Company Girl Shout Out! 4/6/2010

Olá!, minhas irmãs da menina da companhia!Como é você todo? Won' t você junta-se me para algum chá? (Hello my Company Girl Sisters! How are you all? Won't you join me for some tea?) Check me with the Portugese!  I am learning....oh so slowly, but enjoying the process! 

How are you girls these days? Life is going well for me! Have a seat and some CHOCOLATE quinoa breakfast brownies...oh man, these puppies are even better than the regular quinoa breakfast brownies (of course they are...they have more chocolate!) I missed last week so let me catch you up!

First of all, I want to say thank you to you girls for all your prayers. I was really struggling to put my breakout session together (talk about reinventing the wheel, ladies...it was a tough one for me) and struggled with a great deal of self-doubt and spiritual warfare last week. Your prayers were needed and felt so dearly at the crucial moment....thank you.  

As for the keynote and breakout I presented at the Jonesboro Young Professionals Network Leadership Conference, I thought they went well. I got great feedback, and met some outstanding people. I was blown away by the welcome I got, and just can't say enough good things about the group! I made new friends, and found new sisters and simply fell in love with the group.

Came home to choir practice in preparation for our Resurrection Sunday Presentation. I had a solo in the presentation, and simply did not feel prepared for it. Sunday went really well, though. We had record numbers in attendance and the presentation itself went nicely.  I think God was blessed by it...but you wanna know the coolest part? We had EIGHT baptisms! ON RESURRECTION SUNDAY! Oh man, it was awesome to join in celebration of the new life Christ gives us! 

This week has been a week of much needed rest. Taking my friend Mary Ann's advice, I scheduled myself off this week. Each morning during my prayer time, I have been asking for God to give me his priorities, his to do list for my day....WOW! It's been an amazing week of seeing how God is so present....ESPECIALLY in the little things. I won't share all the details with you because well...there are so many small ones...but suffice it to say I have been greatly blessed, refreshed and in awe of all that he does for us. I did get to work in my garden this week and God showed me this. It was an amazing day of reflection for me. And I am so grateful to my friends for reminding me that this time of rest is needed, and to my God who so graciously refreshes my weary soul and heart.

In homefront news, Xanman started baseball this week.  We will see how this all plays out, but for now, he is waking his father at 6 am to throw the ball.  Yep, that's right...the sun isn't even up yet.  I love it....love seeing his heart come alive with the joy of learning a new skill...it's been great to watch.  LizzieLou is doing quite well with her Vision Therapy and got a great report from her progress exam last week. We are definitely seeing big leaps in her reading levels. 

I am half way to my goal of $3500 for the International Life and Leadership Camp and have sold over 50 books! YAY! If you would like to donate, or to buy a book...just click on the paypal buttons in the sidebar! I would really appreciate your help!

So that's my life this past couple of weeks....what about yours? How is all going with you?

Company Girl Coffee 1/1/2010

Quinoa Breakfast Cake

Karina's Kitchen

Happy New Year! 2010 is so gonna rock!

My Company Girl pals, and all my other pals for that matter...THANK YOU! Thank you for encouraging me and supporting me and providing a nice swift kick in the pants every now and then, too. I am so excited about the new year I can hardly wait to get started.

But let me catch you up since my last post. I am cleaning out the cupboards today, so I have a wonderful assortment of hot teas, some vegan hot chocolate, some yummy vegan/gluten free rice crispie treats, and a little left over vegan/gluten free chocolate cake to share with you. Sorry no scones today, but stop back by cause I am making some Quinoa breakfast brownies (from Karina's Kitchen- www.glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com- yummmmm!) a little later. So snuggle in cause I have a roller coaster ride for you today!

My last post was on the day after my birthday which was wonderful! From there our Christmas season started to roll a little downhill.

On Dec 17, someone broke into our house and stole a bunch of stuff. Nothing of terrible importance- our gaming systems (ok, my son might argue those are important)-our Wii, PS2 and GameCube, our cameras- including several rolls of film we hadn't developed yet and pics not yet downloaded from Thanksgiving, and...wait for it...our VACUUM CLEANER! Yep, robbers stole my vacuum cleaner! I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating that is...but I think that of all people, you guys would understand the frustration. Through the past couple of weeks, we have discovered other sundry items missing, but again, nothing irreplaceable. What is irreplaceable is the sense of security we had. Helen Keller said, "Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature." And I know that so well...I teach personal security and self defense to women....but I am frankly angry that someone has crushed the perception of security that I have worked hard to create for my children. Anyway, this is a whole other blog post, which I will have up next week...needless to say, it was food for thought.

December 20, my family finally succumbed to the stomach virus that had been making the rounds at school. First my son, then two days later my daughter, then the next day, me...which left my poor husband for Christmas...My dear hubby spent his Christmas holiday absolutely miserable in hotel room, while we spent time with our family in central Arkansas. Unfortunately, we opted not to get separate rooms, so I got to re-experience the stomach virus the weekend after Christmas. I pray that we are all finished passing it around and that no germs survived the onslaught of Lysol and hot water that I followed my second bout with.

So that brings us to today. I have the high hopes of cleaning out my kitchen (fridge and pantry) today to start the New Year off right. As this is the first day that I am feeling human since my second battle with yucky germs, this is probably ambitious, but we will give her a go! Please excuse the mess in the kitchen...but you are welcome to help out if you would like!

As for the coming year, it is my intention (notice this is not a resolution), that I give 12 Strings Attached presentations this year....so if you know of a women's group who could use some real bonding time...get in touch with me! The site is up and filling out- my calendar will be up soon- I was shocked at how full it already is! Check it out at: www.stringsattachedministries.com . My testimony as well as what people have to say about the retreat itself are up now, and I have an email devotional you can sign up for about living life with strings attached. I super excited about all of the developments.

I have many other projects in the works, but one of the most pressing is a talk I am giving to a local mom's group about stepping away from Superwoman cape and living our lives without that expectation. I would love to know what your idea of "Supermom" is. Is it a good image? Is it an attainable one? Please feel free to comment with ideas!

Well that's all for now...I am off to put on my black eyed peas for lunch and start cleaning out my (ick) fridge! I look forward to hearing from you...oh...and check out the rest of the coffee girls over at home sanctuary and share a cup of coffee (or tea) with them!