wild goose chase (summary and giveaway)

Book: Wild Goose Chase 

Author: Mark Batterson

Summary:

Most of us have no idea where we’re going most of the time. Perfect.

“Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit–An Geadh-Glas, or ‘the Wild Goose.’ The name hints at mystery. Much like a wild goose, the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious, I cannot think of a better description of what it’s like to follow the Spirit through life. I think the Celtic Christians were on to something….

Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling. But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: Adventure.” –from the introduction

Author Bio:

Mark Batterson is the lead pastor of Washington, DC’s National Community Church, widely recognized as one of America’s most innovative churches. NCC meets in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the city, as well as in a church-owned coffee house near Union Station. More than seventy percent of NCC’ers are single twentysomethings who live or work on Capitol Hill. Mark is the author of the best-selling In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and a widely read blogger (www.markbatterson.com). He lives on Capitol Hill with his wife, Lora, and their three children.

Giveaway

 I have one copy of Wild Goose Chase to give away. A drawing will be held Tuesday, September 2 ~ if you would like to be entered to win, please email me with your email address, and Wild Goose Chase in the subject bar.

http://draft.blogger.com/profile/14302337343097746314

EDITED: Again, please send me an email (simplescrapper AT gmail DOT com) rather than leaving a comment on this post. I re-did this post so the people who have already commented are entered into the drawing, but I need everyone else to send me an email. The way I do drawings works much better when done with email addresses in hand rather than scrolling through comments hoping the person whose number was drawn left me a way to contact them……I know most everyone else does drawings through comments, but I have found it works better if people who want to be entered send me an email. Thanks!

we’re on the lpm blog!

Ashley, Attison and I are back from our trip to San Antonio. We sat 8 rows from the stage at the Living Proof Live conference (Living Proof is the name of Beth Moore’s ministry). Beth came down onto the floor to introduce her in-laws and spotted me holding Attison. She made a beeline for us ~ and we got our picture on the jumbotron in front of 10,000 women! Yikes! Even better (or worse…) is that the picture of me holding Attison while Beth petted her head and blessed her is a still pic on the Living Proof Ministries Blog. Ack! Ashley was sitting next to me, and I thought for sure she would crawl under our seats when Beth headed for us.

It was a long trip, but we had a great time. We’re going to rest and recover for the next couple of days. I loved seeing Joanne and Holly ~ I wish we would have been able to spend more time with them.

Speaking of Holly ~ she and I still have something in the works…..hopefully we’ll get that completed soon so we can make an announcement.

graceland

Today Ashley, Attison, Maggie, Tyler and I are going to Graceland. It’s about a two and a half hour drive there, and we’re leaving very early in the morning. So why am I still up at 12:22am, writing a blog post, no less? Mainly because the Ambien hasn’t kicked in yet ~ but also because I haven’t written a blog post in quite a while.

You’re probably wondering who Maggie and Tyler are. Maggie is Ashley’s best childhood friend. They’ve know each other since they were 5. Maggie is here visiting until Wednesday. She’s an extremely talented artist; she’s also the person who took all of those pictures of Ashley I initially had before I met her. Maggie got her camera out tonight and took a few pictures of Attison on her changing table being mesmerized by the Classic Pooh mobile. I’m hoping that over the next few days she will take lots and lots of pictures.

Tyler is a new friend, I guess you could say. His family owns the Mountain Mudd kiosk in the little town where I live. It’s pretty close to my house, so I go there ~ a lot. I’m sort of addicted to vanilla breves. And Tyler makes really good vanilla breves. He’s Ashley and Maggie’s age. He and Ashley were talking one day and she mentioned that she has always wanted to go to Graceland ~ she’s a huge Elvis fan. Tyler said he wanted to go too ~ so Ashley invited him to come along with us! LOL We’re taking off in the Suburban six and a half hours from now. I sure do wish that Ambien would kick in so I could go to bed!

It will be a fun trip. Well, that is as long as Attison doesn’t decide she doesn’t want to be in her car seat. She’s usually really good about going places in the car. She just falls asleep, and doesn’t wake up until after we get home, no matter how many places we stop and go into along the way. As long as Atti is cooperative we should be fine.

all about popularity…..

You know, I’ve been thinking…..

(Hush, Roger ~ I can hear your “Oh brother, here we go” thoughts!)

Last week Sitemeter had a major problem ~ people’s sites/blogs were crashing in IE7 because of some code changes Sitemeter made. And it got me to thinking ~ why do I use a service like Sitemeter, Statcounter or Goggle Analytics? I’ve found myself getting caught up in the “rat race” of being obsessed about how many hits my blog is getting.

In some ways it reminds me of being in high school. Wanting to be one of the popular kids, having lots of friends, and being the center of attention. But I’m a grown up. And this blog for personal reasons, not professional. Does it really matter how many people are reading my blog?

I love to go to Sitemeter and see who’s reading my blog, though. I am fascinated that there are people all over the world who take the time to stop by here and read my thoughts, see my pictures, and even watch the occasional video. I would love to hear from each of you personally.

I took the Sitemeter code down last week but didn’t reinstall it, even though Sitemeter fixed the problem. But to tell the truth I’ve missed popping in to Sitemeter just to see who has been visiting. I haven’t been able to post very much lately, so I just want to say that I do appreciate your persistence in stopping by to check if I’ve written anything new.

I’ve been examining my motives behind having a hit counter here. And after some thought about it, I’ve decided that I’m going to go ahead and reinstall the code for the counter. Not because I want to run the numbers game, or because I’m concerned about how many hits my blog gets each day. I’m reinstalling the code because I love to see where the people who are reading my blog are living. In a strange way, I think that’s a bit like my life. It doesn’t really matter to me how many friends I have ~ I just want the friends I do have to be interesting. And you all are very interesting to me!

guard dog

Jake has decided that Attison is an acceptable new member of “the pack” (the family). I haven’t been able to get a photo of him giving her a great big doggie kiss, but I did find him guarding her while she sat in her bouncy chair this morning: