On Our Way To Crazy

Random things I’m thankful for this year.

• The awesomely random snacks at Trader Joe’s.
• The Brentwood library book sale on half off day.
• 90210 reruns on Soapnet.
• Going to bed on Thursdays knowing Friday is my day off.
• My Kinky Friedman poster.
• Barbecue with the Florida Catholic contingent.
• Chocolate pie and gingersnap cheesecake.
• Mad Gab, Balderdash and Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit.
• The excellent new row of restaurants around the corner from our house.
• When Miles falls asleep with his chin on my feet.
• Grapefruit scented lotion and body wash.
• Saturday morning waffles by Aaron.
• Extra dark wash jeans and blue wool coats.
• Kids who are searching.
• Adults who want to help them find.
• A church that lets them question.
• Family that takes care of each other.

I spent the past weekend at my first real youth worker training, the National Youth Worker Convention. And let me tell you, it was awesome. Everyone who works with kids in any capacity should get to go to something like this.

Over the course of four days, I took seminars on working with men, mission trips, building faith through questioning, games and group builders, the enneagram, transformational teaching, finding and training volunteers and reimagining confirmation. And then my brain broke.

They had a ton of great speakers, including Francis Chan, Mark Yaconelli and Tony Campolo. But the far and away coolest and most interesting was a guy named Francis Collins. Who is that, you might ask? He’s just the president of the freaking HUMAN GENOME PROJECT. He was fascinating… he talked about genetics and how they work and what the project does, but then he went and got controversial and it was awesome. He talked about what it means to be a believer and be okay with evolution, and how the process and the development of nature and animals and people speaks to the creativity and awesomeness of God. It was fantastic. Then he told us about having to argue his case against one of the countries toughest debaters… and showed a clip of himself on the Colbert Report that appears to have been taken off the website even though I JUST WATCHED IT YESTERDAY WHAT THE HECK IS THAT ALL ABOUT.

I came home with so many notes and lists of books to read and phone numbers of youth workers I met from all over the country. Sunday night I hooked up with a bunch of Florida catholics and had beer and barbecue with them before the Jars of Clay concert. I have so many new ideas for programs and lessons and volunteers.

It’s like camp. For grown ups. I hope next year I can take my staff with me… it would be such a great bonding experience, and we could divide and conquer the seminars. The whole thing was just so much fun. Do you work with kids? Want to meet up in Atlanta next year? It’s gonna be awesome!

So you may have noticed things look a little different around here. I have been looking for a new layout for a while… as much as I loved the grass from the old one, nothing else was really working for me. I’m sure there are ways I could have fixed it, but I am very very internet deficient. You should have seen what I put Geof through when I tried to fix it myself. (Thanks, Geof! You are awesome!)

I clicked over to Brandy’s food blog and immediately fell in love with her layout. Then I stole it. I love the colors, I love the rounded edges on the boxes, I love that the space for entries is big enough for pictures you don’t need a magnifying glass to see. Love love love.

I hope you like it!

Julie(tte) tagged me to write about seven things I haven’t written about on here before. Challenge!

1. I am obsessed with ballet flats. Obsessed. I have them in every color. I have four black pairs. I have some with polka dots, some with flowers, even some that are so shiny silver that they look like that goo in Flight of the Navigator that turned into the stairs when that kid opened up the spaceship. And every time I am out shopping I want to buy more. Like these. And these. And these.

2. I really, really miss my family. A lot. I love living in Nashville and can’t really imagine being anywhere else. But I miss my parents and my sister. I keep seeing girls my age shopping with their moms and it makes me sad. We are doing major renovation work on our youth house that I know my dad would love to help with. I want to spend a random afternoon icing sugar cookies and watching Gilmore Girls reruns with my sister. I don’t want to leave Nashville, I just wish those things were closer to me.

3. I read a lot of food blogs and tear a lot of recipes out of magazines, but when it comes down to it we pretty much eat spaghetti, green chicken and breakfast for dinner when we eat at home. More often than not, it’s Kalamatas. Or Five Guys. Or Baja Burrito. And I’m okay with that. I have relieved myself of the pressure to be an amazing food planner. I can cook just fine. I just don’t want to.

4. I ran track in high school. I was pretty good, too, for a white girl sprinter. I ran the anchor leg on all three relays, and we made it to the regional meet every year. I always played and enjoyed sports, but track was the only one that I had any real success with. It was fun to be good at it.

5. I have panic and anxiety issues. They are generally medical in nature, but about a year ago I could feel them encroaching on other areas of my life. I was planning escape routes at the movie theater. I couldn’t sleep some nights. Because I didn’t want it to get to the point where I just stopped going out at all, I started seeing a counselor. And y’all? It has been amazing. My problems are nowhere near gone, and they won’t ever totally go away, but I am learning how to deal with them. I have tools to help me manage my thoughts when situations arise. I feel moderately equipped to go out in public. And I have decided that everyone should spend some time in counseling, whether they have identifiable issues or not. It’s been so helpful for me to gain perspective on my world and learn to pay attention to how I think.

6. I am married to a man with whom I have very little in common, at least when it comes to the little things. We don’t generally like the same movies, music, food or books. There’s a lot of common ground, but we veer off onto very different paths. Our very favorites in all of those categories are pretty different.

7. I am less scared of having kids than I ever have been. I am still completely terrified by the pregnancy and birth process, and it will be a while before I get to where I can really consider it as an actual thing I could maybe do. But the part where maybe a baby or a kid would live in our house and be dependent on us for food and shelter and guidance? Slightly less scary. We don’t really know where we would put it, though. Good thing it’s still not happening quite yet. (Sorry, dad.)

So yesterday was a pretty big day for me. I performed my first baptism. It was kind of awesome.

One of my favorite kids, a junior high girl named Annie, approached me a few weeks ago. She is one of those kids that asks a million questions and is never quite satisfied… she always thinks there’s more to the story than what you’re telling her. Almost every week i left with something to research and figure out so I could help her understand better. She is also full of energy, random stories and jokes, and loves Elvis Presley a little more than should be allowed.

She had been thinking about being baptized for a long time and wanted to do it yesterday, her 14th birthday. We had several conversations about what it means and why she wants to do it. We met with her mom and our pastor and were all set.

And then she decided she wanted me to do it.

I was not prepared for that. I do not feel like I should be allowed to baptize people. Me? I don’t know anything. I am a disaster. I feel like I just got baptized myself yesterday. Clearly she needs someone more qualified and smarter and older than me. Me? I am a child. I am not the right person.

Lucky for me, I am surrounded by people who have a lot more confidence in me than I do. So I got myself together, had a meeting with my pastor and felt moderately prepared.

And seriously like I was going to throw up.

But everything went really, really well. The water was freakishly warm, I told a couple of stories about Annie and borrowed a joke about holding her down until she bubbles, and I didn’t mess up any of the important parts. It was very sweet and totally appropriate for Annie’s personality and her relationship to me and her family. No one drowned.

It was the most officially pastoral day I’ve had so far at the church, and I survived it. I’m still much more comfortable in the big church setting when I’m talking about camp or flamingos and would definitely rather be teaching my junior high girls class than anything else. But it looks like I might be able to hold my own outside of my comfort zone, so that’s good to know.

All in all it was a really special day with one of my very favorite kids.

I keep meaning to post. I do. But I feel so scattered that I can’t figure out what to write about.

The past couple of weeks have been kind of discouraging. I feel stuck in a holding pattern with no way out for at least a few months.

I am kind of tired of people. I think I am over them. Which would be cool if mine and Aaron’s jobs didn’t totally revolve around them.

Things aren’t all bad these days. They are actually mostly good. The leaves are changing and the hills near our house look like they’re on fire. The good parts of our jobs are really good. It’s sweater and ballet flats season. I bought a new and awesome bright blue coat. We finally finished all the leftover candy from Aaron’s party. Miles is still extra cute.

But I just feel down. I feel stuck in a rut. I have the itch for change that I had hoped was going to go away once we settled into this new good life. But it’s back.

I want to redecorate. I want to buy all new clothes. I want a new haircut. I want to add on to our house. I want to go out of town.

I want to have one full day, 24 blissful hours, in which no drama from any people anywhere have any affect on me or Aaron or our sanity. I want to worry about my own sanity for a minute. Not someone else’s.

The holidays are here. Did y’all know that? It’s the middle of November. I don’t really know how that happened.

I need to plan an orphan Thanksgiving. Are you in Nashville? Is your family far away? Do you want to come over? Can you bring a pumpkin pie?

We decided to fly home for Christmas this year. It’s possibly the best decision we have made in the history of our marriage. We’ll be in Texas for a week and we won’t have to drive for 26 hours to make it happen.

That’s good.

My new free ipod is freaking awesome. I have so much joy in my life and in my car these days. Radio? What? I don’t need no stinking radio. I can listen to Band of Horses and Dwight Yoakam and Eef Barzalay and Counting Crows at the touch of my finger. It is what heaven will be like.

That’s good too.

Things are good. And the discouraging things will pass. Some of them have already started. They’ve just been overwhelming me lately, so instead of opening up the big empty white box and trying to fill it up I have been choosing Real Simple magazine and 90210 reruns.

Not that those are bad things. They are awesome things, actually. But I want to do more with my brain. I want to be creative and informed and interesting and artsy. Or at least articulate.

We’ll see what happens.

I mentioned a while back that I’ve taken on a side job doing data entry for a tax guy. Because I now spend a lot more time mindlessly sitting in front of my computer, I decided to start recording a new show to watch while I do the work.

I wanted something I didn’t have to focus to closely on, that was in syndication so I could watch several at a time, and that would be fun to watch. And what did I find that fits that criteria?

BEVERLY HILLS 90210.

Oh yes, people. I never followed it when it was on originally, and it is bringing me so much joy. It is perfect. It comes on twice a day, it’s easy to follow, and it is a BLAST. I think it’s my favorite show.

How did I miss this show the first time? Was I too young? There is so much awesome in this show that it’s kind of overwhelming. The only bummer is that I got started somewhere in the middle of season two, so I missed some of the beginning drama.

And oh! The drama! So much drama. Something insane happens in EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE. So far, here’s what has happened:

-Brenda is robbed at gunpoint and has flashback nightmares.
-Donna, David and Kelly stalk Color Me Badd in a hotel. Color Me Badd! Then they sing to Donna at the Peach Pit!
-Brenda takes a secret trip to Mexico with Dylan and then runs away from home.
-The gang throws a dance for West Beverly and an inner-city LA school. Yay diversity.
-Color Me Badd!
-Andrea saves a troubled girl from an abusive family situation.
-Steve is given a ‘legacy key’ that unlocks all the doors and computers in the school.
-Dylan goes for a drive and breaks down next to a farm and then lives there for a week playing ’stable boy’ for the cougar owner.
-Steve gets involved in an underground car racing ring.
-Brandon has a gambling problem and gets beat up in the alley.
-Dylan’s dad is killed when someone puts a bomb under his car.
-Kelly develops an eating disorder, winds up in the hospital, then is totally healed the next day.
-Steve and Brandon appear on a dating show and fight over the same girl.
-Steve wins $10,000 making a half-court shot at a Lakers game.
-Brandon’s car gets stolen by a scamming Burt Reynolds tour guide.
-They change the HOLLYWOOD sign so that it says W BEV HI 93.
-Dylan gets carjacked in his brand new Porche and the carjacker said, “Get outta the cah, suckaaaaahh.”

And my favorite…

-Donna gets drunk at the prom and is therefore suspended from graduation. The students of West Beverly find this unfair. Brandon organizes a protest and all the students walk out of finals, down to the school board office, chanting “Donna Martin graduates!” Students win, Donna graduates, Brandi buys this t-shirt.

I’m in the college years right now, and things are going pretty well. Andrea is sleeping with her RA, Dylan is becoming a gun nut, Brandon is tutoring the star of the basketball team, Kelly is hooking up with a frat guy and David and Donna have a radio show.

This show? Is awesome.

So Aaron turned 30. And we all survived it.

We went back and forth and round and round about what to do for his birthday. His original plan (which he now swears was a joke, but I am unconvinced) was to have a laser tag sleepover. I know that right now you’re thinking about how awesome that would be. And you are correct. However, it is excessively expensive to rent out a laser tag place overnight. Just FYI.

Then he offered me three options: a flat screen TV, a trip to see the Cowboys play, or a beach vacation. I, of course, jumped on the beach vacation idea. It wasn’t meant to be, though… we couldn’t afford to fly, stay and eat in any of the places we wanted to go. We could have done two of the three, but somehow I couldn’t make that work. So the vacation got pushed into next year.

Obviously, if you read this blog, you know that we decided to go with the TV. We shopped and researched and shopped and researched and came home with a 47″ Philips TV from Costco. It has a lot of features that have various initials for names and I don’t know what any of them mean, but Aaron is thrilled so I am too. It’s funny, though… we picked it out at Costco amongst rows and rows of TVs, most of which were significantly larger than the one we bought. Ours seemed small in comparison. Then we brought it home and put it in our living room and all of the sudden it’s the biggest TV there has ever been. Seriously, this thing is huge. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying. It’s a big TV.

The TV was a pretty big deal. And Aaron’s family was coming in to town for his birthday and we were going out to a fancy dinner. That’s good, right? That’s a good set of birthday hooplas. But it wasn’t enough. Not enough for me, anyway. The TV and a steak would have been plenty for Aaron. But I needed more. This was an OCCASION. It needed to be CELEBRATED.

So I decide, a week and a half out, that I should throw a surprise party. I get to planning and being sneaky and inviting and hiding cupcakes and beer at friends’ houses so Aaron doesn’t know about it. And his birthday comes along, and we all go out to dinner but the wait is an hour and we are already running late and Aaron decides he wants to go somewhere ALL THE WAY ACROSS TOWN and I am freaking out because we are supposed to be home in an hour and we haven’t even started eating yet but THEN (!) the hostess at the new place is one of our old youth group kids so I pretend to go to the bathroom and grab her and tell her to please have the waiter move as quickly as possible without being obvious and he does a pretty good job until he asks at the end “Did I move quick enough for you?” but Aaron is oblivious and we drive home and walk in the door and all of our friends jump out and give Aaron a heart attack.

It was PERFECT.

We have great friends and I have a great husband and it was an all around great night. Happy happy birthday, Aaron. I hope the next 30 are as awesome as the last, and I promise next time I really will listen when you say you don’t want a party.

Oct 1 – Friday Night Lights is back! I love that show so much.
Oct 2 – We spent a lovely afternoon outside at a junior high football game.
Oct 3 – Super fun junior high girls sleepover.
Oct 4 – I shopped and shopped and shopped. And bought… nothing.
Oct 5 – Mmmm… nap.
Oct 6 – We went to a really nice birthday dinner with people we don’t get to see often.
Oct 7 – We got the budget approved for the youth house! It might actually on time!
Oct 8 – I bought the most awesome cable knit ballet flat slippers. I want to marry them.
Oct 9 – Two of our kids were part of their school play and it was great!
Oct 10 – One of our kids made about a thousand excellent plays in his football game.
Oct 11 – I made a pretty sweet vision board for the youth house.
Oct 12 – We had a huge all-church event on the property and it was a big success.
Oct 13 – We started down the path of finding some answers for some issues.
Oct 14 – A meeting I was super stressed out about turned out to be no big deal.
Oct 15 – We had a blast of a game night with the kids for fall break.
Oct 16 – I registered for a youth conference that I am very excited about.
Oct 17 – Pizza and movie night.
Oct 18 – Ten books for eleven dollars at the book sale!
Oct 19 – We tore out three bathrooms, a kitchen and a ton of drywall at the house.
Oct 20 – I had a lovely girls night out with some friends.
Oct 21 – My new, free ipod made driving around town so much more pleasant.
Oct 22 – Our lesson went over really well.
Oct 23 – A kid I’ve been working with forever finally started taking some good steps.
Oct 24 – A series us mishaps led a couple of friends and I to a great new restaurant.
Oct 25 – My high school girls pumpkin carving adventure was a success.
Oct 26 – I was up til 4:30 having a great talk with a kid.
Oct 27 – Good, air-clearing coffee meeting with a kid and a mom.
Oct 28 – Pumpkins, wine, pizza, candy, movies and new friends.
Oct 29 – Had a delicious cheap lunch with a friend making sneaky plans.
Oct 30 – Avenue Q!
Oct 31 – The awesome people at Kalamata’s loaded us down with free food.