Hope you brought a sweater

Happy November from the porch! Lots of new faces around here and I want to extend a super warm welcome to each of you. I'm so glad you're here! It's getting chilly here in PA, so grab a hot drink, a blanket or sweater, and fuzzy socks. Let's dive in!

Let's catch up... with a giveaway

It's November, which for some people means Christmas decorations and music is fair game.

It's me. I'm some people.

I LOVE Christmas and I love decorating for Christmas. My husband, while he also love Christmas, had a Thanksgiving birthday and doesn't like the holiday to get overlooked. He claims it feels "wrong" to eat turkey with a Christmas tree set up 😜 He insists I wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate and SOME years I wait. Others I put up decorations early and see if he notices. (He does not. haha)

This seems to be a topic that people can feel very strongly about (same as the pumpkin spice vs. apple topic back in September. I'm all about controversy, apparently) so I want to know. Do you kick off Christmas festivities early, or do you like to wait until it's the proper Christmas season?

I'll also start watching Christmas movies and reading Christmas books in November. Last month, my book club started reading the CUTEST Christmas romcom that we honestly can't shut up about. I have legitimately laughed out loud so much! Okay, okay, I'll tell you what we're reading... It's Betsy St. Amant's newest release, Holly and Nick Hate Christmas. You guys, it's so good! All things Christmas, coupled with a dose of angst and sprinkled with enemies to lovers fake dating. And I want to share the love with all of you, my front porch besties, so I'm doing a giveaway! You don't have to do a thing - if you're reading this email, you're entered! I'll pick a winner in the next couple of weeks!

A bit of encouragement

I know the holiday season isn't fun for everyone, and sometimes it can be a painful reminder. So many people I'm close to have been struggling with heaviness lately. Whether it's health, relational, finance, or related to something else, it seems everyone has something they're facing. If you're one of those people, I just wanted to offer a little bit of encouragement and remind you that the Lord has you on His mind. He is near to you, as stated in Psalm 34:16-18:

The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous

  and his ears toward their cry.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,

  to cut off the memory of them from the earth.

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears

  and delivers them out of all their troubles.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted

  and saves the crushed in spirit.

The psalms are full of so many reminders that the Lord hears our cries. Not only that, but He answers and delivers. I pray this encourages your heart to know that God is always close. Click here to read all of Psalm 34.

Writing update

I was really hoping I'd be able to say "I wrote THE END!" in this update, but alas, I cannot. Maybe next month. LOL I do feel really good about the direction of the ending and I'm looking forward to writing it. Finding the time to do so has been a challenge, though!

What I'm reading

In addition to Holly and Nick Hate Christmas, I'm also reading Sarah Monzon's An Overdue Match. This is the first book of hers that I've read and I'm enjoying it so far! I'm only about a quarter of the way in, but I really love the alopecia representation she's included in this story. The heroine is a librarian too, so there's so many fun book/literary references.

Free books? Heck yeah

I've got two promos to share with you this month! All of the free books offered in each of these promos should be clean. Click on each of the graphics below to check them out. Happy reading!

Thanks for hanging out with me today, friends! I hope you enjoyed today's break on the porch ❤️

Until next time,