All righty, internets – here are our lucky winners of The CD With All The Awesome.

Emily – Commenter #49
Joy – Commenter #105
Dianne – Commenter #137
Sarah – Commenter #178

Congratulations, y’all! And if you’ll email me your mailing address, I’ll put your CD in the mail.

That was a lot of “mail” for one sentence, by the way.

(Because one post could not contain all the interview goodness.)

(Ahem.)

Also from Sara: What’s your favorite part of promoting a CD?

TM: It’s a whole new ballgame with a different label, a bigger label, but our hands-down favorite part is playing the shows. Absolutely. No matter what’s going on during the day, we can get in that box – it’s a safe place, a happy place, and we just have a ball.

from Amy: If you had to create a personal life soundtrack, what would be the first song by another artist on your CD?

TM: The Superman theme song – because that’s the first time that I was moved by music when I watched that movie. I remember listening to that song over and over and thinking, What is this? This feeling? I LIKE IT.

[lots of laughing]

MN: My two are so different. One of them would be “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2. And the other would be “Country Roads” by John Denver – my dad used to play it. My dad would pull his guitar out, and that was the only song he knew.

So what’s your favorite song right now?

TM: There are a couple of songs I love by an artist named Feist. I don’t even know the names – but it’s great. Good stuff.

MN: Mine has to be James Morrison. So good. He’s great. And Snow Patrol has been a band the last couple of years that I can just put on and listen to all the way through.

So if you could see anybody perform live, who would it be?

TM&MN: U2!

MN: I just really, really want to see them before they’re done. I feel this urgency all the sudden.

Well, he’s a superstar.

MN: I wanna see them really bad.

TM: We HAVE to see them.

from JP’s Mom: Can you tell us a little bit about your testimony?

MN: I grew up in church – and was 19 when I became a Christian. My youth pastor was really instrumental in my life. And it’s really been in the last three years a friend of mine from Alabama has taught me the true meaning of accountability; I’ve really been on quest [to go deeper in my faith], to seek God and love Jesus – learning how to walk out my faith.

TM: When I was a little kid my grandmother would read Bible verses to me and take me to camp meetings. I think I understood a little bit as a kid, but I went through a stage of rebellion. I really, really fell in love with the Lord after that time – shortly after my brief attempt at college. I got plugged in with my home church again, and I had a youth pastor who really poured into our lives.

Are y’all at the same church?

MN: We were then.

So is that how you started singing together?

TM: Yeah. There was a little college group, and we would learn a couple of worship songs. I played a little Casio keyboard – we were horrible.

MN: We would lead worship at women’s Bible studies until they just kicked us out.

from Holly: Were you Monk & Neagle right away? Or did you have some different names?

TM: Well, there was always something special when we would sing together. And when we were leading home group we would throw around band names.

MN: I remember In Bed By Eleven.

Good one.

TM: Another one was Propane-Powered Bottle Rockets.

Oh, EXCELLENT.

Are you still completely blown away by the fact that you get to minister to people through music?

TM: Oh, everyday. It’s amazing. Part of the joy of doing this is – when we hear stories, man? We always have fun, but when we hear people tell stories about different songs, it just blows my mind that God would use us like this.

So when you were playing your little Casio keyboard, did you ever think you would get to go on the road for real?

MN: There’s a little pond south of Amarillo, and we used to go out there and call it Fishin’ And Dreamin’ – with more dreamin’ than fishin’. We’d talk about doing this someday, but I don’t know if we ever thought it would happen.

That was God putting that dream on your heart.

MN: We knew there was something special – we knew there was something there.

TM: We feel blessed.

Really, I’m just so happy for y’all. I feel like you’re my younger brothers who are making it big. What will you do Tuesday with the CD coming out?

MN: We have a show in Springfield, Missouri. We actually have a show in Amarillo on Wednesday, and that’ll be sort of a homecoming – and we’ll get to see our wives and have a week off before the Mercy Me tour.

Is it easier being on these big tours more than you did when it was just the two of you on the road?

TM: I like it better because you can really get into a rhythm and a routine when you’re on the road, and that’s really good for me. I’m not really so much for the details, so the routine of the road is good for me.

MN: When it’s just the two of us, I’m kind of the one who does [the detail stuff]. But I really like having someone to do that for us. It’s nice to just be able to get on the bus and let someone else handle the details.

Y’all, this has been so cool – thank you so much for doing this. I can’t even tell you how much fun this has been.

[and then there were big hugs all around]

So last Thursday night Big Mama and I sat down in our respective homes and recorded another podcast.

Unfortunately, said podcast will never see the light of the interweb because it was about seventy-four different kinds of mediocre.

(And right about now you’re probably thinking, “Why, BooMama – ‘mediocre’ has never bothered you before. I mean, JUST LOOK AT YOUR BLOG!”)

(To which I say: I KNOW!)

But it’s one thing to read a mediocre post for approximately two minutes – sort of like you’re doing right now, in fact. It’s quite another thing to spend 35 or 40 minutes listening to a mediocre podcast when you could be doing infinitely more important things, like spending time with your family or cooking a delicious meal or scrutinizing your pores in a magnifying mirror while simultaneously composing a blog post in your head.

And by the way? That last option?

I wouldn’t know a thing about that.

Also.

I determined last week that there seemed to be a correlation between the onset of my writer’s block and the onset of my Semiannual Allergy Pill Extravaganza. I don’t know what it is that blooms or sheds or molts or whathaveyou in early September, but I have to take a prescription pill so that the majority of fluid in the upper half of my body doesn’t attempt to pour out of my eyes by lunchtime every single day.

So for the last couple of weeks I’ve been taking two industrial-strength pills a day and yet – because I AM A GENIUS – wondering why in the world I felt a little out of it. And why my train of thought was spotty at best. And why I was spending a considerable amount of time perfecting the light catnap at inappropriate times.

Like, for instance, when sitting in my car at a red light.

The sound of horns can be so rude, y’all.

Anyhoo, I’ve cut back on the allergy medicine for the last four or five days, and LOOK! SENTENCES! MANY SENTENCES! IN A ROW!

Well, sort of.

Anyway, I’ll be back tomorrow with an extra-special interview, though I should probably say “interview,” because I don’t know if y’all have noticed, but I am not a serious journalist.

Shocking, isn’t it?

However, I did get to sit down and talk with two of my new-favoritest people in the whole wide world, and I connected a microphone to my computer, and I recorded all the questions and answers because I knew I wouldn’t remember anything otherwise. And now I’m a little afraid to listen to the “interview” file, much less transcribe it, because I have a feeling I’m going to be terribly embarrassed when I have to listen to my voice in the context of an “interview,” and there’s no question, really, that it will cause me to have some form of sinking spell.

Or perhaps to eat large quantities of peanut butter and chocolate swirled together, only not like a Reese’s, because I would really like for the chocolate-y part to be a little warm, thank you.

So I knew that the latest Shane & Shane CD, Pages, was going to be pretty special when, in the two weeks before it was released, I found myself dropping by their website every single day just to listen to thirty-second snippets of the new songs.

And last week? When a copy of the CD arrived in the mail? I was blown away. The lyrics have depth and substance (chock-full-o-Truth, they are) – and the arrangements are absolutely beautiful. Not to mention the harmonies. HAVE MERCY at the harmonies.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I thought my favorite song on the CD was going to be “Beg,” and I’ll just go ahead and say that it was an excellent call on my part. I have listened to it over and over because it goes straight to our modern-day tendency to miss authentic worship by “singing praises to the things that make [us] feel all right,” even though we know that “these songs are noise in [His] ears, a clanging drum.”

In a word? Strong.

This is a challenging CD – one that doesn’t offer up pat answers or cute little Christian greeting card sentiments. Pages deals openly and honestly with struggles and questions that every believer experiences at some point – and the Shanes articulate those seasons of spiritual wrestling with reverence and wonder and awe for a God who is faithful and worthy to be praised.

So if you’d like a chance to win one of four copies, leave a comment on this post. I’d love it if you’d check out Shane & Shane’s website so you can hear some clips of the new music, too. It’s an extraordinary CD.

I’ll leave comments on this post open until Friday, September 21.

So first of all, I took the dogs for a walk yesterday morning and ALMOST NEEDED A LIGHT JACKET.

Because it was cool outside, you see.

And then – and THEN – we got in the car and drove to Mississippi and got here just in time for the Mississippi State / Auburn game and OH SWEET MERCY, WE WON, Y’ALL.

By the way, I was so nervous during the fourth quarter of the game that I was unable to sit down, so I stood in the middle of Mama and Daddy’s den and did a lot of spastic jumping and and flailing and whoo-hoo-ing. Once the game was over my inbox started filling up like crazy, and at one point I looked at D with a single tear in mine eye and said, “Awwww – the internets are so happy for us!” And we smiled.

You might think that nothing could have possibly made the day any better, but oh, notsofast, because around 3:50 I hopped in the car and drove downtown to a beautifully renovated theatre where a few of our favorite bands were playing last night.

Like, oh, Monk & Neagle. And Bethany Dillon. And Shane & Shane.

Somebody say, “COME ON, NOW.”

And I may have gotten to meet a couple of people. And interview them. Or, I guess I should say, “interview” them. Because I had no idea what I was doing, but at least I got to laugh a whole bunch.

But wait! There’s more!

Emma Kate and her hubby were at Mama and Daddy’s when I got home from the “interview,” and Mama had cooked a big ole Southern supper: pork tenderloin, sweet potato casserole, green beans, butterbeans, squash casserole, rolls and ice cream pie with hot fudge sauce.

I’ll pause for a moment so that you can process all the deliciousness.

After supper we managed to roll ourselves away from the table – though it took more than a little bit of effort – and we headed downtown for the concert. It was, in a word, phenomenal.

And since I have spent the better part of two months listening to the Monk & Neagle CD (in stores this Tuesday!) and the latest Bethany Dillon CD, I was fully prepared for how great they were going to be. They didn’t disappoint even one iota, and at one point I couldn’t help but look at Bethany Dillon – all of 22 or 23 years old and so humbly seeking the heart of God through worship – and wonder why we can’t find a way to make someone like her more visible to our young girls (as opposed to, you know, other female performers her age who can’t seem to stay out of jail).

But I digress.

Because I want to make sure to tell you that the new Shane & Shane CD is, in a word, STRONG, and since I’ve been listening to it pretty much non-stop for the last four or five days, I was really excited about hearing them live. Honestly, I blown away by the reverence and humility with which they led us in worship. If you have the opportunity to go to one of their shows on this tour, you need to go. You need to get you some tickets right now. And you need to take some people with you.

The whole concert was, as Emma Kate said, “so incredibly worshipful.” I still don’t have all the right words to describe it. But I’ll work on that.

And y’all have a wonderful day.

Now it’s no secret that I can be a bit obsessive.

(See: Food Network, Christy Nockels’ voice, ongoing hair / highlighting issues, Mississippi State basketball, Monk & Neagle’s new CD, fried food, diet Coke, etc.)

I’ve been this way my whole life, and while I would like to say that I’m going to relax a little bit here in the latter half of my 30’s and try to dial down the obsess-o-meter, I know better than to make that sort of bold statement because, after all, I am the same person who, about three weeks ago, bought every remaining container of Eucalyptus & Spearmint soap at my neighborhood Bath & Body Works because the soap was half price and WHAT IF THEY STOP MAKING IT? WHAT IF I CAN’T FIND IT EVER AGAIN?

So. Where was I? Somewhere slightly to the left of sanity? Why yes. Of course.

Well.

Ever since Big Mama mentioned in our first podcast that she thought I should wear jeans to the Deeper Still deal, I have been slightly obsessed with jeans. And lest you think that I’ve found a new obsession, I would just like to state for the record that I have merely re-activated an obsession, as is my inalienable right as an American.

I believe you can find provisions for this in the Constitution and other official government-y-type document thingies.

As some of you may remember, earlier this year I had a bit of an existential jean crisis, and the internet came to my rescue, as it has done so often in the last two years. I tried a couple of different brands after I read through my comments, and while I liked the brands I tried, I didn’t love them.

I mean, they were nice enough, and they were cute, too – but we just didn’t have that “spark.”

I didn’t think much about jeans during spring and summer because why would you even think about wearing any sort of full-length denim garment when it’s TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY NINE DEGREES OUTSIDE, but now that there’s that first hint of fall in the air, I’m ready to think about jeans again. So I’ve been paying attention to jeans, trying on some jeans, attempting to discern the trends (by the way, Big Mama has a mini-encyclopedia of jean-trend information here), and giving some deep thought to which jeans I’m going to pursue for Fall ’07.

And if you’re thinking, “Sister, you may have a little too much time on your hands,” I would just like to say that you’re exactly right. Thank you for noticing.

But really, a girl has to have an alternate thought activity while listening to a four year-old sing “There’s a party in my tummy! So yummy! So yummy!” six or seventy two times in a row.

Everysingleday.

Anyway, I mentioned last week that I was going to choose comfort over style for the Deeper Still conference, and I really and truly did just that. I abandoned my search for The Perfect Jeans and packed my suitcase with whatever was clean. At the time I thought that my decision was because of my Profound Spiritual Maturity, but Saturday morning, when the praise team took the stage, I realized what had actually happened.

Y’all, there is no doubt in my mind that the Lord led me to empty myself of any pre-conference preoccupation with fashion because He knew in His divine wisdom about the jeans that Angela Cottrell was going to be wearing last Saturday morning.

DON’T YOU SEE, INTERNETS? Had I been worried with my own wardrobe, I would not have had room in my heart for Angela’s jeans. But since I was but an empty fashion vessel when I arrived at the Sommet Center that morning, I was ready for a fresh wide-legged work, a new denim direction.

And I’m telling you: those jeans filled my fashion cup to overflowing.

Oh, He is faithful.

I put the jeans in the back of my mind so that I wouldn’t miss the real purpose of the weekend, but when we broke for lunch I called my podcast partner to give her a re-cap of Beth Moore’s session, tell her that Christy Nockels was in the house (!!!), and relay as much information as I possibly could about Angela’s jeans (trouser cut, wide legs, dark wash, perfect hem).

She was on the case immediately.

I saw the jeans one more time during afternoon worship, and I figured it would be the last time I’d ever have contact with them because I couldn’t fathom that I’d ever be able to find a similar pair. I was okay with that – I really was – because even if the jeans had only crossed my path for a short period of time, I knew that they would remain a precious, inspirational memory that I would carry in my heart for the rest of my earthly days.

About thirty minutes after the worship time was over, I headed out to the concession stand to get some lunch since the lines during the actual lunch break were just a little bit longer than endless. I was looking down at my phone, checking my missed calls, and when I finally took my place in line and looked up, I saw a guy about four feet away from me who looked really familiar.

Probably because I had recently seen his face on a Jumbotron as he led 22,000 people in worship.

Yep. Travis Cottrell.

And in that moment, two thoughts occurred to me:

1) Maybe I should introduce myself and tell him how much his ministry has meant to me.
and
2) MINISTRY-SCHMINISTRY! NOW IS MY CHANCE TO FIND OUT ABOUT ANGELA’S JEANS!

Remember, girls: I am a person of Profound Spiritual Maturity.

But you will probably not be surprised to learn that, in the end, I did not say a single word to Travis.

Because I am nothing if not a chicken – a loser, jeans-obsessed chicken.

With inch-long roots, I might add.

On my way home last Sunday I thought of the jeans more often than I can tell you, and I was just sick – SICK – that I didn’t SPEAK UP, ALREADY and mention the jeans when I saw Travis at the concession stand.

And by the way, if you’re wanting to give me a lecture about how I need to be more bold, you’ll be glad to know that Emma Kate has already taken care of that. Twice. Since Monday.

But y’all, the Lord has been at work during this time of fashion uncertainty. He really has.

First of all, Melanie found some trouser jeans at Target that are both inexpensive AND sassy. They aren’t exactly like Angela’s, but they are cute. And sometimes cute is enough.

Then, Thursday night, thanks to Mel’s near-constant efforts to help me find the jeans, I got an email from A Source Who Shall Remain Unnamed, also known as An Angel Straight From Heaven. And thanks to the critical, timely information provided by Source / Angel, I was able to make some terrific strides with my jeans-related inquiries and can now show you this picture of the jeans Angela was wearing, though her denim may have been a little lighter, and I can’t be completely certain that the waistband is identical, not that I’ve scrutinized this photo or anything:

Somebody say “Hallelujah” one time.

(I think it goes without saying that I would never, ever tuck in a shirt if I wore these jeans.)

(But that is perfectly fine because I haven’t tucked in a shirt since 2001.)

(And honestly, aren’t those legs the greatest things you’ve ever seen?)

Now I may get a little teary-eyed as I tell you the last part of this story (HOLD ON, INTERNETS – THERE’S AN END IN SIGHT), but I trust that you can understand how tender my heart must be at this point.

Last night, in Steinmart(s), I found a pair of jeans that are almost identical to the ones in the picture.

I did, y’all. I really did.

The waistband and the tops of the pockets are a little different, but that is of little concern since no eyes will ever gaze upon those parts of the jeans outside of the privacy of my own home.

And do you know what? I already love my new jeans. I do. I know it might seem soon, but sometimes, when you put on the right pair of jeans, you just know that you know that you know. There’s absolutely no question that I owe Angela’s jeans a big “thank you” for putting a fashion dream in my heart – a dream that has led me down the somewhat unexpected trouser-jean path.

So THANK YOU, Angela’s Jeans. I don’t even know how to begin to express my gratitude.

But I can honestly say that I will never be the same.

Oh no.

I will never be the same.