AUTHOR’S NOTES
Let’s start this combined Newsletter with a few explanations.
I’ll start out by noting that the author of this usually very busy blog has had an extremely busy summer full of urgent and important distractions and life-changing decisions.
You know how much I love my family and friends. Two people near and dear to me have become extremely ill this summer. One loved one has received surgery and recovered nicely, but the other is still in an ugly battle with a terrible disease. Please pray that she will receive the healing that she needs. God knows all of the details; just lift her up today. I thank you for those prayers and have faith that God will answer.
PEOPLE OVER WRITING
God and the people that I love always come first with me, even before writing.
Our Father; God is always going to be the center focus of this blog; so when time crunches approach; options and solutions are sometimes fuzzy and confusing; depending on the circumstances being faced and how and which part of the writing gets sacrificed.
This summer God has stressed to me that people need priority over writing. It is one of those things that seems to be “for a season.”
I ALWAYS THINK SEASONALLY
Different seasons of our lives go and flow through different patterns and rhythms.
These patterns and rhythms never pay attention to the things we have already committed to. They happen when they happen; and our response is always required immediately. We never know when we are going to take an unexpected turn down through the river of life; and sometimes we have to stop and view a wondrous waterfall, and/or tackle a rough portion of rapids in the river. Wonderful or terrifying; all of the twists and turns make us into who we were meant to be.
These last two months have found me in a raging spiritual war for more downtime, both for blog posting and for spending time with important people. This was much more than I realized I would be experiencing when I made my summer plans. I should know better than to make my own plans when God’s are so much more efficient in the long-run. My prayers through this unexpected patch of time have been more urgent for more people and different circumstances. This has required a lot of time-outs.
I give no apologies for such needed priorities.
THE BARE NECESSITIES OF LIFE
Also; my time at my day job and my home life have been more demanding than ever this summer.
The older you get; the more decisions you have to be making. This year has given my husband and I a new mile-marker on our life’s-journey. We are celebrating our 30th anniversary this year. Knowing this one fact seems to be something that I have to soak in and absorb. It seems only yesterday that we were trying to get to know one another. Then life happened to us. Where has all of the time disappeared to?
Somehow we have to arrange more time to savor this special mile-marker while keeping all of the irons going in the fires of our busy days. Truth be told – we both got a late start with true living and I don’t think we’ve ever quite caught up with all of the others of our age. It is a juggling act for sure; but we will be taking a breather in October that will be refreshing and a lot of fun for both of us.
Again; I have people to make time for. I used to think time was so unlimited. Now I see how fleeting it can be. The weekends now seem like the blink of an eye. A whole night’s sleep seems to last only a few minutes before the sun hits you in the eyes again.
TRANSITIONS ARE DIFFERENT FROM TRANSFORMATIONS
As we anticipate these things of summer; I’m very busy trying to find the best way to transition from the full time professional life with part-time writing; into full-time writing and publishing. That has always been the way I’ve wanted to retire; but it is a very slow and painful transition. Please pray for God to guide me and to provide all that is needed for this new page of life. It often feels like a see-saw; constantly going to great heights then falling right back to the ground.
For the past two months I’ve been very busy working out some of the many things I’ve shared here.
DOES GROWING UP HAVE TO BE SO FAST?
Also; my family is growing up again.
I hate growing pains and I’ve already been there once with our kids. They are so adorable before they turn 18! Once they learn a few things; they are off and into their own lives and you are no longer the center of the universe. It is selfish of me; I know.
The grandkids are all in school now; except for the youngest little one.
How did that happen so soon? I’ve tried to plow out a few fields of time in the midst of all these other life changing transitions to have more time to spend with them before they are completely grown and flying away to build their own nests. It suddenly feels like the most important matter of all.
This month (July) we do Gma and Pop Camp for a week. That will give me lots of time with the two in the middle-aged range of our grands; and a little more time with the oldest and the youngest also. Our teenager has a more age-appropriate camp already; but he will be with us the weekend before and after. The little one can’t leave his Mommy for a whole week yet; so his Mom will stay a few days with us so that he will be able to participate in Gma and Pop camp too. Then he will be going home with her while the rest of us continue to camp.
It is a juggling act!
This time we spend focusing only on our grands for a whole week every year is priceless.
THIS JULY REQUIRED DILIGENT PLANNING
In July I’ve spent more time planning for this event than blogging; I’ll admit.
Again; I refuse to apologize for trying to cherish the best parts of my personal life. I expect everyone will agree with me and totally understand.
Also; in relation to family planning this month; my husband and I spent June planning our family vacation/Feast of Tabernacles events for this year. Our vacation, followed by The Feast gathering, will take place in October this year.
These golden moments have to be planned and reserved for months ahead of the season in which they happen. July was the month we chose to take the time out to plan it all out; and since we have five family units under one roof every year; it is a LOT of planning ahead.
We finally have Gma and Pop Camp and The Feast of Tabernacles/Family Vacation planned. It took much of my writing time in June and July away; but the sacrifice was needed in order to achieve the family goals.
Did I tell you that I work full time, even though somehow I’ve blogged every day for years now? Are you laughing yet?
I HAVE NOT DROPPED THE BALL
The whole point in stating all of these totally unnecessary comments in such a public way at the beginning of this month’s combined Newsletters is to make my many excuses for not being very good with the timing of the Newsletters and articles posts this summer.
I hate when that happens! July has been especially awkward.
Right now I do promise and vow to our readers to do better and get ahead of myself next year! I just never realized how busy the middle of my summers really were until now. Hindsight creates more accurate futures.
This is also to reassure you that exciting things are still going on blog-wise. I want to reassure all of our readers that I haven’t dropped the ball.
Blogging and writing are always going to be a HUGE part of my days.
WHEN THE WRITING MAKES THE WRITING LATE
To try to wrap this lengthy explanation up in a big bow and move on; I need to mention that there is also something else happening (believe it or not.)
It has also been a BIG and very time consuming middle of July thing for me.
You all know that I’m combining our Thursday COME AS A CHILD blog posts into books which summarize each book of the bible that we study together. I hope you have bought the first two books; THE GOSPEL HIDDEN IN GENESIS – PART ONE and THE GOSPEL HIDDEN IN GENESIS – PART TWO. (If you haven’t yet; they are still for sale at Amazon.com.) This year I’ve been editing workbooks for these two books. The new workbooks will be suitable for small group studies of the two books on Genesis.
Also one of my greatest current efforts is that I have been trying to produce. edit and publish the next summary of The Book of Exodus. These publications are still being edited, but I hope to finish them and get them published in the next few months. As I’ve continued to publish such publications; I’ve also committed to teaching some writing courses to a few senior citizens groups in my local areas. Fun; but very time consuming.
THE REALLY BIG THING I HAVEN’T MENTIONED YET
The work behind the scenes has been much!
Just for fun though; know that my latest side-line publication is a new book called GOLDEN TALES FOR RAINY DAYS (And Other Special Occasions).
I’m expecting to be reviewing the first published draft of this new book in the next few weeks. Hopefully, it will get published and into circulation by the end of this summer.
I’m so excited about this book!
It is completely different from anything else I’ve ever done.
GOLDEN TALES FOR RAINY DAYS is a whole different style of writing. The book is totally fiction. It is full of fairy tales and short stories that both children and adults will love.
This little publication has required LOTS of extra time and attention; but it is one that I’m very proud to announce. Of course, this isn’t an official announcement – that will come in a few months from now.
ONE MORE TIMELY THING
As another side publication – I want to edit my notes on Elul and publish them in a devotional edition before the next season arrives in late summer. That may be a bit of a stretch to accomplish; but it is a big hope for right now. Much of the work is already done; just some editing and publishing to be accomplished.
Why am I being so personal today and sharing this letter to our readers instead of sharing the recap of all of our June and July articles which I usually tend to do in our Newsletters?
Because I want all of our subscribers to understand the process that is always going on behind the scenes at The IN SEASON Lifestyle. We write from real life.
I want them to know that the blog is still very much alive and thriving; even though our July articles have been much more scarce. We are spoiled in this blog by the consistency of at least one blog post a day. It hasn’t been possible this summer; but we will return to that pattern soon.
KEEPING THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING
The main focus and core of our blog has always been our Thursday, COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY.
We are just entering into an exciting new study on The Book of Joshua. The first few lessons have been very well received; and you can review those recaps further into this newsletter.
Rest assured that these articles are the ones that will never be dropped; and they will continue as long as the author can breath and get to a keyboard. At least they happened in July! Thank you God. It was a miracle.
So; please continue to enjoy these posts each week; and forgive me that the side/filler articles and the new sign-ups and weekly e-mails have not been as timely as they should be for the last two months. Many people are new readers and they have no idea how much we have put into our articles in the past. This process will be back on track and continue smoothly after the end of July when many of the things I’ve mentioned above will come to a head and make the rest of the year’s blogging all that much more interesting.
LIKE ABRAHAM AND SARAH
So; please be patient and stay with me. Again I want to say thanks for all of your amazing and wonderful support for the blog.
We are now sharing our weekly study with over 115 readers every week!
It is a great effort to stay consistently on-track, and to be moving ahead into where ever God decides to lead us next. Like Abraham and Sarah we simply want to GO where ever and when ever the Lords says “GO!”
Like the tent of the wilderness tabernacle; the side that shows to the public may not always tell the whole inside story of our journey. Every now and then I want to keep our most faithful readers up-to-date on exactly where we are and what we are thinking.
Hence; this post just stumbled into our newsletter.
I thank God for each of you!
Keep reading and praying that God reveals many more exciting and adventurous articles in the future.
RECAP OF JUNE AND JULY 2022 PUBLISHED BLOG ARTICLES
ARTICLES WE POSTED IN JUNE 2023
Don’t misunderstand all I mentioned above; there WERE plenty of June articles published. We could not forget to celebrate Pentecost! Absolutely not; and then we had Father’s Day and Flag Day. Also; we were preparing for the upcoming July 4th events in June.
For the sake of time though; I just had to combine June’s Newsletter with July’s this time!
Following is a recap of the articles we published in June. They are displayed in the order published:
ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JULY 2022
As I mentioned above; July was more about quality than quantity!
We published four great July articles. Two of them were the Thursday COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY articles that began our new study of The Book of Joshua. We are so excited about that study! There will be two other July posts for this study which are yet to come. (We’ve never missed a Thursday posting these since 2012; but please don’t say that out loud!)
So; keep checking the blog for the rest of the month.
Below is a recap of all of the July articles we have published so far:
WHAT WILL AUGUST ARTICLES BRING TO US?
The author’s fast-paced lifestyle will probably slow down for a few moments during August and September.
That means many more new and top-quality seasonal and daily life articles are in store for late summer and early fall.
ELUL
The Hebraic month of Elul will begin in the latter part of the summer. We will be posting and updating the ALL MY DAYS CALENDAR page every day of the season with a beautiful meditation for each new day of Elul.
END OF SUMMER THEMES
The end of August will give out a few more “summer” related articles, including some new recipes and possibly some decorating themes from MONDAY NIGHT MENUS and THE HOUSE DOCTOR.
We will share our sweet memories of Gma and Pop camp from the month of July. Can’t wait to tell you all about how that played out. When God invented Grandkids He did some of His very best work! I guess these memories will be posted in the OH THE PLACES WE WILL GO tab of the blog.
One more place that everyone will be going at the end of the summer is back to school. There may be a few articles related to that subject. The folks here at The IN SEASON Lifestyle love homeschooling families. We want to do all that we can to promote and support them. Maybe a few homeschoolers will want to tell us how their planning is different than those of the public school systems.
OH THE PLACES WE WILL GO will also feature a few of our favorite places to visit for end-of-summer and early Fall fun and adventure. There are so many amazing little places to explore during this lovely time of the year.
SEASONS POSTS THINKING TOWARD FALL
We will have so MUCH to preview for the SEASONS tab of the blog menu this August.
It will be time to begin to get ready for the upcoming Fall Holy Days.
There will be some articles regarding The Days of Awe, The Feast of Trumpets and The Day of Atonement. There may be a few Feast of Tabernacle articles too; and these will also continue on into September.
Have you made plans for The Feast yet? Our crew has found a beautiful spot in South Carolina to enjoy The Feast of Tabernacles this year.
I’m SO EXCITED!!!!
LITERARY ACTIVITIES COMING
Our PEN ART tab will be featuring our newest publication information. You don’t want to miss this new announcement about the upcoming fictional book that is coming out for publication. Be sure to be checking for the details.
Tuck a few copies of this special new book away for Feast gifts and other special times for giving during the Fall and Winter seasons.
It is a book for sharing with your whole family on special occasions; and/or rainy days.
SHOPPING WILL BE QUARTERLY IN THE FUTURE
We will try to get back to the normal format for seasonal shopping ideas in The Community Store during August and September.
However; I am thinking of making the store posts each season (Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter) instead of every month. Most people seem to be very budgeted right now.
If you have any feelings about this; I would love to hear them.
WE LOVE OUR READERS!
All of you are so special to us. We want The IN SEASON Lifestyle to be your favorite blogspace.
Hopefully after the June and July rush our need to combine the Newsletters will not be necessary again. We have so much to share with each of you each upcoming month.
Thanks for always checking in with us!
We love every single reader who stops by the blog. It is our hope that there is something here for everyone by the end of each month’s publications.
Enjoy the upcoming month of August!
Gail Landgraf/Blogger/Writer/Editor/Publisher for The IN SEASON Lifestyle Blog/via WordCastle Publications, LLC