Free Just A Little Bit Longer

Villa in the Hilla FREE

Villa in the Hilla for Kindle is free on Amazon until May 25. Download it today if you haven't yet and pass the word! You can get your free copy here.

Also, check out this little video.

An Open Letter to the Wall Lizards in My House

Dear Cicaks (wall lizards) in My House:

I don't see you around a lot, but I know you are here. By the amount of poop you leave on the floor, you either have huge parties at night while we are sleeping, or you have serious digestive issues. Either way, I'd like to bring up a few problems that I see with our living arrangement.

You have never offered to pay rent and that is OK with me. I've never asked you to. But I feel it is very reasonable to ask for you to earn your keep. When I see mosquitoes in the house it is proof to me that you are not doing your job. If you want to hang out on our walls, please eat our mosquitoes.

Secondly, I would like to discuss your toilet habits. Poop stuck on the wall leaves stains. Please don't do that any more. Please find a location outside to do your business. I know you go outside at some point. I know this because there are more and more cicaks coming to live in our house. So you either leave the house at some point, or you are sneaking on my computer and tweeting my address to wall lizards everywhere.

And finally, I don't know what sorts of parties you are having at night, but when I find a tipsy cicak in the morning who can't even stick to the wall and falls splat on the floor in front of me...well, frankly it startles me and grosses me out simultaneously. It is just such an incident that has prompted me to write you this letter.

So, dear cicaks who live in my house: please...eat more, poop outside, and please please quit falling splat on the floor.

Sincerely,
The Folks Who Provide the Many White Walls You Live On

I Got a Face Lift

Well, not me. But "Villa in the Hilla" did! Thanks to a very talented friend. Now the devotional books match. Yay! 

Now here is the best news...Villa in the Hilla will be FREE for Kindle download for five days. Please take advantage of this if you do not have a copy yet (or if you do but you want this cool new cover). And tell your friends. 

Villa in the Hilla will be FREE for download on Amazon from Wednesday, May 21 to Sunday, May 25. Umm, that's give or take 12 hours depending on where you are while you read this. I think it will be effective at "the stroke of midnight" Pacific Coast Time so, you know, plan to download on May 22 just to be safe :)

Don't forget! 

It's Here!

I am happy to tell you that I have a new website! Go ahead, try it out...type www.janakelley.com in your browser...or just click this:

www.JanaKelley.com

You can even access this blog from there. 


(ummm, little disclaimer...you have to type "www" in the address until I can fix that prob. I was boss at getting the website all ready but not so boss at working out the kinks!)

Mother's Day

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all you mothers out there! 

First we went to church and spent some time in Psalm 119. 

Then we went out to eat at Chili's. Mostly because chips and salsa is one of my faves.

Kris and the boys gave me an iTunes gift card. Thanks guys! I used part of my loot to buy "Bella" which is a great movie that I think you should watch. The boys even watched it with me. It broadened their horizons. What do YOU think of the movie?

I did not get to talk with my mom or mom-in-love because that's the way it goes sometimes when you live in different time zones. But I am so thankful for email and iMessage, and for moms who understand why we are in a different time zone to begin with, even if we don't get to hear each other's voices much.

Happy Mother's Day! (Late I know. It has nothing to do with the time zone, it's just that I am a little rebellious and didn't want to post a Mother's Day post on Mother's Day because it seemed too cliche. And then I decided I should, but it was a day late...and also a work day which meant I didn't have time to put a bunch of thought into it but I thought I should do it anyway, so I did. Just now. While dinner is burning in the oven.) 

Throwback Thursday

I haven't figured out the whole social media scene very well. I do my best, but I am definitely an outsider (read why I feel this way). But it's Throw Back Thursday today, folks. I threw back yesterday though, so I was a day early. I found an external hard drive in all my stuff. I plugged that bad boy into my computer and found pictures and videos from 2005 onward. Wow, there went my evening. I spent a couple of hours throwing back. It was great!

The Lord has blessed us with some amazing opportunities and adventures and I am so very thankful. Today I re-watched some of the videos with the kids. They enjoyed it as much as I did.

Here's a picture (I won't make you watch all the videos, although I'd love to because they are really fun!) in honor of Throw Back Thursday...

On the Nile...just a walk away from our house!

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You can click the X in the top right corner if you're done, but remember to check my blog again later :)

I Walk a Path

I am walking on a path. It is beautiful. Birds are chirping, leaves are rustling in the trees, the blue sky peeks through the foliage, and the sun grins its approval from behind a fluffy white cloud. This is my path. It was meant for me and I was meant for it.

Joy, pure joy.

Through the trees, I catch a movement in my peripheral. It is another sojourner on a path, headed somewhere. I glance toward them. I smile and nod. We know each other. Not personally. We know about each other. We are both travelers, following a path, taking pleasure in the journey.

I take my eyes off of my own quest to catch a glimpse of the other path. It appears to be just a smidgen smoother because I notice that the other person is making more progress than I. Perhaps my path has a steeper incline. I’ve had to work harder to go the distance I have gone.

I am probably in better shape.

I put one foot in front of the other, I turn when my path turns, I am careful to avoid roots and rocks. There are a lot of roots and rocks, I notice. I must stay focused. I can only glance for a second at the sister-path. It does not have so many obstacles. I wonder if my fellow traveler sees me stumble.

There is skill in staying the course. I have been faithful to do just that. There is also skill in choosing the path. Did I choose the right one? I strain my eyes to look ahead, though I know I should be watching the ground in front of me. My path is headed in the right direction. I’ve always known that.

I think it is.

Is that a turn up ahead? My senses tell me I should continue to go straight, but I see that my path will be veering off a bit. That can’t be right. I glance at the other traveler…my rival…who is now ahead of me. It is easy to see their path because the sun smiles more on that path than on mine. It continues to go straight. I wonder: can I cut through the trees and get on that path?

Now I’m running, but I trip and stumble on pebbles and twigs. I’m awkward and I know that I must look silly. The air is stifling. The birds mock me. The leaves overhead scratch against each other, each is vying for a chance to hide the sun from me. The clouds loom overhead and cackle at me.

This is not the way I want it. I want the other path—or even a new one all-together.

I trip and fall, but this time I don’t get up. I just sit. I sit in the dirt. My knee is bleeding. I don’t even care. But really I do. My enemy is so far ahead now that I cannot see them anymore. And in the quiet…the quiet because I’m alone…I hear a voice…a voice because I’m not alone.

I never was.

“Run the race marked out for you.”

“Why?”

“Because it was meant for you and you were meant for it.”

I look through the trees at the other path. I don’t know anything about it. Maybe it is straight and smooth all the way…but maybe it’s not. What I do know is that it was not made for me. It is not for me to take it. I look at my own path. It’s a little crooked. A winding path is more exciting anyway. I think I like it.

I think I’ll stay.

Who knows what I’ll find when my path veers up ahead. I won’t worry about it right now.

I will trust the One who marked the path for me.

And in that trust, I’ll find joy.