betsylovestolaugh10's Xanga

Remember when we said "Girl, please don't go"?

Fri, 16 May 2008 14:36:38 GMT

Just in case you missed it, HERE is a dream come true. I sat in my living room at lunch today squealing like a girl over NKOTB. And yes, I will even admit that when Joey Joe pulled out his hat with the hole on top that I almost fainted...smooth move, New Kids! They were great! I can only hope that I am fully awake on June 9th when their tickets go on sale for the show in Atlanta because it looks like I'll only have a 4-10 minute window to buy them in. I will need a baby-sitter on October 29th, and I will be getting home late that night. Welcome back, boys, we missed you greatly...

On to other news. We went to a cloth diapering class last night at Nature Kid's Mercantile thanks to a tip from Susan Bradford, who was also there. We have been strongly considering this all along, and we are for sure going for it! Between the environmental benefits, health benefits and cost effectiveness, we're sold! Obviously you go into this decision knowing that sometimes it will be a pain to deal with, especially during the "poops 12 times a day" period, but I could save around $1500 a year this time around, and then be able to use them again for the next kid! One more thing...the news crew from WBIR was there, including Robin Wilhoit (sp?), so maybe you'll see us on tv tonight!

Lastly, we had some good eats at Red Lobster last night thanks to a sweet gift card! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

The End of You and Me

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:49:31 GMT

This video is Dave Potts singing a song by Greg Adkins. Bill's blogged about it and now Greg's blogged about it, and now I am also blogging about it. I can't hear this song without crying. I thought I would be able to watch this video today since Bill isn't here...I thought maybe it was Bill being there that made me cry, but no, I still couldn't make it all the way through. I thought you all would like the song, it's very sweet.

Here comes the rain again...

Sat, 10 May 2008 11:00:17 GMT

I know what you're thinking...wow, 2 posts in 2 days! It's true! Not a whole lot goin on today. Last night we ended up going to Tomato Head. Halfway through the meal I looked out the window after I saw a huge flash, followed by several more. We tried looking out the front window from where we were sitting and it just looked like someone was taking lots of pictures. About 2 minutes later the rain started coming down in sheets, just in time for us to leave! We headed out and one of the servers offered us a free umbrella, which was awesome, and we huddled close and walked as fast as we could through Market Square. We turned the corner to the parking garage and the wind and rain multiplied by about a thousand. We got to the garage and were absolutely soaked from the waste down and 4 other couples were there and we all just laughed at how wet we all were and headed home for the night. So it was a short night out after all, but it was fun and the food was great.

You should all check out the new "green" shows on TLC. One is "Wasted" and the hosts go to different homes each week and help the people learn how to live more earth friendly lives and reduce their ecological footprint. It's amazing how much money they save...it's quite a lie that being green costs you more in the long run. They've been doing a lot more earth friendly advertising and doing specials on building green homes. They're interesting to watch! They'll be starting a completely green network very soon!

This Friday, May 16th, New Kids on the Block make their first live performance on the Today Show. Don't miss it!

Friday, sweet Friday

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:02:36 GMT

It's kind of a sleepy Friday today, actually. All the students moved out and headed home last night or this morning so it is eerily quiet. In another week this will feel normal and peaceful, but today it just feels slow. I had to say goodbye to Nathan McConnaughhay yesterday, who came as a freshman my first year working here and has been doing work study in our office longer than any of my other workers. Not only that, but he was involved in Lighthouse and then at Crossings with us. I definitely cried when he came by to say goodbye for now, but I know he will touch a lot of lives.

Cana and Katie came over last night and watched the Thursday night shows with me, which was nice since Bill and Taylor were playing a show at Manhattan's downtown till late. And they brought me a refreshing drink from Starbucks which made the night go down even easier. I am sad that this past week was the last time our small group met as a whole group for a while. Kristin and Cana will head home, and Heather and Kim will be gone mid-June, but hopefully we'll come up with some fun things to do and some of us can meet all summer at least.

I think the whole weekend will probably be quiet like this since everybody's gone and Taylor is flying to Puerto Rico. I am thinking it's a good weekend to make some soup (yet another Mandy Watson recipe that blows my mind) and watch movies at home in our PJs! Sounds good to me! Have a great weekend everybody!

p.s. note the MMJ album release on 6/11/08! Can't wait!

The weekend...

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:21:11 GMT

I know you're all dying to hear how the Mary Kay party went! I think it was a fun and unique party. Anyssa brought Adie and Molly and between Adie and Harley things were a little crazy. Adie found a way to remove everything from the table and I think Harley tried to eat everything on the table. Even so, I'm pretty positive that I wouldn't want it any other way. It was good to see an old volleyball friend and good to be able to do something to help her. Thanks to Dani for coming too!

After the party, I got to share Lars and the Real Girl with Heather. It was my second time to watch it last week, and I still love it. It's just a sweet movie!

I had big plans on Saturday to get some things done in town with my sister and then spend the evening figuring out my sewing machine. Bill was supposed to fly in Saturday night and drive home from Atlanta, but you can read about how all of that went down here. So, I didn't get to see Bill Saturday night and I ended up doing the Easy Worship presentation for Sunday morning and getting all of the typical things we haul with us together. I was too bummed to do much of anything else so Harley and I hit the sack early. I think we took turns waking each other up all night between my tossing and turning and her moving from one side of the bed to the other.

Sunday I was just not in high spirits (have I mentioned that I hate it when Bill goes out of town) but I am thankful for a community of friends at Crossings that just keeps going and working together. I know I don't have to be "on" all the time and it's ok and everything will get done. It seemed like we were under attack, with Bill being gone and Mark having only a few hours to come up with a message (it was great though), and then the computer deleted the easy worship presentation when we were doing a reboot because for some reason the powerpoint wasn't importing. It was a five minute fix in the end and a minor glitch with the powerpoint, but it all got fixed in time for the service to start. The hospitality leaders were certainly my best friends because they hooked me up with a sweet decaf iced mocha that did the trick to calm the nerves. All went well, we had 15 people at the Skinny after church (the Skinny is a little lunch at the Nelson's that we invite new people to so they can learn about the beliefs, values and dreams of Crossings) and I finally got to see Bill.

Sunday nap time was goooood yesterday.

Founder's Day Fun

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:22:25 GMT

Happy Founders Day! We had two former president's daughters at chapel today, and they were interviewed about their lives growing up on campus. It was pretty funny actually. Now all the students are off having fun, probably rock hopping or cliff jumping or something.

Bill left this morning to go to a high school friend's wedding. He's once again the wedding singer. I was very sad, to say the least, to have him go for a few days, but I am happy he'll get to see his friends and family.

My small group's green class went fine on Tuesday. After our normal meeting last night, it was cool too hear how much all the girls learned just from teaching their class. Heather and I did some grocery shopping before group and she was really on top of the game. Mostly she just pointed out random packages and said things like, "What! That's too much packaging!" and "I would never buy that, that's not biodegradable". We had a VERY hard time in the produce section. Turns out that most of Wal-Marts produce comes from other countries or as far away as California and Washington. There wasn't ONE thing in their section from this side of the country even. So, Wal-Mart will not be my produce provider anymore. However, they have a fine selection of earth friendly cleaning products (Simplicity dish soap and green works multi purpose cleaner) and I bought some dryer sheets that biodegrade in 21 days. These were just a few more steps in the right direction.

Don't forget to get LOST tonight!!!!! How exciting!

This weekend is going to be interesting. I am without a car. Even though the Nelson's kindly offered us one of theirs to borrow, I thought I would be able to do without and that it would teach me a lesson about how I don't have to depend on modern transportation. I forgot that during this time Bill was leaving for a weekend and most of my friends are going out of town. I was duped into hosting a Mary Kay party Friday, which I'm not going to say anything about because I can't say anything nice. I have 2 friends who are being kind and going so I'm making no-bake cookies for them. I think the rest of the weekend will probably be spent baking, crocheting, reading about babies and napping. I'll probably watch Stranger Than Fiction because I use that movie as a motivational tool for my life and usually go on a creative binge for a couple of weeks.

If you are on campus and you are doing something fun, remember that I am at home without Bill.

On a positive note, I'll see my sister for a few hours on Saturday so there will be a short break to my alone time.

It will be good for me.

See ya later!

Today is Duane Chew's Birthday!

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:12:24 GMT

Hey!

It's been another long while. I can't seem to get my blogging momentum back. That very statement is cringe-worthy, as so many abandoned blogs start their final post with those words. I don't plan on this being the case for me, nonetheless, it's becoming harder to stay consistent.

Last week was good. Bill and I went to an exit about 50 miles outside of Knoxville to pick up 2 of our friends, Joe and Melissa. They are hiking the Appalachian Trail and we hosted them for a "zero day", or a day of resting, laundry, and normal food. We picked them up underneath an I-40 overpass and drove them back to K-town. We ate at the Downtown Grill and Brewery before stopping to refill their food supply and they crashed in our guest bedroom on the cloud bed (our air mattress is referred to this way). They said they slept better then they had since they started their journey, which always makes a hostess feel good. I think they enjoyed Harley too, since every time I walked into the room she was asleep on one of their laps. We had some great BBQ pork chops and fruit salad (thanks to Sue Wolf and her awesome family recipe scrapbook) and chowed down on some no-bake cookies and strawberry milkshake Oreos (YES they are being sold right now!). We dropped them back off underneath the interstate on Wednesday and they are off again. They should be finished with their hike in September. It was very cool hearing their stories and learning about "roughing it".

Tomorrow my small group is teaching it's final green class. My other small group made up of college girls is actually going to be teaching this one. The research has been really interesting and we are making small changes in our house, with the plan of gradually working these "green" steps into our daily lives. We started a long time ago with changing our light bulbs to CFLs, which made an immediate positive impact on our electric bill. Our next electric step will be plugging our appliances that aren't in use except for certain parts of the day to power strips with on and off switches. Another step was switching all of our soap (after we'd already run out of what we were using) to bar soap. The advantage here is less packaging and more earth friendly ingredients (less chemicals washed into fresh water). These are small steps, but each one is moving in the right direction. I've also been taking note as I do my grocery shopping. Everything with packaging beyond a number 2 is pretty much out of the question. It can be hard and a little more time consuming, but you only have to take that time once before you know which products to look for. It's a good time.

My girl's small group had a fun outing to Nama to celebrate Rachel Yager's birthday. I would like to share a funny story but I have to call and get Heather's permission first....calling....ok, it's approved.

Ok, so Heather did some really good sushi research before our outing at Nama. She chose a roll and thought she'd have a complete meal by ordering the calamari. The calamari arrived at our table in the typical likeness of onion rings. To decorate the dish they placed squid legs that had not been fried and breaded on top, spread out and cascading down the pile of calamari rings. I quickly saw this going bad so I snatched the unbreaded tentacles from the pile and slid them under the plate where she wouldn't have to look at them. I love calamari, but I can barely stand looking a the suckers on the legs of those things myself. Anyway, Heather looked puzzled, but she took the first bite. Conversation continued around the table, everybody tried the calamari and oohd and aahhd over each other's beautifully presented sushi. Out of nowhere, I hear Heather say to herself, "Wait a minute. I think squid are the scariest animal in the ocean." Then she looked around, perplexed as the realization hit her. "What is calamari? Isn't it clams? Wait. Is this squid? Oh no." This was the day that Heather discovered that she didn't like calamari.

We started the weekend with some Balderdash and Shout Out Loud Music trivia dvds. I inevitably laugh till I cry playing Balderdash, and this was no exception. You are probably familiar with the game, and several of you readers were there, but in Balderdash you are given a term, a name, an acronym or a movie title. Everyone has to write down what they thing the terms mean, or what an acronym stands for, or a description of what they think the movie title is about. The final round was the movie "Sally of the Sawdust". Bill's answer was "Sally lost three limbs in the saw mill that day. Luckily she only needed the one to get home. Sometimes home is closer than you think." Maybe we were just giddy, but I laughed at that one for a long time. That Bill.

That's about all for this game of catch up. In the words of Tony Cornheiser, "I'll do better next time". Have a great week!

hi!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:07:10 GMT

I just want you to know that I have tried to update this and our internet went down, so you can blame the long time between posts on someone else this week.

I am a massive ball of allergies right now, but other than that it's been a good week. It's absolutely gorgeous here and that makes up for the sneezing...a little bit.

This weekend Taylor, Bill and Kenny will be performing at the Dogwood Arts Festival on the Market Square stage. They'll play from 12-1 on Friday AND Saturday so please come out! Also, DeLacey will be performing with Gypsy Hands at 4:30 Friday.

I never really told you all about how the Spring Retreat went. You can definitely see my facebook for pictures, but it went really well. It was our first time carrying it over to Sunday morning and I was definitely tired and my feet ACHED. We've had lots of positive feedback through students who attended. It's hard to get very deep into what's going on during the event when you're pretty much just directing your volunteer traffic as they make things happen. I will say that my favorite moment was during sound check Sunday morning. Brian Sykes was playing "Above All" and I was up front and turned around to see a bunch of girl volunteers dancing like ballerinas in the back, with very serious facial expressions. So I did what any sane person would do and danced to them as fast as I could and leaped (it was a very small leap) to make my final transition to their group. I felt wind blow past my sides and realized that I was not the only who did this at this very moment, but about 4 guys had decided to join in at the same time. The funniest part was probably the girl's faces when they realized what was happening...they were faces of sheer joy and surprise. Sometimes, you just need to dance.

On that note, in spring retreats past we would do something to relieve pre-event stress the night before everything started. For the first 2 years is was "stress-release volleyball" which consisted of all of us in a circle passing a volleyball and Summer grunting like a man every time it got to her, which made all of us laugh and the stress was being released. This past retreat I taught them a dance I learned on SNL the other day and I think there were about 20 of us in a circle doing it, and we did it about 6 times before we prayed and left for the night. It was fun, and I don't think it was just fun for me...but don't tell me if you hear otherwise.

You may also want to check out the pictures from our last Crossings baptisms on my facebook. Several of us left straight from the retreat to go to the baptisms that Sunday and it was truly an amazing and emotional afternoon. I was just looking through the pictures at the faces of all of these people who are still kind of new to my life and it made me so thankful to be part of all of this. Everybody's faces are just beaming as they celebrated 5 loved ones get baptized. I'm starting to get teary-eyed so I'll move on...

UT LADY VOLS ARE NATIONAL CHAMPS!!! There was never any question throughout the whole game. They owned it and it was beautiful. Go Vols!

OK, I'm going back to work now! Have a great day!

SUNDOWN!

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:13:34 GMT

I have a whole Spring Retreat to catch you up on but I just saw the schedule for Sundown this year and thought I'd pass it along.

Josh Ritter will be here!!!! Everybodyfields is coming just for my birthday, aaaand The Presidents of the United States of America?! Yes!

Anyway, pictures and stories from the retreat to follow soon but I just woke up from the retreat induced coma and am not ready to break it all down yet. Much love to you all!

Sundown in the City 2008

April 17
Galactic
featuring guest emcee Boots Riley
with Garage Deluxe

April 24
Susan Tedeschi
with Todd Steed & the Suns of Phere

May 1
Umphrey’s McGee

May 8
Josh Ritter
and The Hackensaw Boys

May 15
North Mississippi All Stars
with special guest Alvin Youngblood Hart
with Artvandalay

May 22
Presidents of the United States of America
with Cutthroat Shamrock

May 29
Robert Earl Keen
with Jypsi

June 5
To be announced!

June 12
Citizen Cope

June 19
Marc Broussard
with Erick Baker

June 26
The Everybodyfields
and Amy LaVere

July 3
Wild Magnolias

Here we go...

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:54:39 GMT

Easter Sunday was a great celebration. We ended last week in darkness and with a bloodied and dirtied canvas. This week the top layer of the painting was peeled away to reveal the resurrected Jesus. His arms were lifted and the colors were bright and alive. Dancers came out and led us in rejoicing and it was a great start to the morning and to another year of celebrating His life!

4 and a half days from now will be the start of the annual Spring Retreat on campus. We're expecting about 400 people and I am very excited for Friday to get here! There are always details to take care of between now and then but the gym is decorated and most of our guests have been assigned housing so it just feels like it should start tomorrow. I can't wait to take pictures and update you on how it goes. This is probably the last time I'll be able to write between now and then because there is much to do.

I've been able to finish 2 books in the past couple of weeks. One was another Francine Rivers book about Ruth...I think it was called "Unshaken". It was really good and the story of Ruth and Boaz stands as a testimony to God's faithfulness. The second book was "The Shack" by William Young. This story was about a man whose youngest daughter was murdered while they were on a camping trip. It centers around a shack in the woods where the only clue that she was murdered was found. I found it hard to get through the first 4 chapters because the camping trip and her disappearance were the main focus. That's a tough subject to read about, though the book was never graphic. The rest of the book is about a letter that Mack, the main character, finds that is signed by "Papa" (the author's name for God), inviting Mack back to the Shack for a weekend. Is it a horrible joke, an invitation from a murderer, or is it God? The rest is up to you to discover. I thought it was a good book and it was pretty easy to read.

Yesterday I ate at Red Lobster with my family and had some of the best crab legs I've had in a long time. Delicious. Oh, and I had 4 biscuits. You only live once.

Next Sunday is our next baptism picnic at Crossings!! I am hoping to be finished cleaning after the retreat to have time to make it out to celebrate!

Have a great week!