On Our Way To Crazy

Happy New Year’s Eve, friends! What are you doing tonight? Got big plans? We bailed on all party plans and are instead grilling fajitas and drinking both the champagne of beers and actual champagne. Should be a good time. I made guacamole.

Was 2009 good to you? Does anyone else feel like it was about three seconds long? We had a pretty good one. A lot happened. Lots of stress. Lots of fun. Lots of taco salads from Baja Burrito.

I was trying to decide what kind of post to write on the last day of the year – introspective? Celebratory? Thought-provoking? (Ha!) I had a whole mess of stuff I wanted to mention, so I decided to go with the old standby. The list.

Things I Loved In 2009

• Twitter. Are you twittering? You should be twittering. It is the best, even though I’m pretty sure it’s to blame for my weak posting action this year. All the little thoughts I would usually try to stretch into an actual cohesive post are instead dumped into twitter where all my random friends can see them. Do they care? I don’t know. But I enjoy reading their little thoughts a lot. Also, Amazon mp3.
• Service projects with the kids. After a rough start, 2009 kicked into high gear for GPYG at MFuge. They spent the week working hard and serving people, and came back with a strong sense of purpose that it didn’t have to end there. Based on that, we started a program called Second Saturday, where we take the second Saturday of each month and use it to serve the community. This fall we packed thousands of food boxes, served food and washed mountains of dishes in a soup kitchen, helped 300 needy families find gifts for their kids and wrapped gifts for the angel tree. I am so proud that the spirit of service has become one of the defining characteristics of our group, and I can’t wait to see where they take it in 2010.
• Switchfoot’s Hello Hurricane. I mentioned this one yesterday in our best songs of 2009 list, but I want to make sure I am getting my feelings across here. THIS RECORD IS AMAZING. Easily the best Switchfoot record. It has a great mix of rock songs (like real actual rock songs, not the Christian music lite-rock version) and mellow ones, and lyrically they completely knock it out of the park. I could, and have, listen to it over and over and over again. I love it so much.
• Sin Boldly by Cathleen Falsani. I read this way back in January, and it stuck with me all year. I don’t do a lot of rereading (says the girl who read all of the Harry Potter books this year, AGAIN), but I think this one might be an annual read for me.
• Glee. The most fun TV show there is. I love Puck, I love Sue, I love Mr. Shue. But most of all, I love the way they portray the kids. It’s fantastical, sure, and you have to suspend pretty much all of your disbelief. But the kids nail it. You really care about them. And the singing is awesome. Plus, it’s influence brought us the Sing-off, and that brought me the Beelzebubs. And they are awesome. (Watch this. And this. And this.)
• My Blackberry. Don’t judge me, y’all. This stupid little thing changed my life. I had a smartphone before, but it totally sucked. The Blackberry doesn’t freeze up on me, the battery lasts forever, my church email pushes through onto it and it has GPS. I know you think your iphone is cooler, and you’re probably right. But my Blackberry keeps me from getting lost, keeps me from being chained to my computer and NEVER DIES.
• The Youth Room. 2008 ended up being kind of a tough one for my GPYG-ers. We lost our meeting space last August and worked really hard to hold ourselves together until we built our building, only to end up with no youth space then, either. At the end of the summer I talked the board into letting us take over part of the church office building so the kids could have ownership over something. It’s not ideal, but it’s ours. We took a boring brown conference room and youthed it up good, and now we have a space that is ours for the first time ever. It’s too small, it doesn’t have heat and if the weather is bad we are crammed in there tight, but our name is on the door. And that is good.
• Shows – Andrew Peterson, Waterdeep, Jennifer Knapp, Counting Crows, Ben Folds, Over the Rhine, Wicked, a ton of youth productions, a thousand Remedy Drive shows, Chris Thile, Andy and the Andys, and a million more I can’t even remember. It was a good year to buy a ticket and see a show.
• My girlfriends. This is kind of a new one for me. I’ve always had friends, and my job comes with kind of a built-in social circle. But I’ve never been that great at letting people in. This year was different, though. I had a lot going on, and I needed to talk about it. So I did. I let my walls down and really talked to my friends. And they talked to me. And we assured each other that the things we were saying weren’t crazy, and that we weren’t horrible people even though we really felt like we were, and that we could get through it and it was okay if we had to have the same conversation a million times. I would have gone crazy this year without them.

This year was a mixed bag for me, but overall, I think it was a success. The good outweighed the bad, and I am thankful.

(Sorry for the lack of capital letters in this list. I typed them in correctly, but they came out lowercase and I don’t know how to fix it. I promise I have better typing etiquette than that.)

As part of our Christmas gifts to our families Aaron and I have started making a mix CD every year. I don’t think I ever posted about last year’s offering, which is sad for you because it completely ruled. This year we decided to make a “Best of 2009″ album with fifteen of our favorite tracks from the year. As Aaron and I have fairly divergent tastes in music, it was a bit difficult, but I am happy with the result. As with any “best of” list, as soon we finalized it we thought of about ten more songs we’d have liked to add. Here is what we came up with:

1. 1901 – Phoenix (from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix)
I know it’s obvious to choose this song off this album, but it was everywhere for a reason. Super high energy, really catchy, totally fun.
2. Your Love Is a Song – Switchfoot (from Hello Hurricane)
A lot of great albums came out in 2009, but this one is my favorite, and this is my favorite track. I love everything about it – the feel, the sound, the line ‘I’ve been keeping my hopes unbroken’. It’s beautiful. (We argued about which track to include from this record. I barely won out, Aaron wanted to use one of the rockier songs. Which are also great. Seriously. Buy this record.)
3. Chasing Pirates – Norah Jones (from The Fall)
I wrote about this record earlier this year, and while this isn’t one of my favorite tracks (it’s an Aaron pick), it’s a great example of the turn her music took with this album.
4. Even If It Breaks Your Heart – Will Hoge (from The Wreckage)
Another Aaron pick, and a great one. We’ve been Will Hoge fans for a while now, and this album has that Americana rootsy feel we totally agree on. This song would not be out of place on a Tom Petty record.
5. Stars – Barcelona (from Absolutes)
Another one I wrote about earlier this year. This album fits into that atmospheric piano-driven style that I love, and while this is my absolute favorite song of theirs the whole album is strong. They also make a great Pandora station.
6. Honey, Let Me Sing You a Song – Matt Hires (from Take Us To the Start)
I first heard this one on the acoustic XM station we play pretty much 24 hours a day in our house. I didn’t realize when I downloaded it that the studio version would have a lot more going on (being, you know, not acoustic at all). Aaron love the studio version, I miss the stripped down version I heard originally. And there you have our fundamental musical difference.
7. Mr. Pitiful – Matt Costa (from Unfamiliar Faces)
This is a record I bought because it was $2.99 on AmazonMp3 one day. I am such a sucker, but I was right on with this one. This song in particular is really fun – it sounds a lot like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”.
8. (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To), I Want You To – Weezer (from Ratitude)
I will love Weezer until the day I die, but this record was a pretty big disappointment. One big exception – this track. Kind of quirky, really upbeat, a big chorus you can yell along with. All the best things about Weezer.
9. This Tornado Loves You – Neko Case (from Middle Cyclone)
Neko Case is so freaking cool, y’all. Her voice is amazing – sexy and tough at the same time. I love listening to her records, and this new one is really great. (This was definitely a Brandi pick.)
10. The Nerve – MuteMath (from Armistice)
Aaron again. The verses feel like U2 to me, and the chorus is really cool. I never really got on the MuteMath train, but this is a pretty awesome song.
11. Greyhound Station – Ben Kweller (from Changing Horses)
Oh my gosh, y’all, Ben Kweller is so cool. His sound changes quite a bit from record to record, and this one is pretty twangy. It completely rules. This song brings me so much joy.
12. Draw the Line – David Gray (from Draw the Line)
David Gray is a Manes family all-time favorite, but I am not in love with this record. Aaron chose this song, which I do agree is the best on the album. It has a good feel and it is still David Gray, who is awesome even when his records are not.
13. Bohemia – Lyle Lovett (from Natural Forces)
Another Manes family favorite. This is a great record, very straight-up Lyle. I like it when an artist’s albums just make sense. This one makes sense. It’s kind of bluesy and gets almost gospely in the end. So good.
14. Maybe – Ingrid Michaelson (from Everybody)
This one, shockingly, was an Aaron pick. It’s so far outside of his usual taste that I kind of think he was messing with me. Good song, though.
15. We’ll Be Fine – Matt Pryor (from Confidence Man)
I really like the message of this song, and I thought the idea would be a good ending. Don’t worry about us, y’all. We’ll be fine.

Hello, internet. Nice to see you.

I have been gleefully unplugged for about a week now. I didn’t even have Blackberry service for a couple of days. Somehow I managed the jitters and cold sweats. I think all the food and alcohol helped.

We were in Texas for eight crazy nights. It was glorious. We played the Wii my mom awesomely got my dad for Christmas, decorated mountains of cookies and stayed up til 3am with my parents listening to stories about hanging out backstage with Ted Nugent (the Nuge!) and watching my mom do the moonwalk of losers. We worked really hard to make Aaron’s dad’s grandpa name “Buckethead”.

We ate Whataburger, La Madeleine, Pappasitos, Pasados, Whataburger again, Corner Bakery, homemade tamales and a few chocolate pies. We dipped thousands of peanut butter crackers in chocolate. My aunt forced me to eat a cream cheese jalapeno jelly cracker thing and got mad when I didn’t like it. Aaron’s mom tried to burn the house down by cooking pizzas with the cardboard still on the bottom. We ate dozens of bowls of taco soup, the Official Meal of Friends Aaron and Brandi Go Visit.

I got to spend eight straight days with people I love. Texas people. Home people. I spent my 30th straight Christmas crammed into a house with fifty people yelling, eating, and unwrapping a tidal wave of gifts. The Wii golf team of Brandi and Papaw got two birdies in the same game and is poised to take over the world. I watched football and wrestled the kids of the guys Aaron went to middle school with. I shopped and wrapped and cooked with my parents, then lost to them at every game we played. I talked about marriage and depression and recipes and uncertainty and getting older with the same girls who were on my t-ball team.

We are really lucky to be in job situations that allow us to travel home for Christmas like we do. We got real, honest-to-goodness REST. And we are very, very thankful.

Does anyone feel like it was September about three seconds ago? How is it time for Christmas already?

This month has been a tough one. Aaron has had job stress like never before. We’ve had a million youth events. Two of the pastors on staff at the church left for what are very personal and totally up-and-up reasons, and while it is totally the right thing for their family (and therefore the church) it is going to be a serious challenge to move forward without them. We had a heck of a time trying to figure out Christmas with our families. December has been long and tiring.

Every year, when September rolls around, I get excited. It’s the start of my favorite part of the year – fall, school, Halloween, pumpkins, holidays, coats, boots, Christmas. It’s the best. But it just FLIES by, y’all. I blinked twice and it’s time to fly to Texas for Christmas. CHRISTMAS. How did we get here?

The season has been full of fun things, too. I took the kids to see Remedy Drive and Family Force Five (alone!) and it was one of the best nights we’ve had in a long time. We had our annual Christmas service project and party, where the kids helped over 300 people pick out gifts for their families and then made videos of themselves singing songs to strangers and doing high kicks in front of Starbucks. We had a full fancy holiday meal with our care group and I came home with a sweet plastic sword that makes swordfighting noises when you swish it. (That’s what you do with a sword, right? Swish it?) We went to the Andrew Peterson Christmas show for the sixth straight year and got to spread out on the pew after our friends bailed at the last minute. We went through several chocolate pies.

It’s all been good. But all the good plus all the hard equals a blur of a month and an exhausted couple of people. I am looking forward to going to Texas. I am. I just can’t believe it’s time to do this already.

Christmas is an interesting time. It’s such a weird mix of the holy and the insane. A beautiful season of waiting and reflection? Check. A plastic tree covered in sparkly balls and twinkle lights? Check.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the ‘everything else’ of Christmas. The shopping and the family confusion and the peppermint and the parties. That stuff is fun and special and kind of the epitome of everything I love. Sometimes you just want to wear an ugly sweater and exchange crap you found in your house, you know?

Kari wrote a beautiful post this week about Christmas being about all of us, that Jesus came for us, specifically and individually. For the world, yes, but also for me. Brandi.

She challenged us to find something that represents us and put ourselves in the nativity. To let ourselves be a part of what’s happening there, for us. For me.

We don’t have a lot around our house in the way of figurines, so the pickings were slim. I decided to go with my good friend El Tormento. Partly because he’s the only thing I could find that resembles a person, and partly because I do think he’s a good representation of me, if you squint and tilt your head a bit. Also, my ipod is named El Tormento. So there’s that.

I think he fits in nicely.

Nov 1 – We took the kids to see Where the Wild Things Are after church.
Nov 2 – Pizza for dinner.
Nov 3 – Made a great ‘dark and moody’ playlist to match my mood.
Nov 4 – I read the wrong assignment for class but managed to fake my way through it.
Nov 5 – I had a productive, plan-making, mind-clearing, butt-kicking meeting with my counselor.
Nov 6 – Really good meeting with a potential new volunteer.
Nov 7 – We cleaned the whole freaking house from ceilings to floors.
Nov 8 – I discovered smores made with chocolate covered graham crackers.
Nov 9 – Homemade broccoli cheese soup in my brand new white bowls.
Nov 10 – Finally finished the design for our new youth newsletter.
Nov 11 – An old friend sent me the most random memory ever.
Nov 12 – Watched M. Ward on Austin City Limits.
Nov 13 – Pirate Radio! So awesome.
Nov 14 – The kids packed over 1200 food boxes for Feed the Children.
Nov 15 – WATERDEEP SHOW. In Nashville. I die.
Nov 16 – Read an entire novel on a blanket in the backyard.
Nov 17 – One of our kids got a baseball scholarship to Vandy.
Nov 18 – JENNIFER KNAPP SHOW. In Nashville. I die.
Nov 19 – Productive meeting about some new programs for 2010.
Nov 20 – Big Thanksgiving grocery shopping trip.
Nov 21 – I watched Kenan Thompson impersonate Reba and laughed until I cried.
Nov 22 – Excellent Sunday afternoon nap action.
Nov 23 – I took my time at Trader Joe’s and bought way too much random stuff.
Nov 24 – Aaron’s parents arrived and we showed them around town.
Nov 25 – Pie making!
Nov 26 – So much food. Lots of good friends. Hilarious game playing. Cowboys win.
Nov 27 – We found a bunch of cool stuff at the flea market.
Nov 28 – We finished decorating for Christmas and ate delicious fajitas.
Nov 29 – Great discussion with the kids on what it means to be rich.
Nov 30 – I finally got to see An Education. It was great.