Emily Rachelle Writes

So, I know I said I wasn't sticking to my old schedule, but I love doing this 30 Day Challenge so that's one thing I've decided to keep doing. :) It's still a Saturday-only thing, though. This week's challenge is a song I want played at my wedding.  Now I know most girls would share their "first dance" song or some love song they adore, but my music tastes change on a regular basis, and I have no idea what my "first dance" song will be.  In fact, there's only one song I know for sure I want played at my wedding - the father/bride dance song.  I almost cried the first several times this played on KLove, and every time I thought, I just have to play this at my wedding.

Lately my life is intact while my inner deterioration is gaining speed.  I hardly feel anything but stressed anymore.  I used to have (sometimes random, sometimes caused) moments of excitement or peace or pure happiness, and some emotions that I don't think even have a name yet.  Now I feel like I've stretched myself into a shell with no meaning left inside.  I've been reevaluating my time, and calendar, and priorities, and... well, everything.  My life.  And I've decided that blogging no longer means what it once did to me.  This used to be a creative outlet, but now it's a place to ramble and show off my life. I'm stressed out, wasting time, scheduling every jot and tittle of my life, and no longer enjoying any of it.  So, this is me, saying thank you and sorry.  The party was fantastic, and this past year of blogging wasn't a loss.  I learned a lot about myself, met lots of wonderful new people, and improved my writing....

Everyone has heard the quote, "All good things must come to an end."  And so must this wonderful blog party.  Why not end with a bang?  Let's finish off our blog party with a summary of all the wonderful, amazing, spectacular people and presents that we enjoyed this month. For those of you who joined mid-party, you can always go back and see the wisdom, laughs, and great photographs (yes, I rhymed) to be had: Walls {guest post} Author Interview: Marc Franco My Christmas Decor Book Review: The Christmas Conversation Christmas Memories {guest post} Behold the Handmaid of the Lord {guest post} Hannukah, the Feast of Dedication {guest post} Christmas Traditions {guest post} White Chocolate Pretzel Candy Clusters {guest recipe} The Night of Christmas {guest post} Merry Christmas! End of 2011 Story Time Time {guest post} Blogging and Me {guest post} Author Interview: Cindey Swanson Testimony {guest post} Stepping Heavenward {guest post} Blending History wi...

Dear Emily, Happy sixteenth birthday! As a special treat, I’m going to repeat what everybody always says on teen birthdays—the whole “growing up so fast” thing coupled with depressing statements of irrevocable change and impending doom and then concluding with well-worn (though profound) assurance of how it won’t be so bad, after all. I spent most of my younger life studying upper respiratory infections in rats and bedding options for horses in hopes of being a vet/breeder/pet store owner. I planned on starting out the store in my bedroom, even had the floor plans all made out in my notebook, though I admittedly had some trouble squeezing in two bunk beds and four sisters between the guinea pig and ferret cages. Life made sense back then. The biggest decisions involved breakfast and what to name my new Littlest Pet Shop bobbleheads—quite a delicate procedure, I can assure you. I had my life planned before I finished elementary school. By sixteen I couldn’t even find square one ag...

Raised Right By Alisa Harris How I Untangled My Faith from Politics Click the cover to buy Honestly, when I picked this book out a couple months ago, I didn't expect what I ended up with.  I made the same assumption as most of the readers/buyers/bloggers, that "Raised Right" meant "Raised Correctly."  But no ma'am, that is not what this author means.  "Raised Right" means what it says: namely, right-wing conservative. Another assumption most of us made was that "Harris" referred to Josh Harris (author of Boy Meets Girl , I Kissed Dating Goodbye , and many other books famous in my circles) and his brothers, Alex and Brett (authors of Do Hard Things and Start Here , as well as founders of the Rebelution movement ).  I figured she was a just-now-emerging sister that had hidden in her brothers' shadows; when I found out she was married, I assumed she was Josh's wife.  (Is he married?  I know zilch about him, really.) ...

A couple months ago, I volunteered to write a guest post for Miss Emily’s blog party. I’ll be honest, I’ve never done anything like this before, and I had no idea what to write. I was thinking "What do I, a seamstress, have in common with a writer? What can I say to people who might have completely different interests than I do?" Then I realized that even though we might have different interests and talents, we all have one thing in common, and that is that we can, and should, use our different gifts to the glory of God. "Well," one might ask, "how on earth can I use my sewing abilities (for example) to bring glory to God?" First, do whatever you do well, and not half-heartedly. Colosians 3:23 says "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." If God has given you gifts, use them! And do your work well. Don’t be content with sloppy or it's-good-enough work. Do your work to the best of your ability. Remember...

I know you're all anxious to see who wins this great series, but first, some words from the awesomesauce author of said series. My Ripple Trilogy, Rippler, Chameleon, and Unfurl tells the story of a girl who can “ripple” or turn invisible. All three books contain numerous excerpts from the journal of a scientist working secretly in the late 1930’s. He’s the bad guy. He’s observing and sometimes interacting with children with names like “Fritz,” “Franz,” “Gunter,” and “Helga.” It doesn’t take too much imagination to figure out that the man running the experiments is politically and philosophically a Nazi. However, when I wrote the first book, I had the experience of discovering his affiliations. At first, I only knew that he had performed behavioral experiments upon a group of children as part of an effort to create a new and perfected race. The word “eugenics” kept dancing around in my head, and one day when I’d written as much as I could for the morning, I hopped online and...