Yeah baby!!

I'm overly excited folks!!! I'm going to be an actual published writer!!! So, I have an acquaintance/friend who works for a travel magazine.  She reached out to me via FB because she's looking for a story for the "Family Getaways" section of the magazine.  The magazine is interested in our family vacation to Rodanthe back in October.  Sooooo, I got assigned the job!!!!  The article needs to be 200 words and I get to include pictures.  It doesn't pay anything, but I get to be published!!!

I know this is small.  But someplace deep within me yearns to write.  I mean really write.  I'd love to write young adult fiction.  I'd love to write children's books.  Sometimes I reread Miss Rumphius to myself two or three times after Liam has fallen asleep because I love the simple yet profound messages in children's books.  You know that Robert Allen quote, "Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone"?  Well, this is just the case for me.  Who am I to think that I can write?  Of course it makes me uncomfortable.  But I do want this.  And I want to push myself to get my writing published even if it's a small article that pays nothing. 

Being at home with my children is a gift from God, it truly is.  I am privileged to be able to not work.  But when I was working, I at least had something that was for me outside of my life with the kids and Joe.  There was a Kari that wasn't just mommy and wife.  But being at home has taken this away from me and I miss the me that is outside my family's life.  I am a servant to my children and to my husband.  And I mean a servant in the most respected and loving way.  I serve my family because I love them and want them, want us, to flourish.  But being given this small writing assignment has opened up this place within me that has been wanting to come out for a long time.

So, yeah baby!  This isn't about mommy-time or wife-time...this is about Kari-time!