the adventure begins..

Welcome to Week 1 of our Exploring Your Story adventure. If you just happen to be reading this blogpost but you have no idea what the Change Your Life by Exploring Your Story adventure is all about, go to this blogpost to find out more. You are very welcome to sign up and join us by simply leaving your email address and name in the Comments below or by leaving me a message on this Facebook page.

For those of you who have been waiting for this day, very patiently, for a while now..guess what? We are now 30 34 adventurers altogether. Some of you I know very well, some of you I know fairly well and others of you I've never met face to face. I'll make sure that I post a video next Monday so that you can at least put a face and a personality to the name.

I will be praying for each of you, by name (I have a list!), every week. Please join me and pray for me and for the other 29 33 ladies who are with you. In fact, why don't we do that right now!

Heavenly Father, thank You for this long-awaited day. Thank You that it is none other than You who have called us together and given us a heart and a desire to draw near to You and venture forth into unchartered territory. I ask You to bless each and every one of us. I ask You to draw near to me as I draw near to You. I ask You to reveal yourself to me and to all of us. In Jesus' name. Amen

Without any further ado - let's get going. Do you have your journal handy?

Adventure # 1:  Read the book

I want to make sure that we are all on the same page (excuse the pun) as we start out, so your assignment for this week is to read my book Brighter Than The NoonDay Sun, available here. If you have any trouble getting hold of the book, please let me know and I'll arrange for you to receive a pdf directly (R80). I am aware that some of you have already read the story of my testimony, long ago. Please re-read it this week. I'm also aware that, in anticipation of this adventure, some of you have already purchased and read the book. Great, then you're striding out ahead.

As you read..

• Think of the one thing featured in my story that you would most like me to discuss further. 
• Now write that down as a Comment below this post. Thank-you :)
• Think of your own salvation story. How did it happen? Where, when and in what way? Do you even have a story of how God reached out to you? Maybe you know about God but you don't actually know Him personally yourself. Write all this down in your journal.
• Here's another thing I want you to write down in your journal - I want you to answer these questions..on a continuum of 1-10, how close am I to God right now? Is it an 8, a 4? Compared to this time last year? Compared to this time 5 years ago? Compared to this time 10 years ago? Do I want to be more intimate with Him than I am right now? What are some of the things that are stopping me?  

As you can see, its a bit of a personal inventory that I'm asking for. I'm going to be doing it with you and if I haven't said it before, let me say it now - I'm immensely grateful to have you as my companion, my accountability partner, on this adventure. You are welcome to email me, leave Comments below my blogposts, leave thoughts on the Change Your Life Facebook page, or leave a personal message there..I'm happy to engage personally with you on anything that arises as a result of our time together. In fact, that's what this adventure is all about, its a guided adventure. 

We're off to a gentle, slow start but I did promise you that I would keep it low-key. We're all busy. But if you're the kind of person who likes to have a daily calendar to follow (as I am), here goes:

Until next time..

Tonight (Monday)  

Read Brighter Than The Noonday Sun. Get it here 

Tuesday 

Read Acts 9: 1-30; Acts 22: 6-11; Acts 26: 13-19

Wednesday

Listen to this Be Magnified

Friday

Watch this just for fun 

Saturday

Bring just one aspect of your life that you're struggling with before the Lord. Ask Him for wisdom for this area of your life.

Sunday

Go to church. Even if you don't have a church, even if you don't usually go to church, go to church today. Just think of it as..an adventure!

Look out for my first video next week. Until then, avante! 

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to share in an adventure..

Here we are. We are 30 34 altogether, women from all over the world..as far North as Canada..as far West as Britain..as far South as Cape Town and as far East as Australia. Some of us may fall away along the road due to various reasons, others may join in, but for now, I think that 30 is a respectable enough number to kick off with. And it makes a good date to kick off on too. So January 30 it is. This will be the first day of our Change Your Life By Exploring Your Story Adventure.

Today's blog is all about planning and preparing for the adventure, so here's the information you need in order to do that.

HOW'S IT GOING TO WORK?

Every Monday (starting Monday, 30 January) I will upload either a blogpost or a video with the main exploration for the week. It will be drawn from my own personal story as recorded in my book Brighter Than the Noonday Sun. Along with that, I will offer Scripture readings, other materials and guiding questions to help you bring it all closer to home.

During the week I will also post on the Change Your Life This Year Facebook page, so look out for those.

Sometimes I will also send you personal emails.

I encourage you to engage with me and the other women on this journey by posting your experiences, thoughts, questions either as a comment on my Blog or YouTube channel, or on the Facebook page. You are also very welcome to send me a personal email with your questions or requests. I will then share with the others what I think is relevant.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO TO GET READY?

Get connected. Because everything is going to be driven online, through social media, its imperative that you get subscribed and connected to all those channels now. Subscribe to my Blog here. Subscribe to my You Tube channel here. Go and 'like' the Change Your Life This Year Facebook page here. Please let me know immediately if you have any difficulty subscribing to or following me on any of these channels.

Get hold of the book. Every adventure is going to be drawn out of my book Brighter Than The NoonDay Sun so its really important that you get hold of that. By the way, it is only available as a digital book. A few of you may already have it so you're one step ahead. If you don't already have the book you can buy it in one of two ways:

• You can buy it directly from me for R80. Just send me an email request. 
• You can buy it from the Amazon Kindle bookstore. Click here. 

Please make sure that you have the book in your possession by 30 January, our kick-off date. 

Get a journal. You're going to be doing an awful lot of journalling, writing, reflecting, sketching, musing, doodling..as you go, so make sure you have a good-sized journal set aside for that purpose. 

If you know that you've sent me your email address and registered for the adventure, great. If you're not sure and you definitely don't want to be left behind, please send me your name and email address asap. If you've not heard of the adventure before but you'd like to be a part of it, send me your name and email address and I'll add you to the group. 

Until Monday, 30 January then. 

Avante! 

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explore your personal story with me

I've noted that this blog is about "food, fashion and faith based on the books I write and the characters I create". Very broad I know, but I've always been one of those people who goes into a brain spasm when asked "what's your favourite colour?". How can anyone possibly choose a favourite colour when they're all so wonderful? In the end I would go for "multicolour", as in, a mixed bunch of flowers or those coloured lights that line the seafront road in the town where I live like someone decided to drape the town in jewellery.

All that to say that last year I wrote a book called CHANGE YOUR LIFE THIS YEAR that was all about choosing one area of your life per month, and creating some measurable, positive change around it. This year, I have decided to continue the concept of Change Your Life but to focus on exploring our personal stories with a view to seeing the fingerprints of God in our lives more clearly.

I'll be using the book I wrote about my personal story as a guide. It's called BRIGHTER THAN THE NOONDAY SUN and its available on Amazon (just click on the link). I'll also be making it available as a straightforward PDF for those who don't have a Kindle or don't feel like figuring out how to download the Kindle app onto their computers. There is no other cost.

This really feels like a positive, exciting adventure although, I'm not going to lie, at this stage I'm not at all sure where this journey is going to take us! Some tour guide?! But if you trust me a little and trust God a bit more, why not join us. At the moment we're a group of lovely women who don't have a lot of time or energy to spare so I'm going to keep this low-key and gentle. I'll upload something once a week - either a blog-style video or a post like this or..something - and you can use that as a catalyst for meaningful reflection and transformation.

Who's in? We're kicking off on 1 February 2017. If you want to join me on this adventure, please leave a message in the comments below..or on the Change Your Life This Year Facebook page with your email address.

Avante!
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my favourite bloggers/YouTubers

Believe it or not, there was a time, and that time was not so very long ago (ahem, are you hearing me all you over 50's?) when I had no idea what a blogger was. I had no idea that there were people out there who would actually allow you to watch while they put their make-up on..I mean..come on..how generous is that?! Most of us look awful without our make-up on (and in my case, awful WITH makeup on..I really needed a lesson or two from a friend). Once I discovered that there was, literally, a UNIVERSE of helpful friends out there who would teach me everything from how to clean my house, to how to create a capsule wardrobe, to how to start a blog of my own..FOR FREE..I was hooked!

My foray into social media has changed my life. I know that some people really despise the 'unreal' world of cyber-friendship but I'm not one of them. I think its FAB.U.LOUS. For me it was all about being humble enough to be taught how to do the simple things in life that I was failing miserably at. I'm very grateful to the bloggers and YouTubers that I follow, so I thought I would share them with you.

1.  The Daily Connoisseur

Jennifer L. Scott probably takes first prize for being the person whose ideas and lifestyle have influenced me the most over the past three years. She has written three books, Lessons from Madame Chic, At Home with Madame Chic and Polish your Poise with Madame Chic - they're all great and I highly recommend them if you're interested in living a more..well, chic..life. But what I'm most grateful to her for, is introducing me to the concept of the 10 Item Wardrobe. That started me on the journey of, what I call 'quality-minimalism', that I am still on today. The idea is to curate a wardrobe that has fewer, better quality pieces in it that are scrupulously aligned to your actual (as opposed to fantasy) life. I will definitely be sharing more about my personal journey in this regard as the year goes on. 

2.  Wendy's Lookbook

Wendy Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American who first shot to Internet fame for her creative video about how to tie scarves (i'll pop it in below). She's a fashion guru and her blog features her outrageously fashionable, ever-changing, extremely high-end, daily outfits. None of it very attainable or desirable to me. But, why I'm grateful to Wendy is that at one time she made many pairing videos, showing women how to wear, for example, a denim jacket. My 'real' friend, Rina, got me started initially on styling and pairing and outfit creation..and Wendy took up where she left off. I LOVED those videos and they helped me get better at what I really sucked at..personal styling. So..here's the famous scarf video and a sample of one of her pairing videos. 

3.  The Christian Meditator

I'm not going to lie, no-one in this world has a more soothing voice than Rhonda Jones, who is The Christian Meditator. At a time when I was hanging on to Jesus by my fingernails (to be truthful, one fingernail), I discovered The Christian Meditator. I'm so grateful for her quiet, steady faith. It really spoke to me. Furthermore, she helped me to see how it would be possible to tackle devotional subjects using social media, something I intend pursuing myself this year. More about that later. Here's a sample of one of my favourite of her YouTube guided meditations. 

4.  Monique Parent

This lady (I think she's an actress turned film producer) is hilarious. She's on a mission to make life fabulous after forty. Check out her YouTube channel here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgdUicXOtV5eqfuDSEVMRmA 

and her blog here

http://www.uniquemonique.com/#1

She's kinda steamy, but one thing's for sure, she knows how to put on make-up and do amazingly glamorous transformations. Plus, she's hilarious (did I mention that?) I just love the way she rocks 50+. 

5.  Lydia Elize Millen

Ok, I have to admit it..this is the YouTuber that I watch the most. Maybe that's because she puts out the most content, I don't know. In trying to analyse what's so fascinating about Lydia, I realised that for me, she's like that Barbie doll I used to have when I was little. I don't mean that in a disparaging way at all. She's clearly a very hard-working and astute young businesswoman. But, like Barbie, she looks gorgeous all the time, she changes clothes all the time, she believes she's good enough to own high-end luxury items like Chanel handbags and she lives a very aspirational life. Except she talks to you, is adorable, sometimes just wears a huge oversized dressing-gown and slippers, like the rest of us, and has really really great taste. It's like Barbie came to life and said "Stop dressing me and let me start dressing you." So much so that I am basing my own Autumn wardrobe this year entirely on hers. I'll show you more when the time comes. She might be one of the fastest growing social media Influencers at the moment. Since I've been following her, which is only about 4 months, she has grown from under 100k followers to over 300k. Check her out and tell me what it is about her that makes everyone want to watch her. Here's her blog url and here's her YouTube url.

I'm very aware that this post is getting extremeeeeeeeely long but I have so many other wonderful cyber friends that I'd like to introduce you to (I subscribe to over 100), like Audrey Coyne (capsule wardrobe), Sugar Mamma (finance), Gennaro Contaldo (Italian cooking), Fit Couple Cooks (meal prepping), Marie-Anne LeCoeur (adorable French lady), Reasons To Dress (general lifestyle in Italy), Clean My Space (sardonic hostess takes you through how to clean your home), Aesthetic Alterations (a writer who takes an "enamoured approach to life", visits Paris often and introduces you to fragrances you've never heard of before - what's NOT to like about that?),   and..oh gosh, truly, too many to mention. Just click on their names to check them out. OH MY WORD. I cannot believe that I nearly forgot to introduce you to someone who ranks up there with Jennifer L. Scott..so here goes. 

6.  Mai Tai's Picture Book

Mai Tai isn't her real name but a pseudonym that's she's known by by Hermes enthusiasts around the world. She's the guru of Hermes scarves and indeed, all things Hermes. Someone once described this lady as "looking like Royalty". She definitely has that Regal thing going for her (without being stuffy and all Queeny) and that's what makes her such an inspiration. I doubt that I'll ever be able to afford a Hermes scarf in my life, let alone a handbag, but I love this blog. You will too if you're..cough..more mature. Her style is simple but impeccable. Plus she lives in France. On a wine farm. Need I say more?  

So now that I've introduced you to some of my Internet 'friends', how about introducing me to some of yours. Also, if you'd like to know who the other 89 bloggers and YouTubers are that I follow, let me know, and I'll do another post like this some time. 

Blessings! 

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