Do Hard Things

Which would seem to include, for me, updating my blog. I do have a good excuse. Right after Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing I moved. Only about 30 minutes away and nearer my church but to a different time zone. And the kids are still playing soccer in the old time zone. Needless to say, most nights I'm not getting home until almost 8 and then scrounging around in boxes and cupboards trying to remember where I've put things.

So. Hopefully things will soon be better. Or I'll lose my mind. One of the two.

I recently joined the NON First alliance and I really enjoyed this first book by the Harris brothers. I'm about half way through it and found it had great things to say to teens and adults. I hope to post a more thorough review later, but needless to say, I'm going to be recommending this book to the teens I know and to our church youth leader. Below you can find a bit more on Do Hard Things and the Harris brothers and even a taste of the first chapter. And hopefully I'll be back sooner rather than later!


It's May 15th, time for the Non~FIRST blog tour!(Join our alliance! Click the button!) Every 15th, we will featuring an author and his/her latest non~fiction book's FIRST chapter!

The feature author is:

Alex and Brett Harris and their book, Do Hard Things:

ABOUT THE AUTHORs:

Alex and Brett Harris founded TheRebelution.com in August 2005 and today at age 19 are the most popular Christian teen writers on the Web. The twins are frequent contributors to Focus on the Family’s Boundless webzine, serve as the main speakers for the Rebelution Tour conferences, and have been featured in WORLD magazine, Breakaway, The Old Schoolhouse, and the New York Daily News. Sons of homeschool pioneer Gregg Harris and younger brothers of best-selling author Joshua Harris (I Kissed Dating Goodbye), Alex and Brett live near Portland, Oregon.

Click here (you might have to scroll down a bit) to read the first chapter.

Bad Blogger Outta Town

Not that you'll miss me since I haven't been posting much (okay, AT ALL) lately. But this time I have a good excuse. I'm actually in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing (not to be confused with my son, AKA Calvin).

Michelle and I got in last night and helped Coach and Kimberly set up the Relief booth then had dinner and a lot of laughs with them.

I've already decided that Michigan has odd driving rules. You can't make left turns at lights, but you make U-turns in the middle of the street. Huh? And when you are waiting to make a left turn on a green arrow, the light flashes red instead of a steady green. Very bizarre.

I've also decided I've stayed at too many motels. At breakfast, I seemed to be the only one who knew you had to turn the self-serve waffle maker over to get it started. I had to help several people. Mostly, it was the incessant beeping of the waffle machine that was driving me nuts and I was trying to stop it. But it appeared that I was being nice.

Not sure when I'll post again, but I'll be sure to update you on my experiences here. With Michelle and I together, who knows what will happen.

The Kroger Art Gallery

You gotta check out Jeanne Damoff's post today at Master's Artist.

I've always loved how she finds beauty in the ordinary, and this post just expresses it so beautifully.

Plus, I would have paid money to see her taking pictures in the produce section and seeing the expression on the other shoppers' faces.

Did I mention I envy her her camera too?

Laughter as Carbonated Holiness

That line comes from this Christianity Today article. It also contains this gem:

...laughter is the Elmer's Glue that attaches us to the goodness that inhabits this world, and to the gladness that hints at the world to come.

I found the article particularly timely after one of my favorite young people said last night, "Jennifer loves to laugh." Yeah, I do. And I have a lot to laugh about, thank You, Jesus.

Anything made you laugh lately? Share, because you can never have too much laughter.

"Heart Surgery" up at Mused

My short story, "Heart Surgery" is up at BellaOnline's literary magazine, Mused.

I have to admit, it's pretty cool seeing my name up there. My only regret is that the submissions process stripped the italics out of my work and apparently they didn't make it back in, so I think that makes the time shifts in the story a little more confusing than they need to be. But still, it's pretty awesome to see my story in print and the photo that accompanies the story is just right on.

Check it out if you have some time. I'd love to know what you think.

Wordless Wednesday

Can you tell I'm ready for summer?

Tackle it Tuesday

I'm sorta done tackling the flu, though I have that lingering, nagging cough that I would be so happy to be done with.

Today I'm going to be out of the house running errands that have been piling up: getting dog food (the dog has to have special prescription food because he's allergic to everything else--he's so high maintenance), having lunch with a friend, getting the car inspected, shipping stuff off to sell on eBay, and going grocery shopping.

Makes me tired just thinking about it! But I know I'll be so glad when it's done. And the kids can stop whining that there's nothing to eat :)