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Hi friends!

Just a quick note to let you know that this blog has moved!

Please come visit my new site:  Homegrown Mom

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Please visit the new site and tell me what you think

Thanks to all of you who entered the SpellQuizzer Giveaway!

I went to Random.org and the winner is….

Barcelona Red!  (Comment #26)

Barcelona will be emailed and then she has one week to claim her prize.

If you didn’t win, consider heading over to SpellQuizzer to download their free 30 day trial.  I am now an affiliate, which means if you buy one through this click, I get paid!  Of course, the trial is free, so I would suggest that if you’re not sure.

Congrats, Barcelona!

A couple of months ago, I had a flu and was stuck in bed for a few days. (So many of my stories start this way). Towards the end when I was starting to feel better, but still on orders to get out of doing dishes…I mean rest, I began praying about this blog and ideas started flowing faster than I could write them down.

I started blogging at the very end of last year. In the last 11 months or so, I’ve been able to just blog freely and express whatever is on my heart at any given moment. All the new ideas, though, pointed towards me being more focused on a certain theme.

Most of what I’ve been writing actually fits into that theme, and in the last couple of months, I’ve seen this theme emerge more and more. I just need to be more intentional about that theme.

I know I’m being very cryptic! I want to keep the main premise a surprise for now, but I am so excited about where God is taking me.

Within a couple of weeks of finding this new direction, I was accepted as a contributor to three of my favorite websites. The same week, I was approached to do my first product review. By now, I’m feeling pretty official. Then, my birthday rolled around and I received some money from family members. I usually save my birthday money to buy my kids gifts when their birthday rolls around.

Eric ordered me to spend the money on myself this year. No paying bills, no buying the kids anything. That sweet, annoying man. I know he was blessing me. Yet –as tempted as I was to improve my shoe wardrobe–it really drove me crazy. Thankfully, God opened my eyes. Hello! I had just had my blogging epiphany and in that were lots of dreams, starting with my own website. (Right now I use a free WordPress site.) I decided to invest the money in a new site and designer.

The blog designer I was hankering to use was not currently accepting orders. I went ahead and ordered my domain name and decided to just wait for her to be available because, believe me, she is worth the wait.  (Check out her site:  Graphically Designing)

Her queue is open now, and I placed my order so I’m just waiting my turn. So, waiting. But it’s a good, busy, kind of waiting! The kind of waiting that is accompanied by anticipation. Oh I just love it when God gives direction! So often I feel I am in a season of waiting for direction and I must say I really prefer this kind of season…the one marked by happy work towards what God has called me to do.

While I want to keep some of the new stuff under wraps until I launch the site, I do want to share some exciting things here. Actually, I’m just too excited to keep it all to myself and my husband might be a tad tired of hearing about it. The guy should get a medal for listening.

So, a couple of the details I’m working on:

Store: I have created a little shop on Amazon with resources I think you’ll love. Honestly, it looks a lot like my bookshelf. That’s because I only picked books and products I’ve read or used over and over. 

Book Club: I am working on developing an online book club for readers. Right now, I’m deciding between fiction and non-fiction. What would you prefer? You can answer in the poll on my sidebar.

If you are an email subscriber here, your subscription will be transferred automatically, so you don’t have to worry about finding the new site.  I am hoping RSS feeds can be transferred as well, but I honestly don’t know yet.  Either way, I will be linking there from here so I’ll be easy to find!

I am working on creating an online book club, and I would love to get your input.

Please take a moment to vote in the poll on my sidebar.

As a participant in an online book club, you would join a forum and participate in conversations about a book we are all reading together.  Right now I am trying to decide between fiction, Bible study, or personal growth books.  Any suggestions? 

Please vote!

Today I spent over two hours changing every reference to my daughters on this blog and gave them new nicknames. I listened to an Online Ministry Conference session the other day and the speaker Darcy shared her reasons for giving her kids nicknames on her blog.  (And if you haven’t read her blog, you must.  She is hilarious.)

I never thought about not using my girls’ names. I figure anyone that wants to know can easily find out, and I don’t use pictures so I wasn’t too worried about privacy. Yet, Darcy brought up a great point. She said that she shared much personal medical info about one of her sons and she didn’t want a future employer googling him later in life and reading his history.

Well. I got to thinking about that. I googled my girls, and yep…there they were on Google! One could really learn quite a bit about them just from my little stories here. I talked it over with my hubby and we decided to leave our girls’ names out of my blogging for now.

Since I’m not using their names, I briefly contemplated sharing some photos here, but ultimately decided against it. I have had too many experiences with creepy people in this world to feel comfortable posting their beautiful faces for all to see. As my husband told them, “Maybe if you weren’t so pretty.” I wish I was joking, but he actually said this.

I love looking at the beautiful pictures other moms post of their kids, and I don’t judge anyone who does. I think each family has to make those decisions based on their own experiences and prayers. I’ll just say, once you’ve dealt with a stalker, you’d rather err on the side of paranoid.

So, after I decided, I set about the task of renaming my children.

Coco was easy. It’s been her real nickname at home forever, and she named her blog Coco Around the World.

Choosing a fitting name for my six year old proved not to be so easy. Her nickname at home is a shortened version of her name. Though we did use to call her wreckin’ ball when she was a toddler. That just didn’t seem nice anymore. So, I enlisted her help and we had great fun thinking of options. Her favorite was Sweet Honey Pie. Cute. But, um, no. I wanted to call her Ramona. Because she is so Ramona Quimby. “But Mom!” She cried. “You know Ramona’s a brat! Why don’t you just call me Bratty McBrat Brat?”

Well, I was tempted.

Then, we were watching old home movies that night. In every other scene, my voice (my face always behind the camera) is calling out to my little crawling baby…. ”There’s my Sunshine!” Yes! It fully describes her sunny little self. But Coco had a sort of Frenchy-chic ring to it so I decided to look up Sunshine in French. Soleil! I was sold. I mean, for those of you that don’t know, Soleil is the real life name of no other than Punky Brewster, the ten year old girl who influenced my childhood like perhaps no other person alive. You know, the one with the coolest bedroom ever? Punky Power!

(…a little while later, back from my Netflix queue. Punky on the way!)

I’d appreciate it if those of you that know my little ones kindly call them by their nicknames here on my blog, my twitter, or public facebook page. And please, remind me when I slip and include their real names in a post. ‘Cause I will. I just know it.

But anyway. Back to my Soleil. My little sunshine. And Coco. My soon-to-be teenager.

That’s how they’ll be known around here from now on. What do you think?

Today, I am posting at Homeschool Classroom about a simple way to use anecdotal records in homeschool.

Back in my days as a pre-k teacher at a private Christian school, I was trained to keep anecdotal records on my students.  My school didn’t actually require them, but I found that the parents really appreciated them and, come conference time, so did I.  Not having to rely on my memory is always a good thing.

…read the rest at the Homeschool Classroom.

I had a couple things in mind for my next post. I still need to share our course of study for first grade. I have a review I’m working on for SpellQuizzer. I was on my blog’s dashboard today, though, and saw that I have 99 posts. Which means…this is my

100^th post!

Thought it should be something special.

Then, of course, nothing I thought of seemed special enough.

Except, then I thought of this: You guys! (Or ladies, for the most part) My readers! Some of you I’ve gotten to know through the comments here, and some of you even send me sweet emails.

For this, my…

100^th post!

I am going to share some of my favorite comments left by readers.  I couldn’t fit them all here, so sorry if I missed you.

Sometimes, they make me laugh out loud, like this one that Jewel left after reading Summer!

Will you adopt me? I’m 37 but I promise to go to bed on time (except during slumber parties) and to pick up any popcorn I drop on the floor.

Sometimes, more than once, they’ve made me cry. Here, Joy (turtle momma) replies after reading Old Memories of a New Season.

Funny. Im reading this as my 10yr old is in time out for her attitude. Its just a season in life, and when shes done, I’ll give her a big hug. Someday, I wont have any kids for time out Someday the hugs wont come every day or evening before bed. But then we will be proud of who they have become and can look forward to grandchildren.
Joy 

My mom (known as mamala) is my most frequent commenter (go figure). I tell her that she practically has her own blog going in my comments section here, and needs to go ahead and start one already! One of my favorites, she wrote in response to Two Words I Can’t Stop Saying:

I just know that ‘be careful’ is the most universal, useless, parental directive around. I also know that until I became an adult (with my eye on the end of my life as it quickly advanced in my direction) did I really become careful.
I have become quite careful not to die and leave my loved ones behind, immobilized by their grief. I’ve become cognitive of the reality of the consequences of picking up hitch hikers, or going with a hippie to a second location.
Sadly, or maybe happily, although I had always promised the parents, “Yes, yes, I will be soooo careful”, I wasn’t, and yet, I’ve lived to tell. At that point of your life you feel invincible, super-hero-ish, and way smarter than those fools whose early demise had made it into the evening paper.
So I’ve said all of that to say this:
I will continue to urge, “Be careful,” to any and everyone leaving me even briefly. And I will continue to expect that the very weight of those words will wrap a thin protective shell around them until they come back to me.

There are days when I think of quitting blogging.  I stink!  Why bother…are frequent thoughts.  Inevitably, something like this comment from Rhonda will pop up and make me smile.  And keep going.

Hey Angela,
I don’t have any ideas for you, but I just wanted to say how much I love all of YOUR ideas. Every time I read your blog I am so proud of who you’ve become. I wish I knew your girls. I imagine they are amazing young women.

Awww!  Rhonda was my youth pastor’s wife, when I was growing up, and a good friend and mentor to a young me, so this was extra-special to read.  By the way, she has an awesome photoblog.  Check it out.

I never asked readers what my blog should be about, but two comments here have really given me something to think about as I write. This first sweet comment was from my Aunt Nancy after reading Ministry of a Mom, and she unwittingly gave me a defined purpose in writing here:

Dear sweet talented Angela – you have always been an inspiration to me and our family. You are loving and giving beyond belief. I appreciate that you are writing this blog and letting us be a part of you and your thoughts. You make me believe I too can be a better mom, wife and family member.
God bless you.

To make any mom believe she can be a better mom, wife, and family member is a worthy goal!  This coming from my super-aunt who could give Martha Stewart a run for her money…but stayed home and did it all for her family instead….ooops now I’m crying again!  Good stuff. Sniff.

Another comment that worked its way into my philosophy of writing, is this one–also from Joy–on 10 Date-Gifts to Give Your Husband:

This is great and another reason why I like your blog. All your fun ideas for home and the wholesome ideas for our hearts.

I have been thinking much lately about what makes its way into this blog, and the two comments above have given me direction for filtering.  Fun ideas for home, wholesome ideas for hearts, and to make every mom believe she can be a better wife and mom.  Great goals indeed!

In fact, I have some exciting new things planned for my blog in the next couple of months and the comments I get here are shaping my new venture…so keep ‘em coming!  If you’re a reader, regular or new…won’t you leave a comment and say Hi today?  Doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but you might help me out if you mention what you’d like to see more or less of.  Or is there a need in your own life you’d like to see addressed?  Maybe you just want to pop in and say Hi!  That’s fun, too!

If you have something you’d like to say and you’re just to shy to say it here, shoot me an email!  angelamills@verizon.net I promise not to print it here if it’s via email ( )

Looking forward to hearing from you!

If you read these posts in email or a reader, and haven’t been to my blog site lately…come see my new look! I used some freebie graphics from the Woman Inspired Conference and created the new header you see here. What do you think?

Now, I know the site itself is not all that different, but I’ve changed the design a bit and added a couple cool things. I am now on Twitter
and Facebook
publicly, and you can access those from my site.

I plan to use Facebook to list great links I come across, dinner ideas, crafts, updates, inspiration…all for wives and moms! It’s also a great way to connect! You can visit the page and add your own links, ideas, questions, etc.

Also in my sidebar, you’ll find a cute little button linking you to the forum at Heart of the Matter Online. It is a treasure trove of resources for moms! I’m chatting here, too, so it’s one more way to connect!

I’m back!

After a month of catching up on life, I am ready to start blogging again.  My husband gave me a few hours today and took the girls out for some fun so I could have some fun of my own on my blog!  I am so excited! 

 I’ve made a couple small changes here at Angela Mills.  For one, I am going to be pre-writing my posts more often.  So instead of writing each day, I will write a couple times each month.  All this means to you, the reader is if I say in a post, “Yesterday I blah, blah, blah…” It might actually be a couple weeks ago.  No big deal, but hey, it bugs me.  Just feels dishonest.  So instead of agonizing over how to word things that might be published to the site ten days after I write it, I’m just letting you know now that everything might not be super-timely.

Lastly, I want to say that I hope I never go a month between posts again, but I can’t promise I won’t!  Catching up on housework, helping out with a play my kids were in, and spending lots of family time together took precedence these last few weeks.  So I am thankful to you, my friends and readers for just jumping back in with me! 

I always appreciate your comments and emails, thanks so much and keep ‘em coming!