Wild and Amazing Life

Dear Friends & Family,

I thank God for His grace--Wild & Amazing Grace! Ya'll I'm having a great time in the Lord.

I like to have my blog posts publish on Monday, but that did not work out this week. Why? Because I was thrown a change-up and struck out. My youngest son, Chase, plays football with his middle school and he's now on a fall league baseball team. I knew he was on a baseball team, however, I didnt know when the season started. I learned last Friday all the baseball games are on Sunday afternoons, double headers I add. That's the time I used to write blog posts. The good news, I'm still on the line-up and I'll get another turn at bat. So I plan to return to regular schedule next week.

I'm more focused on working the numbers as mentioned in my last post for discipline. It's all a matter of discipline or I'd go wild. God has given me this one body and I must choose to be a good steward with what I have. This change requires intentional focus on my behalf. I do believe once I make it a way of life and it will become natural to me.

My partner, Shona Neff and I have StepUP Writing and Speaking going in full swing. We've had our first webinar training with more to come. We've brought in experts to our blog to share information. We're receiving such gracious and encouraging comments. These speakers are also giving away prizes. This week Kathi Lipp is giving away a speakers packet. Also, author and Proverbs 31 speaker, Shari Braendel is giving away a copy of her new book, Good Girls Don't Have to Dress Bad. Hop on over to StepUP Writing and Speaking to leave comments for a chance to win a prize.

Darlene Schacht, who launched Christian Women Online is now launching a new online magazine with actress/author Candace Cameron Bure. I submitted according to instructions and I've been accepted to write for this new magazine that will launch in October.

I've been working with Take Root and Write for over one and half years as a columnist and editor. Noelle Mena sold it this summer to Spring Fricks. Spring has wonderful plans to grow this digital magazine even more than imagined before. We're accepting submissions for the October magazine. The theme is "rest." If you are interested, email Shona the senior editor at senioreditor[at]takerootandwrite[dot]com for more information.

I'm assisting CLASSeminars as the Transportation Coordinator for the writers conference in November. I'll be there at Ghost Ranch and if you come to the writers conference, I'll see you there!

And if that's not enough on my plate, I figured that since my wonderful state of Texas has money for veterans to receive a higher level education, I've transferred to my local university's liberal arts program for a degree in English and American Literature. I started my classes this week.

That's an update with what's going on in my wild and amazing life! Please share a bit about what's going on in your life.

Circumbendibus Rambling

Do you know what circumbendibus means?

Come on! I confess I didn’t either until I put the word “ramble” in the online thesaurus. According to Dictionary.com it’s a noun that means “a round about way.” Rambling is used as a verb above. So the title has a subject and a predicate which makes it a complete sentence.

Okay! I’ll stop and put the English teacher back in her school box.

I wanted to share a few things today. (Three point post) I have no one to talk to right now and I have not used up my 50,000 words yet, so the best I can do is type them out and share them with whom ever chooses to stop by and visit. If you do, please be so kind to edit my post and leave a comment (not really on the editing part-thank you, just kidding).

First – Jury Duty. Do you know that it is our civic duty to report to jury duty when summoned? Some people try to scam their way out of it. I confess I have every year until my youngest passed the age for excuse on the affidavit. So I prayed (getting real spiritual) I asked the Lord the reason for my summons. Well I went and I don’t know the reason.

This day was a simple little day except I had to be up early. No problem. I do that anyway. The challenge for me was to be presentable for public view at such an early hour. Well I try my best to look nice. I took Beth Moore’s advice on makeup (all the Siesta’s know about this one) and purchased Estee Lauder Double Wear foundation. It works great! I spent two hours one night at the Estee Lauder counter while my son was at football practice and spent $200. Needless to say my hubs went into a state of shock, but nothing a little mouth to mouth didn’t fix.

Anyhow, I got off track – hence the reason for the title above so you cant say I didn’t warn you. I worked up a plan for being presentable so early. My hairdresser gave me some wonderful tips a few days ago as I went in for my every other monthly ridding of split ends. She suggested I wash my hair at night. When I wake up to dampen it with root lifter and roll with the Velcro rollers.

So off to Sally’s Beauty supply I went. (Dear if you’re reading this, I splurged some more, but I kept it under $200 and it’s all for the sake of beauty—don’t you love me? [He sometimes reads my blog ya’ll so say hi to him.]) I saw some rollers you can sleep in—or so the package reads. I thought (now I think that’s where my problem began) that if I could sleep in the rollers, my fine, straight hair would be curly. I’d wake up looking beautiful and be able to be primped quickly. I took home my new rollers (and chemicals). Took my shower last night, put on all the chemicals and rolled my hair with these sleep in them at night curlers. I fluffed up my pillows, pulled back the covers, cozied myself into my favorite position and---it didn’t work for me. So, no matter which way I laid my head it was uncomfortable.

So I thought again (see where I keep digging myself into a hole here? [Rhetorical you really don’t have to answer!]) Well, I’m not following Gina’s (my hairdresser) advice the way she said, so I better do what she said. So up I go to remove these rollers. As I start to remove them, my hair gets tangled in them. Then glancing down at the directions I read, “Avoid contact with hair from other sections.” I confess I only glanced at the directions. I saw that statement, but it did not tell me WHY so I ignored it figuring it is just like those “I Agree” buttons on the internet when downloading software. Just click and move on.

As I was undoing my ideal do, my hair got tangled. Now I just had it trimmed up a few days ago and now I’m pulling and tugging and breaking my hair. I think I have to go back for another trimming. Well I got caught in a bind and I was ready to cry. I go to my teen age son ready for him to use a pocket knife if necessary (that’s how desperate I was at that point). But he was gentle and caring with my hair and got the remaining curler out with minimal damage. [He’ll make some woman a good husband someday! Way later day okay?] I go on to bed with the other plan in mind.

First thing when I woke this morning, I redid the chemicals and used the Velcro rollers like Gina told me. An hour later when I removed them, I had volume and loose waves on my long layers. But it was humid this morning and by the time I arrived at the court house, I had straight flat hair. The plan didn’t work. Bummer.

Second Point – Freedom of Speech. I just have to share. When I realized that I was juror number 38 and my chances were very slim for being selected as a juror for this trial, as they chose 6 out of the first 12 not excused from the jury pool. (Being last has its advantages.) Well the defense attorney said that he wanted to get to know our viewpoints on various issues as he realized that we have different circumstances that shape our views. He said that we could be free to say whatever we wanted without hesitation as we could not be arrested for sharing our points of views.

His first question was on what we thought about our right to remain silent or why a defendant may want to exercise his right. I couldn’t resist exercising my freedom to speak and forgo my right to remain silent, so I raised my number. When he called my number, I stated, “Perhaps a defendant may not want to testify as attorneys have a way of twisting words with a person. If the defendant is not able to articulate himself well, it may be better than facing the attorneys.” He quickly moved onto another question. I raised my hand on almost all of them, but didn’t get chosen to freely express my views. Perhaps I was too free as with my thoughts as I may have tainted the jury pool.

Another questions was, “Do you think a defendant may be guilty just by his presence in court?”

Again, I raised my number. I stated, “Well from my perception, prosecuting attorneys wont bring a case to court unless they know that they have enough evidence to win. “

Defense attorney, “Do you think you would be able to listen to the facts and make a decision on facts?”

Me, “yes.”

Then he quickly turned the questioning to how many defendants are falsely accused. I see that point too, but never was picked again to answer another question. And ultimately released from serving as a juror in this trial. (Was it my number or my opinions?)

Third Point – Good citizenship. – (Okay I see this is really long so I’ll get to my point). I home school and Texas requires we teach our home students good citizenship. So I explained what jury duty means to my 11 year old son. When I had lunch with him, he wanted to go see the trial. Being a public trial, I cleared our regularly scheduled school for a spontaneous field trip. I took my son to witness a trial proceeding. Once we entered and took our seats, we observed the prosecution’s witness on the stand. It took two hours for the prosecution and the defense and the prosecution’s rebuttal on this one witness. I whispered who was who and what they were doing. He got the whole lay out figured out. Chase begged me to leave after the first witness as they still have 5 more witnesses to go. We left.

When we got inside the vehicle, Chase told me, “Mom, I never want to do anything wrong to get arrested. I don’t want to HAVE to sit in the court room that long. That guy can’t leave, but we can.”

That's a lesson you can't learn from a lecture.

Now there’s wisdom from such a young child.

I feel better now; I’ve used 1,433 1469 words according to the word count at the bottom of my word document. I hope you made it all the way through. If not, please leave me a comment anyway. I love to hear from all of you!!

Engrafted by His Grace--

A Time for Everything

Ecclesiastes 3:1 NIV

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

In this season of my life, it seems as though every activity under heaven is taking place at once. My head is twirling around and I’m not sure what to focus on at the present.

Today, our ladies Bible study is wrapping up with spring tea. What a joyous season it has been to study the Word of God with such wonderful women who seek after the Lord.

We’re preparing for my oldest son’s high school graduation coming up in a few weeks. I just wont admit that I’m that old. We’re having a big celebration with lots of family coming to visit.

My youngest son, is a big fan of baseball. This is the last week of regular season, but next week is all star try outs. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if we go another couple of months in all star games.

Also, we’ll be taking a trip to Six Flags in San Antonio soon as my youngest son won this trip in a recent Bible Drill competition.

The kitchen remodeling project is just about complete. YEAH! Praise the Lord! I haven’t cooked a great home cooked meal in many weeks that I’m not sure I remember how. Or perhaps it’s like riding a bike and it will come back to me.

Also, coming in June is our 20^th wedding anniversary! We’ve been so busy with the boys and projects that we’ve failed to plan adequately for ourselves. I’m open to suggestions on how we can celebrate 20 years on a tight budget (college cost lots of money) & not much time to make reservations.

Blessings in Christ--