The winner of the free mosaic photo is: PunkinMama from More On The Other Side

Congrats, PunkinMama!

So you didn’t win this, but still want to win something?
Enter my final celebration giveaway and try to win a one-year subscription to Premium Picnik!

By now, most of you know the story of Maddie Spohr, the little girl who captured the hearts of many, including mine.  When she passed, I felt helpless.  (I still do.)  And I kept looking for things to do to help Mike & Heather, and this is what I came up with.

After I made that, I made this offer to my handful of readers many adoring fans.  I have just about finished all of the orders I recieved, and want to share some of my favorites with you:

(Don’t steal the picture, not the child.
Well, don’t steal the child either…
but you know what I mean!!)

And now I’ve decided that since I don’t have enough stuff to do(yeah, right), I want to give away a FREE one!

So here’s your chance!  Giveaway #2 of 3: a FREE PERSONALIZED MOSAIC!!!

Just like before, there are several ways to win:
-Simply post a comment here, telling one word comes to mind when you think of me(because it’s my giveaway and I’m on an what-do-others-think-of-me kick).
(You can do this twice a day.  That should help you non-bloggers and non-tweeters.)
-Tweet about this giveaway and then comment here, leaving the link to your tweet.
(You can do this once a day.)
-Show some bloggy love and link your blog readers to this post.
(You can do this once.)
-Follow me in your favorite reader(like Google Reader) and leave a comment here saying that you did.
(You can do this once.  If you’re already following me, comment about how you’re already awesome.)

That’d be 8 chances to enter, if you were counting…

This giveaway starts at 12:01am EST on Thursday, June 4th and go until 11:59pm EST on Friday, June 5th.

I will then use random.org to pick a winner.

For those of you who don’t know or can’t tell, I am a Christian.  I will say that my many of my ideas aren’t “traditional”, but I am a Christian none-the-less.   I have been a member of my current church for most of my life, except college and med school/residency.  When we moved back to the area, one of the things I was most excited about was coming back to my “home church”.

A lot has changed in the ten years I was gone:  There’s a new sanctuary.  New people have joined.  There are a lot of people who have died or moved away.  The paint is different. The parking lot has been moved.  One of the most drastic changes is that the sanctuary that I was most familiar with is now a youth center.  There are less pews, the walls are a nice new color, the pulpit is gone, and there are a few structural changes.  It’s different, but in a good way.  I’m glad to see that it’s not just sitting vacant and unused. (Although I don’t think it’s reached its full potential.  Just sayin’.)

The other night I was cleaning up after a fantastic youth session, and I ended up being the last person in the building.  I was going around, locking up and turning off lights.  And as I walked from room to room, I became almost overwhelmed by how many memories I have wrapped up in that building.

I saw the room that was used as a nursery when I was a child, and I could almost see the petite black woman who used to keep us.  I can see her so clearly in my mind, but her name still eludes me tonight.  I saw the different offices, and I thought about my Daddy in the Sunday School office.  My Granddaddy, too.  I saw our pastor’s old office…and remembered the painting he used to have that his daughter(my friend Kimberly) made somewhere around 5th grade.  I stepped into the old choir room, and I swear to you that, with my eyes closed, I could feel my Mama Jo beside me.  I could hear her voice as clear as day, singing “Victory in Jesus”.  (I’m not generally one of those crazy, presence-feeling type of people, either…so this was a little hard for me to grasp.)

I thought about my baptism.  I thought GAs and Acteens: my teachers, my friends.  I thought about Bible Drill, and the many, many hours I spent with Ms. Hildred learning bible verses and the location of each book in the bible.  I thought about the first time I remember singing in that sanctuary.  I thought about the last time I remember singing in that sanctuary.  I thought about the weddings and funerals I attended in there.  The musicals we performed.  The games of hide-and-go-seek we played in the dark there. (Shhh…don’t tell anybody else we did that!)  There are so, so many things I remember doing, seeing and feeling in that building.

But right then, in the stillness, the quiet of that dark building, I realized something: yes, this building is important to me(there are a lot of memories of mine tied, visually, to that building), but a church is more than just a building.  It’s cliched, I know.  But it’s true.  I was not (and am not) molded by a building. I didn’t learn about God’s love from the chairs and tables in my Sunday School room.  Pews and a pulpit aren’t what make a space holy.

Church is(or should be) all about the people.  It’s nice to have a pretty new building with fancy screens and cameras.  It’s nice to have carpet that’s not older than me(yikes!), and stained glass windows.  But those things?  They aren’t what’s important.  What’s important is that I continue to learn and make wonderful memories with the real church: the people.  And that I help someone else learn and make wonderful memories, too.

End cheesiness.
Fade to black…

I first started blogging back when Carter was 3 months old.  He’s now FOUR(I know…hard to believe, right?), and I’ve been through a lot of different blogging phases since I started.  At first it was just pictures with little captions beneath each one(kind of like the slideshows I do now).  I had 3 megapixel camera.  Yeah…3 megapixels.  I think my blackberry is 5mp.  My big camera is 10mp.  I didn’t know how to edit anything.  And I really didn’t know what I was doing!  (I’ve learned a lot by trial and error since then!)

And then there was the “newsletter” style webpage I had, which was still predominantly pictures with a running list of what we’d done and what he’d said.  I documented Lydia’s birth and early months this way.

And then my photo-blog host went out of business and I had to figure out a new format.  I went from queenofhaddock.com to theiveyleague.com.  My new blog host offered many new and exciting options-formats, widgets, etc.  And I played with those and set up a “pretty” site, but it was still mostly just a play-by-play of our lives.

It wasn’t until November 22, 2007 that I really found my blogging voice.  That is still, to this day, the hardest post I have ever had to write.  Can vividly remember sitting at my computer desk in the basement of our old house.  I remember typing and sobbing and typing and crying.  And I promise you that it was better than any therapy session I’ve ever been in.

Since then I’ve blogged my way through Marshall’s residency, a move, and another baby.  Sometimes it’s a glimpse into our lives- little stories about the kids, pictures(there will always be pictures!).  But a lot of times my posts are like my journal-what I’m thinking about, what’s important to me.  I’ve heard some people say that blogging is narcissistic, and to a degree it is, but to me it’s more about having something to look back on.  One day I’d like to take all the posts and all the pictures and have them bound into a book.  My journal.  My heart, my thoughts, my feelings…laid out not only for you to read now, but for me to remember later.

I will admit, however, that there is definitely some degree of satisfaction when I get a comment about a post.  Sometimes being a stay-at-home-mom gets really lonely, and it’s nice to have adult interaction-even if it’s through a computer screen!  And there have been times when I’ve posted things I’d never ever say out loud, only to be greeted with more love, compassion, understanding and uplifting than I could have imagined.  (Thank you for that, by the way!)

A few days ago I took a trip down memory e-lane, and had a look at some of those old posts.  It was then that I realized that I have, as of now, posted 300 times.  Three hundred posts.  (If there’s something from the past that you want to re-read, but can’t find…you can use the handy-dandy search box I’ve placed at the very bottom of the page.)

To celebrate my 300th post, I’m gonna be passing out door prizes to those of you who come visit my site!!  Nothing high-tech, big or fancy.  But some fun stuff that I love.  I will be having 3 give-aways, each lasting 2-3 days.  Hopefully one on Tuesday, one on Thursday, and one on Saturday.  Check back each of those for details on what the products are and how to win!