Greetings from the Sunshine State! I am smack in the middle of my first ever solo vacation, thanks to my fabulous husband. He said I never get a break and convinced me to take one.

What am I writing? The big edits for this round are done! Woo Hoo! That leaves little tweaks and proofs when I get back. The newsletter went out this week. If you’d like to be on the mailing list, you can sign up in that box on the right.

What have I learned? A Firefox add-in called Zemanta helps me find photos and other stuff for my posts by ‘reading’ them as I type them. If I were more paranoid, it would totally freak me out.

What have I read? I brought a stack of books to the beach and I’ll fill you in on those later. Right before I left, I finished The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Dan Allender. It is intense. If you are a survivor, take it very slowly. There are tremendously powerful ideas to grasp. If you are a friend or a family member, by reading this, you are giving an unsurpassed gift of grace and understanding to your loved one. I appreciated Dr. Allender’s compassion for survivors, never denying or minimizing their trauma.

What has God taught me this week? Too much for one post. One quick one before I wrap up- I allow far too much to distract me, and steal my joy.

Today, I’m in St. Louis at Women of Faith. Each year, I look forward to taking a break from the routine and focusing on God. These two days go a long way toward recharging my spiritual batteries.

Friday update: I’m actually writing this post a few days early, but if I’ve stayed on schedule, I’ve got one chapter to go. This is the intense resolution of the book with some of my favorite scenes.

What have I learned this week- technically speaking? Mozilla Firefox rocks! The add-ins are tremendous and it’s faster and slicker than IE. I also got some comments on my blog posts which were incredibly encouraging.

What have I read? I’m kind of on vacation so I’m reading , The Great Influenza about the 1918 pandemic. It’s a narrative nonfiction. The fascinating thing to me is the description of the world of the turn of the century. I don’t always grasp how different society was, how far we’ve come and the developments are not always positive. On the book so far, my verdict is: nerds only or skip a lot.

What did God teach me this week? He taught me I still try to handle far too much on my own. He showed me that perhaps ‘the way we’ve always done things’ may not be the best, most effective way.