Classy Not Trashy

I went to San Antonio a few weekends ago for my junior high volleyball tournament. We won our first two games to take us to the championship on Saturday night. We lost and got second but I was still very proud of my girls!! They did awesome! Elena and I taught them the "I've got confidence" sing song melody so they can sing it before games. The girls absolutely love that song now! It's hilarious but cool to hear them sing about their confidence that Jesus loves them no matter what. Here is a picture after the championship. Clearly #2 was not happy. I would categorize this picture as "priceless."

After our tournament I stayed Saturday night and watched the game with some old ACU alum to cheer on Texas against Texas Tech! Afterwards we danced the night away to put it simply. So so fun!!! It is night's like those that make me very thankful for the season of life that I am in right now.

This picture isn't from San Antonio but it's a result of a pretty crazy weekend that I had (long story). I got a free highlight but it was only if I let them do whatever they wanted to it sooo...here's my new hair color! I really love the lighter blonde but the red I could live without. Can you see the red on the bottom part!? Sorry the picture is so myspace-ish, I just wanted a picture to showcase my new color(s). One of my little 5th graders saw my red hair AND found out that I used to have a nose ring and her response to me was, "why keep it trashy when you can keep it classy?" Neveradullmoment.

Donald Miller...check!

I am reading a book by Jim Palmer that has affected me in the same way Donald Miller has affected me in the past. If you don't know me very well, you should know that I LOVE Donald Miller. So much so, that one of my best friend's called me and said, "Meagan. You will never believe who I met today. There was a very attractive guy (check) on the dart with me. We started talking and he was from ACU (not really a check but whatever). He has been to Africa (check) working for the peace corps and he was wearing cowboy boots (check times 10). And then after we finished talking he pulled out a Donald Miller book!!!" Can I just say that I was so happy when my girl friend felt like it was fate when he pulled out a DM book. DM = more checks than cowboy boots mainly b/c cowboy boots unfortunately don't make you a southern, God fearing gentleman like my little brain wants me to believe.

That last sentence is just a whole other blog in itself.

Anyways, Jim Palmer is real, raw, honest and I like it. He goes against what everyone else seems to follow when it comes to church and religion. I like it when people step outside the norm and question if that's how Jesus intended for His followers to be. The idea of his book is "shedding religion to find God." Basically, how he encountered and grew closer to God through divine nobodies; a hip hop artist, Denny's waitress, a disabled child and tire salesman. Without further ado here are a few quotes from Jim's book, Divine Nobodies.

“It’s a little curious that the ‘sinners’ in the Bible were much more responsive to Jesus and ready to receive the kingdom of God than religious people. The same sun melts wax and hardens clay, and the same Jesus melted and hardened people’s hearts, but maybe there’s a hidden message in who was melted (prostitutes) and who was hardened (priests). Doesn’t God want folks either passionately in love with him (hot) or flipping him the bird (cold) rather than the halfhearted mediocrity of religious compliance?

It’s clear from the hot/cold Scripture in Revelation that the video nauseating God is not categorically the hip-hop one, but the one where we come to church masking our brokenness, out of touch with the truth about ourselves while pointing our fingers of condemnation at others.

In reference to the Denny’s waitress he befriended…

She talked about how over the years Christians were often her worst customers. They would come in all cheery and blessed after Sunday morning service, running her unmercifully with a table of 8 and leaving loose change for a tip on a large bill. For years, I prided myself on having right theology, but Wanda got me thinking about whether any theology can be “right” if it doesn’t motivate you to treat people with love and respect. Let’s just hope on Judgment Day that God doesn’t leave it in the hands of waitresses, cashiers, and all the other invisible people in our world who are on the receiving end of what’s truly in our hearts.”

Filter

This is my tip of the day. I hope it helps my three followers.

If you're married, please don't go on and on...and on about how you're SO glad you aren't single. Especially when there's only one single person in the conversation among other married girls. And don't use phrases like, "I'm so blessed to have found (insert dreamy rich guy here). Ugh, that's so terrible I would just hate to be single! Glad that phase of my life is over!!"

Umm...what?

Moving on.

My grandmother (ohhhh Janney Bee) is a hoot to say the least. My brother and I went to go visit her today. She told us about how a lady busts in her door and tells her to go to hell! Huh, I thought. That's strange. Ten minutes later my grandmother tells us a story about how she told one of her friends the reason she takes a lot of medicine is because she was so mean. Huh, I thought. Maybe that's why you have people telling you to go to hell.

"I'm such a smart ass." -Janney Bee Hines

Louisiana Loves

I can't wait to kiss these sweet cheeks in a few weeks!!!

Labor Day Getaway

There are many joys of being single after college but there is one thing that isn't so fun: finding normal people to hang out with. It seems like a simple task but oh no, it couldn't be more difficult. When my sister-in-law told me about her best friend's cousin who lived in Austin, I was interested. I trust Karen and she said that this infamou girl seemed really cool.

So, like any normal person would do, I stalked her on facebook. And from my facebook deductive reasoning, I concluded that she indeed seemed nice, normal and fun. Stacy is one of those people that I instantly felt like I had been friends with for years. She's a funny, free spirit, interior designin', laid back, beard & musician loving Austinite that is so much fun!

When she invited me to come with her on a camping trip where she only knew one person and I knew none, I was totally in! Camping with 20 people you have never met in the middle of Texas sounded like an adventure for surrrrreee. And oh, was it an adventure!


The best part of the whole trip was right before we arrived on the ranch. We were instructed to close the gate behind us so when we came upon a ranch that seemed to fit the description, we drove up and shut the gate. As we drove down the gravel road we didn't see any cars at the house and decided we were on the wrong property! We quickly turned around and stopped to call the guy who was in charge. While sitting in Stacy's brand new car, some of the horses from the ranch started getting really close to the car but we didn't think anything of it. While Stacy was on the phone we heard this really loud scratch noise and we looked at each other with big eyes afraid of what we would see when we turned around. The horse was eating her spoiler!!!! We literally laughed for a solid 2 minutes...it was hilarious and luckily the horse didn't hurt her car too bad! Who knew horses like to bite cars so beware!!

Among hungry horses our weekend also included canoes, rope swings, rivers, smores, camp fires and...

RIFLES! Don't mess with Texas, especially their women!

Preach on, Sir Francis

I'm not usually one for poems, never have been but this one caught my eye and convicted my heart. Enjoy.

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

Sir Francis Drake

Random!

Here are a few random things happening all at once...

1. I'm super excited, I mean PUMPED about college football. This is me being extremely excited/cheesy sporting my Texas jersey with a "rock-a-billy's" sunset in the background. Never gets old.

p.s. don't you love the christmas lights? they look so great when it's dark!

2. This family that I know took professional pictures at the snow cone stand a few weeks ago without knowing Aaron and I owned it! How random is that? Here a couple of photos mainly so my (3) blog followers can see where I work every day.

You can't see that much of our place but you get my drift. Old cars and an airstream and cute kids in fedora hats...you know, the usual. (I took these pictures from her blog)

3. My adorable nephew is on a football team. He's 4 years old. They refer to his league as the "wee" league and my brother got suckered into being the coach. His only victory in football was when he won his fantasy football league 2 years ago. The other teams have been having 4 practices a week. Oh and he had a dad call him telling him how good his kid is and how his son should only be a tight end or something outrageous like that. All of these things are brewing a perfect crazy parent storm. Needless to say, I can't WAIT to go to a game.

4. My awesome dates have continued including a wonderful trip to homeslice on south congress. This place is a must if you come to Austin for the weekend! We also have been to Woodland on south congress (it's my fav part of Austin) and we also went to an improv comedy show where a man did a skit about abortion and apparently we were supposed to be laughing? I didn't laugh nor clap and at the end I leaned into my date's ear and said, "abortion's hilarious!" He wasn't laughing either. But besides that the comedy club was surprisingly very entertaining!

5. Elena and I are coaching two volleyball teams at Brentwood. I feel like that statement is enough to cover so many bases of hilariousness/randomness/irresponsibility that is to come.

Did she say chuck wagon?

I went to visit my small town southern man (aka my grandpa) in his town of about 500 people this past weekend. I have compiled a "top ten" list in honor of this eventful visit but first, I have to tell you about the most white trash divorce dispute. Pardon me for my harsh words but after reading this blog you will most likely agree.

I decided while I was in town that I would shadow both of my uncles at their respective jobs. One uncle is a history teacher and my other uncle is a judge. Before being judge, he was the district attorney and would tell us crazy....I mean, crazyyyyy stories about what goes on in these small towns. Drug trafficking being one of the main problems that he deals with everyday. But on this particular Monday my uncle was listening to a couple's argument of who gets to keep what after the divorce settlement.

They start out by saying there is a dispute over a few pieces of property that they can't come to an agreement on.

1. land that has a rodeo arena on it

2. 5 bedroom 3 bath double wide

3. tractor from the 1960's

4. A CHUCK WAGON.

Who on earth owns a chuck wagon??? Needless to say I had to have some serious self control in that court room because I was so thrown off by the chuck wagon argument. After 30 minutes of back and forth bickering I leaned over to my dad and said, "I'm never getting married" to which he replied, "You can get married, just don't marry someone who owns a chuck wagon!"

Touche.