I have a confession to make.
I’m the worst person for you to email.
Seriously.
The worst.
Yet I’m the first person to jot my name down and join that email list.
I have no issue giving my email address out to anyone.
I have yet to receive an email from “The children’s place” regarding a recent purchase so I’m not sure why they need my email address in the first place.
Don’t hate me. Continue reading
Book Nook Bookshop in Newburgh, Indiana.View original post 570 more words
How is it possible that I can emerge myself in His word, Write notes on three different chapters.
Highlight and underline what stood out to me.
Sometimes double underline.
Scribble notes in the margin.
Then turn around and forget I was ever in the book?
Seriously.
I just don’t get it .
I’m an avid reader.
I can pick up a book.
Any book.
I can read it cover to cover a dozens of times over and like a conversation a string of “what happens” next will flood my memory.
So much so I can flip past sections because that particular part bothered me or bored me. Continue reading
Have you ever noticed that sometimes the easiest lessons to learn can also be the simplest to forget?
You mess up.
fall down.
Pick yourself up and dust yourself off.
Make the same mistake over and over.
Why do we do that?
Could it be because we are so caught up in what we want that we completely ignore what’s best for us?
Sometimes it’s as simple as not being happy with what we already have that spurs on the changes. Continue reading
There’s a saying in our parts.
If you don’t like the weather wait 5 minutes.
It will change.
Spring time in Alberta is a fickle creature.
One minute the warm sun is shining and the next it’s over cast and snowing.
In the course of a week we can go from -30 with the wind chill to +14.
I wish I was kidding.
If you were to take a peak in my front closet You would find our winter boots lined up next to our sneakers.
Spring jackets hung up in between parka. It’s seriously that ridiculous. Continue reading
Do you remember the first time you saw a computer?
I mean a real one, not the cool lego one pictured above.
Do you remember? Or have they just always been there?
What was your initial reaction?
I’m pretty sure I just dated myself a little but bear with me a minute.
It was 1987. Continue reading
I didn’t grow up in church.
I spent most of my Sunday mornings growing up with a bowl full of sugary cereal glued to the tv watching cartoons.
Easter had always been about the chocolate bunnies, the brightly coloured eggs and getting a new dress to proudly wear to church on Easter Sunday. ( we were Christmas and Easter Christians but that’s a story for another time.)
I’ve changed a lot since Those days long ago. (still like a bowl of captain crunch though…shh! Don’t tell!) Continue reading
over year ago I wrote a post titled Why do I tuck my iPhone In at night In it I muddled my way through trying to figure out what exactly the attraction was between myself and technology.
A year later I am still tethered and asking the same question.
I would like to think I’ve made small changes and it’s not as bad as it was but some days I’m not so sure.
Still, the downside is I always feel connected. A false sense of connection really.
I check my email throughout the day so it’s surprising to me just how easily I get sucked back into “one more email” then I’ll turn off the iphone and go to bed mentality.
Technology – it’s a blessing and a curse, right? I’ve tried to take a digital sabbatical of sorts and for the most part I have failed.
Miserably. Something always happens and I catch myself grabbing my phone to look something up for someone or see if there has been a break in the news story I am wrapped up in.
This weekend I’m going to try again.
I am taking a mini vacation.
I would love to take Two whole days off and get some freedom, but I need to decide if I want to totally unplug. If I turn off the iPhone, I will surely be welcomed back to reality on Monday with hundreds of emails. If I keep it on, however, my mind will likely not get the total escape it needs.
I’ve decided that email and junk mail have this one thing in common.
They are both time sucking demons!
My body needed a break from the daily grind, and I know my mind needs it too.
Thus, I need to hide the tech for the weekend.
I just might need to hide my phone in my purse!
This weekend I’m going to spend more time looking up at the stars and less time looking down at a screen.
I deserve the break and you do too!
Do you find it hard to break away from the technology on vacation?
Does your work expect you to stay plugged in?
“When God closes one door he opens another”
what happens when you find yourself waiting in the hallway?
One door closed and the other yet to be opened?
What then?
Well….you take one step at a time and put your trust in him.
That’s what.
So simple yet something that has taken months to finally sink in.
we have found ourselves in a “growing season in our walk” . God is stretching our faith and tested us in areas we didn’t even realize needing tending.
It’s almost like a “reset”‘or a “‘do over” but what started out as unintentional has switched to completely intentional on our part and here we are “in the hallway” patiently waiting for God to intervene on our behalf.
It wasn’t always like this.
We lived our lives in the comfort behind “one door” and now we are moving towards another.
We weren’t living the life that he had designed or wanted for us. But with closed off ears which sadly, we never even noticed.
From June until the end of November 2013 our family learned first hand what it was like to have daddy work out-of-town.
At first it looked like an amazing blessing.
A change in careers, change in site and a raise.
His shift was 10 & 4 so he worked 12 hour shifts for 10 days straight and was home for 4.
Really if you count travel time he was really home for 2 days.
Off early his last day of work he would drive 4 1/2 hours home one way.
When the weather changed and the roads started to get bad he would take an overcrowded bus home which wouldn’t get him into the city until after 11:00pm.
When he was home we would do our best to squeeze in 10 days of family time into 2 but it was hard.
We hardly went to church and it felt like all we were really doing was preparing him for another 10 days out-of-town.
I would pretended that it was like a normal 9-5 job but nighttime was an entirely different entity.
The kids missed their dad and I missed having my best friend lying in the bed beside me.
The youngest took to sleeping in my room night after night “because mommy was afraid of the dark”.
I found her snoring strangely soothing.
Summer came and went while we both worked and tried to get as much family time in as we could.
Summer quickly disappeared into fall leaving us both feeling exhausted and disconnected.
I have many girlfriends and this is how they spend their married lives.
Some fair well, others not so much.
I’m still confused why anyone would intentionally sign up for a part time marriage plus being a single mom the other part of the time.
The money is extremely good but it’s not the life we pictured having.
For ourselves or for our kids.
By the middle of September we had planned a week-long family vacation to sunny California where we were going to go to Disneyland, play at the beach and enjoy the sunshine.
A chance to reconnect, to laugh and to play.
The day before we left his job ended which throws an entirely different curve ball when you are about to embark on a vacation.
He was home for good this time.
Normally when you’re working with big oil the site shuts down for Christmas so we had already planned that he would start the courses needed for him to become an NCSO safety officers.
With a little shuffling he was able to finish the course just after the new year.
We are morphing into the family we believe God designed for us to be.
More connected to each other and to him.
To follow after him one step at a time, trusting him for our needs every day.
To be authentic in our faith walk so that people will know that we are followers of Jesus and “not a fan”.
And we want to show our kids too.
We have added a nightly meal time devotional which felt weird at first but it’s getting easier.
Because the middle two kids can read we get them to help and they seem to genuinely enjoy the conversation.
I enjoy hearing their answers and am not missing any tales of Lego characters or who got a “yellow” at school.
We just added a weekly board game night which if you know my hubby at all this is almost close to pulling out teeth.
Perhaps he doesn’t appreciate my mad skills playing candy-land?
Whatever the case the kids love it.
I would have to say that real change started after my hubby and I attended a bible study at church called “not a fan “ by Kyle idleman
This is the first study in a long time that crawled under our skin and kick started our faith into a place neither one of us had been in a long time.
Our quiet time with God has increased and we are becoming more aware of changes that we need to make to draw into a deeper and closer relationship with him.
We are tithers even when it was sporadic but we never gave it a second thought if we were putting the money where he wanted us to.
We just put it our envelope in the plate and pass it to the next person sitting in the pew beside us.
But when your intentional about listening to God and putting the money where he wants it to go change happen. Even if you can’t see it at first.
We are stepping out in faith in areas of our lives that has surprised a few of our closest friends but that’s ok.
It surprised me too.
Trusting isn’t always easy but that’s something he’s working the kinks out of too.
We have changed our prayers and are believing God for an amazing work opportunity here in the city.
We are believing he will be able to stay home.
No more traveling for work.
And we took it a step further.
One of my husbands dreams has been to open his own company so we took a leap of faith and opened one believing he will get hired on as a private contractor and his business will be off and running.
We have had a lot of encouragement along the way but there have been those who believe they are a “voice of reason” and have been more discouraging than encouraging.
Who’s to say where this will end up. Where we will be at the end of this year? Or even a year from now?
That’s the funny part when you’re a follower. We are going to say things and do things that will seem foolish.
We are going to believe things that are controversial and against what the world says.
I have already lost friends over comments that made on Facebook because my views and opinions are different from theirs. I’m okay with that.
We will follow where He leads even if the door isn’t quite open yet.
For now we wait in the hallway.
Enjoying Him and each other.
Exactly where I am supposed to be.
hack·er
ˈhakər/
noun
1.
a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data.
synonyms: cybercriminal, pirate, computer criminal, keylogger, keystroke logger; More
informal
an enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user.
2.
a person or thing that hacks or cuts roughly.
Have you ever noticed how the media glamorize the shenanigans hackers?
Most good TV shows and movies will have at least one character who specializes in computer hacking.
Can’t track the bad guy?
she can!
need to know what they’re planning on doing next?
He already knows and is sending the location out to you now.
But what about in real life?
I’m not just speaking for myself here but I’m not ashamed to admit that I have cheered when I have learned that a group of hackers has taken down an evil corporation revealing a closet full of ugly skeletons.
I’m not saying that their methods are something that I approve of but let’s be honest, they get the job done.
But when a hacker goes after one of “my own” I’m left scratching my head more confused.
What’s the reasoning behind it?
What could be gained by taking out a mommy blogger?
How threatening were her adorable valentine crafts? Or her recipes?
Or her tutorial for making liquid chalk?
Am I the only one left confused?
For the last few days I have been glued to my iPhone reading post after post as one of my fellow mommy bloggers struggles to regain control of her sites.
First her entire website was “mirrored” by a Hacker whose sole purpose was to siphon traffic away from her blog to theirs.
Then she discovered that several of her posts including her pictures were stolen by another mommy bloggers who shamelessly claimed the content “to be her own” and when asked to remove the content kicked up a fit.
Umm no, plucking it off Pinterest doesn’t make it your own.
Then my fellow mommy blogger lost everything.
All her posts and pictures to a hacker who brazenly flaunts his “victories” over Facebook.
Seriously, he lists each of his hacks and displays them like cheap awards.
no matter how many people reported his page “it doesn’t violate any of Facebook’s terms” so they won’t remove it.
Confusing right?
Show a picture of a momma nursing her baby and they will punt you faster than you can say “pacifier” but slap a country name in front of the word “hacker” and they turn a blind eye.
Watching her go through all of this has really opened my eyes.
It’s shown me once again that there is an ugly side to blogging. A side no one really wants to talk about.
It had bothered me so much that I have spent the last couple of days re-evaluating why I’m crazy enough to even want to blog in the first place.
I wish I was sitting next to you sharing a cup of coffee.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s so much easier to share your heart when your face to face?
Life happens face to face.
Not screen to screen.
So let’s pretend we’re sitting in a coffee shop chatting.
I hope that you know that I am being transparent &real.
That the words you see on the pages show you my heart.
Even when they seem random.
I want you to catch a glimpse of who I am.
What interests me. What I’m worried about or brings me to smile.
I write this blog to share tid bits of my life.
I love cooking.
LOVE it.
But I’m not a foodie blog.
I love crafting.
LOVE it but I’m not a DIY craft blog.
I love reading other blogs.
And leaving comments on their posts.
But,if it’s something that not true to what I believe I am not going to tell you how great a post it is.
I hope my readers feel the same when they comment on my posts.
I love entering draws and winning stuff.
But,I’m only going to support giveaways for products I would use or want for myself.
I’m still going to stick with what feels truer to who I am.
I’m not a journalist.
I will misspell words, make grammatical errors and litter a post with slang.
I type the way I speak.
I want my posts to capture real memories.
Adventures with four is my sharing place.
My venting place.
My “be” who I am place.
My live life and share life place.
In 20 years it won’t matter how many recipes I shared or giveaways I blogged about.
What will matter most is capturing snapshots of my babies as they grow up.
One day at a time.
Are willing to walk with me one day at a time?
Now having said that I started to think.
What if I was the one who was hacked?
What If I was the one who had logged in only to discover that my entire blog was scrubbed clean and instead of my content I faced a stark black screen and a scrolling taunt that I had been hacked.
Ever post I wrote and photo I took gone.
How would I feel?
What would I do? Would I know what to do?
I’m sure that I am not the only blogger that automatically assumes everything I write Has been protected on some level or at least saved. Right? I’m not so sure.
I didn’t even know how to back up my blog until a few days ago and I have been blogging for years.
When I made the switch from blogger to WordPress One of the first things I needed to find a web host that would import everything over for me.
I pay my fees and understood that they would “take care of me” so I didn’t give it a second thought.
Rookie mistake. I may know how to “export” my blog and save it to my own personal computer but do I know what to do with the information next?
And where do I go to find that out?
Her experience had taught me a couple of valuable “take aways”.
* back up your posts and if you don’t know how to find out! If you use a web domain that auto backs up find out how often they do.
* keep a hard copy of all your photos and another watermarked copy online so if you need to replace a blog photo you already have it saved.
* change your passwords regularly.
For everything. Make sure not to reuse your passwords.
Blogging has been an awesome learning experience but beside protecting myself I need to remember that life happens away from the screen.
For every new experience there are lessons to be learned even if that lesson comes via a hacker.
As for my friend she still trying to protect everyone else and has asked that we don’t leave comments on her personal Facebook page or blog about what is happening because she is worried that we will be targeted next.
I’m pretty small potatoes.
She has an entire team behind her helping her working around the clock to retrieve all of her photos and years worth of posts.
She will be back.
Stronger and smarter too just you wait and see…
adventureswithfour.wordpress.com 