I’ve always had friends. It’s always been important to me to be surrounded by people. But no matter how surrounded I was, I usually felt pretty alone. However, I believed as long as I was surrounded, then at LEAST I would look normal… whatever that means.

It wasn’t until I confessed my BIGGEST MORAL FAILURE, did I begin to realize how alone I really was.

Besides about 5 friends, the friends I had, or use to have, around me no longer seemed interested in being around me. I’m not sure if it was because they were hurt by my decisions, didn’t want to be associated with such a public sinner or if it was because they just didn’t know what to say. Whichever way, I totally understood and counted it as a consequence to my poor choices.

I was alone. I was hurting.

But then God….

**************

To read more CLICK HERE to get to PrudyChick.com

This passage has opened my eyes to a lot of things. Mostly, it has given me a glimpse of God’s desire to bless me and my family. He is breaking the bondage of generational sin and freeing my children and children’s children from my sins.

Reading this has caused me to pull back (momentarily… yes, I’ll be back soon. lucky YOU!) from the noise of life (blogging, twitter, facebook, unnecessary errands, excessive phone calls & texts, etc.) enough to gain some clarity. God’s truth is my peace.

I’ve been planning. Praying. Plotting. Why? Because God made it clear to me it was time to host something here that’s out of the social norm to talk about: ADULTERY.

Oh, yes. Even those who aren’t affiliated with a faith KNOW adultery is a sin. In fact, 90% of Americans believe adultery is morally wrong. It’s innately bad. It’s uncomfortable to talk about. You avoid it like the plague. But I’ve rarely seen it talked about in a forum that provides healing. Studies indicate that infidelity is widespread in our culture; 44% of men and 25% of women have extramarital affairs. And these are only the one’s who’ve admitted it. This means, it’s happening quite a bit, but not many are willing to talk about it.

So what am I gonna do?

Starting Monday, JenniClayville.com will be a forum ONLY about adultery. I’m calling it “Affair Week”. As vulgar as that may sound, how in the world do we start healing and changing the stats on this issue if we won’t talk about it openly?

This site will be hosting some of the most amazing people who have experienced adultery first-hand and aren’t afraid to talk about it. We have just about every angle covered… and NOTHING is off limits for questions or discussions sake. Here’s our online guest speakers:

Monday:
morning: Justin Davis
afternoon: Trish Davis

Tuesday:
morning: Sarah Markley
afternoon: Cindy Beall

Wednesday:
morning: Alece Ronzino
afternoon: Brian Clayville

Thursday:
Serena Woods

Friday:
me & a follow-up

At the end of next week, I’m going to give away a signed copy of Serena’s book, “Grace Is For Sinners”. I’ll be posting a review on her book soon so you can know exactly what to expect (at least from my point of view). Until then, I’d love to know YOUR thoughts…

* Why do you think people don’t talk about adultery?
* Why is adultery perceived as a greater sin than lying?
* Do you have any questions? You can email me if you want to be anonymous.

I’d love to make my post next Friday about your thoughts and questions.

So… here we go. FIRE AWAY!

For the longest time, I gave foursquare.com users a hard time about how lame I thought the app was (CLICK HERE for more info).

Finally, I decided I shouldn’t make fun of it if I had never tried it. So, I signed up and gave it a good run for a few months. I used it so much, OTHER people made fun of me.

All that to say this: I feel I can give a more accurate review now. And here it is…

STILL LAME!!!

So… I still don’t really get it. You’re supposedly promised to get discounts and free coffee drinks as the “Mayor” of certain areas… but I haven’t really seen that at all. One good thing I see about it is that it allows people to see other people’s reviews regarding certain shops, retailers, etc. That’s great… but I think I can get more reviews from Yelp!.

As a mother that is alone with her young children for most of the day, I don’t see how this is a good for everyone to know where you’re at all the time. In fact, I think the dumbest thing to do is tag your own HOME and “check-in” when you’re there (hence, PleaseRobMe.com).

However, I do somewhat like the “game” aspect of it… collecting points and such. Games are fun. However, it’s no longer fun once you get a stalker… or get robbed. So, if you play, play responsibly. To all of you who may be more paranoid, like me, here are a few tips I’d like to give you if you REALLY want to play:

1.  ”Check-In” only when you’re with groups of other people in more public places.

It’s never fun meeting a stalker when you’re alone. It’s so much more fun to surprise him with 20 of your closest NINJA friends. Seriously, though… I don’t usually “check-in” somewhere if I’m alone or if it’s isolated.

2.  ”Check-In” when you’re leaving instead of when you’re showing up.

Honestly, this gives me a little peace-of-mind just because by the time a “stalker” gets there… my kiddos and I are long gone. I’m not saying I’m super popular… but I’m just thinking and looking out for the safety of me and my kids.

3.  Don’t “Check-In” at home.

If you are addicted to gathering points, don’t tag the exact location of your home. Drag the pinpoint into a nearby park or swamp. Maybe even into the middle of a busy highway. I personally won’t even do that, because I don’t need strangers even knowing what AREA I live in.

4.  Don’t “Check-In” at other people’s homes.

Seriously… that’s just rude.

5. Deactivate the badge updates from Facebook and Twitter.

Really. No one BESIDES other Foursquare users care if you’re the “Mayor” of the 76 Gas Station and they DEFINITELY don’t care that you’ve “unlocked the KRUNKED badge”. Thank you, Brent, for letting me know how to deactivate this. Now, I’m passing on this morsel of goodness on to you. Save us all.

So, there you go. I gave it a shot. Will I still use it? I don’t know… maybe just to remain the “Mayor” at Church! at Bethany to irritate Matt. So far, that has been one of the only positives of using this app.

What do YOU think of Foursquare?

Let’s just be real.

I think my friends are funny. I’m not saying I don’t have un-funny friends… but the reality is most of them are funny… cuz I like to laugh.

If you haven’t seen this yet… it’s about time. Carlos (Twitter: @loswhit) had a youtube video that went VIRAL!

Not that I didn’t laugh at this video or think that it was funny and cute, but in all honesty, I think Carlos has posted other videos that are WAY funnier… so make sure you stay on his youtube page and watch a few more of his videos.

Whichever way. This one is DEFINITELY worth a viewing… or 1,700,000.

The best part of all this is how Carlos has used his “15 minutes” in viral youtube land. He and Heather have boldly talked about adoption and how even though they started out thinking that by adopting Losiah, they would change HIS world… the reality is that LOSIAH has changed THEIR world for the better.

If you are able in any way to adopt, I’d love to invite you to look into what this could look like for your family.

So… tell the truth:
Did YOU laugh at the crying Losiah?

I think I’ve been pretty real here on my blog when it comes to most of the things in my life. I’ve revealed most everything from a silly random 25 things list to my largest life failure.

On the People of the Second Chance (POTSC) site, Mike challenges us to participate in THIS experiment:

So this week I thought we could do an experiment. Let’s replace all our “nice-professional-photoshop-hair-looking-fab-pics-we-really-like-of-ourselves” with “REAL” photos of us. Change your Twitter. Facebook. Blog. Remove the sexy and put the #REALME up.

Low res camera pics. Christmas morning rats nest hair photos. Bad lighting and goofy looks. Close ups and flabby neck photos. No photoshopin’ here! No shame here! No image or brand management! Just a snapshot of reality.

And here is the point of the experiment!!! Your value is in you. Not your sexiness. You are beautiful even when you think you are ugly, geeky, or when a photo is unflattering. We love and prefer the REAL YOU!

I was going to post a photo of me RIGHT when I woke up, or some crazy photo like Tam, however, when I read Anne and Crystal’s blogs today, I thought I would just follow suit in video form… so here we go.

Some of you may have a hard time revealing yourself from behind your mask. You mask might not be make-up. If you’re anything like me, your mask could be walls of lies you have built around yourself. Friend… it’s time to be free.

“I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” ~ Psalm 139:14

ALL of you are wonderful and beautiful. Not just your outside… but inside too… when you allow yourself to BE the way you were created. God knit you together with PURPOSE. That “imperfection” you cringe to look at every day is God’s perfection of purpose in you.

My beauty is in my tragedy. I can HONESTLY tell you I thank God (almost) everyday for letting me hit rock bottom. I thank God for letting me feel pain. I thank God for allowing me to EXPERIENCE everything I have in life… even letting me fail. You see, if I didn’t ever hit rock bottom and walk the desert, I’m not sure I’d quite appreciate how beautiful and lush life is now.

So… you’re turn.
What is ONE thing you LOVE about yourself?

Within 3 minutes, I received DM’s (Direct Messages from Twitter) from friends that said, “I think your Twitter account has been hacked.”

See these two:

Let me lovingly introduce you to…  Jay McKenney (@jaymckenney) & Tyler Braun (@tylerbraun).

I am SO glad I take photos of EVERYTHING and keep them all filed away for moments such as these.  These two wonderful boys “broke” into my house and had some fun.

To be honest, I probably deserved it from Jay. We’ve been pranking each other for YEARS. I’ve played PLENTY of pranks on him… including the all famous “TIN FOIL” incident… when a team of us tinfoiled every last surface of his office.  It was epic. However… Tyler is a new player. He and his wife, Rose, were in our small group when we were at our last church and we’ve never pranked each other because they’re just so sweet. But apparently, Ty has been hanging out WAY to much with Jay.

Anyway…

I quickly logged on from my iPhone to see what was going on and saw these following EIGHT tweets posted. I tried to clear up what I could from my iPhone, but could only do so much.  You can click on the photo below for an enlarged view (I’ve conveniently marked which ones were NOT mine and which ones were… Tweetdeck = Jay. Echofon = ME).

I quickly realized I hadn’t been “hacked”… but THEY were in my HOUSE. Ok… I didn’t know Ty was there till a bit later… but these tweets had “Jay McKenney” written all over them. I immediately called Jay. But he wouldn’t pick up. Of course not. Who picks up the phone when they are doing evil work? So, I called my neighbor, Laura… who by the way, is the WORST liar in the world… and figured it all out.

Chance and I rushed home and found our home VIOLATED!

While Jay was twitter-pranking and changing settings on my laptop (trying to steal passwords so he could do it from home as well… jerk), Tyler ran around the house and re-arranged as much as he could.  He did good. We found:

1. the couches turned TOWARDS the walls
2. my earbuds IN my guitar
3. the ice cream IN the fridge, not the freezer
4. our bread IN the freezer
5. candles that were once evenly situated, grouped in one bundle
6. sheet music hidden

VIOLATED…

… but not for long. My vengeance is coming.

Oh… and I believe that God is blessing me at this moment. I have some pretty creative ideas… that’s the core of who I am… BUT the ideas that are stirring within me are SO AMAZINGLY fantastic right now that I know they MUST be from God Himself.

Stay tuned… no one knows when it’s coming… but when it hits — it will be UNMISTAKABLY glorious.

What’s the best prank you’ve ever played?
OR
What’s the best prank ever played on YOU?