Have I mentioned yet that we loved our time in the hospital after June was born? :) I was lucky to give birth in a beautiful, comfy, state-of-the-art facility, which played a role, but the biggest factor by far was our nurses. We didn’t spend much time on the delivery side, but everyone who took care of us on the post-partum floor was so kind, skilled, and encouraging. They made our stay a joy and our recovery swift. John and I said to each other over and over throughout our stay (and in the weeks after!), “Nurses are the best!!” Seriously, they are my new favorite people.

We wanted to do a little something to thank them, so last week June and I took a care package to the hospital. We assembled some of our favorite sweet and savory snacks from Whole Foods (including fresh berries, which I added after this photo!). I wanted some way to corral everything, but buying a basket seemed silly. Instead, I cut the top off a Whole Foods grocery bag and painted bright stripes with paint I had on hand. Happy and recyclable :)

I wanted to bake them something, but John thought they might be weirded out by unpackaged goodies from someone they didn’t know. Hmph. I think he’s the weird one, but went with pre-packaged snacks anyway :)

The most important part, though, was the note. I hope it encouraged these wonderful ladies, as their job is not easy, but makes such a huge difference to families at a vulnerable time. One tip: if you’d like to remember the names of your nurses, make sure you write them down while at the hospital! I never would have remembered them all three months later!!

Any other ideas for sweet thank yous for nurses? I’d love to hear!

Like many of y’all, I use my iPhone for much more than just taking phone calls. Though I only have about ten apps, I get a lot of utility out of them – particularly the humble Notes app. This incredibly simple and incredibly handy widget helps me seem more together than I am and be a more thoughtful person than I would be otherwise. I use it to maintain tons of lists, and I thought it might be helpful to, well, list some of them – maybe it will help any of you out there who have a New Year’s resolution to be more organized? :)

Books to read | Instead of saving torn-out magazine recommendations and scraps of paper, I jot titles down on the go for later reference when I’m at the library or requesting books online. I also try to note the source of the recommendation (friend, Oprah, etc.) to help jog my memory.
Books read in 2015 | It’s fun to keep track, and also helps me balance across the different categories I try to read in – faith, finance, fun, etc.
Gift ideas for John | My husband does NOT make it easy to shop for him – but this way, if he lets something slip, I can jot it down before it slips my mind! I also have another list for gift ideas for everyone else.
Restaurants to try | It might take us months (or years!) to get to some of them, but this way, we’re never without a recommendation.
Travel | John does most of our travel research, but whenever I come across a specific hotel, site, restaurant, etc. I want to share with him, I jot it down. Right now I have ideas for Charleston, Asheville, Savannah, Nashville, Winston-Salem, and Atlanta within this list!
Wardrobe wishes | If, in the morning, I keep thinking of something I wish I had to put on, I add it to this list. Currently: a camel quilted down vest!
Things I’m looking for at the flea market | Or the consignment store, or Goodwill, or wherever else I and inexpensive furniture find ourselves. Currently: an old flag, a dresser for our guest bedroom, tin trays, and cake stands (always).
Home measurements | I note the relevant measurements of any area for which I’m actively looking for furniture or an accent piece. Currently: the height of our couch’s arm, for an end table.
Food preferences | This is my favorite! I use this note to record food likes/dislikes/allergies for our frequent dinner guests. I also write down the treat preferences of friends so that I can surprise them with goodies when the occasion calls for a celebration!

Any other ideas for things I can make lists about? Are you all laughing at my simplistic system because you have a much better one? :) (Spill, if so!)

I came across a book review over the weekend that reinforced a lot of things I (and you) probably already know, but that bear repeating. An excerpt:

A team of researchers at the New York State Psychiatric Institute surveyed 43,000 Americans and found that, by some wide margin, the rich were more likely to shoplift than the poor. Another study… revealed that people with incomes below twenty-five grand give away, on average, 4.2 percent of their income, while those earning more than 150 grand a year give away only 2.7 percent. ‘As you move up the class ladder,’ says Keltner, “you are more likely to violate the rules of the road, to lie, to cheat, to take candy from kids, to shoplift, and to be tightfisted in giving to others.’ There is an obvious chicken-and-egg question to ask here. But it is beginning to seem that the problem isn’t that the kind of people who wind up on the pleasant side of inequality suffer from some moral disability… The problem is caused by the inequality itself: it triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few. It tilts their brains. It causes them to be less likely to care about anyone but themselves or to experience the moral sentiments needed to be a decent citizen.

Or even a happy one… In a forthcoming paper, Norton and his colleagues track the effects of getting money on the happiness of people who already have a lot of it: a rich person getting even richer experiences zero gain in happiness. That’s not all that surprising; it’s what Norton asked next that led to an interesting insight. He asked these rich people how happy they were at any given moment. Then he asked them how much money they would need to be even happier. ‘All of them said they needed two to three times more than they had to feel happier,’ says Norton. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that money, above a certain modest sum, does not have the power to buy happiness, and yet even very rich people continue to believe that it does: the happiness will come from the money they don’t yet have. To the general rule that money, above a certain low level, cannot buy happiness there is one exception. ‘While spending money upon oneself does nothing for one’s happiness,’ says Norton, ‘spending it on others increases happiness.’

It’s become something of a tradition for me to post on the theme of generosity each December. Generosity is very close to my heart; it’s what I want my heart to be. I believe in acts of kindness and in giving away money at Christmas. But I hope I haven’t given the impression that generosity is something that’s reserved for one month of the year.

Even as we work hard at saving for retirement or getting out of debt or budgeting, I think we should be working equally as hard on giving away money. To me, a person with truly healthy finances would have her spending, her saving, AND her giving all on track. As we get better at spending and saving, the hope is that we will become wealthier. The hope is not, as the review describes above, that we would become empty, selfish, and small. And that’s where giving comes in – it makes us bigger, better, more caring, and less selfish people.

Even so, it’s not always easy. In 2015, we have budgeted to tithe, the first time we’ve done so fully. While this is exciting, to be honest, it has also been – ahem – refining. I find myself saying, God, you know we are responsible with money. You know we would use that money for good things – to save, to pay off our mortgage. We wouldn’t waste it! Can’t we just keep a little more? Frustrating though it may be, ultimately I know that the discipline is important. It reminds me that our money is not our own, that I must decrease, that the world does not revolve around me (all things I tend to forget). With all of the blessings in my life, it behooves me to feel a pinch somewhere – in this case, when I part with that offering every week.

So how do you give away money? It seems like it would be pretty simple (Here’s $100 for you! And $100 for you!), but just as with other aspects of your finances, there are things to learn and consider. This year, we decided to open a donor-advised fund to facilitate our giving. This graphic helps explain what one is, using Fidelity’s fund as an example:

Basically, you make a tax-deductible donation to the organization of your choice. Your money is no longer your own (it’s been donated), but it is held for you with your name on it. You can then “direct” or “recommend” (organizations use different terminology, but they do as you request :) ) “grants” to charities, churches, and non-profits. For example, we donate the full amount we’ve pledged to our church to our donor-advised fund, then direct the fund to give monthly grants to our church.

There are several benefits to using a donor-advised fund:

1. It simplifies your giving for taxes and recordkeeping. As you can see above, instead of donating directly to the charities you support, you give all of your money to your donor-advised fund. At that point, in the eyes of the IRS, your tax-deductible donation has been made. So, when your tax return is due, you only have one form and one lump sum – say, $10,000 – to submit, even though you gave $1,000 to ten different charities over the course of the year.
2. It helps keep giving a priority. If you’re not very strict with your budgeting, it can be easy to spend money that you meant to give away. With your donor-advised fund, you can move the money out of your normal accounts and keep it in a safe place, even if you don’t know yet where you’d like to donate the money.
3. You can invest the money. In many funds, while your money is waiting, it can be invested (and professionally managed – usually in a mix of stocks and bonds), and potentially grow – meaning more money to give away to charity!

Think a donor-advised fund might be for you? I know of a few organizations to look into, including Fidelity Charitable, Vanguard Charitable, and the National Christian Foundation.

I’d love to hear: do any of you use a donor-advised fund? Is giving a part of your budget? Is it something you think about often, or just in months like December? I’m all ears for questions, too!

It’s easy to do something nice for nearby friends on Valentine’s Day — just make them something sweet! I wanted to do something for my faraway friends, too, but treats don’t travel so well. After a bit of brainstorming, I settled on a longer-lasting project that will hopefully help them feel the love long after Valentine’s Day.

I started with several sets of chipboard letters (3/4″ tall) from AC Moore. I spray-painted them gold, then hot glued them to some thin, vintage ribbon I had in my stash. The completed garlands got washi taped to a simple cardstock rectangle penned in gold sharpie. I already had the kraft boxes on hand, but padded mailers would have worked well, too!

I’m imagining them pinned to a bulletin board or taped to a mirror or refrigerator, but obviously the gals are free to hang them wherever they’d like. Hoping they go over as well as something sugary!