I took a break to enjoy my family during the Christmas season and also reset my life. There is so much change going on right now that I needed to take a step back and simply wait. I know I’m repeating myself, but the constant changes in the online world are beyond frustrating and can be demoralizing. Not just for me, but for many people.

So instead of thinking about that which I cannot change, I just kind of walked away from most of it for a few weeks and focused on enjoying the Christmas season. Our decorations are still up and should come down tomorrow. I opted to give Caroline and me this week off from our homeschooling which was not my original plan.

It was primarily due to the fact that we made the spur of the moment decision to paint Caroline’s bedroom last weekend. She’s had pink (my choice), dark lavender (her choice), and teal (her choice) for her bedroom in two houses. She has mentioned multiple times in recent months that she desired a change to something more neutral like brown or taupe. David and I decided that we were unlikely to have a gap in deadlines and responsibilities like we had at the end of last week and over the weekend so we went for it to get it off our mental plate. In the end, Caroline chose the Benjamin Moore color Cookie Dough 916. It turned out very nicely and is a great backdrop to her artwork. She did a lot of the work with David so I can count it as part of her Home Economics credit which is helpful.

So this week is about getting back on track in a few different ways. In addition to the things above and getting my homeschool planning done, I’ve been putting some other things in motion.

I’m starting to dive back into the world of writing for publication. I don’t mention this very often any longer, but I am a several times (paid) published author and was experiencing some momentum in that endeavor when my life changed in many ways. Over the past couple of weeks a few things have happened that made me think perhaps God wants me to pick up that part of my life again. So while I’m writing this, David and Caroline are out doing a few errands which includes picking up a new copy of The Writer’s Market at Barnes & Noble for me. I’ll also be subscribing to the Christian Writer’s Market Guide today or tomorrow. I’ve used that resource many times in the past. I imagine much has changed in the publishing world since I last interacted with it, but we’ll see what happens.

I also decided that I’m turning this website into more of a personal blog so my posts will probably be more bloggy moving forward. If you remember the early days of blogging, many posts were short and simply sharing a thought or idea or link. The topics won’t change much, but I’m not going to overly concern myself with doing things the “right”way. There is no winning the search engine game and I’m not trying any longer. I’m simply choosing to do it my way. No website tagline. No setting of expectations. It’s either write whatever interests me or just walk away from it all. That’s really the point I got to in early December. This needs to be an enjoyable hobby or there is no point in continuing.

Somewhat related to the blogging is the fact that I am recommitting myself to reading real books and sharing books on here. I love books and need to allow myself the time to enjoy them again.

I am diving back into the topic of women in the church and home. If you are a newer reader, you might not know this was a big issue for me for many years. I left it behind over six years ago for a variety of reasons which I explained in Why I Closed My “A Woman’s Freedom in Christ” Website. However, over the past few months I’ve felt drawn back to it. I honestly thought I was done with it, but I don’t think I am. Perhaps I was done with it for a season while we went through the insanity of the past several years and I didn’t have the desire, time, or energy to directly participate in those fights.

However, a few circumstances made me realize that it was time to get back into these topics as there is a noticeable shift occurring both in the culture and the church. I picked up a copy of Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian a few weeks ago and finally started it today. I’m also still reading The End of Woman. I think there is a new conversation developing about women in the church and home that is a rejection of both the egalitarian/feminist view as well as what I would call the hard-core complementarian and patriarchal views. It is one that makes far more sense to me than what we’ve been presented with in the past. I am honestly more concerned about the hardcore patriarchal stuff being pushed online than I am the feminists at this point. Feminism is clearly falling out of favor and will continue to do so. But the pendulum always swings further than you expect. I’m concerned too many Christians will overreact to the past several years and go off the deep end on the other side. You can already see signs of it if you are paying attention. I’d like to do my part to help Christians avoid the opposite ditch (which still leaves you in a ditch).

I had to ask myself if I wanted a separate website again and decided against it. One, I don’t want another website. But even more importantly, I want to write about that topic in the context of the rest of my life. I’ll be writing my thoughts and such, not writing to impress anyone.

Lastly, I’m trying to decide how much I want to write about partial-preterism and preterism here. I have learned so much over the past several months about the Bible. It’s mind-boggling and makes so much more sense than any other ideas I’ve heard about the doctrines of the last things. However, digging into these topics causes a lot of cognitive dissonance for most people when they first start so many Christians simply reject it outright. It’s a real paradigm shift.

So that’s what I’m up to these days.