ABCs

Because I obviously don't have enough challenges in my life at the moment (or there is a branch of insanity in the family tree I'm not aware of), yesterday I decided to take on a blog challenge for April.

The Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2012 involves writing 26 blog posts in April each focusing on a letter of the alphabet, starting with "A" on April 1 and ending with "Z" on April 30, that somehow relates to your blog's focus.  At this point I'm wishing I had a cooking blog because I think coming up with alphabet-themed recipes might be a little easier than alphabet-themed life transition posts.  We'll see.

I hope you stop by throughout April to see if I'm up to the challenge.  Any ideas or encouragement are welcome!  Better yet, why not join in too?

A Gift Unearned

This weeks's Five Minute Friday writing prompt - Gift

With Easter fast approaching, I can't help but think of the word gift in terms of Jesus' death and resurrection. Talk about a gift.  I mean, who else would die for me?  Would I be willing to die for anyone else?  Would I be willing to take on everyone else's sins, past, present and future and then be humiliated, tortured and killed slowly?

I am humbled by my arrogance in accepting this as a matter of course most days.  Our Savior died a horrible death ... for me.  And I don't even apprcieate it most of the time let alone actually stop and think about it.

I've been given the ultimate gift of love.  How often do I say thank you?  How often do I tell anyone else how they can have the gift too?

I am thankful to have been forced to stop and think today.  I am humbled that He thought I was worth saving, because, really, I'm not.  And that's what makes the gift so valuable.


How it works:
1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt- no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Meet & encourage someone who linked up before you.


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From Pianos to Yarn

I paid a visit to my local yarn store last week, not because I needed anything, but because it just makes me happy to be there, and because yarn stores aren't usually very busy, I had a nice long conversation with the owner.

I am relatively new to knitting so only discovered this tiny, little shop tucked into the corner of a plaza about a year ago.  The previous owner, who was expecting her third child, decided she needed to be home to raise her young family and made the transition from business owner to stay at home mom.

The new owner, recently retired from a 33-year career with the federal government, but still young and with no desire to actually retire yet, thought it was the perfect business opportunity for her.  We started talking about life transitions.  I shared with her about the pivotal place I am in my life (ending a homeschooling career, facing an emptying nest, but still with a lot of good years ahead of me).  And she shared some of her story with me.

In addition to an exciting career with the government, she was also a concert pianist and had a music studio in her home where she taught piano.  After doing this for many years, she began having problems with her wrists and wasn't able to play piano anymore.  A friend of hers apparently sensing her need for a new creative outlet, taught her how to paint.  She had one of her lovely paintings in the shop.

She also shared that in the midst of a life she has loved and found fulfilling and exciting, she also endured the death of her 23-year-old son from a heart attack.

And now, here she is the owner of a yarn shop.  The next step, she said, will be to sell the shop in about five years when her husband retires and spend their time together enjoying each other and life.

I'm sure when she was a brand new college graduate she never envisioned the places life would take her and the varied careers she would have.  This is the exciting part about transitions.  Things we could never dream of sometimes happen.


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Live Out Loud

This week's Five Minute Friday - Loud

One of my favorite contemporary Christian songs was performed by Steven Curtis Chapman and is called Live Out Loud.  If you're not familiar with it, he sings about being more aware of the bigger, greater life around us and how we should, "Crank up the music, climb a mountain and shout."

As a woman who lives with a great deal of caution, I find this song inspiring, thought-provoking and empowering.  It makes me want to forget the "what ifs" of life and just .... live out loud.

It makes me want to throw off fear - fear of what could happen, fear of looking foolish and fear the unknown and just ... live out loud.

All that just from a song.  I feel excited just thinking about it.  Who knows what wonderful, exciting, unexpected things the Lord will do next?

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline, 2Timothy 1:7.

I want to really live my life before it is over, embrace the fun, challenges and changes around every corner.

I want to live out loud.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Meet & encourage someone who linked up before you.

If You Want to be Great

Tonight, I'll be doing something I really don't want to do, serving dinner in our local homeless shelter.

It says in the Bible that if we want to be great in God's kingdom, we need to learn to be a servant to all.  I am not seeking greatness here on earth or in heaven either, but I do want to do what is right in God's eyes, and that's why my husband and I will be at the shelter tonight.

Why does my stomach tighten up at the thought of doing this?  I don't mind cooking and bringing food.  I don't mind preparing their bag lunches for the next day in the well-equipped kitchen.  I don't mind setting out the food and preparing the tables for the buffet line.  I don't even mind the clean-up.

The hard part for me is talking to the people to whom we're serving dinner.  Believe me, I don't think I'm any better than they are.  Life takes so many unexpected twists and turns that all kinds of people end up homeless and hungry. I could be there just as easily as anyone else.

I think my problem is that I try to put myself in their place.  If I were living in a homeless shelter and had just spent another discouraging day looking for work and trying to provide for my children the best I could, I don't think I'd want well-meaning strangers talking to me, asking me my story, maybe offering me sympathy, suggestions, or counseling.

My questions to them would be, do you have a job for me?  Can you find me a home where my children and I can be safe?

But the people I'll be serving tonight might have very different thoughts than the thoughts I imagine they might have.  I can only imagine what I would think and feel.  They are living it.

I've been praying about this all day.  Praying that I would have the right words to say.  Words of sincerity and authenticity, compassion and strength.  I don't want to be great, but I would like to be a blessing.

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Is this really Winter?

...or did we just skip right past spring and head into Summer?  I prefer my seasons to have an orderly transition, follow the prescribed pattern and have the right things bloom at the right time.

But this year is All. Messed. Up.

It's not Spring's fault, really.  Winter caused all of the trouble by being so mild that we could afford our heating bills this year.  And our winter coats got hardly any wear. And the two hats I didn't finish knitting for my sons weren't needed anyway.

I had to bring out my stored summer clothes last week because it was in the 80's and I was sweltering in my jeans.

I truly love watching the spring flowers, bushes and trees bloom in the right order at the right time.  The happy blooming schedule usually moves from crocuses, to forsythia bushes, saucer magnolia trees, daffodils, bradford pear trees, cherry trees, tulips, dogwood trees and then redbud trees, with some overlap here and there.

Not this year.  All of those trees are blooming at the same time, and the forsythia finally flowered a couple of days ago.  If you can't trust the seasons to do what they're supposed to do, what can you trust?

This is very disconcerting for a woman like me who thrives on order.  I knew, for many reasons, that this was going to be a year of many changes not only for me, but several members of my family.  I thought I could at least count on the seasons to stay constant.

Who can blame the poor plants, though, this Daylight Savings Time mess probably caught up with them too.

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Will This NEVER End?

It feels like my 17-year-old son has been applying for college for about 23 years.

When did this process become so hard?  And how?  And why?  This kid hopes to go to college in the autumn.  Will all the paperwork be finished by then?

I was talking to some women recently about how arduous the process seems to be and asked them if they remember it being so difficult when they were high school seniors.

Granted, we all graduated from college in the last century, but we're middle-aged not from the middle ages.  We remember that we applied, were accepted or not, let the university know we were coming, and off we went.

My son has applied to four schools and has been accepted by one, so far.  He will hear from the others in April.  By the last count, we figure that he has written at least 12 application essays.  He filled out something called the Common Application last fall which is intended to be a time-saving form for students applying to more than one college.  It must be fairly new, since he has three older siblings and we've never encountered it before.

And while, in theory, this application is supposed to save a student time and standardize the application process, it's ended up being essay-hell.

The Common Ap required two essays, okay, fine, makes sense.  But then each school required at least two additional essays, another required an honors program application essay, and then there was the music program application essay and he still has three more colleges to hear from.

Will it ever end?

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Still Working on It

Two weeks ago I started to write about my self improvement projects.  I meant to finish talking about it last Monday, but, if you've been keeping up with the blog you know I got involved with the blog comment project and just couldn't keep up with my writing as well as reading over 130 blogs.

The remaining three self-improvement tasks I've set myself involve reading, my spiritual life and my future.  

Reading?  What, she needs to learn how to read?  Actually, it's the quality of reading material I want to improve.  My favorite genre is historical mysteries.  I love history, I love mysteries.  And while I think that’s fine, I know I should read more books of real worth.  I want to, but historical mysteries are like junk food to me.  I can't get enough.  Who want to eat broccoli when you can have cookies?  

This is part of the self-discipline I'm trying establish in my life.  I am lazy at heart and just want to please myself.  Can I get a witness?  

One of my reading goals is to read Winston Churchill's The History of the English Speaking Peoples (four volumes) this year.  Can you guess how far I've gotten?  Confession time,  page 42, volume 1.  Pretty shabby.

I also have started reading The Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink, twice, (I love his book The Attributes of God, life-changing for me) but haven’t gotten far.

Then, I picked up David McCullough's newest book The Great Journey: Americans in Paris, 1830-1900 from the library.  This book has a two-week loan period.  Am I optimistic or what?  Do I really think I'll read this in two weeks?  Well, I might if I put aside my fluff reading and dig into something a little more challenging.

This segues into spiritual life.  Again, I need to dig in and make more time for prayer and reading and studying my Bible.  I need to stop making excuses about busyness and make the choice to put aside some of my leisure activities in favor of the better thing – God. 

I started reading my Bible-in-a-year-chronological-bible in November because I felt it was time I systematically read through the Bible again.  I don’t plan to finish in a year because my goal isn’t to see how fast I can read through the Bible but to think and study while I read.  My desire was to read it in 18 to 24 months, but I’m only on February 16 of the schedule and have been at it for four months.  Again, I’m not using my time and energy the best way I could.

If reading the Bible isn’t at the top or near the top of my priority list, what is?  Apart from taking care of my family, homeschooling, my part-time business, blogging and homemaking, the answer is doing things that are more fun such as watching TV, messing around on the computer, reading and knitting.

So, something has to change, but it won’t until I stop trying to satisfy my lazy nature and start desiring to please God instead.  All of this self-improvement takes a lot of discipline and requires making a lot of choices.

This post is getting long, so my last self-improvement area, the future, will have to wait for another day.

Exercise update : Exercise has been happening five days a week.  Day 20 of the 30-Day Shred is done and, while I'm not going to lose the 20 pounds in 30 days which is supposed to be possible, I am losing inches slowly, very slowly.  To change things up a little last week, I went to a zumba party at the gym.  Crazy, intense, cardio fun.

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Runnin' On Empty

Empty is never a word that's associated with good things and happy times.  Our stomachs become empty because we're hungry.  Our gas tanks become empty and we either need to quickly find a gas station or we'll run out of gas.  If our bank account is empty ... that's even worse.

But perhaps the worst empty we experience is an emptiness of spirit, when we feel we have no more resources to draw upon.  An empty spirit for me is usually brought on by a distance between God and me and as always, I'm the one who has pulled back and drawn away.  Why do I ever think I can can be joyful, content and fulfilled if my spiritual gas tank is empty?

Any of us who have been walking through this life with the Lord for a while know what it takes to keep the tank full.  Don't we hear this All the time? Prayer, reading the word, studying the word, hearing the word preached with knowledge and power.  This is fuel for the spiritual tank and really, it's so easy to get the fuel.  But we just keep driving past the refueling stations saying, "Oh I'll just take care of it later," and where do we end up?  Out of gas, our tanks reading Empty.


5 Minute Friday

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.



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Do you have a coupon for this?

Things have been a little slow on the blogging front lately, not because I haven't been thinking about blogging, but because I've been thinking about blogging a lot, and I've been reading blogs, a lot.

Blogs, blogs and more blogs.  I decided to participate in a blog event where a group of bloggers would take a week and read and comment on each other's blogs. I have a list of 130-some blogs that I started reading last Thursday.  I have 20 more to go.

There are blogs out there about everything you could possibly think of.  I've read about:

• investing
• couponing
• being a mommy
• hatching chick eggs
• being a mommy
• couponing
• field-dressing and butchering roadkill deer
• health and diet
• being single
• couponing
• being married
• being a mommy
• Wyoming's legislature's emergency preparedness bill to become self sufficient in case of a disaster (including printing their own currency)  
• and did I mention couponing and being a mommy?

The two Italian blogs were a lot of fun because of Google Translator.  I suspect the writer had a different intent.

I have several take-aways from this eye-opening event organized by Blogelina.

• There are dozens - well probably hundreds or millions - of dedicated and talented writers in the world who are very passionate about their subject.  
• I don't enjoy blogs with tons of ads, especially if they flash.
• Mommies feel a strong need to share their experiences and reach out to other mommies.
• People are serious about saving money (couponing).
• Many brave souls are not afraid to share their deepest needs and fears.

On that note, before I get back to blog reading, let me share a word I just learned, gazingus.   See what you can learn from reading blogs?

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Ache

5 Minute Friday - sometimes it doesn't happen until Sunday

Ache is what you feel when you don't feel loved, or feel rejected, or unwanted, or ignored or unimportant, or insignificant, or like nothing.  That deep down empty feeling in the pit of your stomach and even deeper, when you feel like who you are and what you think and feel don't matter.

But we don't have to live in a permanent state of ache.  There is healing.  It comes in the form of God's love.  In God's eyes we are loved, accepted, wanted, listened to, important and significant.

We don't have to accept the lies of the world and the evil one who walks on the earth.  We don't have to live with the ache of lies.

We are loved.  We are victorious. We can live in peace and joy and acceptance.  All we have to do is accept it.  God offers us all of those things.  They are free for the taking.  They can wipe out the ache that lives deep inside and replace it with joy, pure and clean.

5 Minute Friday
1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.

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Pick Me! Pick Me!

So here you are, a brand new college graduate,  brilliant person stuck in a dull job, young mom looking for part-time work, retiree hoping for a challenge,  unemployed and desperate, or like me, a woman who will be graduating her last homeschooler and is considering re-entering the job market after a looong time away.

This isn't the best job market we could wish for.  There are lots of people out there with skills as good as or better than ours.  So what is it about us that makes us shine, that makes us the best possible choice for a job?  How do we even start this process?

Like many life transitions, a job search requires  a lot of work, thought, some help and, my favorite thing, a plan.  Here's how we can begin.

• Our first step is to take a personal inventory.  What actual skills and abilities do we have?  This doesn't mean paid employment.  The question is, what do I really know how to do?  Am I an excellent swimmer and diver, am I multi-lingual, do I know how to landscape?  It might be helpful to make a list of every talent and ability you possess and then ask people close to you what abilities they think you have.

• Next, we should list jobs we've held in the past and try to recall every task and responsibility we had  in those positions, what skills we gained, what our job description was and any special projects we completed.  Did we ever have any of our suggestions implemented?  Did we add any extra value to that position, bring more business to our company, design a new way of doing something?

• We haven't necessarily been paid for all of our work experience.  So what types of volunteer work or internships have we held?  Treat these like paid jobs and again list everything just  like you did in the step above.

• Now, looking at all of our work and volunteer experience, let's assess what we are qualified to do.   I came across a helpful article by Wendy Boswell on About.com called The Top Eight Job Search Engines on the Web.  As the article states, it lists the most used job search engines and includes descriptions about each one and the services that each provides.  The search engines list jobs by professions or categories.  So start looking at the fields you believe you're most qualified for and see if your skills match up with currently available jobs.

 We're feeling a little more confident now because we have our long list of skills and abilities and we have looked at job search engines and have, hopefully, found some jobs we could apply for.  But let's have a dream moment.  What have we always really wanted to do but have never pursued?  What's our dream job?  It's our moment to temporarily throw away practicality and imagine that perfect job.  

Is it really possible for us to be hired for our dream job?  Let's consider what we can do versus what we would like to do.  Maybe this is the big push we've always needed to pursue our dream.  In order to make the dream happen we have to be honest with ourselves.

• Do we have the necessary qualifications for that kind of work? 
• Do we have to take classes or get special training and would that be feasible based on our current needs and life situation? 
• If we have years of accounting experience, but our true passion is horses, what types of jobs are available that would allow us to work with horses and what kind of training do we need?
• Are we willing or able to make the sacrifices to make our dream  job a reality?  Our biggest concern might be the need to put food on the table, so dreaming of being a rodeo clown might not be possible.  Not right now anyway, but maybe when we do get the bread and butter job we need, we can take whatever is the first step to making our dream job our real job.

Just a few more things we need to think about with any kind of job search.

Are we willing to re-locate?  Some areas just have more jobs available than others and we might have to consider moving.

Also, who do we know that might be able to help us find work, neighbors, co-workers, Facebook friends?  Most of us know a lot of people and we shouldn't be shy about letting them know we are looking for a job.  This is still one of the most popular ways people obtain jobs.

There is so much more to explore about job searches, such as what salary we can expect, self-employment and free-lance work, and generating multiple sources of income.  All topics for future blog posts.

Are you looking for a job?  What steps are you taking?  What would be your dream job?

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