If my bag of Goldfish crackers says that they are both WHOLE WHEAT and made with REAL CHEESE, does that mean that they’re healthy? 

More importantly: can I count them for a vegetable serving?  Or two? 

You can’t blame a girl for trying.

Next up: Sunny Delight.  Fruit serving?  Protein?  ANYTHING?

Would you believe that I have not had even one BIT of barbecue while I’ve been in Memphis these past four days? I can’t believe it either. And to make matters worse, here I sit in a pasta restaurant in the airport while there’s a lovely BBQ place right beside it! Oh well. I do love my carbs.

I’ve never noticed this restaurant before, but it was near my gate and I was starving. I’m in the back part of the restaurant, away from the terminal. I’m actually the only one eating at the restaurant right now, which is kind of sweet and lonely at the same time.

Sweet and lonely. That’s all that is running through my head as I wait for the late flight home.

I had a wonderful visit here this weekend, especially with all the time I got to spend at the church. I got to see the behind-the-scenes of their new campus set-up last night. It was all I could do to resist pulling out a notepad and start taking notes for Starlite. When I say this church does things with excellence, I’m talking about excellence with a capital E.

And then this morning! I got to be in their third service at the main campus — and it was just wonderful. I’ve been blessed to be able to spend time with this church family on six different occasions (maybe seven?) and I always hate leaving when the weekend is over.

I guess it is because, in my teenage years when I knew God was calling me to ministry, I naturally assumed that He was calling me to work with a church. I never dreamed He’d call me to para-church ministry, much less that He’d call me to START one.

And so, when I visit a church that knocks my high heels off every single time I come, I get a bit wistful. I think about what it would be like to be on staff at the church, to be a part of something established.

To be a part of a team, particularly one that I wasn’t necessarily the leader of. To not worry about whether we’ll be able to raise the money for my salary for the upcoming year. To be in a more structured environment.

On my way to the airport, the guy driving me (who had overheard an earlier conversation where my friend and I jokingly discussed how I should immediately go home, pack my bags and move down here) asked me if I was seriously considering moving to Memphis. I laughed and assured him that I can’t leave Starlite right now; after all, it’s what I’m called to.

But I heard a little tremble in my laughter, as I thought about what I’m going back to tonight. Please don’t misunderstand me — I love what I do. It is my passion. It is my heart.

But it feels so very lonely sometimes. While God has blessed us with a volunteer group that is literally larger than what we need each year, we don’t have a large staff. There aren’t a lot of people I can go to with a request for them to take such-and-such project or deal with some issue.

There’s not a lot of money, either. We have to watch our funds on a day-to-day basis, not even with a monthly budget. We have never gone without, so I really don’t worry about whether or not God will provide for us. But I do feel embarrassed sometimes when well-meaning friends and family members ask me what I make each month. After they hear the amount, they usually say “But don’t you have a master’s degree in your field? I can’t believe you don’t earn more than that.”

There’s also the emotional side of it, too. But I can’t even start writing about that, mainly because I’d rather not have a tear-soaked bowl of pasta tonight.

And so.

Here I am, sitting alone in a tiny airport restaurant wondering what God was thinking when He picked me to do this thing we call Starlite. I wonder what He’s thinking tonight, sitting across from me, watching me type these words.

I don’t think He’s judging me. I don’t think He’s wishing I’d be more thankful for what He’s done for me. I don’t think He’s angry with me.

I think He understands what I’m so feebly trying to write tonight. I think He understands it better than I do.

Sweet and lonely.  I am so, so grateful that He understands.

Today I did something that I’ve only done once before — yet it changed my life that first time (and dare I say it) again today.

I visited Ulta.

Now, I’d love to link to Ulta’s site, but if I did that, you people would never read the rest of my post. You’d click yourselves over to their site and get lost in the goodness that is hair and skin care products. You’d forget about the girl with the pink bloggy. In fact, you might replace your daily visit to MinSoFab with a trip to see your new friend, Ulta.

I would be saddened (is that a word?) and yet I would totally understand.

Over freshly made pancakes this morning (HELLO, SOMEONE COOKED ME BREAKFAST!), Christan told me that she was taking me to Ulta today. I threw down my fork, climbed onto my chair and did a little happy dance at this news.

Okay, I didn’t. But don’t think I didn’t consider it.

I don’t know how to explain what this store does to me. All I know is this: when we walked through those beautiful doors today and I saw row after row after row of hair care products, make-up, etc., I leaned over to Christan and said “I can’t explain why, but I feel like I’m home.”

As we went down each aisle, I would wait until she wasn’t paying attention and then lean down to her two year old daughter and say “Cadence? Aunt Amy Beth wants to teach you about products that will help you achieve that perfect curl in your hair. Also, we need to discuss anti-frizz products. You can never be too safe.”

She, of course, replied with “Pee pee in the potty, Beth?”

Only if they’ve got free hair care product samples in the bathroom, Cadence. Let’s try to keep our priorities in order, shall we?

When I went to bed Thursday night, I grabbed my pajamas (pink and white polka dot, in case you were wondering) out of my suitcase and went straight to bed. So, you can imagine my surprise when I reached into my suitcase yesterday to pull out a pair of dress pants to wear to dinner only to find that ALL OF MY PANTS WERE GONE.

That’s right. Gone.

The gray dress pants = vanished.

The casual khakis = nada.

The brown capris = NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN.

My best guess is that they were removed at the airport; the rest of my suitcase was messed up, so I think they probably went through it. But HELLO? This no-pants thing presented quite the problem today.

Quite the problem indeed.

But then I remembered that I had put an extra pair of pants in my carry-on bag (I have no idea why I did this) and, lo and behold, they were still there. CAN I GET AN AMEN?

And so, I am not pant-less. I am, however, giving the airline a mean stare.

SEE, AIRLINE? This is my mean face. So, you better give me a cute pilot for the return trip home to make things better.

And that’s an order.

Last night, after only having been in Memphis for a few hours, it was time for a two year old’s birthday.  In attendance was someone I will call Mr. Bob (not his real name; I’m trying to protect the not-so-innocent innocent here).

I met Mr. Bob a few years ago; he owned a chain of pizza parlors in the area.  Not only did he support Starlite each month, but once while I was in Memphis, he actually let me MAKE PIZZAS IN ONE OF HIS SHOPS.  It was rather awesome if I do say so myself.

Last night, as the birthday party was winding down, Mr. Bob picked up two cupcakes and handed one to me.  He then proceeded to challenge me to a little Cupcake Duel.  He claimed he knew a girl who could stuff an entire cupcake into her mouth, but he was SURE that I couldn’t do it.

Obviously, I am very easily challenged.

I told him I’d do it if he did it and we proceeded to stuff a rather large cupcake in each of our mouths.  Except I couldn’t get all of mine in because, you see, I really don’t have a big mouth.  And so, there I stood with half of a cupcake obstructing my main airway (the pink icing was in my nose, so?  the air flow? WHERE IS THE AIR FLOW?).

What is even more precious about this entire ordeal is that my friend Kelly captured every last beautiful second of it on video.

Which I am not posting here.

And trust me, if you could see it, you’d thank me for not posting it.  There isn’t anything pretty about stuffing cupcakes in your mouth… and then losing the duel.

Defeated.  I can’t believe it.

In just a couple of hours, I’m catching a very short flight to Memphis. Over the next few days, I’m getting to spend time with my friends from The Life Church. Since Starlite works with a lot of different churches, I can’t really play favorites — listen, we can’t risk losing even one monthly donation as processed nacho cheese prices are on the rise! BUT IF I COULD, I can promise you that this is one church that would be high on my list.

In fact, our entire leadership team (all 20+ girls) have had the opportunity to visit together several times when we’ve been in the area. We just cannot say enough about how incredible this church is — from the big picture to all the small details. I’ve had the pleasure to see a little bit of their “behind the scenes” during some visits when I’ve been there without our entire group and let me just tell you — they practice what they preach. I stay in touch with several members of their staff and am really looking forward to having some face-to-face time with them this weekend.

If you’ve ever worked in a para-church ministry like Starlite, you know that networking with churches isn’t always fun. I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll say it again: I would rather ask a brick wall for a donation for Starlite than have to approach another pastor. This isn’t a knock against churches — after all, many have financial obligations that just don’t allow for the support of yet another ministry. We’ve been blessed to have some churches who have got behind our vision and really put their money where their mouth is — and, of course, we’ve also been laughed right out of certain church offices.

I suppose that’s one reason that I really love Pastor John‘s vision for their church — they are all about blessing the community around them and even outside their city walls. The list of what they’re doing both in Memphis and around the world is far too long to list here, but you should check out how they recently used Starbucks gift cards to bless people in their community. I’m all about some Starbucks ministry, ya’ll!

Or should I say I would be all about some Starbucks ministry had I not made the unfortunate decision to give up caffeine. Hallelujah.

While I’m in Memphis, I’ll get to see some real-life friends and some bloggy friends, too. One of my favorite roommates from college, Christan, lives there with her husband, toddler and new baby on the way. In addition to partying it up for her daughter’s second birthday, Christan’s husband and I also have an America Idol duel to settle via the Playstation game.

Joey? If you’re reading? Prepare for defeat. I’m bringing my A-game this trip.

I’ll also get to spend some quality bonding time with my friend Kelly. She was the first person to start out with Starlite while she was young and continue until the time she graduated. In fact, during her senior year of college, I spent four months working in another city At A Large Girl’s Ministry while Kelly ran Starlite. And, in the interest of keeping it real, I am not ashamed to say that Kelly ran this little ministry far better than I ever did. She once programmed her phone number into my cell as “Your Favorite Person” — I still crack up when I see that on the screen when she calls. And then I answer her call by saying “Are you ready to move back and take over Starlite?”

Oh, I kid. There’s no one else who’ll do my job for the pay they’d get.

CHOOSING TO BE THANKFUL IN THE SMALL BEGINNINGS. HALLELUJAH. AMEN. GLORY.

I’d love to write more, but I need to hit the road if I want to get to the airport way too early so I can sit in one of those hard plastic chairs and reminisce about the night I was introduced to Imaginary Boyfriend in that very airport.

That boy just takes my breath away. I do not know what I did to deserve him, but I am so hoping he’ll stick around for awhile.

UPDATE: Ya’ll are the best interlings EVER! Thanks to your super sleuth ways, we have located two New Jay’s and one is being shipped even as I type this. Thank you!!!

Precious lambs, I have quite the situation on my hands involving a certain two year old in a hospital bed (STILL!) and a missing pink puppy.

Here’s the back story: little Avi has a pink puppy that she named Jay. We don’t know why she gave it a masculine name when it is, quite obviously, pink. But, if you’ll remember, Avi has interesting names for more than one person in her life.

Jay goes everywhere with Avi. He’s been to the park, to the grocery store and, very recently, to the Starlite office (where two real-life puppies almost gave Jay a trip directly to Puppy Heaven).

I’m not naming any names (cough, Snuggles, cough Cuddles, cough, cough).

Anyway, when the nurses came to change the sheets on Avi’s hospital bed last night, they apparently rolled Jay up and took him off to The Place Dirty Hospital Sheets Go. No one realized that Jay was gone until it was far too late (though I do need to give a shout out to the custodian who spent quite a bit of time digging through sheets trying to locate our pink little friend).

Avi has been told that Jay is taking a ride through the hospital to visit all the other sick little girls and boys. In the meantime, Aunt Amy Beth is continuing to type “pink puppy” in Google over and over and over again. And then Aunt Amy Beth wails and gnashes her teeth because ALL THE FAKE JAYS ARE HIDING FROM HER.

In a last ditch effort to locate a new and improved Jay, I decided to make my search public. Interlings, please meet Jay:

As you can see, I snapped this picture in happier times, when Jay and Avi were enjoying some ice cream at Dairy Queen. Have you seen a Jay wandering around your playroom or nursery? Or maybe even in a store? If so, could you PLEASE give me the details on where I can locate this particular pink (yet masculine) puppy?

I will pay BIG MONEY for a replacement Jay, so check your toy chest very well. I’ll need to get him here quick as I’ll have some work to do on him. You see, Old Jay was pretty torn and ragged. Obviously I’m going to have to lay New Jay in the driveway and run over him a few times in order to get Avi to believe we found Old Jay.

Sorry, New Jay. Sometimes you gotta take one for the team.

I kinda feel bad that ya’ll come to a site called “MINISTRY So Fabulous” and haven’t heard that much about Starlite lately. It’s just that there hasn’t been that much to tell you over the last couple of weeks. I’m afraid that summer is a bit mundane in our office. Even Snuggles and Cuddles get bored in their playpen by 10 a.m. and resort to taking their 14th nap of the day.

I honestly don’t work a lot in the office during the summer as my summer Starlite responsibilities are more travel-based (i.e. I’m on the fund raising circuit). I also do a LOT of writing for Starlite during the summer months and I much prefer to take my laptop to Starbucks and pretend that I don’t really have Sunny Delight in my coffee mug.

But when I am in the office, I sit at a desk and write emails. And then I pay some bills and wonder why our electricity bill isn’t as high as it normally is but then I stop thinking about that because? Hello? WE LIKE IT WHEN THE BILLS ARE LOW.

Once I’m done celebrating the low electricity bill, I wander into the front area of our office and check to make sure there are no birds flying around the office (I call this part of my day “Office Security Check”). Then I head to the kitchen where I fix myself a delightful glass of Kool-Aid, courtesy of the leftover mix from this past semester’s programs. I then go back to my office and stare at my inbox while sipping my Kool-Aid and wondering when I became an adult that has an office and, really, am I an adult? Because, in case you forgot, I am drinking Kool-Aid at my adult-like desk.

Once I’ve answered 48,954,892 emails, I take another little field trip to the mailbox at the road. It takes 18 steps to get there from our front door; I know this because I sing a song with words for every step:

“Here’s the mail, it never fails, it makes me want to wag my tail ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE’S DONATIONS!”

I grab the mail and start flipping through, looking for anything that could contain money to buy more processed nacho cheese. Most days, unless it is the first couple days of the month, there’s no donations — but that’s okay. I’m still young enough to believe that tomorrow, when I go back out there singing my song, there will be a check waiting for us or maybe even a letter saying “CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE WON A LIFETIME SUPPLY OF PROCESSED NACHO CHEESE!”

You think I’m joking, but I often think about what it would be like if some guy showed up at our door to tell me we had won a year’s worth of processed nacho cheese. I’ve thought long and hard about what my reply would be and, right now, I’m going with “Make that a lifetime supply and I’ll marry you and have your babies.”

I know what you’re thinking. You’re all “Well, what if it was a girl at your door?” In that case, I’d reply “Make that a lifetime supply and I’ll give you my Imaginary Boyfriend and you can marry him and have his babies.”

ONE STEP AHEAD, interlings. I am always one step ahead.

In what may end up being The Best Lesson I Learned While Left Alone With A Sick Wee Child In A Hospital, I present the following conversation that occurred while I was rocking Avi to sleep last night:

Avi: “I need to go to the potty.”

Me: “Are you sure, Avi? ‘Cause we just went a few minutes ago.”

Avi: “I sure. I need to goooooooooo.”

Me: “Well, I don’t know if…”

Avi: (Look of relief.)

Me: “I feel something wet on me… what in the… AVI! Did you just go wee wee on me?!?!”

Avi: “I TOLD you I needed to go to the potty.”

Lesson learned.

Let us just begin with the admission that I missed you ever so much, my precious little lambs.

With that said, I offer up this re-cap of A Weekend That Did Not Go According To Plan:

When the doctor got ready to start the thing on Friday, I had a bit of a moment of panic (I was conscious for it). Actually, it involved me telling him that I just wasn’t going to be able to handle it and please let me leave and Ijustwannagohoooooooome!

In other words, just a few mature moments from yours truly.

Mr. Doctor came back with a shot of something that had me pretty relaxed within, oh, three seconds. And so, I was on my way home before I even knew what had happened.

When I got home, I went straight to bed until my cell started ringing like crazy. I finally woke up enough to answer it only to find out that my baby cousin, Whom I Love A Little Bit More Than Shamu And Actually That’s A Whole Lot Of Love, had just been taken to a children’s hospital in a nearby city. It took a few minutes for me to understand what was really going on, but as soon as I understood the severity of what she was being treated for, I literally jumped out of bed, threw on a pair of shoes and headed for my car.

Now. This all sounds good, until I tell you that my left leg was actually numb from mid-thigh to mid-calve (from the procedure earlier). And so, in order to walk, I basically had to just drag that leg along with me. Which, AND I KNOW THIS WILL COME AS A SHOCK, caused me to feel quite a healthy dose of pain in the left leg area.

However, I wasn’t about to let anything (or anyone as my “nurses” were none to pleased I was planning to drive) stop me from getting to my baby girl. As I headed towards the interstate, I kept thanking God (literally) that my right leg was fine and able to communicate clearly with both of my friends, the gas pedal and the brake pedal.

When I got near the hospital, I knew I had to make a stop that was Vitally Important. In other words, I pulled into Target for a quick run down the toy aisle.

I wish you could have seen me. There I was, pushing that red cart down the aisles as fast as one can when they’re also dragging one leg behind them. In case you’re wondering, I utilized a hopping motion to make my way around the baby doll and crayon aisles.

Yes, small children cried when they saw me hopping/dragging towards them. But I like to think it was just because my hair didn’t look that great.

When I got to the hospital, I found out that my little Avi had already been admitted to a room. And so there I went, hopping/dragging and carrying multiple Target bags through hospital corridors. A nurse in one of the hallways actually looked at me and said “You need to get back in bed!”

After several wrong turns, I finally found my way to little Avi and was greeted with “PWIZES! DAT UDDER GIRL BWOUGHT ME PWIZES!” For the record, Avi does know my name but says that Amy Beth is “toooooo lwong to say!” and therefore insists on calling me “Dat udder girl.” Which, actually, is longer than Amy Beth but we think it is hysterical.

However, Imaginary Boyfriend? Are you reading? If you ever call me “that other girl” you will be in BIG TROUBLE.

I didn’t let Avi have her “pwizes” all at once; instead, I doled them out one by one after she did something “vewy bwave” like letting them put an IV in. I even took a piece of paper and some tape from the nurse and created my very own fake IV going into my hand so that Avi and I could be twins.

However, I strongly considered asking the nurse if she could slip me a needle and morphine drip so that I could Help The Leg That Was Tired Of Being Dragged.

And so, I ended up spending the rest of the weekend in that hospital. I left a couple of times to get some more clothes, sleep for a few hours, etc. I tried to be there as much as possible to give Avi’s mom and dad a chance to leave for a bit. I’m happy to report that, late last night, I pulled the laptop into that hospital bed and introduced my little Avi to a certain killer whale and his webcam.

I would be embarrassed to admit just how long we laid there, watching him swim around and around. Well, if you want to know the truth, Avi did most of the watching — I was too busy staring at all of her monitors watching for any changes and praying without ever making a sound. When she finally fell asleep, I stayed there a bit longer, listening to her breathe and watching her morphine drop one little bit at a time.

Funny how you can’t feel your own pain when you’re watching someone you love be in pain. I would have gladly taken all her hurt if it meant she didn’t have to lay there crying.

Sounds like Someone else I know.

And so now, I’m sitting watching my baby sleep again tonight… her mom and dad needed a break and Dat Udder Girl Formerly Known As Amy Beth is more than happy to be on Avi-patrol. Earlier tonight she felt good enough to get out of the hospital bed, so she and her IV pole went for a ride in a little red wagon that I found. We had a lot to talk about, what with important things like popsicles and Shamu.

I’m guessing you can figure out which is the most important of the two.