My New Favorite Travel Accessory

Recently I saw a giveaway on another blog for one of these fabulous travel pillows. I didn't win the giveaway, but I decided I really needed one. I'm generally a very cranky traveler and am always looking for ways to make myself more comfortable. I hate taking a big pillow because I'm not one of those folks that can only sleep on my own pillow and it's just one more thing to keep up with, but I like the idea of a travel pillow. Those squishy beads and those u-shaped things just don't cut it for me, so I thought this might be just the solution. After about two days of debate, I decided I wanted this one that said "Dream Big." It's flowery and has pink on it. Yup, it's perfect for me!

I was super-excited when it came, but of course my loving husband decided to tease me about it and how it looked kind of goofy. Yeah, the teasing lasted all of 24 hours when I came downstairs and found him napping in the recliner all curled up on my pillow! The worst part was that he wouldn't give it back! I'm going to have to get him his own! It really is very comfy. It's firm so it gives you some good support and will last, but it isn't like propping on a rock. I like that I can tuck my shoulder into the corner because I'm a side sleeper (especially on my right) so it feels very natural to me! I also like that the long part gives me something to hug on and a place to put my arms.

If you're planning any vacations in the near future (summer or otherwise) I would recommend you get one of these, especially if you will be driving! There are baby/kid sizes also for your littlest travelers. Most have a strap so it can be attached to your seatbelt. Mine didn't  have that, which suits me just fine because that means it's comfy for sleeping on either side. The pillowcase comes off so it can be tossed in the washer. The only thing I wish was different is that there's no "water resistant' covering to keep my inevitable spilled Dr. Pepper from seeping in, but I may go get some waterproofer that I can put on the pillow part. So far nothing has happened to it, but I know myself well enough to know it's only a matter of time!

Jeff's Post-Anniversary Surprise

When I made my 101 things list, one thing I added was taking Jeff on a surprise trip. I'm not great at surprises and secrets. I tried to do this for his birthday but my cover was blown. Thankfully, he didn't say anything until after the fact, but it did make it that much harder.

 For several months now, he has been talking about wanting to go visit Vicksburg, MS. He has been once when he was younger but said that family trip left a lot to be desired. I have never been. I knew we were probably going to do this at some point this year, but when I saw a great deal on Groupon, I couldn't pass it up. Originally I had planned to wait a little while longer, but since I'm not good with secrets and was out of good ideas for his anniversary gift, I figured I'd make this work.

The actual surprise part involved a fair amount of sneaking around on my part and putting some things off to the last minute, but I sucked it up and did it. The biggest challenge was getting him into the car! Originally I had planned to kidnap him from work at lunch time, but since he is no longer on overtime and had taken off work the past two Fridays, I decided not to push it. Instead, we agreed to grab an early dinner when he got home from work. As soon as he got home, I was already waiting for him with the suitcase hidden in my car and the dogs all squared away. After he changed clothes, we headed out and I decided not to say anything and see how long it took for him to ask questions.

We got about halfway to the interstate when he started to name all the places we WEREN'T going for dinner. Then he started guessing sort of ridiculous places (like the concession stand at the local water park) but finally I decided to tell him. Since I was still driving, I had him reach into the back seat and retrieve the bag I had stashed with some candy, a Mississippi map, and a book about Civil War road trips. I had a printout of our groupon tucked into the book at the page about Vicksburg. We stopped in Meridian for dinner and I let him drive the rest of the way. We got to the hotel and checked in. As soon as we got to our room, his first comment was "Let's hurry and catch the shuttle to the casino." We played a few slots and had a snack before heading back to the room.

Saturday, we headed out to the Military Park. We stopped for breakfast on the way out there and spent the better part of the day out at the park. When we got done, we headed out to cemetery in search of the marker for "Old Douglas," the Confederate Camel. We didn't find it, it started raining, and there were lots of people driving 90 miles an hour on lawn mowers right where we were, so we decided it wasn't worth continuing the hunt. After that, we drove around downtown and stopped at a little museum and soda fountain that was the home of the first Coca-Cola bottling operations. After that, we headed back to the hotel and watched a little bit of a movie that was on TV before we went over to the buffet at the casino for dinner. The buffet was generally disappointing, and if we'd had to pay full price for it, I would have been peeved. Even with our groupon credit it was kind of disappointing. I honestly prefer Golden Corral. Oh well, we'll know for next time! After dinner we lost the last of our casino credit on a slot machine, and then headed back to the room. We watched another movie, then went to bed.

We had thought about doing a little more sight-seeing but it was rainy and we decided to just take the long way out of town instead. We stopped outside Jackson for a late breakfast/early lunch at Cracker Barrel. I honestly can't remember the last time I went to a Cracker Barrel on a Sunday but it was really nice since we got there before the after church crowd started swarming. We got home around 3pm and enjoyed a lazy afternoon at home with the dogs.

It was a wonderful weekend and I can't wait to have another one! We saw most of his family last night and most of them knew about it or heard about it, and a few people said something to Jeff about "next time tell us when you're doing something like that!" and Jeff very honestly replied "I didn't know what we were doing until we were part of the way there!" That made me feel good and made me want to do more things like that in the future!

Church Shopping

As Jeff and I began to prepare for this new Season of Sabbath, one thing that was a priority for us was finding a new church. We have done a little bit of visiting other churches both while dating and married, so we have had a few conversations about what we like and don't like about some of these places. As we began to prepare for this transition, we started having more conversations about what we feel is important in our church home and we started making a concrete list of what we are looking for.

Our Shopping List:

Less than 15 minutes drive

Associated with an established denomination

Community that is friendly and welcoming, but not all up in everyone else's business!

Average attendance of 100+, but not so huge we feel anonymous

Worship space that feels like a sanctuary, not an auditorium!

Sunday School or Small Groups (*this can come from someplace other than our "main" church, too!)

Opportunities to get involved, but not feel pushed or obligated to do so.

Active programs for children and families of all ages.

Worship that is comfortable for both of us.

Sound theology!

Diverse leadership

We also started making a list of the places we would like to visit. Some are more "church tourism" because we are curious about them or know people who go there, not because we think we would actually attend on a regular basis. Others are because we have started doing our homework and, on paper, these churches meet most of these requirements. Some we won't know until we visit, which is why it is important to visit. I need both the information on paper as well as the experience so that I can make a decision I am happy about. 

There are very few things that are absolute deal-breakers for me, but there are a few. I want to hear good, sound theology in preaching and worship that happens with intention and not just a feel-good motivational speech with a few trendy songs. I want to SEE a variety of people, especially in leadership positions. I want to see and feel that people are there to worship and learn, not just socialize or gossip. Most of all I want to know that there is respect and regard for everyone, not just from the pastor but from the community as a whole. This weekend will be our first opportunity to begin working our way through the list we already have and really thinking about where we want to find our home. Part of me says I want to be settled someplace by the end of August, but I know this is a process that will simply take as long as it's going to take and I can't rush it!

What do you look for in a community of faith? Have you ever done any "church shopping"? What was the experience like for you?

Visiting Churches as an Introvert

I am an introvert. A very strong introvert. The group social interactions where I thrive are the ones where I am free to sit back and observe. I am nourished and inspired by the thoughts and work of others. If given enough time in a small enough group, I will open my mouth but please oh please don't try to force me and especially don't try to make it happen immediately. In high school, "get to know you games" (especially at summer camp) often reduced me to tears. Even now, any time I attend some sort of event or workshop where there is some adult version of these games, I always excuse myself to go to the restroom and will hide outside until it's over if it's at all possible!

Why am I telling you all this? Because, as I enter my Season of Sabbath, I am facing a very anxiety-producing experience and that is visiting new churches. I was trying to come up with some logical and eloquent way of sharing this anxiety when I came across this article : Top 5 Things Introverts Dread About Church. That pretty much covers it for me. The most anxiety producing part of this for me is that I don't know how much of all these things to expect so there's no way to prepare for them. I have just about decided that, no matter what, I'm going to have to visit a place at least twice before I can form an opinion about what kind of fit it will be for me. The first time will be all about survival and getting my bearings. The second time I can actually take it all in and make a more educated decision.

When I think about visiting a new church, I can't help but remember an episode of Designing Women. I can't remember whose church it was (probably Charlene's) but Mary Jo and I believe Julia were visiting. They were immediately noticed by the pushy woman in charge of the "hospitality" committee who promptly pinned a giant yellow mum to each of them so that everyone in the church would know they were visitors. Although I know that there was a certain level of embellishment for the comedic sake of television, there is still a tiny part in the back of my mind that is terrified that this will happen to me as I visit new places.

I have never encountered a church that took it to quite that level, but I do remember the one time I visited a church in college (which may or may not have been part of why I didn't really go to church in college!) when the friends who had taken me forced me over to get a "visitor's bag". Their reasoning behind it was that there was a super-fabulous homemade brownie inside made by one of the sweet ladies in the church. While the brownie was really wonderful, I would have preferred to never eat another brownie again for the rest of my life than have to walk out with that bag. After that incident, I never did go back to that church because I saw myself tagged as "fresh meat" and I just couldn't handle it. I will walk a quarter mile in the rain to avoid parking in a space marked for visitors. I refuse to raise my hand and introduce myself. I will generally only fill out a visitor card if it is small and can be slipped discretely into the offering plate or made as a note on an attendance pad and I promise you will NOT get my address or phone number! If and when I decide to attend regularly or join, only then will I allow myself to exist "on the grid."

My husband is not an introvert. He is happy to shake hands, introduce himself, tell anyone where he works and where he lives. He has no problem jumping right in. Obviously, this can require some negotiations and compromise on both our parts when we embark on new experiences.

What about you? Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert? What parts of church (or new situations) are uncomfortable for you? How do you deal with them?

3rd Anniversary

Today is my third anniversary. I would love to say that my first three years of marriage have been everything I thought they would be, but that's not true. There are a lot of things that haven't been at all what I would have thought they would be three years ago, but I am so incredibly grateful for all of those little surprises because they have created the path to the place where I am now, and I'm pretty darn happy with that place. The best part about it has been having Jeff by my side for each and every step of this journey!

This past year has been a big one for us! A lot has happened, so let's re-cap shall we?

We discovered Geocaching - while we haven't done a ton of this, it's been fun and we're anticipating many more adventures!

Jeff built me a workbench for all of my craft stuff in the garage so I have a space of my own.

I was hired as a weekend chaplain at Children's of Alabama.

We tried (and fell in love with) Fox Valley Restaurant - If you're ever in the area of Helena, you should check them out. AMAZING.

Jeff got a full-time job as a contract worker with Southern Company! Hip-hip hooray!

I completed my CPE Residency! Double hip-hip hooray!

We went on a 5 day Western Caribbean cruise.

We did some minor renovations to the kitchen and some major renovations to the basement!

We hosted Christmas Day celebrations for my extended family.

I was turned down for commissioning again and made the decision to discontinue as a licensed local pastor.

We took a weekend getaway to Nashville.

I was accepted for the Academy for Spiritual Formation.

We finally "finished" moving in and got the last piece of furniture - a china cabinet!

We hosted Easter celebrations for Jeff's extended family.

We made some updates to the back yard including a shed, flower garden, ceiling fan, and hot tub.

I moved into the empty room upstairs and turned it into my library/meditation space.

We replaced both vehicles - Jeff's truck with an Expedition and my car with a Mazda3

We are planning a 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise for this fall.


I am really excited about embarking on the adventures of the next year! Thanks for joining us so far!

Formaggio's - Alabaster

We have been watching Formaggio's for months now. So long that I really kind of stopped watching because I had just given up on it. It looked like it opened for a couple of nights a month or two ago and just as we were getting ready to try it was closed again. We finally got our chance on Saturday, May 12th. I honestly have no idea when they officially opened or how long they had been open, but I will say the first impression was generally very nice.

The parking lot, both front and back, was pretty full. I was honestly surprised by how few patrons were in the dining room (I counted maybe 8 tables including us) so I can only assume many of those cars belonged to the staff.

In looking at the menu, the first thing that caught my eye was that they do pizza by the slice. I've always liked that idea, especially since Jeff and I like such different things. Then I noticed they do both thin and "Chicago style" pizzas, but it didn't specify which you could get by the slice. Common sense will say it's the thin kind, but the way it's worded on the menu isn't especially clear. I'm a big fan of chicago style pizza but obviously I'm not going to get one just for myself and Jeff was feeling pasta, so we'll have to save the pizza for another visit.

We got an appetizer of the fried ravioli, which were good but nothing especially outstanding about them. The one down side was that we didn't get any plates so we all ended up double dipping into the sauce (but since it was family I didn't particularly care!) Jeff ordered a side of meatballs with his entree (his favorite test of any new italian place) and those came out as an appetizer, but again, no plates! That was my biggest gripe about the whole experience, which I guess isn't so bad.

Jeff decided to get the Formaggio Combo Pasta which came with spaghetti carbonara, chicken parmigiana, and lasagna along with his side of meatballs. My mother-in-law got the spaghetti with meatballs. I opted for the pepperoni roll. Both Jeff and Barbara's meals came with salad, so Jeff got ranch and Barbara got the house vinaigrette. The other option was soup, but neither the menu nor our server ever said what type. We also got breadsticks, which were obviously made with the pizza dough and were quite tasty. Both had good things to say about the house vinaigrette, and I heard another table talking about how good it was, too.

The entrees came out and they were very good. I tried bites of all of it and was pleased. The one thing I didn't like was the green peas in the carbonara (which I know a lot of people do) and while several menu items included some sort of description, the carbonara didn't have anything. I almost ordered that as my entree but ended up being very glad I didn't because of the peas! My mother-in-law asked for more breadsticks when our entrees came but by the time we got them everyone was just about done with dinner! Nobody ever told us "we're making more" or what the hold up was so I don't know if the waitress simply forgot or what the problem was.

My biggest confusion was the Calzones and Pizza Rolls - Can somebody explain to me what the difference is (other than the shape maybe?) Both were described as having the sauce on the side, so why do both? There were more options for the calzones and their filling, but everything you can get in a pizza roll you can get in a calzone. And even more, why offer different sides? The calzone comes with pasta salad and the pizza roll comes with chips, but you can substitute pasta salad for an extra charge. We aren't talking homemade chips either, I got a small bag of Lay's. The price is pretty much the same (a pepperoni calzone is the same price as my pepperoni pizza roll) so what is the difference? Also, the sandwiches come with french fries with the option to substitute a side salad for an extra charge, but those aren't an option for either of the other two. Also, there's no "make your own" option for either the calzones or pizza rolls, but the menu said you can add extra toppings, so why not? Maybe I'm just over-analyzing this, but it takes up half the space on the menu so I'm curious.

We decided to also order dessert. They had lots of different kinds of cake, plus cheesecake, tiramisu and cannoli. I was excited about trying the cannoli, but just as we were about to order we were told they were out. Seriously? It was only 7:30 on Saturday night!?! Instead, I got orange creamscicle cake, Jeff got strawberry cake, and Barbara got cheesecake. While the strawberry and creamscicle were ok, the cake was a little on the dry side. The icing was good, though. The cheesecake was my favorite, but other than trying a cannoli I don't really see myself going to the trouble of saving room for dessert on future visits.

I'm sure we will return. I still want to try the chicago style pizza, the gnocchi, and the cannoli. However, as of right now, this is definitely not our first choice if we're in the mood for Italian.

Mother's Day

This is a picture of me and my Momma from 2004. People say we are a lot alike, both in looks and in personality. I take that as a very high compliment. She was an amazing woman and I was a lucky girl to get to call her mine.

Mother's Day is one day that reminds me what kind of "non-place" I have in the world on this day. The first Sunday I was at my church, one of the members pulled me aside and asked me "Doesn't it make you sad?" and my response to her was a simple "No." My thought process was "Why? Because I'm not a mother? Or because I don't have a mother? Either way, no!"

One thing I really appreciate about my church is that they always honor every woman on Mother's Day and every man on Father's Day. I always acknowledge in the service the role of the people who have mothered us in a variety of ways, not only physically. 

This is one holiday that has gotten a little bit harder as the years have gone by. Not so much because of the death of my mother (although it does remind me of how much I miss her) but also because I don't have children. I'm sort of a "nothing" on this day. I do have my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law that we celebrate, but it's not the same thing. 

A part of me resents, just a little bit, the assumption that Jeff's family automatically "gets" that holiday and that compromise is not expected or required because there is no "competition" for our time and attention. The truth is, there is a lot of competition for my attention, but it's internal. I actually enjoy the chance to work, especially at the hospital, on Mother's Day because it gives me a little bit of time and space to remember and honor my mother in my own way. 

I saw a nice piece about "the continuum of mothering" so I will close with that food for thought. I found it as a part of this post, but I don't think that is where it originated. I have changed a little bit of it.

To those who gave birth or adopted a child this year - we celebrate with you

To those who lost a child this year - we mourn with you

To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains - we appreciate you

To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointments - we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things, we don't mean to make this harder than it already is.

To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms - we need you

To those who have warm and close relationships with you - we celebrate with you

To those who have disappointment, heartache, and distance with your children - we sit with you

To those who have lost their mother - we grieve with you

To those who have experienced abuse at the hands of their own mother - we acknowledge your experience

To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood - we are better for having you in our midst

To those who will have emptier nests in the coming year - we grieve and rejoice with you

To those who are expecting new life, both expected and surprising - we anticipate with you.

This Mother's Day we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and  we have real warriors in our midst. We remember you.