5 Weekly Graces Vol. 7

Happy second week of Advent friends! My week was full of joy and friendship. We even had some cool weather that was perfect for sweaters, scarves and boots - my favorite!

I had a few presentations to prep for this week, which is why this post is up a little late. Gotta love grad school, am I right? But one of them is done (I literally just presented) and the other will be done by tomorrow night. So. Close.

Like usual, Monday means a recap of some awesome moments of goodness I've been reflecting on from last week. There's an added bonus (cough* cough *giveaway!) at the end of this post so make sure you read (or at least scroll) to the end.

1.) Good Conversation and Friendship

Staying in contact with friends can be a real challenge, particularly when you live on the other side of the country. Between living in Alaska for my JV year and now in California for school, I've definitely felt the struggle of scheduling catch-ups and phone dates - especially with the time zones. Every now in then, I have weeks where I am able to have genuine conversation with multiple friends from home and it is such a treat! I definitely felt that blessing of friendship this week and found myself super thankful for the wonders of modern technology that allows us to talk, text, and even see each other across the globe.

2.) The Joy of Baking Christmas Cookies

Wednesday morning I found myself with a bit of free time and decided to make my grandma's delicious peanut butter cookies with the Hershey kiss in the center for my student leader group meeting that night. (Ok, so the recipes for these classics probably don't vary much, but I will still stick to grandma's.)

I love to bake and this was a great excuse to do so. I will definitely be sharing this super easy recipe for the Christmas cookies everyone loves, so stay tuned!

3.) Color!

The leaves in Berkeley are still changing into magical shades of yellow, orange and red. This is the most fall I have seen here in the past 3 years and it just keeps getting better. It is a little odd that it's December, but I'm just soaking it all in since I'm sure I'll get plenty of winter snow (and slush) when I'm back in Ohio for Christmas.

4.) Community Time

My roommates and I spent Saturday on community retreat. We decided to drive a few hours north to Fort Bragg and spend the day at the beach. There's a small strip of beach in the area called Glass Beach where instead of sand, there are little pebbles and tons of sea glass washed up on shore. I have wanted to visit there for a while ( I love sea glass) and was happy to do so with great friends. More on our trip later :)

5.) The Wisdom of Knowing Limits

I have a very hard time saying no to things which often leads to an increase in anxiety and lots of unnecessary stress. Because we planned our retreat so late in the semester, there was added stress to the trip with all of the deadlines I needed to meet for school this week (which is also why I'm slightly behind on blogging in general).

I was scheduled to babysit (my favorite distraction from school) on Sunday, but ended up canceling in order to have a few extra hours to do school work. I felt awful backing out of a commitment I had already made, but knew that something had to give. Lucky for me, the folks I sit for are super sympathetic to my studies. As expected, they were awesome about it and said it was fine as long as I credited them in my footnotes :P

I still felt a bit guilty, but after spending the entire afternoon in the library and finishing all of my work (YES!), I knew I had made the right decision. The minor anxiety I felt from listening to my personal needs is nothing compared to the stress I know would have come had I not had that time. Hopefully I can continue to be aware and able to balance what I need to be healthy.

What were the moments of goodness in your life last week?

:::BONUS!:::

Oh yeah, and a giveaway! I'm teaming up with some awesome bloggers to host a $250 PayPal Cash Giveaway just in time for the holiday season. Feel free to enter below :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Peace,
Sarah

*linking up with Ember Grey