Sometimes, my children, working in an office is an experience. There’s all the meetings, strange lunch conversations, and forced comraderie. Often, you actual do develop deep, lasting friendships with some of your coworkers, but not every one of them.

And sometimes, there are those things you have to participate in as a department that you’d rather shoot yourself than do. Like the department meeting/how-your-brain-works conference I just returned from.

Being forced to play games—like making a “sculpture” with a coworker, dancing, and making up symbols to memorize things—when you’re really stressed about the work you left sitting on your desk is a bit much. And left me thinking that I was sitting in on one of Michael Scott’s conference room meetings on “The Office.”

I was seriously waiting for someone to pull out that picture from Big of Tom Hanks and that other guy playing the big piano. (Because music is helpful to brain function and memory, you know.)

So everyone, think of me in my cute dress and cuter shoes parading around a room with my coworkers pretending to be a sculpture.

And laugh. I give you permission.

It’s Wednesday. I don’t want to work. The litany of reasons why? I’m tired. My knee hurts because I’m old. It’s really hot. I’m so far behind that I don’t believe there will ever be light at the end of the tunnel. My friend and coworker who keeps life interesting is out for two weeks because of a tonsillectomy. I wish I could get paid for blogging. . .

But then I got to work today and got an email from a reader of the magazine, who reserved a paragraph just to say nice things to me. I might have to print it off and pin it to my dress so that I can remember what she said when I’m feeling down, which these days, is more often than not at work.

All that said, it’s time for some dispatches. (I know, you’ve been waiting for them!)

• BASEBALL!!!! I’m going to a Nashville Sounds (minor league) game on Friday, because some people I know are singing the national anthem. And next Friday, July 18, I’m going to see the Cards play in StL with the entire fam, Baby Elijah included. I haven’t been to the new Busch Stadium yet and I can’t wait. Plus there’s the chance of eating hot dogs, which should only be consumed in conjunction with cook-outs and baseball games.

• In a pinch, Sara Lee makes a good apple pie. (That is if you really want pie but don’t want to make your own.)

• I don’t like blackberries. It’s the seeds and the way they feel when they burst in your mouth. This has been a constant throughout my life. Why can’t my dad remember that?

• I had to change my password to get onto the server at work about a week ago. We have to do it every three months or so for security reasons. Now, I’m having the worst time remembering what mine is. It’s no fun to sit in front of the prompt for 10 minutes trying to remember.

• I actually watched Celebrity Family Feud last night. I know! But people from “The Office” were on. Then came the crew from Earl in character. Which was enough to make me laugh.

OK, there’s much to be accomplished today. In between meetings. . . the bane of my existence!

(OK, so if I’d ever lived in Kansas, I would have to be a very unhappy person, seeing as I probably would have had to like the Kansas Jayhawks, and that, my friends, would be a sign of the apocalypse. As a graduate of the University of Missouri, it’s pretty much a graduation requirement to hate KU. . . and I graduated with honors.)

Anyway, after that disclaimer about the title of this post, I get on to the actual point: I grew up in a small Midwestern town in rural Missouri and now live in a large southern city in the “belt buckle of the Bible belt,” as they like to say around here. I love Nashville, but sometimes, every so often, it becomes clear to me that this is certainly not the small town I grew up in. Case and point:

• I get made fun of for the way I say the word roof. Yes, I’m aware there are two o’s, and phonetically, that should make a difference. But we always said roof in a way that kind of sounds like the sound a dog makes. You know, ruff. It’s the way I say it. And it ain’t changing!

• Someone uses the word “hose pipe” in a sentence and no one laughs. Well, except for me. Because it’s not a joke. It’s slang particular to middle Tennessee for a garden hose.

• I’m forever explaining harvest season and that farmers go to work in the morning and work as long as they can. There’s no 8 hour days or clocking in. And at harvest time, you work and work and work until the crop is out. Then you keel over and sleep. People in more rural, ag areas of Tennessee might understand this, but they don’t here in Nashville.

• This is the response I get often: “Wait a minute, you didn’t have a football team at your high school? What did you do on Friday nights?” I understand that football is religion in the South. I have nothing against football (I just know next to nothing about it, but I don’t hate it)! But not all parts of the country love football like they do in the South. In the Midwest, we love us some basketball. We all think the movie Hoosiers is about our high school team. We know high school referees by name and yell at them at ball games. We’re the people who buy that March Madness package on cable so we can watch all the college basketball games possible. We also love baseball and can be quite fanatic about our team. My hatred for KU is seconded only by my hatred of the Cubs.

• The term “Meat and Three.” It’s basically a restaurant that serves good Southern cooking where you can get some sort of meat item (meatloaf, salisbury steak, fried chicken, chicken and dumplings) and varying numbers of sides, usually veggies cooked until all nutritional value is gone. (And they are delicious!) But at home, no one calls restaurants this. I’d never heard it until I moved here, but I must say, I love me a good meat and three.

• I walk fast. I want to get things accomplished quickly and efficiently. Sometimes I drive fast. In the South, though, we take things slow. It’ll get done when it gets done is the prevailing attitude. Sometimes, Midwestern me gets impatient. . . but it’s usually worth the wait and half the time, I need to take a deep breath and relax!

Have a good day all!

My dance skills are limited. Let’s just get that out there right off the bat.

Sure, I can still remember most of that cheerleading dance from 7th grade, but that’s where it ends. Most of my moves are best displayed in cheerleading performances developed by small Midwestern high schools in the mid to late 90s. I’m no good in any sort of dancing situation I might run into these days as an adult. . . because apparently I’ve lost the entire concept of rhythm. I fear I look like Elaine on Seinfeld.

Anyway, while I may not be an accomplished on the dance floor, I am quite accomplished as a driving-down-the-road-dancing-to-the-music-in-my-seat dancer. I break out some of my best moves in the passenger’s seat when a good song comes on the radio during a road trip, or, you know, we’re trying to get out of downtown after the massive fireworks performance on July 4. You laugh, but I tell you, my moves are AMAZING.

Well, at least I thought so, until the aforementioned Independence Day event. Mindy and I were stuck in traffic, and since she was driving, I was dealing with the traffic congestion by dancing in the passenger’s seat. I pulled out “the Swim,” busted it old school, and I think I may have even utilized “the Pony,” a dance my mom and I used to do in the kitchen. Really.

Then, I made eye contact with a girl stuck in traffic on the opposite side of the street. Who was laughing at me. I don’t mean chuckling, I mean full-out guffawing. She seriously damaged my self-esteem.

But not enough to make me stop dancing in the car. ‘Cause it’s just too much fun!

As someone who fancies herself a writer of sorts, I love words.

I love the joy of finding a word that expresses just the right feeling, the preciseness of the phrase that just says it all. So when I read a book (and it actually belongs to me), I’m probably going to write in it and underline words and phrases that are just, well, right. So today, I thought I’d just share a few of my favorite quotes with you. (Don’t you feel lucky?)

“Of course I knew him. I listened to him sing every single day. I wear him every single day. The things he sings about, that’s him. I know him better than I know you. He understands me.”
—Ellie in About a Boy by Nick Hornby

“All the privilege I claim for my own sex . . .is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.”
—Anne Elliott in Persuasion by Jane Austen

“Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful.” (or something quite similar. . . it’s the first line of the book!)
—Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

“God is an artist, I think to myself. I have known this for a long time, seeing His brushwork in the sunrise and sunset, and His sculpting in the mountains and the rivers. But the night sky is His greatest work.”
—Donald Miller in Through Painted Deserts

“If you will thank me, let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you, might add force to other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of you.”
—Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

“And then there’s the hole inside her, bigger than anything. There’s not a day when I haven’t wondered whether I did the right thing, leaving Bobby. But of course if I hadn’t , there would have been no Mike. And therefore no Grace Ann. Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They’re its finest fruits. Sometimes its only ones.”
—Fran Benedetto/Beth Crenshaw in Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen

“But in the end what was important was not that we had so misunderstood one another, but that we had so misunderstood her, this woman who had made us who we were while we barely noticed it.”
—Ellen in One True Thing by Anna Quindlen

“I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, as stand against oblivion and despair, to let my lovers live and to unite them at the end. I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving as to let them forgive me. Not quite, not yet.”
—Briony in Atonement by Ian McEwan

“Something better than you? . . . Novalee, there isn’t anything better than you.”
Forney in Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts

This list could go on and on, but I’ll stop here for now. Comment away!

My confession: I’ve lived in Nashville for about seven years and never gone downtown for the July 4 extravanganza. Which is weird, since the Nashville July 4 celebration is apparently second best in the country.

So yesterday, we remedied that. Mindy and I met some other friends at the park and set up camp around 3 p.m. I was coated in sunscreen and had a basket full of snacks, so I was good to go. The WannaBeatles were playing when we arrived, so that was even enjoyable. The next act, Les Kerr and the Bayou Band, yeah, didn’t like them so much. Their music was fine; the singing and the lyrics. . . not so good.

Then came a group called the Lost Trailers. And I was really excited about them for a bit because as I told Mindy, something pretty had just walked onto the stage. Blue jeans. Black shirt. Black cowboy hat. The lead singer looked good from where I was sitting. Then he sang. . . and the crush ended.

At some point, though, a woman who had paid for a lot of work to be done to her body—and she looked good—moved down in front of us. And proceeded to dance and sway and move as if in a trance. We all decided that she was drunk, high, or had mixed her meds. Or maybe that’s just her. But the police took a special interest in her and stayed close by all night long. And sadly, after Phil Vassar left the stage, she seemed completely uninterested in everything. And she never got arrested. I really wanted to see that.

All in all, the fireworks and the symphony were great and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I’m planning on going back next year. Who wants to come along?

Need a glimpse of all the fun? Go here.

I love the movie Almost Famous.

Yes, I know that these guys use words I try not to even think as every part of speech imaginable, but I love that movie. Me and Cameron Crowe. . . we just got a thing.

Last Sunday afternoon, I didn’t have anything to do, so since I hadn’t watched the movie in awhile, I thought I’d check in on William Miller, Penny Lane, and Stillwater. So I curled up on the couch and watched the movie unfold.

And after I watched it, I decided to do a little research and find out about the making of the movie. That’s when I found out that one of my favorite moments in the movie, when Penny and William are talking about going to Morocco and Williams says, “Ask me again,” really wasn’t scripted. Apparently, it was Patrick Fugit breaking character to ask Kate Hudson to ask the question again.

But I love that moment. Because there’s something about it that feels real, that resounds with truth.  He loves her; he knows she has no idea; he means his answer and he needs to hear it twice to believe it and remember how it felt. It’s one of those moments that Claire (from Crowe’s movie Elizabethtown) would have taken a mental picture of.

Those are all reasons that I love that moment. And, apparently, it was a mistake.

That’s funny, because sometimes the things in life that turn out being the best for me seemed like mistakes at the time. When I went to college five hours away from home and anyone I knew, it didn’t take me long into my first semester to believe I’d made a huge mistake. But college was a place where God worked in my life and my heart and made me understand what it really means to live by faith in every moment. When I didn’t get a job I wanted as I was getting ready to graduate from divinity school, I thought the world had it out for me and Christians were no better than anyone else. But I got a job in my current department and realized sometimes what I think is best just isn’t.

I was disappointed by something this week—something I really had no business hoping for, but had even though I told myself I wasn’t. These days, I’m really tired of being disappointed when my ideas and plans fall through. I’m tired of getting hurt, tired of all my failed planning, tired, as Andrew Peterson says, of this “falling down and getting up again.”

But there’s something I know is true: it may feel like a mistake now (and it might have been), but sometimes the things that seem so, so wrong are the stepping stones to something better, bigger, sweeter than you could have ever imagined on your own. Because there’s beauty in the broken, and God sometimes uses the “mistakes” to speak to real truth.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. . .

Yes, yes it is.

Yesterday I had to go to the doctor for the “get-established” visit. And after I got there, I realized that your first visit to a new doctor is a little like an extremely awkward first date. You don’t really know each other, just kind of about each other, your conversation is stilted. Someone always takes the incentive and asks a lot of questions. You don’t want to be caught staring. You gaze at each other awkwardly. It’s really a great experience. I’ve never had a first date end with getting a tetanus shot, though, which is a plus. Sadly, I’m pretty sure some have ended with me and the guy shaking hands—quite similar to the doctor’s visit. Bleh. My life is boring.

I’m not good at the first date. I’m spazzy and more than awkward. My brain doesn’t seem to work fast enough to come up with topics of conversation. I say things that later, “I’m like, what in the crap was I talking about?” Yesterday, visiting my doctor for the first time I realized that it’s not just the first date I’m bad at. I’m bad at the first meeting. Period.

I don’t make a good first impression. I’m an introvert. I’m overly self-conscious and always on the verge of being embarrassed about something. I want you to like me. . . and I don’t know what to say that won’t make me sound dumb and/or come out like a pick-up line from David Spade. . . and I won’t realize how terrible it sounded until much, much later. And then, I’ll be embarrassed again!

So while this post started as a funny story about the awkwardness of a first visit to the doctor, I’ve somehow turned it into a psychological analysis of myself. Leave it to me! (And I promise, I’m working on the embarrassment/shyness/self-conscious thing.)

So if those of you who’ve never met me ever do in the future, try to ignore my inane awkwardness. If the first meeting is weird, give me a second chance. I grow on you.

So goes the song by The Who . . . and yesterday we found out that Baby Crow is a boy. My nephew, Elijah Jacob, is even expected to make his appearance a little earlier than expected, since they moved the due date up a week to November 11.

So celebrate my impending auntdom with me. I’m working on a baby afghan and am pondering making a CD. Because I feel responsible for Elijah’s musical education.

I’m so excited!

After watching Reservation Road with Mindy this weekend—and discovering that prescription anti-anxiety drugs may be necessary to get through that movie—I thought it would be nice to write a post about the truths I’ve learned from the movies. So, enjoy!

1. It’s never too late to talk to your dad. (Or play catch. Or go on a road trip involving really good music.)
Field of Dreams and Elizabethtown

2. Sometimes your first impressions are so, so wrong.
Pride and Prejudice

3. It’s possible to not know that you’re falling in love.
Where the Heart Is

4. The people who really love you still love you when you’re a total jerk.
Walk the Line

5. The time for truth-telling probably isn’t moments before you think you’re going to die.
Almost Famous

6. Things aren’t always what you think they are.
Any movie by M. Night Shyamalan

7. You can change.
About a Boy

8. The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. (OK, so that’s a direct quote from Moulin Rouge and I’m not quite sure I believe it and I really don’t think Ewan McGregor’s character would agree since his love really kicked him in the gut. . . .but I like the quote.)

9. Sometimes the little guys do prevail.
Hoosiers (and LOTR, if you count the hobbits! Tricksy hobbitses.—Imagine that in my creepy Gollum voice)

10. People think they know you and understand every little thing about you, but most of the time, they know their idea of you.
Elizabethtown

11. Sometimes, it is too late.
Gone with the Wind but thankfully not in An Affair to Remember

12. There is more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking.
Zoolander

13. Your stapler is a vital component of your office.
Office Space (That’s a gift for you, Mindy!)