What April 2015 taught me {and giveaway winner}

First up, Congratulations to Laura Kahler who won the 2 copies of Showing Heart from last week’s giveaway. Thanks to all who entered. If you don’t have a copy yet, remember you can order it from Amazon, here. 

Now on to what April taught me – –

The past year has flown by so quickly my mind is spinning just trying to take in all that I’ve learned. I love the idea of slowing down on occasion to write out what it is that I’m learning, in real time. So here is what I learned in April {2015}:

1.  I love speaking into the lives of other moms – – As an introvert, it’s been exciting to realize I love speaking in front of groups. While I still get butterflies and struggle with feelings of inadequacy, I realized I love speaking truth and encouragement into the lives of other women. I spoke at a mom’s group in early April and enjoyed hearing what they are learning as moms – both the experienced and rookies. There’s something about coming together as community to support and encourage one another.

2. I need to work more at “being” than “doing.”  I feel there could be a whole blog post about this, but I’m realizing that part of my defense mechanism is to do… many times because I’m uncomfortable with, or just don’t know how to, BE in the moment. A new goal (haha! which is doing!) is to live in the present… to just BE instead of focusing so much on what needs to get done.

3. I’m not great at multi-tasking. My mind just can’t focus on more than one thing at a time anymore. I remember in high school I would crank up the music while I was studying for tests or writing papers. Now, I can hardly take it when I’m cooking dinner in the same room with four kids doing their individual, noisy things!  So long to the mind of my youth.

4. I love baseball games. Okay, I didn’t just learn this, but April was the start of the regular baseball season and I LOVE our Pittsburgh Pirates. We started going to their games the spring Henry lived here while I commuted with the kids each weekend to look for houses. My love for the game and our hometown team grows with each passing season. Ryan seems to share the passion, which is fun for me to watch.

5. I’m solar powered. Since the start of sunny weather, I’ve marked more things off my project list than probably the whole winter combined. Seriously. I thought I might be nesting before Ryan’s heart cath, which could be true too, but in the span of the last three weeks, I made 4 throw pillows, put Piper’s hospital outfit in a shadow box, cleaned the garage, painted the base of a farm table, planted seeds, finished a gallery wall, framed several things that have been sitting around for quite some time, and managed to keep the everyday going…. it’s been fun and rewarding at the same time. I can only accredit it to the amazing weather that hit a few weeks ago and keeps popping up every so often. Here’s to a productive spring/summer!

Did you have any ah-ha moments in April? Share them in the comments below.

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