We’re in Memphis right now, here to celebrate my nephew’s 8th birthday. I had high hopes of Alex conking out in the car and sleeping for at least three hours of our four hour drive, but instead he opted for the 20 minute catnap and talked. the. whole. way.

And he talked about the same four topics: his cousins. Memphis. Finding Nemo. And his Aunt Janie. Though I love my child with everything in me, I don’t know when I’ve ever been so happy to reach a destination.

I would also like to point out that it is 9:24 and my brother has still not finished grilling the chicken that he put on the grill at 7:15. He says that it’s because the chicken breasts are the size of turkeys. Personally I think we should squirt a little lighter fluid on those coals and char those yardbirds but good, but I’ve relinquished my chef’s hat for the evening. And my brother is quite the grill chef, so I guess he knows whereof he speaks. Worst case scenario: the chicken will be a delicious lunch tomorrow.

There’s never a dull moment in this neck of the woods – so there should much bloggity goodness to follow (my brother is what we Southerners refer to as “a character” – he keeps things lively, and he keeps me laughing).

Have a good night, everybody!

Thirteen Things I Should Be Embarrassed To Tell You But I’m Not Because I Obviously Have No Pride
1. I do not know how to text message. I mean, I know HOW, but I can’t do it well. I COULD send you a text message, but I wouldn’t finish it until 2009, at which point the news would be somewhat old. So I’m sticking with email.

2. When I’m downstairs in my husband’s office and I survey his vast electronic universe, I have to ask for assistance to even turn on the television. And if the DVD player or TiVo is involved? I just hand him the remote and point to the device I need.

3. If I catch sight of an insect, no matter where I am, I immediately pull my feet up off of the floor and hop from one piece of furniture to another until I find a perch that I feel will remain off said insect’s path. And then I yell for D. to come and kill it. I think this particular strain of paranoia / OCD stems from An Unfortunate Cockroach Incident when we lived in Louisiana – where the cockroaches are the size of small housecats – and one crawled across my leg when we were watching television. I bet, if you think back to 1998 really, really hard, you’ll remember hearing me scream.

4. Surprisingly, I have never intentionally touched an insect. I’m sure you’re shocked after reading #3.

5. I made an F in a course in graduate school. It was the semester that I fell head over heels for D., and Utopian literature didn’t hold much appeal – not that it held much appeal pre-falling head over heels, to tell the truth. I kept thinking I would catch up on my coursework, but the end-of-semester deadline hit, and I received a note from the professor that said (OUCH), “I’m sorry you were unable to submit any papers for grading. Course grade: F.” So I ended up in summer school to make up the hours. And yes, I plan to delete this post before Alex is old enough to read.

6. When I was in sixth or seventh grade, I covered one of my notebooks with pictures of Rick Springfield. AND if that weren’t enough, I changed the words of “I Love Rock-n-Roll” to “I Love Rick Springfield,” and it went a little something like this: “I love Rick Springfield, so take another look at his fine face, baby; I love Rick Springfield, so come on take your time and dance with me.” Okay, so maybe I only changed a few words. But still.

7. I consider this to be one of the greatest inventions of my lifetime. Okay, at least of my blogging lifetime.

8. When I was in seventh grade, I wrote a fan letter to Duran Duran that incorporated many of the titles of their 80’s hits. All together now: GOOOOOOOB.

9. I am a total OCD traveler in that I LOVE TO PACK A SUITCASE. I love to think about everything that I might need, and organize all my toiletries, and get the big huge Ziplocs for shampoo, and oh just thinking about it makes me a little giddy.

10. The inside of my car is a disaster. DISASTER, I say verily unto you. But I’m cleaning it out before we hit the road today. I really am.

11. One time I cooked for an event at church – did a big ole meal for about 100 people – and I used 32 (THIRTY TWO!) sticks of butter. Surprisingly, no one’s heart stopped during or immediately after the festivities. But our friend Kevin did leave the luncheon to have an emergency root canal. I’m not sure if the dental work was butter-related or not.

12. Since that time, I’ve learned that when quadrupling recipes, you don’t necessarily have to quadruple the butter. In fact, doubling it will do just fine. And my church friends’ arteries just thanked me.

13. I just realized that this post is #324 for me – THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR – which is even more disturbing in light of the fact I really only write when Alex is napping or in bed for the night. So I think it’s fitting that I close this post with the following declaration: “My name is BooMama. And I’m a blogaholic.”

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

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…a headache! Seriously! The kind that sends you to the doctor!

Now what I had today was not a full-blown migraine, to be sure – I never threw up, and I eventually got to the point where I could drive myself to the doctor (and I know full well that when Sister has her migraines, she can’t sit up long enough to find her keys, much less get herself in a moving vehicle and operate it). But because I’ve only had about four headaches in my life, and because today’s was the worst of the lot, I was convinced that I was dying. And oh, after today, do all you migraine sufferers ever have my sympathy. I don’t know how you ever find a space quiet enough to recover.

I had a twinge of behind-the-eye throbbing when I got up this morning, but I’d slept a little later than usual, so I thought maybe I was having some caffeine withdrawal. Then Alex and I headed to the zoo with some friends, and I medicated myself with a large diet Coke, thinking surely to goodness the caffeine would work its magic. But by lunchtime I had a pretty clear understanding that caffeine would not be the cure-all…and I wanted to get home. Fast.

The funny thing (and I say “funny” because, really, you have to laugh to keep from crying) about having a headache with a three year old in the house is that children pretty much do the opposite of everything you need. When I finally found a position on the couch that didn’t make me feel like my left eye was going to detach from my head, Alex took care of me by screaming things like, “ARE YOU OKAY, MAMA? ARE YOU SICK?” while he climbed up my legs so that he could pummel me gently on the shoulder.

After about 30 minutes of that, I knew I was out of my headache league, and I called the doctor to see if he’d phone in a prescription – which he wouldn’t, because since I’ve never been a headache sufferer before, he wanted to see me. Of all the doctors in the land, I have to have the one who’s “sensible” and “responsible” – even though this was a day when I would have preferred one of those doctors who fills up your purse with a veritable cornucopia of narcotic samplers. A pain-killer buffet, if you will.

After another hour on the couch, I had been still long enough so that my head was what mama used to call “easy,” and I now understand that by “easy” she meant that the elves in my temple that had formerly been using sledgehammers to pound the area behind my left eye had switched to regular hammers, and it was really so much better, relatively speaking. So off we went to the doctor’s office.

Long story long – the headache was the result of a particularly nasty sinus infection, and after a shot of some delightful medication called deca-somethingorother, I am pain free. A little woozy, to be sure, but happy beyond measure that those pesky elves behind my eyeball have been sedated.

And you know what’s even better? I have some really cute pictures of A. at the zoo. Wanna see?

Our zoo has a really big area where the water shoots up from the pavement, and oh, the joy that filled Alex’s soul…it was so fun watching him. It was extra fun because the tables and chairs for the parents are in the shade, oh thank you Jesus.

And it makes me happy that carousels are still in vogue with the toddler set – nothing beats those sweet smiles.

So I’m going to take a hot bath with some rosemary mint stuff I found in the pharmacy (I love me some aromatherapy), and hopefully will be a brand new woman tomorrow.

At the very least I’ll be clean and medicated. Everybody needs a goal.

For lots of reasons, this post by Toni blew me away.

Y’all click on over and give her a warm bloggity welcome. :-)

You’ll be encouraged.

Let’s just take several topics from the last few days and wrap them up in some festive paper with a lovely bow on top, shall we?

1. Based on your comments and some serious over-analysis on my part, I’m gonna leave the blogging church people alone. Here’s what I figure: if they wanted me to know they were blogging, they would’ve told me. Now if it comes up in conversation and I decide to tell them about my own blog and they’d like to visit, fine. But since I do know them, and since they haven’t told me about their blogs, then I don’t want to trample on their territory. Put it this way: if they were all having a picnic, and I found out about it, I wouldn’t just show up. The thing is, I wouldn’t care at all if one of them stopped by here and commented…but since I don’t know what their blogging boundaries are, I’m going to assume they’re pretty rigid and keep my distance. At least until I change my mind. :-)

2. I’m officially not posting what I wrote for the LBY study this past weekend. I talked to D. about it Saturday, and he thought it would probably be wise to leave it off the blog – and we got major, 100% confirmation last night that it was the right thing to do. Just because I feel strongly about something does not always mean that I need to share it with the world. The irony is that NOT posting actually confirmed what I learned last week in the study about being humble. Posting what I wrote, telling y’all how I felt about a certain something – it would’ve been really cathartic for me. But sometimes – and in this case in particular – it just ain’t about me. I actually exercised more gentleness – the topic we were studying – by leaving well enough alone. And I hereby abandon this vaguest of all vague topics.

3. D. got the chance to continue his home improvement marathon today when he and our neighbor Jimmy used some form of metal-melting tool to fix our lawnmower. D. described all the sautering to me with pure love in his eyes, said he even got to wear protective goggles, and told me that he and Jimmy looked like Stormtroopers as they worked in the garage. D. also got to cook on the grill not once but twice today, then discuss how to kill ants over supper, so I think all in all it’s been a fine Memorial Day weekend for him.

4. Not that anyone, you know, CARES, but I’m probably going to be a sporadic blogger this week. Alex and I are heading out of town this Thursday, and I have a bunch to get done Tuesday and Wednesday. A haircut is a top priority…those of you who have never seen me don’t know that I usually love me a funky haircut – the more pieces sticking out all over my head, the better – but my hair has gotten so long (it’s touching my shoulders – I might as well be Crystal Gayle) that I can actually pull it back into a ponytail. Clearly the sun will be hurling itself toward the earth any moment now. GOT TO GET IT CUT. And I’m sure you’ll be surprised, but I’m cooking for a dinner at church this Sunday night, so there’s lots of grocery shopping to do before I head out of town, because I’ll have to HIT IT when we get home Saturday afternoon.

5. Seeing the cast of “Grey’s Anatomy” on Oprah today has me considering renting the season 1 DVD’s. Daphne, pick yourself up off of the floor. It is VERY difficult for me to get on board with a TV show unless I watch it from the first episode, but I’m considering playing catch-up with this one. I know, I know – MAJOR comfort zone step-out on my part. I typically don’t like medical shows (never been an “ER” fan), but I’m increasingly willing to give this one a chance. Nothing like jumping on a bandwagon, huh?

Have a great week, everybody!

Lauren tagged me for this “spiritual meme,” which is a mighty good thing indeed because I have nothing to say this morning…that is, I have nothing to say unless it’s an attempt to answer the constant barrage of questions that Alex is firing at me (Where are my brown shoes? Where are you, mama? Can I see my daddy? Who’s that, Mama? What’s that for? Can I watch Noggin? Can I have some turkey? Is that Mr. Jimmy? Can I see Clay Clay? And on. And on.) At some point I believe that my head will spin off its axis, land in the middle of the floor, and Alex won’t have a single reaction except to say, “What happened, Mama? Can I touch it? Can I put it back on? Can we take it to the park? Please, Mama?”

Sorry. Needed to vent. :-)

Now on with the meme.

What is your life verse?
I had never heard the phrase “life verse” until we moved here and I went to work at a Christian school that used this phrase all the time, and I realized that I had a life verse and didn’t even know it…a verse that I’d been clinging to for almost twenty years, but I just called it “my favorite verse.” Here it is (I’m sure the suspense is killing you): “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.” – Ephesians 3:20-21

Give a bit of your testimony.
I don’t have a dramatic, rousing testimony…I grew up in the Methodist church and accepted Christ when I was 13 years old. From that point on, I was consistently inconsistent in my walk…there were lots of highs and lows and ups and downs. There have been times in my life when I knew that God was calling me into a deeper relationship with Him – and I would “dig deep” for a period of time, then drift away again.

I think one of the reasons for this pattern is that I lacked a strong Biblical foundation, so I wasn’t advancing much on the spiritual maturity chain. And then I went through a phase in my early 20’s where I was very disillusioned with the church, very cynical about organized religion, and I decided that I would just be “spiritual” but pretty much had no need for community or fellowship with believers. It wasn’t a terribly fun time.

When I was in my late 20’s, I got a job teaching in a Christian school, and the fact that that happened at all is a TOTAL miracle, because trust me when I tell you that I was not looking to teach in a Christian school – especially a Baptist one. :-) But that was really the first step into what has become a sustaining, steady faith – it was the beginning of a huge period of growth for me. D. and I found a church that we loved, and our time there helped us to release a lot of our ‘baggage’ from the church where we grew up.

When we moved here, I was almost immediately enveloped by a circle of Christian friends. It took us awhile to find a church home, but when we did, it changed our lives. We have learned more about the Bible in the last four years than we did in all the previous years combined. We’ve learned about community, and fellowship, and really investing in people. More than anything, I’ve learned to serve others – something I resisted for so long.

Do you have a favorite preacher?
I have several. Our friend Kevin, who’s on staff at our church, is an incredible teacher and faithfully preaches God’s Word without putting himself in the middle of the message. As an added bonus, he cracks me up. Beth Moore is my favorite Bible study teacher, bar none.

What’s the best Bible Study you’ve ever done?
Beth Moore’s Believing God – hands down. Life changing.

What do you feel God’s calling is on your life?
I could write paragraphs on all the specific ways I think I’m supposed to serve and live out my faith, but I can pretty much boil it down to one simple phrase: to love God and love people. The primary way that manifests itself right now is by serving D. and Alex first – however I can – and I feel very, very fortunate that I have a couple of other ministry “outlets” that enable me to serve teenagers as well as new members in our church.

And I can’t explain it, but I feel like God has a plan for this writing stuff that I do (proof of my abilities: the phrase “writing stuff,” which reveals deep levels of giftedness). I don’t mean a book or anything like that – my lack of imagination prevents me from writing more than five or six paragraphs at a time – but I just feel like He’s showing me that there’s more I could be doing with writing than I am right now. What that might be, I have absolutely. no. idea.

I think this meme has pretty much made the rounds, but if you haven’t used it yet, consider yourself tagged.

Happy Memorial Day, everybody!