Only One Sees the End from the Beginning

One would have to really feel the need to share in order to blog from a bberry, right? Well, I guess that's me.

Beloved Hubby and I are leaving Houston. (Be at peace. He's driving.) We spent the weekend baby-sitting Grant, our nine month old grandson, so his parents could go to a friend's wedding in The Big Easy. No, there isn't a serious shortage of baby-sitters in Houston, we just needed a fix.

But back to my need to share. These thoughts are for anyone out there trying to raise kids to love and follow Jesus Christ and the message is, "Keep on keeping on."

See, my husband and I raised two kids the same way. One, our son, seemed to say from the first, "Sounds good. I'll worship your God, make Him mine, and try to follow His teachings."

The other one, our daughter, seemed to say, "I'll probably do that, too--but I don't know. I kinda like the world's way." She wasn't openly rebellious, but her heart always seemed divided at best. "

So, why do I open our families' closets for you today? I'm not really sure but I think it must be because somewhere out there is a parent as worried as I once was, worried that the culture is trying it's hardest to hold up as attractive everything you abhor and destroy everything you value.

Someone needs to be encouraged to hold the faith, live the example, and trust the One who tells us that if we train up our children in the way they should go, when they are old they will not depart from it."

The picture I attached-- I snapped it in the once casual child's bathroom, only she's all grown up now. And the paper--it's a personal prayer she wrote out with accompanying scriptures because now she has not only a heart to know Him, but a determination to see that her child knows Him too!"

Can anyone say amen?

Hugs
Shellie

P.S. I did call back and get permission to post this :)

Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Sneak Preview of my 2010 T-Shirts!

I give! I can't take it anymore. My new t-shirts designs are only a couple weeks away from being available in the online store (and in selected local stores) but I can't wait another minute. I think they're so stinking cute that I've just got to give y'all a sneak peek. These are just approved graphics and not pics of the actual shirts, but you'll get the idea! First, the new logo. Please note the pearls adorning the ATS Egret's neck. Isn't she the bomb?



Southern Girls, Southern Pearls-- why, of course, I think they're one and the same. But it's also a play on words that applies to my sayings on the back of each shirt! I've got five new designs (and more to come), but I'm gonna share three with you right now.



DNA: Duly Noted Abnormalities that tie a belle to her tribe:

When you're Southern and you know it say, "AMEN!"

And, my personal favorite, coming soon:

"When life throws you a curve, suck your stomach in and put some color on!"

Give to Haiti Relief and Win!

My friend, Karen Spears Zacharias, has just launched a fantastic appeal for Haiti combined with an opportunity to win an advanced copy of her soon to be released book, "Will Jesus Buy Me a Doublewide?" She promptly issued a challenge to her fellow authors to follow suit and I'm honored to take her up on it.

I'm delighted to pitch in an autographed copy Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On.

Read about this worthy cause at Karen's place and jump on board! Let's see what we can do.

And then, as Karen says, "Go tweet it from the tweetops!" And, if you would be so kind, post it as your facebook status, email your address book, whatever you can do to help raise funds for a worthy cause.

Hugs,
Shellie

Rivuh Jordan, Chile, You Gonna Wear Me Out

In the event that you haven't heard, River Jordan and I will be taking a Great Southern Wing and a Prayer Road Trip this spring, thru a host of southern states and as many bookstores, schools, or libraries as we can fit into the schedule. More details on facebook. And, for the record, I'd surely understand if you aren't in that loop! What with all the info coming at me these days, I do believe I could miss a nice-sized pink elephant playing spoons with Dixie Belle in the center of the living room. But, as I was saying, we are indeed setting off on a wild advernture. As Rivuh (my affectionate pronunciation of her name) mentioned yesterday, "Never has a tour been more aptly named". We are both notorious for arriving in that very manner. Sometimes, when I manage to stop long enough to breathe, one of the voices in my head will ask, "May I please speak to whoever it was here that thought it was possible to squeeze a two-week tour into our schedule this spring?" So far, this question has been dissed by the others.

Don't get me wrong. I'm reallllllllllllly looking forward to it. I expect it to be a full out HOOT. It's just the logistics of life that can get crazy, yes? And speaking of crazy...that's what I had in mind when I pulled up this page, to get the crazy dream I had last night out of my head and down on paper, er, laptop. (As a general rule, the only way I can get something outta of the brain loop is to get it in words.)

We had driven up to our first "event". I had begun unloading the few promotional goods and books I planned to take inside when I noticed Rivuh's process of unloading looked a whole lot like that old scene of the clowns emergin with all their worldly good from a tiny car. I mean the girl was unloading, and unloading, and unloading. About that time we were greeted by our contact person who, after the initial meet and greet, asked which one of us was cooking.

"Cooking?" I asked.

Rivuh grinned. "Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, Shellie. I added a few things to our agenda." That's when I discovered that Rivuh had felt free to tell our hosts that I would "cook up a few things" for the crowd. Did I mention that we were at a school of 500? As they escorted me to the kitchen while Rivuh continued to unpack, I made a mental note to shoot her, later.

After I cooked and served the masses, I met up with Rivuh in the gym to prepare for our presentation, only Rivuh wasn't preparing, she was finishing a little building project-- a portable concession stand to be exact-- from materials she had brought along with her. I had to ask. You would've.

"Rivuh, what are you doing now?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about this, too." Our conversation was interrupted by someone ordering a snickers which was the first time I noticed a line was forming. In between the next few customers Rivuh explained that setting up a concession stand at each stop was her brilliant idea to help defray our expenses. Brilliant was her word.

I woke up about that time and breathed a sigh of relief to find it was just a dream. Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I did call Rivuh this afternoon, you know, just to make sure we were on the same page...

Hugs,
Shellie

All Things Southern LIVE in the morning...

Hey folks! Sitting here in the chair and a half with Beloved Hubby watching the big game. Major torn on this one. Hate to cheer against the SEC but that means cheering for Alabama and Saban, sigh, not what a LSU Tiger likes to do.
Oh, well, my point for writing this up is to get y'all in the loop about tomorrow. Someone hacked into the website at the FOXFM92.7 site. Bummer. The site should be back up soon, but for tomorrow at least you'll need different directions to get to the stream. I hope you'll join me! (FYI for any newbies reading, the show airs at 8:00 to 9:00 CST on Friday mornings.)

Big fun show planned. Guests are Deborah Dunn, author of "Stupid About Men", Jackie K. Cooper, Entertainment Man of Middle Georgia, and Kathy Patrick, the Pulpwood Queen of Jefferson, TX to talk about Girlfriend Weekend coming up!

Of course, we'll have good music, I'll try to chat w/y'all via facebook and twitter while we're LIVE, and I will have a ton of opinions and obervastions as it's been three whole weeks since we've been live.

Here's the scoop. You'll need to use this link. If that doens't work, go to shoutcast.com and type in 92.7 FOX FM. If all that fails, holler help on facebook and I'll try to come to the rescue.

"See" you in the morning!
Hugs,
Shellie

Dixie's in the Doghouse

This would be the explanation I promised y'all earlier when I abandoned several twitter and facebook threads in midstream...

I decided I'd open with a picture of Dixie the night I got her, five years ago, just so you'd understand a little more why she made me crazy earlier. But in order to really set the story, you'll need to know that in the last few months a number of dogs have gone missing within a few miles of our house, and that includes the much loved Shadow, my bff's golden retriever.

There has been a lot of speculation on the culprits. Some of the suggestions made me sicker than others but all of them were unsettling, a gator, a panther, a dog-fighting ring stealing our pets and making them fight for their lives?! Horrible scenarious all, and for a brief time this afternnon, a missing Dixie Belle had me worried that she may have fallen to the same fate.

Sure, I got ahead myself. Sure, she'd only been missing for a couple hours and my vivid imagination was to blame for getting me all worked up-- but have I mentioned that Dixie is always at the door (when she isn't sleeping at the foot of our bed) and she never roams the neighborhood?!

I was frozen solid when I finally found her returning from who knows where, just a block or so from the house and not only did she not look at all contrite, she looked quite pleased with herself. Have you seen those antelopes or whatever bounding on the out door channel? That's exactly what she was doing, bounding, and I'm almost sure she was grinning. I probably went from worried to angry in .9 seconds.

But that was then and this is now. She's resting on her blanket in front of the fire now and my heart has softened, exactly like it used to do when my toddlers would make me want to pull my hair out-- until they fell asleep and looked like little angels. She is jerking my string, that dog, but I love her something crazy. And now, you know the rest of the story.

Hugs,
Shellie