You know, it’s not every day that someone rewards you for your total OCD tendencies.

But Carol from She Lives has rewarded (or awarded, I guess) me!

Remember my post on modifying Blogger templates? The realllly detailed one that made most of your eyes roll back in your head as you fell into a deep, peaceful, please-oh-please-no-talk-of-HTML sleep?

You know, this one?

Well, Carol liked it. :-)

It’s a fun surprise indeed to start off my Monday with a new box of bluebonnets to go in my sidebar. They’ll look real purty-like over there.

Thanks, Carol! I’m grateful to you and to Addie, too, since she is the one who took time to teach me some template tricks a few months ago.

I am officially encouraged. :-)

I was tagged by Chappyswife for this meme…

Accent: Y’all. Do I even have to answer that? Or AIN-sur thay-at?

Bible Book that I like: Ephesians. Why? Because I like me some Paul. But Paul wouldn’t want me to focus on him. So I guess I should say that I like the way God speaks through Paul. And I love the encouraging instruction for The Church.

Chore I don’t care for: Cleaning the bathrooms

Dog or Cat: Dog

Essential Electronics: Computer and cell phone (and the TiVo! I forgot the TiVo!)

Favorite Movie: Ocean’s Eleven – I know that’s pretty lame, but if I’m going to see a movie, I’m not terribly interested in An Important Message. I also like Coal Miner’s Daughter, Anchorman, Sixteen Candles, and anything featuring the lovely Ms. Julia Roberts as a romantic heroine.

Gold or Silver: Silver

Handbag I Carry Most Often: I have this big bronze hobo bag that is seemingly bottomless when I’m looking for my phone or my keys.

Insomnia: Yes. Thank you for asking.

Job Title: Servant – and I don’t mean that sarcastically at all. I really believe that my job is to serve my family, serve my friends, and serve my community by being obedient to God’s calling on my life.

Kids: 1 boy – 3 years old

Living Arrangements: We live in a Suburban McHouse that’s a little off the beaten path but close enough to everywhere we need to be.

Most Memorable Moment: Being pregnant. LOVED IT. Seriously. And the end result wasn’t so bad, either. :-)

Naughtiest Childhood Behavior: Probably the time Mama was driving down the road and I decided to throw the gearshift into neutral. She wasn’t happy.

Overnight Hospital Stays: For strep in the 12th grade, and then when I had Alex.

Phobias: Larvae / cocoon stages of anything. EWWWWWWW.

Quote: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” – Jim Elliott

Religion: I don’t like the word “religion.” Not even a little. But I am a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Just so we’re all clear and everything.

Siblings: I have an older sister and an older brother, who comment here frequently and SHOULD have blogs of their own because oh, the tales they could tell….

Time I Wake Up: As late as Alex allows.

Unusual Talent: Sister and Stacy made up what they called “Bizarro Language” when they were teenagers. I’m fluent in it. Can say or sing anything in Bizarro and freak you out as a result. Or “frarok yaro arot,” as it were.

Vegetable I Refuse to Eat: Radishes

Worst Habit: Procrastination. Once I get going on a project, I’m totally OCD, but if I don’t think I can do an EXCELLENT job at something, I put it off.

X-rays: Lots. I’m as clumsy as the day is long. With the most recent incident being this one.

Yummy Stuff I Cook: D. likes my homemade macaroni and cheese and country fried steak the best. I think homemade chocolate pudding is the best thing I make – it’s my Mamaw Davis’ recipe. My pork tenderloin is pretty tasty, too.

Zoo Animal I Like Most: Does the carousel count?

And I tag Melanie, Melissa, and Paulette. And whoever else wants to do this. :-)

Last night around 10:30 I was beside myself with wanting to go to sleep. I was tired and the slightest bit grumpy and I just wanted to get UP IN THE BED.

But D.’s office / TV room is right below our bedroom, and he and Benji – two 30-something men, mind you – were playing XBox downstairs with the surround speakers cranked up to OH MY SWEET MERCY THE WALLS ARE SHAKING, and about once every two minutes I heard some variation of “HEY!” or “WHOA!” or “OHHHHHH – I GOT YA!” or, when it really got good,

“THAT!

WAS!

AWESOME!”

And even though I was tired, and even though I was practically dreaming of sleeping, no way – NO WAY – would I have gone downstairs and asked them to be quiet or turn it down. No way.

Because hearing them have so much fun makes me way too happy. And they were having much fun indeed.

One of the biggest blessings in my life is that I can honestly say that I love my husband’s friends. Maybe it’s because D. and I have such similar senses of humor, but the guys he hangs out with are people I’d hang out with, too. There’s not a single friend whose character I question. Or who I’d mind being on vacation with us. Or – even better for me – whose wife I don’t love just as much.

D. probably has four or five friends who he talks to on a regular basis, but only a couple of them live here in town. So when he gets to see them for any extended period of time, I try to make it as easy on them as I can. No pleas from me to do anything other than what they want to do. No demands on their time. No task on the honey-do list that can’t wait until another weekend.

The funniest thing about D. and Benji is that they speak some cryptic guy language indecipherable to Brandie and me. One of them can say, “Hey. Look. Corn.” and they’ll both fall over laughing, while Brandie and I just stare at them, wondering what in the world is the cause for such hysterics. Friday night at supper the topic of Benji going to the dentist came up, and within about two minutes B. and D. were giggling like a couple of second grade boys who just heard someone say the word “bootie.”

I still have no idea what was so funny.

Their time together has been a little different this visit because there are a couple of little boys who want to be with their daddies every waking second. Who want to watch them play video games. Who want to hang out on the deck and grill. Who want to scream “WHOA” and “NO WAY” just like the big boys do. And I think that D. and Benji haven’t minded the inconvenience too much, because it makes them grateful that their boys look up to them like they do. It’s affirmation that they’re doing their daddy jobs well.

But since the big boys have let the little boys hang out with them so much, Brandie and I ran interference this afternoon so that B. and D. could have some uninterrupted time to play video games that little eyes don’t necessarily need to see. Games with machine guns and blood and stuff. And a little while ago, when the big guys finally came upstairs to join the rest of us, the little guys nearly jumped through the roof. And as I watched Alex and P. run in circles while Benji and D. were cracking one liners in the kitchen – one liners that made no sense to me whatsoever – I thought about what a different world they inhabit.

It’s a world where there’s a visceral need to see things explode and burn and shatter (even if it’s just on XBox). A world where something you can plug in is an object of instant fascination. A world where words are fewer and noises are most definitely louder. Not to mention funnier. And a world where something that plugs in and produces loud noises is, well, gold.

I am so very thankful, in ways I can’t even explain, for reasons I can’t even articulate, that D. has some great, godly friends who walk through that world with him.

And I hope I never take that – or them – forgranted.

Oh, where to start?

First, let me start with Lea Margaret. They got to the hospital this AM for Mac’s surgery, and within about five minutes they found out that the heart surgeon had been called in at 2 in the morning to do a heart transplant. So Mac’s surgery has been postponed for another week – it’s next Friday, the 14th, at 12:30.

LM and family are on their way home to Mississippi and will go back to N’ville next week. She said that she’s a little disappointed – they were just ready to have put this chapter behind them, understandably. But she did ask that you continue to pray for them as they prepare for next week’s surgery, and to also pray for the two families affected by the heart transplant…the family who lost a child, and the family whose child is receiving the heart. Perspective-wise, she said, what her family is dealing with is absolutely nothing in comparison.

Second, Martha’s birthday luncheon. And I say “luncheon” because you don’t get real food at luncheons. At a lunch, at least in this part of the world, you get hearty food: fried chicken, vegetables, rolls, cobbler, etc. At a luncheon, however, you get what I listed in the title of this post. And you also get some of your child’s macaroni and cheese, because three year olds aren’t so thrilled when their mac and cheese contains asiago cheese, parmesan cheese and sun dried tomatoes. I, however, enjoyed it very much.

And just so you know, our car headed instinctively to Burger King approximately one hour after the luncheon was over. :-)

But all that is sort of beside the point, because the food was not the reason for the trip – Martha’s birthday was. And she had a LARGE time.

Here’s Alex with the birthday girl.

And here’s A. with his great-grandmother, Sissie – 96 years young.

My favorite part of the whole day was when we were picking up Martha and Sissie for lunch, and Sissie was calling for Martha to do something or other – get her purse, get her cane, hurry up, etc. – and Alex listened for a second, then looked at me, and just like a little tape recorder said, “Maah-thah, can you come he-ah?”

Big fun for all on hand.

Happy Weekend, y’all.

1) We’re heading out on a quick day trip to Mississippi for my mother-in-law Martha‘s birthday luncheon. And yes, it will be very much a “luncheon” as opposed to a “lunch,” and no doubt we have big fun in store what with trying to tame a three year old bronco in a luncheon setting.

Which reminds me: has anyone ever left one of those little luncheon things where they serve you 2 tablespoons of chicken salad, some finger sandwiches and a handful of grapes – and then an hour or two after you leave your car almost instinctively heads to the nearest McDonald’s because oh sweet mercy, the hunger?

Because that might have happened to me. Once or thrice.

Maybe.

Also, being with D.’s mother guarantees that when we get back here later this afternoon and D. tells me that we’re out of milk or something like that, I will lapse into Martha-speak and say, “Really? REALLY?!? You don’t mean! Oh – YOU DON’T MEAN!”

2) Y’all’s comments? From “the pickle post”? Kept us laughing all day yesterday. And last night. And I’m still chuckling a little bit this morning. When I posted it, I was, as my friend Laura’s mother would say, “as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers” – not sure exactly how people would react – so it made me very relieved and very grateful to see all those comments. Thanks for that.

3) My sweet friend Lea Margaret emailed me earlier this week and asked me if I’d share something with y’all.

Her little boy, Mac, who’s 2 1/2, is having open heart surgery at Vanderbilt today. He was born with a hole in his heart, and after vigilant monitoring of his condition over the last couple of years, his doctors decided a couple of months ago that it was time to correct the problem surgically.

So would you pray for their family today? For Lea Margaret and her husband, Chris…for the doctors and nurses at Vanderbilt…for Mac’s recovery…and that they would all be comforted by God’s peace and His promises. The surgery is scheduled to begin at 12:30 this afternoon – thanks in advance for your prayers.

Later, internets.

Yesterday when I was making lasagna during Alex’s nap, the phone rang, and it was our friend Benji, who said hey, what were we doing this weekend, because he and his family were thinking about packing up the car and heading to our house, you know, within the hour. And just so you know: they live about 400 miles away. In Louisiana.

After a little juggling of our weekend schedule, D. called him back and said, “COME ON.” So Benji, Brandie and their little boy left their house around 7 last night and got to our house about 1 o’clock this morning. They’re staying until Sunday. And we are tickled to death.

We are so happy to have them here, mainly because they’re some of our favorite people in the whole wide world. They’re the kind of friends who require no extensive cleaning-up, no putting on of make-up or “real” clothes until long after breakfast, no planning, no organizing, no adjusting.

But being with them does require talking, laughing, guffawing, kidding, needling, and XBox playing. And now that Alex is old enough to really play with P. – who refers to A. as “my cousin” – being together requires watching our boys have big fun together. So all in all, time with their family is just EASY. Laid-back. Fun.

You know, when I was younger and pictured my life in my 30’s, I thought that I’d be a person who did lots of “entertaining.” I thought I’d have dinner parties and use all my fine china on at least a weekly basis. I thought I’d invite over an eclectic cross-section of people to sample a creative array of appetizers. I pictured that I’d be able to chat with my guests about a wide range of topics, from theatre to photography to literature. That I’d know the difference between a pinot noir and a cabernet and a merlot. And that I’d care about those things.

But what I’ve realized, after marriage, and a kid, and a few years of being 30-something, is that while all that stuff is okay, and while for some folks it has its place, those things just aren’t meaningful to me. I can’t do life without genuine community and fellowship with other people. And the older I get, the more I want some substance behind the conversations, some intention behind the relationships, and some REAL beneath the surface.

I’m grateful that this weekend, without a doubt, will be the real deal: cooking out on the grill, chasing kids in the backyard, cleaning up the kitchen, watching some HGTV, laughing until our sides hurt, listening to each other’s stories, promising we’ll never tell some of them, staying up way too late for our own good, worshipping together on Sunday morning, and vowing – when it’s time for them to go home – that it won’t be so long before we get together again.

So I’m about to shut down the computer and hang out with our friends. I’ll cook dinner and “entertain” them – just as I imagined doing so many years ago – but we’ll be using the everyday dishes for the grown-ups and the Exclusive Elmo Collection (Plastic Edition) plates for the kids. And yes, we’ll have appetizers – a little sliced cheese, a few potato chips, some “party dip” that comes in a tub from the grocery store. Fancy. And we’ll cover a wide array of topics, all right: faith, marriage, parenting, TiVo, movies, and more. And though I still don’t know a thing about wine, I’ll be able to speak with authority on the differences between diet Coke, diet Pepsi and diet Dr. Pepper.

And I DO care. Deeply.

Because conversation trumps small talk. Because substance trumps flash. And because real life trumps dream world.

Every single time.