Summer 2024

Hi. It’s been a real long time. Like, a REAL long time since I have posted on here. I started this blog in 2019, got through COVID, and then went quiet on here.

This is me!
In case you forgot what I look like.

A couple summers ago I decided to get off of social media for the summer, which back then was both Facebook and Instagram. I never went back to Facebook, but I do still love Instagram!

Which brings me to this summer. A few weeks ago I listened to a news podcast, that I listen to during the week, and they mentioned Instagram inserting 30 second forces ads, much like YouTube, where you can’t skip them. I was already noticing a ridiculous amount of scrolling on my part and so. Many. Dang. Ads!! I just knew in that moment that I can’t. I just can’t waste my summer watching ads, and so I got off. Again, for my 3rd summer in a row.

This is equal parts hard and thrilling for me. I do love my people and I love to see what they are up to. I also really love doing things that are not scrolling on Instagram.

And also, I use Instagram as my holder of my moments. A lot of years ago, like twelve or thirteen years ago, I read a book by Anne Voskamp, called “1000 Gifts”. I was in a season of blegh. Not depression, I just needed to see God. And I wasn’t. Some friends recommended this book to me and I have not been the same since. It is like something inside of me flipped and I don’t go through my days without seeing God. My awareness of Him in my moments is definitely a gift that I don’t take for granted.

And Insta has been that place where I would put them, usually under the hashtag #Karlees1000. But now I am off of Instagram again, and as always, not fully sure when or if I will go back. But I still feel the need to catalog my moments. And this is where I will be doing that.

This will be a place for me to write thoughts again. It will also be a place for maybe just a picture with a caption, and that is it. It might be daily, it might be multiple times a day. It might be weekly. But this will be my space. If you subscribed a long time ago, feel free to unsubscribe, because this is just more my catalog of my days, my favorite things, my people, and my thoughts. It might be similar, it might not be.

I am good. This is for me. And for now, here are a few pics of my weekend.

Went to LaCrosse, where my honey had a meeting. I dropped him off and found the Mississippi and did my Bible reading there for the day.
The market salad from Chick Fil A. I now have all the things in my fridge to replicate it. So good!
Wade baptized a couple of our sweet babes who have been a part of Element for a long time. Ministry can be hard, yes, but also, we get people’s best moments, and I am so thankful.