My coffee table right now: a book I loved (Bread & Wine), a book I can’t wait to read (The Nesting Place), flowers I bought for a song, and fingerprints from little people I cherish. Love it!
It’s been an interesting and full few days. I flew home with Kaitlynn and Silas on Sunday while Jesse and Kathrynne stayed back for Jesse to tie up a few loose ends with his business in Kansas. He and Kathrynne drove our second vehicle back on Tuesday afternoon/evening.
They arrived home around 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning… and we were SO glad to see them (And I breathed a sigh of relief as it was hard for me to be at home waiting up for them while they were driving at night hoping they stayed safe!)
We all slept in late on Wednesday morning and then got up and around quickly for the busy day ahead of us. We had a big strategy/planning meeting scheduled with the new publicity team we recently started working with here in TN and my business manager, Joy, was flying in from Colorado for that.
Our friend, Lexi, came over to watch our kids while Jesse, Brian (my other business manager), Joy, and I headed to downtown Nashville for the all-afternoon meeting. We are so excited to be working with this publicity team and we all pretty much instantly connected and bonded!
In fact, and in a very short time, we were talking about our love languages, crazy quirks, swooning over Aldi, and introducing one of the gals who wasn’t feeling well to essential oils. In between all that, we also mapped out some short-term and long-term plans for the business. It’s always fun to brainstorm, discuss, and dream!
While we don’t know what all the future holds, we are so honored to be working with such amazing people on the journey. I love how they challenge me to think big, aim high, keep growing and learning, and strive for excellence.
After the publicity meeting, Joy, Brian, Traci (Brian’s incredible wife) and their son came over to our house and we all hung out, ate P.F. Chang’s, laughed over crazy things, shared our hearts, and did a lot more business brainstorming.
I am so grateful for the wisdom and experience Brian and Joy bring to MoneySavingMom.com as my business managers, but, more importantly, I am so grateful for how they (and their spouses) pour into our lives and love us for exactly who we are and yet challenge us to be the best we can be. Friendships like these are such a gift… and ones we don’t take lightly!
Breakfast courtesy of Kaitlynn this morning
By Wednesday evening, we were all exhausted and we went to bed early and got a really good night’s rest (which felt SO good!). Kaitlynn made bacon and eggs for breakfast for us this morning (her first time to make breakfast all by herself — I was so proud of her!) and then we spent the morning and afternoon hanging out as a family, reading together, working on homeschool lessons, cleaning the house, and taking care of some other random things that needed to be done.
Waiting to board our flight at the Nashville airport.
Joy came over in the afternoon to meet with Jesse about some projects they are working on while I packed and got ready to leave for the Teach Them Diligently conference that I’m speaking at in DC this weekend. Joy and I left for the airport around 3 p.m. to catch our flight to DC tonight.
By the way, while the Nashville airport takes a little more time to get to and navigate, it’s so nice to now have the option of direct flights to some cities! Direct flights were almost unheard of in Kansas and getting to DC would have taken me at least half a day, as opposed to a few hours!
I’m excited to be speaking twice tomorrow and twice again on Saturday and I look forward to meeting some of you at the conference. {If you’re attending, be sure to come find me after one of my sessions or stop by our booth. One of my very favorite things about speaking at conferences is getting to meet my readers!}



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