Real Life is Better Than Fiction

I think one of my favorite Christmases was one where I spent a lot of time doing something for someone else. The ladies of our church got together and made Christmas special for a deserving family, complete with a delivery of approximately one ton of presents on Christmas Eve. Okay…I may be exaggerating about the weight of the presents, but only a little. The surprise on the faces of each family member was so worth all the time and effort we put into it. In my opinion, that is what Christmas is all about. A couple of years ago a friend and I decided we wanted to write an advent devotional book to help families come together and get more involved during the Christmas season and throughout the year.  This year, we FINALLY finished it. There are 25 days' worth of devotions, short stories, activities for families to participate in, and songs to listen to or sing along with. So, if you are looking for something special to do together as a family, especially families with ...

The song My Story by Big Daddy weave says, "To tell you my story is to tell of Him." And that is so true in my life. I never used to think I had much of a testimony until I had to write it down. My testimony is one that shows how much God loves us and how involved He is in even the littlest details of our lives. Little did I know that skipping eighth grade had something to do with my mom's death. Sounds funny, but it's true. I can't spend Mother's Day with my mom, but I can honor her by sharing my testimony with you as she was so involved in it. I hope it honors God as well. It all began when I was five years old. It was Monday, the day after Easter, and my mind must have been full of questions. My brother and dad had gone to church for Awana for the evening. My 5-month old baby sister was asleep in her cradle, and my mom made us cups of hot cocoa (must have been one of those cold Easters in New York!). We sat together on the couch, in the peace and q...

Today I wished a couple of friends a Happy Anniversary, an aunt a Happy Birthday, and a friend Goodbye to this life. It just reminds me that while we may want the world to stop for even a few moments to celebrate a marriage, a birthday, or a life, it won't stop. Time won't stop for anything. It has made me think about how I use my time. Do I use it wisely? Not always. That's something I need to work on. Recording snippets of life in journals is important to me as I am an emotional writer and want to remember exactly how I was feeling at a specific time. Often those snippets become a part of my writing. So, while I may not ever be able to stop time from marching on, I can always go back and recall those moments because I took the time to write them down. So…Happy Anniversary, Happy Birthday, and see you later in heaven, my sweet friend. What about you? Do you write down things that are important to you?

Photo by jesadaphorn Have you ever had technical difficulties? Sure. We all have at some point or another. Sometimes life just throws technical difficulties into our days/weeks/months just to see how we will handle them. It is usually during a time of technical difficulty that I know that I am trying to do everything right and Satan is on the defensive. I know God wants me to finish what I'm doing, but it seems there is one mishap after another or something that should have taken me five minutes takes me all day, often including a frustrating call to some sort of technical support. I know I'm not alone in this. Having worked with publishers of Christian books, I could guarantee when we were printing a book that would have an impact on people's lives. The files would all of a sudden become jumbled. The edits we had made were missing. The printers would suddenly stop working. Think I'm exaggerating? It's happened multiple times, to me and to other publishers I kno...

Distractions. We are all affected by them. Some distractions are good, some are bad. Since I work at home, the distractions are numerous. Having to call a non-English speaking country because the Internet went out…again…during a big book promotion: Bad. Not getting anything done all day because of babysitting a smiling, giggling little girl: Good. Having to call for quotes because our insurance company unexpectedly dropped us: Bad. The timer on the over beeping because the brownies are done and are begging to be eaten warm: Really Good. The problem comes when we allow all those distractions to keep us from accomplishing what we need to accomplish. A couple of my distractions. Sometimes I need a distraction so I can just think. Quilting is one of those distractions for me. Writing is my "working" time; quilting is my "thinking" time. Mindless sewing/crafting also allows me time to pray. Do distractions keep you from reading your Bible and praying eve...

One of my sisters after a "light" snow. We were hit with a pretty big snow storm last weekend, big at least according to Virginia standards. Whenever it snows memories from my childhood always come to mind. Growing up in New York, there was no shortage of snow, especially since we lived near Syracuse, which holds the record of being the snowiest city in the country. I remember one year to snow plows piled the now up so much on the corner in front of our house that my grandpa parked his car in front of it and made my brother and I sit on top of the pile so he could take a picture and show people how much snow there was. I remember another snowy evening, okay, it was much more of blizzard-y evening (I know that's not a word!). It was shortly after Christmas and we were taking down all our decorations so the house was a complete mess. Then someone knocked on the door. My mom sent all four of us kids "the look" that we knew meant, "Cram everything ...

On this TBT, I’m throwing it all the way back...to last week. It’s only Christmas Eve, but I’m pretty sure I’ve already received my most memorable gift of the year. Several fellow homeschooling moms and I enjoy an evening out once in a while. We have been trying to get together for a couple of months with no success. With classes at our homeschool co-op on Christmas vacation, we thought we could use that time that’s normally already scheduled to get together at my house for lunch and a cookie exchange. We were all sitting around the table cramming our faces with food, talking about the problem one of us, I’ll call her Renee, has with ADD. She chose that moment to hand out her gifts to us. They were journals. That alone makes it a perfect gift for me, but then I opened the journal to read the inscription. “Ruth, Merry…” I burst out laughing as I learned over to another friend to see what Renee friend had written in her journal. She got, “Tiffany, Merry Christmas. Love y...