I’ve been having one of those weeks.

It’s one of those weeks when words pile up on each other, and thoughts collide with thoughts.

It’s one of those weeks when it seems like there is so much to write about, and yet at the same time there isn’t anything to say.

It’s one of those weeks when I want to write, but everything is scrambled. I spend more time deleting what I wrote than actually writing it.

I don’t know what you’d call it. It isn’t so much writer’s block as writer’s overload. It makes my head spin and honestly, I get to feeling a little overrun with thinking on days like this.

There are only two things that ever help me get out of these major word jams: read a tried and true old book and take some time to walk it off, to feel the sunshine and to smell the roses, or in my case, the new daffodil blossoms!

Maybe it is strange that when I find myself feeling rather like a blank page and when I have no words at all, I turn to those same two things to pull my thoughts back again.

I guess it is my writer’s remedy that makes everything okay again. Perhaps because in a good book, I am challenged. When I wander out under trees and in quiet places, I feel closest to God, and the distractions of life and home and job fade away and I can listen and be still like no other place.

I doubt I’m the only one who suffers this opposite-of-writer’s block sort of thing.

so…What about you?

When you get overrun with too many words all at the same time, what do you do to put them back into their places?

“Hope is the power that gives us the power to step out and try.”

joining in hopescribbles 52 weeks of hope.

I have returned. I think?

I can’t believe how long it has been since I really wrote anything here. It is these unexpected silences that make me realize how much I do love to write. I am hoping that this post is the end of such extensive silence and the beginning of writing again. It feels like it is time.

I have so much I want to write about, and I’m looking forward to getting back in touch, to sharing and being alive in blogosphere once more.

Here’s some of what I hope will find its way into the pages of this blog sooner than later:

- Our epic 1/10th of a mile move.

- YLCF’s month of posts on passion and purpose. (There will be giveaways, so you don’t want to miss out!)

- Reading Challenge Checkpoints for September and October. (Um, yes. I am that behind.)

- Two book reports.

- Part two (and more) of our love story

- An Upcoming Month of Gratitude and Thanksgiving!

- Winter Menus and packing lunches

And dozens of quotes that I have been saving that are too good to not share.

I also cannot believe that it is October, and that it is fall. It definitely feels the part here. While I’m working on these posts, talk to me and tell me what your fall is like in your corner of the world and what you love most about when days begin to turn cool again.

Helen Keller said, “Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

I think she was right.

Whatever the case, in the middle of new seasons and beginnings, my computer cord has bit the dust, leaving me sort of high and dry on all the plans I had, the jobs I was working on and my drafts and pictures. Thus, once again reality shows that it has a mind of its own when it comes to following the plan.

When my cheap-mock of a power cord arrives sometime in the next week or so, we’ll see what time remains and will be back on the blogging block with updates again. In the mean time, I’m still covered with threads, have a lot to think about, and am enjoying some extra time with our niece lately. (She is growing up so fast!)0000000000000000000000000100000000000000000000000000000

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( I wrote the above yesterday, and came back this morning to discover that apparently Shayla wanted her say in that paragraph. As you can see, she is already getting good at getting on the computer and modifying my blog posts, at least with lots of lovely numbers. She may be a great writer and blogger one day!)

More soon, friends.

+ We had a wonderful long weekend. It was filled with good food (including THE best pizza ever!), lots of time to just relax and read, finding and catching the tiniest frogs I’ve ever seen, wading in the creek, playing with my niece, going on a picnic with the family, watching fireworks and eating cotton candy (for the second time in my life…but first time for Scott and my sisters in law. I now remember why I haven’t eaten it since I was 6), making homemade ice cream for everyone on a whim, and watching a rainstorm and doing our nails instead of swimming like we’d planned. It was full, and I’m still recovering from all the good times. I am now also in the middle of piecing one of three quilts and am covered in thread but enjoying it.

+ All the fun times have kept me busy, and housework has demanded that it be ignored no longer. However a broken computer cord is the main thing that has made my well planned to-write list for this week look pathetic: there’s not a single thing crossed off of it yet! I doubt it would be possible, or wise to dump a week’s worth of posts into the blogosphere in just a few days, but here’s what is coming up in the near future!

- Reading Challenge: July Checkpoint.

- A new recipe for summer time

- Share Your Beautiful Life (with Reflections of A Princess)

- A Love Story (Part 2)

+ Since my post updating you on Sponsors, I have two new buttons on my sidebar! Check them out, and watch for a feature post sometime in the next couple of weeks talking about them and some of the other wonderful places and people you’ll find linked up there. If you are interested in being featured there too, check out my technicalities page or drop me a note.

And now I’ll get back to cutting squares and snipping threads while I listen to the music of the raindrops outside my open windows, but how have you all been?

There’s nothing like a small web-based catastrophe to kick you back into gear and get your mind back onto the technical side of blogging and web design. Last week, a site I designed was hacked and malicious code inserted into various places, and I am no hacker, so fixing it took a lot of time, prayer and deep breaths.

In between all of that, I spent some time working on other things, such as updating my technicalities page and thinking about ways to improve what the kind people who have agreed to buy adspace from me get back in turn for their money while still keeping this blog focused on what I believe that I am really called to do—just write and leave the results up to God.

I don’t believe in spamming my site with ads. Ads was something I hesitated and prayed over for a few years before giving it a try in an attempt to find ways to help make ends meet for us right now. I don’t want this site to be about ads or making money, but I do believe that networking is a great tool to help each other out, While I don’t have the talents to earn a living with things I’ve created, I know many of you are talented like that, and I can share my sidebar with people who do and together we can help to make ends meet. In the future, however, I’m thinking of doing an occasional post highlighting my sponsors, and sharing some of the good things they are doing or sharing, too. However, I’d like some feedback on this—making money is not the first or real reason why I write, anyways.

I’m careful about the buttons I put in my sidebar, and I’m proud to promote these people, and I think that if you haven’t already done so, you should take some time to click over and browse a little. And if you are looking for ad space and would like to see your button in the side bar, or know someone who is, please do contact me. I want this to be something that benefits all of us, and to be a blessing and not a distraction.

So that’s my technicalities post of the year. I’m looking forward to sharing the first part of our courtship story later this week, and sharing a beautiful moment with you as part of Project:52 little moments with you as well. So stay tuned…

WordPress came out with a great new update a few weeks ago, and I’d been planning to get everything ready to do the upgrade this weekend.

Until I logged in yesterday and instead of my dashboard an upgrade screen popped up, similar to what I get when I first create the blog and database.

Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting or planning, and so I clicked to finish and held my breath, hoping that since I had no idea how it had started upgrading or what had or hadn’t been done, that there wouldn’t be too many bugs.

I was mostly concerned about my customizations and the time it’d take to re-do it all, but a quick refresh showed nothing amiss externally and I breathed a sigh of relief.

But.

There are still bugs. Not big bugs, but little ones that are just annoying enough to make writing posts like, say, the March Checkpoint for our Reading Challenge, kind of difficult since I can’t use my would-have-been-even-nicer link button and am finding it sort of slow writing the html by hand each time. I also can’t add tags properly, upload images, or a couple other little things. So yes, we’ve got bugs.

And my limited understanding of the many bones of wordpress is failing me now. Other than re-installing the upgrade several times, and going over settings and scratching my head, I’m not sure what else to do but start searching the web for some tech support.

Until then, and hopefully it won’t be long, all progress on the March Checkpoint has come to a standstill for a time.

And this update is written while I am still shaking my head wondering whatever set the upgrade off and thinking that if Mr. Murphy was real as real, he must be having some sort of a hay day with my code right now.

And if you have the mental image that that idea just gave me, then you would know why I’m laughing now.

So…until bugs are banished, I’ll be buried over here trying to exterminate them.