7QT on moving and traveling [17]

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I've been moving this week, so I've been MIA. I found an awesome Living Social deal that allowed me to pay $50 for an hour with 2 movers and a truck!!!!!! Seriously, it was the best decision I ever made. They carried all my heavy things and then brought them to my new apartment. Praise God for movers, because I hate carrying boxes to/from the car.

--- 2 ---

Speaking of things I hate: packing/cleaning is another big one. It is seriously the worst. But...it's been my life the past 2.5 weeks and it will continue to be so the week following this because I'm not unpacked yet. Ugh.

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Things I like: being home!! This post comes to you from Kansas City, where my family resides. I made the 9-hour journey today (it actually went pretty fast) & I will be home for the next week-ish. I'm here to work - I've been blessed with the opportunity to speak at my parish about FOCUS, so I'll be spending the week doing some fundraising. #pleaseballa

--- 4 ---

Today, I officially crossed into the realm of being a cat lady. One of my new roomies is allergic to cats (sad day), so my kitty needed a temporary home until the roomie gets married this summer. Megan, my big in DG, is going to keep her for a few months, so I didn't have to give her up. I was not looking forward to 9-hours in the car with a cat, but she did pretty well.

someone is not pleased.

How does this make me a cat lady, you ask? Please view the pictures below from when I stopped for lunch and gave the cat a chance to stretch:

I was totally being judged by some high school girls in Hayes, Kansas. #catonalease

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This morning when I checked twitter, I had this awesome notification:

Yes, that is my mother below.

I was pretty excited/flattered to be noted as an "upcoming event planner." I love this career, so it's fun to be recognized by others in the industry! Way to go, twitter, for helping me grow professionally.

--- 6 ---

Speaking of event planning, I discovered this hilarious joke on the Pinterest that I am so obsessed with, I made it my twitter bio. 

HAHAHAHAHA.

--- 7 ---

Christina sent our team this video, and I am obsessed! Talk about talent. I'm currently watching it non-stop.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

a grateful heart.

This is Jon.

well, and Carol.

Jon has been running the FOCUS twitter, and thanks to his retweet, so many awesome, awesome people read my post last Monday. Thanks to everyone who hopped on over here via FOCUS, and thanks to those of you who are still here! I'm excited you're here, and I'm excited to get to know you better!

I've been feeling so incredibly grateful this past week by the number of people that have viewed my blog. I've gotten encouraging comments and texts and messages thanking me for my vulnerability in my last post.

A good friend of mine from Drake, Erika of All Things E, wrote a great post last week on the Numbers Game in the blog world, and it came at just the right time. I was getting discouraged by my low daily readership, and then BAM, hundreds of y'all stopped by last week. But that's not even the thing that matters.

I'm on the far left & Erika is on the far right!

Erika wisely writes about putting faces to the numbers and recognizing that every click is an actual human person. So, like she did, I pictured what it would have been like to give my blog post as a speech to a room full of that many people. I imagine it would look something like this:

image via EideCom.

Okay, so that picture is the main ballroom from SLS and it is close to 2,500 people...but still. It helps put it in perspective. I also started thinking about how much time it would take me to sit down with every person who stops by and reads and get coffee with them. That's a lot of time. Thanks Erika for your awesome insight on how our worth in blogging should be more about the individuals who read rather than the stats and numbers.

I started writing after my long break because:
1. I wanted to,
2. it kept coming up in prayer, and
3. apparently writing is one of my spiritual gifts. (hollaatchya, Spiritual Gifts Inventory.)

image via.

Having the habit of picturing sharing my posts with a room full of individuals flows into gratitude for this platform to share my heart, gifts, and relationship with Jesus. It reminds me why I'm writing and why I can spend so much time on this hobby.

So to all my fellow bloggers out there, hop on over to All Things E and read Erika's post, and then spend some time in gratitude for your blog...even if only one person reads it each day!