I seem to start all my entries these days with phrases such as ‘I know it has been a long time’… and here I am at it again! The last few weeks have been gruelling – not due to work, which I am afraid has had to sit on the back burner. I’ve simply been getting through each day – and night. The virus that is going around hit our household big time, and my youngest has been up night after night. Sleep deprivation is something I find so so difficult, and I admit I was getting pretty down. It didn’t help when, after our newly introduced family DVD night, he slipped and cut open his chin – the second trip to A&E with him! But last night he slept through for the first time in weeks – yay! And even more positive is that my attitude and conversations with God had changed before then! 😉 I don’t know if it was because it was such a beautiful, crisp day yesterday, but I found myself walking to my mum and toddler group full of thankfulness about the blessings God has poured on me. Okay, life had been tough – but I have two beautiful children, a wonderful husband and I’m making my way in a career that I love and can fit around family life. When I got home I was greeted by a message to say I had some more editorial work offered – to edit Jeff Lucas’ new book (which I found rather exciting!). I also suddenly realised an article I’m working on has the potential to be developed into a great book too, and managed to chat this through with a publisher. I made some great contacts for that too yesterday and, on top of that, feel that God just ‘dropped’ an idea for another piece of writing into my head. I was soooo excited yesterday afternoon and was brimming over with information that I just ‘had’ to share with my poor husband, who was trying to concentrate on his work in another room of the house! Well, if he will work from home too what does he expect?! 🙂 After calming down I had time for reflection and realised that, in less than a year, God has really helped me develop my career in a totally different direction. The contacts I have had for years in the publishing industry just seem to no longer get in touch with me. I was quite down about that for a while – after my first child they carried on giving me work, but after my second it was becoming a huge slog to find work with them – they blamed the economic climate and I know that is true, but I also know not being available full time had a lot to do with it (even though I have never missed a deadline and they have always been happy with my work). But now I realise God was making room for the writing and editing work He had in store for me. I have a lot of editorial work, but it is all with new Christian clients and I’m loving it! I have also had some real encouragements with my writing – people coming back to me about ideas I submitted back in the summer, accepting some straight off and changing their mind about others! I’ve now got some new book ideas too, which is wonderful because I really felt like I wanted to write another book but wasn’t quite sure what direction to take that in. There are still magazines I really want to have articles in that I haven’t managed to yet, and that is quite frustrating, but I feel like I’m now writing about the subjects closest to my heart and that I actually feel I have something of worth to say about. I realise what a great privilege that is, and am so grateful to God…