rebekah A. Morris’s post “I Wish I’d See More Blog Tag” from her blog, Read Another Page. I definitely agree with all of the things she would like to see more of in Christian fiction!

Bible Verse/Passage: One of my favorite passages I read this month was Philippians 2:15,16: “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.”

Blog Post Round-Up

If you missed any of my posts in February, here they are!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my month! I would love to hear how your February was if you want to leave a comment below!