My amazing mom first approached me with the idea for Gumballs & Money Trees almost five years ago. Dr. Benjamin Dagley had told her and my dad a story and wondered if they knew anyone could help bring it life in children’s book. They did… me. I took the true story of Dag’s sweet relationship with his daughter, Tatum, and the lessons she learned through her gumball machines and wrote it into a children’s story. My mom again connected me to an artist that she thought might want to be part of this project. I can’t say enough about Jeanne …
The Message on the Mirror
I have a problem. I can’t clean the mirror in my closet, and it desperately needs it. Over the past year or so, I started writing on the mirror the promises that God had given me. I read them every time I look in the mirror. I see the promises instead of my outfit. I see God’s encouragement to keep going instead of my doubts. I’ve tried to convince myself to just erase the words and write them again after the mirror is clean, and yet I can’t make myself do it. Each challenge and promise were written during moments …
Little Miracles
Between the cracks of the sidewalk leading to my home and the metal edging lining my front flower bed, a tangle of green emerges with the spring sunshine. It’s unsightly and irritating, but there is an easy solution for weeds. It’s been a long hard winter and after several late freezes, every sunny day is a neighborhood party. The home improvement stores fill to capacity with shoppers, the trays of flowers disappear like donuts in a kindergarten class. Everyone is desperate for new life and a fresh start after Covid and winter and lock-ins. But after a brief breath of …
All Red and All Wrong
I knew something was wrong the moment we arrived at the Christmas party, but I didn’t know much else. I kind of knew the lady through a few common acquaintances, but it was her husband who had invited us to come. He was a client of ours, so Matt and I agreed. We dressed appropriately, and I felt cute in my red sweater. Elegant, not too flashy. Client wear. Matt always looks handsome, but he’d even donned a suit coat for the party. She’d told me not to bring anything, but I didn’t want to arrive empty-handed, so I picked …
I could be in Florida but…
I sat in the passenger seat with my hands folded to preserve my freshly manicured nails. Usually they are a mess from house cleaning and craft projects and general neglect, but my mom had taken me for a much needed manicure just the day before. All morning I’d fidgeted and packed and repacked and removed things all while carefully preserving my nails, and now I was finally on my way. My dear husband sat beside me calmly smiling as I went through my list making sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. “You’re going to be great,” he said for the millionth …
Home and Back Again
Three and a half years since my last blog! That actually made me laugh out loud when I saw this tonight. Three and a half years to start a business and get that tiny little frail sapling to be strong enough to carry our family. Three and a half years of seeing miracles, and being stretched, and questioning and standing, and finally coming to a deep place of knowing our God and His faithfulness in ways we never would have before. So… three and a half years later, we are still at the helm of our beautiful business, Jones House …
… and back in again.
For some reason I decided to check my blog today. I don’t know why because if I haven’t been here, then no one else has either. However, just reading the title of my last blog made me laugh so hard that I just felt inspired to write. Actually, I feel inspired to write often lately, I just don’t. So anyway, “Out of hybernation” seems like such a funny joke when I then proceeded to not blog again for like 6 months. But I do have to say that the last few months have been such a wonderful contrast to the …
Loving Life Again
I didn’t mean to disappear this week. I honestly thought I would be writing all week. I thought I would get a lot of other things accomplished as well. However, all week I have been struggling with headaches that have made it really hard to look at my computer screen. I very rarely have headaches, and so for me this migraine-like headache has been so dibilitating and unexpected. It started with a “crick” in my shoulder that has plagued me since last week and just gradually got worse and worse. It was one of those weeks that takes you by …
The Week Off
I certainly didn’t intend to take the week off from blogging, but it is already Friday and that is exactly what I have done. It has been a very full week for me. I have had something on every evening which is usually when I have a moment to write. I even had several blogs in my heart and head that I intended to write, so I might just have to sneak them in over the weekend. I hope it has been a wonderful week for all of you. Thank you so much for all of the kind birthday wishes. …
Ten Trillion Dollars and Counting…
“Prosperity is when people buy things they can’t afford; recession is when they stop doing it.” ~H.E. Martz, The Wall Street Journal, 1963. It is a funny thought to me that due to what is happening in the economy, people have started doing what they should have been doing all along. They are saving their money, starting to budget, watching prices, cutting back on their credit spending. All of this horrifies the economists. “Spending more money is the answer to the economy”, is the government’s brilliant strategy to combat the fact that people are coming to a place of reality …