Things happen.

It’s a fact. We can’t avoid it. And try as we might it still wrecks havoc on our lives.

April 15th my mom fell and broke her leg. At the time I was working, doing school, managing my non-profit, writing my novels, writing blog posts, and getting ready to start volunteering at a summer camp. Needless to say, that threw a wrench in my plans. School screeched to a halt, my non-profit took a few weeks off, and writing was non-existent. My days were filled with figuring out how on earth to manage the household my mom has built. I learned how to cook and how to clean, and I learned that I have absolutely no idea how to balance work, school, volunteering, writing, and running a household. As the year progressed I struggled working two days a week, doing school, and volunteering the other three days. I would get mom breakfast and ready for the day before I left at 7:30am, and I would hopefully be home by 11:00pm. On the days I worked I left the house at 7:20am and arrived home at 10:45. I would spend the rest of the day making lunches and dinners for the days I wasn't home.

In essence, this post is an explanation for my absence, as well as advice from someone who's been where many of you are right now.

Life happens, but that doesn't mean that your dreams have to fall by the wayside.

"The hurrier I go the behinder I get" is a quote from the white rabbit in Lewis Carrol's: Alice and Wonderland. This quote, however strange it may seem, is very pertinent to life.

Often times the more we try to do, the less we are actually able to get done. Basically, we don't know our own boundaries.

Think of our lives as the Parthenon. Our lives revolve around the pillars of interest we place, and when a person or situation fires a cannon at our beautiful Parthenon at least a few pillars are going to come crashing down. And honestly, that's ok. Sometimes the pillars that we place the most stock in are actually standing in our way.

I'll use myself as an example. I was hired as a swim instructor several months ago with the understanding that I couldn't start work until September. However, like most things in life, my summer didn't go as planned. By the time I was supposed to start work I was booked to fly to Winnemucca Nevada for a Memorial service and was facing 36 hours of homework per week.

That doesn't sound awful...Right?

It would have been fine if those were the only things I was doing. However, I was also working another job, running a non-profit, a cadet at the local fire station, writing, volunteering at church, cooking family meals, cleaning the house, and attempting to have some sort of social life. On top of all that I live outside of town, and it takes me 15 minutes to get to work, and a half an hour to an hour to get anywhere else. I had to take something off my plate. Ergo, I resigned as a swim instructor. My parents and I had gone over everything, and we found that the only way I would be able to work that job was running non-stop from 6am to 9pm, 7 days a week. While that may work for some of you, my brain doesn't function under that constant amount of stress.

One very interesting thing I found over the summer is that like I said earlier, the more you try to do, the less you get done.

Now by no means is this, or should it ever be, an excuse not to try something new. It is, however, a warning against trying to do too much.

I mentioned earlier in this post that your dreams don't have to fall to the wayside just because your life gets busy. Even though I didn't write all summer God has begun to convict me on the outline for Scepter of Blood, or lack thereof, and therefore I am working on a chapter by chapter outline of the nearly 70 chapter novel. Now, if it was completely up to me, it is very likely that I wouldn't finish said outline. And then, unfortunately, I would end up with an abundance of continuity errors. Yet even though the pain of outlining such a large novel is overwhelming, God is keeping my dream alive.

Don't give up on your dreams simply because you don’t believe you have time.