Looky Here….

Two blogs in a row.  Remarkable, I know.

Wee morning hour reading is brought on by…

My lack of tiredness and inability to get shut eye.

The snoring giant yonder lies…

I climb out of bed with heartfelt sighs.

Not because of the noise am I still awake.

Too many thoughts in this brain to take.

There’s a sleeping bag zipper to be repaired,

Highlights needed to not be gray haired.

Pounds to be lost, and scriptures studied.

Meals to be thought up from a mind too muddied.

Stories in my soul crying out to be written.

Waiting hands, orphans and hearts to be smitten.

The darkness prevents watercolor escape.

Gresham ended tonight closing the drape.

Not often is my night’s journey cut short.

Even lesser is poetry used for sport.

Prayers for all my readers near and afar.

May God bless you and free you from this memoir.

The World just got a little Smaller

For the first time since we have been home from Colombia (15 months ago) we Skyped with our Colombian friends who live across the street from the house we rented.  Oh, we miss them.  Oh, we miss Cali.  Oh, we need to go SOON!  They asked when we are coming to visit.  The plan in the back of our heads is when Nora is older… but how older?  I don’t know.  I told our friends maybe when she is 12.  That’s four years out…. that seems so long not to visit with them and hug their necks.  It was so heartwarming to see their smiling faces and hear their rapid Spanish…. that I can hardly understand!  And of course it was on a night when I looked THE WORST! I had a massage earlier and my hair was greasy… no make-up.  But I’ve never smiled so big!  Nora came and said hello to them and asked why they weren’t speaking English.  In her logical little mind she speaks English… and she used to be able to understand them… so they MUST speak English!  Oh boy.  We need to get her back into speaking Spanish before we travel.  Skype made the world just a little smaller this week!  Thank you, Skype. 

WordPress, who posts this awesome blog you are reading, recently started a new feature that shows where your readers are on a map of the world.  This expanded my view of this humble blog and made the world just a little bit smaller in my mind.  Last week there were readers on MSJ from 54 different countries!  I couldn’t believe it either.  This brought even more questions to my mind…. do they read the English language?  Did they stumble on MSJ because of pictures that have been posted?  Are they all service men whose US wives tell them to read MSJ?  Do they come back and read again?  Are they copying down my insightful ideas and spreading the love in their own country? And where in the world are Myanmar, Anguilla and Seychelles?  So as the world shrinks and we begin to sing a round of We are the World, I wanted to extend my international WELCOME to the many faces who come here!  I am honored and humbled (and stunned, quite frankly!) 

300,000 TODAY!

Yes, in the next hour or so, the hits on this humble blog, My Sister’s Jar, will surpass 300,000.  The number is astounding to me.  Let me give you some back history… several years ago (I just tried to figure out what year it was, but I’m 45 and can’t remember things like that… sigh) I attended a writer’s conference in New Mexico where there were several seminars one could take in.  I perused the list and chose several… the ones I recollect include: contract negotiations, writing the perfect proposal, selling your wares to publishers, adding humor to your writing and narrowing down your pitch to elevator length.  Distinctly I remember reading one particular description that caused me to guffaw and roll my eyes.  Ready?  It was simply titled “Blogging”.  My thoughts at that time included, but were not limited to the following: Who would spend all that time writing for invisible people?  Who would read some random person’s ramblings? How do people even find “online journals” to read? And WHY would anybody care what a stranger is writing? What is the purpose of blogging? And so on. And so on.  That was during my PBL (pre-blog life).

Upon my arrival home from the conference, my husband and I met with a couple whose lives are engrossed with computers and programming and podcasts and tweeting and a whole bunch of other techy stuff I do not understand.  BUT, he explained blogging to me… and I didn’t stick in one little toe to test the water… I did a cannonball into the deep end of the internet writing swimming hole. 

Those questions I asked myself earlier about blogging have not all been answered.  I still do not understand exactly where 797 people come from in a single day who read my blog.  It is inspiring to me, and quite humbling, to be frank.  I often ask my husband, “Who are these people?” When someone comments, I get a little hint as to who they are… where they are from… how they stumbled upon My Sister’s Jar.  But those are precious and few.

My prayer is that people will be inspired by stopping here to live life to the fullest and possibly take a jump into some of my favorite topics: family, marriage, laughter, writing, adoption, homeschooling, being a Christ follower, raising boys, sewing, traveling, gardening, losing weight, traditions, America the Beautiful, saving money, and being a mom.

I’ll wrap up this bit of blogging hysteria with a meek and awe inspired THANK YOU, to my dear readers who keep coming back to read.  It’s for YOU, invisible friend, that I keep rambling on (and it is cheaper than therapy for me!)  XOXO