Musings on Life in General

First True Nashville Celebrity Sighting

Jack White, outside Fulin's in Brentwood, approximately 8pm at the end of a nearly perfect day.

Chadd rocks my face off.

That is all.

(Perhaps over the holidays I will have time to a) finish my England journal and b) post a for real blog... we'll see. "For real," of course, is open to interpretation.)

Yeah, I haven't posted. Sue me.

Well, please don't really sue me. Honestly, I get bored talking about myself, and things have been busy. My old computer finally died, as in good and dead, so I got a long-coveted MacBook. Love it. Three Thanksgivings. Lots of church stuff. One day the England journal will be done... if you're lucky. For now, I leave you with:

Dead mice: 5
Alive mice: 2
Mousetraps placed: 9
Holes discovered in apartment walls so far: 4
Holes fixed in apartment walls so far: 2
Calls to apartment office: 6

Sappy apartment resident who, upon finding dead mouse in glue trap, thought aw, he's still kind of cute in a really gross way and that was probably a really bad way to go: 1

Christmas present

In other news, I received my first fruitcake today. I'm intrigued.

England: Day 6

I know that the four of you who still read this blog in faint hopes of new posts have been very concerned that I left you in the middle of our England trip. Fear not. I was out of town but now am back!

Day Six - that would be Wednesday - was the last day of our HBC. Highlights included Lynn as Elijah ("Is that a man or a woman?!" - we think the eyeliner threw the kids off), everyone wearing their tie-dye shirts, more sketches, more singing and the Jungle Olympics. It was our last day with a lot of the kids, although a lot of them were around for the youth weekend since their parents helped out. Paul said they had several new kids come that week, which is fantastic.

Wednesday afternoon began our Magical Mystery Tour. The MMT had been the source of much discussion. Here's the summary: Last year's group didn't do a youth weekend, so they flew in and out of London and did a couple of days there at the end of the trip. Because our schedule was different with the youth weekend, we had Wednesday afternoon through Friday morning off between the HBC and youth weekend. So originally we were planning on going to Ireland for a day and a half. Well, plane ticket prices tripled in a week, making that quite out of the question. So, the fabulous Michelle took on the task of planning a trip where no one else knew where we were going, all on a very limited budget.

So Wednesday afternoon the awesome and fantastic Jason drove us to London's Stansted Airport, where we gathered around in a circle and waited with bated breath (I've always wanted to say that) to hear our destination. Michelle handed us all envelopes. We opened them to see, in bold and Italic type, "BELLA ITALIA!" Woohoo!

Off we flew to Bologna. Or, should I say, to a tiny airport an hour outside of Bologna. After adventures at the train station trying to get to our hostel (Kevin attempted to sell his etch-a-sketch drawings for bus fare), we finally wound up getting in three taxis. We had a good time with our driver. He had the radio on and Aretha Franklin or someone came on. He goes (in Italian accent), "Do you like the seventies music? Eighties? James Brown? Aretha Franklin? Superfreak? Do you like Superfreak?" Awesome.

More pictures are here. Tomorrow: Venezia!

England: Day Five

Tuesday was Zaccheus Day at the HBC. Things went much more smoothly than Monday (always do the second day, I guess). Highlights included another fabulous video, Kevin as Zaccheus, lots of coloring, and the photographic talents of Tristan and Bradley.

After the coloring, there was drama, games, more singing...

...and a special happy birthday song for Lynn!

We had the afternoon free for a trip to Nottingham. Yep, as in Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, all that Nottingham. We did a little sightseeing, a little shopping, and then... Wagamama. Those of you who know me know how I felt about that. Seven years, readers. Seven years since I'd had a proper bowl of chicken ramen.

After dinner we headed back to Loughborough for youth night at the church. We had a devo (involving the Simpsons - sweet), ate, sang once more to Lynn, then played the world's longest game of Mafia. Seriously.

Tomorrow...the end of the HBC and the Magical Mystery Tour. You know you're intrigued.

England: Day Four

Monday was the first "official" day of the HBC. Actually, let me back up. Monday started at about 1:30 am when Bethy dropped her last insulin pen in Mark's toilet. (It's not quite as ridiculous as it sounds... but it is funny. Now.) So Monday, for Bethy and Paul, consisted of going to doctors and pharmacies and attempting to get medicine while attempting to not allow Beth to get really sick. Fun times. Anyway, back to the rest of us. I think Monday a few of us - myself most prominently, in my mind - had a small mental breakdown. For some reason, rather than staying with the center that Keith and I were in charge of, I thought it would be a great idea to go with the little kids to crafts and snacks. Do not ask me why. I am perplexed. The whole day was kind of crazy - covering all the details we (I) hadn't thought of, all that. We made it through; that's what I'll say about it. We made it through and the kids not only appeared to have a good time and learn some things, but came back the next day. So that was a plus. They really liked the tie-dye t-shirts we did to "tie" in with our Lydia theme (get it?!).

Monday afternoon was mostly spent running more errands (I'm pretty sure we went to Sainsbury's more days than we didn't) and getting everything ready for Tuesday and Wednesday, now that we knew what we were doing.

We were supposed to go to Jason and Debbie's house for dinner, but since Paul (who was supposed to drive us) and Beth didn't make it back to the church until six, Debbie - the awesome and amazing Debbie - brought dinner to us. Yum. Dinner was followed by male bonding at the cinema and the women's Bible study, at which Michelle made us all cry with her selection of reading material. It was a good cry, though.

The day ended with a little girly sleepover chat at Mark's. On to Tuesday... hooray.

England 2006: Day Three

Sunday, October 22: The sun arose upon seven girls getting ready for church in a bachelor pad with one bathroom. I have to say, I think we did pretty well. Sunday morning was the only time we were with the whole church. It was so great to see the feeling of family that's there. I know we Nashvillians like our big churches, but it is so hard to know everyone and have the feeling of community church is supposed to have when we're in that situation. In Loughborough, the big kids were playing with the little kids, grownups were holding other people's kids, it was total family.

After church they fed us a yummy lunch, then a few of us went to Sainsbury's to get fixings for the banana splits. I should explain here that the theme for the HBC was "Going Bananas!" It was all about people who have done crazy things for God. So there was a definite tropical theme in the decor (awesomely done by the Loughborough church), and for the kickoff Sunday night, we had banana splits.

After our Sainsbury's trip we arrived to find... luggage! Hooray! It was extremely exciting. We had some tea and biscuits to celebrate (you should just infer that this is a daily occurrence).