I am so bad at this blogging thing. I keep waiting to have something interesting and deep to write, but nothing ever does! I will put it on my to-do list to work on after Saturday. I said “yes” to another responsibility…After Fall Retreat, I was so wiped from running registration and finances that I completely withdrew from the world for about 2 weeks. In the middle of that, I got a phone call from someone in my Sunday school class, asking me to help run the women’s missionary lunch. I really want to meet some people from our church, so I reluctantly said yes. It is this Saturday, and it was a pretty small time commitment except for having to be there all day on Saturday. Oh well. Then it is over and I am saying to “no” to everything else for a while.

Braden started saying “No” today. Although it is communicated only by the shaking of his head, and I doubt he knows what he is doing, it is a wake-up call. This is only the beginning of him expressing his opinion, whether we agree or not.

It also makes me think of us learning to say “No” as adults. Right now, I am learning how to do just that. There are so many opportunities to do stuff, and go to things. With the limited time I have, there are just some things that I have to say no to.

I think the hardest person to say no to is myself. I know that I am capable of juggling a lot, so it is tempting to keep taking on more. However, I get overwhelmed and exhausted. This leads to not wanting to do anything. I also know that Braden will be crawling within the next couple months, so my time will be even more limited. I guess both mom and son are learning to say no together.

Braden is such a happy baby. He rolls around all over the floor, sometimes off the rug and onto the hardwood and bumps his little head. Most of the time it doesn’t even phase him. He loves to eat and is currently learning how to eat Cheerios. Braden is full of smiles and is very curious. He wants and tries to get into everything. I am glad that he isn’t too mobile yet, because he will keep me quite busy!

I have been spending a lot of my free time working on my team’s website: indianacru.com. Ryan has to help me with the more complicated parts, but I am a quick learner! Please visit this site and check out what I have been up to recently. Click here.

Braden just loves his green beans! In fact, he loves everything we give him. He loves eating so much that he actually hums when we feed him. Don’t believe me? Check it out on his youtube videos. Just click the link under “links”.

Go! The school year has officially started! Last week I spent a lot of time with my team, planning and praying for the semester. There will be a lot of changes this year, good ones I think, and we have a lot of staff. I’ve already been on campus one afternoon, and I have a lot to do at home. I am trying to contact our volunteers and get them started, trying to get as much as I can onto the website, Indianacru.com, and I want to try to get ahead of Fall Retreat. This year I won’t be leading by myself (thank goodness!). I have been given three “lackeys” to help me, so I want to get things organized so we can plan and disperse the workload. My time is limited with Braden, so I will need to prioritze and schedule my activities to get it all done. Supermom training is about to begin!

Tonight is the last night I have before the school year starts. This first week will be very busy, with all sorts of meetings and gatherings. It will be a challenge to balance between doing as much as I can to stay involved with ministry and overdoing it and being exhausted. It will help that I will be limited by how much I can find people to watch Braden. I will definitely be learning how to manage my time and juggle responsibilities!

This year, I have taken on the new role of volunteer coordinator, which means I will be resourcing and equipping the many people that give their time to invest in college students. Hopefully, most of my responsibilites can be taken care of from home. This enables me to use my gifts of resourcefulness and invest in more students than possible if I did it myself. I am looking forward to this new role. I am also (with Ryan’s help) taking care of our team’s website: Indianacru.com. It will be interesting to see what it looks like to be a mom in full-time ministry.

Braden has figured out how to pull himself from sitting to standing. He can’t sit by himself yet and he is far from crawling, but he loves to stand. Whenever I try to pull him to a sitting position, he sticks his legs firmly out, completely straight, so he goes straight to standing. Clever little guy.

This is the end of project banquet dinner. Everyone got an award to celebrate what they accomplished, how they’ve grown, or just something fun about them. My award was the “Mom-away-from-Mom” Award. I was really moved by that. I really wanted to offer a warm, comfortable home with good food and plenty of snacks available. When the students came over to hang out, I really wanted them to feel like they were coming home to mom. I think I was able to do that.