A Fish Out of Water...

Today I am featuring my first ever guest poster! When I begged for some awesome writers to help out a couple of weeks ago, Heather, from My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream, was the first to answer the call! Be sure to give her wonderful blog a visit and show her some love and respect in the comments here! She deserves it!

A Fish Out of Water...

That is what I feel like right now, getting ready to talk about my lack of Christianity on Adrian's blog.

I was very surprised when I wrote a post for my blog called Why I Don't Have a God. The comments on the post were surprisingly respectful, and a lot of people were very tolerant of my views, despite the fact that their own views are different. I'm not usually one to talk about religion, mostly because when I bring it up, I get trampled on and questioned. I don't like to label myself as a certain religion, simply because I'm not sure there is one that fits what I believe. I don't believe in the Christian God. I believe in an after life, but not Heaven or Hell. I don't believe that there is some sort of divine guidance in my life - I believe in fate and destiny. I could type a whole post, or ten, about my beliefs. But that isn't what I'm here to talk about today. I want to talk about tolerance.

A Moment of Clarity

This post is part of my weekly Time for Honesty. I do my best to share something that's on my heart that is honest, sincere, and transparent - something that will get you thinking and get you to be honest with yourself.

This summer, I've been working full-time at the Pregnancy Crisis Center in Wichita.

And by "working full-time," I mean interning for no pay.

It's been a wonderful experience so far. I haven't had a job that would be considered full-time since I was 16, so that's been a learning experience in and of itself.

More than that, though, I've had to learn that in any job, you're going to have ups, and then you're going to have downs. And, frankly, you're probably going to have a lot more downs after the first aforementioned downs, and then you might get a single, glimmering up, followed by more downs.

Word Cravings

I've become rather fascinated with Google+. If you want an invite, let me know!

Today, I want to talk to you about something that I fear I may be alone in experiencing...

Word cravings.

Cravings, in and of themselves, are a little weird to me. My wife tells me she has cravings for things like fruit, while my mom craves ice cream. Cravings (especially ones associated with food) seem to be all over the place.

You know what's really weird, though?


I don't get cravings all that often. I'm pretty sure the only things in the world that I ever crave are Pepsi, steak, and pizza. So if you want some brownie points, feel free to send me any of the above. I'll repay you with a huge smile and the biggest virtual hug ever recorded.

Sweet Chaos

It's definitely one of those mornings where I'll need a second cup of coffee before I begin writing.

This weekend was crazy.

This weekend was awesome.

This weekend was the most fun I've had in a long time.

And this picture pretty much summarizes it:

Sweet, sweet chaos. That's the only way to describe it.

Oops, I Did it Again

I'm not sure what's with all of the song-inspired titles lately...

Today I'm going to do something daring. Something crazy. Something a little wacky.

I'm going to break some sort of unwritten blogging code and hope the blog police don't come for me.

I'm going to, once more, grovel for guest posts.

I received some great responses the first time I posted about this a couple of weeks ago, so I just wanted to throw the opportunity out there once more for anyone who might have missed it or maybe had just forgotten.

I need some awesome, epic guest posters!

That means YOU! 

So, for the sake of not writing the exact same blog post twice, I wanted to share a few guest posts with you to help inspire you. Consider this my Shameless Plugging for the week, so I don't seem completely self-centered and self-promoting.

"Beating Writer's Block" by Jon Acuff - This is the most recent guest post that I've read and has some great advice for writers from Jon Acuff, a Christian blogger and author. He posted on a blog site called Money Saving Mom, which sounds completely out of his realm, and I thought that was pretty gutsy.

What I learned from this guest post: You can guest post anywhere. All you have to do is ask!

My Guest Post at My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream - Alright, this is pretty self-centered and self-promoting, I have to admit. But this is just another example of a guest post that may have been in a realm that doesn't necessarily line up with the one I normally write in.

What I learned from this guest post: If you guest post, you're guaranteed to sound funnier and smarter. I'm not sure why, but that's just the way it works. Sort of like when you eat someone else's ice cream. It always tastes better than it would have if it was your own.

"My Average Day Mostly Sucks" by Jamie, the Very Worst Missionary - I'm not sure what it was about this guest post, but it is one of my favorites. Jamie took F.U. Question's theme and flipped it on its head and then made a great guest post out of it!

What I learned from this guest post: I will never, in a million, bajillion years, be able to write as well as Jamie Wright. Sometimes, you just have to know when to admit these sort of things.

What I actually learned: You don't even have to run with a blog's theme when writing a guest post. Which means you could actually write a guest post for Life Before the Bucket explaining why you don't have a Bucket List or why you hate making goals. You just never know what I could go for!

Hopefully this has encouraged you to think about guest posting not only here, but on your other favorite blogs as well! Let me know if you're interested in guest posting here through a comment or in an e-mail and we'll make it happen!