After meeting in a small town outside of College Station, TX, we all drove (in several vehicles) to Aggieland for dinner at Freebirds and then dancing at Hurricane Harry’s. It. Was. Epic!

What great memories! Everyone got along famously, and I am happy to say we are still friends with all our wedding party! I hear all too often about friendships fading after a wedding (just in different places in life, I guess) but it has not been the case for us. Every friendship is just as precious as it was that night, when we shut the place down partying the night away.

It was a party that continued into the next few days…

Sunday night, my husband and I hit the road from Texas to Tennessee. I had intended to write about our trip on Monday, since it was 13.5 hours long and surely it would make for a semi-interesting post. We drove from 8:30 pm to 10 am the next morning, successfully running behind the mad Thanksgiving day traffic for the last 12 hours of the drive.

After that many hours on the road, though, my muse was sleeping. Writing just wasn’t going to happen. So I figured I would get some sleep, then write when I got up.

Instead, I slept a lot longer than I meant to, and I hit the floor running. We had invited friends over for the evening, and our house was void of any food other than a couple cans of soup. So it was shower, grocery store, home, and cook.

It was a great choice to have friends over, though. We had SO  much fun just eating frozen pizza and decorating little liquor bottles into Christmas ornaments. It wasn’t until they headed home that I realized I’d missed posting the entire day.

Oh well, I decided. It was okay to miss a day writing about life just to live it for awhile.

Today we slept as late as we wanted. Got up. Ate leftover. Then slowly got ready to get out of the house.

We went to visit friends for awhile (what better tag to Thanksgiving with family is there than visiting friends!?). Then we headed out to do… just whatever.

Did we do a little shopping? Yes, I admit it. We did pick up a few things while we were out. Things we absolutely needed, and we got to the stores well after dark, when they’d cleared out and back to “normal.” Oh okay, some of the employees at the stores were grumpy and the stores were picked over pretty good. But for us, it was fun and not the least bit stressful!

We had a lovely dinner out, then took our time coming back to the house together. Not a single stressful second in the day.

And I loved it.

—–

*Okay, so not everyone is violent with it. And I have heard of several people who do the whole Black Friday midnight shopping this as just a way to spend one-on-one time with certain loved one. And I can totally get behind that.

*Photo taken with my camera by Rose Jonas*

Most of my Nashville Family in one photo. Celebrating 15 years of our “home away from home.” A family that began in 1996 and has grown over time. SO thankful to call all of these people friends.

I’m not afraid. Its just not high on my list of things to do. As in, not even on my bucket list to be knocked off it.

HOWEVER.

I married a man who happens to love motorcycles. Who has had bad accidents on them, and yet still wants to get right back on. There’s something admirable about that… not letting anything stop him from doing something he loves.

Not even a wife who practically wanted to burst into tears over plans to go riding yesterday. Because that “just not interested” turned out to be, “Scared to death.”

When a friend offered us his bike for the afternoon, my husband became more excited than anyone’s kids after Halloween, staring at a big bowl of candy. I couldn’t not go. I couldn’t deny him this excitement. He wanted to share this big part of himself with me, and I appreciated that more than I could share under the quivering, shaking, terrified child I became.

We went to pick up the bike. We got bundled up (since even though it was upper 60s, it would be chilly on the bike), my husband plopped a helmet on my head and… I swung a leg over and had a death grip on my husband as we took off.

We hooked up with some friends to go riding together, and off we went hitting back roads around Nashville. It took awhile, but I slowly released the death grip I had on Hubby’s jacket. I even got confident enough to dig out my phone and take a few photos.

Half-way through our travels, we stopped to have a light lunch together. Fighting daylight, we didn’t linger long before we took off again. Getting back on the bike, I figured out a more comfortable way to sit, and my confidence went even higher.

As the sun started to set (darn time change), it started to get chilly. We stopped to stretch our legs for a moment and come up with a plan. We headed for a local bar for a post-ride drink before calling it a night.

I faced a fear, and I conquered it. I have to thank my husband for being so adamant we were going, despite my fears. I didn’t fall off. We didn’t crash. We only  had ONE vehicle ignore a Yield sign and pull out in front of us — but then, that happens ALL THE TIME here, so it was just annoying versus scary. I didn’t freeze. And… dare I say it? I had fun.

Yes. I had fun. There. I said it.

I. Had. Fun.

And I will be happy to do it again sometime.

However, I have to confess. I’m not leaving Facebook anytime soon. The latest update as kept me from being on it as much as I was, but its not run me off completely. Because I like to know what is going on with others. No, not in that creepy stalker way. In that genuinely interested way.

I have almost 650 friends on Facebook.Of those, maybe 50 of those people are people I don’t really know or have known in the past. Those the people on that “restricted” list and that I have friended purely for networking reasons. (Or, in a hand full of cases, just to be polite.) The rest are people I know now or who I’ve known in the past. Old college acquaintances. High school classmates and peers. A few people I know back in elementary school. Several old message board and LiveJournal friends. Etc.

I am genuinely interested in all of these people’s lives. I love to see the hundreds of different paths that life has taken us all. Parents. World travelers. Military. Blue collar workers. Many in different states now. Others settled right where they grew up.

At the end of the day, we all come back down to the basis of relying on our friends. A bad day, we turn to each other for support. A prayer request reaches many at one time. A good day, we want to share our joy.  A birthday… you get a smile at the birthday wishes from all over the world, from all over your past.

I have to work a lot harder now to keep up with all my friends. I’ve been forced to create more friend’s lists than ever before just to sort through the posts easier (and I am still missing things, I know). New updates will surely be met with grumbling. But… I’m going to keep doing it. Being able to keep up with old friends and new means I’ll adjust to the changes, because friends are worth the headache.

Songwriters Matt Willis and Rick Tiger

Yesterday, I went to a writer’s night to see a couple friends perform their songs. I’ve attended other writer’s nights, but last night… last night was just something special for me.

I sat down, and I listened. Really listened. Oh okay, I snapped a few photos, but I was there to be a spectator, not a photographer. My husband commented that I had a smile on my face the whole time.

For me, it was not just about the music, it was about watching these people living their dreams. Writing their songs and performing for people who want to hear them. I was so proud of my friends. So happy for them!

And… I was in awe.

See, when someone asks me what I do, I used to respond, “I’m a writer!”

I don’t do that any more. Not that I’m not a writer (blogger), but when you say “writer” in Nashville, people think you are a songwriter. And, hey, its an easy and logical assessment! Music city. Writer. Music. Songs. Songwriter. Makes sense.

But, alas, no. I am no songwriter. In fact, I am in awe of songwriters. I admire their abilities to convey such emotion through their words. I admire their ability to tell a whole story in a few verses and a chorus. I admire their ability to take a throw away hook and turn it into a work of art.

I write, but I can’t craft a song. I don’t even do (serious) poetry. I might write the random limerick or haiku for humor-sake. Perhaps a cute little rhyme here and there. But past that? I leave the song writing to the professionals. I admire their talents. I respect them. And I sincerely wish them all the success in the world doing it.

The Wilson County Fair, in Lebanon, TN, is one of the best fairs I’ve ever been to in my life. They just have it figured out! Great selection of food. Tons of rides. A free concert. A petting zoo. And pig races. In the past they’ve had a banana derby (Monkeys riding dogs!!) but they were sadly absent this year.

My husband and I attended this year with a big group of friends, which just seemed to up the fun factor. Nothing like sharing a ferris wheel pod with another couple that you know, or sharing your various deep fried goodies. (And let it be known, everything tastes better “on a stick.”)

I literally turn into a 10 year old the days leading up to attending the fair. I actually had an upset tummy out of sheer excitement yesterday morning! Then I joked I’d end up with a sick stomach from eating things like chocolate covered bacon, deep friend strawberry short cake and deep fried cookie dough. I think I drank my weight in fresh shaken lemonade and sweet tea mix!

John Anderson was the headliner for the night at the free concert. I’d never seen him live, and it wasn’t high on my list of things to do at the fair. (So many rides, so much food, so little time!) But I am glad my husband insisted… he was GREAT! And I have to admit, when he sang “Swingin’” I got super excited and gave my parents a concert call.

Ah… so good to see these pure country artists getting a lot of love from a big crowd. Makes my country-lovin’-music-business-livin’ heart proud.

We ended the night with a little more fair food, and lots of big hugs with friends. We had an amazing time, and we’re trying to figure out if we can fit another trip out there before it ends this year. I hope we can, but if not? My heart is full of joy from the night. And I can almost (almost) feel Fall starting to make its way to us.

Today’s challenge is to Take 5 minutes to learn about the quality of your tap water. As I read people’s posts, it sparked a memory for me that made me laugh out loud all over again…

When I was in junior high (or possibly Freshmen year of high school — time has blurred the edges of those years) we had a slight break out of girls getting pregnant. It just seemed like every day, another girl was revealed as expecting.

A friend’s dad made the comment, “Must be something in the water!”

The next day, my friend’s little sister very seriously made her promise to not drink from the water fountains at school.

“Why?” my friend asked.

“Because I don’t want you to come home pregnant, too!!”

Ahhhh… we laughed about that for weeks, and here it is, around 15 years later, and I still got a nice belly laugh from that memory. Something in the water, indeed…

A big reason I opted to go to the movie (because, seriously, that whole Twitter feed thing happens every weekend, but the movies never even really register with me) is because this is a year of weddings for me and my husband. I am SO GLAD so many of our friends and family have found the loves of their lives… I just want to know why they all found them at the same time! ;)

I am in one wedding, and my husband is in another. As such, a day does not go by that I don’t think about someone’s wedding, and so a title like Bridesmaids just screamed, “SEE ME!” So I did.

It was okay. I summed it up on Facebook as, “Hollywood’s version of a wedding with adult language and junior high humor.” So, as I said, it was okay. I think they tried a little TOO hard to get laughs, and the funniest parts were the ones that I think every woman in the theater could relate to having experienced themselves.

Because, seriously… weddings are serious business. And anything serious business is just RIPE for comedy. Oh, when you’re going through it, you can’t laugh. Noooo… the world really MUST stop because you can’t find the perfect garter to wear under your dress. This. Is. TRAGIC.

Then years later you facepalm yourself and wonder what the big deal really was.

The big deal, though, really is how you get from engagement to wedding without alienating everyone around you… because of those serious-tragedies-that-really-aren’t. And THAT, my dear friends, was the part of the movie that rung the most true.

It is so easy to get wrapped up in everything being perfect that you lose sight of the people around you, and the fact that they are the ones that truly matter. You forget that the world does not stop for your wedding, and that every person you’ve surround yourself with in the wedding planning is still living a day-to-day life that can not be put on hold. Watching that movie, there were moments when reality smacked ME in the face, and I looked back on my own wedding planning with a few regrets at how I handled things.

I’m excited for every one of my friends and family members who are getting married this year. I hope they find as much joy and satisfaction in marriage as I have. I can’t wait to hear those “I dos” and watch the bouquet be tossed (thankful I am no longer out there trying to catch it!). I can’t wait to hug the bride and groom and wish them all the best.

Because whether myself or my husband are in the wedding party, a wedding IS a party. Its a celebration of love and a new life beginning. And its in that moment that all the stress of planning, all the no-tragic-tragedies of planning cease to matter and the hurt feelings fade away. It’s in that moment that its all made worth it.