Money Saving Mom®

She came up to me as I was walking off stage after speaking at a conference recently.

“I’m so sorry to bother you, but my aunt, Mary, is a long-time reader of your blog. When she found out I was going to be at a conference your were at, she was SO excited.”

She paused and then said, “I hate to ask this of you, but is there any way we could get our picture taken together and you could hold up a piece of paper in the picture that says, ‘Hi, Mary!'”

“Of course”, I replied. But then I thought for a second and said, “However, what if I were to write her a note instead? Maybe that would be more meaningful?”

The conference attendee looked taken aback. “You would do that??”

“Absolutely!” I replied. “But since I don’t know your aunt, could you tell me something I could write to her that would be meaningful?”

It was then that I was taken aback because this sweet woman in front of me all of a sudden got very misty-eyed and choked up.

Finally, she managed to get the words out, “Could you tell her that there are no small ideas? That her ideas and dreams matter?”

I wanted to know the story behind that request, but the next session was starting and I didn’t have time to ask. I grabbed a pen and paper and went to sit down at the back to compose a note.

I wasn’t sure what to say, but I prayed that God would give me the words that this woman needed to hear. And then I just started writing.

My note was something like this, “Dear Mary, I don’t know you, but I want you to know that your ideas matter. The world needs you. We need your gifts and your talents. We need your ideas. God has uniquely gifted you and equipped you. So keep dreaming, don’t give up, and know that there is no idea that is too small. They all matter. You matter. You have a purpose and a story. I am looking forward to seeing how God is going to use you and your ideas. I am cheering for you! -Crystal”

When I was finished, I took the note over to the woman. I bent down and handed it to her and whispered to her to ask her if she could read it to make sure it was appropriate — since I didn’t know her aunt or her aunt’s situation.

She read through it and, as she did so, tears started flowing. She looked at me, gave me a huge hug, and said, “This is perfect. You have no idea how much this will mean to my aunt.”

I walked away with a spring in my step, knowing that the short amount of time I just invested to write that note could possibly change someone’s life — or at least give someone the exact boost they needed to keep moving forward and not give up.

It also made me wonder how many opportunities like that I have overlooked or walked right past — all because I was so focused on my tasks and to-do’s. There are opportunities to reach out and bless someone like this all around us, if we just take the time to see those opportunities and act on them.

Today: Take time to ask how someone really is. Take time to smile. Take time to speak a kind word. Take time to look into someone’s eyes and listen — really listen — to what they are saying.

Write that note, send that text, make that phone call, invite that person over, or do that little extra something to let someone know that you care and that they matter.

We can’t do everything, but we can do something.

We can’t help everyone, but we can help someone.

We can’t change the entire world, but we can make a difference in one life.

So today, I challenge you as I’ve been challenging myself, “Do for one what you wish you could do for all.”

Together, let’s make a difference in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our communities… and around the world.

Photo quote above from the post on How to Be a Light This Christmas — go read it; it’s excellent.

Download a Free December Menu Plan from Frugal Homeschool Family.

So, today was a pretty monumental day.

Yes, it was Cyber Monday. But that’s not why it was monumental for me.

It was a BIG day for me because it was the day my manuscript for my next book was due to my publisher.

It was supposed to be due months ago, but my publisher kept pushing the date back because they weren’t ready on their end. And frankly, while I was letting ideas simmer and percolate all the first half of this year, I was in the middle of moving and traveling and adjusting to a new life here in TN and I just wasn’t ready to think about sitting down to write another book.

Well, and truth be told, I was struggling to narrow down my focus. I had a lot of big picture ideas for book concepts, but nothing concrete.

So I kept thinking, listening, praying, waiting, and pondering.

And then one day in June, I was chatting with my friend and manager, Joy, and the book idea became very clear. It was the perfect melding of my passion and experience and it was a topic I knew I would love writing about.

Right about this time, my publisher was also ready to nail down a date for the manuscript to be in to them. And my wonderful ghost editor was ready to begin working on it, too.

So, after a few weeks of back and forth and discussion and looking at everyone’s calendars, we finalized the date of December 1, 2014 — with a release date of November 2015.

By this time, it was the end of July. Which meant I had exactly 4 months to flesh this book concept out, research for it, and start writing.

It seemed a little overwhelming, but I also felt so strongly that this was what I was supposed to do… it was one of my life missions.

So AJ (my ghost editor) and I started brainstorming the outline. By August 15, we had a strong outline in place and I was ready to begin researching and writing.

I started writing the book the same week that we started back to homeschooling. Brilliant, I tell you. Just brilliant.

After two weeks of trying to juggle homeschooling and writing, it just wasn’t working. I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and spent. Yet I still had weeks and weeks of writing left.

Since I didn’t want to go against everything I wrote about in Say Goodbye to Survival Mode, I knew something needed to change.

I went to Jesse to ask for his advice. I had a long list of possible options and alternatives for how we could make this work.

He listened to me and then he said, “Why don’t I take over the homeschooling?”

This wasn’t even an option I’d considered. I asked him quite a few questions to make sure he really and truly wanted to take on this big commitment and I realized that he was 100% all in with this idea.

He’d already been pretty involved in the homeschooling, so he had a good understand of what he was getting himself into. And he took the ball and ran with it.

For the past 3 months, he has owned the homeschooling responsibilities… and while I always knew he had the heart of a teacher, I’ve seen a brand-new side of him come alive in this. It’s been fun to watch — and the kids have loved having him so involved in their daily learning and projects.

I was still struggling to find enough time to write during the day, though. In between life and other business/blog responsibilities and priorities, there just didn’t seem to be big blocks of time to devote to research and writing.

So I decided to get a little radical. First, I tried getting up really early to write. For some reason, that just didn’t work as well this time around. I seemed distracted in the mornings with all the other pressing priorities and couldn’t seem to focus at the level I needed to in order to really hone in on the research and writing for my book.

After trying a few different options — like writing mid-day, writing in the afternoon, and writing in the evenings — I finally landed upon a solution that ended up sounding crazy but working well.

I’d go to bed fairly early and then set my alarm for midnight and write from midnight to 4 a.m. and then go back to bed and sleep in until 8 or 9 a.m.

I told you it was crazy. But because of our current family situation, I had the flexibility to pull it off. And it WORKED.

I discovered I could get in the zone in the middle of the night. It was completely quiet and completely distraction free. And it was perfectly suited for my need-to-have-big-blocks-of-quiet-in-order-to-write style.

I wouldn’t recommend it for others because it did take a toll on me physically after awhile, but I loved the subject manner and book project so much that I decided it was worth the short-term sacrifice.

That said, you can probably guess why I’m a little thrilled that the manuscript was D-O-N-E today and turned into the publisher!!

I celebrated by cleaning my house (I had seriously neglected some areas while writing), watching a movie with my husband, and have plans to sleep all through the night tonight and every night from here on out. 🙂

Writing this book was a labor of love. I poured myself into every word in the manuscript and it was such a joy to write!

It also sparked some fires inside of me for new topics I want to speak and write more regularly about. I realized I have made a lot of mistakes when it comes to earning income and running a business and writing this book reminded me of how passionate I am about helping other moms find creative ways to increase their income.

And most of all, the book-writing process reminded me of how blessed I am to have such a supportive family. I don’t sign a book contract without the complete blessing and encouragement of my family. Because writing a book is a LOT of work. And it will mean sacrifices on everyone’s part.

This time around, everyone in the family really pitched in — from helping with cooking and laundry and cleaning to free me up to write more, to praying with me and encouraging me during the process, to being a sounding board for me as I grappled with topics and perspectives.

I’m also so grateful to get to work with such an amazing ghost editor. AJ Gregory has truly been a Godsend to me. She put hours and hours into the book each week, editing my content, helping me research, compiling and editing stories I sent to her, encouraging me to dig deeper, asking hard questions to help me think through how I wanted to write each section well, and helping me develop a very strong and solid structure to the manuscript.

In addition, I am so very, very much to you all and your patience with me the last few months. While I’m still the one finding and vetting all the deals posted here, running the MSM Facebook Page, interacting in the comments, and writing as many blog posts as I can, there are so many, many more content pieces I want to write that didn’t get written these last three months while I was devoting so much time to book-writing.

I still have all the book edits ahead and it’s a long road still until we finally have a published book I can hold in my hands, but I’ve gotten the hardest work out of the way now that the manuscript draft is done and turned into my publisher.

And it feels so good.

So tonight, I’m celebrating that — by the grace of God and with a LOT of help from my family and others — I accomplished one of my biggest projects of the year: to write a solid 60K word manuscript that I am really excited about and invested so much into.

I’m thrilled to have it done, but I’m most excited about the impact I believe it is going to have in family’s lives around the globe. And that, my friends, is worth missing a little sleep for!