I just finished reading "The Book of Mormon Girl" by Joanna Brooks and highly recommend it to anyone who is curious about the crossover between feminism and faith.  I've been very blessed in that my church has cultivated my growth as a feminist.  The pastors and church members at Los Altos UMC have not just supported but encouraged my exploration of the overt sexism that can be found in Christianity.  Not once have I been asked to quiet down, and more often than not, I'm asked to speak up more.

Unfortunately for Joanna, her experience with being a faithful feminist has been the complete opposite of mine.  She wrestles with her own faith and it's humanity, and provides some really heart warming stories about growing up in a Mormon church.  It's a really wonderful story, check it out!

My home church has started a whole new small group program where we're studying a phenomenal book, Addicted to Hurry, on how to slow our lives down, and intentionally live at a spiritual pace.  I, of course, joined the only all women group, which happily involves lots of wine drinking.  Obviously, it's been amazing.  This week our topic was seeing more clearly, and taking the time to notice the little things.  I must have really needed to hear this, because I have SO taken it to heart, and now all I can do is see the many awesome things my life is filled with!

I discovered some old book plates I had while cleaning out my closet - how awesome are these? I put them on all my books and they make my very small book collection about 10 times classier.

My favorite books growing up are a series called Moomintroll by Finnish author Tove Jansson.  Ittala has since created a line of dishware depicting the various characters.  Just way too cute.  They're pretty affordable too, so I'm incredibly tempted to buy up the lot.