"I feel the need..... the need for (a much slower) speed"

Lately I have been feeling more and more like I need to get back into blogging.  It's been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember to write a book.  I have no idea what I want to write about, but I have this overwhelming feeling that I have something to say, and I want to write it down.

At school I had a couple of English teachers who weren't exactly supportive of my writing efforts.  Consequently, I have never thought of myself as a very good writer.  I love reading books, and sometimes I think "I could do that" and other times when I read something exceptional, I think "I can't do that".

Quite a few of my friends are bloggers, and I love reading their thoughts.  My grammar isn't great, but I think I know enough to get by, and to maybe appeal to "normal" people - if there are any "normal" people out there.  Some of you might shudder when you think of me writing anything, but I guess you don't have to read it!

The first thing I want to write is a family history for my children.  I have a friend at church who wrote the story of her childhood and had it published as a limited release book.  She lent me a copy to read a couple of years ago, and I found it fascinating.  She is 60, so her childhood was a very different era, one that children today couldn't begin to imagine.

So why the title of today's post?  Because I think that in order to write, I need to slow down.  I've been systematically trying to do that this year, since my mother-in-law passed away in April.  I have been peeling back layers of activity that aren't absolutely necessary in my life at this point in time.  Some of the layers stubbornly refuse to be removed, like my position as P & C Secretary (no one wants to touch that!).  But other layers, including my job, are being loofahed (is that even a word???) off - slowly and steadily rubbed off by God to reveal the real me underneath.

Today I enjoyed a delightful afternoon at a friend's place, sipping moscato with her and another friend, watching our children play in the garden, laughing, taking photos, laughing some more.  She is the epitome of joy!  Even her last blog post was about joy!  And she got me thinking, I need more joy in my life.  Not the fleeting happiness the world promises, but that deep joy that only Jesus brings.  This week's plan?  More time with Jesus, less time yelling at the kids.  More time writing, less time facebooking.  More time sleeping, less time eating chocolate (says she, as she scoffs half a block of chocolate at 11.22pm!!!)