MORE Reading!

I just finished another book that I recevied for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. My reading kick continues!

The Book:

It took me a few days before I read it to get over wanting to read the title as "Lie Lees" in Moonlight. It is true that the plural for the flower lily is lilies, but my brain doesn't like the fact that it has to say a short 'i' in front of an undouble consonant. Thankfully, the main character's name is Lilly, so whenever her name was followed by 's' may brain could easily just say "Lil Lees."

This book was great for me because I now have a better understanding of the "flapper" era. I'm terrible with history so "flapper" meant very little to me. I didn't think of the book as historical fiction until I was done reading; but when I saw it was, I thought back and realized I did learn lots of things about that time in our country's history while reading. Makes me appreciate reading even more.

I didn't become too emotionally attached to the characters, but I thoroughly enjoyed them all. It's probably good to read a book where I don't feel the need to pray and dream about the characters. I found the plot to be entertaining once I got past the first two chapters, which were kind of vague. I'm sure they were intended to leave you questioning, but I was a little concerned I wasn't going to enjoy the book.

Thankfully I did enjoy it and I'm guessing you would too. Just ask Brad about how I enjoyed it. He asked me once when we were with his family over Easter if I could be a little less anti-social. What's a woman to do when she only has a couple of chapters left?! 

After I get through this weekend, the next books on my reading agenda are Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together, which was highly recommended by the Johnsons and which my mom praised highly, and Sharpshooter in Petticoats (Sophie's Daughters), which is the 3rd in a series written by my mom's cousin!

Mom and Jill, you'll have to wait a bit on deciding who gets to borrow Lilies in Moonlight first because it's heading up to Amy, who is on hospitalized bedrest for up to five more weeks! If anyone wants to give a little shout of encouragement to her, feel free!

Funky

I just saw that my last post was my 100th for this blog. What an uninteresting post for the infamous 100th post! I've felt rather funky in general about this blog lately. As if you couldn't already tell that based on the randomness and irregularity of the posts.

My focus started as talking about how Brad is lighting things up and how I'm lightening up by dealing with my issues. I've been terrible about telling you what Brad's been doing, although he's had relatively steady work lately. (*PTL!*) I've already dealt with all my issues so I've none left to tell you about.

Ha Ha!

Actually, I just got sick of telling you about all my issues and thought maybe you were all going to start thinking I just liked to beat myself up on here. Who wants to read that?

So I've lost focus, which is actually one of the reasons I've been post irregularly.

The other reason I've been irregularly posting is because my mind is all wrapped up with a new blog I want to start.

You're thinking, "Seriously, another new blog? Would you just settle on one and stay there?"

Yes and sorry, I hope I will someday.

I'm no where close to telling you about the new blog because I so want to start this blog right. I want it to look great (but have no idea how to make that happen *HELP*), I want it to have a focus that I don't veer from like I've done with this blog (which I'm still hashing out), and I don't want to tell you its topics yet. 

I sort of feel like I need to have a little blog committee meeting. Any volunteers who'd like to be full of constructive criticism and helpful ideas? I'm thinking a meeting at a coffee shop just before bedtime so that I can get out of putting the kids to bed. My sister and I did that this week and it was FABULOUS! Anyone else get sick of bedtime?

Mostly it's that perfectionist tendency of not starting something because you're afraid you can't do it right that's keeping me from working on it. That and that my mind is a slightly full with all the MAJOR events coming in the month of May...

1/2 Marathon
My Brother's Graduation
Our 9th Anniversary
Wyatt's 2nd! Birthday
My Last Day of Work for the School Year
Brother's Wedding!

Perhaps I should put blog creation on the back burner for a few weeks.... :(

On the Lighter Side of Goals

Just so you don't get worried that I'm becoming overly goal oriented, let me tell you the first thoughts that came to my mind when I considered what my current goals might be for my kids....

Wyatt:  Needs to talk more
Elliana: Needs to talk less [only at appropriate times]

I know that "all comparisons are odious;" but when I compared those thoughts to what I remember reading on Breezy Acre Farms about how she has 3-5 character goals for her kids, I realized I have a ways to go to get on the majorly-goal-oriented-person ship.

Still on the lighter side of goals would be our financial goal for the year: to not spend more than we make. That's a little tricky considering the income of my fabulous self-employed husband is always unknown. God has consistently shown up in the last two plus years of self-employment; because of that, I have a lot fewer worries about money than I did two years ago! I know He'll keep taking care of us even if we currently don't have a very ambitious financial goal.

I probably have a subliminal personal financial goal: to get as many things free as possible. It probably borders on the line of an unhealthy obsession, but it's also personal entertainment.

Then one more reason why I laughed at myself after I wrote my last goal post (get it? ha ha!) - it occurred to me I write goals for every single student I work with at school. I referred to goals at work in that post but was talking about the ones we deal with in long staff meetings. I didn't even think about individual student goals when I was writing that last novel. Perhaps that's just evidence that I have very little problem with leaving work at work.

This now concludes my thoughts on goals until January of 2012. You may have to read more about my mission before then but that's still getting tweeked.

Goals and Mission

I've never been into missions and goals. Maybe I've been tainted by work meetings where we spend hours talking about them when I would much rather be getting my things organized for working with students. However, I think my armor against them is beginning to chip.

It started with my New Years Resolution. I'd never had one before but for some reason I gave it a try. I'm amazed at how the things I resolved to are becoming habit.

These were my top 2...

1. Be more intentional showing Brad love every day.

I need to improve on this one. I get more focused on #2 and he gets forgotten. Poor guy.

2. Be more intentional about spending quality time with Elliana and Wyatt every day.

I really like having this thought process in my day. If I do spend time with each of them then I don't feel guilty when letting them play alone. It's actually been a challenge to get QT with Wyatt lately due to his sister being so chatty and loving of attention, but I'm trying. I may not have even noticed that problem if I didn't have this goal!

These were the lesser items...

3. Make an intentional effort to read a book one day a week.

Clearly if you've been reading all my posts about books you see this has not been a problem. I'm currently in love with reading thanks to this resolution!
4. Intentionally train to run faster than my previously slow pace.

I forgot I put that as a resolution but I'm running faster than last year partially thanks to my new toy. Still no record setting but it's good for me.
5. You'd better bet that I'm going to be very intentional about my dental hygiene as well! 

I'm still brushing and flossing - nothing I didn't do before. I'm actually having a issue with biting the inside of my cheek so hard at night that I wake up in pain. Anyone want me to write an entire post about that issue? 

All that to say why I'm starting to like goals. Then there the mission thing. I think mission statements are more annoying to talk about than goals during work meetings. Let's just state the mission and get on with work!

Then at church on Sunday our pastor talked about missions, and I was actually so excited because I think I might have a real personal "mission statement"! Unbelievable that I could be excited about such a thing. You want to know what it is?  You're going to have to ask me in person or wait until I'm ready to blog about it. Anyone else have a mission out there?

Lot's of words. Sorry. Hopefully not a lot of typos considering the hour. I just had to get something posted so my friend, Keri, wouldn't have to email me to see if I was still alive. ;) Thanks for the motivation friend.