Man... yesterday, the drive seemed a heck of a lot longer than last time... I guess it was still around 10 hours. Seemed like a ju-jillion. We're home now, and I love this little house. Time for lunch and a haircut. Please.

When I left you yesterday, I was faintly marigold, with lily yearnings. Still there. BUT I have purchased more blonde-ing products and will try some mo, momentarily. The price of beauty...

So here we are at Friday, our last weekend in Nashville. I'm ready to get back to KC, check on our house and such. AND then, next week... actually a week from tomorrow, we're off for Texas! Wahoo!

Someone suggested to me today, and I won't tell you who, since the scorn would be so great, that we CAMP on our way back to Tejas. Camp. As in, tent, outdoors. As in, oh HECK no.
See, I would love camping if it was in a decent hotel, with cable and a pool, oh and AIR CONDITIONING AND PLUMBING.

Worst. Idea. EVER.

What's so wrong with camping? You ask. Abraham and his homies did for hundreds of years and such. Jesus camped. Yeah yeah yeah. Here's what's wrong with camping. Everything but marshmallows over a fire. So:
•outdoors
•bugs
•heat
•porta potties
•dirt
•gravel
•tents
•food, outside. with all of the above.
•camping
•etc.

I will sell a kidney on Ebay to pay for a hotel room, if I have to.

this is why I'm hot

We are safely (well, relatively safely) ensconced in our apartment in Nashville... we arrived last night - took us 9 or 10 hours, and that was even stopping a couple of times to eat and play on the McDonald's playlands... the speed limit may or may not have been exceeded.

We have a cute little apartment here in a dangerous looking neighborhood. I don't think it is. It just looks a little dicey. This little complex is owned by the ministry we're working with. It's furnished in late 80's-early 90's American. With a new stove... nice. The apartment has wood floors and it's definitely old. Toby can roll a truck and it rolls down to the corner. But most of it has been remodeled and it's good. Richy is gone, left this morning to go work a booth at the Gospel Music Awards. HA! We're working with the Thunder School.

So today I am getting settled in the apartment here and determining what we need to move in... looks like they will be providing all of our food from their food pantry... I'm supposed to go down there later and "shop". That's your update for today, folks.

I was going to post some pictures today, but in technology's eternal battle to destroy me, every rechargeable battery in the house is dead and so I cannot import anything. Am I charging the batteries now? Of course I am. Do I really think I'll win this one? Not really.

We flew out of KC Friday morning at 6:40. In the MORNING. Ay Caramba. I hate flying, so I have defense mechanisms for the times when we are most likely to crash to the earth, like the moment when the front wheels leave the ground, and the early trajectory, and descent and landing. I am fine when we are 34,000 feet in the air. My thinking is, it would take a while to fall out of the sky from that height, and I would have some warning. So I try to have a good book to divert me for the crucial moments, which means I have to ration it so I don't finish before landing. I blew it this time and finished my book, which meant I had to do a crossword puzzle during landing, which, frankly, was not sufficiently diverting. More than you needed to know? Well, this is my blog, folks. I can ramble on about any old thing and you just have to take it like a man.

It was such a great vacation. Maybe some of you would not want to fly to some remote oppressed city and spend 12 hours in prayer and fasting, but that's our bag. We just took our time. We sat around the hotel and watched a little TV. We ate good food, slowly. We drank Starbucks and watched far-off thunderstorms. And I remembered why my husband is my best friend.

Saturday was the Call. And I always say, the Call was awesome, intense, etc. It's just very hard to describe a day like this.

There's thousands of us here
and nobody really knows why
except maybe if we join together and ask
You will come
and remove the curse from this nation

We're all badly broken
and flawed, so flawed
but maybe, if we lift You up
You'll draw us near

The sound is deafening
of eight thousand hearts breaking
with Yours, for Yours

And maybe we've got it right
maybe we've got it wrong
but we can't stop asking
that much we know

More about the Call and vacation this week.

Late blogging because I was doing stuff... we had a guest for lunch and I made a pot o'chili... the MOG's wee little tummy is hurting now. He must be allergic to chili powder or some such.
We watched Martian Child last night... it was excellent, folks. As my good friend Simon Cowell would say, "Loved it. LOVED it."

It is so healing to have people around... ever since we got married, people would come over and God would just minister to them. People would talk about the atmosphere being peaceful. And I think we lost that for a while because I was just so sad. But lately I've been feeling it again. People come over here and meet with God. And we aren't even doing anything! HA!
A new development that's fun... we will be going to Nashville for a few weeks in March May, (thank you Nate) to help with this! I love going places... especially for a chunk of time like that... really get a vibe for the city and new places.
So yeah, I am feeling good and encouraged in general.

And now, Smartypants needs advice column fodder!

Submit your questions for Ms. Smartypants... need advice? You've come to the right place! Ask and you might receive.. Monday or next week sometime!

Here's the little weekend update... the plan was to drive to Cincinnati in the evening to avoid all the visual stimulation for R2, which we are considering might be a trigger for seizures. So we planned on leaving at 3 pm and driving for 9 hours. But really, it was more like 4 when we finally got on the road and then it took 10 hours. Which sounds insane, but it really wasn't that bad. Except I hate McDonalds now.
So we got to the hotel at 2 or 3 or something insane- 3 because of the time change. Since Toby had a nice nap from 9 or so, he was cheery and awake and very excited about everything. Until 5:30. Then he got up around 9-ish ready for the new day. The Call started at 10 but that was not do-able... Daddy moves a little slow in the morning, and R2 makes him look fast.

Eventually we got to the Call, and stayed for 7 hours. It was awesome, it always is. This one was focused a lot on the African-American issues and abortion and such. After 7 hours, my arms and my brain were tired... we probably could have stuck it out the remaining 5 hours, but me and the wee folk went back to the hotel. Where I watched about 5 minutes of the webstream before Toby tripped over the power cord and broke it off in the laptop. So that was the end of that. Maybe the end of that laptop, too. Time will tell.

Sunday we slept in till 8:30. Thanks, Toby. He and I snuck out of the room with him in his Spidey PJs and his stick-up hair. Everybody in the breakfast room was admiring him. What a cutie. He talked through half a waffle, several strips of bacon, eggs, froot loops and some yogurt. And some OJ. I don't know if he would have ever stopped, but you know, I did.

Then Sunday we drove home, used a gift card at Olive Garden... yesssss. And got home by midnight-ish. It was a good trip and a fun one and our first family vacation, technically. So there you go.

In other news, American Idol starts tonight. Time to find the rabbit ears in the garage.

After a long day of obsessively making lists and eventually packing, we were off. I said goodbye to my babies.... sigh. My mom picked us up and the MOG (speaking of obsessive) spent 20 minutes looking for his OTHER sunglasses.
I was looking so cute in my overalls with all the brass buttons and buckles. They loved me in airport Security. They just wanted me to stay and stay. I was wanded.... excessively. Everything beeped. *undie alert* even my foundation garments... every dadgum button set off the thing. Wanded wanded. I had to take off my shoes, unbuckle my overalls, arms up, arms down. (that's what it's all about) Frisked, TWICE.

i have to stop this newsy little tome as we have to go now. Catch ya later.

No Smartypants this week.

---

False alarm. We don't really have to go... because the MOG has to get some Jesus... this is possibly the most oppressive city I have ever been in.
Anyways. Frisked, and then we get to our gate as the flight is boarding. The flight was 3 hours, which is LONG. I did watch my first in-flight movie (Nancy Drew)... that was fun. Unfortunately, we were seated far, far away from each other. But it was okay. My seat companions were British, and I just blissfully eavesdropped on the accents for a while.

Got here. Pacific time. It is so trippy to take off, fly for three hours, and land one hour after takeoff. Ride shuttles and buses and such until we finally get our rental mini-van. I was hoping for something sporty, in fact, I rented a Jeep Liberty online. But we have to pick up the whole band tonight, and besides, the car rental place was out of SUVs. So they rented us a minivan for the same price, which is awesome. And... matronly.

We drove in crazy circles. Figuring out a new city is always a challenge, and doing it dog-tired is wacky. After 4,983 hours, we finally went to sleep. The end.

My mission today, whether or not I choose to accept it, is to pack for 5 people for 4 days.... I have to start making lists or my brain will just combust.

The MOG and I leave for Vegas tonight. It will be my longest separation from Brynn ever. Uh, except that 2 months she lived in the hospital. But you know what I mean.
I'm pretty nervous about it. She is not such a fan of the bottle, and I haven't started solids yet. So best of luck to Viking Granny!

Oh, and in the usual way these things work, we found out that Radiant is playing before the Call again. But we get a whole hour this time, so that's cool... the songlist is exciting. There's something about opening the morning, preparing the field... hopefully we can get some video for all you cats.

The other thing happening this weekend is Shatter Festival. Leah and Tred (her dance company) will be dancing and there's a webcast. So check it out.

My stomach is all nervousy. I should take a shower now, and then wash clothes. And pack. Clothes. And bottles. And patch cords. And batteries. And **poof**

I remember it well. Happy Birthday to ME!

I love my birthday.

I just... I just geek out about it. It is so fun to have a day that everybody celebrates that you were born. What an honor... I love it.

We leave for Las Vegas for the Call tomorrow. So I imagine any cake related festivities will be postponed until post-Vegas. Unless I'm having a surprise party tonight.


I hope I can get my picture with an Elvis impersonator in Vegas between all the fasting and praying.