add this one to your reader....

I recently entered a giveaway on a design blog. The question you had to answer under 'comments' was: Who is your fashion guru. Most people wrote fancy names of people who live in fancy places. I wrote down the fancy name, Kristin Jagodzinske who lives in the fancy land of Seattle.

Kristin is my cousin Daron's wife and I'm pretty sure I've referenced her blog here a couple times. She married into my extended family when I was an impressionable 6th grader and I've always thought she's wonderful. And she just announced big news. She is now a writer for HotMama, a boutique that sells fabulous clothes to fabulous mamas.

There are a few different Mamas who blog for this site, but Kristin just started her gig as ADOPTIONmama. She will be writing the details of adopting two siblings from Ghana, how the first year has gone, what the waiting period was like (they waited a long, long time...) and how she parents five kids between the ages of 4 and 10.

She's a fun writer to read, shares her life with honesty and I, for one, can't wait to hear more of the details of how she has processed the last two years. Be sure to keep tabs on her at ADOPTIONmama.

how you run a retreat...

Friday at 5:00 I got a text from my neighbor asking if I wanted to go with her on her church's women's retreat. I texted back for more details, and she said, leaving at 5:45, home tomorrow by 11 am.

I sat there, knowing I should go, but not feeling game for such a last minute social event with 30 women I've never met. I have to fire up for that sort of thing and being that it was the end of the week I was able to come up with every excuse in the world why I didn't need to go.

But I knew I should go. Rory and I have joined her small group, a blessing to us in every way as we are finding friendships in five other couples in Gretna our age. And a few of those girls would be there. So, I decided to go. I got home from work at 5:25, showered, packed and was in her car within 20 minutes.

I can't tell you how glad I am that I went. I laughed so hard. I ate so much. I felt connected, grateful and excited for the beginnings of some brand new friendships.

Here are a few key components that made this retreat such a success:

1. 6 pm to 10 am. This is how long the retreat lasted. Sixteen hours. Take note of this. If this had been any longer, I probably would have declined. But to be home before lunch on Saturday left me no excuse not to go. And this seemed true for most people there. They talked about how husband's were more game for taking the kids for that amount of time and everyone still felt like they had their weekend. Being that we stayed up until the wee, wee hours, by the time 10 am came, we were all feeling that sugar-overload-fatigue-I-need-a-nap-sicky-feeling so it was just time to go home anyway. Perfect timing.

2. Olive Garden Salad Dressing. We met at the church, drove to a camp 30 minutes away and when we walked in we were greeted with three homemade soups, good bread and a huge salad complete with olive garden salad dressing. The retreat planners had brought all of the food to save money and it was fabulous. I was so shocked not to be served spaghetti! Soup and Salad felt so type-casted and labeled...like they know my kind. My female kind. It was welcoming and I was grateful for a healthy meal complete with the best salad dressing in the world.

3. Games. We played games as a team of six, rotating around the room playing other groups of six for two hours. We played each game long enough (probably 30 minutes) so that we got to know the other team well. By the end of the two hours (taboo, family fued and guestures), I had met everyone. Genious. By nine o'clock I didn't feel like the new girl anymore. Plus, I found a new favorite game: The Game of Things. Kristin Jago, this game has your name written all over it.
We had 16-65 year olds there, a great devotional before we left, time for prayer, but mostly just time to play. And it felt so good.

beth moore

t minus 20 days until...

...THE 2010 OLYMPIC OPENING CEREMONIES!!!

I love everything about the Olympics. When I was in first grade, the Winter Ceremonies were in Calgary. I remember my sweet teacher, Mrs. Eves, had a different art project every day of the two weeks for us to do...a paper torch, tissue paper olympic rings, ice skates with tinfoil blades, medals covered in glitter....oh, I loved Mrs. Eves!

And most recently, the 2008 Summer Olympics are filled with nothing but sweet memories. I was at Mount Carmel that summer and the last day of summer camp was the very day of Opening Ceremonies. It had been a big, social summer, and I was exhausted. Some great friends of ours welcomed Rory and I to use their cabin across the lake anytime we wanted. So almost every night of the Olympics, Rory and I would pack a bag of snack food, head to this lovely, private cabin and watch the entire evening lineup. It was like we compensated for the 10 weeks of solid people with two weeks of living like hermits.

So get ready people. We've got some good figure skating, bob sledding and ski jumping ahead of us!

gracious last words

I listened to the memorial service for Ben Larson online today. There were many stories told of a life lived fully and well. They said that when the building collapsed, Renee and Ben's cousin were on the other side of a theatre room from Ben on the forth floor. They were able to kick a wall out to escape, and then could hear Ben singing hymns for a while with his final words spoken, "God's peace to us, we pray."

I found an article that gives more details from his Uncle. It's just hard to comprehend. This one story has me so heartbroken, and unable to fathom that this is just one of over 100,000 stories of lives lost in that earthquake.