A few days ago, I mentioned that I needed ya’ll to pray about some things with a major item on that list being where I was going to live. I believe my direct quote was that all the little things surrounding this decision of mine involved a tangled up web of a whole lot of details that had to fall perfectly into place.

Oh my goodness. I am SO excited about what I get to tell you right now.

I was praying for some very specific things. For example, I really wanted something fairly new and in a safe neighborhood. Check.

And even though it will seem silly, I asked God if I could have hardwood floors, too. Check.

But there was something very, very specific on my list on my list that mattered more than all of those petty things. I needed a place with three rooms, with one of them being a particular size and layout.

You see, I’m going to live in bedroom number one. And my new roomie, who will henceforth be known on the bloggy as Roomie, was going to live in bedroom number two.

Roomie and I were actually dorm roommates during one of our earliest years of college and have really missed each other as we went different ways to get our master’s degrees and start our careers (if you can call my dealings with PNC a “career”). We’ve stayed close and when Roomie let me know a few months ago that a big change was coming in her life, I somehow knew that our lives would be intersecting in the near future.

Because? Room number three? In about two months, it’ll be occupied by…

BABY!

I’m sharing this news with you with Roomie’s full permission and I should let you know now that it was at my request that she’ll be going by Roomie and that baby will be going by, um, Baby on the bloggy. There’s an awful lot of heartbreaking details surrounding this situation and you better believe I’ll be sheltering her from as much of the pain and judgment that others might like to inflict on her as I humanly can. I know you wouldn’t do that — and she knows it, too.

Now that you know my news, I’m sure it makes a bit more sense why I’ve been so stressed about the housing situation for the last month or so. It’s one thing to try to find something for you and a roommate to live in — but it is a whole new ballgame when there’s a baby in the picture.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time getting my heart prepared for the obvious changes that will be going on in my life. I’m very aware that this won’t be like “playing house” with a baby doll thrown in. And I know that the reality surrounding the situation will be very different from other 23 year olds’ realities.

But you know what? I’m not like other 23 year old girls. And when someone I love needs… well, love — it is my absolute joy to get to be part of that love. I’m in awe that God would allow me to get the opportunity to learn how to love better — first Roomie and eventually Baby.

I guess it all comes down to this: I spend quite a bit of time talking about how we should judge others when they make mistakes and how we need to love each other as Christ loves us and so forth. Those had better not just be statements I’m making on a stage while the spotlight is on me; they better ring very loudly in my private life, too.

A baby. Can you believe it? My heart is about to burst open at the seams.

Welcome to a whole new Ministry So Fabulous. I hope you’ll come along because? All you mommy bloggers out there? I’ll be needing to put you on speed dial.  Stat.

I have no idea why I haven’t told you this story until now, but I’m assuming it’s because the very thought of it is still sending me into full panic mode.

At the end of last week, Friday to be exact, I asked our high school intern to come in for a full day at the office to help me get some projects done. I had a full list of stuff we needed to accomplish and this little gal, Lauren, can get junk done.

About 45 minutes into our day, I went to check my email and noticed that lo, the internet wasn’t working. Naturally, I picked up the phone to call our service provider. The only problem was that lo, the phone line was dead.

No problem — that’s why we have multiple lines. But lo, they were also down.

I called our service provider from My Cellular Device and explained our problems. After a few minutes, the guy told me that his computer was showing that there was a problem with the lines that run outside of our office. Would I mind walking outside to see if I could find anything wrong with them? Of course not.

Lo, the lines were laying across the intersection where they had been viciously torn down by a passing tractor trailer truck.

I reported this information to my new phone friend and he assured me that not only would our handy service provider be arriving shortly but that we’d also be receiving a visit from the utilities company. Because, apparently, HAVING LIVE CABLES IN THE INTERSECTION IS A NO-NO.

I came back into the office, reported my finds to Lauren and then headed to the bathroom. Upon opening the door, I discovered that lo, our plumbing had broken down again.

I should pause in the story to tell you that we actually have a really nice house for our offices but when it rains, it pours. Problems, that is.

As I made my way back out of the bathroom to grab My Cellular Device to call our landlord about the plumbing, Lauren uttered words I never wanted to hear again.

“I hate to tell you this, but the birds are definitely still alive. And there’s a lot of them.”

Lo, it was not the pleasant-est of days in the Starlite office. No, not at all.

I have obviously been looking in all the wrong places.

I’ve got a tight deadline for something today, so in honor of the fact that I’ve been working on getting ready for a speech I’m giving to a roomful of men on Thursday (more about this later), I decided we should go on a little trip down memory lane together. I’ve had some really crazy church adventures before, but this one might take the cake.

In the interest of making sure that some weird dude doesn’t show up where I’m at good bloggy common sense, I’ve neglected to mention that tonight was the first night of a five day conference I’m involved with — to speak about Starlite, of course. Over the next four days, I’ll be in a different city each day. It is part of a denomination thing, which is really cool since we aren’t affiliated with any particular denomination.

So, earlier today, Cate and I (a different representative from Starlite is going with me each day to the different events) headed to the orientation meeting for those of us who are speaking at this conference. I’ve been booked for this particular event since summer, so I’ve had plenty of time to get nervous prepare for it. When I finally heard who else was speaking — missionaries from all over the world — I began to wonder if there hadn’t been some mistake when they asked me to participate.

We had only been in the room for a few minutes when the two missionaries next to us began talking.

“Yeah, I was just down at Hiroshima the other day.”

“Did you hear that so-and-so (who was also scheduled to be at this conference) is detained in Vietnam?”

Um. Yeah, me too. I was just, um, down at the local elementary school the other day. Oh, and, um, yeah I got detained too… at McDonalds.

Seriously, who do these people think I am?

We somehow made it through the meeting and then headed out for the city I was supposed to be at tonight. A couple other Starlite leaders road with us as it wasn’t too far away. On our way there, I noticed on the schedule that instead of being taken out to dinner at a restaurant as we will be on the other nights, we would be joining a host church for a potluck dinner.

This announcement was met with sighs enthusiasm from all in the car. I believe Angela might have actually uttered “Roast beef, gross beef.”

Professionalism is our thing in Starlite. Obviously.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I also wasn’t too excited about sharing a pot of anything in the local church fellowship hall. Before you go thinking that I’m being all uppity or something, let me share the REAL reason: when you’re the guest at a church, people stare at you while you’re trying to eat. Or put more food on your plate. Or make awkward conversation about the teen pregnancy rates in the greater Tennessee area over coffee and dessert.

But this was no normal potluck dinner that greeted us tonight. These sweet women had put together 8 (EIGHT!) tables worth of the best home cookin’ you have ever had in your life. When the pastor told me that we were about to have the best dinner we’ve had in a long time, I had no idea that the man was speaking the honest truth. I counted three types of chicken fingers, nine versions of lasagna and — prepare yourself — 17 different desserts!

We ate, and we ate, and then — just to mix things up a bit — we ate a bit more. At one point, Cate had a brownie in both hands. And actually put salt on my brownie so I wouldn’t eat it and she could have it instead.

I kid not.

So, after totally blowing our diets outta the water enjoying dinner with the church folk, we headed to the sanctuary. It was at this point that I realized that it is never a good idea to eat a lot anything before you are about to do something that makes you nervous.

However, what happened next definitely got my mind off my part of the evening. During the special music time — the second special music time of the evening, I might add — the sweet little southern woman on stage comes off the stage while still singing and makes a beeline… straight for our pew.

She proceeds to pick up Cate’s hand — she picked up her HAND — and sang the rest of the song straight to Cate. I thought I was going to lose it. I seriously had to bow my head in prayer-like state to keep everyone around me from seeing me laugh. I couldn’t even look at Angela, but I could feel her laughing beside me. It was unbelievable.

Cate, for the record, sat there with the most angelic look on her face while that woman finished singing about winning our neighbors for the Lord. When the song finally ended five hours later, Cate leaned over to me and said just what you’d expect to hear from someone who has been blessed by their own personal special music time.

“I’m so glad I didn’t start laughin’ and snortin’ while that woman sang to me!”

Well said, my little country bumpkin. Well said.

Originally published on January 30, 2008.

“Oh but You move me

You give me courage I didn’t know I had

I can’t go with You and stay where I am

So You move me on…”

You Move Me; Susan Ashton

Good morning, darlings.

You must have been awfully good over the weekend, because today you’re getting a treat! Your favorite domestic diva, Amy Beth, will now be teaching you how to make a rather complex yet exquisite dish.

Name: Toast

Ingredients: bread

Appliances Needed: toaster, sink with cold running water

Begin by placing the slice of bread (two pieces, if you’re REALLY hungry!) in the toaster. Then, press the “toast” button. Next, go into the other room and become entranced by some strange show on tv.

Within a few moments, you should begin to smell something that will remind you of bread buring. Don’t be alarmed — there’s no reason that could be happening so quickly. Continue watching tv.

Soon, you will hear your smoke detector go off. At this point, you should break into a brisk run towards the kitchen area. You will note that your bread is on fire. Using tongs, transfer the flaming bread to your kitchen sink. Immediately turn on the cold water and completely douse the bread.

Observe:

Now it’s time to enjoy your culinary delight!

P.S. – I only did this to give you a good life lesson. It isn’t like I don’t know how to cook toast.

P.P.S. – You’re welcome.

I spent most of yesterday packing up my townhouse which translates to throwing a few things in a box and then standing (fully dressed) in my shower (without the water running) reading my daily list.

Sometimes a girl needs her list more than once a day.

Around 10 p.m. I realized that I hadn’t eaten dinner yet. I decided to make some chicken and, while seasoning it, I threw a few peppercorns on it.

I know. I know.

I have no idea what I was thinking. I haven’t ever had a whole peppercorn so I had no idea that when you bite into one, an explosion happens in your mouth rendering you helpless and forever scarred by the seasoning formerly known as pepper.

Since I have no secrets from you, I’ll be honest about how this mishap went down. Since I rarely cook, I get a little… well, into it when I do finally break down and fix a meal. The truth is, I like to pretend that I’m hosting a cooking show straight out of my less than fully stocked kitchen.

So far, The Food Network has reported that my only viewers are Snuggles and Cuddles.

Whatev’.

So there I was, just throwing spices onto the chicken when I spotted the jar of peppercorns. Without realizing the grave mistake I was about to make, I sprinkled ‘em on.

As the chicken finished cooking, I poured myself a lovely glass of my Saturday night beverage of choice: Sunny Delight. I used the very last drop of it, so I made a mental note to stop by and get some more on the way home from church.

Priorities, people. I’ve got mine perfectly in line.

As I took that first bite of my chicken, I realized that the peppercorns, they were a horrible decision. And then, approximately 2.7 seconds later, I became aware that THERE WAS A PEPPERCORN DISASTER HAPPENING IN MY MOUTH.

I reached for my glass of Sunny Delight and lo, that is when the disaster happened. My glass of Sunny Delight went flying into the air and then spilled all over my lap.

What a waste of good potential. What a waste.

Edited To Add: Thanks for your sweet comments — I so appreciate them. I just wanted to let you know that I’m unable to reply to them as my blog email address isn’t allowing me to send messages to most people right now. Maybe you should pray about that, too.

___________________________________________________________________

Dearest bloggy readers:

Good morning! I hope that you are still sleeping in on this fine Saturday morning because you should be! You should be sound asleep, dreaming about Johnny Depp in movies other than WWATCF (I think I’ve given that horrid movie enough airtime without fully writing it out again. Obvs.)

I would love to be joining you in the art of sleeping in, but sadly, I woke up at 4:06 a.m. this morning. Why you ask? Well, I do believe it has a bit to do with a tiny little thing called s-t-r-e-s-s.

After trying to first beg and then force myself to fall asleep again, I gave up and proceed to write you an in-depth bloggy post listing all the reasons I was stressed as well as repeatedly asking you if you would like to come take over my life and make various decisions for me.

This post, however, will not see the light of day because I was afraid it sounded a little too sad and, to my knowledge, you do not show up each morning at MinSoFab to read sadness. Let’s be honest here — you show up just hoping I’ll post a new video of me making a complete fool of myself that will come back to haunt me when I’m at an important meeting for Starlite and a guy walks up to me and says ‘Hey, I read your blog! You falling into that water fountain? Priceless!”

Very, very professional. Why, I can’t imagine why Women of Faith hasn’t called me up to come join their team yet.

Ahem.

With all of this said, I have decided that I need to ask for your prayers on a few topics that may seem small or rather ridiculous to you but are quite humongous to me. I can’t count how many times I’ve received emails from your cute little selves telling me that you’re praying for me. I’m always floored by it and am not ashamed to ask for those prayers again now. List Format, take us away:

1. My housing situation – There are multiple details I can’t go into on the blog that make this decision very complicated. I’m waiting on some information before I can really make this decision and that is complicating matters. Some of you locals have been sweet enough to email me about a friend who would love to have a roommate, but that isn’t exactly what I’m looking for right now. Whenever everything gets settled I’ll be able to explain why this is so complicated, but for now, just imagine a twisted, wicked little web. And there’s your mental image of the details surrounding this decision.

2. Starlite – Nothing major going wrong here but, as I told a friend on the phone a couple of nights ago, this is about the time when I start having to battle feelings of fear. Because of the way our local school systems work, there is a very short time period in which we can get all of our prep work done and I usually “freeze up” in fear when I realize the mountain that is in front of us in July / August / September. Here’s one example: we send out personal invitations to every single girl in all of the schools we’re in which will be around 10,000 – 12,000 invitations this coming year. We can’t start on them now, however, because we don’t have location, time, day confirmations from the school officials yet.

3. Personal – Is it okay if I just keep it real with ya’ll for a minute? I can’t tell you how many times I have noticed the abundance of “pits” near me that I could jump into right now. We always have them around us, of course, but mine seem to be multiplying right now and some look more inviting than ever before. I know what is waiting at the bottom of them, though and I want to stay as far away from the edge as possible. My problem, however, is that I start to believe all kinds of lies and each time I accept one of those lies as truth, I take another step closer towards a pit I don’t want to play in.

I have about five more things I could add to this list, but I think the above ones should keep us on our knees for awhile. I’d like to write a very flowery line of gratitude right here, but instead, I’ll just say thanks, ya’ll.

Love, kisses and butterflies,

Amy Beth

Last night, when I was trying to fall asleep, I kept trying to figure out something to write about today. I usually don’t have blog-block, but for some reason, I couldn’t decide on anything.

I thought about writing about my mom and her boyfriend and the fact that, while on the phone with her last night, she asked me to hold on three different times so that she and her boyfriend could exchange sweet nothings while I was listening.

“Oh, baby I’m so glad I met you.”

“Me too, sweetie. You’re my dream come true.”

Yes, my mother has a boyfriend and I don’t. But that’s not weird at all.

Right? Right?

Anyway, that’s not what I want to write about. Obvs.

My next idea was to tell you about me going to look at apartments yesterday as the days in this apartment are counting down (19 left if you’re keeping track at home). I thought the real highlight of the day was when I called a particular real estate agency to find out information on a townhouse I saw from the road. The man who answered the phone asked me if I was a nice person and, if so, he might let me bring my puppies with me. But that he’d need proof that I was a good person.

I resisted the urge to invite him over to our office for a day of PNC scooping.

But that whole subject is a bit depressing so, I don’t want to write about that either.

I was almost desperate for a topic until I woke up this morning and instantly knew what I wanted to tell you today. Prepare yourself as it is quite revealing:

When I was a child, I put pepper on my toast every morning.

I don’t know why I feel the need to share this with you, but I just had to get it off my chest. So there you go, peeps. Do what you will with this information.

But, if you don’t mind, let’s keep part of it between me and you.

I don’t want everyone knowing that my mom’s love life is more exciting than mine.

Enough of the sappy posts; let’s discuss something I find terrifying:

I’ve had good ‘ol Willy on my mind this week because, when I took MacKenzie into the candy store this past weekend, the theme song to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was playing softly in the background.

Naturally, I told her to HURRY THE CANDY SELECTING PROCESS UP, WEE CHILD.

I can’t really put my finger on why WW scares me so much, but if you ever want to get me screaming, sneak up behind me and start humming that ri-darn-diculous Oompa Loompa song into my ear. If you need suggestions on how best to do this process, I can refer you to an ex-boyfriend of mine who had it perfected (hence the “ex” in the title ex-boyfriend).

I’m aware that a lot of people feel that the movie is a classic, a staple of a good childhood. I, however, am prepared to counter that argument with the help of my friend, List Format:

1. Remember the scene when the wee children licked the walls? Um, hello? That is weird.

2. Not only does one of the wee children seemingly drown in a chocolate river, but another is sent down a garbage chute for crying out loud. And don’t even get me started about Mike, the kidlet who was shrunk even smaller than one of those horrid Loompas.

3. And then there’s Willy himself. How do I start describing the trizillion ways he gives me the willies? Those beady little eyes of his following you no matter where you sit in the living room during your slumber party. Not that I ever had that experience or anything. Obvs.

4. Last, but certainly not least, there are the Oompa Loompas. I don’t even know where to begin. There is nothing — NOTHING — positive about the OL’s. They’re freakishly scary, but I’ve got even scarier news for you thanks to my stellar research skills: all those OL’s you see prancing around in their choreographed little dances? Yeah, that’s just ONE actor (except for a couple of small scenes in the movie when they had to have extras to make some of the stunts work correctly).

I could list at least 87 more reasons why this movie should be banned from public consumption but, to be honest, I’ve got That Horrible Song in my head and must now go listen to Michael W. Smith’s “Friends Are Friends Forever” in order to undo the damage I’m currently enduring.