He's not even close to a baby anymore, but I've known him since he was about two, so he'll always be Baby Landon to me!
At any rate tonight Mr. Landon will graduate high school. I promised him on Tuesday at his spring concert that I would thoroughly embarrass him via facebook on graduation day, but first some stories (fun pictures to follow).
Landon's mom is my dear friend Lisa, who also happened to be my high school music teacher (nope, I don't sing, but I was in Stage Crafts and was the sound tech for the Show Choir...all the perks, none of the sequins!). Landon and his older brother Reece got out of school before we did so someone would pick them up and bring them to the high school every day, so for three years of high school I saw the boys every other day in the afternoons (we were on block scheduling).
My junior year we did Wizard of Oz and the witch melted into an itty bitty witch that ran around before melting entirely...guess who the baby witch was! Landon! The joys of being the music director's son.
Senior year he got a little better deal when he and Reece were little Indians in Annie Get Your Gun. At the end of senior year we all piled onto the Big Red Boat for a show choir competition and I can remember Landon crashing out during our nightly "pow-wows" in Lisa's room.
At the end of my senior year I started going to the youth choir that Lisa directed at First United Methodist Church and was sucked into the world of the church. I helped with VBS and the next year a little camp called Joy Camp for third through fifth grade students where they learned about God through the arts (and in the air conditioning). There were many fun times at Joy Camp that I forgot about until I decided to write this particular post and searched through pictures.
As much fun as posting funny kiddo pictures is I must say how proud I am of the young man he has grown into. He is smart, funny, polite, talented, motivated, goal oriented, and pretty darn handsome. I am so thankful to have been part of your life.
Congratulations Landon! I wish you nothing but luck in college and in the future and I mean it when I say come down to Norman for a home cooked meal (and cookies!).
So many times I think we forget about the impact that we make on others on a daily basis and the impact that others have on us. Lately I've been thinking a lot about the butterfly effect and my freshman and sophomore years of high school. For those of you not familiar with the term, Wikipedia defines the butterfly effect as:
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.
Although the butterfly effect may appear to be an esoteric and unusual behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.
The butterfly effect is a common trope in fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel and with "what if" cases where one storyline diverges at the moment of a seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes.
Basically it the thought that one little, seemingly minor, occurrence can have lasting impact on the world around us. This thought is extremely apparent today.
Last night I helped a friend with a Christmas party and was out late and very tired when I got home. I noticed on facebook on my phone that a few people had posted in a group that I am an admin on. This wasn't too unusual as people post in this group quite frequently. This morning I woke up and saw that something like 26 people had posted since the night before. I knew something had to be up and I knew it was probably not good.
This particular group is called "Thank you, Stan Stevenson" and it is a group that started as a way for people to express their gratitude to a wonderful man. Much as I feared when I looked at facebook this morning I was correct in the feeling that I had deep in the pit of my stomach: Stan had passed away yesterday afternoon. Since I wasn't really on facebook I had not seen the outpouring of grief from my high school friends and somehow I had not gotten a text about this (which is really fine because I would have broken down at the party last night).
Stan Stevenson was my high school band director. If you know me then you know that I do not have a musical bone in my body, yet somehow I ended up in band and show choir (high school is weird like that). My best friend was in band in middle school and then in high school joined the color guard. Seeing that she was my best friend, my freshman year I ended up hanging out with all her band friends, most of which were older than us. I had the best times of my life with these people. As the months wore on I ended up helping out with winter guard and ended up on many, many bus trips. Then my junior year I joined guard too and was officially in band. (I'm still wondering how this all happened.)
I would not trade those memories for anything. As I became better and better friends with all of these "band nerds" I also got to know Stan. Stan was the best guy you could ever imagine. His daughter Katie was a year older than me and we were close friends. Stan was the kind of guy that was like a dad to everyone. If you were in any way connected to the band you were one of his "kids."
There were honor roll students and kids that never saw an A on a report card.
There were kids that were outgoing and kids that were ridiculously shy.
There were natural born leaders and those that needed to be pulled out of their shell.
There were popular kids and not so popular kids.
Some had no musical talent and some were destined to keep playing forever.
But they were all Stan's kids.
Whoever you were Stan cared about you. You might have drove him a little crazy at times (you know who you are), but he always cared. He was a constant throughout high school and even after. He always encouraged his kids to do their best. He showed them what they could accomplish and how worthy they were of feeling good about themselves. He was so much more than a teacher and a band director. He was the kind of person that every kid should have it their life during a time that can be dramatic, messy and emotionally damaging.
If you have never experienced what it is like to have 100+ brothers and sisters, all of which you loved and hated at some point during the year, but who you would stand up for no matter what was going on, then you have certainly missed out. I look back at my high school years and know that I can pick up the phone and call any one of them and know that I will still have a friend. How many people can say that they still talk to their high school friends on a weekly, if not daily, basis sixteen years later? Stan made that happen. He had this power to pull this rag-tag group of kids together into an amazing family.
I have so memories with these people that I could write all day. I will spare you that, for now, and probably will pick it up later. One I would like to share was the summer after my freshman year of high school. Everyone always is ready to get out of school when that day in May rolls around. Most people want as far away from the building as possible. If you were in band at Ardmore High School that was simply not the case, though. Our drum line practiced all the time and that summer they did concerts every week, on Tuesday, I think. Not only would the drummers show up, but all the rest of us would pile into the band room and listen to the new cadences that they were learning. C-los (my fav), and Peanut Butter and Jelly and so many more. Now I will admit that there always seemed to be a drummer that I had a "thing" for and that probably made me show up a little more, but hey, what can you do?
The other thing that was pretty amazing about this group was that a section of them put together a jazz band, Java Jazz, that played at Kimberlee's By the Cup in our local mall. These kids just put this together themselves, found a "gig" and we all showed up every Saturday to listen to them and hang out.
Stan instilled such a love of music in my friends that they wanted to keep playing, even though school was out and they didn't have to. That says something.
After learning of the news this morning I was looking at the posts in Thank you, Stan Stevenson, on his personal page, and just throughout statuses amongst my friends. They all said the same thing: how wonderful he was, how he impacted our lives and made us the people we are today. So many times when someone passes away people come out of the wood works to say "nice" things about them, no matter what kind of person they really were. In this case every word is true and we told him all the time. I think that is the one thing that gives me peace in this situation: knowing that we were all very open and honest about our feelings. The posts were not just from kids that I went to school with, but from those that were at the schools before Ardmore and the schools after. One thing remained the same: everyone expressed how much of an impact he made on them.
My last memory of seeing Stan was last fall. I had gone to a football game in Pauls Valley to watch my friend Lisa (also my former high school vocal music teacher)'s son play. One of my friends, Drew, is the band director at Pauls Valley, having taken over when Stan retired a few years ago. Stan was still an active part of the PVHS band and was at the game. Lisa and I went over and chatted with him for the majority of the third quarter. We were reminiscing and talking about the past and telling funny stories. We were laughing so hard we were crying. While I am sad that I have not seen him in over a year I am so thankful that my last physical memory of him was talking and laughing until we cried. That is exactly how I remember him and how I will continue to remember him.
I think when you look back at high school you might be lucky to have one teacher that might have made a little change in the way you look at life or shaped your world. I look back and realize that I have three. My band director, vocal music director and drama director. (This is why the arts need to stay in schools people!!!! Okay stepping off that soap box.) When I think of how powerful a teacher's influence can be on a child's life I think of these three. What I realize, when looking back, is that not only did they genuinely care about me when I was in school, but they continued to care about me and love me through my life. What started out as a student and teacher turned into a lifetime of friendship. I am sad that there aren't more people that can say that. What I do know is that anyone who was ever one of Stan's kids can say that without hesitation.
I help with a youth group and I love my teens. I'm not a huge fan of small kids, at all, but there is just something about working with teenagers that I adore. They might drive me crazy from time to time (or all the time) but I know what a hard time in life the teen years can be and I know how much I loved my time in high school and I want nothing, but the same from them. I know that this love for this age had to have come, in part, from Stan, Lisa and Carla. I pray that I can have even a fraction of the impact on "my" kids that those three had on me.
I am sad that there are generations of kids that won't get to know what a wonderful man Stan was, but I know that his impact will be lasting through those that he did touch. He made a legacy that will live on forever. Whether to you he was Mr. Stevenson, Stan the Man, Stan, Stev-o, Butch, Papa Stan, or just Dad if you knew him you loved him and knew he loved you and you probably have a story or two that you could tell about him.
Rest in peace Papa Stan. Give Katie a big hug for me. And know that you made a profound impact on my life and I am thankful that I got to be one of your girls.
As a general rule I don't go too far into Christianity on my blog. I could probably name 100 reasons why (which I won't right now). I am a Christian and that is a fact that I am proud of. I am very sure in my faith, even if I don't spout out verses on facebook every day (not that there is anything wrong with that, just not my style). I am very active with my church (CrossTimbers UMC, you should come try it because it really is the best!). I will probably be the first to invite you to church because I really think it is that great (because it is).
I did not grow up going to church besides the occasional visit on Easter or with a friend, VBS at a few churches most summers and two trips to Falls Creek. It wasn't until my senior year of high school when I went with my two best friends on a random Sunday (and I'm pretty sure it was because two of the three of us felt guilty for something). After church we had lunch at El Chico and ran into our music teacher (my, now, dear friend Lisa) and she said we should come to youth choir at the Methodist church (Crystal regularly went and Heather and I are not going to be winning any talent shows with our singing ability). We went, then we went to youth afterwards. I had been to youth there a few times with Crystal, whose early high school boyfriend was a member. Clearly I loved youth choir because it was Lisa and it never failed, any time I showed up at youth it was some super serious event usually involving the lights being off and candles. That night was the exact same, specifically a feet washing thing. I spent the evening in a room with one of my childhood guy friends talking about God and life and faith and stuff. We were seventeen.
From that night I went to choir and youth every week (if we had perfect choir attendance we were going to see Jekyll and Hyde in Dallas two months later!). We had our first performance at church a few weeks later. We sang a song called "Beyond the Open Door." Until I got to this point in the post I had not heard that song since that day, but I wanted to include a video, so I looked it up and through the marvel that is the internet found it and listened to it again and it was a really, really, really, really fitting song to be the first song I sang in church.
We stayed for most of the service before heading out to Crystal's church. I really enjoyed the service. Kind of surprising for someone who didn't go to church. So the next week instead of going with Heather and Crystal to the Baptist church I went to Sunday school and church at the Methodist church. Don't get me wrong I had a ton of friends there and was making more every week, so it wasn't the craziest thing ever and my friend Katy's dad was the pastor. On the sign in book it asks if you are interested in becoming a member and one week I checked yes. I got a call from the associate pastor and little did I know everything was all kinds of set up for me to join! Before the conversation was over I learned that Katy had already offered to sponsor me! I think it was the next week I joined the church and was baptized (by sprinkling, because one of my issues with the Baptist church my whole life was the submersion process in baptism...it scared the living daylights out of me and I wanted nothing to do with it. To be honest it still freaks me out to think about).
So now I was a full blown Methodist. The summer was spent with all my new (and old) friends at FUMC Ardmore, then going to Chrysalis (which is a story for another post) and some stuff after that and then I headed to college. It was a given that I would go to the Wesley Foundation (United Methodist student center) and I did. I made a lot of friends and got involved very quickly in a Christian sorority, two Bible studies, the freshman group and freshman leadership.
I won't go into all the memories and events from Wesley. There were a lot of friends made and even more lessons learned. I graduated college in 2004 and didn't really have a church home. I had on and off gone with my friend Sarah to a new church in Norman, but it didn't completely stick. In September I started dating a guy at home, so I was all about going home to church any time I could. I love my home church and I still do. The friends that I had in youth morphed into adult friends and I loved seeing them every week. Most were in the choir and I enjoyed going to performances and was very sad that I was in Norman and they were in Ardmore. It was this amazing little group and I so wanted to be a part of it full time and not just part time. At that moment in time I truly thought that I would marry this guy and life would be complete, with me in Ardmore and being a part of that group.
God had other plans. Some stuff happened within that group of friends and then we broke up, again, in May and I started dating someone else, in Norman. When that happened I wanted nothing to do with Ardmore. All the activities that the ex and I had shared interest in were immediately out of my life. I wanted nothing to do with them. I wanted to start this new life in Norman, where I knew my home would be.
My boyfriend and I tried to find a church. We would get into a church mood and try to find something that we agreed on (he was Baptist, me Methodist), but it would last a few weeks and we would stop going for this reason or that reason. I tried, a lot, but nothing ever stuck. That was the first year. Another problem is that I am stubborn. I wanted to go to a Methodist church because I love it. I love the doctrine and the way the conference is set up and the camps and the liturgy and the hymns and everything about it. Hindsight is 20/20 and I probably should have been a little more open minded, but I wasn't.
After we got engaged I met this very nice girl at work and asked why she had moved to Norman (Moore) from Tishomingo. She explained that her husband was asked to start a church, a United Methodist church. Well hot dog! Here was something that we could be a part of from the beginning. Apparently my stubbornness had rubbed off on the fiance and he wasn't having it, however I ended up on the mailing list for "new Moore church" (which is what CrossTimbers was before it was CrossTimbers). Jennifer had applied for several jobs and was offered one a few weeks into her job with me that worked better with her desire to get her Masters, so she left. We were friends on facebook though so we kept in contact, plus I was getting all the church emails.
The next six months were not the best of my life, but they are a very important part of it. If you have been reading my blog for any time you know that we broke up 41 days before the wedding, leaving me sad and broken. At some point during that six months I had watched Fireproof (Christian movie with Kirk Cameron and really bad acting, but a really good story). In the movie the premise is based on a relationship that is in crisis and likely to end in divorce. The main character is challenged to do the Love Dare, a relationship exercise that lasts 40 days and is based on 1 Corinthians 13.
When I woke up the morning after the break up I just KNEW that God wanted me to do the Love Dare. After all it was exactly 40 days until the wedding, so it made perfect sense. I knew that God was a key component that was missing from that relationship and I figured this was His way of telling me that and showing me how to fix it (oh and I am a fixer). So I started it. What came out of it was not us getting back together, but a huge change in me.
Shortly after the break up I messaged Jennifer with what had happened and asking if CrossTimbers (had a name by then!) had anything going on. There was one small group meeting and it wasn't anything I was interested in (again, hindsight is 20/20 and I SO should have jumped on board that one, but oh well, I still needed some time and to learn a few lessons). That was the middle of May. The first Sunday in August was my birthday and it was not a good day, at all. It also happened to be the second to last Sunday that CrossTimbers was meeting in the school where they had been conducting services. They had a building! She invited me to the last Sunday.
The day before that last Sunday the women's group, Breathe, was meeting. Some stuff happened that day that signaled I needed a change. We were supposed to RSVP to the pastor, so I did. Now this is a HUGE thing for me. I HATE calling people. And I really hate calling people I don't know. I don't really like talking on the phone to people I do know. So I called Chris, who probably thought I was nuts at the moment, and who told Jennifer that her friend Wendy from her first Norman job was coming to Breathe that night.
The plan was to make tshirts at one of the girl's houses. Dinner was provided, but we were asked to bring dessert. I whipped up some no bake cookies, because really who doesn't like them? I found the house and drove around until I saw Jennifer's car pull up (I also hate going in places where I don't know people). I met Jennifer in the yard and walked in with her. Well it turns out that I loved the girls. The guys met up with us at the end of the night and they seemed okay too.
The next morning I walked into the school, in a dress, and sat down next to one of the girls I met the night before, whose husband played the drums. Then in walked Valerie and Ashley (JJ's parents) and they came and sat with me. If you ever need someone to make new people feel welcome Valerie is the person. She just loves making new friends. I looked around and noticed I was pretty much the only one in a dress (except, thank God, for Brittany). Then the music started. I have already mentioned drums, there were also electric guitars, not an organ in sight. A bit about me, at that moment, I was NOT a fan of contemporary worship. I like it, but NOT for Sunday morning. Clearly I couldn't just get up and walk out and I was so disappointed because I really liked all the girls I met the night before. I was in a pickle. I just didn't think I could handle this contemporary church, what to do, what to do?
Then Chris did his sermon. It was the second Sunday of the text message sermon series. We got our phones out and looked though our texts and what they said about us and who we were talking to. Well if THAT didn't make me question things then I don't know what would (some of the people I was talking to at the time I should NOT have been talking to). I was so intrigued by his sermon. At the end of service I told Jennifer that exact thing: that at the beginning I didn't think there was any way I could handle contemporary and I fully planned to thank them for their time and never walk back through the doors, but then Chris did his sermon and I was hooked.
If you want to hear what I really thought check out this video from Annual Conference 2010.
When a church meets in a school it means that everything starts in a couple of trailers, is unloaded each Sunday morning, set up, then torn down, and put back in the trailers. Well this Sunday was different because it was going to be torn down, loaded up and then taken to the new building. I didn't have anything better to do so I helped them load up and move to the new building. On my way over I called my friend Mary and told her that I had gone to this new church and I really liked it, but I wasn't going to get super, over involved (because I have a tendency to do that).
I helped unload and was pretty excited about the next Sunday. So....I wasn't going to get over involved? Sunday number two of Wendy at CrossTimbers I talked to Jennifer about starting a prayer card ministry (something my friends and I did at Wesley in college).
Yeah you can pretty much say that was history. I didn't have a prayer of not getting super, over involved. It's just who I am. Oh well. When it comes down to it I do love it. It is very rare for a sermon to be preached that doesn't hit me in some way. I can't count how many times I left church thinking about a sermon and driving and bawling for hours after. Or crying through a song during communion. There is something very, very special about that place. I love the people and the service (I got over my hatred of contemporary service and you can read about that here) and absolutely everything about it. It is an amazing community of amazing people, most of whom are family now. I know that if something happens in the middle of the night I can call Chris bawling and he will be there (though I generally schedule my meltdowns a bit better than that ;)). I have people that call just to check on me and worry about me. I have amazing people that have let me into their families when I really need that.
We come together in joy celebrating weddings and new babies. We are there for each other when things aren't going so well. We come together to support each other. We are learning and growing with this little church.
Today I got a call that rocked my world. It left me in shock and sadness. It is the kind of thing that makes you really question what on earth God is thinking. Yesterday I was struck with the sadness of poor little Jamesie and this one isn't any better. It is another child taken entirely too early.
Through the last two years I have grown immensely in my faith. I may have questioned God's intentions when my wedding was cancelled, but I am completely confident that it was the right thing. I know that everything had to happen exactly the way that it did in order to get me to my ultimate calling. I know my purpose in life. I know what I am meant to do. I am only 29 (at least for a few more weeks) and I know exactly what I was put on this earth to do. If everything hadn't happened the exact way that it did then I wouldn't be here.
I know that these two families that are grieving right now will eventually understand God's plan and why it had to happen the way that it did. I know that and I fully believe that. But even as strong as I am and as much faith as I have I don't understand this. I don't understand why people get so sick and I really don't understand when they are just innocent children. I don't get it. I probably never will. My heart absolutely aches for these families. I don't have any comprehension of how they are handling things right now because it is so far outside of my realm of reality.
Yesterday my sweet friend Karen Chaffin (an Ardmore FUMC friend and mom of two of my high school friends) posted this on her facebook:
I've never forgotten being told that God doesn't give you the ticket for the train until it's time to take a ride. Grace is given as grace is needed. Lysa TerKeurst posted: I am not equipped to handle what others have—both good and bad. I am, on the other hand, completely equipped to handle what I’ve been given. And the more time I spend being thankful for my life, the less I look around wishing for something else.
I cannot imagine a post that could be any more true for what I am feeling right now. I cannot imagine going through the things that these families are going through and I pray that I will never have to, I'm strong, but I don't think there is any way I could ever be that strong. I am aching for people that I don't know and for events that did not directly affect me and I am handling it horribly.
When I have to step up to do things in these situations it is very rare for anyone to see how it is affecting me. I don't cry at funerals. I am the strong one. I have been known to tell people that if they need someone to go to a funeral with them then call me. Death doesn't bother me. Well it bothers me, of course, but I can handle it very well. I have always understood death. Long before developmentally and psychologically I was supposed to. That's how I've always been. Need a meal? I'll cook it. Need a lunch planned? I'm your girl. Need someone to hold your hand while you cry? That's me. I am afraid my track record for this is about to be broken. Honestly I don't know what is going to happen in the next few weeks and I don't know how I will handle it. I fully believe God doesn't give us anything that we can't handle (though sometimes I really wish He didn't trust me so much), but this may be a true test to my faith and my ability to keep it together.
Please say a prayer for these two sweet families. I apologize for not giving details, but it is not my place to do so at this time. You can say a prayer and I promise God knows all the details. Selfishly I also ask that you say a prayer for me in some situations that I will face over the next few weeks. Pray that I am able to be strong for the people that need me.
I just read the most recent post on Jamesie's blog and cannot stop crying. I cannot imagine what they are going through. I can literally feel my heart breaking for them. I want to feel lucky for everything I have in my life, but I am so overcome with emotion for the people that I know are hurting right now that even that is hard to do. Usually when I write it is to release emotion and when I go back and read it I can see how far I have come and it makes me happy. This post is different. This one is full of grief and sadness and emotions that I don't even really understand. I pray for a miracle. That is still possible for one family. Medical science says it is impossible, but nothing is impossible with God. For the other family I pray for peace and healing. I pray that all that know or have been touched by both situations will know peace and comfort. I'm not really to a stopping point, but it is getting very hard to see the computer screen through the tears, so I will end with this:
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Yes I said it, my life is now complete. Harry Connick, Jr. has been one of my favorites for almost as long as I can remember. My best friend Crystal was in winterguard and their routine our sophomore year was to Just Kiss Me (I fell head over heels then, hence my ou email address: kissme@ou.edu). My senior year my music teacher (and super close friend now) Lisa went to see him and had drinks with the man (I still hate her for that one). Needless to say if I found out that he was coming anywhere close to me I wanted to go.
Well it happened! One of my facebook friends posted asking when the Lady Antebellum was playing at Winstar (the casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma, which would be at mile marker 1 on the Oklahoma/Texas border, if you've never heard of it). I was curious so I hopped on the Winstar website and there it was:
Harry Connick, Jr. in Concert Friday, March 25
I immediately called my mom and explained that I would never ask for anything again if we could go to this (because I am beyond broke, and yeah anyone who knows me knows this is a ridiculous claim, but hey :)). Later the next week she calls back and says she has tickets!
WOOHOO!!!
So we get there and he opened with The Way You Look Tonight. I was in heaven, seriously. He played all my favorites (except Just Kiss Me and Jill, the song he wrote for his wife). The first half of the show was more the Frank Sinatra/Tony Bennett type of music and the second half was New Orleans jazz. It was amazing!
And he is FUNNY! Here are some comments (paraphrased of course):
Thackerville, it sounds better the drunker you are
My iphone doesn't know where we are
I saw all these other artists that played here, Snoop Dog, Tim McGraw, I have a new found respect for them, since we are in the middle of nowhere
Thank you for coming to the show tonight, I know you all must have driven some distance because there is nothing here
The show was amazing, if I haven't already mentioned that. And it was over around 10:30. I got back to Norman at 5:00 am. And I didn't drink. Or go out.
My mom and I got back to her car and it would not start, I mean NOTHING. Not even a little turn over. We thought it was maybe a dead battery, but we had the security guards at Winstar try to jump it and the battery was fine. We were finally forced to call a tow truck, from Ardmore, and wait to have it towed to the mechanic's. We had to pick up my car from the Sperrys' and then I had to take her home, then back to Norman.
The concert was amazing, the hours that followed, not so much, but still well worth it!
Note to future husband: If you really love me you will figure out a way for Harry to play at our wedding reception!
For various reasons I don't go "home" much except for various very specific reasons. When I do I generally go for whatever event it is and then am back in Norman.
Lately I haven't exactly been all that happy in Norman. I don't know what all to blame it on, but it is true. A few weekends back I needed to get my taxes done, so I went to Ardmore on a Friday and stayed the night. It was kind of nice to go with no agenda, odd, but nice.
The evening started with dinner at Ten Star Pizza Kitchen. Generally when I am flying by the seat of my pants Mom and I end up at Applebee's or El Chico, but since there was no time frame I suggested Ten Star (because a lot of Ardmore friends have mentioned it on facebook). Well I was not, at all, disappointed. It was great. (Not to mention when you go to their website the music playing is Dave Matthews Band)
I took my mom back home, freshened up and headed back to town to go out with my cousin. On my way to meet him he text messaged me and said "I'm pretty casual tonight, I hope you aren't too Carrie Bradshaw for me." (Have I mentioned how much I love him?)
We are a force to be reconded with (mainly of snobbiness). We ended up at All Starz, which is well, a bar in Ardmore. I have been their twice before, both were interesting trips down memory lane with high school friends or the kids I used to babysit (eek!). Ryan and I were sitting at the bar drinking and sharing stories of debauchery (what we both tend to specialize in, well he does, I'm the perfect angel :)) when all of a sudden a girl comes up to the bar. I just stared her down until she looked at me. It was a friend of mine from high school, who I probably have not seen since high school. She'd been drinking, we'd been drinking and all of a sudden I end up at a table of old high school friends. It was a whole lot of fun. I don't think I could ever live there again, but it was nice to visit.
Towards the end of the night we got to see this (sorry for it being on its side, I had been drinking and forgot that my camera doesn't flip on video):
Oh Ardmore! Ryan and I then went to Taco Bell (because where else is there to go in Ardmore at 2:00 am, well for that matter after 9:00 pm), then went to Walmart because Taco Bell's dining room was closed and we needed to use the bathroom. We then proceeded to eat our tacos in the Walmart parking lot.
After a little sober up time I made it home and hit the bed around 3:30. My mom coming in to wake me up at 8:30 to get ready for a funeral was not all that fun. We picked Ryan up around 9:30 and went to the funeral. As it was a funeral I will leave out any stories from that (though Ryan and I are a bad combination and Mom threatened to separate us more than once).
After the graveside Mom and I dropped Ryan off and went to The Cellar at Main Street Wine Depot for lunch. It was so cute and SO good. I highly recommend it. They don't have a website that I could find, but look them up on facebook.
I won't lie I was kind of sad to come back to Norman, though when I did get back my head was a little clearer and I was a lot more relaxed. I guess sometimes you just need to go home...
This was the plan: dress cute at the end of the work day, a quick stop before I headed south, drive to Ardmore (stopping and getting a quick dinner on the way), watch Red, White and Tuna (the first show for Ardmore Little Theatre, and the beginning of my 17th consecutive season of perfect attendance), drive home, go to bed.
Simple enough?
WRONG!!!
The first part of this adventure started out how I planned. We are in the process of merging two of my offices into one, which is involving moving about 150 people around in two offices and lots of packing. I have dressed GRUNGY because of it. I was craving cute clothes and heels, so I put on a cute little black dress before I left work. I made a quick stop before heading south (in an attempt to look adorable), then headed towards Ardmore.
All was well, chatting on the phone with Michelle between the two exits in Purcell and suddenly the car started pulling funny; I thought maybe the wind was just blowing, oh no that would have been WAY to simple! (Sidebar: show starts at 7:00 I leave Norman about 5:00, the drive is between and hour and an hour and a half, depending on speed) I finally pull over, afraid I have a flat tire (Another sidebar: I had a flat August 14 on the rear, passenger side tire, took it to Hibdon's, had them fix it, all was well, BUT I also have a slow leak in the rear, driver side tire) on the rear, driver side. I get out of the car, on I35 southbound, in the previously mentioned cute little black dress and 4 inch pointy toed stilettos, much to my surprise the tires on the driver's side are fine, however the rear, passenger tire is FLAT. Flat really might be an understatement actually. I'm still on the phone with Michelle, who I put on standby to come rescue me, as I am NOT in "tire changing" clothes, plus I don't really have a clue how to change a tire, and have no jack and that X shaped thingy. I call my trusty insurance roadside assistance, who I was a little irritable with, they say they will call me back with the ETA. In the meantime it dawns on me that my wonderful friend Skylar lives in Purcell! I call her and see if her husband, Matt, can come rescue me. She calls him, then calls me back and I call him and we work out details, though he had to run home and get a jack and that X shaped thingy. In the meantime the stupid insurance calls back and says it will be AN HOUR! I kindly call the tow truck (who had no name and which the phone rings approximately 20 times, NOT an exaggeration) and cancel them. Matt and his son Nick show up, change the tire, I pay them in homemade cookies I happened to have in the car and head to the nearest gas station to air up the spare a bit. As I pull into the gas station 3 miles away the stupid insurance calls and says now it will be 20 minutes before the tow truck arrives! So glad that Matt and Nick came to my rescue.
Here is my poor spare that is getting WAY too much use lately!
I manage, without speeding too badly, to get to the show at 7:02 before the director did his intro even! The show was HILARIOUS! If you are in Ardmore this weekend go see it! Friday and Saturday at 7 and Sunday at 2:30 I think. At the close of the show I get stuff from my mom (there is always stuff that she accumulates between visits) including "Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M." by Sam Wasson, the story of Breakfast at Tiffany's: sooooo excited!
I leave Ardmore, praying that my trip home is better than my trip to Ardmore. Except I forget that I didn't get gas before I left Norman. My car gets HORRIBLE gas mileage and having driven about 100 miles before this little adventure I did not have enough gas to go to Ardmore and back to Norman. I realize this at about mile marker 98 on I35 North. If you know anything about I35 North you realize that there really isn't a gas station until exit 106 (Riverwind and Love's). Very soon after my realization that I'm really close to sitting on E my low fuel light comes on. I prayed the whole time that I could make it less than 10 miles to get the gas station. I really didn't want to have to call someone or call insurance and wait again. I managed to make it to Love's. Here is the verdict (Sidebar: my tank holds 18 gallons):
At round about 16 miles to the gallon I could have made it about another 13 miles! (Luckily I did not dare to test this theory!)
I came home to dump 8 bags worth of shock into my still cloudy and green pool. I'm praying that maybe tomorrow it will be less green, or heck not green at all. What I learned about this: don't open the bucket of concentrate chlorine and stick your nose in it to smell it...it hurts! What can I say, don't argue with blond being my natural hair color!
The positives of today came on the radio though (when I wasn't listening to Christmas music, and no I don't have an answer why I was doing this). My two favorite songs, of the moment, were played when I could hear them all the way through: Steve Azar "Sunshine" and Kenny Chesney "Boys of Fall". I dedicate the second to my favorite 10 year old football player, Baley Sechrist, who got hit at football practice tonight and had to have a cat scan and has a neck brace right now. :( Prayers for him please!
Overall not the worst day ever, but I'm sure glad to be home in my bed!
