Today was not about times, it was about getting in there, enjoying the race, and enjoying the atmosphere. - Nancy Radcliffe on winning the NYC marathon
Props to my buds Amber and Paige (and Zack of course)! These cool cats all ran the Country Music Marathon on Saturday in under 5 hours! I think that’s pretty incredible. They have been discipline in their training for months, and it’s cool other things they have learned by training for this run. Can you believe that the first 5 people to cross the finish line all did so in just over 2 hours?! Un-freaking-believable.
I did not run. I was happy being a cheerleader for my buds. Sarah, Josh, and I headed up to mile marker 13… then over to 17…then to 21… then to 25. We were very vocal, and you could probably hear us half a mile away. We will turn up the notch next time, don’t worry. Next time we’ll be sporting the hand-made puff-paint marathon shirts as well as the face paint and cowbell. So if you are running a marathon or half and need some fun cheerleaders, just let me know.
After driving around the whole city and maneuvering around all the closed streets, I can definitely say I know Nashville better than I did before Saturday and went to neighborhoods I wouldn’t normally go to. And you would think traffic would be out of this world, right? Well, it surprisingly wasn’t, which made me extremely happy. Nashville is really a great city.
Also big shout-outs to Leigh, Dave, Jason B, Jose, Sharon D, Bruce, (and other people I know that I am accidentally leaving off) on completing 13.1 or 26.2! You guys rock, too!
Nutella. I had forgotten how much I really love it.
I became addicted to this creamy chocolate and hazelnut spread 3 summers ago when I went to Sweden on a mission project for a month and a half. Many mornings I would wake up to Charlotte’s annoying alarm clock from hell or Mary or Kim on either side of me snoring up a storm. To put it nicely, I didn’t always wake up on the “right side of the bed.” But then I would drag my sleepy self into the kitchen of the church we were staying at and grab a serving of yogurt and granola, and for a breakfast dessert, a banana and Nutella. My world was happy once again. Nutella crepes also became another great European discovery. My favorite memory of Nutella crepes is walking out of the Hotel Monopoly (as we affectionally called it) in Frankfurt to the train station across the street. Instead of going to the McD’s where we were snubbed because we didn’t speak German, we went over to the crepe stand to order up some Nutella crepes. Ultimate comfort food. We were all in love with this great discovery and vowed we’d eat it all the time once we returned home.
Well, I think this weekend was the second time in 3 years that I bought Nutella. Yes, I have eaten some Nutella crepes in NYC and a little with some breakfast at Mama Jenny’s during that time, but I haven’t lived up to my vow of commitment to Nutella. But I am glad I bought it once again on Saturday. I have eaten it with a snack for 3 days straight. I even realized that it’s great with apples. I’ll refrain from going into a long Bubba Gump shrimp-like list, but I agree with these suggestions as well.
I went to NutellaUSA.com to see what they had to say about this super-cool product. This caught my eye: Nutella is marketed in over 75 countries across the globe, and outsells all brands of peanut butter combined worldwide! Wow, who woulda thunk it? Check this out, too.
“Does anyone else think that the new water tower looks like an oversized martini glass?” Dr. Byrnes, my favorite political science prof at MTSU, asked us one day at the start of class. That question has stuck with me to this day, and I think about it every time I see a water tower. No clue why, except it’s a great question to ponder. I finally took a picture of this landmark the last time I was in the beloved Boro (sorry it’s so far away).
I wonder who came up with the idea to make a martini glass a symbol of Murfreesboro for all the world to see. Is the Boro known for martinis? Not that I know of.
If you could design a creative water tower for your town, what would it look like?
Well, I wrote about it a while back and am just now getting around to posting it… hope you haven’t been holding your breath…
Think with me back to this time last year… American Idol… the bald rocker guy… Chris Daughtry. Oh yes, he was one of my favorites! I remember saying, “I will go to one of his concerts one day!” Little did I know that it would be so soon. I went to one of his shows at a small venue, Blue Cats, in Knoxville a few weeks ago.
It wasn’t just any concert and pretty easy to get tickets. I got lucky. Actually, I have a best friend who is incredibly lucky when it comes to snagging amazing concert tickets. That’s why she’s my friend. When those tickets went on sale at 10 am one morning, we jumped on the phone and internet in a split second. (Of course, everyone else had the same idea, too.) I had almost given up hope when I received the email… “I GOT THEM!”
Well, we had to stand for about 2 hours until Daughtry came on stage. One of the openers was decent. The other… hmmm… I just wanted to go give the lead singer a belt to keep his pants up. He was such a wannabe rocker that it was kinda pathetic (in my opinion, of course). Anywho, we even ended up having great standing “seats” after the big security guard sat down, as you can tell by the following videos I took from my amazing camera. Daughtry didn’t perform incredibly long, but it was so worth it. I can say in 10 years when he’s still rockin’ it out that I was a fan from the beginning! Check out the videos below… especially the last one
Opening song – Crashed
Home
As we were leaving Knoxville the next morning, this is what happened to us…
In May I will be going with a group of 20-somethings from Fellowship to one of our partnerships in Comas, Peru (a northern suburb of Lima). Many teams have traveled there over the past few years, but our trip will be quite different. Instead of hosting a conference, coordinating a Bible school, or constructing a building, we’ll be doing a variety of things and really get to see life in this different world. Some of the things we will get to experience include:
Putting on a program for Sunday morning church
Spending time with the young adults ministry
Assisting a sister church in southern Lima gain community interest and encourage the believers there
Sharing at a state-run girls middle school
Visiting a ministry for handicapped children
Visiting a school for the blind
Visiting a ministry for children affected by AIDS
Visiting sick and needy families in the area
Handing out jackets and food to the homeless
Spending time communing and encouraging the church in Comas
Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.
Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.
Well, the verdict is in, and I know you have been holding your breath for the past 24 hours. Cate the Corolla… She passed the emissions test today. WHEW! I won’t have to pay gobs and gobs of extra money for a hospital bill for her. So I don’t know much cars… how to fix them, how they work. But you know what? I know people that do know a lot. And they are great. Thanks, guys!
In other news, the word of the day is “thumbnailative” – adjective for an image that is worthy of having a thumbnail image (like on the Web) made of it. I will be incorporating that fun word into my daily vocab. Get ready.
Have you ever gotten excited because you found an extra $20 in a jacket pocket or in a hidden compartment in a wallet when you weren’t looking for it? I have, and it was probably the highlight of the day. However, yesterday that was taken to a whole new level in my life. I found a $100 bill!!! Yes, it was mine. Cold, hard cash. Wow!
So what am I going to do with this money I found? Put it in my vacation traveling fund? Go out to a really nice dinner? Well, no and no. Due to events over the past couple of days, I have my choice of where to send it. It will probably go to the government. Boo. I “owe” them about $300. No money back for me this year! Second choice is to put it toward getting something ridiculous fixed on my car so it can pass the emissions test I have to pass before I can renew my car tags. Debbie Downer… wah wah. On that note, you can pray for Cate the Corolla that she won’t have a big, expensive car hospital bill. Her owner would not be to thrilled.
Props to my buds Amber and Paige (and Zack of course)! These cool cats all ran the Country Music Marathon on Saturday in under 5 hours! I think that’s pretty incredible. They have been discipline in their training for months, and it’s cool other things they have learned by training for this run. Can you believe that the first 5 people to cross the finish line all did so in just over 2 hours?! Un-freaking-believable.
When those tickets went on sale at 10 am one morning, we jumped on the phone and internet in a split second. (Of course, everyone else had the same idea, too.) I had almost given up hope when I received the email… “I GOT THEM!”
