In my monthly newsletter I wrote how this year is my 20th wedding anniversary. It’s made me nostalgic, and when I pulled out the video and pictures, it shows clearly we were a 90’s wedding.

There’s the clothes of course, and the hair, but the music is a giveaway. The reception wait staff on the dance floor did the Macarena with us. And of course, there’s The Electric Slide. I can’t remember every move of every dance, but I remember every once in awhile, we all rotated. One second we are all facing west, and then, boom, we’re south. It’s quite the shift.

Especially in real life.

Everything is changing with the Arduini family.

Our year has included a lot of rotation, music accompaniment or not.

• My husband has left the programming arm of work and shifted into training. Although he works for the same company, he’s now able to work from home. What a kick-ball-change move, right?

• Our oldest is experiencing his lasts as a senior in high school and his firsts as he progresses to college. He’s Kent State bound and we are in the dining room several times a week updating scholarship submissions.

• The youngest enters the official teen years this summer and that milestone has brought a few question marks when it comes to her health. She has been diagnosed with Albrights Hereditary Osteodystrophy and we learned last year her bones fused in a matter of months. Although she’s 12, her bones are at 17. She is done growing at 4’8″. AHO is rare, so we’re trying to learn what we can. She’s avoided much of the symptoms but puberty is something we’re not sure what to expect. She just came through a ton of testing with “all clear” results, so that gave us cause to pause and be very thankful.

I am shifting to a place where I will be working full-time to encourage women to find freedom through surrendering the good, the bad, and—maybe one day—the chocolate. I will do this through writing and speaking as my passion is to connect with women. My writing focus remains fiction because I believe through my work readers will befriend my characters, flawed people on a surrender journey. Sometimes they will have to let go of good things like a house they love or friends that were only meant to be around for a season. Some of their surrender will be the bad things like life controlling issues or habits. Then there’s something so many of us can relate to—the things we’re not quite ready to give up, and God understands. My prayer is by the end of each book, readers will see the transformation in the characters and want the same freedom through Christ.