Bet you didn't know...

Bet you didn't know I'm a 40-something mid-western mom.

In my ghostwriting gig, that is.

For over two years I've been writing from inside the mythical head of a woman with a date on her birth certificate, if she had one, that's about twenty years after the date on mine. She also lives where there are four distinct seasons, as opposed to the two we have here in deep south Florida.

Most of the time I can wing it. That's what it means to be creative, right?  But one month last year I was asked to write about family fun in the snow, and that's when I had nothing - nadda - to draw from. I suggested {begged for} a revised assignment.

Wing it or not, I never trust only in my own experiences. Extensive research is part of every assignment, and sometimes {often} that research points out the mistakes I made when I was a 40-something southern living mom with children still at home to nurture. Such is the case for the article I'm working on now.

I was recently asked by a different project manager to write an article for younger moms on what I would do differently. If I contemplate all my regrets and mistakes too long, I'm not sure I can keep the word count below what would fill the pages of a book.

That's one of the problems I have with this information age. There's too much information and an over-abundance of inspiration. It can be paralyzing. Unless I'm searching for something specific, I stopped looking at Pinterest months ago. I want to do everything - every craft, recipe, home decorating idea and fashion tip. I wish I'd done everything years ago, and I can easily feel lower than a snake's belly that I didn't.

But for grace.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Philippians 3:12-16 ESV

Did you catch that? Those of us who are mature think this way.

I did say it was time I act my age.

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Oscar Wilde

{PHOTOS - more spring, with those painted buntings, this week on Pollywog Creek}