Blogging Year in Review

I notice that I am woefully inconsistent when it comes to capitalizing blog post titles. 🙂 But I also notice that, though I love talking about books and quotes, and I love the social interaction and recounting of blessings in Friday’s Fave Fives, my favorite posts are those in which I am sharing something God has taught me and/or something I feel will be helpful and useful to others. That’s one reason I cut down on some of the other memes I was involved in at the beginning of the year, though they were fun in themselves.

These are not my top posts of the year as far as number of views: when I first started blogging, I shared a lot of seasonal or holiday-related posts, like quotes, poems, etc., and my post views rocket up around those times as people seek that kind of thing.

I’m so thankful for those of you who read and especially who comment. It’s a great encouragement! I need to do better about answering those comments. But thank you for making the time to read and respond. I’ve found some good friends out here in cyberspace.

Milestones, Celebrations, and Giveaways

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Barbara Harper

According to my blog stats, this is my 2500th post.

Wow. Who knew I had so much to say? 🙂

Also, my fifth blogoversary was July 27, and somehow it just blew by me. Usually I anticipate it and often have a giveaway around then. This being a “milestone” year (somehow birthdays and anniversaries ending in 5 and 0 are more milestone-ish than others) it seems especially appropriate.

So, I’ve decided to have a few days of giveaways, as a thank-you to those of you who stop by my humble online abode. I’ll have at least three — maybe more. Some will be open to everyone, some will only be open to US residents due to shipping costs. Though I’ll spread out announcing them over the next few days, all the drawings will be held a week from today, next Tuesday morning, November 15.

The first giveaway will be the two books By Searching: My Journey Through Doubt Into Faith and In the Arena by Isobel Kuhn, reviewed together here (one winner will receive both books). If you’ve read here long, you know these are special to me, and I’d love to share them with someone. This one is open to all. If you’d like to be entered to win these books, just leave a comment below any time between now and next Tuesday morning. You don’t have to have a blog to enter. I’ll use random.org to choose the winners.

If you’d like to be entered for the drawings on the other days, you’ll need to leave a comment those days as well: the comments here will just count for this particular drawing.

I thought about doing some quizzes as part of the drawings, and decided against it. So this doesn’t count for anything but just for fun:

What is my favorite flower and my favorite color of it?

Thanks so much to those who read and those who comment. You are a blessing to me!

Entries are now closed. Congratulations to Sue.

Just popping in to say hello…

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Barbara Harper

This has been an odd day. I’ve had a few post ideas in mind, but none would coalesce into a post. I was very tired and sleepy (and therefore cranky… 😳 ) yesterday, but when I tried to take a nap, I couldn’t get to sleep, and every time I dozed off in my desk chair, something would happen to wake me up. This morning when I was falling asleep in my chair at 9 a.m., I climbed back into bed, and I think I’m caught up on my sleep now though I slept much longer than intended. I’m in a much pleasanter frame of mind, anyway! But my thoughts still aren’t coming together enough to say anything of importance.

I’m not sure what the deal is, but I have noticed that when I have a very busy period of time, it takes me longer to “recover” — I seem to have a few days of malaise after having a few days of intense busyness. So I’ll just assume that is what is going on, and hopefully I’ll be back up to par tomorrow.

But now I need to try to salvage the day and go get something accomplished!

(Blog cartoon from We Blog Cartoons.)

Laudable Linkage & Videos

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Oddly, after a couple of weeks of not sharing interesting links I’ve seen, I only have a few. You’d think I’d have multitudes, but much of the blogosphere was fairly quiet over the holidays, and perhaps my reading was distracted enough that I didn’t think to save many. But here are a few:

8 Amazing Blogging Lessons from Albert Einstein, HT to Lisa Notes. The author takes quotes from Einstein and cleverly applies them to blogging.

52 Ways to Read and Study the Bible compiled by Semicolon. So many ways, and with all our electronic devices so many venues — it should be easier than ever.

A couple of years ago I compiled a list of resources and reasons for reading the Bible in Planning to read the Bible more this year?

Katrina at Callapiddar Days told of her first successful attempt at reading the Bible through in Part 1 dealing why she wanted to do so and finding a plan and Part 2 concerning how she succeeded this time, what she learned, and a few resources.

Lisa shares Why I am NOT reading the Bible through in a year, though she is still reading and shares tips for making it more effective.

One area where I’ve fallen short is memorizing. I did a lot in college and then in a children’s ministry we worked with, and those verses have pretty much stayed with me all these years (except I have trouble remembering the references) but not much at all since then. I’ve never memorized a whole book of the Bible. Some ladies at church are memorizing Ephesians, but they meet at a time that isn’t best for me and they are already a good ways into it. Lisa Notes shared a plan for memorizing Philippians by Easter: Partnering to Remember The 2011 Philippians Memory Moleskin. Ann shares a plan for memorizing Colossians with 2 verses a week for a year with some more details and updates here. I am leaning toward the Colossians plan — 2 verses a week sounds very doable, and I have to admit the little booklet really appeals to me. They’ve set up a Facebook page as well.

Well, I guess I only thought I had just a few!

Just a couple more:

The worst gifts ever, HT to Challies. Though, I don’t know, that office chair looks good for a power nap. 🙂

How Critical Thinking Saves Faith HT again to Challies, on the need to talk with young people and wrestle through their questions with them rather than cutting them off for even asking.

I’ve shared this before, but here is some fun you can have with your Christmas tree when you’re done with it. My guys used to love shooting off model rockets, so this really appealed to them.

And I can’t remember if I shared this here or not, but it just makes me happy:

The Week In Words

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few that caught my eye:

I saw this at Bobbi‘s in a longer fictitious poem about what Joseph’s (Mary’s husband) point of view might have been at one point in his life. From what I could tell it is by John Piper from the Desiring God site.

There’s something worse than death,
And loss of faith, not loss of breath,
Is what he fights.

Seen at Challies:

I have taken my good deeds and bad deeds and thrown them together in a heap, and fled from them both to Christ, and in him I have peace. —David Dickson

I have trouble with the right perspective of both, and I am glad that my peace is in Christ and not my deeds.

This is the time of year when people make goals or resolutions. The following two might help with that. The first I saw at Simple Mom from a link at A Holy Experience:

“A goal without a plan is just a dream.” ~ Dave Ramsey

And I saw this at Semicolon’s from (From Donna at Quiet Life — I don’t know whether Donna is the one who originally said it or of she quoted someone else.

“A discipline won’t bring you closer to God. Only God can bring you closer to Himself. What the discipline is meant to do is to help you get yourself, your ego, out of the way so you are open to His grace.”

So true. Sometimes we can get so caught up in setting up our disciplines as if so doing will make us right with God, when the disciple is a tool, not an end in itself.

I saw this at nikkipolani’s Friday’s Fave Five:

The bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.”

That just really resonated with me with all the changes we’ve faced this year.

Lisa Notes recently shared a link to “Amazing Blogging Lessons From Albert Einstein.” This jumped out at me — Einstein’s words in quotes, the writer’s words following:

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” Don’t waste your time trying to create a successful blog, dedicate your time creating a valuable blog. If your blog is valuable to others, it will succeed.

And finally, a good hope for the new year, from a friend’s Facebook:

“What heavens are laid up in Jesus! What rivers of infinite bliss have their source, ay, and every drop of their fullness in Him! Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, Thou art the present portion of Thy people, favor us this year with such a sense of Thy preciousness, that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in Thee.” -Spurgeon (Morning and Evening)

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

And please — feel free to comment even if you don’t have quotes to share!

The Week In Words

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Barbara Harper

If you have posted quotes over the last week, feel free to link them as well. You don’t have to wait for Monday to post them.

I collected several this week, and it is hard to choose from them! Here are a few:

From Lifenut:

Unboxing the Christmas decorations is like going to a reunion with old friends. You pick up where you left off.

That just hits the nail on the head. That’s one thing I love about decorating for Christmas, that and the family tales that go along with them.

Seen at girltalk:

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Isn’t that true? Instead of letting thoughts run rampant we need to “gird up the loins of [our] mind” (I Peter 1:13) and “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Corinthians 10:5).

Seen at Outnumbered Mom:

“All happenings, great and small, are parables by which God speaks. The art of life is to get the message.” (Malcolm Muggeridge)

Seen on a friend’s Facebook status:

“Job’s desire to commune with God was intensified by the failure of all other sources of consolation… “O that I knew where I might find my God!” Nothing teaches us so much the preciousness of the Creator, as when we learn the emptiness of all besides…” C.H. Spurgeon

Sadly, it often takes us much too long to “learn the emptiness of all besides” — and it’s sad that too often we look for consolation and help everywhere else first. But sometimes I think God lets us just for the very reason Spurgeon said — that we might learn that emptiness and His preciousness.

This was quoted on our youth pastor’s Facebook:

If you have a problem with anger, you are told to memorize certain verses so that you can recite them in moments of anger. If you struggle with fear, you should read Scripture passages that focus on trusting God when you are afraid. This emphasis on thinking as the solution to our problems fails to introduce the Person who has come not only to change the way we think about life, but to change us as well. We are more than thinkers. We are worshipers who enter into relationship… How People Change by Timothy S. Lane, Paul David Tripp

I’ve not read the book. I have a little bit of a quibble with this one. I have been greatly helped by memorizing verses in problems areas, and I think that’s one way we renew our minds (Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:22-24). However, if we’re looking up and reciting those verses to ourselves as just a kind of behavior modification, we’re missing out. I read this just after posting “That’s just the way I am” and rereading an earlier post titled The means of change, so my mind was on this topic anyway, and it just brought the focus back to Christ: it’s by beholding Him and worshiping Him that we’re truly changed and brought into a deeper relationship with Him.

And finally, this from A Blogger’s Prayer by Ann Voskamp. I encourage you to go over and read the whole thing:

Let my words be worthy of the greatest of audiences: You.
And You are enough.

May I write not for subscribers… but only for Thy smile.
May my daily affirmation be in the surety of my atonement,
not the size of my audience.
May my identity be in the innumerable graces of Christ,
never, God forbid, the numbers of my comments.
May the only words that matter in my life not be the ones I write on a screen —
but the ones I live with my skin.

I freely and heartily yield every sentence, every title, every post, every comment… or no comments… all to Thine pleasure and perfect will.

Amen.

And please — feel free to comment even if you don’t have quotes to share!

Laudable Linkage and Videos

Posted on December 4, 2010 by Barbara Harper

A weekly compendium of commendable sites to see

A Blogger’s Prayer. I need to read this regularly.

Teacher Gift Ideas for that last day of school before Christmas break. Or — for anyone if adapted a little bit. Skip To My Lou always comes up with great ideas for these.

The advice in Riding Out the Writer’s Storm by Laura could apply to bloggers as well.

How a writer can write a letter of inquiry.

3-D star ornament with a link to the pattern.

How to use Glossy Accents.

And, HT to Lisa, National Geography’s Photography Contest 2010. Warning — there is a nude one near the bottom. But other than that, some of these are awesome. This one particularly:

I wish I could get this Ducks vs. the Wind video to embed here. It’s very short, cute, and a little sad as a mama duck and her ducklings get literally bowled over by the wind. It just embodied the way we feel sometimes when circumstances are too much for us. I love the way she picked herself up and carried on afterward, though her feathers were more than a little ruffled.

It’s hard to wake up sometimes:

We’ve had Dancing With the Stars — why not Dancing With the Dogs? (HT to Susanne). This one has a lot of talent!

Hope you have a good day! We were planning to get our Christmas tree today, but it is raining a little bit — hope it dries up enough to get one!

Laudable Linkage

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Wow — came across some deep, thought-provoking posts this week as well as some fun ones. Hope you find a few you enjoy!

What is Success? Life in the Upside Down Kingdom by Ann Voskamp, HT to Lisa Notes. I’d urge any of my blogger friends who are Christians to read this if you don’t read anything else here. I need the constant reminder that whatever else my blog is or does, it is first and foremost done as unto Him.

Also by Ann, HT to Addy, When you’re trying to get your priories straight. Beautiful. I’ve been referred to and blessed by Ann’s blog so often that I finally subscribed.

Seeing past what it seems, HT to Lizzie, had me in tears.

‘Twas the night before chemo and Cary Schmidt puts this journey into perspective. HT to Susan.

On a lighter note:

Flourless chocolate cake.

Do you love turkey? — jokes and cartoons for Thanksgiving.

Turkey finger puppet tutorial.

Free decals for kitchen use.

This little girl is soooo cute! She tells the story of Jonah, and though she doesn’t have every little point exactly right, she has wonderful presence, a variety of voices, and a sweet way of saying “sh” for “s”. “Forgive us for being shelfish.”

And if you’d like to spend 3 1/2 minutes listening to some beautiful instrumental music, here you go:

And

Laudable Linkage and Grandma’s Connected

Posted on October 23, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Just a few interesting things seen round the Web this week, then I have a fun poem I want to share with you.

Lisa shares 7 reasons why I still go to church. I have been thinking of writing a post about reasons to go to church, but this definitely hits the major ones.

Lisa also pointed me to this video of How (Not) to Invite Your Coworker to Church.

I have a sweater I love which is disintegrating in key places. I’ve been trying to figure out something to do to preserve and use it, and this purse made from a sweater might be just the thing.

This cupcake wrapper template to use with scrapbooking paper would be great theme parties or special occasions.

I’m not sure who the author of this poem is — I received it from the Good Clean Funnies List. I’m not a Grandma yet, and I hope to be a cookie-baking, book-reading Grandma, but I will definitely be a “connected” one, too! I’ve mused over at my mother-in-law’s assisted living place how those rooms might look when the connected generation gets into them.

Grandma’s Connected

In the not too distant past–
I remember very well–
Grandmas tended to their knitting
And their cookies were just swell.

They were always at the ready
When you needed some advice
And their sewing (I can tell you)
Was available–and nice.

Well Grandma’s not deserted you,
She dearly loves you still,
You just won’t find her cooking
But she’s right there at the till.

She thinks about you daily
You haven’t been forsook.
Your photos are quite handy
In her Pentium notebook.

She scans your artwork now, though,
And combines it with cool sounds
To make electronic greetings;
She prints pictures by the pounds.

She’s right there when you need her
You really aren’t alone.
She’s out now with her “puter” pals
But she took her new cell phone.

You can also leave a message
On her answering machine
Or page her at the fun meet
She’s been there since nine-fifteen.

Yes, the world’s a very different place,
There is no doubt of that,
So “E” her from her web page,
Or join her in a chat.

She’s joined the electronic age
And it really seems to suit her,
So don’t expect the same old gal,
’cause Grandma’s gone “Computer.”

Ads, promotions, etc.

Posted on September 8, 2010 by Barbara Harper

I am writing this post just to have the link to refer back to, but you’re welcome to read along if you like. 🙂

Occasionally I get requests to promote someone’s site or product on my blog. I almost never do this “blind,” meaning if I have had no contact with you or your product before.

There are several reasons why.

1. I am not here to provide free publicity to strangers.

2. I will not recommend something without further investigation because I have a responsibility to my readers, and usually I just do not want to take the time involved to check out your product, company, etc., the way I would prefer to.

2. WordPress.com blogs are not allowed to have paid ads in posts or on sidebars except under certain conditions which I do not meet at this time.

3. At this point in time I view my blog not as my business but as neighbors talking across the fence. I may mention a product, site, or person in the natural course of conversation in the same way I would to a personal friend, as something I found that I liked and they might, too.

4. Once blogs “go commercial,” they seem to take on a different tone, which is not one I want for this blog. If I ever go to a blog format or host that is not free, I may consider ads to support the cost of it.

5. It seems awfully presumptuous to me to contact me when we have never had any interaction before and ask to do a guest blog post here.

6. One exception to promoting other things for other people is blog tours of books, but I usually only do that when I have read the book and/or have read the author before. What few times I have looked at an excerpt of a book from an unknown author, it has not been something I wanted to promote. I might consider looking at your book if you have some excerpts from it online somewhere so I can check it out a bit beforehand, because I do like to promote good reading and authors, but, honestly, it’s not likely if I have never heard of you before.

7. Another exception would be when I have already read the book or mentioned the product. For instance, once after referring to a book I liked, the author contacted me, offered a free book for a giveaway to readers, and offered to do a guest post or interview. I chose the interview and I loved that. I felt I got to know the author a little better and I was glad to promote her book.

8. I also reserve the right to delete comments that are little more than self-promotion for someone else’s site or product.

9. I will occasionally promote a contest that I have seen on someone else’s site that may involve free prizes or host a giveaway or contest myself, but that usually does occur as a result of a blind e-mail requesting such promotion.