next stage of life: wifedom: And...I'm Back

It's definitely been a while since I did anything with my blog. In fact, it's been nearly a year. But don't be fooled - just because I haven't been frequenting this place doesn't mean that nothing interesting has been going on. It's quite the opposite; I've actually had a fairly eventful year. That being said, I figured I would dedicate this blog to a simple game of catch-up.

I last wrote around Halloween time because I did the 'Scariest Moments of My Life' three-part series and so much has happened since then. In my old life group we would always catch up with each other based on three areas of life: time, talent and treasure. I'll probably keep my "treasure" out of it...all you need to know is I tithe regularly and give whenever I can.

Anyway, we'll start with time. There have been times this year where almost all of my free time has been dedicated to one thing or another. Fortunately, I'm finally in a stage of life where I have a couple evenings that are completely free and it's amazing.
Over the past year I've dedicated a lot of time to choir. I really had only just joined choir around the time I stopped blogging, but I've kept up with it. We practice every Wednesday and sing every other Sunday, so it takes up a lot of time.
I'm also involved in an amazing life group led by Jaime Jamgochian - she is amazing and has a huge heart for the Lord. If you haven't checked her music out yet, you absolutely should. We've spent the past few months studying how to be a worshiper.
I've only just started helping out with Rush Franklin (our high school/middle school youth group). It's been so amazing to be able to just stroll into a ministry like that and feel at home. There hasn't been a single awkward moment - I feel as though it's been a part of my routine all year. The leaders and volunteers are amazing as well as the students - they make it easy to love on them.

Finally: my talent. It's so weird to me to even have anything to talk about in this section since I went pretty much my whole life thinking I wasn't talented at anything. I've obviously been singing a lot lately in the choir, but even more than that, I've had people in my life who truly believe in me and have been continuing to train me up by putting me in the rotation for Wednesday night frontline. Although it's still scary for me to think about sticking my part alone, I have really enjoyed the challenge. I also spent a couple months working on Vicki Yohe's latest album that's due out late this month. It was such a fun experience learning the songs with everyone and spending time in the studio - I would love to do that more often.
I've also been doing a lot more writing recently - just not on here. I've written a lot more songs and have also started on my first novel. I am absolutely stoked to see where the storyline goes!
Something that's really exciting to me, but not really to everyone else is that I'm getting to use my administrative skills again! This is exciting for me because God made me lay it down while I was working on the scarier skills, so I see Him letting me get back into that means I've been doing something right in the other areas!

I feel like you have enough to read up there, so I'll finish off with some photos of the past year.