I mentioned one day last week that I’ve been praying about some Major Life Decisions, and as a result of that, there has been Much Talk Of Blogging around our house lately.

Really, I’d love nothing more than to tell y’all that someone has offered me many bags of cash money to write my little blog, but unfortunately that is only true in the world that I inhabit when I’m dreaming. However, I am trying to decide if I’m going to be More Serious About Writing, and if I am, there are going to be some mighty big changes around our house. Domestic re-structuring, if you will.

Thus: lots of praying.

Walking through this particular decision-making process has caused me to think a good bit more than I usually do about writing in general, blogging in particular. And while I know that y’all might be surprised to learn that I actually think about topics other than what exciting new meat products I can drop in vats of hot peanut oil while I’m watching college basketball and simultaneously trying to record American Idol on the (faulty, evil) DVR, the truth of the matter is that I love to think about and analyze things from as many angles as my admittedly limited intelligence will allow. Unless it concerns metal fabrication, in which case I can’t even pretend to be interested.

I don’t talk about my blog much in real life because it makes me terribly uncomfortable, but occasionally, I need a bloggy sounding board. As I’ve been praying through the possibility of taking the writing part of my life more seriously, I’ve had some really frank discussions with my friends Mrs. Rocks and Mrs. Big Mama about my writing limitations. They are kind enough to listen and give me great feedback and encourage me despite the fact that I have an incurable case of the crazies.

The stuff I write for the blog is so personality-driven that it makes my head hurt to try to figure out how to take what I do here and put it “out there.” Publications would never hire me as a freelancer because if I wrote an article on, say, nutrition, the final draft would probably say “THE APPLES! THEY ARE GOOD! AND GOOD FOR YOU!” somewhere around the beginning of second paragraph.

Or, better yet: “BUTTERBEANS, Y’ALL!”

Oddly enough, it’s not a tone that Serious Media Outlets are looking for.

But even still: that urge to push a little harder on my blogging and writing boundaries won’t go away.

I keep coming back to the idea that God knows my strengths and my weaknesses because He gave them to me. And maybe, at the end of the day, I have to be willing to set aside my fear that I’m just not good enough - and, as Max Lucado says, “use [my] uniqueness to take great risks for God” because “the only mistake is to not risk making one.”

D. and I have laughed a lot lately because we are not, by and large, risk takers. We will choose the path of least resistance every single time. We enjoy things like retirement funds and employer-provided health insurance and low-risk investments. We play it safe. And by and large, we like it that way.

But y’all - I have to tell you: I feel so strongly that God is calling me outside of my comfort zone and away from my safety net. I keep looking for reasons to justify staying with the status quo, and He keeps nudging me to step out, to take a risk, to trust Him a little bit more.

And I am scared out of my ever-livin’ mind.

I have gone back and forth about whether or not I should post about all of this, mainly because I felt like any attempt to shed light on such a personal decision might come across as nothing more than a fishing expedition for people to encourage me! love me! validate me!

But if you know me at all, you know that’s not where my heart is. Right now my heart is, above all, seeking God’s guidance and peace. I want to do the right thing for the right reasons. I want to do the thing that enables me to serve my family in the very best way. And I want, above all else, to glorify Him, to serve Him with complete and total abandon.

So.

Needless to say, I’d appreciate your prayers.

And I’ll keep y’all posted.

If you haven’t noticed that I have a bit of the writer’s block, I give you this:

My last post was about a trip that I took six years ago. SIX YEARS AGO.

I actually have the blahs on several levels, none of which I’ll bore you with at this juncture. But I have talked to a couple of friends who share in my blah-ness, which leads me to think that part of the problem is that winter has finally gotten the best of us all.

Spring? OH, SPRI-ING? WHERE ARRRRE YOU?

We’re headed to Mississippi this weekend for a special family celebration, so hopefully I’ll regain my bloggy wits after I have a chance to listen to some stories, snap some pictures and last but not least see “Martie” and Sissie in action.

In the meantime, check out these fine bloggity people:

1) Jen at Lots of Scotts always has great perspective and wisdom, in addition to the cutest triplets you’ve ever seen (by the way, my real-life friends Emma Kate and Traci are OBSESSED with Jen’s blog. OBSESSED, I tell you).

2) Jennifer at Mississippi Girl always makes me smile with that sweet outlook of hers; as an added bonus, she just so happens to live in my home state.

3) Kathryn at Daring Young Mom is probably a bloggy standby for lots of y’all, but I’ve only recently started making my way through her archives. So much fun.

4) Overwhelmed! is hosting a Super Bowl Edition of her fab Favorite Ingredients Friday. Be sure to check it out.

5) Here’s something fun that I saw at Stacey’s…and I feel it’s only fair to let you know that from this day forward, I will be known as:

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Eminence the Very Viscountess Boomama the Convincing of Porton Down Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

That kind of title will make any girl shake off the winter blahs.

See y’all tomorrow.

I promise that after this post I really am taking a break. I promise. But I have to say this right now because it’ll hang over my head all weekend if I don’t because I’m OCD like that, which I’m sure is a huge surprise to y’all.

AHEM.

A couple of y’all have emailed me to tell me that you’ve received phone calls from PayPal verifying your donations to Kelli. I didn’t think too much of it initially because we did raise a bunch of money in a short period of time, and I actually think it would bother me more if PayPal didn’t try to make sure that everything was on the up and up. So I just sort of chalked up their phone calls as “one of those things” and figured everything would be fine. And yes, as a matter of fact, I do have a big stamp that says “NAIVE” and I am currently pounding it all over my forehead.

Because around 6:30 tonight I got an email from Frannie, a sweet lady who reads and comments here regularly, and she relayed to me a phone conversation that she had with a man named John from PayPal. When I got to the part of Frannie’s email where she mentioned that John said he’d been unable to get in touch with me to verify the legitimacy of my “charity,” I went all Julia Sugarbaker in the middle of my living room and immediately picked up the phone to call PayPal.

Here’s a tip: the PayPal voicemail system does not understand a Southern accent. At one point I responded to some question by saying, “No,” and the voicemail man said, “I understood you to say, ‘I don’t have an account.’ Is that correct?”

Now I know my drawl is bad, y’all, but I don’t think that even I can give the word “no” six syllables. I can do four at best.

So after navigating the maze that is the PayPal voicemail system, and after I explained the nature of my concerns to a kind lady named MJ, I was connected to a delightful young man named Ryan (seriously: PP customer service reps are some of the nicest people ever). By this point I had called Kelli on my cell phone so that I could get all the verification information on the PayPal account since I had asked her to change the password and security stuff a couple of days ago (so that I would no longer be up in her business), and oh, poor Ryan. I am afraid that he got an earful from me. It was a very Southern earful, and a very polite earful, but it was an earful nonetheless. I was pretty upset.

And let me be clear: I’m not upset that PayPal is calling people to make sure they authorized the donations that showed up on the For Kelli account. I think, if anything, that’s very wise, especially considering that this is the internet and fraud is rampant and you really can’t be too careful. But what stuck in my craw was the statement that PayPal had not been able to get in touch with me, when no one from PayPal has called me, no one has emailed me, and certainly if they have any concerns about the money we raised this past Tuesday, no one from PayPal has bothered to communicate that to me.

And Ryan, bless his heart, said absolutely nothing to ease my mind. He said things like, “you’ve done all you can do up until this point” and “I can’t say whether or not we’ll be calling more donors” and “I completely understand but this is just part of our checks and balances.” I told Kelli later that I halfway expected him to follow up his “you’ve done all you can do” comment with “UNTIL THE TRIAL WHEN YOU’RE ON THE WITNESS STAND.”

By the way, I’m sure you think I’m overreacting. I probably am. But y’all know I have great paranoia about being taken advantage of by a RING OF THIEVES, not to mention the whole being misunderstood thing (especially when my integrity is on the line), and let’s just say that Ryan, completely unbeknownst to him, triggered both of those fears tonight during the course of our conversation. I was more than a little rattled by the time I got off the phone with him.

So then I immediately called Kelli because she’s all smart and level-headed and stuff. Turns out that PayPal called her yesterday, and she spent twenty minutes verifying her identity with a nice lady before PayPal would release the funds that were donated to her. And again, I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND PayPal’s checks and balances. It’s just not much fun when you’re the one being checked and balanced.

Kelli had the bright idea that we call PayPal with both of us on the line. I thought that was an excellent plan, and luckily Kelli knows how to place a three-way call because if it had been up to me I would’ve had to resort to the two-phone option (”KELLI, THE WOMAN AT PAYPAL JUST SAID…”). We were connected to an absolutely lovely woman named Jackie, and just so you know I will be THANKING THE GOOD LORD for her for the rest of my days.

Kelli very eloquently explained our situation: she needs a kidney, her insurance runs out at the end of January, I set up a place for people to make donations, people gave way more money than we ever expected, and now we’re a little concerned because 1) PayPal is making Kelli jump through some extra hoops in order to get her money, yet her COBRA payment is due on the 25th and 2) the phone calls that the PayPal people are (very wisely) making might could be worded a little differently so they don’t cause undue alarm to the people who donated to this little bloggy lovefest that resulted in over $9,000 in donations.

So.

Jackie said that she didn’t believe that any more phone calls would be made to people who donated. However, if you do receive a phone call from PP, just know that they’re trying to make sure that you willingly donated to For Kelli. That’s a smart thing for them to do. Both people I talked to tonight said that they try to be very vigilant about making sure that people don’t use PP for fraudulent purposes, and they do check up on any charitable cause that is run through their website. I’m way on board with that. However, I’m still not on board with John saying that he’d been unable to contact me, especially considering that I practically wear my computer on a chain around my neck so that I am never away from the email.

Bottom line: Kelli has now jumped through almost all of the PayPal hoops. She is having to do some extra verification because of the amount of money involved (a new PayPal account plus a large sum of money raised over a short period of time equals BIG RED FLAGS with the PayPal people), so please pray that they’d have all that ironed out by the time her insurance payment is due.

I did have a couple of good laughs during our phone call, however. One was when Jackie said she couldn’t tell who was talking, Kelli or me, and I said, “JACKIE. I’M THE SOUTHERN ONE. FROM ALABAMA.” I don’t think Jackie thought that was as funny as Kelli and I did.

And then the classic comment was from Kelli: as she was trying to very graciously relay the details of her attempts to access the funds so she can pay for her insurance, she said, “Jackie, yesterday I pretty much had to explain to the other woman I talked to which way the pine trees in my yard are leaning in order to confirm my identity. I mean, c’mon, Jackie - I’m dyin’ here.”

There was a little pause for effect, and then Kelli said:

“LITERALLY!”

And Kelli and I hooted and again Jackie didn’t seem to see the humor in it at all.

But by the end of the phone call Jackie was completely awesome. I think everything is going to be fine. They have my blog address, my email address, Kelli’s personal information, Kelli’s medical information, and the oh-so-critical information about which way the pine trees are leaning in her yard. It’s all in the interest of protecting the tenderhearted charitable givers of the world, and in the end that’s a very good thing.

One more thing before I go: y’all placed a tremendous amount of trust in me to donate over $9000 to a cause that I mentioned just a little over a week ago. I do not take that lightly. So if you have any questions or concerns about your donations, about PayPal, about how we set up everything, about what exactly the money will be used for - ANYTHING - please do not hesitate to email me.

And if I don’t answer your email right away it’s because I’ve probably run down the road to pick up some fried chicken or something. But I’ll get back to you just as quickly as I can.

Sorry for such a long post, but I felt like all of that needed to be said.

And I’m returning to my bloggy break now.

See y’all later.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a pretty organized girl. I like to make lists and check off the items on the list and fold the list neatly and then dispose of the list promptly by sealing it in a color-coordinated envelope, addressing it to Mr. Trash, c/o My Kitchen, and gently placing it in a sterile trash receptacle that is lined with an anti-bacterial garbage bag.

Well maybe not so much those last five things. But still.

This week, however, has been pure craziness. Not-so-organized. None-too-list-y. And my brain is starting to feel it.

Usually I do a pretty good job of keeping all the parts of my life under control: family, church, friends, work, etc. I try not to let those areas blend into each other in ways that aren’t appropriate.

(For example: I try not to have my friends with me when I work, as it might be distracting for the Rogue Government Agents to have to listen to, say, Daph and me cackle about this week’s episode of “The Office” while they’re trying to review the plans for all those Secret Nuclear Warheads I design as a sideline business when I’m not analyzing the effects of globalization on the ever-developing economic frameworks of several European countries, including but not limited to Kasakhstan and Moldova.)

A-HEM.

Anyway, this past week has been one of those crazy times when I feel like all the parts of my life have crossed over and bled together and as a result become terribly unorganized. I have unfolded laundry on the bed in the guest room; I have bags of stuff to return to various and sundry stores; I have friends I’ve been meaning to call but haven’t; I have work that I really want to finish; I have obligations at church that I haven’t gotten around to doing yet; I have a blog that has, for lack of a better word, consumed me for the last four days (IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY, just for
the record); and I have a husband who has been incredibly patient through it all but has to be a smidge frustrated with me nonetheless.

More than anything, I have a child who needs to see me relaxed again, who needs for me to SLOW. IT. DOWN.

And so I will.

Therefore, here’s what I have on my agenda for the next few days:

I’m going to stay in my pajamas as much as possible. I’m going to drink coffee that actually makes it into the coffee pot and I’m going to load up each cup with Equal and half and half. I’m going to play trains and Candyland. I’m going to cook country fried steak, rice and gravy, butterbeans, and squash casserole. I’m going to take big walks with my two favorite fellas and my two favorite puppy dogs. I’m going to sit in front of the fire and watch movies with my husband.

I’m going to smile when Alex walks in our room at 3 in the morning and tells me that he wants to sleep with us. And I’m going to help him up in the bed, get him settled in the middle of D. and me, and marvel at the fact that I’m perfectly content even though I only have four square inches on which to sleep thanks to the aforementioned two favorite fellas who are taking up most of the room.

I’m going to go to church (which reminds me: I haven’t even told y’all about last Sunday at Emma Kate’s church, but that deserves a whole post, not just a by-the-way mention) and sing really loud. I’m going to read the February issue of Southern Living. I’m going to mess around with the camera for the first time since Christmas. And I hope that I’m going to sleep a little bit more than I have the last three or four nights.

Above all, I’m going to count my blessings. And just rest in the peace of that for awhile.

Because every so often, too much of a good thing just gets to be too much. And when that’s the case, Mama here needs to unplug.

I’ll see you in a few days, internets.

Hope your weekend is wonderful.

I don’t normally post pictures of me on my blog. I guess I’m a little paranoid that rogue government agencies will spot my picture here on the interweb and then attempt to kidnap me in hopes that I will reveal my plans for the Top-Secret Nuclear Warheads that I design as a little sideline business while Alex is napping.

Seriously, I have had some concerns about privacy…I guess that I still do. But when His Singer mentioned in my comments that she pictures me as a tall, thin woman with long-ish hair, I decided that it probably wouldn’t hurt to share a picture or two. Mainly to dispel all those pesky rumors that I am actually Heidi Klum.

AHEM.

So here’s a picture that D took at Alex’s Thanksgiving program last week. After his class finished singing their songs, the little man came off the stage and wanted to sit in my lap. And we were really happy to see each other.

And here’s my unsolicited photography tip: strategically positioning oneself behind one’s child magically eliminates the appearance of all unsightly flab. It’s genius, really.

Also, please do forgive the bags under my eyes. It had been a bit of a sleepless night.

However, I do think those bags will come in handy when we move.