The day after our 4th of July holiday aka Independence Day, I opened my WordPress account to check my stats.  What do I find? An empty blog post titled “Home.”

“in the house of my Father are many mansions; and if not, I would have told you; I go on to prepare a place for you;”  [John 14:2 YLT]

Oh my!  I’m not sure how it got published!  I don’t even have a prompt in my notes titled “Home.”  It was obvious, I made a mistake somewhere.  As my techie friends say, “Operator error!”

I apologize to those of you who checked out an empty post.  I appreciate that you stopped by my blog to see what I am up to in Milly’s Realm.  Thank you for checking out my mistaken post.  I hope my other posts are more interesting.  🙂

I’m taking the hint; it is time for an update on the adventure journey!  It is interesting that the accidental post was titled “Home.”  I spent a good part of the weekend with my husband working on the layout we want for our home in the mountains.

Then today at Mass our Priest discussed the Kingdom of God described by Jesus in Luke.  Something he said stuck with me.  “The Kingdom of God is here yet not…”  As usual, I got distracted from the homily when my mind raced latching onto the thought.  I am home… yet not.  My home is here in Florida but my dream home, yet to be built, is in North Carolina.  My spiritual home is here with God in the form of the Holy Spirit on earth.  But, my dream home, yet to be built, is in Heaven with God Almighty.

It is said, “Home is where the heart is.”  Well, I guess my heart is traveling.  This takes me back to my update.  I have begun a massive de-cluttering effort in my Florida home. Of course, I want it done with a snap of my fingers.  Alas!  It does not work that way.  I am making progress.  There are boxes ready for a Salvation Army run this week and empty boxes are ready to be filled.  I am almost done with the laundry room/pantry.  What I really want to do is move to another room!  But, I keep telling myself “Finish what you started,” and “Don’t stop now!”

My mantra is: “One room at a time.”  I find myself discouraged when I think ahead.  There are nine rooms, an attic, carport, shed, and yard, 13 spaces total with 26 years of living in them.  I haven’t finished one yet.  “One room at a time,” I repeat.  We use the laundry room door to come and go.  It’s just easier.  Now when I walk in the house, I give a sigh of accomplishment.  It is much nicer than it was two weeks ago.

We are also researching what we want because… drumroll please: We go up to North Carolina in August. We are beginning the process of learning what we need to permit and build our cabin in the woods! Woo Hoo!

I am also at work writing and challenging myself.  I have taken up the Camp NaNoWriMo challenge again.  Yes, Camp NaNoWriMo is twice a year in April and July.  We started on the first of July.  I am in a Christian writer’s cabin again.  I find the support there amazing.  Unlike November’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where we challenge ourselves to write a novel in 30 days, in Camp, we craft our own challenges.  My challenge is to work on Buried Secrets for 50 hours in July.

Looking back over my writing since I started Buried Secrets in 2011, I saw I was a hobby writer.  My dream is to be a published author.  To change I need to change my mindset.  If I took a part-time job to switch careers; I would spend 10 to 20 hours a week on learning and doing the new career.  The month of July is about four and a half weeks at 10 hours a week that would be 45 hours.  I rounded up to 50 hours and, voila! I have set up my challenge!

So far I am only 7 hours into the challenge.  It is okay, I plan to put in the overtime this week. {Giggle} I find it funny to assign myself overtime!  I’ve never been my own boss or freelanced.  When I think of it, it is a nail-biting kind of fun.

I am reminded that we are a part of the Kingdom of God here in this adventure journey on Earth.  He walks with us every day.  We are blessed to enjoy His presence.  And remember just like enjoying your family and friends at home, God enjoys our presence as much as, if not more than, we enjoy Him.  Invite Him into your day.  Because our dream spiritual home is the Kingdom of God with Him for Eternity!  Welcome home, my friend.

Be Blessed,

Milly