On Our Way To Crazy

Is anyone out there a dream interpreter?

Lately I have been having dreams where normal stuff from my life is taking place, no big deal, except it’s all happening at my parents’ house. Staff meetings, youth group, dinner parties with friends… all going down in my mom and dad’s living room.

It’s throwing me for two reasons. One, I don’t think my parents are there, so it’s not like I just relocated my entire life to be closer to them. And two, the things that happen in my dreams aren’t real, but they seem super real. I’m not reenacting things that have already happened, but the things that are happening are totally normal things that would happen in my every day life. I’m having necessary work-related conversations with people at my mom’s dining room table in my dreams. Then, when I wake up, I can’t remember what is real and what isn’t. This afternoon someone emailed me a question that I SWEAR we have already discussed. And we did. In Texas.

This is a problem. I already spend an inordinate amount of time each morning trying to remember what day it is. (Does anyone else do that? Seriously, every morning I have to think about the day before and figure out what I’m supposed to do that day. Side effect of not having the same schedule every day, I guess.) But now I also have to think through what is real and what isn’t? That’s a long process. I may just stop getting out of bed, just to be safe.

Are you watching Glee? I know people either love it or hate it. (Or don’t care about it either way.) (Which I guess is true about everything. So maybe not so interesting.) I love everything about it. I love the characters, I love the songs, I love Mr. Schuester. It makes me cry every week. EVERY WEEK. If Glee was a movie, it would be one of my all-time favorites.

We went to the flea market the day after Thanksgiving. The flea market is an amazing place. I got three vintage necklaces for $5, which was awesome, but our big find was actually a gift for our niece. This guys was selling old block letters from a printing press, do you know the kind I’m talking about? They are big wooden blocks with letters carved out of the tops, and the letters are backwards so you can print with them. Anyway, we spelled out her name (Olivia) with those letters and are going to glue them together to make a nameplate for her. Because her name is pretty symmetrical, only the L is backwards. I’m not gonna lie, it’s adorable.

I am pretty convinced that I could be an awesome furniture refinisher. A couple of weeks ago I made Aaron pull over on the side of the road so I could pick up an old desk that had a big FREE sign on it. I want to sand it down and paint it. We’ll see if it happens.

The problem is that I just want to buy a bunch of furniture. The flea market is a bad place for someone like me. If I had gone alone I would have come home with a trailer full of tables and lounge chairs and lamps that all just need ‘a bit of fixing up’. It’s a problem.

I love the prep days in advance of holidays. Making shopping lists, baking, planning parties, wrapping gifts. It’s almost a disappointment when the actual event rolls around.

Tonight we had care group. We got to go to a friend’s house, sit around with people we love, eat cookies and just hang out. And we didn’t have to do anything to make it happen. Letting go of being in charge of that group was the best decision we’ve made in a while.

The band makes a video every week to post on their website. They are really funny guys, so the videos tend to be pretty funny as well. But the one this week has a moment that made me SMOKER LAUGH. Like I was actually in pain after I saw it because it hurt my chest to laugh like I did. You can watch the video here, and pay particular attention right at the end. The guy who at around 2:40 says “I think I saw that” is the one who you see at 2:41. I realize that it might not be as funny if you don’t know them, but oh my gosh, I laughed so hard.

I am so glad there’s only one more day in November. I love writing, I really do. But I am tired of trying to put something together at midnight in order to keep it up. I am glad to be almost done. Thanks for reading.

I’ve read a couple of posts lately about Christmas lists. Specifically, about what to ask for from your in-laws. This is quite the conundrum.

Does your family do Christmas lists? We always have. As a kid, they were very very important. We got that huge Sears toy catalog in the mail and my sister and I would page through it, looking for things to put in our letters to Santa that we left on the fireplace with the cookies and milk. I remember one year running back into the living room on Christmas Eve to add a last minute gift idea to my letter. My mom was very careful to make sure I understood that Santa had probably already left the North Pole and I may not have made it on time. Very thoughtful.

Lists were definitely simpler then. You just asked for stuff. Whatever you wanted. The bigger the better. You probably weren’t going to get much of it, and that was fine. I just enjoyed the process. It was a precursor to my favorite things to do now – read magazines and make lists.

It’s a little more complicated now. Lists are definitely helpful if your family is really into gifts like ours are. I want to make sure we get gifts for people that they want. In a perfect world we would all be so in tune with each other that we wouldn’t even need lists and the gifts would be perfect every time, right? Well, we don’t live in that world. And that’s okay. But what do you ask for? And from who(m)? How much should things cost? WHAT ARE THE RULES?

It’s one thing to send a list to your own parents. I try to follow the same rules from when I was a kid. Ask for whatever! Get what you get! It’s fun! Your mom doesn’t care! She will just laugh at you if you get crazy! It’s all good!

But the in-law list is a little more stressful. They want a list, so you need to make one. But what is reasonable? Do you just list general ideas and hope for the best? Can you be specific, with links and instructions on setting up an Etsy account? I don’t know.

Either way, the list making is fun. I try to ask for things I would never buy for myself. Not because they are expensive, but because they seem frivolous. These are the things that make good gifts. They’re the things I try to buy off other people’s lists, too, so don’t ask me to get you socks. Not gonna happen.

Okay, folks. This blogging every day business is tough. Especially on the day after a holiday when all I did was go to the flea market and put up my Christmas tree. Do you want to hear about the three vintage necklaces I bought today for five dollars? Or about how I found yet another of my favorite ornaments broken when I opened the box this year? Or about how Miles likes to crawl under the tree and take a nap?

These things are not that interesting. Also not interesting – random information from Aaron’s head. But when I started whining about having to blog when my brain has literally nothing to say, this is what he gave me. So I am passing it on to you.

FIFTEEN THINGS AARON WANTS YOU TO KNOW

1. William Henry Harrison passed out hard cider on the campaign trail and then died after his first month in office.

2. Friday Night Lights (book, movie and TV versions) – all excellent.

3. Butterscotch is called that because you scorch butter to make it.

4. If you value your sanity, don’t manage bands.

5. By the time America entered WWII, the American navy was larger than all other navies in the world combined.

6. Bears eat beets.

7. Jack Daniels has seven mistresses but was never married. Allegedly that’s why it’s called Old No. 7.

8. Lou Dobbs is running for president. (Me: “That’s boring.” Aaron: “It’s current events.”)

9. Four Christmases was a funny movie.

10. In the White House, the Lincoln bedroom was never a bedroom during Lincoln’s presidency.

11. Judas Iscariot either a)hung himself, or b)bought a field and then exploded in it. Or, if you are a literalist, both.

12. The single largest jump on any radio chart belongs to Kelly Clarkson. The second? Elvis.

13. Dallas has a skyscraper that looks like a wad of cash. On purpose.

14. Aquafina is the most delicious water.

15. Coming up with fifteen random facts is more difficult than blogging every day for a month. (LIE.)

It’s 11:00. I am in bed next to a sleeping husband and a snoring dog. My kitchen is clean and my fridge is full of leftover potato casserole and green bean bundles and chocolate pie.

I spent the whole day inside my house. This morning we got up early and had the-turkey-is-finally-in-the-oven celebratory champagne and cranberry cocktails. We watched some of our kids perform in the parade on TV, made a thousand side dishes and snuck food to Miles while everyone else was looking the other way.

The house filled up with family and friends who brought pear stuffing and sweet potatoes and wine and laughter. We sat down around a beautiful (if I do say so myself) table and told stories about Thanksgivings where tables fell to the floor and mashed potatoes were thrown and that one time Aunt Donna’s jello exploded all over the kitchen and she stormed out without saying a word. We ate and ate and ate.

The Cowboys came on and our sweet friends patiently sat through two quarters of a game they didn’t care about while my husband and my father-in-law yelled at the TV. We fell asleep on the sofa. We played a super fun game at halftime that made me laugh so hard I cried. We ate more pie and watched the second half. I changed into my lucky shirt and we won, again. I am made of magic.

Our friends left and we settled in for the Texas/A&M game. Well, they did. I sat with my back to the TV and read a novel that made me cry and want to visit Wyoming. One by one, we went to bed.

And now I am sitting here, exhausted and stuffed and blissfully happy. We all have so much to be thankful for, we know that. And I am. So thankful. For all of those things.

Especially the sleeping husband. And the snoring dog. And the sweet life I get to live with them every day in this tiny house on this tree-lined street in this amazing city. And the intensely stressful jobs full of people we love who drive us crazy. And all the people we’ve met here who have become our family. And our actual family who are our rock and support even though we are so far away.

And the chocolate pie. Oh, the chocolate pie.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

I was walking around Target this morning looking for giant plastic bags, big dangly earrings and decorative pears. You know, as you do.

While I was examining the ziploc offerings, I overheard a conversation between two employees on the next aisle. Let’s call them Zak and Sara.

Sara: Oh my gosh, Zak, did you see that family that came in yesterday?
Zak: What family?
Sara: It was this huge family, tons of people. All the kids and women kind of spread out all over the store and the men were hanging out in Starbucks. After a while, one of the guys got up and BLEW A WHISTLE.
Zak: What? A whistle?
Sara: Yeah. And then all the women and kids started showing back up at the front of the store, and then they all just left. It was so weird.
Zak: That is really weird. Did they buy anything?
Sara: Nope. I think they were gypsies.
(Me, in my head: GYPSIES? Awesome! I want to be friends with the Brentwood gypsies.)
Zak: Gypsies? What are you talking about?
Sara: Oh, well, you know. Hispanics.

WHAT? Hispanics? Gypsies? Is there some kind of roving band of hispanic gypsies I don’t know about? Is there anywhere in the world where those two things are connected? What on earth was she talking about? Is this a thing everyone knows about but me? I hate being out of the loop.

1. Take Us To the Start – Matt Hires

As past of our Directv package, we have a bunch of XM stations available to us. My favorite is called The Coffee House. They play a lot of singer-songwriter-y stuff… lots of acoustic live tracks and covers and stuff like that. They don’t play a ton of new stuff, but every now and then something comes along that is new to me. Like Matt Hires. This kid is awesome. His voice is a teensy bit Adam Duritzish, which I love, and his songs have kind of a classic folk feel, like The Band or Neil Young. The whole record is really good, but the single is definitely the standout track.

Download: “Honey Let Me Sing You a Song”

2. The Chess Hotel – The Elms

I know, I know. I am about a thousand years late on The Elms. I can’t be on time to every party. A friend of mine gave me this record over a year ago, but for some reason I didn’t give it much of a listen until recently. It is so, so cool. It’s just a great rock record. I don’t know why I waited so long to check these guys out. I have no idea what the rest of their music sounds like… they were on a Christian label for a while before putting this one out on, weirdly, a country imprint. But if you like blues-y rock music, you will love this.

Download: “The Way I Will”

3. The Fall – Norah Jones

Oh my gosh, you guys. NORAH JONES. You remember her, right? She won a thousand Grammys, then made a gorgeous second record, then a third record that was also great but no one bought. Then she made this record. And it is fabulous. It’s a big step away from the jazzy bluesy stuff she used to do… it has more of a roots-rock feel that suits her voice perfectly. It’s really moody and mellow. So good.

Download: “It’s Gonna Be”

Remember how when you were a kid, your parents were YOUR PARENTS, and that was it? And then, as you got older and became an adult, you started to see them as people – real adults with lives and worlds that are totally separate from you? It’s kind of a world-shaking moment.

Tonight I experienced something really similar, but in reverse. Now that I’ve been at the church for a few years, and working with this group of kids even longer, the kids I know are starting to grow up. Tonight I had dinner with a girl who I met when she was a freshman in high school. She graduated in May and we haven’t been able to see a lot of each other over the past several months.

I’ve always known her as a kid. A mature, responsible kid, sure, but still. A kid. But tonight? I had dinner with an adult. She moved out on her own and has done a lot of growing up. Over chips and salsa and creamy jalapeno dip and some kind of enchilada thing that included a fried egg (the first time Chuy’s has disappointed me, and the last time I take a waiter’s recommendation) and the best sweet tea in town, we talked relationships and movies and roommates and bills and english papers. And not in a leader-youth kind of way. In a friend kind of way.

I don’t know that you are ever truly peers with your parents. Or with former students. But it’s really interesting to watch that transition start to happen. To watch the playing field level a bit.

I feel lucky every day to have the job I do, even on the hard days. There are a lot of really cool benefits. But this was one I wasn’t expecting. So today, I am thankful.

We watch Saturday Night Live approximately… never. I am up on it, generally, and I’ll try to catch parts of it if I care about the host of the band, but I’ve never really enjoyed it enough to sit and watch whole episodes.

Last night, though, we found ourselves hanging out at home, so we turned it on. And it was fine. Nothing amazing. (Although Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s opening monologue/song was pretty impressive.) It was just on as background noise, really, while we messed around getting ready for Sunday morning.

But then. The digital short came on.

I’m sure that this sketch isn’t really that funny. It’s too long and it gets obnoxious and gross toward the end. Please know that I know those things. But also, please know that I laughed so hard when Kenan Thompson came on screen that I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

I think you’ll understand why.

“But it was enough for me, the way our family lived. Maybe that was wrong; maybe I should have wanted more. But I didn’t. I knew things were far from perfect, but I was content sitting outside with my coffee on spring mornings, admiring the daffodils Travis and I planted, thinking about what to make for dinner that night. I liked attending school conferences with David and listening to dressed up teachers talk abut our son. I liked going to the hardware store every Saturday, all of us in jeans and t-shirts; and I liked watching videos every Sunday night while we ate takeout Chinese from the cartons. I would actually wake up on Sunday mornings a little excited about doing it, even though we did it every week. Perhaps because we did it every week. It was enough, to light a fire in the winter so that we could all toast marshmallows, to look out the window in the summer at David mowing the lawn and Travis riding his bike around in self-absorbed circles, a half-moon of dirt above each elbow. When I got up in the morning and set the table for breakfast and smelled the first whiff of French roast and unrolled the newspaper to lay it flat on the kitchen table… that was enough for me. What is the matter with me, that this was enough?”