All the Goings On, Hither Thither and Yon

I have been flitting all over the world wide web, like a spider busily tending distant corners of her domain. But right here, the center of my own web home, I have not spent much time. My poor little web house needs some puttering-about in! Sure getting dusty here!

I'm not really sure why, but a while back I stopped linking out from here to the other places I was writing. I have a passion to write about many many things right here at home, yet I find myself ever so busy elsewhere. So I thought today I'd come settle here and rest a spell, and share the adventures we've been having around the web.

I am still contributing monthly or more at Do Not Depart. Hard to believe it has been almost two years that I have been blessed to share there. When Katie first asked me to pray about joining her at DND in May 2011, I must confess that my prayers were mostly "Why me Lord? What on earth could I contribute? I am not good enough." Well, that certainly is true, but He is good enough. I said yes, and I continue to enjoy being a part of that ministry. I have felt overwhelmed and inadequate pretty much constantly, which confirms that it is what I am supposed to be doing, since God is such a fan of keeping me uncomfortable and relying on Him.

About a year ago I volunteered to come up with topics for Do Not Depart every three months. That gave me a little title: Encouragement Director. Isn't that a neat title? I want it for all the areas of my life! We've explored topics like "Thanksgiving in the Word," "Created for Community" and "His Word When You Struggle." I love showing how we women can wind God's Word into our daily lives.

In October, I started contributing to the Build A Menu blog. With my trusty assistant Joshua, I write every other week for their Cooking with Kids series. We have made all sorts of fun recipes.

I have guest posted about homeschooling, mothering and marriage, stretching my wings a little on some blogging friends' sites.

I continue to be involved with the Hello Mornings ministry. I no longer lead my own group but have the privilege of coming alongside group leaders to encourage them and pray for them as they serve. I have a title for this too. And I love it! I am an Accountability Captain Encourager, or ACE. Is that fun or what? Maybe I should change my title from Mama to Kid Encourager and from Wife to Husband Encourager! :-) I am so happy, because this is all God... He long ago showed me that one of His purposes for my life was to encourage and bless other people, and look at all the creative avenues He has given me!

And then, the biggest and best for last: our whole family started a brand new blog which we launched in December! We call it Blossoms and Posies, and our tag line is (okay now I am laughing, because somehow it is only now that I see all this encouraging coming together): "encouraging girls in the home arts." The vision behind this is really so big, I will save it for another post. But in a nutshell, we wanted to 1) meet a need we saw to promote the traditional home arts (cooking, sewing, knitting, gardening, etc) that are being lost or neglected in children's lives and 2) teach our children how to develop and run a website as part of their education. Abbie and I are the face of Blossoms and Posies, but the guys do tons of back-end work.


On the family side, of course, there is much going on... we still have our homestead with its critters (gratuitous photo of chickie cuteness below); the kids are still homeschooled; they still have multiple out-of-the-house activities like PE, theater and track; and the dishes and laundry? They are relentless. RE-LENT-LESS.

Also, I have a 16 year old now. Oy vey. Pray for him. And me. I don't care how cautious and trustworthy a kid is, when he is your flesh and blood and gets behind the wheel of a weapon of mass destruction (also known as the family vehicle) your innards quiver.

To sum up what I have been doing? Apparently, encouraging! It's nice to see it laid out that way, because from this side it looks like I'm just running around like a crazy lady with flour on her skirt and a camera around her neck, answering math questions and brainstorming project ideas for websites while driving to theater rehearsal. Okay, I don't wear a camera when I drive. But I am pretty crazy.

What crazy things are going on in your life?

 

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