My friend Kari is pregnant, due just after Christmas. She wrote a beautiful post on Advent that is worth the read. It is a letter to her son, Atticus, and in it she honestly shares her perspective on the whole thing. I love it.

“Your dad is the feeler in this family. I will be interested to see which you are. I don’t think I know what it means to be seized by the power of a great affection, but Christmas and Advent are as close as I get to understanding what that feels like.”  -Kari

Finally, I am so excited to be writing about that today over at Christmas Change. Even more exciting to me is that my husband is joining me there, and together we share some of those things we are thinking on as we enter into December. I would love for you to join us there as we write On Returning.

So while she’s over there teaching decorating truths she learned from Adam Lambert, another fellow 31 Dayer has the nerve to be brilliant as well. Kendra at My First Kitchen is hosting A Cookie and a Story Contest until November 14th. You can read the details at her blog, but basically she is looking for cookie recipes and a story to go along with it from you. Super fun.

Meanwhile, I can tell you that June from Bye Bye Pie came over a few weeks ago and brought her puppy. That’s right. I am now a hoster of dog play dates. I would write more about it, but June already did and we all know she is much better at these dog types of writings than I am.

And while I’m telling you about awesome things, Melissa at Events by Design is hosting Something to Celebrate for the month of November. She has great recipes, fun tips, lovely photos and giveaways! Her tagline is Where Celebration Comes to Life, and let me tell you: this girl knows how to celebrate. Ask anyone who knows her in real life, and they will smile and tell a story of how they have received invitations from Melissa for an “It’s Spring!” party or “It’s Tuesday!” party or an impromptu girls tea party in her daughter’s room. Can you guess what she does for a living? Of course she is an Events Designer. I love the stuff that girl is made of.

So here’s to hoping next week begins with less mush-brain. While you are weekending, keep your eyes open for those everyday graces that are at risk of going unnoticed. Write it down, take a picture, and then link up with us here on Tuesday for Tuesdays Unwrapped.

Speaking of photos, when I went to add a new photo to my about page yesterday, I realized the information there was nearly two years old. So I took some time to update it and ended up writing way more than I meant to but I just didn’t know where to stop. I always struggle with doing an about page – do I talk about me? My writing? My blog? My family? I talked about all of those things. Do you know of any blog about pages that you particularly like? Do tell. In the meantime, I’m off to see if Adam Lambert has anything to say about creating space for your soul to breathe.

In brainless news, this girl here? Love her voice. You should give her a listen.

And just as fun but completely unrelated, my friend Amy has been doing a tour of her house on her blog and you simply have to go nose around over there. And? She and her husband basically did all the work themselves.  Here is the first post.

image from Playing Sublimey

Finally, Amber wrote a lovely post that she calls a non-post (but we know better) on writing and such. She asks a question at the end and since I’m on a panel with her at BlissDom in a few weeks, I would love to hear what you have to say. I always love to hear what you have to say.

It’s coming. That day in August that has been looming heavy at the end of my summer is coming fast and furious and there is nothing these mommy arms can do to stop it. One of the girls is in a size 2 and a half shoe now. With laces. The other one has finally learned to ride a bike without her training wheels. When I dropped them off at a friends house yesterday, they could hardly wait for me to leave so they could get down to serious playing business. They’re five. Aren’t they supposed to be 13 before they do stuff like that? One month is all that’s left between having them home and having them in kindergarten. So I’ll hold on and unwrap the moments today, but it won’t change the fact that my girls are growing up.

Do you have a life stage you are longing to hold onto? Have you noticed something lately that typically gets buried beneath the busy and the task? Link up to a post explaining how you have found a gift in the midst of the messy, the lovely or the unexpected things of life and share them here with us. To find out more about Tuesdays Unwapped, or if you don’t know how to use a permalink to add your post, simply click here.

Speaking of spring, there is a  spring cleaning party @ Simple Mom starting next week. I would like to think I’m going to do it. But I am making no promises.

I already have a jump start, though. We are having a neighborhood yard sale tomorrow. If you are local, come on over! You know what they say about one ma’ams trash.

Jen @ Balancing Beauty and Bedlam has a great post about yard sale tips and tricks. Just incase. Now I gotta run and go price my stuff!

I did make dinner. And I cleaned the children. And I finished a novel that I started while I stood in line on election day. It only took me 4 months to finish a book. Awesome.

I will say the knobs on the cabinets are half done. I maned up and worked that drill. Arg. I’ll be able to show you that soon.

So yeah. I’ve been doing stuff. In the meantime, it’s Chickadee’s birthday this week and she’s hosting lots of giveaways. There’s two days left so you still have time to enter.

Admin Note: The comments are going to look a little crazy for the next day or so, but they’ll still work just fine.

During the month of March, Jill is being featured on a host of different blogs to promote her book and I wanted to help out my friends at Hearts at Home and join the tour. They took some time to ask Jill about her real mom moments.

Jill, tell us a little bit about yourself and your family.

Mark and I have been married 25 years and we have five children. Anne is 24 and married to our wonderful son-in-love, Matt. Evan is 21 and married to our beautiful daughter-in-love, Julie. Erica is 18 and a college student at Heartland Community College. Kolya is 15 and in the 8th grade. We adopted Kolya at the age of 9 from Russia–the God story about his adoption is included in the Real Moms…Real Jesus book. And Austin is 12 and in the 7th grade.

Tell us about your newest book Real Moms…Real Jesus.

This is a book designed to help moms understand that when Jesus lived on this earth he was fully God, yet fully man. We don’t often think about the fact that he was a human being and he lived the full human experience: pain, hunger, fatigue, frustration, betrayal, disappointment. He experienced it all!

There’s one verse in the Bible about Jesus that simply says “large crowds followed him everywhere he went.” Well, isn’t that the life of a mom? Large crowds follow her to the bathroom. They follow her to the kitchen. To the grocery store. She’s in high demand! And when Jesus lived on this earth, He was in high demand, too.

Why did you want to write this book?

Most of us long for a friend who understands. Yes, we need girlfriends who understand what our life is like. But we also need to understand that we have a friend who understand in Jesus. Too many of us think of God as being distant and unable to relate to our daily struggles. But nothing could be further from the truth! He understands and he wants us to build our friendship with Him. He wants to not only be our Savior, but also our Friend.

What do you hope your readers will gain from this book?

I hope readers will gain a new perspective about their relationship with Jesus. I also hope to weave God’s truth into the daily life of a mom.

What unique elements will the reader find in Real Moms…Real Jesus?

Each chapter looks at some character trait in Jesus’ life that can help us in our life as a mom. In between the chapters are interactive vignettes that provide brief, refreshing glimpses into our real, messy, busy lives.

There are also questions at the end of the chapter for further consideration and suggested Bible reading in the book of Matthew. If the reader chooses to pursue the suggested reading, she will have read the book of Matthew completely by the end of the book! There is also a leader’s guide in the back of the book so it can be used in a group setting.

This is a Hearts at Home Book. What is Hearts at Home?

Hearts at Home is an organization that encourages, educates, and equips women in the profession of motherhood. Hearts at Home encourages mom through annual conferences, our extensive website (www.hearts-at-home.org), a free bi-weekly electronic newsletter, a radio program, and an entire line of books designed to meet the needs of moms all over the world!

Any closing thoughts?

I am very excited about this book! I believe that if a mom can strengthen her relationship with Jesus Christ, she will feel more equipped to be the mom she wants to be. I’m also offering an online book discussion on my blog beginning Tuesday, April 7. If you’d like to join us, you can subscribe to my blog here.

You can purchase your own copy of Real Moms…Real Jesus by clicking here. Or enter to win a free copy by leaving a comment with a way to contact you. And be sure to check out Hearts at Home, their conferences for moms, and all their online resources here.

**Edited: The giveaway has been awarded to Sandy Toes! The book will be sent to you soon, Miss Sandy!**

Address

When I first started a blog, I never considered the importance of having a URL that was easy to remember. Thus, emmafree.blogspot became my permanent address. Which would have been fine, except for the fact that Emma Free is not my name. Strike one. At BlissDom both in October and this past weekend, the panelists emphasized the importance of streamlining your bloggy identity. Ooops. Strike Two.  Now, I know it is possible to have your own domain name on Blogger (like ChattingAtTheSky.com), as many of you do. But before I made that switch, there were a couple of other issues I was concerned about.

Multiple Pages

Blogger does not have a multiple page option and this is one of the main reasons I decided to switch platforms. Basically, I wanted to avoid the sidebar. Sidebars in general don’t bother me, but showcasing the words and the photos are my top priority. However, a sidebar serves a purpose so I needed a place to put sidebar things like archives, about me, and links. Though I have seen lots of Blogger blogs fake the multiple page option beautifully, Kate suggested if I ever wanted to expand the blog in the future (adding a page for photography, perhaps?) that WordPress would be the best option. I took her word for it.

Space

When uploading my photos to Blogger, I noticed my allotted space percentage was climbing. When I got to 46%, I began to wonder what would happen when I got to 100%? I didn’t want to stick around to find out. As far as I know, Blogger doesn’t currently have an upgrade option for bloggers to purchase more space. Though I’ve never heard of anyone being kicked off Blogger because they used too much space, I also couldn’t find anyone to assure me it wasn’t possible. I thought perhaps it was time to pay a little bit a year for more space and move to a platform where I could self-host.

If you want to know how much of your allotted space you are using, you can find it when you upload your photos to Blogger as seen in the screen shot above next to the orange Upload Image button in small print.

Edited to add: You CAN purchase more storage space from Google. And hosting photos through an external provider like Flickr or SmugMug is a good way to conserve space. Okay. Carry on.

design and function

This is another area where I followed Kate’s advice. Basically, WordPress has the ability to be fancy, more so than Blogger. And, it has more umph when it comes to PlugIns. Or so I’m told. Techy people seem to think that is important.

If you don’t know much about code and you don’t have a Kate, I would stick with Blogger. There are a variety of templates to choose from that can be applied in minutes without much work. It is not so simple in WordPress. You don’t have to be concerned with computery things as much on Blogger. Posting and uploading photos are equally simple, though WordPress has a cool media library that stores your uploaded photos whereas Blogger simply stores the photos within each post.

so far so good

I really like WordPress so far. It feels clean and simple. I don’t think Blogger is bad. I liked Blogger, honestly. It was easy. But the timing of this mades sense for me and I was ready to try it out. If I begin to regret my decision, I’ll let you know. This is not an exhaustive Blogger vs. WordPress post by any means. I don’t know enough lingo for that. Feel free to add your reasons for switching  or staying put in the comments section.

additional resources

Hosted Blog Comparison: WordPress vs. Blogger

Which Blog Service is the Best?

Self-Hosted WordPress vs. Blogger: A Newbie’s Perspective

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

In other news, this weekend I’m having 22 high school senior girls to my house. All night. No, my house isn’t big enough for that. Yes, it was my idea. No, I haven’t lost my ever-lovin’ mind. This sleepover is a product of a project I’ve been working on with Kendra (you know, the beautiful and talented cook from My First Kitchen?) I look forward to telling you more about it.

How about something I can tell you now?
BlissDom is next week in Nashville. If you haven’t heard, it is a blogging conference hosted by the online magazine Blissfully Domestic. I can’t wait to meet some of my favorite bloggers in real life. Last BlissDom was a blast, as seen here. I’ll be sure to tell you about this years conference later.

Until then, I’m off to stock the bathrooms with toilet paper. I’m having lots of company tomorrow. And if you are reading this and going to BlissDom, say so in the comments if you’d like.