There will be about 300 women from all over the US and Canada meeting together to learn more about improving our skills and meeting each other face to face.  Each year, I enjoy the face time.

You see, I’m very old school.  I didn’t grow up in the computer age.  They didn’t exist when I was growing up.  When I was in college, the closest thing we had to a computer, was a typewriter.  As time has gone on, I have had to learn about computers a bit at  time.  If I needed a skill for work, I learned it.  Gradually, I learned more when we had a family computer and a daughter living overseas that we emailed.

Over the past 7 or 8 years, I have started blogging and learned WordPress.com and eventually WordPress.org with Thesis framework.  I now have an apple computer…but still don’t use any of my tools up to their capacity.  I am technologically handicapped.  But I still keep learning.  In this area, I grow by inches…or should I say bytes?

What motivates me?  I have always loved younger women.  I felt for them because I remember the early years of my marriage and young motherhood.  In many ways, I was still learning what it meant to be a grown-up.  It wasn’t always easy.

The older women like Marilyn, Ruth, and the many others who loved me during this time of life were a God send.  They laughed and showed me that it was going to be a short period of time.  They helped me understand that GOD would provide for my needs and give grace.  They helped me learn to laugh when I wanted to yell or scream.

I was also blessed with a husband who loved me well.  He helped me learn not to take myself too seriously.  His wonderful sense of humor helped me learn to “chill” when my innate perfectionism had unrealistic expectations of our children.  He helped me learn to ask more questions.  It helped me and them.

My passion is to show my readers who GOD is.  That He loves them and has provided for their redemption.  That His grace is present in the grittiest of life’s circumstances…and that we can show His love to each other even when our natural tendency is to be impatient.

So I’ve travelled from TX to PA.  The Fall trees are a bit past their prime but there is still some beautiful color to see.  I look forward to this week when I will see old friends and meet new ones.  Some  of us will put on our pink boas so our group will be able to identify us and we’ll meet up tomorrow.

This will be a fun, joyful, challenging, growth-producing, delightful week.  I’m sure we will laugh a lot.  Let the week begin as the Light of Christ shines on us all!