Missing . . .one middle-aged blogger . . .

I have missed blogging so much!!!  I have tons of pictures and lots of words floating around in my head but I have been lacking TIME!!!  I think this is the longest I have ever gone without blogging since I first started the blog.  You may not have missed me, but I have missed this outlet. 

So why haven't I blogged?  What have I been doing?  I've been putting one foot in front of the other since Thanksgiving.  Each day, I've prayed for the strength to make it through the day . . .and God  has been good.  I've been busy and I've been stressed and I've had some fun (pictures of fun to follow later) and we've spent time with family over the holidays (and that was good!).  We've been a part of some incredible worship services at Trinity UMC. 

But why haven't I had time to blog?  Well, let's see what we can gather just from these pictures.  The pencils in the background behind the glass of wine (which was purely medicinal - I promise!) were from one of our Tuesday night sessions (no - there was no wine involved in our Tuesday night young adult sessions) . . .this was after we had washed the dishes.  The pencils were from our spiritual gifts assessment which was very interesting - my top three are hospitality, teacher and something about knowledge (I like to study the Bible and stuff in order to share it with others).  Funny thing - Mark, Laura and I all  have hospitality as our number one .. .and our daughter-in-law, Lauren has it in her top three also!!  We need to get Glenn to take the assessment.

 I've also been on a mission - 1200 of these beaded crosses before the beginning of Lent.  Don't ask why.  Just be surprised.  I didn't have to make all 1200 - wonderful committee headed by a dedicated church member made about 900 and I made only about 300.  They were oddly comforting to make.  You can still see pencils in the background!!!

 We posed for a picture for a video - act surprised about that one, too!!

But most of all, I haven't blogged because of my job!  Thank goodness, I LOVE my job.  Yesterday is the first day since before Christmas where I could actually SEE the top of my desk - any woodgrain at all.  We had a HUGE confirmation class of 67 students - 6th graders!!  Part of my job is to get all of them and all of their info, etc. into the church database. . . and make them each a membership card . . .and a nametag . . .and write their name in the BIG book.  In addition to those 67, we also had quite a few adult members join in January . . .which means all of the above for them also - in addition to writing their former churches to arrange the transfer of membership.  What a blessing, right?  Yes - isn't that amazing?  We had more new members in January than many small churches have in worship!!  In addition to all of that, we had a snow day where we left work early and arrived home late.  We have been short two or three co-workers on and off this month due to sickness.  I had to set up my giant excel spreadsheets for 2013.  We are working an Emmaus walk in February and team meetings have begun on Saturdays . . .I've cooked a meal or two for others . . .and there just hasn't been time to sit down at the computer and gather my thoughts.

BUT last Sunday's Sunday School lesson was on the discipline of Simplicity from "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster.  For some reason, that lesson made me want to blog - to take the TIME to blog.  I know that my blog is not widely followed.  I don't have thousands of followers . . .I have 24 :-)  but sometimes I need to just stop and write my thoughts and think about what is important.

My family is important and our friends are important and my relationship with God is important and I blog about all of those things so that I will REMEMBER!!

So . . .hopefully, I'm back.  I've missed you.