Re-post: Closed for the Summer

Call it what you want, a trip to Dante’s Inferno, a cruise through Hades’ Underworld or just plain summer vacation, the sultry season is here and it has arrived with vengeance.   I should be  joining the throngs of sun worshipers who love all things beach and heat, but alas, I am not one of those. 

I am one of those people who only enjoy the beach if it is raining and thinks the summer swelter is Satan’s idea of a virtual tour.  You will not find me anywhere near the beckoning waves when the thermostat reaches 100+ degrees but you will find me shoving my face in front of a large A/C unit much like a dog when it sticks its head out the window of a car.

How come Northerners are the only ones who get the advantage of canceling things on account of the weather? If they get “snowed in” then I want to be “heated-in” can someone make that happen? Can the people in DC conceive of a way for us to hibernate through these blistering months with as much cooling comfort as possible?

The seriousness of the weather really ought to be looked at like a health hazard.  Anytime I walk outside it is like walking into a wet sauna and I’m only supposed to stay in one of those things for about twenty minutes (says so right on the door).  And after the grass and leaves have been burnt to a crisp it is only logical to assume that anything else walking around in the middle of August is going to feel like an ant under a magnifying glass.

I don’t think it is too much to ask to cancel summer altogether. I mean, when it is so hot that the ocean starts to feel like warm bath water then something ought to be done, right?  Or, when my skin starts melting like a DQ Dip Cone in the microwave then there ought to be someone cautioning me to stay inside.  If that means that I have to stay in doors from June through September, then so be it; we all have to make sacrifices at some point.

But I declare, when a trip to the mailbox feels like bear-crawling through the Sahara, then there ought to be a law. 

“Closed: ‘cause it’s just too dang hot!”

don’t freak out

I made some changes to my blog appearance…it is a normal part of blog life and happens to every blog at some point.  Just roll with it 🙂

Holy Cardstock, Batman!

There is just something about school supply season. It truly is a beautiful thing; rows and rows of neon post-its, stacks and stacks of multi-colored binders and the crayons, Oh, the crayons! You can find me humming “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” while I unabashedly smell new packages of freshly sharpened pencils.

I can’t really quantify why I have warm fuzzy feelings for school supplies but I do. It is one of those freak fetishes that exist in very rare people. Some girls have a thing for fine leather shoes; I have one for fine tipped ball point pens. It’s weird but I swear it is the god’s honest truth.

As a child I was famous for coordinating all my school supplies to my favorite cartoons.  One year it was Care Bears; I had everything from a Funshine Bear thermos to a Grumpy Bear Craft eraser…it was perfect synergy. Similar successful years followed with Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Bright. My prized possession was always my lunch box and I quote John Mayer here,  

            “whatever happened to my lunchbox
            when came the day when it got
           thrown away
          don’t you think I should have had some say in that decision”.

Perhaps school supplies remind me of those bygone days when my only responsibilities in life were to color inside the lines and remember to bring home my pink hoodie.

 It was a simpler time then. 

Around the time I learned to French-braid my own hair I  abandoned my childish character school supplies for serious college ruled junior high school supplies. However, I never lost the excitement of meandering down the aisles at Wal-Mart in search of folders that would express exactly who I was. There were always notebooks just waiting to be filled with spelling lists and pastel note cards just begging to be made into vocabulary flashcards.

When high school and college came along retro was cool again…Praise God! It became socially acceptable for me to tote around a My Little Pony book bag even if I was the only one brave [dorky] enough to do it.

Graduation has come and gone and even though I have birthed a child of my own the kid in me goes into overdrive every year around this time. During the next few weeks the urge will get the better of me and my husband will ask why he saw a receipt for an unusual amount of school supplies.  While I will tell him it is a donation for our local school supply drive I will not divulge that I spent two hours picking out said school supplies with unrestrained jubilance, then donated them with tearful morning. It’s similar to selling a litter of puppies that you know you can’t keep [Sigh].

I know my school supplies will find a good home in the backpack of some unsuspecting elementary student and for that reason I hope that He/She really likes the Jonas Brothers.

My only memento of this year’s school supplies season is a single bright orange Sharpie. I brought it home and in big beautiful bubble letters, that could rival any 4^th grader, I scrawled on a notepad…I [heart] school supplies.

(in)side Scoop on (in)courage

Have you ever had a group of friends that were simply (in)credible?  Perhaps they (in)fuse your life with joy or (in)spire you to be the woman God desires you to be. I know women like this because they just happen to be the women of (in)courage.

 

(in)courage www.incourage.me is the new hip and happening thing over at Day Spring! Check out how they are reaching out to women in a fun new way. (in)courage is launching on August 10^thand I am humbled to be among the gifted group of bloggers and artists who will contribute to this exciting new bloggy brand.

I also get the great privilege to introduce Heather Gemmen Wilson http://www.heathergemmen.com/blogger.html. Heather is a professional triple threat. She works hard as an author, speaker AND editor. Check out her website and look for her at (in)courage…she has (in)exhaustible talent!

 

From dated, faded and antiquated…a platform is born.

I understand why some people go to the movies on Sunday morning rather than go to church…because I have wanted to do that also. I hope to answer why in this post.

Many people have been asking what my ‘message’ is. While it is difficult for me to put all my passions and thoughts into a single sentence the best I can come up with is a catch phrase.

I think the church is still trying to serve today’s woman a homemade casserole when what she really wants is a Mocha Latte.

 I think it is time for Christian women to ask the question, “Why doesn’t the desperate housewife, the shopaholic, the girls in the city and all other current ladies bless us with their presence on Sunday morning?”

Could it be because our menus are filled with Christianeese, a side order of unattainable piety followed by a Route 44 sized cup of judgment rather than a deep and meaningful connection to God?

 Do we, as Christian women, maintain that we can only be truly spiritual if we segregate ourselves from our world? Do our women’s retreats feel more like cryin’, lovin’ and leavin’ hour at the local country station? Why can’t we inspire women with humor rather than tears and authentic friendship rather than a patronizing program? If we stopped boycotting our culture could we strive to meet a lost generation just as Christ did?

Christ was attractive to sinners. If he wasn’t, then they wouldn’t have climbed trees, extended invitations and clamored to be near him. The proof is there, he ate with them, he hung out with them, he healed them and in turn they changed. Not with censure but with a double shot of love and compassion. I have found it very difficult to love someone when I have made it clear that everything about them is inappropriate.

To the world around us we have either become characters for mockery or despised for our intolerance. Have we created a bubble in which we only relate to one another rather than, like Christ, affecting our world with positive change? Are we trying to attract other women to our faith with debilitating dogma rather than the mercy that made Christ famous?

I think we have made strides in the right direction but even though the trend in our churches has been to trade in our panty hose in for a pair of jeans I wonder if our attitudes have remained in our Sunday ‘Best’.

I long to change all that and with God’s grace I will, but I long to know what you think. Is any of this familiar to you?

What is your experience? Please leave your comment.

Satan is a Mean Girl…

This week I am attending the SHE SPEAKS Conference hosted by Proverbs 31 Ministries.  The last few days I have read blogs from fellow conference attendees and it seems like the content and comments from the other women have the same thread of concern.

Large groups of women bring out the junior high girl in all of us.

Even though I am light-years away from Aqua Net hair spray and Bonnie Bell lip smackers there are only a few things that are capable of bringing back junior high flashbacks with unparalleled merciless vengeance. One is the nappy smell of Nair, which is a memory I will never fully reveal. The second, is the smell of the Twister mat, there is just something about that plastic sheeting [insert long, drawn out sniff]. The third, is meeting new people and especially new groups of people. Meet and greets elicit memories of the cool table, clothes being out of season and female sabotage that can only be rivaled by Hayley Millis in The Parent Trap.

What is it about this particular social situation that makes me feel like I am at a ‘Tween slumber party?

In my nightmares we compare laptops instead of sleeping bags; footwear instead of PJs and the first one to ‘fall asleep’ is really the woman who buckles under all the inferiority and cries in the ladies lounge (Lord, I pray that isn’t me, I always fell asleep first at slumber parties).

Why do I already feel like I need to have an exit strategy (read: fast track to my hotel room)? Why am I planning a MacGyver-like escape by using binder clips, my power cord and a coffee cup the moment I feel awkward and uncomfortable?

I wonder if, like me, other women have reserved private rooms just so they could recite the, I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me- mantra in perfect Stuart Smalley style.

I think like this because I’ve had plenty of run-ins with Mean Girls and I am sure I am not the only one. Why does this person inspire so much stress that we run to the candy counter searching for the best chocolate-coated-coping method? Why does the memory of this person have that much control over us?

Probably because we don’t recognize who the Mean Girl really is.

The perfect description of every mean girl, bully or unpleasant person can be found in Ephesians 6:12-13

          “For our struggle is not of flesh and blood but against…evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God.”

Our fears have been stirred up like a water park wave pool by our Enemy who longs to drown us in isolation. He knows that if we hold up in our rooms, sit on the back rows and become silent at meetings then we can’t unite in our purpose to bring glory to God. Women who live in fear don’t write books, they don’t inspire crowds and they don’t encourage others. Women who live in fear live in defeat.

For this reason I have considered having the following verse tattooed like a cheat-sheet to my forearm.

         “For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and  says to you, Do not fear; I will help you”. Isaiah 41:13

Thank God for that…I could use a hand right about now!

Coloring Book Christianity

Sometimes I feel like I am in a long distance relationship with God.

My life often feels like an overflowing bath tub with a single square of toilet paper as my only tool to mop up the mess. In the rushing overflow I don’t get to seek God as much as I would like to; Bible study gets neglected, prayers get shortened and before I know it God is hundreds of miles away.

Typically when I find myself in this spot I also find myself in the throes of what I call Coloring Book Christianity. My Christian life hinges on the external and elementary rather than reality. When I behave like a Coloring Book Christian all my problems can be solved in sitcom-style half hours and my sins are just bad habits that can be cured with a Christian cliché stitched on a large fluffy pillow. I find myself treating church more like a social club and Christ like a snack food vending machine that only supplies for a shallow hunger.

Why do I do this?

If I were honest I would say I don’t want to dig deeper because I know what I will find. Behind the busyness I would find the need to please other people. Behind the problems I would find a lack of discipline and behind my bad habits I would find the sins that come from a hard heart.

It has never been my goal to lead a surface level life of faith; I’ve seen what happens to surface level Christians. Many of them give the rest of us a bad name while other bail on faith completely.

1 Peter 1:7 says, “trials come that your faith…may be proved genuine…”.

On a good day when I am basking in God’s victory and purpose I love this verse, but on a bad day the cost of genuine faith has come through the refinement of my soul. Refinement has NEVER been a quick fix or a watered down way to find intimacy with God. I’ve learned that authentic faith can only come through my authentic admission about my life, my whole life, especially the parts I don’t want to talk about at parties.

Today I will stop coloring and face the writing on the wall. God has called me to dig deeper and it is high time I found my shovel.

Bathing Suit Optional…

I was not a high school senior getting pictures for graduation announcements and I wasn’t newly engaged, so anyone watching my photo shoot was probably thinking, who is the self-absorbed white woman lying in the grass and laughing at the camera like she is Elizabeth Taylor hawking smelly perfume?

I wanted to call out to all the sweaty joggers that passed me that I was getting a headshot for my new friends at Day Spring but I’m not certain they would know who Day Spring was, and just incase you don’t either here is a blurb:

Day Spring is the Christian card company owned by Hallmark. They are launching a new brand called (in)courage that will reach a new category of women through their blog and products.

When I was informed that I needed a photo made, my first thought was one of panic. As many of you know, I posses plenty of physical characteristics that have made my face perfect for authorship but not so much for limelight. It’s cool, I’ve made peace with the nose my father gave me and the blinding white skin from my mother’s Irish side. But I needed to find a photographer that could make me look a little less Janeane Garofalo and a little more Tina Fey. Fortunately for me that was a no brainer- Kelly Hornberger. Kelly is the girl I knew eleven years ago from high school and who, to my great delight, has developed an almost supernatural knack for snapping crazy beautiful photos. If anyone could help me I knew it would be Kelly.  

The only problem was the park  in the center of our childhood town wasn’t a funny or interesting place for photos; it remains a lot more Norman Rockwell and a lot less Andy Warhol. So, after a few snaps we knew we had to get creative. I made some faces, climbed around on the playground and Kelly snapped away.

I knew Kelly got some great shots but I wanted to be sure.  I studied the landscape for an interesting space, but the white, Victorian style gazebo, the meandering jogging trails and the large live oak trees where a little too Vanilla. I did notice, however,  a swimming pool 100 yards away with a group of older ladies doing water aerobics…that could be a funny picture. 

I hadn’t dressed to go swimming. Truth be told, I was in a white skirt and…pale underwear. But since I will do anything for a laugh I figured this could work. Kelly and I walked over to the teens in charge of running the pool and asked if we could break the rules by running and jumping into the 4ft. deep ‘Olympic’ sized pool.

With a sheepish grin and a couple of tales about rule breaking; the fine upstanding young assistant manager let us do what we wanted. Thank you Zack!

I grabbed a pair of goggles from the lost and found and took a dive; well, more of a jump really.  I’m sure I appeared totally nuts to the late afternoon patrons of the Friendswood City pool, but I also appeared half naked since the wet white skirt had become completly see through during my swim! 

In the end I had a nice little reunion with Kelly and some really great pictures, but because I had given the public a free shot of my nearly bare bottom half, I spent the soggy walk back to my car searching for my dignity.

Thanks for putting up with my crazy antics Kelly, you are a wonderful photographer!  If you want to see some of the pictures hit Kelly’s blog.

http://www.kellyhornberger.blogspot.com/

 Also, you can find Kelly’s fine photography at www.kellyhornberger.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

BEFORE

Pet Peeves…

We all have them and they are impossible to hide from. Whether it is running fingernails down a chalk board or seeing someone pick their teeth, pet peeves are obnoxious. So, if you do any of the following behaviors in my presence I cannot be held responsible for my actions…seriously, you have been warned.

 I HATE

… it when people spit. 

Not only spit, which is disgusting, but hacking and spitting reminds me of the days when I lived under my parent’s roof. A person in my family (who shall remain nameless) had a morning hack routine and did it in the bathroom outside my bedroom!  Nothing like mucus in the morning…delightful!

 …gratuitous nudity.

Who gave the green-light for stores to launch naked ads the size of an Airbus? I’m embarrassed every time I go to the mall or the store and I see little boys staring at black lacy bras like they are Monster Trucks. Icky.

 

…swearing in public.

Again, there are little ears out there and if my daughter learns a new word from the kid who tattooed tear drops on his face then he is going to have to deal with the crazy white woman who is capable of using her liquid-lava java as a weapon.

 

…people who text while driving. 

Contrary to any super powers that you think you possess you are not capable of typing on keys the size of a rice grain while operating a motor vehicle. Put down your crack-berry and drive!

 

…baseball.

Yes, it is possible to have a whole sporting event as a pet peeve. My mother calls me a communist for this and my father is on the brink of cutting me out of the will but I just don’t get it.  It really is four innings longer than it should be and four months past its expiration. My dad tried to tell me there is strategy but I just don’t see it. I see a guy SPITTING on the mound, another TEXTING in the dugout and one hundred and sixty-two games later they might as well all be asleep. Aside from handsome men in uniform I don’t see the draw. Booooo to America’s past time.

Summer is not Airbrushed

In a previous post entitled, Closed for Summer, I discussed the torment of the summer heat and declared that I would not be at the beach this year.  However, my family and my toddler had other plans. While I amended that I could have a great time on the porch of the beach house LOOKING at the beach, I stressed that I didn’t need to experience it.

Wrong again.

Apparently, toddlers really enjoy swimming in the ocean and building things in the sand. So against my better judgment I headed to Purgatory, otherwise known as the PUBLIC BEACH.

As my family neared the above mentioned torment I remembered that while I find summertime completely contemptible bathing suit season is under the heading of things I would like to have eradicated.

The nudy-season starts to make me uncomfortable right around Spring Break because that is when the summer catalogs start to arrive in my mailbox. Pages of perfect people remind me that I have neglected my New Years resolution to… cancel my subscriptions to summer catalogs.

When I realized that I couldn’t convince the world that I had, in fact, traveled in time from the 1800’s, when swimming in a neck to ankle bathing suit was fashionable, I decided to just grin and ‘bare it’.

So, when my piglet pink feet hit the public beach my eyes beheld a glorious site and I instantly gave thanks to God for granting me a reprieve. I marched confidently on to the sandy shores in full appreciation that real people in the real world do not posses the ability to airbrush themselves before they walk outside. THANK GOD ALMIGHTY!

When I saw the legions of unedited people I breathed a sigh of relief and felt infinitely better about myself in comparison to those who left Personal Discretion and Personal Dignity at home in their sock drawers.

Even though I have body issues I have enough snap to know that a Baywatch bikini is not something I should wear in public. Surprisingly, not everyone shares this personal censorship; therefore, I look infinitely better compared to roundish- tattooed-mother of three, who fancies herself the next Pam Anderson.

Also, contrary to popular belief, I am not the palest person in the world. That prize can go to the couple that reflected the sun so efficiently off their blinding white torsos that they could be the next Green attempt to conserve energy.

Finally, let’s consider body hair. I’m a relatively hairless creature so I looked great compared to the sun umbrella retailer who possessed Sasquatch looking limbs and the person with pony-tail long nose hair in charge of the folding chairs. Even if you discount both of those poor souls ANYONE looks better than the man who appeared to have stapled a black shag carpet to his back.

So you see, just like me, you are safe to grace the world in your modest one-piece. Go outside and have some fun. File your summer catalogs in the Fiction section of your personal library and swim in the reality that you don’t look as bad as… someone else. “Put on your flip-flops”- “Here comes the sun”.