It's A Giveaway!

It's that time of year again for the Department of the Army Digital Photo Contest. I submitted several entries through Fort Polk And some of them won! These are the selections that have been forwarded on to the Department of the Army level.

Beautiful Reflections

Frozen Gate

Snow On A Fence



Sitting Alone

Now for the giveaway....
Leave a comment voting for which one you think might win. Then, if that photo wins 1st, 2nd or 3rd place at the Department of the Army level, I will send you a free 8x10 of that photo!! The results are usually released around February.

Ps ~ Even if you don't want a print, you can still vote. :)

Blessings on your day,

A Day Off

It's been a beautiful day in Texas. Sunny, in the 70's and windy. Reminded me of growing up in Southern California and the Santa Ana winds coming up in the afternoons. Today was my first day off in a long time. I started the day connecting with some of my loved ones. It was a sweet time of chatting about nothing and that feeling of belonging. The rest of the day has been spent with the husband. We popped in on his Dad just to say, "Hello". Funny how we live next to each other and I barely see these people more than when we lived 7 hours away. They actually had to come through my line at Hobby Lobby just to get some face time! We almost finished up our Christmas shopping, had lunch together at the Olive Garden and walked the back 40 together. As we were walking along the back fence, we came upon our neighbor. Funny that we had to go all the way back there to meet her. She was friendly and telling us tales of how she was checking the fence because one of her cows, who is actually her friend's cow, freed itself from the pasture and was roaming the neighborhood when she came upon him on her way home from work. My husband's barn is coming along so nicely, although not as fast as the framing. It's a much slower job working on your own. It's a beautiful place to me (and I hope to my husband as well). He is now officially retired from the Air Force and stays home full-time handling the main portion of the household duties and the child-rearing. He's a good, good man. We are preparing to receive our first pension payment; that in addition to my part time pay at Hobby Lobby is somehow going to sustain us and build the big house. I see through my bookkeeper glasses that we may not have our home built any time in the near future and I am truly okay with that. We have all that we need, and the rest will come in its due time. We have managed to set aside enough money to go up and celebrate our Grandson's second birthday with him the first week of January and we are just ecstatic about that! As I write, dinner that my husband lovingly prepared is cooking in the crazy 1950s oven that never has the right temperature. The little artificial Christmas tree is shining and we are blessed to have gifts underneath it. The laundry is going and I even have time to put some thoughts down on cyber-paper. I still have lots and lots to do on my 'day-off-to-do-list' and I have this assurance: If I do not get to it today, it will still be there on my next day off.

I will leave you with the view out my front door this very minute...




Blessings on your day my friends,

New Generation Evangelism

I have been published!! PWOCI has been working long and hard on a cutting edge way to reach women with the message of PWOC, which is the message of hope - the Gospel - Jesus Christ. I had the most humbling privilege of participating in this new tool. Some of my pictures have been used to help portray the thoughts and feelings in the magazine!

You can read a little more about the process HERE


and you can flip through a digital copy HERE

It Is Well...Continued

Fall has come to our little neck of the woods. I say that lightly because it's not cold yet. But the leaves are changing color and falling off of the trees anyway and this very week Thanksgiving will arrive.

There have been a LOT of major changes in the Sing4Joy household these past months and there are more to come in the near future. I don't deal well with change generally speaking. I am most assuredly a creature of habit. However, these words have been the theme of my heart for these last months.....It is well.

Come December 1st, my husband will be unemployed. We have picked up stakes and moved to Texas after 8 years at Fort Polk, LA. There are a lot of things about military retirement that we didn't fully understand such as; we still get medical coverage, but we now have to pay the premium. That comes out of retirement pay. Then there is SBP. We opted in for it, but we have to pay for it. That comes out of retirement. We are still carrying a little bit of debt that we want to pay off before we begin building the big house. And until the big house is built, we pay rent at the shanty next door. I have a new job at 38 years old at Hobby Lobby that I love but it is quickly becoming apparent that at my current rate (seasonal, part-time) it will not pay the bills. It is also really hard not to see everything in terms of how long I have to work to be able to pay for that. On my feet. For hours.

On November 11th-14th I attended the MOST AMAZING CONFERENCE EVER in Dallas, TX. I have been planning all year for this conference. Transcribed hours of sermons to pay for it. And waited and prayed and waited and prayed for it to finally come. There are a trillion things to talk about this weekend but the main themes for me are this....

Kari Jobe led worship for us. Also, I met her and she signed my sheet music. She is truly a gifted worship leader. I could be friends with her.
Priscilla Shirer was the keynote speaker. Wow. Just wow. She is intelligent, funny, well studied in scripture and totally relate-able. I met her too. I could be friends with her too.
Engage your strengths. Do what God has designed you to do and watch and listen for what God has for you to do. Just be ready. He will provide the opportunities.

The most striking thing that happened to me happened as I was leaving the conference on Sunday morning. It hit me like a freight train out of nowhere that this was it for me. This would be my last official PWOC function. I was saying goodbye for the final time to a way of life that I have known for about six years now. I was saying goodbye to so many friends who I will not likely cross paths with again and I will no longer (as far as I know) have the identifier of being a PWOC'er. Hello tears. Where did you come from?? I was waving my hands in front of my eyes and trying to exhale the overwhelming emotion out like all those other ladies who I usually do not identify with. I'm pretty sure some people ran away from me.

We still haven't found a home church here. It can be a discouraging process. I don't have a group of women to connect with on a spiritual level, to dive into the Word of God with, to join in ministry with here.

With all these major changes going on in my life, my identity, my place in the world, with all the unsurity that there can be in the world (yes I know that's not a word). I am truly content.

I honestly do not know what the future holds for us. I do not know how the bills are all going to get paid or the big house is going to get built or how my feet are going to survive or if I will have any room to continue my photography career, how the housework is all going to get done ~ and yet ~ I am content. I know that God is sovereign. I know that He loves me. I know that He has a plan for me because He has told me so. I am truly excited to see how my future unfolds and where He takes me.

It is well with my soul.

It Is Well

I had a post to go along with this, however, I am compelled to let this video stand alone. The post will be for another day.

P.S. If I weren't happily married and madly in love with my amazing husband, I might be in love with Guy Penrod and David Phelps. Just sayin'

A Poll And A Pic *updated for clarification*

Well, we've sold our house. We've moved all our contents to storage. We've begun the process of building our new "estate". We've permanently moved part of our family to Texas while the rest continue to travel back and forth between Texas and Louisiana (Except for our darling oldest daughter who has settled ~at least for now~ in another state). So, the first order of business....*(Here comes the poll)*
Does North Central Texas still count as the South? Cause if not, I have to rename my blog.*(Here ends the poll)*

Okay and here is a picture of the beautiful pages of one of the beautiful new books I bought. (Hopefully more on that later)



Blessings on your day,

Facebook Killed My Blog

I used to have so many words to say. Words to describe my day. Words to describe my feelings. Words to describe the color of the sky. Words to describe behaviors, emotions, sentiments, activities. Now I think in blurbs. "How quickly can I update people on what I am doing and can I do the whole thing in the third person?" I blame it all on facebook.

I suppose there could be some room in there to blame the unbelievable level of busy my life has been these last months, but then you would want me to tell you all about it. And this is the best I can come up with....

Sing4Joy's BFF came to visit and they went to a wonderful wedding together
Sing4Joy's husband returned from the final deployment of his Air Force career and is preparing for retirement
Sing4Joy attended her last PWOC gathering ever
Sing4Joy's second daughter graduated from High School and enlisted in the Air Force
Sing4Joy is trying to get her house in order to sell and move to another state
etc, etc, etc.

Things don't really promise to slow down any time soon, and facebook continues to be a 3 minute option for updating my people so I don't know how much life is left in Southern Living and other peeks into my psyche, but we shall see.

Blessings,