Spiritual Lessons From the Barenaked Ladies

From Kitty - Yeah, I know it's weird, but sometimes it's funny when you realize how many things remind you of God. So I was out walking this morning with my iPod going and "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies came on. I love that song - fast and quirky and makes me want to dance.

But as I was listening today, the song really reminded me of how amazing God's grace is! To paraphrase it, they sing:

It's been one week since you said, "I'm angry." Five days since you said, "Get it together, then come back and see me." Three days since I realized it's all my fault. Yesterday, you forgave me. But it'll still be two days till I say, "I'm sorry."

This is EXACTLY how God is with me! He lets me know through the Bible or a sermon or a friend or just in my heart that I've done something wrong. If I don't do anything about it, He moves me to feel like I should go think about it for a while, and He's always open for me to come back and talk to Him about it.

Then it usually takes even more time for me to realize He's right and I'm wrong. But - and this is the amazing grace part - He is ready to forgive me even before I'm ready to ask for forgiveness!! So when I do ask, He's ready to say, "Done! I forgive you." And then we can go back to being happy and close and together again.

It's funny how God really is in everything!

The Most Wonderful Place in the World

From Kitty - No, not Disney World. The LIBRARY. I just love that word. It reminds me of every wonderful place I've ever been. The musty smell of my childhood library lent atmosphere to the world Anne of Green Gables lives in. The dark basement of an old library makes a thriller even scarier. The high-tech look of a new one makes you want to go shopping at Best Buy. And the joys of finding a big one...ahhhh...thank you, God!!

Where did this come from? I finally got my Santa Monica library card yesterday! Hurray!!!! The library is SOO big and has a HUGE fiction section and a HUMONGOUS "New Fiction" section, as well as tables with outlets to plug in your laptop. Plus there are FOUR branches in the 12 sq mile city, so I'm walking distance from TWO of them! Ohhh, I'm in love!

The best (worst? I don't have much time right now!) part was finding two books I've been wanting to read right in front of my face in the New Fiction area. I checked out Karen Marie Moning's DARKFEVER and Diana Peterfreund's SECRET SOCIETY GIRL. I was up till 3:20am putting all my data in Quicken as part of my goal to be more organized this year. But I couldn't help myself - I read Karen's book for another 20 minutes! (I'm going to wiped today!)

Monday looks to be a great day already - walking John to work and then walking to the library with my laptop to write until John gets out for lunch. Then we'll walk home together. Doesn't that sound almost blissful?! LOL!!!

Hope you're all having a great day, too! Oh, and forgive us for not writing recently. John is now working 9-7, and I've been crazy busy trying to get end-of-year-beginning-of-year "stuff" done. More posts - and pictures - soon!

Day 3 - The Next Step

From Kitty - I just read the dreams that two of our friends posted in the comments section. Wow! Big! HUGE! That is so great! I spoke to another friend on the phone today and we started brainstorming goals for our dreams, and steps to achieve the goals.

For one area, I have a 4-part to-do list. This is great because the to-do list for my life (which includes "fix the car door" and "mail package to Mom") is 50-60 items long. I can do 4 things. And I can do them before Stephanie and I talk again in two weeks. So I have a list, a timeline, and someone to hold me accountable. Excellent!

My goal of finishing my current novel by the end of February only has one item on the to-do list today. "Re-read the current draft." This is a little scary for me because I need to know what the second and third steps are as well. But as I said with a sigh to Stephanie today, "I guess I don't really need to know step 2 until I finish step 1 - so I better get to it!"

This reminded me of how our lives have been since God started us on our adventures. John and I joke to each other (though it's proving to be true!) that God must have the information on our future classified as "need to know" - and apparently we don't need to know! Often, particularly recently, we only know the next step when what we really want is to know the next ten steps! But if you don't do step 1, it doesn't matter.

Do you know what the next step is for you this year? Do it!

P.S. If you'd like to listen to the sermon on big dreams, click here or go to www.belairpres.org and click on recent sermons. It's the one from January 7, 2007.

Day 1 of the Rest of My Life

Thinking and planning about goals, resolutions and dreams takes up the brain-space of many a mortal this time of year. Not least of which is me, Kitty. Our pastor gave a brilliant sermon Sunday on dreams - big dreams! The kind that will never come to pass unless God is involved.

So I'm writing down goals and thinking about what kind of big dreams I have, the kind that are impossible without God's help. John already has his big dream figured out - he's sent out his updated demo reel to Weta Digital in New Zealand, and now only God can do any more to get John a job there next month.

I spent the day taking my current #1 goal - finishing this book and getting it to my agent - and breaking it down into pieces. As I read in one goal-planning article last week, the more pieces you can break your goal into, the more items get crossed off as completed, and the better you feel about yourself. This in turn lends additional motivation and courage to continuing on to the end. So...I'm off to cross another piece off my goal list.

Meanwhile, I'm still thinking about what my big dream is... Do you have one?

What's Your Goal for the New Year?

Hi friends! Kitty here with all kinds of smiles because she's met her goals for the day! I've spent a good part of the day reading articles on goal-setting. Mostly, it's because I've got to finish that book! But also, I need to get my life in order so that the important things get done and I can let the unimportant and un-done things slip away without guilt. Too much feeling guilty about unfinished to-do lists in years past!

Today my goal was to read over the goal-setting articles, begin setting some goals, and say hello to you here on our blog! Done, done and done! Hurray!

So tell us - what are some of your goals for 2007? Watch more James Bond movies? (Seems like a good year to do it.) Lose some weight and/or exercise more? (We're in that boat this year. The goodbye dinners in Sydney, the welcome home dinners in Los Angeles, as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's put us up about 10 lbs (4 kg) each. Eeek!) Or maybe you want to stay in touch with your friends and family better. That's us, too - and the reason why we're going to try harder to write you here and say hi at least twice a week.

Comment here and let us know your goals this year. Writing it down adds power and conviction - at least more than not writing it down at all! Good luck and God bless you!!