I am probably not what you would call a sentimental person.

It’s not that I don’t treasure my memories and all that stuff. Obviously I do because I write about them, well, A LOT.

But I’m not really somebody who holds on to another time in my life and thinks, “Well, THAT WAS THE BEST ANYTHING COULD HAVE EVER BEEN.” I don’t sit around and reminisce a lot. And I absolutely, positively don’t romanticize the past. I’m much more of a here and now kind of girl.

So when it comes to music, I typically don’t listen to certain stuff over and over just because it reminds me of a certain time in my life. Oh, I might give in to a minute or so of nostalgia (Buddy Jewell’s Sweet Southern Comfort, for example, ALWAYS reminds me of when Alex was a baby), but by and large I don’t hold on to music just because it’s from a specific time period. I still listen to some 90s music because, well, I think that lots of the 90s music is awesome, but I generally don’t listen to 80s music because, well, I think that lots of that music is terrible.

(I am not talking about the duets.)

(The 80s did duets better than anyone ever has.)

(I am also not talking about old George Michael music because every bit of that is classic – at least in my mind.)

I’ve been kind of obnoxiously vocal about my disdain for most 80s music, and whenever my husband leaves the car radio on 80s on 8, for example, I might / occasionally / perhaps / sort of roll my eyes and think, “WE ARE NOT TEENAGERS ANYMORE – IT MIGHT BE TIME TO LET SOME OF THIS STUFF GO.” I don’t have an 80s playlist on my iTunes, I don’t look up old videos on YouTube (well, maybe this one or this one – because DRAMA), I don’t miss the days when the marks of a good song were a whole lot of saxophone and random distorted sounds from a synthesizer.

So all that to say: yesterday I did something completely unexpected.

For the last couple of days I’ve been thinking about high school a lot (because of some stuff I’ve been working on), and early yesterday afternoon I had the strangest, almost visceral need to hear the St. Elmo’s Fire soundtrack. It is like NOTHING ELSE WOULD DO, and I wanted to listen to every bit of it: the upbeat songs, the ballads, the instrumentals – THE WHOLE DADGUM THING.

And fortunately, iTunes was able to help me in my time of need.

Y’all. Listening to the St. Elmo’s Fire songs has been like crawling in a time machine and traveling back to the late 80s. I don’t think I even saw the movie until I was out of high school (I wasn’t old enough to get in an R-rated movie when it came out), but the songs – OH, THE SONGS. I am alternately fascinated and horrified by the fact that I remember all of the words, and it makes me laugh when I think about listening to all of the angst-y lyrics when I was 15, 16, 17 years old. There were just SO MANY FEELINGS.

And somehow, over the last 24 hours, I’ve managed to listen to the entire album three times. I’ve wanted to call my friend Ricky and ask him if he remembers when we drove up to our high school the summer after our freshman year of college and listened to “Young and Innocent” in the parking lot. I’ve pictured my friend Merritt singing “If I Turned You Away” as she drove around Starkville in her little blue Honda Civic. I’ve wondered why we found the sound of saxophones so appealing. And I’ve been so grateful – so deeply, incredibly grateful – that when I was teenager, I had pretty much the sweetest friends on the face of the planet. No drama. No meanness. Just genuine, sweet, loyal friends.

And if you can’t tell, it has made me SO SENTIMENTAL I CAN HARDLY STAND IT.

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH ALL OF THIS EMOTION.

Do you have a favorite “time machine” album? Is there any music that makes you a little sentimental and nostalgic for your younger days?

I’ll be right here listening to “I Turned You Away” if you need me.

Well, first of all I’m just as relieved as I can be that Matt Lauer is subbing for Bob Costas tonight. I talked to Melanie late this afternoon, and when she made the comment that she hoped they finally got Bob Costas some salves and some ointments to make his eyes better, I said that I didn’t think they’d be out of line to try some shots and some steroids and some drips, too. Bless him.

And second of all, the weather turned out to be pretty much exactly what we thought; we only got rain here last night. That is fine by me, though, because in addition to the fact that we didn’t have to deal with any really nasty weather, we had a day off from school – which means that I got to do some real-live writing. Alex went to a friend’s house mid-morning and didn’t come home until about 5, and while it was totally unexpected, it gave me the biggest wide-open stretch of writing time that I’ve had in about six weeks.

That doesn’t mean that the writing flowed effortlessly, mind you. It took me awhile to get going, as evidenced by the fact that I cleaned my kitchen sink with Clorox around 11 this morning. It was the most immediate stalling technique I could think of, especially after about an hour of awkwardly staring at that blasted flashing cursor on my computer screen, and afterwards, I actually became slightly more productive. Oh, I found solace in the Twitter from time to time, but by the end of the afternoon, I’d finished a chapter, so I feel a little bit better about life in general and the book in particular.

(Here’s a nerdy fact nobody cares about: I have a hard time writing anything without editing it to death.)

(This is a terrible strategy if you’re trying to, you know, move forward.)

(It’s ACES, however, if you’re hoping to drive yourself crazy.)

Anyway, during one of my Twitter breaks this afternoon, I replied to a question about cleaning with Clorox and confessed that I actually like the smell of it. I can only take it in small doses, but there is something about walking in a kitchen or bathroom that’s been cleaned with a little Clorox that just screams, “EVERYTHING IS CLEAN HERE” to me. I don’t really know if it’s normal to like the smell of Clorox or not, but the more I thought about the stuff that smells oh-so-delightful to me, the more I started to feel like my sense of smell might be slightly off-kilter.

After all, I am a person who will change seats in a movie / in church / on an airplane to get away from someone who’s wearing a lot of floral perfume (IT IS MY NEMESIS), but I could spend an entire afternoon just soaking up the various smells in a nail salon. Because that’s normal.

So, for no particular reason at all, here’s a list of my most favorite smells in the whole wide world:

1) gasoline
2) manly soap (preferably with some sandalwood in there)
3) rubbing alcohol
4) lavender (specifically Hummingbird Farms lavender body lotion)
5) baby lotion
6) peppermint oil
7) the old-fashioned magic markers that were in a metal-ish tube
8) Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Oil shampoo
9) Trader Joe’s Tea Tree Tingle body wash
10) all the nail salon smells
11) Mentholatum
12) Icy Hot
13) freshly mowed grass
14) rosemary
15) fresh greenery at Christmas

Now – admittedly that is a pretty odd list. Because apparently I am drawn to herbs, vapors, and a very specific sort of chemical smell that is strong enough to remove paint (ooh, paint thinner! I forgot about paint thinner!). It’s not exactly a recipe for the newest perfume offering from Chanel, is it?

So what about y’all? What are your favorite smells? And please don’t be self-conscious if they’re a little on the strange side because, um, I HAVE GASOLINE ON MY LIST.

Fire away.

There were places in Alabama that apparently got hammered by snow and ice last night, but our little neck of the woods was (thankfully) not one of them. However, since the forecast was dicey enough to merit some caution, we have a day off from school today. I’m going to try to finish a chapter in the new book that has been stuck in the same place for the last month, and I can’t talk about that part of my life much more right now or I’ll have to grab a paper bag and pretend like it keeps the anxiety at bay if I breathe into it. Truthfully I think the only thing that could alleviate my book deadline-related anxiety would be either 1) horse tranquilizers (medication for humans can’t touch it, I don’t think) or 2) non-stop sleep between now and the end of spring. However, if last night is any indication, I’d just dream about the deadline instead of panicking about it in real life, so the non-stop sleep might not be such a great option after all.

And listen. I don’t mean to bother you with my writer’s block woes. Because what I’m really wanting to talk about is Bob Costas’ eye infection.

source

Y’all.

I haven’t been watching that much of the Olympics because, well, BOOK PANIC (I may have mentioned something about that), but last night I flipped over to NBC, took one look at Bob Costas, and immediately started rubbing my eyes. I mean, bless his heart – that is what you would call a severe case of the conjunctivitis, isn’t it?

And my goodness – it must hurt something awful. One time when Alex was little I had a really bad sinus infection that went north on me, and my eyes looked about like Bob Costas’ do now. I will never forget how they throbbed and burned and made me miserable. In fact, the night before I went to the doctor, my eyes kept me awake all night, and all I could do to alleviate the pain a little bit was to cover them with a freezing cold bath cloth. I cried and wailed and tore my clothes and gnashed my teeth and woke up my husband throughout the night to remind him of the degree of my pain. It was something else.

But last night I was reminded that in the midst of all that discomfort, I WAS NOT IN FACT TRYING TO HOST AN INTERNATIONAL BROADCAST OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES.

I think it’s safe to say that so far Sochi isn’t really agreeing with Bob Costas.

And, like I said on Twitter last night, I really hope that somebody will FedEx Bob some antibiotics because SWEET MERCY THAT LOOKS PAINFUL.

Clearly I am very concerned. Or overly concerned. Or disproportionately concerned.

Any or all could apply.

Well, we’re supposed to get a “wintry mix” with possible ice accumulation starting Monday night / Tuesday morning, so it probably comes as no surprise at all that I’m planning to stay right here in my house until at least Thursday.

Just in case.

I mean, I know that I can’t actually avoid my work and A’s school tomorrow because I’m concerned that there may be ice tomorrow night, but I cannot even tell you how happy I will be to get home tomorrow afternoon. Because if the freezing rain and snow and whathaveyou are in fact coming our way, I want to be IN MY HOUSE WITH MY PEOPLE, AMEN.

And I think we all know that the fact that we’re actually planning for bad weather this time around means that it will sprinkle for five minutes Tuesday morning and then the sun will come out.

Still, though. SAFETY FIRST.

Thankfully, thought, we had a great weekend that will hopefully help sustain us if we face any (unlikely) cabin fever in the next 48-72 hours. Friday night I got to see a couple of friends who were in town, so that was such a treat, and then Saturday morning I got to spend time with some of the sweetest women at a Methodist church’s women’s conference here in Birmingham. I grew up in the Methodist church – so it is forever special to me – and as an adult I seem to get weepy whenever I walk in one. Saturday morning I made it to the fellowship hall before I started to feel the tears in my eyes, and as I was carrying my stuff up to the chapel where we met, I kept telling myself, “You have to hold it together. You have to hold it together. You are really going to embarrass yourself if you can’t manage to hold it together.”

But oh, y’all. That chapel. It reminded me so much of the church where I grew up. And what I loved even more was that the women there ranged in age from 20-something to (literally) 90. It was DELIGHTFUL. I will forever have the sweetest memories of our time together, and I was SO TICKLED when one of the ladies walked up to me at lunch and said, “You know, when they told us that a blogger was coming to speak, I was afraid that maybe you were going to teach us how to double-click here and then double-click there – but I figured I’d give it a try anyway!” I laughed so hard.

Saturday night we went to A’s banquet for Scouts, and after about two hours of dinner and awards and whatnot, I was feeling very patriotic and also wondering if I shouldn’t be doing more camping (thankfully my camping-related thoughts were short-lived). I thought several times during the awards ceremony that A and his den were being remarkably well-behaved, but when we got in the car to go home, A very proudly told us a story about how he made his row of buddies laugh when he let one rip after he received his badges. So, you know, we’re just doing our part to keep America strong.

Today was our usual Ch² combo (church and Chuy’s). Our friends the Hamptons were also at Chuy’s with their boys, so A ended up going home with them, and then I braved the grocery store so that I could stock up on supplies for WINTRY MIX ’14. I thought maybe I’d get some writing done this afternoon, but by the time D and I covered some extensive conversational ground, I picked up Alex, and I started supper, the day was just about done. It’s been a good ‘un, though.

[insert witty conclusion here]

[conclusions are impossible for me lately]

[so I’m going with the brackets because it’s time to watch Downton]

[priorities, you know]

Here are a few things I’ve been meaning to mention / share / give away.

I will no doubt think of four more things as soon as I post this, but I’m gonna go ahead and run with what I have.

Clearly I am very zany and devil-may-care-ish.

Except not.

— In light of all the marriage talk around here, I’ve been thinking about this excellent post on marriage by Edie. Chock-full-o-wisdom, hope, and truth.

— It took us over a month, but we have finally settled on our favorite of all the K-Cups.

Newman’s Own Special Blend – Medium Roast, Extra Bold

I bought a big ole box because they were so much cheaper in bulk. And oh, we will enjoy the fire out of them.

— So. This year’s Allume conference is October 23-25 in Greenville, SC, and I am so excited to be speaking. I am also mildly terrified, but we won’t talk about that part right now because DENIAL. Anyway, I know that several of y’all have been to Allume before, so if you’re going again in October – or if you’re planning to go for the first time – be sure to let me know. Tickets go on sale March 1st.

— Melanie probably won’t tell you this, so I will. Tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon from 3-4 central she’s going to be a guest on Chris Fabry Live. You can listen online or find a local station (it’s on WLJR 88.5 here in Birmingham). I enjoy Chris Fabry’s show so much, and I have a feeling that he and Melanie are going to be fast friends.

— I will not play Flappy Bird. I will not play Flappy Bird. I will not play Flappy Bird.

— This morning I wrote on the very last page of this journal.

It has been a delight and a joy, and I will miss it terribly.

Also: I may be a smidge over-invested as far as my journals are concerned.

— This is a show that’s fun again.

— Every couple of months I land on a new book that I read very slowly in the mornings. My friend Anne actually got me into this habit, and I’ve realized that when I’ve finished my quiet time and the house is still quiet and I’m drinking coffee, I love reading a few pages from something that’s thoughtful and helps me ease into the day (I wouldn’t have been able to do this in my younger years because 1) early morning and 2) SLEEP). Here are a couple of books that I highly recommend for early-morning reading (or whenever reading, for that matter):

I have two copies of each book to give away, so if you’d like to win either of these, just leave a comment on this post. I’ll draw for winners Friday night.

Happy Thursday, y’all!

This giveaway is now closed. Winners will be notified ASAP.

First of all, our winners.

Jennifer – comment at 8:50pm on February 2
Karen S. – comment at 8:54pm on February 2
Kristen Gregory – comment at 12:30am on February 3
Kelly Brannan – comment at 8:21am on February 3
Karen – comment at 1:56pm on February 3

You should all have emails from me – and thanks so much, everybody, for the great response.

Second of all, some thoughts.

A few weeks ago David and I were waiting for church to start when the subject of Beth Moore’s Believing God came up. I don’t remember how it came up or why it came up, but I do remember that I said, “Oh my goodness – you know that I have such a special place in my heart for that Bible study.”

“Really?” David asked. “Why’s that?”

“Oh, don’t you remember?” I said. “It was one of the biggest growth spurts I’ve ever had in terms of faith. It made me realize how faithfully God pursued me – especially during the times when I figured that that He’d surely given up on me. And remember? Right after that was when we were sitting right down there” – and I pointed at the specific seats – “we were sitting right down there and we decided to host that neighborhood Bible study?”

Make no mistake, people. I was having A Moment of Earnest Reflection.

David smiled and sort of nodded and said, “Well, I think that’s great that it meant so much to you.”

And I could tell he didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was talking about.

About that time the person who makes our pre-service announcements was about to greet the congregation, but I couldn’t let it go. So I kept talking, but in sort of a whisper-scream.

“Remember?” I asked. “We decided to host that neighborhood Bible study? And we had four or five couples come over? And then our friend Elon started the neighborhood newsletter so we could try to draw more people? And she asked me to write a little column about parenting? And that made me start writing again?”

By that point D looked like I was trying to explain a physics equation in Greek.

“You really don’t remember, do you?” I whisper-yelled – and then I kind of punched his arm because DID I NOT MENTION WHAT A SPECIAL TIME THAT WAS IN MY LIFE?

“Yeah. I don’t have even the faintest recollection,” he said.

I sighed loudly.

About ten minutes later we were about halfway through the second song when D leaned over and said, I KID YOU NOT, “Hey. Was that the Bible study where that one guy came over and loved the fact that our dog liked to eat white bread?”

I mean, y’all. OF ALL THINGS. It was one of the sweetest times of spiritual growth IN MY WHOLE LIFE, and my husband’s take away from those few months was that a guy who came to the Bible study loved the fact THAT OUR DOG LIKED TO EAT WHITE BREAD?

Anyway, I stared at D for a good five seconds, and then we started to laugh because the whole thing was so predictable. I have memory upon memory etched onto my brain and my heart as a result of that particular time in our lives…and David’s memories pretty much boil down to NEIGHBOR, DOG, BREAD.

That’s real marriage, y’all.

I have thought about that conversation (and there was way more to it than that – I have mercifully only shared the short version) over and over the last couple of weeks, because I think that during the first four or five years that we were married, I would have taken great offense to the fact that D didn’t react or respond to that whole situation exactly like I did. Now, of course, I can recognize that it was because I’d convinced myself that we needed to be essentially the same person, and I cried MANY A TEAR in those early years because we didn’t see everything the exact same way.

But let me tell you what.

We have now been married sixteen years, and I can’t imagine where we’d be without our differences. I’m mercy; he’s justice. I’m overly trusting; he is SCARILY discerning (it’s not really scary – but it is CRAZY how accurate he is at reading people and certain environments). I’m all over the place; he manages his time better than anybody I know. I throw things together; he does things the right way. I’m all up in the gray; he is black and white. I’m blurred lines; he is boundaries.

And listen. I rarely write about my marriage because there has never been one time when David has said, “You know what? I think you should write about us more.” Plus, we are such a constant work in progress, and just as soon as I start to think that we’ve figured something out, we’re smack-dab in the middle of another lesson. But make no mistake: there is nobody – NOBODY – who has been more supportive of this whole blogging / writing thing than D has been. Y’all have no idea. He is the one who encourages me to carve out time, who makes our schedule work so that I can go to Starbucks with my laptop and not feel guilty, who looks after me to make sure that I’m not overcommitted on the calendar or stretched too thin on the mental / emotional front.

(Just a couple of weeks ago, in fact, we were talking through my calendar, and he said, “You know what? I think you’re all good until June. No more new stuff until June. You are gonna be a crazy person if you take on anything else.”)

(And you know what I said?)

(I said, “Okay.” And I felt SO RELIEVED.)

And all of that leads me to this.

It’s been almost two years since Melanie told me that she was going to write a book about marriage, and since she and I talk to each other A LOT about that very topic, I knew that any book she wrote would be hilarious. So last summer, when I read her first draft of The Antelope in the Living Room, I was not at all surprised by how much I laughed. I wasn’t surprised by the tears, either, because I know how much Melanie adores P. But I was a little bit surprised by my reaction at the end of the book, because more than anything else, my reaction was this:

OH. THANK GOODNESS.

Here’s why.

It’s a real book about real marriage, y’all. Not the marriage you think you’re going to have when you watch a Say Yes to the Dress marathon and can’t wait for the day when you look like a pretty princess. Not the marriage that you think you’re going to have when you read romance novels where people’s eyes meet across a room and they live with perpetual butterflies in their stomachs for the next forty years. And not the marriage you think you’re going to have when you’re watching some gorgeous famous couple talk about how things are just as white-hot between them as ever.

I don’t know. I just have A LOT OF THOUGHTS about how people’s expectations for marriage can be completely unrealistic. I mean, you may look like a pretty princess on your wedding day, but there will in fact come a point in your relationship when your husband sees you in the throes of a stomach bug. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THAT. And the perpetual butterflies are all fine and good, but I’m betting that they’ll disappear when your husband gives you a new vacuum for Christmas or decides to invite 25 people over for your birthday and YOU HAVE TO COOK FOR ALL OF THEM. And as for the white-hot attraction – well, you should know from the get-go that once a young’un or two arrives on the scene, you may have to find you a hotel room or take a vacation to rekindle that spark. AND THAT IS OKAY. Don’t you dare let our oversexed culture make you feel like you’ve got to be or act like somebody you’re not when you’re with your husband. But perhaps that is another topic for another time.

Some people might say that I’m way too realistic. But I think that finding a person who is steady and funny and loyal and kind – and being able to laugh and share life with that person – well, that’s better than just about anything I’ve seen in a romantic comedy. That doesn’t mean that our husbands won’t get on our dadgum nerves from time to time (and heaven knows that we’ll get on their nerves, too), but there’s something so wonderful about being content within that commitment. Melanie does such a phenomenal job of celebrating that, of reminding us that an “ordinary” marriage is something very special indeed.

So. The Antelope in the Living Room. It’s out at midnight tonight (February 4th is the release date) and just waiting to make you laugh really hard. And cry a little bit, too. You’re going to have such a blast reading it. You can find Antelope at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or at your local bookstores.

Enjoy every single bit of it, y’all!