I was 19 and all I wanted to be was a songwriter.  I wanted to move back to Nashville and pursue my childhood dream -- I even bought new luggage for the trip.  But there was something about the guy sitting across from me at Eat'N'Park in the blue hooded sweatshirt and baseball cap that drew me in.

You know you're psyched about something when you post it to all 3 of your blogs.

I got to hang out with my favorite homegirl, Shaunti Feldhahn , this morning in Baltimore.  There are two people I write about excessively -- Shaunti, and Amy Grant.  (We'll get to Amy later.)  Shaunti has been my spiritual/professional mentor for the past 4 years, and has also served as big sister/therapist/prayer partner/accountability partner/boss/critic/agent.  There are probably a few other titles I could come up with if I thought about it long enough.

My name is Julie Anne Fidler, and I'm a Myspace-a-holic.

It started out innocently enough.  I signed up for an account on a whim, just to see what it was all about.  It wasn't impressed, and not only that, but my best friend of 16 years couldn't stop laughing at me when I told her I signed up.  She never has been one to follow the crowd, and neither am I... until Myspace came along.

I would never diss self-help books, OK?  They can be very valuable and helpful, and besides... I sort of wrote one.  It would be like dissing my own child or something.  My dear friend and mentor Shaunti Feldhahn is a Christian self-help guru, and I credit the contents of her book For Women Only with helping to save my own marriage some years ago. 

For those of you just tuning in, I have just come out of the worst period in my entire life.

Typically, when someone says something like that, you take it to mean that some horrible, awful thing happened to them.  Their mother died.  Their dog died.  Their trailer was struck by a meteorite.  Well, this past year has been interesting, and I did suffer losses (such as the loss of my Mother-In-Law), but by and large there wasn't anything environmental going on that was causing me so much pain.