What was I thinking?

Starting a new blog is very much like moving into a new home. There's the excitement of a fresh beginning, of being able to mold this space into the place of your dreams. You have so many ideas of what you're going to put where, what type of wallpaper you're going to use, which pictures you're going to use to decorate. You imagine blissfully all of the ooohh!s and ahhhh!s  that you've breathed over everyone else's space being lavished over yours.

You write your first post, you edit and re-edit it. After fiddling with the fonts and colors and layouts, you've finally gotten it the way you want it. You're very, very proud of yourself and you're more than satisfied at how it turned out. That is until you go back and look at what everyone else has done. Not a good idea. It's as if you have all of your moving boxes piled up in the various rooms of your new home, your color swatches taped up to the walls and then pulling out your Martha Stewart inspired collage board, realize that what you planned is all wrong.

As the first wave of what was I thinking fades away, you look again at the board and realize not everything off. It's a good start, it just needs to be tweaked a little. It's going to take some time to figure out where to put it all but it will turn out. It's not going to look like everyone else's but it's not suppose to. It's going to look like you, sound like you and feel just like you. In spite of the fact you've picked out the wrong wallpaper, you've made the right decision. Everything you've packed up and brought with you will find it's rightful place.

You begin to relax. You can do this.

You take a deep breath and open the first box.

Well..you gotta start somewhere.

When I decided to start a blog, I had a picture in my mind of what it was going to look like.

This isn't it. Not yet anyway.

If I had waited for that elegant, professional and polished blog to begin, this would have never happened. This, instead, is a beginning, a work in progress which will hopefully get better and more polished as it goes along.  I put this together myself, an afternoon spent trying out fonts and layouts and various backgrounds until settling on this one which reminds me of a delicate material they used to call dotted swiss. Curtains were made out of it in various colors and I have a memory of white dotted swiss curtains softly wafting in a warm breeze at a kitchen window somewhere...calming, comforting and soothing. It's simple and pretty and it works for now.

I choose the name A Renaissance Woman because I want this to be a place to explore what Renaissance can be in the lives of everyday women like myself.  There's a verse in the Bible that says we should  work out our salvation in fear (awe, respect for God) and trembling (in joy and excitement, sometimes in sorrow)* which is how I try to live out my life. I'll be working out the aspects of this journal in that way as well. I know I want it to be truthful and honest and cover all aspects of who we are as women of faith, mothers, daughters, sisters and friends. I want it be an adventure and a journey of self-discovery for the both of us.  I hope you'll join in and share in the discovery of restoration, renewal and revival for your life. I promise you it won't be boring!

*Philippians 2:12