Mary Kay Makeover!

Last night I had a Mary Kay party here at our house. Talia had been thinking about joining us for the party, but at the last minute decided to watch a movie with Daddy & her siblings downstairs. She was so disappointed at the end of the party that she had chosen the movie, "Miss Stephanie" (the Mary Kay consultant) took pity on her and left a color card (makeup samples) for us to play with. Talia and I had our very own private Mary Kay party this evening, complete with a makeover. Here is the lovely lady ...

Opening My Heart to God: A Year of Prayer

This is my theme for this year.

What's a theme, you ask? Oh good. I didn't know either. Not until a few months ago when Mrs. Katherine Magnuson shared the most unusual message with the ladies of the Wednesday morning mom's group at our church: "Choosing a Theme for Direction and Focus."

What is a Theme?
The basic premise goes something like this: a theme provides a focus for one calendar year, giving direction and promoting intentionality in your life which otherwise might be missed. The key tool you use in this endeavor is a journal.

When I think of a journal I think of a little notebook with a beautiful cover in which you write eloquently about your deepest thoughts and grandest experiences. I don't keep a journal of that type as it tends to induce a ridiculous amount of guilt in me when I can't keep consistent records. When Benjamin was a tiny baby I tried in vain to keep meticulous day-by-day records of the caliber I found in the journal my mother gave me which recorded nearly every day of the first year of my life. At some point I realized that I didn't even enjoy the sweet little moments anymore because I felt so guilty that I wasn't writing them all down, at which point I released myself from that unrealistic self-imposed obligation and started this blog. Well, that's not the kind of journal I'm talking about. A theme journal has no rules.

My theme journal will be kind of like my scrapbook for 2011. (Except scrapbooks, in the usual fancy sense of the word, also make me break out in great, big, guilt-induced hives and that's not the kind of scrapbook I'm talking about either.) I will carry my journal with me nearly everywhere I go (no worries if I forget it though, since there aren't any rules!) and simply take notes. I will record thoughts that might come to me as we're sitting at the allergist. I will take notes on conversations, or sermons, or ladies events, or whatever seems note-worthy to me as I go about my weeks. I will write down Scriptures or words to songs that speak to me. I will write down funny things my kids say. I might stick my name tag from a meaningful event to one page or the program from a concert to another. I will write down lists of prayer requests, or places we've visited, or books I've read. And I'm not going to care so much about how it looks, just that it's there. In so doing I am saying, "I care about my experiences" and "I want to be intentional with my life."

A Year of Prayer
So, now that we're on the same page, let me tell you about my theme. Since the day Mrs. Magnuson spoke to us about the value of having a personal theme for your year I knew that I wanted to do this and it quickly followed that my theme would be prayer. I have had the sense that this is the next big area of growth in my spiritual journey for several months now; a theme seemed to be the perfect vehicle for this growth. So I knew I wanted to focus on prayer, but I still wanted to find some kind of a catchy title that really expressed what I was trying to accomplish. I googled every form of "quotations on prayer" I could think of, but still hadn't really found anything that hit me. As I was talking with Seth one evening, telling him what I was trying to accomplish, he suggested, "What about 'Opening My Heart to God'?" Yes! That's exactly what I want to accomplish! I want to learn to simply tell God about everything that is on my heart and thus grow deeper in my relationship with Him, just as I would a dearest friend. As I came back to this thought several days later it seemed, even better, to fit and I decided 2011 will be "Opening My Heart to God: A Year of Prayer."

One question I had as I began was: if I take notes on just, well, life ... everything ... how will my journal reflect my theme? Won't it just be a hodge-podge of random topics and thoughts? You would be amazed at how many insights I have gained, already!, from seemingly unrelated topics. In fact, it has really helped draw my attention to details I may have missed because of how they relate to prayer. In other words, it's working! It really is providing direction and focus to my experiences. I have found that instead of a hodge-podge, it's really all a strange and beautiful expression of the same music, weaving harmonies and counter-melodies in and around one theme to create a rich concerto.

What about you?
I bet you want a theme now. Guess what? You can get one. I know it's January 18th, but there are no rules so don't let that bother you. Here are some suggestions on how to find a theme:

• You don't have to find it right away
• Carry your journal with you (a big, blank sketchbook or similar, you can get them at Barnes and Noble for about $10). Take notes on your experiences and a theme will emerge.
• Ask yourself: what are my passions? what has God put on my heart? where do I need growth?
• Celebrate something (like a 10-year anniversary or a long-awaited graduation) all year long.
• Explore or discover something new. (What have you always wanted to learn more about?)
• Connect it to Scripture. Either take it out of Scripture or connect it back to, but use it to know God deeper in some way.

Here's to living intentionally!




P.S. If you decide to do it, please come back and leave a comment. I would love to hear what you come up with!

Christmas Slideshow

This is for the grandmothers!

Black (Saturday) Rite Aid Deals

Here is my stash from Rite Aid this week!

(That's: 4 rolls of Bounty Basic paper towels, 4 bottles Pert Plus, 8 double rolls of Cottonelle, 3 boxes Kleenex, Phillips ear buds, a netipot, Dial hand soap, 2 tubs Cottonelle fresh wipes, 2 boxes Sinex, 1 box NyQuil, Motrin PM, 4 boxes of cereal, and a HAIRDRYER!)

Guess how much?

$2.00. Oh yeah!

Other deals today: 2 free tall brewed coffees at Starbucks, $10 off my birthday breakfast at Mimi's Cafe, 50% off picture frames, Christmas party goods, and a couple of gifts at Hobby Lobby. :)

I love deals. :)

Great Is Thy Faithfulness!

"For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God--his way is perfect; the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him." Psalm 18:28-30

This past week my brain unexpectedly started to process through some of the enormity of Seth's graduation in May. Previous reflection on that monumental event has left me with an overwhelming but vague sense of gratitude and relief--hardly interesting material for a blog post. Unsurprisingly, it was music that prompted my unexpected flow of thought.

Last Wednesday evening I was driving home from church, alone in Seth's car while he valiantly manned the minivan full of tired children. Tired of the mediocre music on the radio I fished around in the console for a CD. In the dark I pulled out an unknown disc and slid it into the player. It turned out to be an old rehearsal CD of church choir music.

I remember well the first choir rehearsal of that semester. Our family was in the middle of dissertation season and we had just experienced some difficult setbacks. As we sang through our new repertoire that evening it seemed to me that nearly every song was chosen especially for me. God ministered to my weary and battered soul that night, reminding me that He was faithful, that I had hope in Him, that He loved me, and that He would sustain me.

Returning, last Wednesday night, to dwell on these songs that had already impacted me so deeply was an amazingly joyful experience. I listened to lyrics which I had previously chosen by sheer faith in the truthfulness of God's Word to believe, now experientially knowing them to be true. I can, by God's grace, say:

"God has a plan, it’s not to harm me
But it’s to prosper me and to hear me when I call
He intercedes for me, working all things for my good
Though trials may come I have this hope"

I Have a Hope, Tommy Walker

Here are videos for three of the songs that inspired this post. Please excuse the cheesy media on the first two and the unidentified foreign language subtitles on the third.

SwagBucks

I read recently about a rewards program called Swagbucks, which rewards you simply for searching online. I could write a compelling post elucidating the myriad benefits of this program, but instead I will simply refer you to the post which enticed me to sign up. You can read it here. If you are convinced as I was and want to start earning free money for something you do anyway, you can sign up here. (This is my referral link, which will help me earn more points as well as get you started earning points of your own.) You can also click on the button in my sidebar.

Happy searching!

The BLT

Since the day Leila was born, we have called our kids "the BLT." (Benjamin, Leila, Talia...get it?) So when I saw a family costume idea in a magazine for a BLT, I decided right then and there that's what the kids were going to be for Halloween.

Here is the result: