“My husband is in Afghanistan and a few ‘favorite things’ would brighten my day!”
How about that, Sisters?!? OK, Edie, please contact Living Proof Ministries at toll free (888) 700-1999 and give us an address. Please ask for Kimberly or Susan. Knowing what we now know, all of us here would want so much to send you to the beach…but, instead, we’re sending the beach to you. ENJOY!!!
PROCEED WITH CAUTION: this post will embody most everything you anticipate and perhaps even despise about women’s ministry. There will even be pink nail polish. As the great Professor Thornbury said a few weeks ago on the Twitterverse “something is not a stumbling block if you can see it coming.” So, consider yourself warned.
Colin and I just returned from a week at the beach in Mexico. It was crazy fantastic. I slept. I read classic literature. I also swam with a dolphin named Duey. And on the day I returned home I was greeted abrasively by a stomach bug and a crick in my neck so bad I could barely move my head. Oh, and then my 100 lb puppy Winston ate my over-priced prescription eye-glasses. But how can I really be frustrated with this bad boy?
Anyway, since this weekend was the Memorial Day holiday I scrolled through numerous tweets from people who were somewhere fabulous while I was at home with a bag of frozen corn under my neck. And I began to weep for the serenity of the ocean and my dolphin Duey.
But enough about me.
I want to talk about you.
I got to thinking that there may be some of you who won’t get a break this summer. While nearly everyone you know is off to some fabulous island, you won’t get a moment’s rest. For whatever reason, you won’t be able to retreat to the beach or the mountains or to wherever else makes your heart happy. We want to send a little fun and lots of love your direction so we’re doing a random give-away. And it will not include commentaries, concordances, or anything super useful or meaningful.
This giveaway is simply full of some of my personal favorite summer things including: Bobbi Brown Beach parfum (seriously smells exactly like the beach!), classic Ray-Ban aviators, Votivo Candle in White Ocean Sands, a pair of bright yellow Moleskine notebooks, Tea Forte’ Pomegranate Blackberry Iced Tea, and America’s Test Kitchen Best Summer Dessert recipes. See the contents below:
There are really no conditions for this giveaway. My hope, of course, is that this gift makes it into the hands of someone who simply can’t get a break this year and not someone who is heading to the Maldives or Bora Bora next week to stay in one of those little huts with glass floors sprawled across sparkling turquoise waters. But truly, if this gift brings a big smile to a single one of your faces that is quite enough for me.
So, please enter your name in the comments section if you could use a little sunshine in your world. We’ll do a random drawing and announce the winner at noon on this Thursday the 31st.
You are loved.
Melissa
Thank you for the encouragement.
Thank you Melissa! I very recently started following this blog and in just reading 2 have been deeply encouraged! You don’t need to include me in the drawing…just wanted to express my sincere gratitude for the encouragement!
This would be a great gift and I would love to have it. I wont be going on a vacation this summer because I am taking summer classes for my criminal justice bachelors degree and I will be doing homework all the time.
I don’t know if I have ever entered to win something, maybe a handful of times, Since My son is in school full time and has sole physical custody of his two boys I help out as much as I can both financially and in taking care of the boys. I also drive 60 miles twice a week to visit my mother who is in a memory care facility. Thankfully, I have three sisters who take their turn visiting mom on the other days. Being sandwiched between my son’s family and my mom I know I will not be vacationing so this felt like something that would be super cool to win 🙂
The ocean has always been my place of carthasis… the OR coast in particular. Talk about a breath taking beauty. I do not get a chance to travel there since I have moved, but keep a “noise maker” in my office to keep the surf going. When we were kids, my dad always said something like “Oh, good, some one left a quarter in the wave machine for us” or “How nice God turned on the waves just for us today.” May the recipient of this beach themed delight have a moment of quiet time to “turn on the wave machine” in their mind… allowing the waters to flow over and through and carried away to be remembered no more as God does for us, and walk hand in hand with Jesus along the shore. Bless you many busy, beautifully created women who bless the lives of others in the many roles you carry and allow yourself to be the gift each day living for Him.
Annie
What a fun giveaway! I dream for the day of getting away somewhere fun and warm with my husband!
Yea!! What a fun treat. Thanks for doing this.
A vacation in a bag! Awesome!! I love love love Beth and the whole crew. Thank you so much for sharing your live for Christ! God is always good:-)!!
We are not vacationing because our family is in the process of adopting a little boy from Haiti. 🙂
Your post really touched my heart. May God grant that all will proceed smoothly for your family.
Wow! What a treat for whoever wins! That sure is sweet of you to think of those of us who don’t get to go on a get-a-way. God is good though and life is good too.
How generous and thoughtful, Melissa! God bless you and yours!
That all looks fabulous. It’s amazing how a bright color of nail polish can your day feel a little brighter! 😉 Thanks
This is exactly what I need as I toil away here in mid-America in my office with the artificial air. Thanks, Melissa, for thinking of this.
Fun Stuff! Thank you!
What a wonderful summer pack of goodies!
What a great giveaway! We are planning on the usual get togethers in our back yard, and trips to the pool. There’s a great butterfly exibit in Cincinnati that’s not very expensive that we want to take our kids to.
I would love to have a Beach in a bag!
A little imaginary sun sounds good to me!!
I am making MAJOR life changes right now. Every thing in the bag is just the comfort I need.
Bless you for giving it away.
Thank you so much for doing such a wonderful give-a-way treat. I was rear-ended in my Toyota on January 2nd this year and ended up with a brain bleed and stroke, that continued until February 16th. The Neuro-surgeon operated on February 16th. I am still recovering and can not do very much. So I am limited to a Stay – cation. It would be wonderful to be able to use all the items in this basket. Thank you again for your thoughtfulness.
Very nice! Please enter me, I could use some beach reminders. I love the beach and my husband and kids do not!!!
how fun! i do so wish i was headed to bora bora, but alas it is a summer in southeast arkansas for me! c’est la vie!
thanks again. how thoughtful!
jenny hudson
Oh I feel so loved that I even have a chance to win such a fun fun summer treat!!
Thank you!!!
Thanks Melissa. So nice of you to do this.
I am a working mom. We cannot do a vacation this year and I am suffering fom tremdous “mommy guilt” over the fact that my kids are at day care and in summer camp at school this summer. A day at the beach at home would be great. Thanks for thinking of those of us who cannot take off. You are all dearly loved.
I love it! I would love to take a vacation but it’s not in the cards for us this summer! Sad face.
We’ll not be vacationing this summer as my husband just began a nursing program full time, so we’re living off of my income (eek!), but are really, really hoping to get away at the end of next summer once he graduates! What a sweet, thoughtful giveaway. 🙂
What a fun idea! Blessings to all for a great summer.
Love love LOVE that Bobbi Brown candle!
Amazing how God can transport us through the very senses He gave us. See, hear and smell the beach, and it’s almost as if we are there. Like smelling the Bread of Presence Himself!Yum!
HOW GENEROUS! And how wonderful! I am sooo ready for the beach and hopefully I will make it this year 🙂
What a lovely little package. Thanks!
Hi! I was so glad to read that you and your hubby got away. I also want to THANK YOU for your part in the “James” study, it REALLY had an impact on me! I recently had my job as the director of a preschool ministry come to an end. I have worked there 12 years and as the Director for 8. Bitter-sweet. So I sure could use a little sunshine. THANK YOU!!!!!
I’m a stay at home mom of three boys. Quinn is 4, Eli is two and Luke just 10 months. I love them to death and am beyond grateful to be the soul nurturer to them! My husband became seriously ill when I was pregnant with our second son we accumulated a huge amout of medical bills over the next two years while trying to figure out what was wrong. During this time my mother in law was also very sick battling ALS and I was trying to be strong for everyone at times. I would only cry when no one was around. God definitely was my strength during those years. We finally found a specialist who gave us answers in the summer of 2011 and he has gained back all 65lbs he had lost. Praise the Lord! Im so grateful for a healthy husband! Soon after though in December we lost his mother. The last time I’ve been on any kind of vacation was 7 years ago on my honeymoon with my husband. This would be such an amazing prize to win!!!
Yay!! Love all these things!
Elly Alexander
Great bag of goodies. Please enter me for the drawing!
Thanks for the opportunity to win such lovely gifts!
I don’t get a vacation this summer. I am getting my first grandbaby, so I am saving my vacation time for him. Not really a sacrifice at all. Smile. Couldn’t even go to the lake for Memorial Day as it is two hours away and we can’t be that far from the hospital, just in case. My daughter’s husband is in Germany for six months for work and I am her birth coach. This should be fun!
What a fun little giveaway with lots of neat goodies!
I love this idea
What a super idea! A vacation in a box. I’d love it! My name is Jessica Cotten.
Oh,the beach! In my dreams… For ten weeks in the summer we work four-9.4 hour days and get a three-day weekend. Maybe one weekend I could find some water and do some beach reading, but most of the time it’s catch up for being gone such long days! Miss hearing from you, Melissa!
The beach is calling my name, but I am unable to answer at the moment:( So, this would be fabulous right now.
I’ll throw my hat in the ring! (And if you are ever in Ohio my husband is a great Chiropractor!)
Becky Brown
Yes, please! This sounds fun!
What a deliciously sweet and extraordinarily thoughtful gesture! That will certainly embark some lucky lady onto a dreamy summer getaway right there in her own backyard or condo stoop or whatever she is blessed with at home! As a disabled widow I don’t do vacations, but my happy memories are just a thought away to whisk me off as on a magic carpet, so I’ll be rooting for whomever is chosen to feel like a princess with her special summer package!
What a sweet giveaway! Thank you for your generosity! I would love to go to the beach- to me that would be the ultimate relaxation!! My husband and I are teachers so we have the time to vacation- but with raising 3 kids and the many budget cuts in our district- summer jobs are a necessity and money is very tight! What a treat this would be!!
Would love to win this for a single mom friend of mine who could certainly use this bundle of R&R! Thank you.
Blessings to you Melissa! Joy in a box – all those fun things put a smile on my face thinking of past adventures. Work is too busy for more than a Saturday off, I may have to go find one of those candles for my morning quiet time!
Love to all at LPM and in Siesta-ville!
ME ME OH PLEASE PICK ME!!!!!!!
Thanks for the opportunity. What a blessing!