I know you feel like you need to buy me something, but honestly the vacation we just took was all I needed for our anniversary. It was awesome to get away and relax — even getting to relax Sunday watching football all day even if you did beat me in Fantasy Football!

I love you very much and I hope you have a wonderful day I look forward to listening to you sing tonight at the church revival service.

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To everyone else – I highly recommend unplugging, especially if you are an addict like me. The mountains did me a world of good. I feel like I’ve been restarted! I didn’t take many pictures – at least not as many as I had planned. I’ve got scooped back up in work though and haven’t downloaded them off the camera yet.

Thanks to everyone who threw up a prayer for us, asked about our vacation and covered for us while we were gone. I hope to post more about our trip later this week, but who knows. The unplugging thing might just happen at night when it should be family time.

Anyway, we’re baaaccckkkk! And I’m plugged in again – for a little bit anyway

If you think about it, I’d love your prayers that I will keep my priorities in all of this and that Blissdom will ultimately benefit our family.

It struck me. That’s precisely what I am praying for all my friends who are going. In my massive BlissDom tips post, it was my first bullet point. It really deserves it’s own post.

In case you didn’t know it, God wants to be involved in your life — every part of your life. He’s into details. If it matters to you, it matters to Him. Prayer is our way of communicating with God — that means listening as well. My prayers for weeks were “God let me know in an obvious way if I should be going to BlissDom or not.” I add that obvious part into a lot of my prayers. And you know what? God answers in really obvious ways. See, I don’t want to miss what He has for me, so when I’m questioning what I should do, I always ask for obvious answers and that I’ll know are from Him.

I truly believe that He closed the door on me going because Kimberly needs to be there instead. But the praying can’t stop there. For me, I need to continue to pray that I won’t miss the opportunities God kept me here for. For those going to the conference, I’m praying for you too. I’m praying for your families who might feel left behind to be able to survive their time without Mom. I’m praying for you to learn the things God would have you to learn about yourself, about your blogs, and about other ladies. I’m praying that new relationships will be made and that old ones will solidify even more. And I pray that if any of you start to struggle with anything that God would send you your very own BlissDom Angel.

Pray for your blog. Pray that God would lead you to not only write the things He’d have you to write, but that you would have the graphics on there that He would have. Pray for your readers, especially the ones who don’t comment. The ones who may be suffering and feeling like they are alone — pray for them to get a little bit of comfort from your blog, your words. Your blog may be the only one they read. Don’t let that pressure you, but consider it an honor to write what God lays on your heart to share.

If you’re writing a blog to make a little money, pray about that too. God wants us to get paid for our work — though I still struggle in this area. Pray about how God can be glorified through you making money. Are the ads appropriate material for your readers? Do you share advice that will build up marriages and families? Do you know there are ways you can do that and not specifically mention your faith? Perhaps that’s in God’s will too. Maybe you share information on being frugal and one of your readers feels comfortable enough to start a dialogue with you about faith.

God has not called me to be a frugal blogger — I have no talent for clipping coupons. God has not called me to be a home blogger — I have no talent for decorating. I’m not really sure I can be put in a box and given a title — I know God can’t be put in a box. I pray whatever you see here on this blog is what He would have me to share. Oh, and I trust that He will bring about the people who need to read it — especially if it’s just one person. Because even if you were the only one on this earth that needed saving, Jesus still would have died for you. You are that important. But it’s not just about being saved, God is concerned with the details of your life. So pray about every aspect of your blog.

I know this may sound like I’m just a praying guru, but I’m not. I go through stages where I pray consistently and times when it’s just a quick 30-second “God please keep me from killing someone” prayer. Don’t envy me or compare yourself to me. That will do neither of us any good. If you do struggle with prayer time — especially if you like to wait until last thing at night and fall asleep before you finish your prayers, I want to encourage you to get a notebook. Get a really pretty one if it will help make you feel better. First thing in the morning — even if you have to wake up 5 minutes earlier — write out your prayers to God in the notebook. Just start small. Open the dialogue. He’ll be there.

Don’t worry about how messy your handwriting is — He can read it. Don’t stress about how much you write. Don’t worry about messing up the notebook or making it ugly. Don’t worry about scribbles and mistakes. You’d be surprised at how much it will bless your day.

Early last week I participated in Jo-Lynne @ Musings of a Housewife‘s Mister Linky for What I learned this week. Through that Mister Linky, a woman I know IRL (in real life) found my blog. Turns out that Duck and I coached her daughter this year in Upward basketball which just ended. So, how cool is it that I meet one of the basketball parents on the internet? I told her I don’t normally run into people around here who even have a clue as to what a blog is, much less have one! Stop by and tell Kellie “hey” for me

Since my journey began on Facebook just a few short weeks ago, I have been finding family that I haven’t seen since the last death in the family and before that — way too long. One of my cousins sent me a message on Facebook saying she reads my blog and complimented me on my writing. How weird can that be? I don’t know if I’d rather just believe in my own little world here where Mom, Dad and strangers read my blog — oh yeah, and of course Duck. Here’s a shout out to Debbie — we need to get you started blogging

Going on vacation — sort of: For those of you who have seen my tweets or updates on Facebook. I am getting a MacBook Pro. I’ve been waiting for it for 2 months now (it’s one of the newer models). Well, it’s on the truck as I’m typing this “out to be delivered.” This means a few things. One, I’m going to be caught up playing working on transferring everything over to my new Mac. Two, I’ve decided to change up some things here on my blog.

I realized that I blog about several different things that are all me — but may not be all you. So, I’m going to be working on a redesign here and I’m going to add some sections. One section will be for Harleys so you don’t have to read about motorcycles if you’re not interested. Another section I’m going to start is PC-to-Mac. I’m going to write about my transition from PC to Mac (it’s been 12 years at least since I worked on a Mac). I’m also going to log all the tips and everything I find about how to do stuff on the Mac, because well, my memory sucks. Thanks to Secret Agent Mama‘s great advice at BlissDom, I’ve picked up my camera again and started taking pictures. She told me something along the lines of I should take pictures at the conference too because I am not going to see the same things as she does. Well, I went around snapping pictures this weekend and trying to figure out my camera (some of the manual settings) and failed horribly. Seriously, I have some very bad pictures. But I’ll share them with y’all if you’re interested in the Photo section.

I’m probably not going to be blogging here a lot this week — and when you come, things may look different. Hang with me through the changes. I think you’ll like them.

I think I saw where it was 104 here yesterday, and it’s supposed to be even hotter. Fletcher likes to come in and plop on the vent in the kitchen floor. He loves to be outside, so you know the weather’s gotta be bad for him to come in the house.

Last Wednesday Doodle’s softball team lost their tournament game. Doodle played an awesome ball game — Duck and I both were so proud of her! She played 2nd base the first inning and actually threw someone out! The move she did was one Duck worked on with her when she was the only one who showed for practice. We only scored 5 runs, and she had a part in scoring 4 of them — she hit really well every time she got up to bat. Just shows that it’s hard being the coach’s kid and practice pays off.

Today we’re headed to Build-A-Bear. Doodle’s birthday is pretty close to July 4th — or at least if I’d try to have a birthday party for her the weekend around her birthday, people would probably be out of town. So I got the bright idea to do her party a little early and right after they get out of school. She’s going to be celebrating her birthday for a good month I think.

If you happen to be around today, say a quick prayer for me. There’s only 6 kids total, and they are 4th graders now — so it really shouldn’t be that bad.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen the newest Straight from the Heart with Shannon @ Rocks In My Dryer, go check it out!

READ YOUR BIBLE… and then tell me what God said to you…

She really knows how to make me smile. You see, I said these exact words to her awhile back when she was in a funk. Ain’t it great when your words come back to haunt you? At least these were good words

Well, to tell the complete truth, I did not read my Bible this morning. I thought of Matthew 6:33-34 and decided that I have not been seeking God’s kingdom first in my life. So, I journaled this morning. I wrote 3 hand-written pages as a gigantic prayer to God. I prayed that He would keep me from being distracted and that I would get done the things I needed to get done today.

I almost finished adding all the She Speaks attendees to my public feed list. Check out what bloggers are going and what they are blogging about.

I finished at least one load of laundry which included my softball shirt I need for tonight. I also met the coach and got the ball stuff from him because he’s missing the game. Oh, and I took a video camera — that was broken probably about 3 years ago — to a store to see if they can fix it. Better late than never, I guess!

I also got an email introducing me to a Harley-gal. Well, she says she doesn’t ride (yet) but that she loves them. She sent me to one of her blog posts: Live To Ride, Ride To Live Very cool post AND she’s going to be at She Speaks too! I hope to meet her then.

I’ve had a much better day and even got a very unexpected surprise this afternoon. More details to come, but it’s sharing about internet evangelism.

So, start your day off right — spend some time with God.