On Our Way To Crazy

I am always trying to find new music. Always always always. Pandora radio is pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me, except for the part where it keeps making me want to spend money on singles. Lots and lots of money.

Maggie has a feature on her blog every Friday called Friday Mixtape. I love it – there’s always a couple of songs I already know and a ton of stuff I’ve never heard of. So I thought I would offer the same service to you. I can share what I’m listening to and keep track of what I find. AND you can tell me what you’re listening to as well. Let’s make my ‘songs to buy’ way longer.

This week’s theme, apparently, is male/female faithy duets. That was an accident. But these songs are amazing.

“All the Poor and Powerless” by Sons & Daughters
Sons & Daughters is David Leonard and Leslie Jordan. David is a friend of ours… he was the lead singer of Jackson Waters, a band Aaron worked with for a few years a while back. He is amazingly, amazingly talented, and this is his new project. It is so beautiful it hurts me, y’all. So good. You can download this song for free here, and I suggest you do that immediately.

“Mercy” by Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors
Did you guys watch Parenthood this year? We totally got sucked into it. Anyway, they had really great music on that show, and we spent a lot of time googling to find out what the songs were. That’s how I found Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors. Turns out he’s a Nashville guy and they play around town all the time. We haven’t made it to a show yet, but I did buy his “A Million Miles Away” record, which is how I found this song. They also have an ep available for free on Noisetrade.

“Falling” by The Civil Wars
I know this one is old news to most of you. But it is one of my favorites AND it fits the theme. So we’re rolling with it.

From the very first moment I saw you, that’s when I knew
All the dreams I held in my heart had suddenly come true
Knock me over stone cold sober not a thing I could say or do
‘Cause baby when I’m walking with you now my eyes are so wide
Like you reached right into my head and turned on the light inside
Turning on the light inside my mind

Come on baby it’s all right, Sunday, Monday, day or night
Written blue on white it’s plain to see
Be mine be mine
That rain or shine, night or day, what’s the difference anyway
Baby till your heart belongs to me

If I had some influence with the powers that be
I’d have them fire that arrow at you like they fired it right at me
And maybe when your heart and soul are burning you might see
That every time I’m talking with you it’s always over too soon
That everyday feels so incomplete till you walk into the room
Say the word now, babe, I’ll jump that moon

30 Before 30 update! In case I haven’t mentioned it in the last five seconds, I have been really busy lately. But I have managed to get some of these things checked off the list. Fun, fun things.

ROCK AND ROLL TRIVIA
Rock and Roll Trivia was HARD, y’all. So, so hard. We failed, and we did it spectacularly. The saddest part is that we thought we’d do well. Aaron and I know some stuff. We grew up in music-y houses. We have good taste. But this was not an event for us. This was an event for that guy who knows the exact release dates of every Devo record and who produced them. The guy who can name every band that opened for The Clash. The guy who has Billboard charts memorized from the past thirty years. We cannot compete with that guy. We came in dead last by hundreds of points. But! We did win best team name. Rock on, Wyld Stallions.

ADVENTURE SCIENCE CENTER LASER CONCERT
OK. I did not technically attend a laser concert at the Science Center. I did, however, attend the Way Late Play Date, which was way more awesome. They kept the place open after hours for adults only, your ticket got you two drinks and some snacks, and we had a total blast. They also offered a little preview of everything they do in the planetarium, including the laser concerts. I went to that and almost died of motion sickness. I will not be attending a laser concert. It hurt me. I saw a preview and I say that counts. It’s my list and I can do what I want.

BLUEBIRD CAFÉ
How have I lived in Nashville and never been to the Bluebird? I completely loved it. Four songwriters in the round for two hours. I had beer and sweet potato fries and listened to some really beautiful songs. Two of the guys were more seasoned and had written songs I totally knew growing up – “Two Sparrows In a Hurricane”, “A Little Too Late”, “Help Me Hold On”. The kind of main guy told a story about his girlfriend, played a song he wrote for her, then hopped up and PROPOSED TO HER. Proposed! Right there in front of us! It was awesome. The fourth guy was a guy named Michael Logen and I really loved his songs. I would buy a record of his in a heartbeat. It was so, so fun.

TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW WE DO CAMP

1. We make our kids eat lunch at Whataburger on the way down, whether they want to or not. WHATABURGER. Three of us loved it. Everyone else hated it. But I’m in charge, so I win.

2. Our group completely rules at the theme nights. Country fair? No problem. Also, our youth staff is amazing. AMAZING.

3. We make up fun games like “1-2-3 Emotion!” that make for awesome pictures. (Aim your camera at a group of kids and count to three. But between two and three, name an emotion. They have to express it for the picture.) Confused!

4. We go to water parks, buy tickets and get the entire group through the gates just in time for a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. But because there’s no thunder or lightning, the park stays open. So we ride waterslides in the rain. And that is super fun.

5. We do group calisthenics before group time every night to get everyone awake and alert. They are led by Aaron and include lunges, arm circles and lots of hopping around.

6. The adults crepe paper all the girls’ dorm rooms but the room of the girls who have been trying to pull pranks all week. All the girls blame them for the streamers. The adults do not correct them, but instead let everyone think it was them until they post an incriminating picture on facebook when we are back home.

7. When the whole camp is walking nicely back to their dorms after the closing celebration on the last night, we zig zag through the quad and jump through all the sprinklers, inciting a camp-wide game of sprinkler tag.

8. We deftly rebuff the advances of the guy with two bellybuttons all week, then take very literal pictures to illustrate him. (Literally, he would walk up to girls and say, “Did you hear about the guy at camp with two bellybuttons? It’s me.”)

9. We make the whole group sit and wait at the gas station while one of our leaders runs to the Whataburger around the corner for breakfast taquitos. That we don’t share. With anyone.

10. In between Beastie Boys dance parties and comparing Owl City to the Postal Service, we sing amazing renditions of “Defying Gravity” into our Snapple bottles on the ride home.

Seriously, you guys, camp was amazing. We have such a great group of kids. I truly cannot believe that it is my job to do stuff like this. I watched them serve the city of Birmingham in ways I never thought possible. Kids who barely speak when spoken to were striking up conversations with homeless guys over lunch and praying with kids who are waiting for heart transplants. They cleaned and painted and visited and gardened and played and sang and acted and sorted and packed and were so, so awesome. We made up songs and wrote plays about cowboys and had 3am crying sessions and ate and laughed and bonded and talked a lot about kissing boys. It was wonderful.

LOVE.

As I may have mentioned, there is a lot going on in my life right now. A lot. Like fourteen other life-changing kinds of things on top of the work stuff I posted about the other day.

Which means I spend a lot of time procrastinating on facebook.

Yesterday, sitting among registration forms and food money and postcard proofs and a stack of 40 straw cowboy hats and receipts and pink flamingos, I happened to click on the ‘photos’ link on my facebook sidebar. The first album that came up had ‘Richard Smith’ tagged underneath it. Richard Smith is better known as Pawpaw, my dad’s dad. While Pawpaw is technically on facebook, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t spend a lot of time uploading and tagging pictures. So I clicked it to see what it was.

And what it was? Was an album full of old pictures of my family. My grandparents when they were first married, my dad and his siblings as children. Pictures I have never seen before. Pictures that were uploaded by a woman I have never heard of. (Mom? Call me? Who is this woman who has a bunch of pictures of our family?)

I immediately started saving them to my computer. Because they are awesome. Want to see them? I know you do.

This is my Nanny and Pawpaw. How great is this picture? I can’t even imagine them looking like this. Also, I want that chair.

This is my dad (far right) and his siblings, minus one of my aunts, who… wasn’t born yet? I’m not sure how much younger she is. They are so cute, you’d never expect them to turn into the crazy adults they are.

Nanny and Pawpaw again. I love the expression on his face. Hard to believe this is the same guy who calls me from the golf course in the middle of a windstorm and yells into the phone asking about the Nashville weather.

My dad, holding cupcakes that I’m sure were meant for everyone but he probably ate himself.

Nanny and her sweet glasses.

I don’t know who the lady is that uploaded these pictures, but I’m so glad she did. I was pulled right out of the chaos of my adult life in Tennessee and dropped into the 1960s in Mesquite, TX. Completely unexpectedly. (We won’t talk about the part where I cried a little.) It is so easy to get caught up in where you are and forget to look back and where you came from.

My life right now is so focused on the future and planning for what is to come. And that is mostly okay. But these people are MY people, and I am thankful for that reminder.

June 1 – Got to spend some alone time reading and wandering around Target. Not at the same time.
June 2 – Fun meeting with a brand new youth volunteer. She is awesome.
June 3 – Four meetings in a row at Starbucks, split up by periods of being hit on by the elderly.
June 4 – Really good lunch and talk with a new youth leader and good friend.
June 5 – Sushi and Exit Through the Gift Shop with Aaron. Great date night.
June 6 – Took a long walk and had a great discussion with one of my girls.
June 7 – Dinner and LOTS of margaritas to celebrate a good friend’s birthday.
June 8 – Peter’s Thai with friends… pad siew and a weirdly flirty waitress.
June 9 – One of our youth families had us over for dinner. Grilled shrimp and scallops and peapods and rice. It was amazing.
June 10 – Really fun lunch with some new youth group parents. So encouraging. Also, Travis choreographed Mark. LOVE.
June 11 – My dad’s birthday!
June 12 – Great service project with the kids. They are such hard workers.
June 13 – Took a great nap. I love naps.
June 14 – Rock and Roll Trivia! It was really, excessively hard. But! We won best team name! Go Wyld Stallions!
June 15 – Good lunch with some staff folks.
June 16 – Great youth staff meeting. They are so awesome.
June 17 – Watched So You Think You Can Dance, basketball and lots of music on TV with friends.
June 18 – Evening swim with friends, AND we bought tickets to see the Avett Brothers at the Ryman two nights in a row.
June 19 – Friends gave us a copy of their pool key and I spent the whole afternoon reading and swimming and listening to Josh Ritter.
June 20 – Third pool day in a row, followed by a cookout. I love summer.
June 21 – My first Monday in the office on my new schedule. It’s amazing how much work you can get done when no one’s around.
June 22 – Frozen yogurt with Cinnamon Toast Crunch mixed in with one of my college girls.
June 23 – Spent the evening alone, watching So You Think You Can Dance and eating Trader Joe’s veggie enchiladas. Heaven.
June 24 – Girl’s night at adults-only night at the science center. Planetarium + wine = awesome.
June 25 – Stopped in at the outlet malls on my way to visit my sister and found some great deals.
June 26 – Spent the morning with my sister before a whole afternoon of solo Atlanta shopping. Crate and Barrel, H&M, IKEA.
June 27 – Went out for drinks with some new friends after our church small group.
June 28 – Great turnout at our ultimate frisbee night. Also, not many bugs.
June 29 – Had a really good, really honest meeting with my boss.
June 30 – We had a super fun artsy-craftsy girls camp planning night.

Remember that one time? When I decided to take 40 kids to camp? Including a bunch of new leaders and kids with nervous parents? And change everything about the youth program? And try to do 30 new things before I turn 30? And there was a ton of staff turnover and drama at work? And we had craziness and stress in pretty much every aspect of our lives?

No? Because IT JUST HAPPENED.

There is a lot going on. A lot. Mostly good stuff, honestly, but I am wiped the heck out. I don’t know whose idea it was for all of these things to go down in the same few weeks.

Oh, wait. Yes I do. It was mine.

I am really excited about everything. We are taking a ton of new kids to camp and it is always one of the best weeks of the year. The camp we go to is a service camp where the kids do missions projects in the city during the day, then we have regular camp stuff at night. They work really hard and come back with a whole different attitude about what their faith is about and how to put it into action in a real way. And it is FUN. Insanely fun. I can’t wait.

It’s what’s happening when we get back that is stressing me out. I have been working and planning and meeting and talking and talking and talking about this for months. For the past few years we have had youth group at the same time as ‘big church’. We did it in the school, partly out of necessity and partly because we were working to get a program off the ground and we needed to be where the kids were. And it went really well. We’ve continued to do it since we’ve been in the building, though, for two reasons – because we’ve always done it, and because it’s convenient for the families. Pretty much the worst reasons to base your ministry around.

So we’re shaking it up. Starting the week after camp, the kids will be in service together. They will be part of the church first, and the youth group second. They will sit together, participate in communion and baptism and worship, listen to the same teaching the rest of the church is getting. They will be greeters and children’s workers and coffee servers. We are moving our youth program to Monday nights. I am excited about this for so many reasons… we are going to have more time (two-plus hours instead of not quite one), more space (we are meeting in the main building instead of the converted conference room), more volunteers (not meeting during church gives us access to more adults), and just more awesomeness. I cannot wait. I fully believe in the shift we’re making, and I know it’s the right thing for our group and for our church. I’ve been meeting with parents for weeks, selling the vision and getting input and making sure we’re on the right path. They get it. The senior staff gets it. The volunteers get it. We are rolling.

The kids? Not so much. They don’t want to go to big church. They like getting to spend Sunday mornings playing games and talking and having everything be about them. Which I get. They think service is boring and full of old people and not cool. Which I also get. It’s also why we are doing this… to keep them from graduating with no experience in a greater faith community and bailing on church (and potentially faith) when it stops being all about them. Which I really get. But they don’t.

But they will. We will figure it out. For all the frustration we’ve dealt with over the past few years with having and losing the cafeteria, having and losing the youth house, bouncing around and changing meeting times and places and generally living in chaos, one unexpected thing has come from it – they seem trust me. Their parents definitely do. Even when there is insanity and confusion, we come out on the other side okay. So even if this sounds scary and uncool and not fun, when I tell them it is for the best they (mostly) hear that.

So! Lots going on. It is completely overwhelming. But exciting, right? Yes. Exciting.