Hello, everyone! It’s hard to believe it is May already; this year is going by so fast! I hope you all had a great April. Today, I am going to be sharing some updates from my past month.

Life Updates

• School kept me busy for most of the month, haha. I had a lot of big projects that I was finishing up, and I had teaching observations where I had to teach lessons to a group of students and someone from my college would observe me. Everything has gone well so far, though!
• I spent a lot of time outside as weather is warming up, too! I’ve been enjoying walks and bike rides and can’t wait to start doing more summery activities (like playing pickleball!).

• I wrote and entered a short story in a contest for the first time! (more about that below)

Writing Updates

I worked a little bit on my WWII Maine short story, but what ended up taking up the bulk of my writing time this month was a short story called “Lost and Found.” I wrote this for a writing contest (still waiting to hear back if it was one of the winners!). I really enjoyed writing this one. It was about a four-year-old girl in foster care and how she finds a family. I may share it on here sometime!

I also participated in the Quality Writing Challenge this month, where there was a goal to write every day in the month of April for a certain amount of time. I was hoping this challenge would help me be more consistent, but schoolwork took a lot more time than I had expected it would, so writing got put on the back burner towards the end of the month. It’s okay, though, because some progress was still made!

Total word count for the month: 4,178

Etsy Updates

There’s not much new here, but I have started a new series of designs. The first one is listed, a Wisconsin state parks checklist and travel journal. I am hoping to create one of these for each of the 50 states, and I will hopefully have five more of the Midwestern states done and ready for purchase in May.

Books I Read

I finished 6 books in April! These included:

• Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist by Kaelynn Partlow (5 stars)
• Wired to Move: Facts and Strategies for Nurturing Boys in Early Childhood Settings by Ruth Hanford Morhad (read for school; 4.5 stars)
• Hearts of Fire: Eight Women in the Underground Church and Their Stories of Costly Faith by Voice of the Martyrs (audiobook; 4 stars)
• Double-O Dodo by Tim Angleberger (read with kids I babysit; 1.75 stars)
• The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes (4.5 stars)
• The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship by Jared C. Wilson (audiobook; 4.5 stars)

April reading wrap-up from The Storygraph!

Favorites This Month

Book: My favorite April read was Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist by Kaelynn Partlow. As someone who works with autistic children, I found this book very helpful and insightful. There is a lot about what it is like to live with autism along with practical strategies to support autistic children and adults, which I found very useful. You can read my Goodreads review here.

Blog Post: Technically, this is a May blog post, but since I didn’t keep up with blogs very well in April, I’m going to let it count this month😉 Also, it is very exciting because it has a link to a giveaway! Phoebe Hinkle’s post The Victory Celebration Blog Tag includes a fun tag honoring those who lived during World War 2 and a link to a giveaway for 4 Christian young adult WWII historical fiction novels. I would definitely recommend checking it out!

Bible Verse/Passage: While studying Hebrews this month, this section from Hebrews 4 especially stood out to me.

“Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16

What a blessing that we have a God who understands us and gives us mercy and grace every time we need it!

Blog Post Round-Up

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

Let me know how your month was in the comments below! I will see you all again next Monday with a book review!