I want to say hello to my reader(s) from New Zealand! I know you’re out there. Thanks for stopping in! There’s a little dot on my map that shows me SOMEbody is coming to read my blog from New Zealand, and that’s very fun!

My husband and I went to New Zealand years ago, as chaperones with a group of high school students who were studying marine biology. I have to say New Zealand is one of the most beautiful, pastoral places I’ve ever seen in the world. There were fields dotted with sheep at nearly every turn. Is it still that way? I hope so.

Today’s Carnival of Beauty is being hosted by Sallie of Two Talent Living, so click over to her place to see what 13 lady bloggers contributed on the topic of The Beauty of My Life.

BETH MOORE! We’re going to be up and running soon — we’ll probably start Monday, March 27. If you’re at all remotely interested in joining our Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit online study or being a faithful weekly lurker observer, then leave Lauren a comment here, and she’ll add you to our list. There are 14 of us signed up right now. Isn’t that fun? Not only us ladies, we also had a visit from Paul of Hill Country Thoughts blog who said he’ll be praying for our group. (I met Paul in person last fall at a writers’ conference — recognized the white cowboy hat and said, “Hey, you’re the Hill Country Thoughts guy!” He’s very nice and a gifted spiritual writer.)

OK, now onto to some other exciting news. It looks like our post Teens in the Blogosphere has captured the interest of USA Weekend Magazine, which is a little insert that comes in your weekend newspaper. It has a modest circulation of 47.5 million readers. (I did say million, ladies!!) Their ParentSmart columnist, Pat Olsen, is doing an upcoming series called “A Parent’s Guide to Blogging.” If you’d like to have some input in this story, here’s the address to contact USA Weekend Columnists. And if you haven’t had a chance to contribute your input into our Mom 2 Mom post here, please do. (The truth is — I did send them an email, but they wrote back and said they were VERY interested in our input. You just never know … This columnist may end up expanding the topic into a book someday.)

One more interesting tidbit: I got a note from Agent Tim yesterday — he thinks his mom wouldn’t mind my asking her some questions about raising teenagers. Does anyone have any questions for her? Her son is the 16-year-old visionary behind the new organization, Regenerate Our Culture.

P.S. If you’re going to be in the Beth Moore study, I found this Lifeway site has several sizes of online banners and graphics. Just click on it, save it, and upload it to your sidebar. Then you could link it to Lauren’s Created for HIS Glory site where we’re all “gathering.”