august

August is slipping away. How is it that I started out so strong with blogging this year, and then as life began to "slow down" I stopped? I think maybe because as I get older, the less I feel the need to share my thoughts and life online. As time marches on, I do think about this blog and have the desire to keep posting, keep writing, keep updating. But life is changing, and as my priorities have shifted, this blog isn't anywhere close to the top anymore. If you still enjoy reading, I do thank you. I will keep posting, but clearly, just not as frequently and I won't make any promises of how often. 

I think one of the reasons I've slowed down is a simple lesson that time has taught me. Once you've said something - especially on the internet - it cannot be taken back. Once a picture is shared, it can't be unseen. I'm not really ashamed or embarrassed by anything I've ever shared on here, I just know that I want to stay guarded in this world that knows no boundaries. There have been enough times in my life that I look back on and cringe. I don't want to put those moments in a place where they cannot be erased. Once words leave your mouth - or fingers, in this case - they can only be forgiven, rarely are they forgotten.

The months of June, July, and August have fallen through my fingers like grains of sand. One moment I had a tight grip, the next they were gone entirely. I have been overwhelmed by God's grace and goodness. At the age of 24, I have begun to experience things that force me to look to Christ and pay more attention to Him than the circumstances around me. I feel as if these days my main request is for wisdom, while last year I had a bucketful of questions I couldn't even find words for. God can pull us out of our confusion and place us in peace if only we can adjust our focus on Him. I'm still trying, still learning, and a lot of the time it's still a struggle. Trust is simple, really, if we can just only let go of our own weak grasp on control.

On Father's Day, we were given a tangible gift that represented the answer to a specific prayer prayed for so many years. In February, 2018, my oldest brother Stephen and his wife Tara will add a little baby to our family!

July included the wedding of a close friend, and lots of swim days with my niece and nephews. August came and brought with it my friend Faith's sweet baby Judah and a huge creek baptism for our church. Jackson was baptized with several others that day, and who cares that all of us on the bank were hot and sweaty? There's such a sweetness about an old fashioned creek baptizing.

Monday was the day of the great solar eclipse, and we just so happened to live right in the path of totality. As long as I live, I will never forget that day. The photos below were all taken within a few minutes of each other, and the bottom one was around 1:28pm. Two minutes later, it was bright and hot again, but for those two minutes the crickets chirped, stars and lightening bugs came out, and we were surrounded by a 360° sunset. As goosebumps covered my arms I stood in awe of God's creation. How sweet that in a world such as ours, He still stuns the world with the evidence of His existence. How sad that some refuse to see it.

I suppose we're in the "dog days of summer", but as it cools off and September approaches with it's structure and schedules, I hope each of you enjoy it. Thank you for reading even though it's silent on here so often and my writing style refuses to stay the same. I really do appreciate it!

NYC | travel post

New York City is somewhere I've always thought would be so. much. fun. to visit, but never thought I would. Not in my single 20's, anyway. Our family vacations are usually in more relaxing, restful locations so I just didn't give it a lot of thought. (Except, you know, "wow, that would be fun.")

Until this summer at a family reunion talking to one of my cousins about how our traveling friends were all starting to get married and the ones still willing to travel with us weren't interested in the big cities.

"We should go!"

"A family girls trip? Yes!"

"Hey mom, y'all wanna go to New York City for a weekend?"

By the next week we had bought our plane tickets. A few weeks later our hotel was booked. Then we bought city passes, bus tickets, and last Wednesday we got up at 3:30am to get on a plane!

all of our selfie stick photos

We got there at 10:30am, checked into our hotel room (30th floor!)...

...then grabbed coffee and pastries on our way to Grand Central Station. We giggled our way through our first subway ride on our way to Times Square. Wednesday also included the Top off the Rock,  Central Park, and the Museum of Natural History. We ended the day soaking our feet and eating take out Chinese food after walking around 8 miles.

The second day (Thursday) found us on the top of a double decker bus where we saw a whole lot of the city on our way to the 911 monument and museum. We walked what felt like forever to find a TKTS booth to buy our Broadway tickets (sold at half price in 3 locations in the city), then got drenched on the rest of the bus ride but saw the United Nations building, Trump Tower, and a lot of other stuff that wasn't on our list. ;)  We came back to our room late that afternoon and got dressed up to go see Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway (after walking nearly 10 miles). On the way to the subway we stopped at Momofuku's (a milk bar) for their famous cereal milk ice cream (worth it!), and on the way back stopped to take a picture at Tiffany's. Fiddler was incredible, and it also allowed us to see Times Square at night. Since it was nearly a 3 hour play, we once again ate Chinese food because even in NYC, most restaurants are closed at 11pm and we wanted to just eat in bed. We walked over 11 miles that day!

On our third day in the city (Friday) we got up a bit earlier and headed to the Statue of Liberty. It was a cold morning and we rode on [the very windy] top of the Ellis Island Ferry. The statue was beautiful, though, and we also saw Trinity Church ("on the corner of Broad and Main"), the bull of Wall Street, and ate lunch at Shake Shack! It lived up to it's wonderful reputation - I ordered the Shack Burger, cheese fries, and a chocolate malted. We took the hoho (hope on/hop off) bus again and saw some more of the city. We walked around Chinatown, went in "the" Macy's on 5th Avenue (34th Street) and bought some warm clothes at H&M and Forever21 (only place we could afford on 6th Avenue haha) for the 2-hour nighttime bus tour of Manhattan and Brooklyn. We were frozen solid when we got off, so we got a pepperoni pizza from Ray's and a slice of blueberry cheesecake from Lindy's and took it back to the room. Walked over 10 miles again altogether.

Saturday morning we packed our stuff up, got one last bagel and acai bowl, and walked down 5th Avenue. We went in Saks, St. Paul's Cathedral, and got coffee at Ralph's Coffee above Ralph Lauren before heading back to catch our ride to the airport!

We're still catching up on sleep and I have a new appreciation for the quiet calm of my little southern town ("green acres is the place for me!"), but I wouldn't trade this experience or the memories we made for anything. It was an incredible adventure that I'm so thankful to have had.

And since we took pictures of practically everything we ate, here are those... ;)

southernisms | sweetness of the south pt.1

Hey, y'all! How's your Mama 'n 'em?

Do what? Come again? What a way to open a blog post!

I know it had been a month of Sundays since you'd heard from me last time I posted, so I decided to do another one right away. All summer I've been coming up with a list of things about the south I'd love to share with all y'all, but that would be the longest blog post ever so I decided to do a series of posts, starting with this one, which to me is the tune of the south.

I reckon I'm allowed to be proud of where I'm from because I was born and raised here, so don't pitch a fit if you happen to be from the north, bless your heart. You be proud of your heritage, I'll be proud of mine.

One of my favorite things about the south is the freely made up, strange, and never questioned expressions. Once you start using them they stick to you like stink on a hog, and never you mind if it's one you made up on the spur, sometimes you just gotta get your point across.

"The south is the one place nothing ever has to be explained to me." I know what all of these expressions mean, and if you think the ones you read here are silly things we only say once in a blue moon, then you've got another think coming. I've only included those I hear at least every week, if not every day.

In my family my grand parents have five kids and forty 'leven grandkids.  We all live a hoot 'n a holler away from them and when family get togethers come around we're up and at 'em because everyone brings a dish. We always bring plenty because there's a slew of people and we don't want to have to be scrounging around for extras when we're fixin' to eat. Lemme tell you what, you've never had rolls like my grandma makes. They're slap-your-mama good, and she's always got some on hand when we go over. We tend to pig out and get full as a tick, but we'll stop when we've had a gracious plenty. If you've never been to a family potluck, well I never. Y'all ain't right. 

You'd better watch yourself, or your Mama'll jerk a knot in your tail. I don't know how many times I've been told, "don't be ugly!" If you ever start thinking you're too high falutin' to heed that warning and get too big for your britches, then you're dumb as a box of rocks. You'll make your mama mad as a wet hen and get yourself chewed up one side and down the other.  If you don't straighten up you just might get her dander up and cause her to fly off the handle and lay into you quick as greased lightening. Then she'll be upset as all get out so nip it in the bud for heavens sake! Stop being such a persnickety knucklehead, you're getting us all discombobulated.

Manners are first and foremost and you must never let someone think you're speaking ill of a person. For example, "He's ugly as a mud fence, bless his heart." or "Poor thing, he's old as dirt and ain't got a stitch 'a hair." Compliment someone's cooking and you'll like to tickle them to death, but insult their sister and you'll tear them all to pieces and possibly cause them to have a come apart. Lord have mercy we wouldn't want that!  

My daddy always said that if you can't say nothing nice, don't say nothing at all, and Mama will tell you to hush your mouth when you start talking ugly because that one lady can't carry a tune in a bucket. Just don't cause a stink about it, ya hear?

When asked if you like the fruitcake when you've got a hankerin' for pie, say you surely do and thank you kindly, ma'am. You can wash it down with some sweet tea and go home in a little bit. 

Good heavens, it's hot! The humidity's getting on our last nerve. Summer is spent hay hauling, bean picking, chigger scratching, and spending most of your day in the humid, hotter than blazes out-of-doors. Shew-whee, by nightfall you feel like you've been chewed up and spit out, but just hide and watch us do it again the next day because we hang in there like a hair in a biscuit. Pretty soon we'll have put up all of the harvest and will be in high cotton, ready for bonfires and hay rides. Autumn will be here directly and we'll praise Jesus for the breeze.


Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we'll be having dinner on the ground once it cools off. Everybody'll be puttin' on the dog - girls  dressed pretty as a picture and the boys all decked out. Mama's are tickled pink when you act like you're somebody.

Well if that don't beat all - I've used a lot of southern expressions! There are so many I left out because there just isn't enough time!  Maybe there will be a second one on southernisms? Who knows?

There might be one or two that don't make a lick 'a sense to you, so just ask me and I'll try to explain them! And it's not just the old timers that use these expressions, I asked my friends which ones they used regularly and that's where most of them came from - and they're all under the age of 25!  (9 out of 10 of them said "bless your heart" is the one they use the most.)

"Goodness gracious, hun, I can't think of an expression on the fly like that!" But we did, and here they are.

Have a lovely day, darling readers. I'll see you shortly!

 

leaving it

 "Lord...I don't even know how to pray for this. I don't know what to ask, I don't know what to offer. Lord...Lord..."

Pauses. Silence. Broken prayers.

Have you ever been here? You go to pray, you have a designated time, spot, and miraculously it works out that you are alone in the quiet with the Lord. The time you've been waiting for. You get on your knees, still your heart, and...

"Lord..."

Quiet. For the next several moments you listen to your breathing, your heartbeat.

And so many times, words escape you. You have prayed the same prayers over and over until you feel like a broken record. The repetition of your pleas have become monotonous, and honestly, you're just tired of praying for them.

"I know you hear me, Lord. I know you're here."

More silence as you struggle to express the things in your heart that don't want to be described with words.

"Let me make a difference. Don't let this be in vain. Show me what to do. Let my voice be heard."

As I pray for America, I find that I don't know what to say.

"Show mercy, continue to give us grace. Turn the hearts of the leaders to you. Protect my country. Show mercy..."

Over. And over. And over again.

So lately, I've been silent. I've stopped letting words just spill out and I've given them some thought.

"Right now, the voices of the wicked are so loud. They fill the news and make me feel small, weak, and terrified. Let Christians regain their voice. Give us the courage to stand and fight for what's right. The wicked have drowned us out for far to long. Fill us with boldness for you. Fill us with courage, strengthen our voices and our stand. Let us be heard."

I may only pray for 15 minutes. But I will sit in silence for many more than that. I want Him to know that when I stand and go my way, I have left it all in His hands. I gather all the worries and fears and doubts and insecurities in a nice little package and I leave it there before Him.

Sometimes I go and pick a few things back up, but every day, I will gather it again, lay it down, and turn my back.

I will continuously beg for mercy. I will not stop asking for another chance. I will beseech on behalf of my nation.

And then I will leave it with Him.

A Call to Prayer

"And said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments: Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned."  Nehemiah 1:5-6

A Call to Prayer

A church I'm very familiar with has put out a call for prayer for our nation. A petition for 50,000 American Christians to spend the next five days fasting and praying for the United States of America. At my church last night we were encouraged to commit to at least one day of fasting, and we'll be meeting at church every day to pray. Anonymously, with no one looking around, we had commitments for every day of the fast, and at the end, a few commitments for multiple days.

I believe fasting is very personal, I believe it's between a person and the Lord, and I believe it works. It worked for Nineveh, it can work for America.

Here is the link and information for the petition. Will you join us in the war room of prayer for America?

A Call to Prayer

my familiar | summer's end

 

I love to travel. I've been blessed to have flown internationally and be in different countries. I've seen beautiful and historical landmarks in America, and if you gave me a plane ticket and a travel partner, I can't think of many places I'd refuse to go. There are so many different travel destinations on my bucket list that I can't name half of them off the top of my head.The world is beautiful - each place stunning in it's own unique way.

But there is something to be said about the beauty I see daily, that I get to take for granted. The things I hope never change, that will welcome me back when I've been gone.

It's easy to feel stuck in a place when there's simply too much going on, not enough time, too expensive to travel...whatever the reason you can't leave.  I've been there so many times. Feeling the itch to pack a bag and get on a plane. Just to see something different, break up the routine, jump out of your rut.

I've been feeling that for the past few weeks as we're in the middle of what sometimes feels like a hurricane of sawdust and nails. The holidays are coming up and it's just a terrible time to take off work. Planning a trip for April and May seems like such a long way off...and so I decided to appreciate the things around me.

The evenings are getting cooler here. Still a far cry from the nose-numbing nights of deep autumn, but the evenings of driving around with the windows down are numbered. So last night, Amie and I decided to take a drive around some of our favorite places near home. We were never more that 15 minutes from our house, and with cameras in hand, my desire to leave this place for a little while grew to a distant call that I'll revisit later in April or May. ;)

These are sights that comfort me, that let me know this is where I belong.

My familiar.

Come drive around with us...

{as appropriate as it would be, no, I do not live on this road ;) }

 

 

We all have places uniquely beautiful and special to us. These sights speak to me of home. What is your familiar?

Obligation

So it's 9/11 again. And, for the third, fourth, fifth? year in a row, I am writing about it.

Part of me really just doesn't want to. I mean, what more is there to say? It's been thirteen years since the tragedy, and yet now, year after year, we live in it's shadow on this day.

I don't want to write about it because social media will be blowing up today with people pulling at our heart strings and emotions, posting pictures they got off Google Images of the towers burning, the firefighters and policemen and bystanders covered in ashes, dust, and blood.

I don't want to write about it because I don't want to be one of the sheep, trying to make you cry or nod or feel some surface emotion because it has been thirteen years. For those of us who were very young at the time or far enough away to not have a firsthand memory of the devastation, confusion, pain, and absolute terror, the memory has dimmed a bit. The fear has faded a shade, and our loved ones are still close to us.

But as an American, I have an obligation to honor and remember this day. Forget social media, forget the surface emotions, and think instead about our nation and what she's been through. And pray like we've never prayed before. Because yes, we've been through a lot, and we've been survivors, fighters, victors. But we might not always be.

The state of my country is frightening. I have an obligation to remember 9/11 because I don't know what's coming next. Another bombing? Another school shooting? What next? Are we still one nation under God? I hope and pray that God will continue to show grace and mercy to this country that is rapidly forgetting all about the One who is responsible for our beautiful, strong history.

We all have this obligation, this duty to our nation. To remember our losses, and to pray for our victory.

Don't be a sheep. Make it mean something more.

Our Fourth of July

"Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee." -Deuteronomy 32:7

After Christmas, I think the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. It's about celebrating our freedom and it's cost and our American history, spending time with family, and relaxing. 

This year for Independence Day we celebrated on the fourth in Kentucky with our church family and other people at a tent meeting my dad preached. We took around 150 people from our church, and all combined there were about 500 people there! Our choir sang, my dad preached, a lady got saved, they served pizza and ice cream, and had fireworks! So much fun. :)

 

On the fifth, we had our big family celebration. Stephen and Tara are finally back in our state for good! They came over, and of course Jacob and his family did too. I'll caption some of the pictures, but you can see what we did fairly well without me writing a lot about it! (A picture is worth a thousand words...) We sat outside and ate and hung out for about five hours and had so much fun.

corn on the cob, baked beans, hamburgers and hotdogs, and chips

smoked jalapeno poppers

 

"Wheelie Poppin' Contest" - perfectly timed photo!

homemade butterfingers ice cream

What did you do for the Fourth of July? I hope everyone had a great day!