Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Yes, it’s been a while.  This has been the longest hiatus I’ve taken from blogging since I started.  In fact, I’ve taken a hiatus from just about everything I used to enjoy.  Call it laziness.  Call it busy-ness.  Call it lack of focus.  Call it “the season I’m in”.  Any way you cut it, I’ve been MIA from many things I enjoy in life.

In addition to not blogging, I haven’t scrapbooked in nearly 2 years.  I quit reading blogs for months.  I quit using my camera.  I quit surfing the net.  I quit Facebooking.  I quit reading.  I quit watching TV.  And if I’m honest, I quit putting much at all into my relationship with God.

There was no specific reason why.  Slowly  but surely those things just went by the wayside.  Oh, I guess you could call “just the season I’m in”…arriving home from work by 6pm (if I’m lucky), play with Kylie, eat dinner, put Kylie to bed…and that leaves about 90 minutes for me to shower and do whatever else I desired.  Most nights I’d play a game on the iPad or read a magazine.  Or many nights, I’d do some Bible study (just because I was filling in the blanks doesn’t mean I was really studying).

A few months ago, I realized how much I’d let go that I enjoyed.  So, now that we are in 2014 and starting with a clean slate, I decided to try harder to incorporate those things I once enjoyed back into my life.  One of those things is blogging.  But I’m blogging now with a different intention.  I started blogging just to document what what going on in my life.  And document I did.  During scrapbooking retreats, I’d have my blog open looking for dates and times of when things happened.  Then we decided to adopt and all of a sudden, I picked up a bunch of new readers and I started blogging every night and really stressing over getting up a new post every day.  And somewhere in all that, blogging became more of a job than something I enjoy.  So I’m going back to blogging as documentation.  And if there are any readers left after my long hiatus, then they can follow along.  Or not.  Either way, I hope to be back.

For a while, it’s going to be a lot of backtracking since it looks like it’s been almost 9 months since I really hit the high points.  I’ll leave you with some of our Easter activities (told you I was backtracking!)

It was a special day because I was able to get up and attend the early service at our main campus.  I love my church but I sure do miss the full orchestra and choir of the “big house”. 

And this is the reason why I got up so early…This is my neighbor.  We lived next door to she, her son and husband since we moved into this house over 8 years ago.  We never really knew them and didn’t do more than throw up our hand as we drove by.  Until we brought Kylie home.  See, my neighbor is Chinese.  Her husband is American and at the time was training to be a truck driver so he was away from home for a very long period of time.  She began to visit with her son (who is Jenna’s age) and as we began the relationship, she began to ask questions about God, church and Christianity.  After several months of this, she and her son were saved and both of them were baptized on Easter Sunday by the pastor of our Chinese congregation.

And there was no way I was going to miss it.  Unfortunately, Steve missed it as he was playing in the worship band at our campus.  I managed to see the baptisms and then make it back to our campus in time to teach my Sunday School class and attend service second hour.

This was after church…my sweet girls looked so beautiful!  And Steve in his pink shirt! 

Incidentally, Easter Sunday of 2012 was Kylie’s first Sunday at church EVER.  We’d only been home about a week.  She’s been every week since.  She’s grown so much!

Well, that’s it.  Thanks for indulging me a break from blogging.  It’s good to be back!!