I apologize in advance.

I'm sorry.

*Disclaimer: don't click any links unless you're willing to subject yourself to possibly offensive things, which I find hilarious with my sense of humor that is roughly on par with my 17 year old brother. This post is not for the faint of heart.

I never wanted this blog to be whiny and woe-is-me, plight of the single girl garbage. So if you don't come here for that, happy Friday! And don't let the internet bitch-slap you on your way out. Because today, I'm going to have a little rant here on my blog. Because I never promised not to and I DID promise to be authentic, and this is where I am. Welcome to hell.

(Ha ha, okay just kidding about the hell part, I just thought that would be funny and overly dramatic.)

I mentioned already that my best friend is getting married in November. And people? I am in the THROES of party planning. And other people? I LOOOOVE party planning. Why? Because party planning involves everything I love: to-do lists, shopping lists, people to call lists, guest lists, spreadsheets, address books, paper & pens, menus, decorations, pretty pretty twinkle lights (a definite must), presents, candles, delectable food, music, booooooze, friends, laughter and SO MUCH MORE! Truly, I swoooooooon and maybe even drool a little bit when I have reasons to make new folders on my computer and have tab after glorious tab of Excel spreadsheets. And, I love pretty things. And I happen to be really good at shopping (who'da thunk?). I was born to PARTY PLAN.

Next weekend is the Bachelorette party, also known as the DE-FLOOZING, and I've been to so many um, questionable websites to find things like the Willie Wiggle Wand (don't click that link unless you have ANY sense of humor) in the past week it's a wonder I'm not being solicited to star in p*rn films. My Southern Baptist conscience is making me blush. (Thank you, Matthew Paul Turner of Jesus Needs New PR, for this post, making it far less embarrassing for us single Southern Baptist gals to buy toys, ahem, for our soon-to-be-married friends.)

You're going to have to wait for a full-on explanation of what De-Floozing means, but let's just say that a former beau of the bride once told her she looked like a floozy. Right before she met his parents. I kid you not. She ditched him of course, but honey, you better believe I made sure that nickname stuck!

I've learned a few more things they don't tell you when you get excited about your best friend's wedding. How about a list? I do so love a good list!

What They Don't Tell You About Planning Bachelorette Parties

1. You should have kept that feather boa you wore for Halloween freshmen year of college (when you were so delighted to discover that dressing like a hooker was completely acceptable--nay, the goal, of Halloween.)

2. It will always be embarrassing to buy anything with a cartoon pen*s on it. Even via the world wide web.

3. Getting an entire bridal party together for one weekend, post-college, is a feat comparable to climbing Everest without oxygen or digging a well with your bare hands.

4. You're going to need a glue gun.

5. Dollar Tree is the best place to purchase Mardi Gras beads. (And movie candy!) (And glow sticks!)

6. When purchasing sequiny ribbon, thread, or other Bachelorette costuming necessities from JoAnn's Fabric, make sure you're on the mailing list ahead of time. That way, when you politely ask in your I'm-buying-this-to-make-my-little-sister-a-dance-costume voice if there happen to be any coupons "hiding out somewhere," you will not be met with looks of disdain from the cashier.

7. You're going to get a whole new sex education no matter how hard you try to avoid it. I'm just saying, I definitely bought her a book called Tickle His Pickle. Yes Mom, I did.

(Related sidenote: When we were in high school, Lindsey's- that's the bride- mom would always exclaim: "HOOOPEY!" when I said things like that. My justification was the no-fail "Connie, would you rather me talk about it, or do it?" See? I win.)

8. Colored feathers come in packages of primary colors, and pink. Planning a two-tone color scheme is going to be difficult.

9. No matter how many of the party favors you make yourself, how many coupons you use, how many items you cut from the list for the sake of your meager budget, still plan on hefting that Robinhood-worthy bag of gold onto the counter at Michael's and saying: "Here, have it all! Anything for the sake of my friend's marriage!" Three words: Maxed. Out. Credit.

10. You should prepare for feelings of bitterness, with an undercurrent of jealousy, if you are single. However, you should also take notes so that when it's (finally) your (freakin') turn, your party will be the best one because you've learned the lessons already! Payback's a beautiful bitch sometimes.

11. After you've spent all your money, burned all your fingers with hot glue, vacuumed all the feathers from your apartment's floor, eaten all 3 boxes of movie candy in one sitting, thrice pricked yourself with a sewing needle, and realized that probably no one will realize all the effort you put into this, it will suddenly dawn on you that the moments you spent laughing with your other single friends while you did all it of were definitely worth it, even if the party bombs. (Which you will then pray REALLY HARD that it doesn't.)

12. Then, you'll realize that at the end of a biting and sarcastic post you just got all mushy gushy and you'll be comforted that you do have a heart in there after all.

Hello, Fall!

Dear Autumn,

I have missed you so. When I walked outside this morning and I felt your chill on my arms, I stopped for a moment and breathed deeply, and I could feel the coolness going all the way into my lungs, and I loved it.

THANK YOU.

Fondly,

Hope


P.S. And thank you for providing the perfect backdrop for football season. AMEN!

Drown in Grace

How do you demonstrate grace to someone when you are the one who needs it?

So here's what happened, in a nutshell:

My day job is Creative Marketing. Right now my big project is an ad DVD for my employer and three of us have been filming and planning and brainstorming into the late hours of weekend nights. We had planned to film this past Saturday and Sunday, but decided around 11:30 PM on Friday to postpone those two days of filming due to circumstances out of our control. After a week filled with funeral-related things, visitors, and catching up on work, I was ALL ABOUT not setting my alarm for Saturday morning.

Fast forward.

11:59 PM-- Lights out! I am zonked.

11:17 AM, Saturday-- I decide to saunter out of bed and make some coffee. (People, I even did The Shred.)

Fast forward.

7:52 AM, Monday-- Open work email. See email from fellow employee dated Saturday, 11:30 AM: "Where are you? I've been here since 10:15."

Ohhhh shit.

Said employee was basically forced by her boss to come into work on Saturday, a day she always has off, because of ME and my NEED for her to be in my film shoot for 45 minutes.

The film shoot I cancelled.

The one I forgot to tell her I cancelled.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

7:53 AM, Monday-- Proceed to bang head against wall and groan loudly.

8:10 AM, Monday-- Write 7 sentence email to fellow employee. 6 sentences contain some form of the words "sorry" or "apologize" or "sincerest."

I truly feel so, so badly for my oversight. What is worse, if I were in her shoes, I would have BLASTED me; absolutely annihilated me with anger-- which tells you a lot about me. HA.

Here's my point though, from her perspective (rightly so), I had ZERO regard for her time or her weekend or her in general. What mattered to me was my day off and the SECOND I knew I would have that day off, I forgot everyone else involved. (Including my brother, who was also to be involved in the shoot. When he called to see where I was, I apologized and he said: "Oh okay. No problem. Love you; have a good day off!")

After I sent my apology email, I nearly cried with guilt, with feeling badly for my wrongdoing. But I don't believe I should live in guilt. I am human, after all, sinful. I make mistakes. In Christ, there is grace for me and I am positively drowning in that grace. Therefore, to continue to live in guilt is to reject God's gift of grace.

However, I do not know if this fellow employee lives under that grace or even knows it. As I thought back to my brother's easy-going response to my mistake, I felt grateful for the grace he showed me. So as I considered how else I could apologize to my fellow employee besides an email, I wondered how I could show her grace, when I am the one who needs grace from her?

During my lunch break I bought her a gift card for a local popular microbrewery/restaurant. I left it in her office because she was at lunch when I went by, and I left a note to say I knew it wouldn't make up for her time, but I was sorry and please enjoy dinner & some drinks on me. I don't know what else to do, or if that was even the right thing.

But I pray she enjoys the hell out of that dinner and those drinks. I hope she shares that time with friends and that their meal is filled with laughter, even if it's at my expense. I pray that somehow, such a small thing will serve as an example of Christ, even if my humanity does the opposite far more frequently.

But more, I pray that I will be changed because of my mistake. That when some other human makes a mistake that affects me like that, I will show him or her grace instead of anger. I don't want to be the same tomorrow.

Do you have an answer: How do you show grace when you're the one who needs it?

For God So Loved Silk Ties

I'm still really struggling with this whole writing-what-I-really-want-to-write-on-my-blog thing. That is to say, sometimes, I just want to post really shallow stuff or things that I find hilarious that have little to do with anything at all. But when I write somewhat serious, but definitely weirdly-phrased posts, like that last one, LOTS more people show up on this little corner of the internet. And by "LOTS" I mean about 10 more than usual.

Anyway, here's my point: my Grandma Jean died last Saturday at age 81 and today was her funeral. I'm exhausted from these few days so right now, I have to tell you that one of the pastors who did the funeral service today, wore this very tie:

For you heathens out there, that's John 3:16. You could say that man wore the Gospel on his sleeve, so everyone could see it and be saved! Yippee! Or you could sit in the second row of your Grandma's funeral and stiffle a giggle.

Now before you go saying I'm going to hell (Though seriously? If I were gonna go to hell based on what comes out of my mouth, I'm loooong screwed), over the past few days my eyes have been opened to some pretty cool stuff-- or maybe it's more accurate to say that my heart has been opened to good ol' Southern Baptists. It's hard to hate on people who can love like that.

But I'll tell y'all about that later.

Looking for Beer in God's Refrigerator

My favorite kind of people are authentic. They shoot straight. They don't pretend to be someone they are not. They don't hide what they really think. They are comfortable in their own skin. But it's more than just "being yourself."

My favorite kind of people live so fully from their true hearts, that they invite other people around them to do the same thing. Do you know someone like that? The kind of person who invites you over for dinner and says "Make yourself at home"-- except they really mean it. And so you start opening cabinets in the kitchen to find the glasses and on your third try, there they are. And this person is cooking or setting the table and you start fishing around in the fridge for a beer, and then once you find it, you're opening drawers to get the bottle opener. And all the while your friend is just chatting away, asking about your day or keeping the conversation up with others and you're just feeling completely natural there, rooting around in drawers of a kitchen you've never been in before. You're comfortable and you don't even realize it. It's that person. They've made you feel at home so well that you hadn't even noticed until you started reading this silly little story.

I've been thinking about a lot of spiritual things lately-- about who I am and who God has made me to be. I think about what it would be like if I really could understand how much God loves me and if I could live there, in that understanding.

My church is unique. We meet in a bar right now. Usually it smells like hops and about 3/4 of the way through the service, a bar employee with dreadlocks and no bra on walks through the room and goes into the private dining room we use as a nursery to grab some towels from the cupboard. It's also unique because the part I get the most out of has only a little bit to do with Sundays. Monday nights my Community Group comes together in a house where I once opened three cabinets to find the glasses without even thinking about it. We call them Community Groups because they're based on geographic location, not age or marital status or race or anything so silly. So in my CG, we have people from ages 23 to maybe "47" (you're welcome, Marc) and some of us are teachers and some of us work in restaurants and some of us are moms or bankers or pharmacists. But I'll tell you what, we all ask questions and we all struggle through spiritual things together. And it's really rather wonderful.

This Monday we were wondering how it is you go about abiding in God. I think it's safe to say we're still wondering, but we did conclude that it looks different for everyone. We were reading John 15 and when I went back to it last night in The Message I was struck by something new.

I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. (v.9)

What would it be like, I wonder, to open the cabinets and rummage through the drawers and look for a beer in the refrigerator of God's love? And by that I mean, who would you be, if in the core of your being you understood that you are radically, wholly, undeniably loved by an all-powerful, dangerous, infinite and good God? What would it be like to have a conversation knowing that the Creator of the Cosmos is fascinated by every word you say? To know that he values your questions, that he loves you for asking them?

What would it be like to not feel the need to prove yourself?

What would it be like to make yourself at home in the love of Christ?

Working Distractions

I'm at work right now and I'm so busy and have so many things on my Neverending To-Do List that I can't believe I'm letting myself write a blog post.

But I got distracted by Twitter and one tweet linked to a blog post, which led me to another, which had me reading a chapter out of Donald Miller's new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and I am suddenly remembering how much I love words and the way they play off one another, like smiles between friends around a bountiful dinner table with wine and candles and empty plates.

I love being reminded that I love to write. Because I have this other blog post saved that I've been working on for several days now and it feels too contrived because it is. I've tried too hard to write something meaningful rather than just writing because I love the dance of the letters.

If I had an antique typewriter, I would type these words on it, and there would be mistakes and misspellings and big blotches of crap, just like in real life. But the words would also be more real because of the typewriter, because of the lack of a "delete" button, because I wouldn't have a chance to fix them, but I would have space to apologize for messing up.

Sometimes that's just what I need-- space to mess up.

My best friend is one of those who is okay with mess ups. And I realized while I was driving yesterday that I've never felt the need to edit myself for him. Sometimes I hesitate in my words because I want to get them just right, but I don't leave parts out. Isn't that the best kind of honesty? The unedited, ink blotted, messy, real honesty? Not even when we first met and we kayaked around the lake, not even then did I think I had to change my answers to say what he wanted to hear me say. I can't think of any words to explain the gratitude that wells up inside me when I think about that.

VACATION? Yes, please.

I spent the past week at the beach and I accomplished several important things:

1. I made some serious decisions about my future. But I'm a jerk and will not write about them on this blog until they're for sure. Heh.

2. I read Twilight.

3. I watched the movie. ::Swwwooooooon :: Robert Pattinson, you make me feel better about my pale skin, you are such a YUMMY vampire.

4. Then I read New Moon.

5. Then I read Eclipse.

6. Tonight I'll start the 4th installment and I don't even know the name of it because I love these books so much I don't care at all what they're called I just keep readingandreadingandreadingand dear God, WRITE ANOTHER ONE, STEPHENIE MEYER! (Seriously, I spent 30 minutes today Googling pictures of the vampire cast. I didn't even do crap like that when I was 13. Which is, by the way, the age of my sister, who is the one to blame for wanting to read these books in the first place. And also my mom, who wanted to know if the vampires were evil or not and therefore if my sister should read the books at all, but didn't want to read the books herself, so she FORCED me to sit on the beach and read them in a 72 hour period. After I fell in looooove, she decided to read them too, and is obviously now addicted. But THEN she tried to steal said 4th book from me last night while I was busy SPRINTING to the bathroom, just after returning from the beach. But I stopped her with my lightning fast reflexes and 6th sense for catching Vampire Book Thieves. I'll bet you big bucks the book is NOT where I left it when I return home from work today. As though going to a bookstore would be more difficult than breaking in to snoop through my gargantuan book collection.)

7. This post is becoming less about the beach and more about absurdly long parenthetical statements.

8. I did The Shred once. Hey, better once than never right? (What's that you say? That's not the phrase? Yeah, right. Of course it is.)

9. I ran on the beach once. THAT is a feat. For me, running anywhere other than on an elliptical machine in a supremely air-conditioned gym with an iPod in my hand and ESPN on the flatscreen TV in front of me, is just not worthwhile. Running outside is like a waste of a workout. Half the reason I work out without my hot-ass boyfriend to look at without his shirt on is because of the endorphins. I feel so much happier after a good sweat. But when I run outside, my thoughts go like this: I HATE running. My back hurts. I need a better sports bra. I hate this. It's so hot...I hate this. I hate this. Can't...breathe...hate...hate...HAAAAATE!!!!! .::fall down dead::. So you see why running on the beach for about one-half of a mile is cause for much celebration in my world.

10. I ate like hell: full blown sweet tea (how I have missed you, Heaven's Nectar), biscuits & gravy, Calabash-style fried scallops, fried crab cakes, hush puppies, homemade key lime pie, fudgesicles (a seaside staple), homemade fudge, homemade margaritas, homemade BUTTER (no lie, this stuff is the shiiiiizzzzzz)... I could go on and on but just writing about this stuff is not only making my mouth water, but also making my belly pooch out of my Spanx and that just defeats of the whole purpose, don't you think?

11. I had a lot of time to reflect and figure things out and when I'm in the mood to be a little more serious, I'll write about those things. But for now, enjoy some more Edward Cullen. Yes, please indeed!