Okay, so I was planning to write a big, fat post on how I completely failed at my first attempt to write through a 31-day challenge, since here it is Day 31 and I have not shared one bit of writing in the past week here on this blog. Ugh.

Then, I was looking at the calendar and decided that instead of admitting defeat, I would just sit here at the laptop and pound out 7 posts in a row, which would be the equivalent of the past 7 days, then I’d be all caught up. After all, I have been meaning to sit down and catch up on all the writing I’ve wanted to do. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t have the ideas. I’ve literally been carrying around one of my notebooks and jotting down ideas as they come to me. Here’s a picture even! (Some names have been blurred out to protect the somewhat innocent!)

: )  But then I shook off both of those ridiculous ideas and thought to myself, hey, I made it for three weeks! Imperfect, not particularly impressive, but pretty cool nonetheless. I’ve been reading several other ladies’ blogs who took part in this 31 day adventure, and came across so many inspiring thoughts and ideas that I could hardly take it all in. But that’s not the reason that things didn’t finish well here at Pray, Then Learn. I just got crazy busy…CRAZY busy this week. Even though I had a long list of to-do items, including writing, the truth is that I had to do the “must-do’s” first, like the stuff I do to make a living and the stuff that I do that other people count on. Once that was all done, I planned to plop down and write a bit for all of you each day. But the problem was that that “must-do” stuff never was done. So once I ran out of time, I just had to choose sleep as the next thing to cross off (should sleep even be on a to-do list!? I’m sure that’s crazy.)

There are simply only so many hours in a day (much to my dismay sometimes!) but we all do what we can. I definitely will still continue to write. In fact I have some crazy little projects in the works that are turning out to be larger than I even thought they would be. But I don’t mind going slowly…working my way up to something big by taking those baby steps… the same way everything good usually gets done!

In case you’re wondering, here are some tidbits from this past week of my writing absence:

• I’ve finished some heart wrenching and comprehensive books about human trafficking, and I learned so much from some very brave people right here in my hometown who fight against this craziness here and all over the world. I’m heartbroken and thankful that my eyes have been opened to this monster. Praying to learn how I fit into the fight.
• Todd and I spent what seemed like way too large of a chunk of time completing our application and requirements for our visas to enter the country of India. Everything was in order and now it’s all shipped off, so we should be straight with the India government here shortly. Amazingly, we’ll be 8000+ miles from home in less than two months. Talk about surreal.
• The natural gas heat kicked on in our house, which feels great but means my sinuses are doing their annual dry-out-completely thing, which then of course means I’m buying cases of saline spray and tea bags for the winter. Not that exciting of course, but if I’m cranky, it’s 99% likely that it has something to do with that issue.
• A tiny Indian man is currently driving my car around central Ohio. I am driving the grocery getter. I’m not really into fancy cars or anything, but I’m pretty sure that a mini-van is not “me.” It feels so big and clumsy compared to my cozy little Honda .
• I have 3 new books to start reading. I’m having trouble deciding which one to start first. It will likely be the new one by John & Stasi Eldredge, since I’m all about the rockin’ marriage. I’ll be sure to share a review when I’m finished.
• Baked my vegan chocolate cupcakes and made spicy also-vegan chili for our cook-off/auction this past weekend. We raised thousands of dollars to drill wells in India so people could have clean water in the name of Jesus. I love it. LOVE!
• Fell in love with my husband for the 901,783,478,981,423, 124,674,999th time. *dreamy sigh* [bonus: he is gorgeous!!]
• Scheduled our next Financial Peace University class (this will be our 6th year facilitating the class!!) for the beginning of 2012, and we’ll be hosting a class preview on November 20th. And no, we don’t get paid for doing that. : )
• Completed all my grades and entered report cards for the first 9 weeks of school. Hard to believe that the school year is already 25% over! It goes so FAST!!
• Experienced some incredible and very convicting messages at church the past few weeks. I’m so thankful for the gift of teaching that God has given our pastor.
• Have a list of scriptures that I’ll be praying through, meditating on, and trying to unpack in preparation for my trip to India. I can’t wait to meet my girl Donna and spend some time enjoying the company there. I like being somewhere that makes me the minority sometimes.

I’m sure there’s more that I’m just not thinking of, and I’m sure I’ll even write more about these things later, but there’s a little snapshot for ya. One more thing…probably the weirdest thing of all…. I actually had the thought this week that it’s possible that someone, somewhere may be feeling a bit disappointed by me not writing this past week. If that’s you, thanks a lot. It’s cool to know that someone was following this almost-31-days close enough to miss it when it was gone. Very fun thought.

So, not feeling defeated nor particularly enthralled, I’m headed to bed not sure exactly when my next opportunity to write may be, but knowing that the next thing I’m going to write about is already brewing. : )