Summer Highlight Reel

What have I been doing lately? Nothing huge, but lots of little things that make life a lot more interesting!

I saw one of my favorite friends as Glenda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz in our local community theater.

And went to Sushi Train with her for my first mobile dining experience. I have no idea if mobile dining is a term, but our food was moving!

I ate crawfish at a crawfish boil for the first time… and liked it! And ate a lot of it!

I joined the Y. It’s about time.

It’s the middle of summer but you would never know it by looking at my recently played music. Some people don’t play Christmas music before Thanksgiving. I never stop. Be Born in Me by Francesca Battistelli and Unspeakable Joy by Chris Tomlin are two of my all time favorites. I listen to them on repeat constantly. Take that, Christmas Music Sticklers.

I found three one hundred dollar bills tossed in the mud in front of my condo one and returned it to its rightful owner – my neighbor – and got a $50 gift card in return the next morning.

It’s amazing how doing the right thing and having $50 can make you feel richer than having $300.

My awesome sister just finished Nashville Teaching Fellows and is going to be a teacher now! This also means that she does things like carry around a puppet and wear a bird on her shirt. It suits her.

I made my first pillow case dress for a sweet little girl’s first birthday with a matching dress for her baby doll.

The Birthday Girl

I have gotten to spend a good bit of time with my nephews this summer – playing outside and dress up of course!

I perfected my hobby of scaring my nephews. I was asleep on my parent’s couch and when they came to wake me up one morning I slipped on the mask that I had stashed under my pillow and pulled the covers up over my face. They ran in, pulled the covers down, and saw me lying there with the mask on. They had the best shocked faces ever! Big eyes, gasped breath. And then I got hesitated ramblings of, “You didn’t scare me…. You did not scare me…. No, you didn’t scare me.” As if trying to convince themselves more than me.

I mean, I kind of scare me.

My parents have wild blackberries growing down the fence rows of our farm, and this is prime blackberry picking time! These blackberries are on my list of top five favorite foods ever (which at the moment includes blackberries, pomegranates, peanut butter, salmon, and chips & salsa in no particular order.) I picked twice this weekend for several hours at a time. Once with my mom and sister – who yelled “Black Gold” every time she found a good briar. And once with my dad who took me back into a secret place he had bush-hogged in the woods. Berries galore! He and I were so excited about picking that we picked right through a rain shower. A little rain never hurt anyone! And my motto is “No berry left behind.” If it’s ripe, I’m picking it.  Keep in mind that these are wild berries on briars with very sharp thorns. This is quite the production – big rubber boots, jeans tucked into boots, long sleeved shirt tucked into pants, gloves tucked under sleeves. Basically covered as much as possible to avoid thorns and ticks. And, oh, how I will wade through some high weeds and thorny briars to get to the berries. I just can’t pass them up! And no, I didn’t see any snakes, but I did see plenty of crazy looking bugs that would normally cause a freak-out. But I was too focused to let them deter me. Although one time there was a large commotion in some grass – either a snake or a small animal - and I ran away, careful not to spill my pail of berries. I’d say we picked about 12 quarts this weekend to put up in the freezer. Going back next weekend for more!

 Black Gold!

Mom's hands were stained from all of the berry picking and washing!

While we were picking berries we spotted some great wildflowers around the property, including this Purple Passion Flower.

And I’ve been planning my trip out West for the end of the summer. I’m going to Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah. I can’t wait!

My Christmas Wish

Emmy, what do you want for Christmas?

Toys and Big Bird.

What kind of toys?

Toys and Big Bird.

What will Santa be bringing you this year?

Toys and Big Bird.

What is on your Christmas list?

Toys and Big Bird.

I was two that Christmas and had never wanted anything as much as I wanted a Big Bird. My answer always stayed the same. “Toys and Big Bird.” I said it so often that our family and friends just kept asking me more and more often to see if my answer would ever change. It never did. I was unwaveringly certain of what I wished for that year. And under my tree that Christmas?

Toys and Big Bird, of course.

 Bottom Right: Toys and Big Bird

Still going strong... and going a little bit blind.

Unless you are a wishing for a trampoline, Santa never lets you down.

I have wished for many things over the years. And my favorite Christmases were the year of Big Bird, the year of the doll house, and the year of the basketball goal.

But the best Christmas present that I ever got was something that I never even knew that I wanted. I was in seventh grade and my Granny had just been diagnosed with cancer 4 months earlier. Because she lived next door, I was able to visit her every day while she was sick. Every single day. I never missed one. I always showed up with cookies in hand or a handmade card or most of the time just a big smile – because that is what she wanted the most. She would always pat my cheeks and tell me that she loved to see me smile. Long before I ever thought I could be beautiful, Granny would tell me so.

I recently found a school picture that I gave Granny in 96-97. On the back she had written "Beautiful".

Granny and I just before my first Christmas.

And that year for Christmas, her very last one, Granny had a special gift for me. She had wrapped up a little angel pin. The pin that the doctors gave her when she took her very last chemo treatment.

It was the first time that I wished for something bigger than a Christmas present. It was a Christmas present that made me wish for hope. It was a gift that changed my heart.

From that point on she always called me “Angel”. She would talk to me about how I was part of her heart. How I was her gift that made fighting a battle worthwhile. How I was her joy when she didn’t feel like smiling. How I was her delight and anticipation when the days felt long but she knew that I would soon be stopping by. So I kept showing up every day with a big smile and a lot of hope because that is what calmed her heart. And mine.

And just a few short months later when Granny moved from the arms of the people who loved her heart to the arms of the One who loves her soul, I wore my angel pin on my dress and prayed for a sign of hope. And that bright April morning, a day far too warm for any such thing, it began to snow. My restless heart settled as sweet snowflakes fell on my face while I cried her into a better place - her Home.

Oh, and over ten years later when we laid our Pa down beside his bride on Valentine’s Day, even though it was nowhere in the forecast, it began to snow again – another reminder of hope from above.

Christmas isn’t the same for me anymore. I have always been known for loving gifts, but gifts look a lot different to me now. For one thing, getting something like a vacuum cleaner makes me really happy. But now the presents don’t matter nearly as much as presence. As joy. As hope. As love. And now my wishes can't be wrapped and left waiting for me under a tree.

Now I wish for things like joy – for bright smiles and homes full of laughter.

It’s why things like my mom dropping an entire plate of cornbread on the floor is more memorable than the thousands of times that she made it perfectly.

Or why we laugh so hard that our eyes water when my sister wears my grandma’s wig. Again.

It’s why I send an ornament to my nephews every year after Thanksgiving. Because the anticipation of Christmas always brings a smile.

Or why I dance around singing Christmas carols at the top of my lungs – no matter how terrible I sound. And I blare my favorite Christmas song on my way to work every morning – Unspeakable Joy – and my coworkers always ask why I am in such an exceptionally good mood lately.

Or why, when it comes time to give, we all give big. We buy toys for children that we will never meet, and donate food to families we may never know, and say prayers for everyone who may be alone.

I wish for memories – to be shared and to be made.

It’s why I like putting up the family Christmas tree – because digging out the Christmas decorations, sorting the branches, and untangling the lights is half of the fun.

And why I take my time hanging all of my ornaments on my side of the tree – because each one has a story and was, at one time, a favorite.

 My 1/3 of the family tree.

And why I adore when my sister comes to my condo to help me decorate my own place.

Because putting up a tree while using only one arm would have been quite difficult. 

And why I love holiday crafts that will tell stories for years to come.

They say things like: “I made this one night with my mom.” Or “This hung in my first home.” Or “This was the first Christmas decoration that I ever owned.”

And why I mix in a little bit of “old” with the new – because it reminds me of Christmases in Granny and Pa’s den – passing out brown paper sacks full of fruit and nuts while laughing at Pa for sneaking into his presents out of turn.

The star from Granny and Pa’s tree.

The star actually hung from the wall behind the Christmas tree. I never did ask why...

I'm on the bottom right in the reindeer handprint shirt (that I wish I still owned).

I wish for time. Something so valuable that we don’t just give it, we spend it. Because today is the oldest that I have ever been and the youngest that I will ever be again. This time and this place and this moment. It is my treasure.

Its why having surgery on my arm isn’t quite so bad when it means more dinners around the table, more visits from friends, and more phone calls from people who are a part of my heart.

 A Sleep CD and Dream Catcher from a sweet friend

Get Well Soon balloons just to make me smile. They did.

And it's why I look forward to every time that I meet with my 8^th grade girls at church.

It’s why I say “Yes.” more than “No.” and ignore a To-Do list to hang out with friends and stay up late to talk on the phone to friends far away.

It’s why I make sure that everyone that I love knows just how much they mean to me. And why when something is on my heart – a compliment, a memory, a “You mean the world to me” - I share it. Because I wish for time, but I will never know how much of it we have.

And I wish for Jesus, Himself.

For the world to see and love Him this Christmas season.

And I wish for Him to be born in our hearts over and over again.

I wish for Him to be welcomed in our world.

And, as always, I wish for the thrill of hope that makes the weary world rejoice.

D.I.Y. Adventure

I have been looking forward to this past Saturday for months. Hang gliding! A perfect adventure for my sister and I to do to celebrate her birthday. Her birthday last year? Sky diving. My birthday? Southern Ground. So of course hang gliding was ranking pretty high on our Top Birthdays list. The weather on Saturday was forecasted to be perfect. In fact, it was the most beautiful November day in Tennessee that I can remember. 80 degrees. Sunny. Not a cloud in the sky. Slight breeze…. Except in the area near Chattanooga where we were going to be hang gliding, a slight breeze translates into high tail winds. Yep, thanks to some major tail winds our hang gliding trip was postponed. I see it as a sign... A sign that we should reschedule for another time.

My sister and I decided that tail winds wouldn’t ruin our day so we created our own adventure. And even though every idea seemed kind of small after our dreams of jumping off of a cliff, we still made the best of it. We drove out to the Cookeville area to kayak the Caney. But they tried to rip us off with an incredibly overpriced kayak tour. We didn’t have a back up plan for our back up plan, so we sat there in the middle of Small Town, America discussing our options. At this point we were set on a water sport, so we called around.

Center Hill Marina. This is Sparkle.

Hi Sparkle, how much does it cost to rent a jet ski?

We aren't renting jet skis right now.

Okay, how about a canoe?

A canoe? $22.

Okay, we’ll take the canoe.

We weren’t actually going to rent a jet ski, I was just interested in the pricing. But Sparkle thought it was quite humorous that I wanted pricing on both a jet ski and a canoe – and settled for the canoe.

There were a few boats out on the lake, but the water was so calm. In fact, we liked when boats would pass us by so that we could catch a little bit of a ride on the wake. It was the perfect day. It’s rare to get a suntan in November!

I enjoyed trying to whack every single bug in sight with my paddle.

When we were feeling really crazy we would paddle really fast through a flock of birds just to watch them scatter across the water. 

The TN landscape was gorgeous as usual.

And to make our trip a little more interesting we made a rule that while in the canoe, you could only speak in an accent or in song. It made conversations about hydroelectricity, upcoming travel plans, and our careers a whole lot more fun than normal. You should try it some time.

After 3.5 hours, we returned to the dock and returned to our normal voices.

Our day definitely did not go as planned, but we made our own fun… matey.

Southern Ground

My sister and I went to the Southern Ground Music Festival last weekend on the riverfront in Nashville. It is Zac Brown’s big food and music event that is normally in South Carolina but they added a Nashville stop this year. There was live music all day Friday and Saturday, some local food trucks, and plenty of dancing and singing!

On the Pedestrian Bridge. My first time on it. I'm from here, I promise. I just apparently never cross the river.

The artists were all incredible. It was basically like watching the best of the best having a huge jam session. The big concert both nights was obviously the Zac Brown Band featuring John Mayer (on guitar since he is on vocal rest), Sheryl Crow, Gregg Allman, Dwight Yoakam, and Alan Jackson including daytime performances by Amos Lee, Edward Sharpe, Michael Franti, The Los Lonely Boys, Holly Williams and a ton of others. They all totally rocked it. 

Night 1

 Zac Brown

Jam Session

 More ZBB

 Holly Williams

Random dude that can rock the fiddle

Day 2

Stuck Between a Rock and Mainstream Country Radio

I must admit that my taste in music is typically very mainstream.  I love Zac Brown but wasn’t incredibly familiar with groups like Edward Sharpe and Amos Lee. But my sister’s goal for the weekend was to expose me to all kinds of music. And she did. Although I still have a lot to learn. For example, one group prefaced a song with “If you don’t know this song then you have been living under a rock or something!” Which is of course a guarantee that I have, in fact, never heard the song. I sheepishly admitted to my sis that I had NO idea what they were playing. 

“Emily….. (shakes head)… come on. This is a Metallica song.” 

The rock that I live under does not involve Metallica. I can assure you of that.

Nirvana Who?

So later on Zac Brown alluded to a special surprise guest and then started to sing a song that, once again, I had never heard. Our conversation went something like this…

“What song is this???”

“Emily. Seriously. This is Nirvana.”

“Ohhh!!! Maybe Nirvana will be the special guest!”

(Shakes head again and tries not to laugh). “Seriously? Emily, Kurt Cobain is dead. Like, he died a long time ago. Early 90s.”

“Kurt Cobain? Huh? I thought we were talking about Nirvana.”

“Oh. My. Gosh. Please just be quiet and listen.”

Say Hey… Can we get a picture?

So Michael Franti (you will know him for Say Hey or The Sound of Sunshine) is one of my sister’s favorite artists ever. She has seen him like 5 times. This year. So we totally were digging his set. Then, during the stage change, they have lesser known artists perform on a smaller stage. We wandered over to the side of the small stage and I just sort of propped myself up against the fence. Next thing I know, my sis is whispering...

“Emily. Emily. Emily. That is Michael Franti. You are standing beside Michael Franti. Oh my gosh. Sneak a picture.” 

Apparently he had gone to the side stage to watch one of his buddies perform. I admittedly don’t know much about the guy so I wasn’t starstruck. Sister? She’s speechless for like the first time in her life.

“Oh, that’s Michael Franti? Haven’t you seen him like 5 times? Talk to him…. Hello… Oh my gosh, just say something… Okay, whatever. Hey Michael! Can we get our picture with you?”

“Of course.”

With Michael Franti

I say thanks and we walk away.  My speechless sister finally decides to speak. 

“Oh my goodness. Michael touched my shoulder... I had so much to say... Like that I love him... But I was too excited… This was the best moment ever! Okay, let me see the picture again.”

She might hate me for telling that story, but hey, I did much sillier things. Obviously. And my musical ignorance was just the beginning.

Beef’s First Flight

This was a food festival as well, so some of Nashville’s food trucks were lined up by the gates. However, they clearly didn’t plan the food part very well because they had 6 food trucks for about 10,000 people. The lines were hours long, even on off-peak hours. But we all know that I get grumpy if I don’t eat. So we stood in line. And waited. And watched trucks run out of food. And waited. And then realized we could only pay with cash. And waited. And after a few sighs and a few dramatic claims of passing out ‘if I don’t eat this instance’, we finally got our food. I had a hamburger from Riff’s Street Food. It came in one of those cute red-checkered cardboard boxes.  The burger was seasoned perfectly and topped with some kind of specialty cheese, onions, homemade mustard, and seasoned fries. Fries ON a burger? Sure. I can dig this. We carried our food to a spot in the shade (Of course, I ate a few fries on the way over. How could I not?). We found a little patch of grass in the middle of a sea of people and sat down. Well, I tried to sit down. I was trying to take my backpack off and balance my food and pull my shirt down so that I could sit without flashing people and trying to stay out of the way of other hungry concert goers who were on the move. It was just too much. The next thing I know, my backpack slides off my shoulder, my overpriced burger goes flying through the air, the top of the bun lands in the dirt, the mustard is all down my arm, the onions are on my leg, the patty is in my hand (which is now clinched like a fist with beef and mustard oozing through), and the bottom of my bun has landed in my sister’s macaroni. And the fries? Those poor guys are all tossed in the grass and immediately smashed under a parade of cowboy boots and chacos. Again, my sister looked at me like “Who are you?” Well, I’ll tell you. I’m the girl that eats it anyways. You know, the classy kind. Okay, so I didn’t eat the bun that hit the ground or the trampled fries (thank goodness I had sampled some already), but I reassembled the rest and loved every bite of it. And those sanitizer wipes that I was made fun of for hauling around? (Port-a-potties? Ick!) They come in handy when you are covered with a sticky, mustardy substance.

Her 1st Night Food Truck Victory. Salami Calzone.

I’ve been here before…

Okay. Port a potties. Not ideal. I am the biggest germ-a-phobe ever. I use hand sanitizer so much that people tell me that the smell of rubbing alcohol reminds them of me. I would love it if I had a plastic bubble around me at all times. But seriously. So here we are at an all day event. I had to use bathroom. I contemplated holding it. I really did. But 12 hours is just too long. So there was a field full of these big blue germ incubators. There must have been a hundred of them. I picked a random one decently far away from the rest hoping that people would be lazy enough to not walk that far. Fewer people = fewer germs. Right? So I hold my breath (natural reaction), use the bathroom as quickly as possible, bust out of the port a potty, and then basically take a bath in those hand sanitizer wipes that I packed. So there you have it. I survived my first bathroom experience.

But then I started panicking.  I had gone too early! I didn’t space out my time correctly. I still had nine hours left. I just knew that I would have to go again. It bothered me for hours. I kept thinking about it. Worrying about it. Would I survive a second go-around in the death chamber? Hours later as we were watching Edward Sharpe, I noticed that the sun was starting to set.  I was caught up in the ways that the rays were bouncing off of the Batman building when it hit me.

“The sun is setting! I have to go to the bathroom NOW! I can’t go in the dark… are you kidding me? You never know what is in those things! And the ground is hilly. I might fall. Or fall in? I’m leaving my backpack and phone here. What if they fell in??? I’m freaking out. But I’m taking the sani-wipes with me.”

“Oh my goodness. You just said that you want to go hangliding with me but you are scared to go to the bathroom after dark??? You are going to miss a great show, but whatever. Go.”

I go through the same routine. Hold breath. Go quickly. Run out. Disinfect.

I find my sister in the crowd and just quietly sit down. She asks me how it was. I say “Fine.” But she knows I’m not fine. “What did you do this time?”

“Okay, so out of the hundreds of port a potties over there, is it weirder that I coincidentally went into the exact same port a potty twice… or the fact that I know that I went in the same one twice??”

“Um… huh?”

“The port a potty. I was so freaked out the first time that I noticed every little thing. The advil on the floor. The ink pen mark on the door. The gum on the wall. And then I picked a random one again. But it wasn’t so random because as soon as I got in there I recognized it.”

“You memorized the port a potty trash and recognized it five hours later?”

“Why yes. Yes, I did.” (insert a long, long, long pause married with an awkward stare here) “I hate germs.”

The Windmill

So the nightly concerts were decently crowded.  During the day everyone was scattered across the field on blankets, but at night everyone generally packed up and moved in closer. But not that close. 

The two of us were just standing there listening to the music when this huge group of girls got all up in our space. Not intentionally rude, just oblivious. And loud. And chatty. And tall. They didn't notice that they kept bumping into me. They didn't notice that they were talking louder than the music, if that is even possible at a concert. And they didn't notice that they were standing way too close to my comfort zone. So to encourage them to move on along to a different spot, I started singing along. Very loudly. But I got no reaction. So then I thought, "Maybe if I dance like crazy they will be annoyed and move along." I did the windmill. The washing machine. The swimmer. The gator chomp. At this point I was just making up moves to make them crazy. All while singing at the top of my lungs. I looked like a fool.

Except, of course, they didn't notice at all. 

Then I realized that I was totally being that girl in the crowd that is annoying to stand near. Backfired plan. We moved. They stayed. Epic fail. But I kept dancing anyways. Why stop when you are all loosened up?

Tattoo Typo

Okay, so maybe I act like I don’t get out much. And maybe I’m a little bit strange. But in large groups of people, I feel like the normal one. Trust me. These types of festivals draw all kinds of people. And if you like People Watching like I do, you know that this is prime time. The outfits. The hair. The old men with the young blondes. The old women with the young hipsters. It’s all interesting. In fact, my sister and I did the sunglasses test. “Can you see my eyes through my sunglasses? Like, if I’m staring at you, can you tell? Okay. Good.”

Our favorite find? I spotted a particular tattoo from a mile away. A giant quote on some dude’s forearm. We inched closer to read it, but I just couldn’t make sense of it. “I feel more like I do now then I did when I got here.” I don’t get it. And then it hit me.

“Okay. Wow. Read the tattoo over there. Shouldn’t that say THAN and not THEN???”

“Um. Yes.”

“Tattoo Typo. Major.”

“Sneak a pic. We will need to remember this one.”

"I feel more like I do now then I did when I got here."

Okay, so I have said and done some silly things. But at least none of them are permanently attached to me! I mean, the quote doesn't make sense anyways. But seriously. Google it before you ink it, dude.

So I admit, this post took forever to type because I was laughing so hard at all of the memories from this weekend. Maybe you just had to be there… We’ll see you there next year.

Music City, I do love you.