Delivering a Blessing

One of our favorite things we are involved in right now is our children's ministry program at our church, called High Point, which is for kids 4 years through 6th grade. I am a co-coordinator for the program with my dear friend, Liz. She takes care of putting together all the production pieces of the program and I deal with the logistical end of things. We really make a great team! Brad also came on board this year to plan and promote service projects for the kids to get involved in and excited about. He is so gifted at sharing his passion for helping those in need, and it is amazing to watch him pass on his excitement to the kids and families at our church. Since September we have completed 2 projects and are getting ready to present a third one for the holidays.


Today, we finished a six week food drive for a brand new halfway house in the inner city that caters to men who became Christians while in prision and are getting acclimated to society as they begin their new life. The children brought in non-perishables over the last 6 weeks which ended up totaling over 430 LBS of food! Isn't that amazing?!

Our family got to do the best part of the project and deliver the food to them today. I wish everyone could experience firsthand how blessed and thankful they were and how much of a difference that amount of food is going to make for them. It was awesome to see, and it was so great for our kids to be involved in that way and be a part of it. There was a sad sight across the street from where we took the food. A large Hindu family was bagging rubble from their home that had just burnt down. They looked like they were left with absolutely nothing. Riley noticed and was asking a lot of questions, and said he wanted to take food over to help them too. When we got in the car to go, Riley said, "Let's go find some more hungry people who we can give food to!" Wow, what an impact it has on him and on Naomi to be involved firsthand in this way and to think about how we can help others who have less than we do and honor God in doing so.

It was a memorable experience to be able to deliver the results. We are thankful for the generous giving from the children and parents at church and hope that the spirit of giving will continue to grow and flourish in our church and in our family.

29

Today is the first day of a fresh new year for me --the last of what has been a wonderful and amazing decade during which I've become a wife, a college graduate, a teacher, a mother, a homeowner, a mother, a business owner, a mother...

So many things to be thankful for...and so many things to look forward to.

The birth of our new baby boy 7 weeks from today, that will make us a family of 5!

The completion of our residency/fellowship years when Brad will officially join the staff as a primary physician at a practice. Wow, it has been a long road, but God has been so faithful to us during these many training years as it is coming to an end . . . and a new beginning.






The kids will continue to hit precious milestones and amaze us with

their love, their growth, their discovery, and their joy. They will continue to teach me more than I could ever teach them.

The enjoyment and blessings of friends and family and friends who are like family. Meeting and making new friends in this new year, and growing and sharing life with the old ones.

The chance to live life simply, to love God fully.

To enjoy the sweet, precious moments in life as they come (click to view video)

To walk ahead into this next year of life with an attitude of joy, thankfulness, and love.

"This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!" Psalm 118:24

The Future of Color Me {Happy}

Many of you know I took a break from designing this summer, and you may have noticed my design blog has been recently set to private. I've spent much of the summer processing the future of my business. I have known for awhile now that I needed to make some changes to it, for several different reasons:

First, it really is a hobby for me more than it is a business. I am not at the stage where I am ready to put a lot into advertising and getting as much business as possible to make a huge profit. I do it because I love it, and I love being able to add that special touch for those happy occasions, not because I need to make an income off it.

Second, I am a designer not an accountant, and I really detested the bookkeeping part of it. It really took some of the fun out of it for me. And on top of that, the state made some changes to the system that makes it a lot harder for me to do what I'm doing.

Third, in the process of organizing and decluttering my home, I am also prioritizing things in my life, especially with a new baby coming. I do tend to take on too much and have already cut way back on how many ministries and activities I am involved in this year. I know what my priorities are, and I need to eliminate or refine the rest so I can focus on those. So I am restructuring the services I am offering to reflect that.


So here is what I have decided:

1. I am still offering custom card designs and will charge an upfront, flat fee that will cover my time to consult and create a digital image for each occasion. Right now I feel that $30 is a fair price for my time to do this.

2. I will only be dealing with digital images. I will no longer print or ship hard copies of the cards, nor provide envelopes. I will only be creating the custom digital image, which would be received by you as a final, printable version in an email. The digital image would need to be saved to your computer and uploaded to your favorite online photo processing company (Snapfish, Shutterfly, Walmart, etc). You would order your own 4x6 matte prints, which run about 8-10 cents per print. I can also provide a complimentary, "email-friendly" version of the image if desired.

3. At this point, I will not have a separate website available specifically for this. It will be more of a word of mouth and friends and family kind of thing. I will probably set something up eventually and will let you know - it will take me awhile to go through my site and change it over. In the meantime, feel free to pass on my contact info if you know of someone interested in a design or contact me yourself! I am still taking orders - it will just be a little different than before.

* I will have my "design" link on the sidebar here linked to a portfolio gallery of sample designs for those interested in viewing my work or considering ordering. I will still have a selection of designs available to choose from as well, and hopefully will be able to add new designs over time, which I will set up for viewing here as well in the near future.

* I will look into incorporating a button on the side of my blog that will allow you to click and pay my fee through PayPal if you are ordering a digital design.

4. I am still open to doing blog designs as a part of this, but I still haven't worked out the details of that yet. If you have ordered a blog from me in the past that needs updating, I am more than happy to work with you on that, so please contact me.

If you have any questions about these changes, please let me know. I love designing and I hope to continue working with those of you who have been such awesome, supportive customers over the last 2 years!

Fit for Summer

So after this brief, but welcome, taste of spring we had going on last week, how many besides myself got this raging urge to get out and exercise away the damage of winter lethargy and holiday indulgences?

Well my instant motivation to chisel away the extra pounds before summer inspired me to start counting calories. Not so much to drastically change anything, but to be more aware of what I'm putting in my body. It's even super easy because (as the commercial says)...there's an app for that! For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, it is my iPod Touch and there is an app (application) you can add to it for just about anything you can think of. All I have to do is punch in the foods and serving size and voila! I have a running total of my daily calorie intake. If it's that easy, even I can do it!

Now those of you who know me pretty well know I have never been fanatical about weight loss (or gain), and don't believe in dieting as much as healthy living. And let's face it, when the brownies are on the table, I certainly will not be sitting out. BUT I have always believed everything in moderation: I do eat tons of fruits and veggies, AND when I do snack it is usually healthy stuff like hummus and carrots or cottage cheese and fruit. So it all balances out, right? :)

I like to exercise...but almost exclusively outdoors. I would much rather take a walk, enjoy the scenery, breath the fresh air, than go to a gym and walk on a treadmill. Or work out in the yard (and that can build a sweat!). Or go swimming. That's just me. I've tried the whole gym thing and it just doesn't do it for me and neither do workout videos...I just feel silly the whole time and hope my neighbors can't really see in my windows. Unfortunately, winter doesn't cater to the activities I most enjoy and so physical activity is at a minimum. So this weekend I hauled out the 1980's exercise bike that weighs 500 tons and has been collecting dust in my parent's basement and am determined to ride it a little bit every day until I can get outside and walk more.

Well Sunday was an inspirational interesting day on this journey of getting fit for summer. It all began with trying on three pairs of pants that are a tad too tight, only to choose the least tight of the three because by sucking in I could actually get it zipped and buttoned. I also chose a shirt that was longer in length (to hide the booty) and kind of flowy in the front (to hide the belly)...yeah, I've watched What Not To Wear and let's just say Clinton and Stacy would have been proud.

So I arrive at church, somewhat happy with what I ended up wearing, although the tight waist on the pants was a bit extremely uncomfortable. I take my kids to the sign-in table for their class, and the older lady signing in the kids gives me a funny smile and says, "Are you hiding something?"

Um. What?!

I quickly rack my brain to think what in the world she is referring to...what deep dark secret does this lady know about me...and all I can think of is maybe she thinks I have a wig on because my hair color is so different (?!?!). So I say, "What? My hair? I know it's different but..."
and I am cut off my my dear husband who kindly solves the mystery for me by whispering, "No she is talking about your shirt."

My shirt? What? "No! NO!" I scream, "I am hiding NOTHING!" and I grab my children's hands and rush them to their classroom. As we get to the atrium I accost my dear husband, "Was she asking if I'm pregnant?! Yes I'm hiding something - my big BELLY! Am I THAT fat?! I can't believe that just happened!" He answers by saying, "Well, you are wearing a maternity shirt."

Wrong answer. I was not wearing a maternity shirt. I was wearing (what I thought was) a cute, stylish shirt from Charlotte Russe who wouldn't know the definition of the word maternity.
I know my hips have doubled in size since having two kids, but I'm sorry you just don't ask someone that unless they obviously have either a watermelon or a baby under their shirt!

Then I was redeemed, but still reeling from the previous incident, when I was on my way out to the car and stopped by High Point to catch up on a few things. My dear friend straight out said, "You've lost weight, haven't you!"... only for me to go into a rampage about how I've actually gained weight and couldn't fit into my pants and even got asked earlier if I was hiding a pregnant belly. But THANK YOU dear friend for making me feel a bit better.

So I ended the weekend only slightly scarred. I'm loving diligently using this exercise bike. And I can't wait for spring.

Resolution

I'm not a big fan of typical New Year's Resolutions (for myself) and I'll tell you why. If I make them I'm sure to break them. I strive to live my life deliberately one day at a time. So I am constantly setting goals for myself, both small and large, and that also involves modifying, changing, or eliminating those goals as life happens. A lot can happen in a year. A lot can happen in a day. Life can change from one day to the next so dramatically that everything you worked for yesterday could suddenly be meaningless. So to set a specific goal for a whole year in my world just doesn't work for me. I really need to keep my resolutions on a smaller time scale in general, while dreaming big about the future in the meantime, in order to be successful :).

So my broad resolution this year is to continue on this path of living deliberately. And with that resolution comes a lot of smaller daily choices that may or may not work for an entire year, but will be flexible with changes that are sure to come and go. This year has a lot of change ahead for us...Brad graduating residency and starting his fellowship, Riley starting preschool, Naomi hitting her "terrible-twos" (which we hope won't be too terrible), and my own transition from MOPS coordinator to "4s and 5s" coordinator, plus more changes we have yet to know about.

I'll share my newest deliberation for myself this month while Brad is on my least favorite rotation and we are going to have a lot of long lonely days ahead. I am making a better effort to schedule play dates for the kids and time with other moms during the day. I am naturally a pretty shy person until I really get to know someone (and then watch out LOL), and a lot of times I don't make the effort I should to get to know someone because it really is just easier and more comfortable for me not to. I often wish other people would step out and make the effort to reach out to me because I would gladly accept it, but I am realizing that I need to step more out of my comfort zone in this area. And I know how much the kids love playing with others their age, so instead of having so many winter days stuck at home by ourselves, we can enjoy the long days in the company of friends!

With all the craziness that has been going on here (well extra craziness cause let's face it, life is usually pretty crazy around here), I never got the chance to reflect on the past year like I meant to. I am sorting through some photos and hope to post some highlights from 2008 soon, before 2009 is too far gone. It's amazing looking back at how much we've all changed in a year, especially the kids, which you don't always notice on a daily basis!

And thanks to everyone who has commented on my contest post! It is so fun to get to know people through their writing and pictures and exciting for me to know someone is actually reading this. I appreciate all my readers, old and new, so hello to you all!

The Puzzle

I believe a "theme" of my life has been to Live Deliberately. I've never been the kind of person who lets life happen to them and they are just hanging on for the ride. Of course, most of life is out of our control and things do happen that we don't plan for. But every day we make choices, big and small, that add pieces and shape our puzzle. It may be as simple as an attitude about a circumstance or as big as who to marry and when to have children. Life is all about choices. We choose to worry. We choose to pray. We choose to fight. We choose to walk away. We choose to give up. We choose to love. We choose to follow ourselves. We choose to follow God.

When I look back at the path I have been on so far, sometimes I wonder why I ended up heading a certain way and how God is going to use that down the road. I really believe that every piece of our lives is usable by God to shape us into who He wants us to be. And that being said, there are a few pieces in my puzzle that don't seem to fit right. And if anyone out there is a puzzle lover like I am you know how exciting it is to fit another piece into the whole picture. It's pretty amazing how God works, and it's easier to go through life knowing that he has the final picture in mind and that every piece is meant to be a part of it.

A new opportunity has come my way recently. I get asked quite frequently to serve in various ministries and most of the time have to decline because I am pretty maxed out at the moment. And as much as I love the ministries I currently serve in, I have often wondered if it is good to spread myself thin between a few things rather than focus mainly on one and pour all my attention and energy into it. So when I was approached about it, my first thought was that there is no way I could add that big of a responsibility to the plate I was already carrying. But my second thought was, maybe God can use me here and maybe this is another piece of my puzzle. And maybe this piece is going to make another piece make a lot more sense.

I never really knew what I wanted to do in college. I think it is silly for an 18 year old to decide what career they want because I am still figuring that out more than a decade later. I think it's humorous that if I had been born even 5 years later, I might have gone right into graphic design which is what I really love. So there must be a reason why I ended up where I did. I tried nursing and it wasn't the right fit for me, so I went into early childhood education. The years I spent working with those kids were memorable and exciting for me. But after that part of my life ended, and the mommy phase began, I knew it wasn't something I was planning to go back to. So a part of me has always wondered if there was something more to that piece than I knew at the time.

And maybe now I know.

As a former kindergarten teacher, I am super excited to begin coordinating a new program for the 4 and 5 year olds at our church. The curriculum we use is a version of North Point Ministries "UpStreet" (we call it High Point) and it is an incredible program! If you've never heard of it you should check it out (www.upstreetkids.org). Of course, the churches it stems from have a whole wing -the size of our entire church building- devoted to this kids program, but you have to start somewhere! :) I am really looking forward to working with Liz, our amazing children's ministries coordinator, and putting together my team to create a version of our High Point that will be geared to 4 and 5 year olds - the very age group I poured years of my life into! And the timing of it works out perfectly for me to finish out the responsibilities I currently have this year so that I can completely focus on this ministry!

Who knows...maybe that piece of my life was a preparation for now...and I have to say I am quite excited to fit another piece into my puzzle.