Time Out for Women

I Love Hilary Weeks.  I love her music, but it's not just that.  I love her humor, her ability to share about every day life challenges and both her positive and negative thoughts about life.

Here a few friends and I grabbed lunch at Subway- a block away from the convention center.

While we were walking we noticed this beautiful building.  Amid the regular architecture of downtown office towers and such, it was a very unique building and I love the character of it.

 Michael Wilcox has long been a person I would love to travel with a group led by him.  He just lost his wife in December to a brain tumor and he had a wonderful presentation.

Marima Kallon- such an inspiring person and wonderful presenter.  She grew up knowing nothing but war and hardship and has witnessed many horrible events.  She is such an inspiration of hope, of prayer and faith.

Here's a picture of all the presenters- I missed individual shots of a lot of them because I was just too busy writing and absorbing what they were talking about.

I loved that as they shared they were real.  They shared their struggles and their triumphs and their day to day stuff that they deal with.

Time out for Women

I had the opportunity to go to Time out for Women in Oklahoma City yesterday and today.  I debated over going.  I wasn't sure I wanted to go.  I had gone in the past with a great group of friends and we stayed at a hotel overnight and went out to dinner and had a great time.  For several different reasons, most of my friends were not going to be going today, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go by myself.  I went ahead and bought tickets, but really wasn't very enthusiastic about it. 
Rich left to go on a buisness trip today and I even contemplated backing out and giving my tickets to someone else and not going.

I'm so glad I didn't.  I'm so glad that I went.  I needed to be there.  I needed to feel that spirit, and I needed to hear what they shared in both songs and talks.

I took along my little journal and took notes.  Anything that I thought of while the presenters were talking.  At the end of today I counted the pages in my journal and I filled 16 pages with notes.  16 pages of thoughts of what I need to focus on in my life.  Of thoughts of how I may be out of focus in some area's and other area's that I can allow myself to go out of focus on and not worry about as much.  I don't think I realized how much I needed to be there, until I counted those pages of notes. 

I drove down alone (I wanted to make sure if I had to go home early I wasn't making someone else leave early) and I sat with some friends that came as well.  Unlike the last time I went- when it was truly a bonding friendship time- this time it was a wonderful personal time for me to really focus on and reflect on things that I needed to gain from the presenters and things that I needed to hear.


I was fed spiritually much more than I thought I would be, and more than I thought I needed... and physically more than I needed as well- the chocolate and toffee covered peanuts I grabbed for a snack were too good!

Many times I've thought of life as a roller coaster.  Going up and down the hills and screaming throughout.  I think I'd like to retire that thought in my mind and think of it more as waves in the ocean.  Something drops into our lives and it causes a ripple.  Sometimes the ripple gradually spreads out and stops and is absorbed into the water with little change.  Other things drop into the water and cause a much bigger splash.  Waves start up- first small and gentle, and can build at times into ferocious waves that threated to drown things.  But after the waves crash down on the beaches, the undertow takes the water back out to sea and it calms down again until the next disturbance happens.  Life keeps going.  I just have to be like the water in the sea and ride through the waves, pull myself together after they come crashing down on the beach and continue on and try and absorb the impacts that I can absorb.

Spring time!

I love that spring is coming!  It's not that I dislike winter, but there is something about the brighter sunlight, the ability to run outside without a coat, and the longer days that just awakens my soul.  Really truly I love the springtime.  Chalk art, swingsets and little girls giggles!

Little kids

I was asked to babysit two little kids this morning.  It was fun.  We pulled out the old set of Thomas the Tank Engine train tracks and made a huge train track all over the piano room.  We pulled out all the little people and cars and put the people in the house and the animals in the barn and zoomed the cars up and down the garage and on the car elevator.
We had a good time.  The two little ones were so sweet and fun to have in the house.  It reminded me of some of the fun times with my crazy kids when I just had Alex and Ashley and the house was a little quieter and less chaotic.

So here are a few pictures from the past. :)  I'm trying to get caught up on scrapbooking the loads and loads of pictures I have on the hard drive.  I'm almost to when Angela was born. lol! :)  Only 6 years more to catch up on. :)

Photo Blizzard

In honor of the two snow storms we've had in the past 8 days... I'm doing a photo blizzard on the Newton Family blog... hop on over and see some of the stuff we've been up to the past couple of weeks. :)

http://newtonaaaa.blogspot.com/

I'm also trying to do more digiscrapping... so I hope to put a few more pages on here in the next few days as well.