I have been running full steam ahead since last weekend! But it was a good week.

I went to Kent & Cindy's home group on Tuesday night and they are planning to do a Kay Arthur 40 minute study for a few weeks. I think I'll join them - I missed seeing them on a weekly basis and boy, did we laugh ourselves silly on Tuesday night. It was a lot of fun.

Wednesday was youth and we got together with another group we hope to do some activities with in the future. It was interesting...and in some ways it really made me appreciate our kids! But I'm looking forward to getting together with them again and trying some new things. They have a full time youth pastor, so there are definitely some benefits there - and hopefully, they'll be blessed by us, too!

Thursday, I started a Beth Moore study at another church. I'm really excited about it. I was interested in Beth Moore's Daniel study when I read Pezmama's blog about starting it recently at her church. Our church is still relatively small and we don't offer a women's Bible study in the evening so I started searching high and low for Daniel locally. I am not sure how I even came to the site of the church that was offering it (well, OF COURSE, I DO know...nothing is by accident in this life!) and I was so excited. I emailed them and the pastor emailed me back within two hours and said someone would contact me the next day. They called me at 8:30! But I was disappointed to learn that Daniel was only being offered for the daytime ladies group. But Beth's study, Living Beyond Yourself, about the fruit of the spirit was being offered in the evening. After a momentary fuss, I decided to sign up for that as well. I talked to my mom about it, including the part about not knowing how I even came to find this church's website...and she told me that my Grammy had gone there years ago! Anyway, I went on Thursday night and really enjoyed it. I think the study will be great and the women were very welcoming and kind.

Friday it was off to Women of Faith with a few of the gals. It was a great night. Avalon & Nicole C. Mullen played - I absolutely love her! Sandi Patty also sang and totally blew us away. What a wonderful voice! And I just love the Women of Faith ladies. Patsy Clairmont gets me giggling every time and Sheila Walsh just touches my heart. It is simply a miracle that they have made it through all they have been through and through the grace of God alone are able to travel all over the country and minister to women.

Saturday brought us back down for the conclusion of the conference. Robin McGraw was there and her testimony was great. She spoke about how we, as women, put everyone's needs before our own and how that will ultimately hurt our loved ones more than help them. Her talk was really very convicting to me. I'm looking forward to reading her new book. At the end, Dr. Phil came out to walk her off the stage - the whole stadium went WILD. It was mayhem! He spoke about how important their faith is and always has been and how they understand that their platform is an excellent opportunity to share that. They just taped a show with the Women of Faith ladies and it will air on October 3rd!!!

Last night we got together with our preteen class to make bags & purses. I can't sew to save my life...almost flunked Home Ec - seriously! But I had nice fabric and Kym was kind enough to guide me and sew it all up. Now I have a nice tote for all my church stuff. And the girls made some really cute purses and bags. I was VERY impressed!

Today I taught a lesson about birthdays. I searched all over but couldn't find one so I wrote my own. The children were very responsive and interested. We talked a lot about how much God loves us and how he has known us always. I talked to them about how important they are to God and how he made them all different and gave them different interests and gifts. And then I told them that instead of celebrating a birthday each week or month as they came along, we would choose one day a year and celebrate all our birthdays together! They loved it. We sang "happy birthday to ME" and had cake and just had a great time. It was a really nice day.

I was feeling under the weather when I came home so I ate quickly and laid down for while. Now I am doing my normal Sunday evening scramble. : )