The next thing I’ve been up to that kept me occupied all last weekend is I went up to northern Virginia to visit my friend Rachel and my godchildren. Yes! There are now TWO!! And oh how precious and adorable is the wee babe, Ben. He’s two months old and super-chill. He just hangs out, chillin’. He doesn’t even really cry that much. Just sits. It’s very cute. It will be very interesting to me to see the difference between him and his sister as they grow up. Annabelle’s FULL of energy. Homegirl was playing a Wii game while I was there, and as she was playing, she never stopped jumping up and down. Not once. Meanwhile, Ben was chillin’.

I’m sure he’ll grow into a rambunctious little boy, but it’s hard to imagine a child with as much energy as Annabelle. Even the pregnancies were different. Rachel was really active with Annabelle right up until she was born, but with Ben, she had to go on rest for the last couple of months before he arrived. It’s just fascinating to me. Anyway, here he is. Precious lil punkin.

Well first let’s start with an update on my vacation to-do list progress. I spent the weekend with Rachel and Annabelle baking. And hooooo-boy did we bake! I think we made about 90 buck-eye balls, about the same number of pretzels with melted Rolos and pecans on top, roughly 50 Christmas wreaths, and when I left, Rachel was still rolling out and baking cookies. Christmas wreaths, by the way, are super-easy and very delicious. If you’re looking for something festive to make this year, I’ll tell you how to do it.

Basically, they’re like Rice Krispie treats, but you use Corn Flakes instead of Rice Krispies. So you melt the butter and marshmallows together in a pot, and then you add green food coloring until the whole pot of goo is green. Then you add the Corn Flakes and stir until they’re all covered in green goo. Then you plop them in roundish clumps onto wax paper and add a few Red Hots (you know, the tiny cinnamon candies) to look like berries on the wreaths. Then just let them cool and set a bit. Voila!

Oh, and the pretzel thingies were really easy too. We just got the sort of checker-board-looking pretzels (like these) and laid them out on a cookie sheet. Then I painstakingly unwrapped a whole mess of Rolos and placed one on top of each pretzel. We popped those into the oven for a few minutes, just to soften the caramel center of the Rolos. Then we took them out and smushed a pecan half on top of each one to make them a bit flatter and spread the chocolate across the whole pretzel. Let those bad boys cool, and you’ve got yourself a treat.

Oh, and also, I watched FOUR movies this weekend, so I’m very proud of that. It was also on my to-do list, if you recall.

But look at me. I’ve gone and gotten distracted by sweets and films. I meant to tell you about my first weekday of vacation, the first goal of which was to sleep in. Mission accomplished!!! The next goal was to get out of bed and go straight to the shower so as not to sit around all stank in my jabambas all day. BOOM! Showered.

Then, I was supposed to get dressed and put my face on as if I were going to go out to a real job in a real office because they say that’s what you should do if you work from home – treat your job like any other job – with professionalism.

Except when I got out of the shower, I realized that all my clothes were dirty.

So I put on clean jabambas and started a load of laundry. Oh well. I’ll get it right tomorrow. And in the meantime, I’ve got work to do. But hopefully, I’ll have something to say to y’all more often since all my brain power won’t be sucked out of me by the evil lesson planning fairies for the next few weeks.

Until next time (tomorrow??)…

This is not necessarily a story I want to write with my life, but seeing as I do not have that post finished yet, and this just came up the other day, I figured I’d tell y’all about it.

I was talking to Emily Furr Hogan about that summer (I think it was ’98) when we did the BeeGees puppet show for the kids at Vacation Bible School, and Patty Astronaut TP’d the sound booth (naughty Patty). I’m not sure why we were so insistent upon making the theme of VBS that year disco when it was clearly space. I guess we just wanted to have it all. And we did. As the kids were arriving in the morning, we had “Disco Inferno” playing, and when we were put in charge of telling the Bible lesson that day, we worked up a very elaborate puppet show that involved both of us working at least two puppets AND a boom box, which is quite a feat when you’ve only got two hands, and one of them is constantly stuck up in the air. But we did it, complete with “Stayin’ Alive” intro music when each new character arrived on the scene and a duet of “How Deep Is Your Love” with Jesus and Peter center stage and two other disciples singing back-up.

I don’t know if those kids still remember that, but we sure do, so it got us to thinking…we should write Vacation Bible School curriculum! I’m pretty sure all you need is a theme, songs with hand motions to go along with the theme, cheesy videos to go with the theme, Bible stories that can be vaguely related to the theme, and lots of themed…stuff – name tags and cardboard cut-outs and workbooks and stuff.

I think we can do it, and here are my ideas for themes:

• Roaring 20s – The VBS kids would learn to do the Charleston and steer clear of alcohol (like good little Baptists and prohibitionists). They’d also learn about freedom in Christ through the new-found freedom of women in the 20′s to vote, cut their hair short, wear shorter skirts and go to work. Then they’ll learn about how pride comes before a fall when we talk about the stock market crash of ’29. And that brings us to…
• The Great Depression – The kids would learn about the danger of worshiping idols and the certainty of God’s provision. The songs might be a little depressing, but I think the message would be powerful. All lesson materials would be printed on the backs of scraps of last year’s materials.
• Woodstock – Message of the week: Peace and love, kids. That’s what Jesus is all about. Every large group gathering would be held outside in the grass. There would be no videos or mandatory hand motions, just music and free dance time. In craft time, they’d just be encouraged to let the paintbrush do whatever it wants to do (which reminds me of another story I have to tell you later…don’t let me forget).
• DISCO!! – Clearly Emily and I already think this is a great idea. I mean BeeGees songs are already written in an ideal octave for little kid voices to sing them, and we’ve already demonstrated that “How Deep Is Your Love” is the perfect song to teach the reinstatement of Peter. We can talk about eternal life in heaven with “Stayin’ Alive” though we might need to Christianize most of the lyrics (not a problem, I’ve done it before). And we can learn to resist the devil with “I Will Survive.” The church is going to need a complete overhaul for this VBS week, though, with mirror balls, strobe lights and paneled floors that light up when you step on them. But oh my gosh how much fun would recreation time be? We’ll all do the Hustle and other groovy disco moves.
• Awesome 80s – Every day, the kids will make a different piece of their totally tubular 80s attire in craft time. One day it’s a slap bracelet, the next they’re bedazzling a denim jacket, then they’re making some crazy asymmetrical sunglasses (to wear at night), and the next thing you know, they’re all decked out and ready to go to the lake or the high school football game! The theme song for the week is called “Jesus Is Totally Radical.” It’s upbeat and peppy and gets stuck in your head whether you like it or not.

That’s all I’ve got so far. I just think the cowboy and space themes are way played out, and EFH and I are just the gals to bring some fresh new ideas to the table. If you’d like to join us, feel free to share your theme ideas in the comments!

I’m excited about my upcoming move to Raleigh. I really am. And I know that it’s the absolute best thing for me right now in a lot of ways, but this weekend made me extra sad to leave Asheville.

Friday night, I had dinner with my friend Jen (aka Community), who is actually a friend from Raleigh, but her parents live here, so she visits sometimes, and she’s probably going to move back up here after her crazy South-America-to-California trip in August/September. If I were going to be here as well, we would have some good, good times.

After dinner, we met up with my friend Eden and some of her friends for her birthday celebration. It was supposed to involve salsa dancing, but instead, we went to the Sky Bar, which is basically tables and chairs on a fire escape. It’s a great view, though, and Eden’s friends were lots of fun.

On Saturday, I did very little, and then I met up with some friends at Shindig on the Green – a FREE bluegrass show downtown. There were little kids and grown (some over-grown) men and women clogging, lots of folk and bluegrass groups performing, and the weather was just perfect.

On Sunday, after church, “Do you want to get some lunch?” turned into seven hours of walking in and out of shops downtown, wandering through a random craft fair, and eating delicious food with friends. It was GREAT, although I’m pretty sure Armageddon is going to take place on July 31 when my Asheville friends fight my Raleigh friends for me.

Y’all should really come up with team names, by the way, and uniforms, and Community, you’re going to have to pick a side while I make the popcorn.

In the meantime, I’m already through the first two stages of moving, and I’m currently in the middle of 3, 4 and 5.1. In fact, “Sexy Back” and I are headed home right now to do a little organized packing. Wish us luck.

I realized this morning that I’ve been neglecting my questions lately. I’m trying to find a balance between answering those and just telling you fun stories about what’s happening. For the most part, there aren’t a lot of fun stories about what’s happening because my days are spent sitting on my couch, writing articles, and then driving half an hour to teach. And sometimes after I drive the 30 minutes to teach, there are no students. So…yeah. The questions are really more interesting than my life. All of that is about to change, but I’m not ready to make a formal announcement just yet, so hang in there, internet, and let’s talk about time travel.

Presuming you had a time machine what’s the stupidest and most dangerous thing you would probably do with it, despite having answered this question and having labeled it as both stupid and dangerous?

Well, I think time travel in general is definitely dangerous and probably stupid. I mean, Marty McFly’s hand disappeared when his mom was slow dancing/struggling with Biff, and his dad was too wussy to step in. But that’s what you risk when you meddle in your parents’ high school lives. My parents didn’t go to high school together, so I wouldn’t have to worry about that, but if we’ve learned anything from Back to the Future, it’s that you don’t screw around with the space-time continuum. Doing so is both stupid and dangerous, and you could lose a hand in the middle of your guitar solo.

However, there are a few things I’d like to see happening:

• my parents’ wedding – There is no video footage available that I know of. I assume it’s because video cameras were only for TV/film studios in the early 70s.
• me as a baby – There are not a lot of pictures of me as a baby that I know of, and I don’t really remember anything before I started school, and even then, it’s all pretty hazy until about 5th grade. I’m sure my mom could tell us what I was like, but it would be way cuter to see tiny me in action. Unless I was a jerk. Was I a jerk?
• my ancestors coming to the U.S. – My sister is making a massive family tree for our reunion this year, and I’m sure she’d love an eye-witness account of this. Plus, y’all know how much I love to travel, but to be ON THE BOAT with them, knowing what the country is going to become generations down the line, and seeing what it was like back then…man, that would be awesome.
• Beethoven playing his own stuff

All of those things, I just want to witness. I don’t necessarily have to be a participant in history for those. But here are some things I would want to do:

• meet Jane Austen
• hang out with the Beatles before they were famous, and teach them all the Monkees’ songs before the Monkees even form a band (just to be a mischievous punk, not because I have anything against the Monkees)
• follow Jesus, like literally, in person, walking in the dirt (and the rocks, and the…)
• convince Amy Grant that “Baby, Baby” is a bad idea
• convince John Mayer not to record half of his songs
• stop Shutter Island from being filmed, and convince Leo to do a movie that requires more shirtlessness
• convince myself to go vegetarian in college
• introduce myself to Mediterranean food much sooner (hummus, falafel, stuffed grape leaves, etc.)
• smuggle slaves to free states
• smuggle Jews to safety during WWII
• invent leg warmers before anyone else
• invent velcro

Like I said, I think time travel in general would be pretty stupid and dangerous, so I don’t know which of these things is the worst. I’ll let y’all be the judge as to exactly which thing is the stupidest/most dangerous and/or which is the likeliest to cause me to lose appendages. What would YOU do with a time machine?

Lovers schmovers. I went to Virginia last weekend to see my friend Rachel and her daughter (my goddaughter), Annabelle. Annabelle turned 5 last week, so we had a birthday party, and it just so happened that her dance recital was the same weekend, so I got to go to that too. It was ridiculously cute. She slipped and fell down, but she’s too young to be embarrassed about it, so it was fine.

If you have never been to a kids’ dance recital, let me explain it to you. Lauren-Josh tipped me off to this before I went, so I had the advantage of knowing what to expect, and she was 100% correct. What happens is they put ten 4-year-olds on the stage and expect them to remember choreography that they’ve learned. The only problem with this is that they’ve apparently never done the routine without their teacher doing it in front of them. So whether they actually remember the moves or not is sort of irrelevant. They rely on the teacher regardless.

So these ten 4-year-olds are out on the stage to do their routine, but their teacher obviously can’t stand in front of them, so she’s off to the side, just backstage. But the kids rely on her, so they’re all staring off to one side watching their teacher for the moves, and that means that they’re not doing the moves at the right time because the teacher is doing them at the right time, and they’re a few beats behind. Some are slightly faster than others, and there are maybe one or two kids who know the routine and don’t have to look at the teacher, so they are actually on the beat.

Now, you’ve got one or two kids dancing on the beat, two or three who are just one beat behind, a few more who are slightly more delayed, and the really slow ones who are an entire move behind the pack. So what it looks like is everyone doing something completely different all the time, and then one falls down. It’s fantastic and incredibly cute.

I’m told that in some recitals, they put all the little kid classes in the beginning and all the older kid classes at the end. This one was a slightly better mix, although I’m sure they were saving the really impressive stuff for the finale. They did put one senior solo in at about the half-way mark, which was lovely, but it bothered me because she only did right turns. Like every time there was a rotation of any sort in any form whatsoever, it was to the right. It was like she’d gone to the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Want to Learn Ballet and Stuff.

The whole recital got me thinking that I really want to take dance classes. I always have. But when I told Rachel I wanted to take adult dance classes, I realized that what I meant was that I wanted to take dance classes for adults – like jazz, modern, ballet or tap, and not “adult dance” classes. I’ve already done that. And then it became really hilarious to think about the pole dancing studio giving dance recitals so that all of our friends and family could become acquainted with our sexy sides as well. Emily Furr Hogan asked if we would have them in the fellowship hall of Wilkesboro Baptist Church, which is where we used to have piano recitals when we were kids. I just laughed because there is no dancing allowed there, much less pole dancing. I’m pretty sure someone would have a heart attack if we even mentioned it within view of the steeple. No, we’d have to do it at a “gentlemen’s club,” where there’s already a stage and enough poles set up for the group number.

Let me know if you want tickets.

I have another story to share with you about the drive up there, but I have to wait until someone receives something in the mail before I can discuss it. I’m expecting a call any day now.

1. I cut a jerk off (because he was being a jerk) at 3 mph. He honked at me to show his dissatisfaction. He then turned on his bright lights, I can only assume, to prove once again that he was a jerk.
2. On the side of the freeway, I saw one of those big, cylindrical spin brushes like they have in the automatic car washes. You know, the ones that spin their way down the sides of your car. I thought it was an odd place for it to be hanging out.
3. The ants in my kitchen have multiplied exponentially. Seeing as we’ve had these little squatters for at least two months now, I think it’s time we tried something new.
4. My gas light came on. Again. Seriously, gas light? I need gas EVERY week? That’s crazy.
5. I listened to my Simon and Simon CD. That’s Paul Simon and Carly Simon. I dare you to make a better themed CD.
6. I imagined eating gorgonzola and brie (separately). I’m a bad vegan.
7. I actually ate hummus. Good vegan.
8. I got paid to sit in my classroom alone for three hours. It was better than Census2010 because there were no children, and I had internet access.
9. I watched too many episodes of Law and Order: SVU.
10. I talked to Emily Furr Hogan on the phone. Day: made.

I’m writing an article for YourDictionary entitled “Who Is Jimmy Fallon’s Wife?” I love writing these who’s-married-to-whom articles because there’s always a love story involved, and I just think that’s precious. Unfortunately, not much of J.Fal’s love story is online. And yes, I just nicknamed him J.Fal. What of it?

So I just tweeted, “I need to say 200 more words about @jimmyfallon and his wife. Wish I knew how they met/how he proposed/where they got married. Jimmy?” and I’m going to see if he responds. I doubt he will, but how awesome would that be? If you’re on twitter, do encourage him to email me with this information.

I know who his wife is, and I can make an educated guess as to how they met, but I can’t be sure, and I don’t want to lie on the dictionary website. That would be worse than making poop jokes (which I do in those articles every chance I get). If you get a hold of him, ask him to email me (onwardhoe at gmail dot com) with the answers to the following questions:

• How/when did you and Nancy meet?
• Was it love at first sight?
• How long were you together before you got engaged?
• How did you (or she?) propose?
• Where did you get married?
• Who was in your wedding party?
• Would you like to be a part of the not-actually-being-written musical “Just Now” when it is completed? I think we could toss you in a man salad. Wait. Does that mean something I don’t want it to mean? Because I mean literally, there will be a big bowl and giant tongs, and men will fly around on wires as though they are bits of lettuce and radicchio.

Thanks, blogosphere. Thanks, twitterverse. Thanks, man salad (with vinaigrette).

Today, I have a story for you. Rather than answering a question, it’s a story about a question I was asked yesterday. I was on the phone with DLF on my way to work, and sort of out of nowhere, she asked me, “Have you ever taught drunk?”

Now let’s take a break from the actual question for a second so I can tell you that I thought she said, “Have you ever talked drunk?” And I thought THAT was a bizarre question because it assumes that I either always drink alone and therefore never speak to anyone else, or that if I get drunk at a party, I suddenly become extremely shy and reticent. Or perhaps she thought both of those things were true, which is just really weird if you know me. Or if you know any people for that matter.

So I said, “What?” And she repeated herself. And then the question was not quite as strange, but almost, and it took me a second to register what she was asking me exactly and to respond with curiosity and perhaps a hint of incredulity, “No? Have you?”

DLF teaches piano, cello and music theory, see, and she went on to tell me about how she was trying to teach this kid how to play with a metronome, and he just couldn’t get it, and she started thinking about how much easier and/or more bearable it would be if she were drunk. So we talked about the possibility for a while – logistics and such. I said I couldn’t really do it because I have to drive half an hour to work, so I’d either have to take my liquor with me, arrive early, and chug it down, or I’d have to drive there while intoxicated. And even if I went early, got drunk, and then taught, we’d still have to deal with getting home. I mean, maintenance is going to want to lock up, so I can’t really stay there until I’m sober. I suppose I could sit in my car for a while, but really, this could only go on for so long before I’d get arrested, so I think that at this point, teaching drunk is not an option for me.

She was saying that on Mondays, she doesn’t drive that much, so she could probably do it on Mondays.

Then I started thinking that you couldn’t just get drunk, and then teach. Because an 8-year-old who can’t figure out a beat is sure to be a buzz-kill, so you’d need a steady flow of alcohol throughout the lesson. I said, “Yeah, you could just keep a glass of vodka there and sip on it. It would just look like water,” to which SHE replied, “Yeah, I mean I was sipping on a Diet Coke the other day, and I thought, You know, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t have rum in it.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “Now we’ve gone from ‘Here’s a funny idea’ to ‘I’m legitimately considering it’ to ‘How can I make this happen?’ to ‘It’s only logical.’ OF COURSE this Diet Coke should have rum in it. There’s NO REASON why it shouldn’t. It is the thing that makes sense in my mind.”

I pointed out to her that if she’d been having the conversation with most other people, they’d start making arrangements for an intervention as soon as they hung up the phone. We laughed, but just a word to the wise. If you live in northern Florida, I’d stay off the roads on Mondays if I were you.

Today’s question comes from my formspring page. I’m not sure if someone actually asked me this, or if maybe formspring just felt bad for me because no one was asking me anything, so they threw one out there for me to answer. I don’t really care. It’s a good question.

What are your long-term plans in life?

I kind of thought we’d start out with things like, “What are your favorite pizza toppings?” or “How DO you get your hair to be so awesome?” but no, we’re going straight for the big guns. Mama, is that you again? Do you really think you’re going to get a satisfactory answer to this one? I’ll try.

I got out of the planning business a long time ago. I don’t know how many of you know this about me, but I started out in undergrad as a music major. I had plans, see? I was going to be a music therapist. But then that fell through, and I haven’t done much planning since. My college advisor asked me one time what my five-year plan was, and I think I just stared at her blankly for a minute before I either started laughing or broke down in tears. I just could not envision my life five years out. I still can’t. I haven’t even tried since then, and five years is really not that long, so as far as long-term plans go…well, you got me. I have no idea.

I do have things I want to do, but I don’t have a time line for them or anything like that. I’m working toward some goals, but I don’t know when I’ll achieve them, and I’m not trying to plan my life out too much because (a) there are so many things I can’t control, and (b) where’s the fun in that? I really like the spontaneity I’ve got going and the freedom I have to change things up at a moment’s notice. But for those of you who really want a more concrete answer to this question, the things I want to do are as follows:

• get married
• have kids (although I’m really interested in adoption, so I might get some kids rather than having them myself)
• publish books (multiple)
• continue to see new places in the world
• build my savings account back up
• pay off my student loans
• eat delicious food
• own a home
• live off of writing and teaching (although I could still do the Census for fun)
• enjoy whatever life throws at me because somehow, it all has the potential to be beautiful

Who’s next? Keep ‘em coming!