The “Let’s Share What We Learned” posts are hosted by Emily Freeman as a “monthly community link-up to share the fascinating, ridiculous, sacred, or small.” I love these posts so much.

If you’d like to join in, just head over to Emily’s and link up.

In no particular order, here are 8 things I’ve learned this Fall.

1. If you swipe left on texts and hold, it shows the time.

My teenage daughter showed this tip to my husband and me. He and I were all “minds blown” and she was all “Um, everyone knows this.” Because of course.

Here’s a little tutorial that explains it better than I can.

2. If you use the navigation app, Waze, you can change the setting to Madea’s voice.

I can’t type this without smiling from ear to ear because it makes me so happy! I feel safe with Madea as my co-pilot. “Don’t worry, I gotcha, Boo.” Yes, she says this.

3. We’ve all been pronouncing Roald Dahl’s name wrong.

Mr. Dahl was one of my favorite authors as a kid. He still is. My middle son received a boxed set of his books for Christmas several years ago and he still reads them over and over. My youngest and I recently finished The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory {possibly the favorite book of my childhood.}Which is why it’s crazy that we’ve been pronouncing our beloved author’s name incorrectly all these years.

So how do you pronounce it?

“ROO-ALL.” Don’t believe me? Hear it for yourself on this video in which he says his own name.

4. My phone autocorrects “wowzers” to “wieners.”

I don’t know what to tell you about this. It also corrects “thrifting” to “thrusting.” Apparently my autocorrect has her mind a teensy bit in the gutter.

5. Nestle makes sugar cookie dough sheets.

Christmas just got more awesome didn’t it? I posted this fun fact on Instagram and a friend of mine thanked me for saving Christmas. Just doing my job.

6. A digital Sabbath is good for the soul.

I wrote about this as one of the ways I hope to stay merry and bright through the holiday season. But it’s become a practice that I now crave every week. Our weary souls need a break from all the input. And from all the output.

7. Every now and then, it’s fruitful to find your own people so you feel less like a weirdo.

Recently I attended the Hope*Writers workshop in Charlotte. I learned so much. But one of the greatest takeaways wasn’t taught in a workshop session. Rather, I felt it in the gathering of kindred spirits.

Sometimes I think life would be so much easier if I could just be normal. Be a wife and mom and manager of my home. Work my day job. Live in community with others. The end.

But I have to complicate everything by pursuing the writing life on top of all that. I have things to say, words that {I hope} matter. It’s hard to live in the tension between the non-negotiables of my right-now life and the tug of my hoped-for writing work. Regularly I wonder if I should pack up my words and my blog, tuck them inside a box, and place them on a shelf until the timing is better.

Being with other likeminded artists reassured me that I’m not alone and that there’s no one right way to do this. Lots of us are living in the tension and writing our words, messy lives and all. My friend Emily Freeman reminded me that “movement is not the opposite of waiting. We can move and wait at the same time.”

I write quietly in my journals. I tap out thoughts in Notes on my phone. And I offer words for you in this online space. This is how I intentionally move in the right-now, even as I patiently anticipate the hoped-for.

8. A good bag is worth the investment.

Over a year ago, I purchased this bag from Fashionable. For years I’d been saving my pennies for a fabulous leather tote but I also loved the idea of purchasing with purpose. I’ve waited a full year before I talked about it because I wanted to see how it held up.

I’m happy to report that this Mamuye tote is going strong and gets better with age. It serves as my everyday purse {and I keep a clutch inside of it that I can grab in case I just want to run into the grocery store, sans tote bag.} It holds all my regular purse stuff + my bullet journal + work notebook + laptop + wadded up cardigan. Basically, it has the capacity of a piece of luggage but the lightweight-ness of a knapsack. It can rest flat on the floor without falling over but doesn’t have so much structure that it’s stiff.

It’s the best, is what I’m saying. But what’s really the best is that when I buy a bag, I’m creating jobs for heroic women in Ethiopia who are working their way toward opportunity, one stitch at a time.

Click here to learn more about my favorite bag and to scoop up something FashionABLE for yourself!

Your turn. What have you learned lately? You can share in the comments or join in over at Emily’s. 

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