Audra Jennings

Julie Ziglar Norman encourages audiences to put away their shame and regret  and to live the life of hope that God has planned for them. Julie Ziglar Norman often says her dad is the king of “doing life right” and she is the poster child for “doing life wrong.” In Growing Up Ziglar: A Daughter’s Broken Journey from Heartache to Hope (Guideposts/May 1, 2012/ISBN 978-0-8249-4531-2/$14.99) , Norman shares how for 25 years she lived every day with regret, shame, guilt, and depression while trying to keep up the positive outer appearance that was expected of her as the daughter of popular motivational author and speaker Zig Ziglar. Although her father was not well known until she was in her late teens, he always emphasized being positive. “When I talk about what it was like growing up with Mr. Positive Attitude himself, I enjoy teasing about waking up to an ‘opportunity clock’ instead of an alarm clock,” says Norman. “Daddy has always been positive and looked on the...

Uninspired as to what it was that I was going to blog about today, I logged on to Facebook to skulk around. Having not spent much time on Pinterest in the past week or so, I also logged on there. I have three arguments for the foe part of Pinterest tonight. 1. I was wasting time when I really didn't need another reason not to clean my nasty bathrooms. Be proud of me. I did stop my lurking to go do that. 2. I am NOT following someone that supposedly I am following. I've made sure to follow all, then unfollow all to make sure I'm not following something that I just can't see that I am following of this person's. I don't know if I "liked" something that she posted on the "Everything" feed or what. Now she is all over my friend feed. I do not want to look at all the lingerie she posts. I don't want to log on in front of anyone because I don't want them to see all this stuff in my feed. I think she may be overweight and fantasizi...

It was at some point last night that I realized I hadn't walked out of the house in 48 hours except to get the mail twice. Is that bad? I think it was on Thursday night that I called my mom and said, "by the way, I'm going to Waxahachie shopping on Saturday, you can go or not, but I'm just letting you know." After I picked her up today and hit the road, she said, "your dad... he was laying in bed last night and was trying to remember if he left the house all day." "Leave Dad alone. There's nothing wrong with that," I tell her. I was going to Waxahachie because the Walmart here did not have the energy efficient curtains I wanted to buy in the right size. Once I got my electric bill via email last night, I decided the splurge would be worth every penny. My house is hot during the day, but I don't let the air come on until late because I have to be able to afford my electric bill while working from home all day. My house is goi...

Last week, I finished another baby blanket in middle of doing the bigger project I was working on. I got it done three days before the baby's arrival! An accomplishment given that I gave that the maroon and white one (aka the Aggie baby blanket) to the original recipient's baby brother almost two years after I started it. Now, I'm just a machine. I finished the one for the family reunion next week (to be given away as a door prize) last night. The center square that's multi-colored, and the first band of tan around it were crocheted by my grandmother over 8 years ago before she died. I actually don't know how long before that she did it. She just had a square too many from another afghan I guess. I bought four colors of yarn to finish out this one because I didn't have enough of other colors to make it around and it needed to be a little bit bigger. I had a bin full of yarn that had been in my closet for 8 years. With the four projects that I've...

Enter the  Turning Guilt Trips into Joy Ride  Giveaway! Guilt!  She pokes you as you write about your quaint, eccentric aunt. She grabs you as you wander from e-mail to Facebook to laundry instead of focusing on your work. She kicks you as you complain about your husband to a friend. Have you noticed?  Women seem riddled with guilt. And it’s hard to know if guilt is legitimate or simply a product of our imaginations. After all, should we really feel guilty about things over which we have no control? We are not perfect. We have no control over some things, so it's no use feeling guilty. We can't do it all. To celebrate the release of  Turning Guilt Trips into Joy Rides , Shirley, Janine and Kim are giving away some great prizes during the blog tour. Share your own "guilt trip" or "joy tip" and be entered to win a free life coaching consultation and a $50  Amazon.com  gift certificate. JUST CLICK THIS LINK   and share what tri...

And this is the grand finale to my series on places I've been and things that I've seen more obscure and definitely less fun than going to the original Starbucks. This is why my definition of "fun" is skewed. All of this randomness happened on one trip. Due to Mom's obsession with courthouses and pumped up tourist brochures, we detoured to see the oldest courthouse in Kansas. It did have some ornate woodwork inside. This time through Kansas, I got to see the Oz Museum, but this one is in Wamego. We stopped by the capital in Topeka just to say we saw it. I don't have a picture of Arthur Bryant's BBQ that we stopped at to say we ate there. It was horrible. But while in Kansas City, I had to go by the art museum to see this shuttlecock that graced my art appreciation books in college. The fastest Dad drove on the whole trip was to make sure we got to John Wayne's childhood home in time to buy a souvenir.  You know, I was  ...

I started working on Beth Wiseman's Need You Now back at the old job and got to read the ARC version. For that reason, I thought I would post today's tour.  This is Beth's first contemporary, non-Amish, release. The title gets me singing Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" every time. I had to keep songs straight too because at the same time we picked up this project, we got Neta Jackson's Stand By Me. For those of you who have read this book, I ask this question: Why did it end exactly like it did? Something seemed absolutely pointless to me, and I walked away from it thinking WHY??? Did you do the same thing? It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the ...