Taking a break from blogging just confirmed that I really do love it. I enjoy writing about things on my mind, the interaction with other folks, the feedback, and seeing God specifically use posts to bless people at the right time. Yes, there are things about blogging that I could do without. Anyone who has blogged for more than a year or so begins to discover some of the “down” sides of blogging. But in life, you can’t have the good without the bad. So I’m choosing to ignore the things that frustrate me and focus on the very good aspects of being a blogger.

I’ve taken some time to think about the direction of my blog and have decided to change the name. Two Talent Living was a good choice when I started as it conveyed what I primarily wanted to blog about at first. I had done some teaching on the topic and, for where I was at that point in my life, it made sense. I will probably still use that concept of TTL from time to time when writing. But as I’ve thought about where I’ve been on my journey of faith and where I am hopefully going, there are a couple of words that come to mind over and over again. So the new name of my blog will be…

A Gracious Home

Gracious
The American Heritage Dictionary defines gracious and grace in the following ways:
Characterized by kindness and warm courtesy
Merciful, compassionate
Leisurely, elegant
Skill at avoiding the inept or clumsy course; a sense of fitness and propriety
A disposition to be generous or helpful
Divine love and protection bestowed freely upon mankind
The state of being protected or sanctified by the favor of God
An excellence or power granted by God; an unmerited gift from God

What a beautiful list of attributes! I hope that our home has been and will continue to be characterized by the word gracious. Gracious in hospitality, gracious in how we treat one another, gracious in how we raise our daughter, gracious in how we live our marriage, gracious in how we serve in our church, gracious in the activities we pursue, etc. And I hope that not only will my physical home be a gracious place, but my online home as well where people can come and be refreshed and pointed anew to our holy and gracious God.

Home
Home encompasses just about everything in life, so by saying home I don’t just mean the realm of being a homemaker. Being a homemaker in the traditional sense is a part of it, but I think the concept of home is much broader than that. And I would find it impossible to limit myself to only topics that fit the parameters of the traditional idea of homemaking (cleaning, baking, cooking, sewing, etc.). Home is the center of my life right now and will become even moreso when the baby comes. I want my blogging to be an extension of my daily life, not an add-on that takes away from my focus on home. I believe that the process of blogging about my home will also strengthen my home.

A Gracious Home
So my blogging is going to transition slightly. I am still going to write about many of the things that I wrote about before. Gracious and Home are such broad words! But I think changing the name will be helpful in more clearly expressing what my blog is about. If someone new comes here, Two Talent Living isn’t obvious. A Gracious Home is.

So David is in the process of redesigning my blog. We’ve registered the domain name and will start making the transition sometime soon. I’m being refreshed by my break and will be ready to jump back into blogging as I head through the last one hundred days or so of my pregnancy. I’m not sure when the actual switch will occur. I will need to move the content and make some adjustments to it with the move. But if you come here one day in the not-too-distant future and get redirected, you’ll know why!

I’m looking forward to rejoining the blogging community again on a daily basis sometime soon!

Blessings to all!