It's A Challenge. Are You Willing To Accept?

I went to Beth Moore's Living Proof Live in Nashville this past weekend (don't worry, blog post about that coming soon - you know how it is when you come back from a conference like that...it takes a couple of days to process it all so that you can write about it in complete, coherent sentences....). The conference was actually for Ministers' Wives, which I am not.

Let me explain.

My dad is a pastor, therefore making my mom a minister's wife. I told my dad about this conference back in December, so he bought my mom 2 tickets to it for Christmas. He wanted her to go, and he wanted me to go with her.

Twist my arm.

Anyway, I was actually feeling a little (A LOT) guilty about going, since I'm not a minister's wife, but told myself that either I would go and participate and have a whole new respect for what a minister's wife goes through (I'm pretty plugged in to that subject already, being a PK), or I would go and participate and God would use Beth to bring a fresh Word to me. A Word that would be relevant and challenging and life changing - even though I'm not a Minister's Wife.

Wanna know something? Both happened.

Y'all, it was good. GOOD. But more on the details of it later.

Beth camped out in Galatians for the weekend. She gave 6 examples of how it can be AGGRAVATING to be a Minister's Wife, and how they should have an ALTERNATIVE to combat the aggravation. One example that resonated particularly with me came from Galatians 5:15.

"If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other."

This doesn't JUST apply to Ministers' Wives. It applies to WOMEN as a whole. We want others to recognize us for our intellect and character, not for our possessions and looks, but are the first people to chew someone up over their possessions and looks. How hypocritical are we? We claim to be above the superficial. We talk the good talk. But I guarantee that as quickly as we can say to someone's face that intellect and character are important, we can also go behind their back and criticize their hair and clothing. We are our own worst enemies. And when we bite and bite and bite at each other, soon we will destroy each other.

It has to stop.

So here's your challenge. And it has a little twist in it to help keep the credit belonging to HIM.

Every day this week, you are to go out of your way and do something nice for someone else. It could be as simple as holding a door open or walking someone's grocery cart to the cart corral. It could be as elaborate as putting some cash in an envelope for someone who is particularly financially strapped or sending your pastor and his wife a gift card to a restaurant that would be normally out of their price range.. After you do the nice thing, come back here and let us know what it was.

Here's the twist. You can't tell anyone about it verbally. Not a SOUL. The comments about the good deed must be posted as anonymous. This will keep us from getting the credit. It's not about us. It's about Him. It's about doing what He has commanded us to do and love our neighbors. Posting an anonymous comment will also give someone a good idea about what they can do. Go ahead and copy something that someone else has done.

Feel free to link back to this post on your blog. Let's see how many people we can get to participate in this. Can you imagine the blessings that will come from this?

Now go and let's see what you can do in His name.

Seriously?

I took this picture at an Exxon gas station in Athens, AL yesterday.



The most shocking part to me is that they spelled "receipt" correctly, but not "available."

And is it wrong that as SOON as I saw the sign, I quickly grabbed my camera and thought, "I have GOT to blog about this!"?

All for you, bloggy peeps. I'm here to serve.

Confession Time.

I have a love/hate relationship with my feet.

The "love" part is that they look like my dad's feet and I adore my dad.

The "hate" part is that they look like my dad's feet. Man feet on a girl = not cute.

I don't like to draw attention to my feet. I never EVER polish my toenails. I hate HATE someone touching my feet. I have never gotten a pedicure (much to the astonishment of ...um... every girl I know). My toenails are teeny and don't grow and look ridiculous with polish on them.

Fussing over my feet is just something I wasn't created to do. But it is sad to be a girl in the south and not be able to wear cute YellowBox flip flops proudly.

And I have been sad.

Until last week.

And I can't even believe I'm blogging about this for all humanity to see.

Mary, you will be proud of me.

Here goes.

I got acrylic nails put on my toes and then had a full out pedicure. Yes, it can be done.

Y'all.

I have pretty feet for the first time in my whole entire life! My toenails are pretty and shapely (weird to call toenails shapely?) and painted RED (I haven't had painted toenails for my entire adult life) and look pretty in flip flops! I find myself bumping into things when I walk around because I am looking down to marvel at the prettiness of my feet!

I can't even get believe it.

Now my feet don't look so much like my dad's, but I'll take pretty feet over man feet any day of the week.

Last Saturday was my first "wear flip flops out of the house for people to see" experience when I went to my daughter's softball game. The weather was warm, the sun was shining, and I got a LOVELY flip flop tan.

But I don't even care.

Because I have cute girl feet.

Peace Out, February

I'm not sad that February 09 is over. Between the extreme temperature fluctuations (we still had a trace of SNOW in my bushes Wednesday and my oldest daughter is wearing shorts and a t-shirt to school today, a mere 2 days later), the colds, a death in the family, the stomach viruses, and a back injury, I'm glad it's gone. SEE YA.

No offense to all the February fans out there, but this one has been ANNOYING.

So today I'm declaring that March is my favorite month. Except for this coming Sunday when our clocks will get set forward an hour meaning that my kids will go to bed when it's still daylight outside. And I will lose an hour of sleep. And I tend to frown upon sleep loss. Call me crazy.

My neighbor and I were discussing "daylight savings time" yesterday. It just seems weird that people can manipulate time like that. And it's even more bizarre that some cities & states like Hawaii, parts of Indiana, & Arizona (excluding the Navajo Nation) choose NOT to participate in it. How can you choose NOT to participate in time? Tait and Camille have their "bewitching hour" at about 5:30 every night. Can I just declare that 5:30 doesn't exist anymore?

So here's my question. Since Daylight Savings Time's beginning in the early 1900's, and considering all the observances of it since then, and counting all the people who choose NOT to observe it, WHAT TIME IS IT REALLY? For all you know, it really might be tomorrow.

Whoa.

Think about it.

:)

Well, I Had Good Intentions

I had every intention of writing a post about tonight's Bachelor finale-ish (because tomorrow is the ACTUAL end in what they're calling the After the Final Rose PART 2 - OH THE DRAMA NEVER STOPS!), but I'm too busy laughing at Sophie's post. So go read it. Here.

Some things just can't be improved upon.

Hat's off, Sophie. Well done.

SNOW!

I went out of town this weekend on a beach trip with some friends. We had SUCH a good time.

Wanna know what we did?

Nothing. Nada. We rebuked all schedules and didn't look at the clocks. It was 3 days of unscheduled relaxation. Wonderful. We all had massages on Saturday, which was great, except for Miss Chatty Masseuse that didn't close her mouth for the entire 80 minute massage. It felt great, but wasn't the "so relaxing I could fall asleep" experience I was going for.

Then we decided to come home early because a gigantic winter storm was supposed to hit Alabama and blanket us with 4-8 inches of snow. You know how I feel about a snow forecast in Alabama.

But this time, Mr. Meteorologist was RIGHT!






What a beautiful blessing! Thank you, Lord! We had a ball playing in the snow.

And note to self: buy waterproof gloves for myself and the kids. Our cute, cloth gloves didn't do the trick today.

Have a great Monday!

This Post Is Intended To Make You Jealous.

I the spirit of "It's February and we're tired of the cold and today it's raining which makes it even more gloomy" I thought I'd share with you my weekend plans.

I'm going to the beach, y'all.

Cue: groaning and gnashing of teeth from all my bloggy peeps.

My neighbor, Michelle, has one of those "Husbands Who Hunt." He spends every single weekend from October - February at a quaint little hunting lodge with several other guys who love killing Bambi's mother. They leave on Friday and come home late Saturday night or Sunday. Every. Week.

So due to the blessed event called "Hunting Season is Over" she has invited a few friends down to their beach house for some much needed (and deserved) girl time.

So our men are holding down the fort at home while we head to the beach for 3 glorious days.

And let me add. There will be a Spa day involved. There will also be plenty of chocolate and girly movie watching and I'm sure some partaking of some fine Chardonnay. We are also very close to a FAB outlet mall. Can I get an Amen?

The hunting? I don't get it.

Girls weekend at the beach? I SO get it.