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As some of my high school writing teachers can attest to, I have always had a passion for vibrant, descriptive writing.  The kind of writing where the words paint, illustrate and animate images deep within your heart, that sparkle with so much light that you can almost taste the beauty of the moment described.  Reading them is pure magic and writing them is an endeavor that leaves me with tangible evidence of a spectacular, fleeting moment in my life the way no other medium can.  What always slowed me down in the writing department was grammar (and occasionally spelling as well!).  I had only vague ideas where commas should go, when semi-colons should come out of hiding and sometimes a fragment was exactly how I wanted a thought to be read and felt, grammatically incorrect or not. Once graduated from high school, my creative writing slowed and eventually tapered into nothingness.  Always needing….craving a creative outlet I sought my fix in photography, crafting and homemaking. I suppose I still write (you are reading this, aren’t you?) about my experiences as a Christian, daughter, sister, wife, mother, and friend.  Although, this blog holds more a conversationalist feel.  The way I would talk to you around my wood stove with a cup of coffee while nodding and rocking whatever baby is nearest to me.  While I rarely write them down, these descriptive words float on wisps, like a dandelion head blown in the breeze, in the jumbled thoughts of a mother of 5 - here one minute, gone and forgotten the next.  When thoughts drift across my path of consciousness I often don’t have the means or tools to write them down.  Appendages are busy holding a piece of my own flesh; giggly, bright and dimpled or folding the softness that covers my tiny cherub’s plump skin.  Obstacle after obstacle slip between my fleeing thoughts and that #2 pencil that sits just out of reach.  Why interrupt this beauty to describe it?  I feel silly giving graphite symbols to my thoughts swirling around inside me like spinning little girls draped in sweet summer sun.  They are constantly there giggling and dancing in the background of my mind and penning them is their only release.  Formal words that rouse such emotion sound silly, even to me, their crafter, escaping from a simple mouth like my own.  Spoken, no.  Written, maybe.  As silly as they may sound out of my lips or yours I have been inspired to stir them up again.  To see what creative language is lurking at the bottom of the creek bed of my imagination.  An author whose writing style smells a little like a graduated version of the words that I stumble over in my head daily wrote a wonderful book that I am currently entangled with.  This books talks about naming, describing God’s gifts as you see them, vivid and clear.  Naming each blessing with words not unlike Adam was given the privilege to name the birds of the heavens and the creatures of the blue abyss.  The book had beckoned me to capture moments in words; words dripping thick with so much color and depth that I could relive each moment, each blessing by pouring them out again in reference.  So excuse me while I set aside my old conversation style of writing know and again and replace the simple words with a more poetic form of soul-nourishment.  It feels good even now, only just remembering how it feels to paint again with the inky black curves and lines that are soaked in moments of my life.  I plan on sharing some of my gifts from my “A Thousand Gifts” list with you all.  A list complied of the simple blessings that fall all around me, minute by minute, that eventually cover me deep in God’s greatness. This book (A Thousand Gifts - look in the sidebar to the right!) is a must read! Honestly I can say if I could afford to do so I would purchase as many copies as my shelves could bear and scatter them like stars in the sky to every friend and relative.  Yeah, it is just that good.  Word of caution: Open this book with the expectation that large pools of tears will run down checks onto throats knotted with empathetic hurt from the very beginning.  Have Kleenex handy and prepare to be swept into the great poetic imagery of the author, Ann Voskamp.