October Review, 2020 Planning, November Favorites, and Surprise Announcement!

by | Nov 12, 2019 | Podcast

 

[buzzsprout episode=’2024373′ player=’true’]

What’s up you guys, welcome back to Hear and Now Podcast, my name’s Sophia, and in this week’s episode we are doing an October review, 2020 planning, a November current favorites and I am finally revealing our surprise project on the podcast!!! 

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode, make sure you like our Facebook page at Hear and Now Podcast, follow me on instagram at @sophialebano and subscribe to us on iTunes and Spotify! As always, the link to the transcript of this episode will be in the show notes, or at sophialebano.com/podcast. When you guys follow me over on Instagram, I’ll start picking some people to give a shout-out to! So if you follow me after listening to this episode, make sure to head to my most recent picture and comment on there so I can give you a shoutout in the next episode! If you haven’t done so already, head over to my website when you are done listening to this episode to subscribe to my blog. Once you put in your email address, I’ll send you a free goodie in your email! Visit sophialebano.com to learn more.

That being said, I’m giving a shoutout this week to Jarod Cerf, who is one of my podcasting friends. His podcast is Here be Tygers, which I’ll link down below. His podcast talks all about the art in the world, and it’s a fun podcast to listen to! So go check him out. 

And before we get started, I want to highlight Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout is a podcast hosting site that makes podcasting a breeze. Buzzsprout has over a hundred thousand podcasters using their platform, and they help you get your podcast into every major site. With a paid plan on Buzzsprout you can get a $20 amazon gift card. Link to check out buzzsprout.com is in the show notes. Thank you to Buzzsprout for being so amazing and convenient and making podcasting fun and easy. So go to buzzsprout.com to learn more. 

Prayer intention of the week!!! 

This week’s prayer intention is for you to find your answered prayers. We often find ourselves wondering if God is ever going to answer your prayer. Trust me, we’ve all been there. You feel like you are crying out into empty space. But I promise you, He is listening. God is outside of time, and He knows what is best for you. I heard this story and I’ll read it to you right now “A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help. Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.”The stranded fellow shouted back, “No, it’s OK, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.” So the rowboat went on. Then a motorboat came by. “The fellow in the motorboat shouted, “Jump in, I can save you.” To this the stranded man said, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the motorboat went on. Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, “Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety.” To this the stranded man again replied, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the helicopter reluctantly flew away. Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, “I had faith in you but you didn’t save me, you let me drown. I don’t understand why!” To this God replied, “I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?” I love that so much. Sometimes our answered prayers will come in various forms, but God leaves no prayer unanswered. Trust me. 

And for the encouragement of the week, it says, I asked God, Why are you taking me through troubled water, he replied, because your enemies can’t swim. I love that so much. God knows what He is doing, and so we just have to trust Him to fulfill the plan. The plan that He created. Okay, that’s it for the intro this week, now let us get into the episode. 

Alright everyone let’s just jump right into the episode. This week’s episode is an October review and reflection, a November current favorites, and I am finally unveiling what the secret surprise and project is! 

October review. October was a crazy month. I joined the Hope*writers writing community and it forced me to get my butt in shape and write. I pursued a passion I didn’t know that I had. Okay that’s a lie. I knew I had it, I just had to figure it out and tap into it. I am still trying to build my writing platforms, but I am slowly sticking to a posting schedule. At the moment, podcast episodes go up on Tuesday, and blog posts go up on Friday. The most recent blog post I uploaded was my book round up of the year, where I went month by month to summarize and rate the books I read this entire year. It’s not a lot, but I am slowly able to get back into reading now that I have a little more time on my hands. 

Speaking of that, October has been a month of a sabbatical. I’ve been up and down with anxiety for a long time, which maybe I’ll do another episode on, but I am starting to finally see a change when I didn’t think I would ever get past it. I am feeling better, even if I have bad days, but I am starting to take back my life since anxiety stole it so long along. It’s a battle that I know a lot of people fight but I am not here to talk all about anxiety, I’ll save that for another time. But October was, like I said, a crazy month. 

I worked and babysat a lot, dealt with a death in my extended family, had Halloween, and wrote a lot of words! October was also the first month that I posted on a consistent schedule – there were 5 Tuesdays in October, so there are 5 weeks of episodes from October! This is my 13th episode, so just about half my episodes were from October alone. Haha. 

As a whole month, I did a lot of things for myself and am slowly building myself back up. I read a lot, which I will talk about shortly. I used a lot of oils (if you know me you know that) and just prayed. I worked super duper hard on the special surprise, which I’ll chat about later in this episode! 

But before I jump into that, let’s talk about 2020 real quick! I am a planner for sure, but I also like spur of the moment things. That being said, if you have any things you want me to cover or include or do for the podcast, please click the link down below. It is a feedback survey so you can drop your thoughts and comments there! Thank you so much! You are always welcome to shoot me a message or comment on instagram to let me know of episode ideas or feedback! 

Okay. That was that. Next up today I am doing a November favorites/october favorites recap? I don’t really know haha. It’s been a month since I did the last one, and some things have changed!

First up I still love all of the Love Beauty Planet products so that hasn’t changed. I use the same makeup and beauty products so that’s not really applicable now. But, I did go to American Eagle last month after hearing all the rage about their jeans, and let me tell you! I live in these jeans. They are so comfortable and move really easily. I also got one of their sweaters and its so big and cozy! So definitely go to American Eagle! I got my jeans on sale and I’m not sure if they are still having a sale so go and get there fast! And check out stitchfix. 

 

Next on the list is some technology things. I’ve been using Google calendar in addition to a paper planner to schedule all my things. It’s honestly so much more convenient than using a paper planner. There’s just something about seeing a color coded planner on your phone AND having it be portable and not bulky. So highly recommend Google calendar.

After that I have my blue light glasses! I got them from Amazon’s LifeArt. The second you put them on there’s a yellow filter to help block out all the blue light around. It’s so crazy how much I’ve seen a change in my eye health from using them. My eyes aren’t as fatigued and I am able to  be more productive and get more work done without having to constantly stop to rest my eyes. I am at my computer pretty much all day long and will be next semester when I am doing my online classes! I’ll link all the products I’ve mentioned down below. 

Next is a podcast recommendation! One of my writer friends, Tara, has a daughter who started a podcast. Abbey Cappa has a podcast called She’s Here for It Podcast! It’s so good and I definitely recommend you listen to it as well! It covers a lot of great topics. So shoutout to Abbey and She’s Here for It. 

I think I have three more things on the list. I have my current favorite author, which I also talked about in my blog post, but any book by Lauren Weisberger is so good. She’s the author of Devil Wears Prada, but all of her other books are just as good! I’ll link the blog post down below so you can go check it out. 

I created a holiday planning guide, which is helpful to manage all of your holiday planning needs and budget, etc. If this is something you want to get, then all you have to do is click the link below to enter your email and it will be in your inbox! 

Okay! And finally, my last favorite product is… oh wait. I just remembered. I can’t tell you yet. It’s part of the special surprise announcement! So I guess that means it’s time to tell you the secret project we’ve been working on for the last few months. And when I say we, I mean my mom and I have been developing this! So ready? Drumroll, please…. 

We wrote an advent devotional! It will be live and ready to purchase this week, or when you are listening to this it could already be up! It’s an 80 page devotional filled with fun activities, daily bible verses, reflections, and so much more. It’s a book meant for the whole family, with coloring pages and advent activities, and bible verses and readings to reflect on. To purchase this, you can either go to my website or my mom’s houseofloveandlaughter.com, and click to shop. It’s a PDF that you can download and save/print yourself. I am so excited and can’t wait for you guys to love and have it too! Advent starts Sunday December 1 this year so grab your copy and be ready! Whoo! I am so excited to have been able to finally share that with you! So I hope you guys take the time to check it out and you love it just as much as I do. 

So! That was everything I wanted to cover in this week’s episode… Go check out all the links that I’ve included down below and make sure you come back next week because I have such an awesome and fun episode coming up!!! AH I can’t wait. I sound like I drank too much caffeine but I’ve never had coffee before so I need to calm down. Have a wonderful week everyone I can’t wait to chat with you next week!! Bye guys. 

 


 

Show notes:

Welcome back to another episode! This week is all about an October Review, 2020 Planning, November Favorites, and the Surprise Announcement!

Transcript: https://sophialebano.com/podcast/

  • SURVEY – TAKE THIS TO GIVE FEEDBACK ON THIS PODCAST!

Links mentioned:

Buy the Advent Devotional: Click here