Friends

This post might be better if you listen to Chariots of Fire while you read

I’m sitting here on the couch, hoping I can still manage to write an entire post about our weekend now that I just found out that Duran Duran has cancelled their concert tour. The official reason given was something about Simon LeBon needing to rest his vocal cords, but I think all of us who spent the better part of the 80’s listening to “Hungry Like the Wolf” know that’s probably just public relations code for “hip replacement”.

It’s not easy watching your teen idols become eligible for Medicare.

Okay, so we had a great weekend. Caroline spent all last week going back and forth to day camp and so most of our mornings looked like some version of this.

It’s not easy re-training yourself to wake up at 6:45 when you’ve been in full on summer mode but she had a great time and I was able to accomplish at least seven things that I wrote on my Summer To-Do list. None of which are interesting enough to tell you about.

On Friday afternoon, P and I drove to camp for the closing ceremonies and got caught in horrific traffic that made us run late even though we’d given ourselves what we believed to be PLENTY of time. Naturally, this sent me into some sort of internal panic featuring Caroline standing by the camp gates waiting on us to arrive.

Fortunately, she didn’t even realize we were late. And so we didn’t volunteer that information because DRAMA. But we made it in plenty of time to meet her counselors and hear them describe their week. Then we went to eat Mexican food with several friends.

Most of Saturday was spent recovering from camp until it was time for Caroline to go to a friend’s birthday party. And Sunday is a total blur. I think I may have taken a nap. I’m also certain we went to the pool.

Then came the fourth of July.

We started the day getting ready for the neighborhood parade.

And then we headed out for the festivities.

I adore the neighborhood parade because it feels like you’ve stepped back into a simpler time. The neighbors all gather, they pass out song sheets and everyone drinks lemonade and eats cookies while we sing a few rounds of God Bless America and America the Beautiful. It’s a perfect little slice of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Except Norman Rockwell never featured a decorated all-terrain vehicle in his work.

After the parade, we went home to change into our swimsuits and made our way to the pool for all the big fourth of July fun. Caroline was SUPER EXCITED about the belly flop contest which wasn’t being held until 6:00 p.m. so we knew we were in for the long haul.

However, what we didn’t know about was the Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest being held at 3:00. They announced it shortly after we arrived and it immediately piqued Caroline’s interest. And so she got in line to be part of it. And in case you’re wondering, the Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest or the WSSC for short, is all about accuracy. There is a chalk drawing of a target and it’s all about hitting the bullseye.

My point is that, CLEARLY, it’s a game of skill. And, as Coach pointed out, THIS IS NOT THE YMCA, ONLY THE WINNERS RECEIVE A MEDAL.

Here’s Caroline picking out her seed.

The spitter steps up to the line and spits the seed. (Please read this in a golf commentator voice.)

I realize I cut off her head, but the seed-spitting tension distracted me.

The official measurement landed her in first place. But there was still a whole line of kids left to spit. Including several teenage boys.

Gulley’s husband was the first to point out the tension on Caroline’s face and she watched to see if she would maintain the lead.

Finally, with only one spitter left, she started to crack.

But all other spitters failed to measure up and she was announced the winner.

And what did she win for her efforts? A cruise? A $500 scholarship? A new pair of goggles?

NO.

The rest of the watermelon that they’d used for the contest.

Not to mention a shiny medal and the bragging rights that come with knowing you’ve out-spit every boy at the pool. And you can’t put a price on that because it’s the kind of thing you can put on future Miss Texas pageant applications.

Later on the kids all participated in the coin toss. Here they are right before the official whistle blew.

I think they each gathered upwards of $1.27 for their coin-collecting efforts.

And, FINALLY, it was time for the much-anticipated belly flop contest. I wasn’t nervous about it because I figured Caroline already had a medal for the day, but she had the eye of the tiger. She’d even put on her swim shirt, not because of my repeated warning about skin cancer, but in a strategic measure to lessen the pain of the belly flop.

She stepped up to the board.

And executed a perfect flop.

The crowd went wild. And she got her second first place medal of the day.

She said the key is to push past the pain. Which I believe is what I told myself seven years ago while I was in labor. Never could I have imagined that baby girl would grow up to be so delicate and dainty.

Then it was time for the boys’ belly flop competition. Gulley’s youngest, Will, had been practicing for hours. Honestly, I don’t know how his stomach wasn’t raw from all the practice flops, but he wanted a medal more than anything.

We were so nervous as he walked up to the board. This was his first belly flop competition. What if the nerves got to him? What if he cracked under the pressure?

He didn’t crack.

Will got his medal and if it’s possible to strut while you swim that’s exactly what he did as he made his way to the ladder to climb out of the pool.

Eventually we loaded up all our medal hardware and came back to our house to grill hot dogs and let the kids celebrate with some forbidden sparklers because we are just that rebellious and out of control.

The city is in the midst of a major fireworks ban thanks to the drought, but we figured a few sparklers couldn’t hurt. P really wanted to set off a few other things he had in the back house but I reminded him it’s all fun and games until the police issue you a $500 ticket.

I called Gulley yesterday morning to recap the day. She told me that Will had slept late and eventually come staggering out his bedroom still half asleep and asking for his medal. At that moment he was laying on the couch in his underwear, wearing his medal and watching Phineas and Ferb.

I like to believe the Founding Fathers celebrated similarly the day after the original 4th of July.

Or that maybe it’s what Simon LeBon is doing right now while his “vocal chords” heal.
I’ve always been partial to a scuba suit

Yesterday morning I met Gulley at 9:00 a.m. at Starbucks. We used to meet at Starbucks every Tuesday morning but then she started teaching preschool and that was the end of our Tuesday mornings. Basically, she chose a classroom of three-year-olds with questionable potty abilities over me. But I couldn’t really offer her a paycheck to meet me at Starbucks and spend the day shopping, although HOW GREAT WOULD THAT JOB BE? Not necessarily the coffee with me part because I tend to overshare and can sometimes be moody, but the shopping part would be perfection.

Speaking of shopping (this transition is a stretch), I feel like I need to share the specifics on the dresses Caroline and I wore for Easter because so many of you asked. And here’s where I confess that I swapped dresses with one of my friends because FREE is always the right price. That specific dress isn’t available anymore because she bought it last year, but this one is by the same designer and looks very similar. I recommend zipping it up before you wear it all day. That’s just a free style tip.

Oh, and my necklace came from Francesca’s, but I bought it a few years ago.

I found Caroline’s dress on Etsy from a shop called Kissing Kumquats. And P’s shirt came from Old Navy. No one asked, but I don’t want him to feel left out. Of course he didn’t even know he owned a new shirt until I showed it to him that morning and said, “This is what you’re wearing”. He’s like my very own Ken doll but without the ambiguous sexuality or the Corvette.

Anyway, Gulley and I sat outside at Starbucks even though the humidity was hovering somewhere around 115% and caught up on life. They’d been in Bryan for Easter so we hadn’t really talked in almost 48 hours and had so many important things to discuss like our hair and self-tanner.

After a little while, we headed out to shop. Our first stop was Nordstrom Rack and it did not disappoint. Gulley found a few things she’d been looking for and I mainly sat in the dressing room and offered unsolicited advice. I wasn’t really there to buy since I’ve already reached my $15.00 shopping quota for the month, but I did find one great pair of shorts that I had to buy because finding a decent pair of shorts is like discovering a farm filled with unicorns.

(Why a farm of unicorns? I don’t know. It’s what came to mind. Plus a ranch full of unicorns would be hard to manage and might not come with a big red barn and some friendly pigs with a spider that weaves magical webs living in a corner of the doorway.)

(It’s my unicorn farm. It can be anything I want it to be.)

We left The Rack and drove over to La Cantera because I always like to see what they have at Zara. Ultimately we ended up at the real Nordstrom since it’s one of our favorite places to eat lunch, largely due to the fries with the kalamata olive dip.

But Gulley wanted to make a quick run through the workout clothes before we ate lunch. And the workout clothes are located, appropriately enough, right next to all the new swim wear. It’s just one big section of sweeping judgement and condemnation for the sins of cinnamon rolls and missed workouts past.

We tried not to make eye contact with the swim wear, but got caught up in a spirit of optimism as we both recalled swimsuits from a few years back that we hadn’t hated. We thought maybe, JUST MAYBE, there might be a miracle waiting for us there amidst the racks. Ultimately, I told Gulley I wasn’t going to try anything on because I knew deep down in my heart that it would only serve to ruin my plan to eat way too many fries dipped in kalamata olive dip and I didn’t want to have a lunch consisting of lettuce, Diet Coke and regret.

However, Gulley ventured in because she saw a suit that seemed to hold some promise. She went into the dressing room while I checked the Twitter on my phone. The silence coming from the dressing room was deafening. And then the salesgirl walked in with a few more swimsuits for Gulley to try. I heard Gulley say, “Aw. That’s nice. Thank you but I’m done for today.”

As we walked towards the cafe’ I told her she was one of the bravest women I’ve ever known. And we agreed that being in your late thirties isn’t for the faint of heart. Then we ate a lot of fries dipped in kalamata olive dip and laughed until we cried over various things and went back to our happy place of swimsuit denial.

The reality is that I probably need to spend some time with my arch nemesis, Jillian Michaels.

However, I chose to go all Scarlett O’Hara and think about it tomorrow. But now tomorrow is today.

Dang.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Happy New Year. I hope 2011 is treating you well thus far.

It was treating me immensely well until I spent the day yesterday taking down all our Christmas decorations and vowing that I won’t use as many lights on the tree next year. Even though we all know that I’ll forget all the pine needle inflicted agony of the past few hours by next Christmas and will once again get caught up in all the festiveness and feel the need to use eighteen strands of lights on one tree.

But now the tree is down and the garland is gone and the toffee has been eaten. It’s time to return to real life. A life that requires me to wear pants that button and aren’t made of flannel.

We spent New Year’s Eve down at our friends’ ranch. Which is the same way we spent last New Year’s Eve and has become my favorite way ever to bring in a new year. There is something about being away from everything and just hanging out with friends you’ve known forever and eating a lot of chips and dip and homemade cheesecake and black-eyed peas.

After the kids spent Friday afternoon building forts and zooming back and forth on the zipline and the mamas spent the afternoon sitting on the front porch not doing one thing and the daddys made sure all the guns were sighted in and helped the kids catch a few perch, it was time for the evening hunt.

The mamas continued to sit on the front porch because it’s what we do best.

Meanwhile, P decided to take the big kids out for the hunt. But first they needed proper face paint.

Then they had the delight of looking at themselves in the rearview mirror.

And, finally, it was time for the mighty hunters to head out for the evening.

Sadly, they didn’t manage to shoot a deer. Which is shocking because CAMO FACE PAINT. You would think that would totally throw the deer off in spite of all the gum-smacking and hair flipping and loud stage whispers of “WHEN DO YOU THINK THE DEER ARE GOING TO SHOW UP?” and “DO YOU SMELL A TOOT?”

They did manage to shoot a very large male hog. And P said there were some discussions about its anatomy.

I’ll leave it at that.

The rest of the evening was spent lighting various fireworks and the kids loved it even though we couldn’t shoot off the massive aerial ones like we did last year since we’re in the middle of a drought and surrounded by dry grass. Nothing would kill a new year’s celebration like a massive grass fire.

After I took those stellar photos, I realized I was cold and went back inside with Julie and Gulley and we treated ourselves to some decaf coffee with a little Baileys Irish Cream which was a delightful addition to the celebration. I give it five stars.

Eventually all the revelers made their way back into the house and we waited to count down to the New Year while Will walked around trying desperately to pull his loose front tooth out of his mouth because he wanted to start 2011 off with some cold hard tooth fairy cash in his pocket. Alas, his efforts were in vain.

Gulley served as our official timekeeper. Mainly because we realized her watch was four minutes faster than everyone else’s and we were all ready to go to bed. We counted down from ten, hugged and kissed and HAPPY NEW YEARED, and then all went to our respective rooms and crashed for the next nine hours. Except for P who got up in time for the morning hunt because hunting never takes a holiday.

(I just made that up. I don’t know if hunting takes a holiday. I just know it doesn’t take a holiday at our house.)

After breakfast all the kids wanted to go for a ride in the Polaris. The mamas immediately strategized and managed to load all the kids and dads, Beverly Hillbillies style, into one vehicle.

And we opted for a ladies only cruise in our own vehicle.

It turned out to not be much of a safari. P said it was because the mamas talked so loud in our own vehicle that we scared everything off. However, we did manage to see this guy.

It was a rare sighting. Especially considering that you won’t be seeing his kind at any sort of bowl game this year.

(Just a little rivalry humor.)

(The Aggies play LSU this Friday in the Cotton Bowl. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. Mainly because Les Miles is insane and manages to win even when it doesn’t make sense.)

Anyway, we all went back to the house and I headed home with Gulley and her peeps while Caroline and P opted to stay and hunt the evening. I felt like I needed to get back and have a little time to get the house in order and enjoy some quiet. Plus it was totally worth riding home with Gulley because I got to sit by Will and he offered me multiple chances to pull his front tooth for him.

I passed.

After I got home I made myself a fire in the fireplace, turned on the Christmas tree one last time and just listened to all the silence. My inner introvert was in desperate need. I also managed to finish The Other Boleyn Girl which I’ve been reading for the last two weeks and haven’t been able to put down. I don’t want to ruin the ending but Anne Boleyn gets her head cut off.

And then I spent about an hour researching the history of the Reformation and the British monarchy like a big nerd. Of course my main source was Wikipedia so there’s a good chance that everything I read isn’t even true. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try to manipulate multiple future conversations to the topic just to so I can share my knowledge that may or may not be accurate.

Caroline and P made it home about 10:00. He said she talked non-stop all the way home which is always a sign that she’s exhausted and fighting sleep with everything in her. We all fell into bed and she and I didn’t wake up until 10:30 yesterday morning.

Then we spent the entire day in our pajamas taking down Christmas decorations.

Which means that Monday morning and the alarm clock are going to beat us like a rented circus monkey.

But other than that, 2011 is off to a good start.

(That picture doesn’t really go with anything but it makes me happy. So there it is.)
The days before Christmas

Well, it’s the night after Christmas and I’m sitting here on my couch with a few tears in my eyes because I just watched last year’s season finale of Friday Night Lights for the forty-second time and I never grow tired of watching Landry kick the game-winning field goal. I realize that’s probably a random thing to watch on the night after Christmas, but I’m officially over the Christmas movies and it seemed like a good choice.

I also seem to have a piece of glitter near my eye that I keep seeing in my peripheral vision and it’s driving me a little bit crazy. Alas, it’s the price you pay when you have a fondness for the ribbons with all the glitter.

So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that, other than Santa’s poor judgement in bringing Caroline some Aqua Sand, this may have been my favorite Christmas. I’m also going to say that after engaging in more Just Dance battles on the Wii than I can count, I better keep my day job. Not that I really have a day job. I choose to believe that what I lack in actual dance ability, I more than make up for in enthusiasm.

I feel like I failed to recount a lot of things we did during the days leading up to Christmas and now I need to record them for posterity. Feel free to move on to something on the internet that’s more interesting. I hear there’s a site called You Tube that has all sorts of videos and something called Google that let’s you search for all manner of information.

The Sunday before Christmas, Caroline and I drove down to the ranch to meet P. She spent some time with a little princess.

And the next morning she went hunting with her daddy and she shot a turkey.

I regret to inform you that its tailfeathers are currently in a Ziploc bag in my freezer. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to them, but I’m praying they don’t end up as some sort of wall decoration.

We drove home later that day because we had big plans to go to the Riverwalk with Mimi and Bops, my sister and my niece to eat dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, home of the overpriced souvenir cup and occasional indoor thunderstorm.

Please note that Caroline wore her jeggings. With a denim jacket. I don’t really recommend wearing them both at the same time, but she hasn’t heeded my clothing advice since she learned the word NO.

Later in the week we made sugar cookies while wearing our jammies.

My kitchen will never be the same again. I just have to resign myself to the fact that I’ll end up with festive sprinkles on the bottom of my feet anytime I walk through there until sometime around 2015.

I had a great girls’ night out with my Birthday Club group on Wednesday night. There is no photographic evidence of this. You’ll just have to believe it happened.

And then on Thursday, Caroline and I went over to Gulley’s to exchange Christmas presents with the boys. Look what Gulley bought Caroline.

In Gulley’s defense, I told her to buy the Snuggie because Caroline begs me for one every time she sees them at HEB. I just wanted to clear that up because otherwise Gulley would call me and worry that the people on the internet will think she is totally lame for buying a seven year old a Snuggie.

But I will have you know that when Caroline opened it up, she yelled, “FINALLY! FINALLY!!! FINALLY I HAVE MY VERY OWN SNUGGIE!!!!”

And at that point I thought I should just take back the rest of her Christmas presents and save myself some cash because her joy was complete. A snuggie. A zebra print snuggie. Who says $15 can’t buy happiness?

I think the kids all liked their gifts. Or maybe they were just all hyped up on sugar cookies and Dr. Pepper.

I feel like I’ve already used too many words and I haven’t even gotten to Christmas Eve. Plus it feels like the Arctic Circle in my living room right now and I need to go get in bed. Or find Caroline’s new snuggie.

I’ll continue the story of our Christmas tomorrow. I’m sure at least two of you will find it fascinating.

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For a chance to win a $100 gift card, make sure you visit my MasterCard MarketPlace review page.
A story about a book

Listen.

I was so happy to know that so many of y’all could embrace my decorating woes yesterday. I knew marriage was going to take some work along the way, but I had no idea that part of the deal was learning how to decorate around what used to be an 800 pound animal.

But today I am totally shifting gears. Of course I have to give you a little back story because that’s what I do.

Four score and seven years ago, I was facing my second senior year as a student at Texas A&M. It actually wasn’t quite that long ago, but it feels like it. Especially because I aged twenty years last night alone as I helped Caroline learn her lines for the second grade Christmas program.

Anyway, I was a lost soul during that time. I’d had my heart broken, called off an engagement, continued to chase after meaningless things I thought might make me happy, and spent enough time at bar called The Tap that I had my own VIP card. And was proud of it.

But life was starting to wear me down. I was tired, confused, lonely and walked around feeling empty most of the time even though I had plenty of friends and the occasional class to keep me occupied. Not to mention, I was terrified about the future because most companies aren’t really lining up to hire the girl who graduates while on scholastic probation and I hadn’t met the right boy to marry and solve all my problems.

Around that time, my friend Jennifer told me I needed to go with her to a Bible study called Breakaway. And it is a sign of how desperate I felt that I actually said yes and agreed to go. I walked into First Baptist College Station that night with low expectations. I’d grown up in church and had been really involved in my church youth group once upon a time, but I had fallen so far away from all that. Honestly, I felt like I was too far gone. God couldn’t possibly want me now.

We sat towards the back of the sanctuary and I remember two things as vividly as if they happened yesterday. The first was the minute the worship leader began to sing, I began to cry. Like ugly cry. The second thing was a young guy named Gregg Matte walked on stage and began to talk about how we are called to be children of God and to shine like stars in the universe.

(That happens to be in Phillipians 2, by the way.)

But more than that, he talked about grace and mercy and how God loves us more than we could ever imagine. I don’t know that it was the first time I’d ever really heard about God’s grace and love, but it was without a doubt the first time I really grabbed a hold of it and decided not to let go.

Over the next few months I actually became friends with Gregg and all of his friends. They were unlike any group I’d ever known. They talked openly about their faith and made decisions based on what they felt like God was calling them to do. I loved spending time with them because, without even knowing it, they challenged me to be the person God intended me to be and to quit settling for less.

By watching Gregg lead his life, I learned what it means to seek God’s will for your life. I’d heard people talk about it, but I’d never seen it in action. Especially not with someone my age. I knew Gregg had graduated with a degree in Marketing but decided to stay at A&M and continue to lead Breakaway Bible Study. And this was at a time when the economy was actually thriving and big firms were waltzing into the business school and offering what seemed like fat sums of money to starving twenty-two-year-old college students. I’m sure there were people that thought he was crazy for making the decision he did, but he knew it was his calling. Breakaway ended up growing to become the largest college Bible study in the nation and there is no way to measure how many lives it has affected.

And, ultimately, Gregg not only pointed me closer to Jesus. He pointed me to my dear husband who likes to hang antelopes in our living room. After I moved to San Antonio in the fall of ’94, he suggested that I should get in touch with P because we were both lonely and friendless. And that’s how he ended up being part of our wedding party almost three years later, just two weeks after P had been an usher in his.

Gregg Matte is now the head pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church. He and his wife, Kelly, are dear friends to P and me even though our lives rarely allow us to ever see each other anymore. But they fall in that category of people you know are your people even when life is busy because they are the real deal. We have seen them live out their faith and face hard times and live with hearts that seek God with all that they have.

Which is part of why I am so excited to tell y’all that Gregg has written a book.

It’s called Finding God’s Will: Seek Him, Know Him, Take the Next Step. He sent me a copy right before Thanksgiving and it is just so good. He has always been one of the best storytellers and his voice rings out in this book. It’s such a great combination of personal stories combined with practical wisdom about how we can hear God in our lives and know where He’s leading us.

No matter where you are in your journey with God right now, Finding God’s Will has so much to offer. If you’ve walked with God for a long time, it will inspire you to seek Him more. If you’ve never known Him at all, it will show you who He is and what He’s created you for. It’s about living a life that matters, a life that says you want to make a difference, a life that God is calling you to, whether you’ve heard Him yet or not.

I cannot recommend it enough.

Seriously. You need to read this book. Or maybe you just know someone who needs to read this book. I happen to fall in both those categories.

Finding God’s Will by Gregg Matte is on sale for $13.59 at Amazon right now.

Oh! And what do you know! It’s also on sale online at Barnes and Noble or available at your local Barnes and Noble store.

My only regret for this post is that I can’t find the picture of Gregg fishing with P at the ranch about twenty years ago. I don’t know if the fish were biting, but there were plenty of mullets to be found.

Y’all have a great day.
This isn’t the short version

I don’t even know how to put this weekend into words. But let’s all believe that I will now attempt to do that very thing as I ramble until I end up with approximately 1,000+ of them. I’d been looking forward to this past weekend for as long as I can remember and I came home feeling humbled, amazed, grateful, inspired, and exhausted.

That’s a lot to pack into one weekend. In fact, as I attempted to recount everything to P on Sunday night, I suddenly burst into tears for reasons I didn’t even understand. He just looked at me and said, “Wow. You are all hyped up on some estrogen after being around all those women.”

I don’t know if he’s ever been happier to be trapped on a couch with me as I share my feelings as he was at that moment.

So, let’s start from the beginning.

I was born in Houston, Texas on August 14, 1971.

Oh I kid. Although by the time I finish this post you may feel like my life story might be shorter.

On Thursday morning, my dad dropped me off at the airport for my flight to Birmingham. It was then that I realized I’d made a serious rookie mistake and forgotten to check in for my Southwest flight online. This resulted in a B 22 boarding pass which isn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but certainly isn’t ideal. But I breezed through security without any kind of inappropriate groping and that felt like a win. I stopped at Starbucks for the Grande Peppermint Mocha I’d been anticipating all morning, only to be told that they were out of peppermint. How does this happen? It’s Christmas time.

I boarded my flight and spent the next few hours reading all about Prince William and Kate Middleton, although she apparently wants to go by Catherine now. It looks like the wedding is going to be April 29 at Westminster Abbey and there is much debate about which tiara she’ll wear. I just thought you might want to know.

Also, I promise I’ll quit with all these meaningless details as I flounder for a storyline.

Once I arrived in Birmingham I checked into my hotel room and then headed to the arena to start my official event team duties even though I had no idea what those were and what I was doing. We spent the next few hours looking for walkie-talkies and pulling out reserved signs for various seats and getting things organized for the next day.

Later on I headed back to the hotel and Sophie came to pick me up for dinner. I’d thought we’d eat Mexican food, but we ended up going to eat at some fabulous restaurant downtown. It’s safe to say I’d tell you the name of it if I could remember. I just know I ate some pasta that changed my life and a tiramisu I’ll remember when I’m on my deathbed.

Friday was filled with putting signs on seats and filling gift bags and making sure the merch (love the merch!) was all ready to go. I’m sure there were other things involved but I was too busy walking around asking, “What am I supposed to be doing? Do I need to be somewhere?”

Bless their hearts, they decided to give me a walkie-talkie anyway. Probably because they knew I was going to be in dire need of guidance and direction.

My official role was Greeter Assist. Which means I was in charge of the volunteers at one of the arena entrances and had to fake an air of confidence and authority. Fortunately this is part of my skill set. It’s how I rolled for ten years as a pharmaceutical rep. “ABSOLUTELY NOT! THIS DRUG DOESN’T INTERFERE WITH THE CYP450 METABOLISM!”

Anyway, the doors opened at 5:30 and that’s about the last time I had a coherent thought that day. CRAZY TOWN.

On Saturday morning, Betsy (our LifeWay event team leader) told us to be packed and downstairs at 6:25. In the morning. The good news is I’d managed to get about four minutes of sleep the night before so I was ready to go with my bloodshot eyes and feet that felt like I’d walked on a bed of nails.

I went back to my post as Greeter Assist until the crowd died down and I found Kelly and Heather holding my contraband Starbucks. That Grande dose of caffeine may have been what saved me. It certainly was the only thing that gave me strength to work the merch tables selling $2.00 t-shirts.

But, seriously, I’ve attended a lot of LifeWay events over the last three years. However, I’ve never done the event team thing and I had NO IDEA what all goes into the entire thing. They work so hard to make the whole thing come together and the thing that impressed me the most was that everyone just does what needs to be done. (In editing this, the other thing that should impress me is the number of times I used the word “thing” in the last two sentences.) No one says that something isn’t their job or they’re too busy. They just go. And they have fun while they do it. I’d never met the majority of women on the team, but I loved every one of them by the end of the weekend.

Okay, so the other component of the weekend was a Compassion Bloggers’ Reunion. Amanda worked with Shaun Groves to organize a reunion of all the bloggers that have been on various Compassion trips. They all attended Deeper Still, but I didn’t really get to see any of them during the event because none of them were in line buying $2.00 t-shirts.

But Compassion hosted a dinner on Saturday night for all of us. So after the event ended, I changed out of my green Deeper Still t-shirt and into something a little more dinner-ish. (I don’t know what that means.) And then Kelly, Amanda, Heather and I piled into Sophie’s car in search of some caffeine and a place to kill a little time since the dinner didn’t start for another hour.

Which is how we ended up parked on a street in downtown Birmingham drinking various soft drinks from McDonalds. Sophie knows how to show some girls a good time. And she pretty much summed it up when she said, “Who would have ever thought I’d be parked in front of the McWane Center with a car full of people I met on the internet?”

We laughed and talked and told stories about our kids and other various things until we were crying and laughing. Then it was time to head to dinner at Cafe DuPont.

I could tell you about the restaurant and how much I loved it and how the dessert changed all my preconceived notions about the wisdom in combining cheesecake with acorn squash. (IT TURNS OUT THAT IT’S SO RIGHT AND GOOD.)

But none of that is the most important thing. The thing that mattered to me were the people in that room. The people whose words I’ve read and cried over and have been such an inspiration to me. (I honestly think I might have frightened Ann Voskamp a little. She is so graceful and beautiful and I went a little FAN GIRL on her.)

Steve Jones, who works for Compassion and went to the Dominican Republic with my group, stood up at dinner and told us that 5,000 kids have been sponsored through the Compassion blog trips. 5,000 little lives. I have no idea what part of that number is mine. It may be just one for all I know. (This is where I want to tell that story of the starfish on the beach but I will stop myself because seriously.)

It made me cry to hear that number. To be among people who took time out of their daily lives to write words that have ultimately led to impacting 5,000 lives. It’s humbling and it makes me want to do more and to live a life with purpose.

(Not that talking about the Real Housewives on the internet isn’t purposeful. Because, OF COURSE.)

Anyway, I have no way to wrap all this up in any kind of adequate way. It was just a great weekend filled with fun and friends and laughter and tears and so much more that will probably have to be another post at some point when I have the words.

So, for now, I’ll just leave you with this picture from the Compassion dinner. You’d think that after the weekend I had that I’d have a whole slew of pictures. But that would have involved taking my camera out of my purse.

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