On the past 3 months of crazy.
“Hey I saw you were speaking different places now…what is that about? Apparently I don’t even know what you do for a living.” Funny you should ask. I don’t either. For the past year or so, I’ve really been struggling with finding purpose. Being a mom (and a stay-at-home one, at that) is harder than I imagined in ways I didn’t anticipate. You go from people doting on your big ole baby belly, then on your newborn, then on your infant…aaaand then at some point that kinda wears off. Pretty soon you’re alone at Chick-fil-a with a screamy toddler who just spiked his water cup on the floor in protest,…
Parents: A Follow up Word on Instagram
This is an update to my previous post, Parents: A Word about Instagram. I originally shared this post with my friends over yonder at Patheos. They have a pretty cool site that you should check out. But, now that you’re here, feel free to stick around and see what parents and teens had to say about identity and Instagram. Um. Wow. I had NO idea the last post would hit such a nerve, but I’m so thankful some very important conversations have stemmed from it! Thank you for all of your feedback, comments, suggestions, and shares. It’s humbling, to say the least. A few things: One resounding comment I heard…
Parents: A Word about Instagram
To the parents of middle-schoolers on Instagram: There is so much information out there about internet safety and you should definitely read up on that, but that’s not what I want to talk about. Over the past several months, I’ve been noticing some interesting stuff on Instagram from your kids that I want to share with you.
Here’s the thing about church…
I read an article recently about the Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church. As one of those “20-somethings raised in church”, I resonated with almost every word and have been struggling with a lot of these same issues in my own heart. I haven’t left the church like many of my peers, but I’ve had my doubts about it. I had a conversation a while back with a friend of mine (roughly my age) about how little biblical knowledge we have and how ashamed we feel. Not in a legalistic “I must know the Bible from cover to cover to earn God’s grace”, but in a “I can’t answer…
Blessingmas Report, The Christmas Meltdown, & Family Photos
I’ve been putting off an after-holiday blog because there’s too much to recap in an orderly fashion. Let me just start by saying that at our after-church lunch on Sunday, I was waiting outside the one-staller bathroom for my turn when the lady occupying the restroom came out, made eye contact with me, said, “Hold on just a second…”, turned back around, flushed the toilet, and came back out. So that’s how we do, now. We only flush if we make eye contact with the next person in line. Thank you for reading this. Blessingmas Report I’m sure most of you are wondering about Blessingmas 2012. The anticipation of it…
Neighborly Blessingmas Revolution 2012
Gather round the fire, everyone. I’m going to tell you the tale of an underground revolution called Blessingmas 2012. Better yet, I’ll just share the email I sent to a few of my friends: Hey friends. I can still call you that, right? Most of you are probably wondering why you’re still friends with me. I’ll remind you why: my charm is irresistible. Let me give you some background about my cryptic text today. If you’re completely uninterested in that and would rather just know what I’m proposing, skip to the bottom. Last year at this time I decided to make brownies for my neighbors for Christmas. I kind of…
Drugs, Poverty, and Thankfulness
On Thanksgiving morning, my inlaws, Taylor, Beckett, and I all headed downtown to help out with a community outreach event put on by a local ministry. There was an abundance of food, clothing, haircuts, and nail painting. It was a day to give to the community – specifically the lower income and homeless families in the area. My favorite part of the day? The people putting on this shindig. They were men and women from Outcry in the Barrio, a recovery ministry and program for drug and alcohol addicts. Recovering drug addicts serving homeless families. Helping them pick out shoes. Helping them find the right size shirt for their daughters.…
The Art of Comparison
Do you know what I did a couple months ago? I bought a $22 teether. Like, a baby teether. A $22 French one with a stupid name: Sophie. I bought it because everyone had it. All the moms at the nursery, all the moms at the park, all the moms being paid to talk about it in my parenting magazines…everyone had a Sophie the Giraffe. One of the product descriptions is that she draws in all 5 of baby’s senses at once. If we’re honest, my baby’s senses do just fine with a red solo cup, yet something about this little giraffe is irresistible. It could be that she’s made…
Ordinary meets extraordinary.
Serious Tuesday post time. I’m not really sure why Tuesday, it just seems like a good day to be introspective. Last Serious Tuesday post, I wrote about why I wanted to adopt. In the post, I mentioned the blog, Kisses from Katie. A precious (and super hilarious) lady at church gave me a copy of Katie’s book a few weeks ago. I must confess how negligent of a parent I was the day I started reading it, because I absolutely could not put it down. Beckett got some quality bonding time in with his swing, bouncer, toys…pretty much anything to keep him occupied while momma read her book. It’s an…
Orphans.
I hardly slept Sunday night. Part of it had to do with drinking coffee at 9pm (stupid), but the other part had to do with some blogs I was reading. They reminded me of a few hours I spent at an orphanage in Donetsk, Ukraine, over a decade ago. By instruction, I was wearing clothes that dried quickly in case any of the kids had an accident (which they did). I got to hold a little girl for a while, and play with many other kids. I remember one girl on our team, Nicole, was holding a little boy, about 2 years old, who was completely unresponsive to her. He…
