Amanda Barber

Stories, songs, and thoughts on life.

I am currently accepting voice, piano, and violin students. Learn more or

life

Where Is the Sun?

25 July 2019

The last year or two has really knocked the wind out of me. I find myself mentally lethargic, tired, and fighting depression and or anxiety nearly every day. The easiest explanation for this is that I am sick. And being sick effects your mind and emotions...especially the Lyme kind of sick.

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My New Life

23 May 2017

Every transition in life changes you. And I have gone through a humdinger. Marriage does that. Not that I haven’t enjoyed it! I love being married to Jonathon. But I feel changed, nevertheless, and so it’s difficult to know what to say…what to say…

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I’m Back!

03 February 2016

It has been a long time. Last spring, I took a long break from blogging. I think I gave the excuse that I wanted to get some more book writing done. That was true. But there was another reason, too.

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Leave of Absence

04 May 2015

I am writing to inform you all that I am taking some time off blogging for at least the month of May. My life has hit the fast forward button and I find myself constantly searching for time to actually sit down and write.

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Blue Skies, Bright Sun

20 April 2015

It’s been fun making spring time discoveries. We didn’t move into this house until August, and there weren’t many flowers planted or blooming. So, imagine my surprise at finding spring flowers opening up here and there and everywhere.

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Oh, Rest in the Lord

17 April 2015

My mind was tired. There are questions I have no answers for. There is fatigue that comes on after my mind has been working away to come up with solutions to problems and not solving any of them. Resting in the Lord. It’s such a phrase of beauty, such an attractive prospect. Saturday night, I was wondering why it was so hard to actually do it.

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Housekeeping

16 April 2015

Did you notice this lovely new design? My dear friend, Jonathon Hill, spent an entire evening searching for new design ideas for my blog, figuring out why Google Analytics stopped working, getting Akismet working again so I don’t have thousands of spam comments to delete every week, and generally taking pity on a technologically inept girl who really just wants to write and…not deal with computers. It looks lovely.

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My Week in San Antonio

19 March 2015

I’m home after a week in San Antonio, Texas, at the Christian Worldview Independent Film Festival. One of the biggest blessings for me was a documentary called Where Was God, the story of Moore, Oklahoma and the devastation and loss its people suffered after a massive tornado ripped through the town and claimed many lives.

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He Remembers I’m Dust

05 February 2015

Does God look down at me and shake His head when I stumble over the same stupid things again and again and again? Or does He look down at me in pity, knowing that I am but dust?

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In Which I Donate My Hair

29 January 2015

Over the last several years, I’ve been of the mind that since God has seen fit to give me a thick mane, it would be nice to share the love around.

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In Which Amanda Can No Longer Wear Contacts

22 January 2015

It’s the end of an age. My days as contact-wearer have come to an end. My left eye developed a weird habit of building a ring of red around my iris every time I put my contacts in which lingered for days.

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On Lack of Sleep

15 January 2015

An acquaintance of mine’s mother had insomnia, as well. Her solution was to get up and clean the whole house or practice the bagpipes…BAGPIPES!!…thus ensuring that nobody got a good night’s sleep.

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Sing!

24 December 2014

After experiencing heartache, I more or less stopped singing.

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When We Are Rude

04 December 2014

It was a very long wait. About two hours, in fact. The guys in the garage were doing the best they could, but they had too much business to keep ahead of. I was far from bored. I had my work to do and sailed along just fine until…Mrs. Crabby-Pants walked in.

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Thanking Thee

27 November 2014

Christians are all children to God. And it’s remarkable how like children we can act when things don’t quite go the way we want them to. We adults have more sophisticated ways of wailing and fussing and stamping our feet, but the underlying attitude is the same.

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Blessings and Sorrow

14 August 2014

Every day I wake up in this quiet, pretty house, in this relatively safe country. I feel privileged. And then I sort of feel guilty.

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Go for a Walk!

26 June 2014

I love going on walks. I heartily approve of walks. For one thing, walks don’t require hideous spandex and clunky tennis shoes.

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God is Best

24 April 2014

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that there is something terribly lonely about life.

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Teaching Music

06 February 2014

All I really want to do today is normal stuff like teaching and writing and practicing violin and drinking coffee and things.

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Speechifying and Busted Head Gaskets

23 January 2014

Amid the flurry of phone calls and arrangements I had to make in a small time period, the thing that kept coming to my mind was the message of the book I had spent ten years of my life writing and promoting. Namely, that God is love, that He is in control of everything, that everything that happens, good or bad, is a gift from God for my good. I have come to the conclusion that I end up writing these things to remind myself that they’re true, because I, of all people, have a hard time believing them.

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My Very Early Christmas Morning

26 December 2013

I’ve been thinking all night long about how little things like losing sleep are so much harder to deal with than large calamities. At least for me they are.

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Happy Thanksgiving

27 November 2013

Years are usually full of unexpected happenings, since we mortals cannot predict the future. But this past year seemed especially full of them.

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Severe Mercy

17 October 2013

I don’t think I’ll ever understand why people go on and on about youth like it’s the most carefree part of life. Youth, especially adolescence is when you realize that life isn’t rosy, that the expectations for a good life in which you assumed that everything around the corner was a new delight waiting to happen, fall crashing to the ground.

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Book Signings and Other Hazards

10 October 2013

This was my first big week of book signings. How do I describe it? Maybe by how I felt at the end—exhausted. Humorous things happened at the book signings: Often times, people would mistake me for an employee...

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My Bird, Cora

26 September 2013

“My neighbor gave me this bird that they bought for their six-year-old daughter. But it just wasn't working out. Do you want it?”

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Musings

28 August 2013

The thoughts of my head on this day have been troubling, to say the least. The trouble began when I logged into Facebook and noticed that it and all of social media seemed full of the misadventures of Miley Cyrus. However much I would have liked to avoid the subject, I could not. It greeted me wherever I went. The bluster, and the storm and the blogging, and Miley herself. It’s all very saddening.

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An Explanation

31 July 2013

Last week, I heard true stories about life: A bus full of kids heading home from camp overturned on the highway. A young man and his pregnant wife and the mother of one of the campers died. In that crash a father and mother were bereaved of their children and their unborn grandchild.

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More of Me and Yahoo

30 March 2012

A couple of weeks ago, I accepted a funny short story assignment on Yahoo. I wasn’t sure what to write, because I don’t necessarily think of myself as a comedy writer. On the other hand, I have a registered nurse for a brother who works the night shift...

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Me and Yahoo

25 February 2012

School assignments have helped me find the time to write a few short stories.

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