A Giveaway!!

But not from me, sorry.

Go check out the very cool giveaway Missy is doing at It's Almost Naptime. Very cute stuff!!

Stepping out of my comfort zone

Have you heard of the She Speaks Conference through Proverbs 31 Ministries? In case you don’t head on over there, She Speaks is “a conference where you will receive the tools and the confidence to answer God’s call on your life. You will learn how to make the most of your messages, the nuts and bolts of speaking, writing, leading, and influencing, and have the opportunity to meet with some of today’s top Christian publishers”. (Quoted from their website.)

And why am I telling you about this conference? Because a scholarship will be awarded to someone who explains why they want to attend and what they feel called to do. (Learn more about it here.)

And links up to their blog. Like, today.

Y’all, this is so not like me. I play everything safe in life. I don’t smoke. I don’t ride motorcycles. I even bid too low when I play Spades! So attending a conference like this scares the daylights out of me. The flying alone, the rooming alone (or with someone I don’t know), and especially the peer writing critique groups totally freak me out. (What are they going to critique? I have nothing to give anyone at this point!)

But I believe I need to go.

I have a dream to be a novelist. The only image I have of myself when I “grow up” is sitting at a table in a big bookstore, signing books that I have written, taking the hand of a beloved reader who was moved by the words I wrote, and listening to her story.

Maybe that dream is a bit far-fetched, but maybe at the heart of it is something God gave me.

And a dream is all it’s ever been for me. After being a stay-at-home mom for eighteen years, I am at a point now where I have enough freedom to start stepping out of that role and seeking something new. I’m actually thinking about what I want to do - for the first time ever, really. (I’m not complaining here. I wouldn’t trade one moment I’ve had with my kiddos!)

But it’s not just the writing that I want to learn more about. I also believe the training in Women’s Ministries will be a huge help to me.

I got married and started having babies at 17, and not necessarily in that order. This year I will be 36, and for the past 13 years I have been in ministry in one form or another. I’ve led life groups with my husband and alone. I oversee our church’s nursery at the present time. I’ve prayed for people, loved on people, spoken truth to people-- in love, of course. And the one thing I’ve learned through all of it is this…

I have so much to learn.

But my heart is truly for people. Whether I am writing a great story for someone to enjoy or praying with a sweet young mother who is feeling over her head in dirty diapers and no sleep-- I want my life to be used in reaching the hearts of people and connecting them to the hearts of God.

And I truly hope my life reflects that, conference or not.

Just haven't been in the mood

I'm not sure what is up with my blogging these past few months, but I have not really had anything exciting to talk about. I haven't even been reading my regulars much lately-- today I had a slew of them waiting on me in Google Reader.

Lately I have been spending my days organizing and decluttering my house, which takes up plenty of time. Eventually we'll have a garage sale and hopefully get rid of all this extra stuff.

I am in the middle of filling out college apps with my girl, but with her schedule being so crazy, it's hard to sit down and complete anything. Hopefully soon we'll have them all done.

I started working for a company re-writing articles, and I'm getting quicker the more I do. The only thing I don't like about it is that they pay peanuts, but I figure it's good practice (and a little bit of money) until I can find something I really do like.

I have been reading a whole lot, and a friend of mine sucked me into the O'Malley Series by Dee Henderson. They are really good! I have some other books I want to read, but I want to get through these first.

I helped watch little ones for VBS at church, I've been swimming, and I've been doing all my normal stuff around here.

See, nothing exciting.

Tonight I will be making sugar cookies and hopefully (this being my 3rd attempt) I will have some pretty enough to take pictures of and post here. We shall see.

Have a great Wednesday!

New blog

So, I've started a new blog.

Don't worry, I'm not changing this one again.

I just had a great idea for a "Dear Abby" type blog for (around) ten year-old girls. I have a cousin that age and a sweet friend from church that is a year older than my cousin, and I was thinking that it would be a good thing for them.

Something positive and fun and encouraging.

So far, so good. I'm really getting great responses from the moms, which is wonderful, but I'm hoping that the many hits I'm getting are from the girls.

So check it out and if you have any suggestions, please e-mail me with ideas.

And tell your ten year-old friends. =)

Some links to check out

Mary Beth Chapman's Blog-- I don't know if you follow this one or not, but Thursday was the anniversary of the very tragic accident that happened in the Chapman's lives last year. Mary Beth is very open and honest about what God is doing, so read her story and keep lifting them up in prayer.


My friend Leslie is going to India in January with a group of people to help her friend, Sarah, as they volunteer at Sarah's Covenant Children's Home in Ongole, India. You can read about their fundraising efforts and adventures here.


The Queen B and her family are in the process of hoping to adopt a little girl named Maria from Guatemala. There are lots of obstacles ahead, but they are trusting God to make a way. (We know He knows how to do that!) Her daughter is making pink bracelets and will send them to anyone who wants to have a reminder to pray for Maria. I have followed her for a while now and am praying for this adoption. Go read all about it here.

Have a great weekend!

I have to brag on him.

My middle child has a friend who's recently been out-of-sorts after some serious surgeries on his jaw. He's now doing really well (Yay for real food!), but in his down time I asked him if he would work on a picture for my blog for me.

(He wasn't too down or I wouldn't have asked him, I promise.)

I kinda gave him an idea as to what I wanted, and this is what he came up with. Isn't it awesome?! I absolutely love it!

Today has been a cloudy, rainy, lazy day around here. I did some grocery shopping and some cleaning, but I'm not even going to mop tonight for life group.

Between my dog and lots of people going in an out of the house all day, I just don't see the point.

Tonight, Life Group. Tomorrow night, date with my man. Friday, off to see family!

It's a great week!

My mom got a blog!

She's on a "vacation" from work for a little while because of this little distraction we call the swine flu, and she's been doing all sorts of things with her free time.

Go check her out!

I got the funniest text about the swine flu the other day.

Somebody said it was the aporkalypse.

Have a super Friday!

Here I am!

Rather than putting it off any longer, I decided to go ahead and make the big move from Typepad to Blogger. I checked out this site and Wordpress and seemed to be able to move around better over here.

There are still things I liked better about Typepad, but I really like that this site is FREE!

(That was really the only reason I moved.)

I decided to move some of my old posts over here, and I actually kept more than I expected to. It's not that I think they are so great or anything, but my blog has been more of a journal than anything else I have. There have been lots of memories over the past ten months that I wanted to keep.

And then there are those posts that nobody will miss.

Before I started blogging, I heard people say to pick a name and stick with it. It's a lot of trouble to change to something else and it gets confusing.

Well, they weren't kidding. It just took me a day to do it all, but I have commented and participated in carnivals all over the web with my other blog.

I guess it doesn't really matter, but I am not moving again. This. Is. It.

My friend Liz came up with my new blog name pretty quickly, and I really liked it.

More on that tomorrow...