Dear Amy Beth of six years ago,

Today you start your first day of college! You’ve spent the last few days setting up your dorm room and it looks so cute, girl! I hate to break it to you, but you’ll be moving to another room in just a few weeks after you realize that it just isn’t going to work out between you and that first roommate of yours. So don’t spend too much time arranging your desk just so.

I know you’re nervous about your first class this morning, especially about who you’ll sit by. It feels like you’re back in kindergarten, doesn’t it? Don’t worry about it too much, because you’ll pick a random seat on the third row over and a certain boy will pick the seat right behind you. You’ll never know he exists that semester as he picks the seat behind you every single morning but you’ll definitely notice him when he asks you to be his girlfriend many months later after you two have finally connected. You’ll break up, not speak to each other for a couple of years and then date again as soon as you finish your masters degree before breaking up yet again.

That’s right! You’re getting your masters later on! I know that probably seems unbelievable to you, but here’s something you really won’t believe: you’re going to get it in ministry! I see you recoiling in horror, but hear me out darling: your dream of working for a major corporation as their PR agent isn’t going to happen. But I’ve got good news, too: by the time you dive head first into a little something called Starlite, you’ll forget that you used to claim you would never do ministry.

What’s Starlite? Well, there’s a few things I’m just going to let you figure out on your own. But if I could offer one little tip from six years in the future, I’d encourage you to strongly limit any interactions with processed nacho cheese. You’ll be seeing an awful lot of it in your future, babe.

For goodness sakes, go to class. And, as much as it will cramp your style, be on time. However, when you and Cara Maggie are walking towards the door of that horrible law class your senior year while talking about how you’d rather go to Cracker Barrel, just go ahead and leave. You’ll remember that morning spent laughing over pancakes more than anything you would have learned in class that day, even though the teacher will take a few points off your final grade for missing. You’re getting a B, anyway.

Go to the formal with that boy and wear the black dress you found as the department store was closing. Stay up all night watching movies with your roommate, but refuse to study past midnight. Buy the real dishes when you get your first apartment and use them when you make Bagel Bites.

Don’t go home to visit your family that Thanksgiving; you’ll just drive back to campus in tears. Eat a salad or two in the Dining Hall ’cause those grilled cheese sandwiches aren’t as great as you think they are. Go slower on the library stairs so you won’t be as embarrassed when you fall down two flights of them.

But most of all, take heart — you’re going to make it. Now, off to class, you!

Love,

Yourself

If you’re local here in Cleveland and interested in volunteering with Starlite this semester, Wednesday night’s Ice Cream Social is THE place you need to be — and STAT!

You’ll scream, I’ll scream… and it’ll all be for the ice cream.

One of our witty college boys, Frank, came by my office a few minutes ago with one question:

“So, I saw the posters and invites for the Ice Cream Social tomorrow night. What time do you want me there?”

“Um, Frank, you do know that this is for freshmen girls at Lee, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So……..”

“So, I’m going to come and help out. Not for the girls. For the free ice cream.”

“Well, I suppose that would be okay.”

“You seem stressed.”

“Yes. We’ve lost 2,000 pieces of letterhead and I need 400 of them today.”

And with that, Frank took a piece of paper from my desk and wrote the following:

“Amy Beth Bullard -

Take two low-strength children’s chewable Tylenol (strawberry flavor only) every 5 minutes.

Dr. Frank ———”

Why thank you, Doctor Frank. I had no idea you were able to complete your entire medical schooling in the last 2.5 months since I’ve seen you. Maybe you can diagnose a few ice cream induced headaches for us tomorrow night at the Social, no?

For all of you who have been sweet enough to ask how it’s going in the Starlite office, I would just like to answer by telling you that when I got up at the crack of dawn this morning to print 400 letters that need to go out today, I realized that (apparently) someone threw away all 2,000 pieces of our new letterhead order on Saturday during our Major Cleaning Day at the office.  Accidents happen.

I’ll be heading to the printing company now to ask for a little favor.

Or, you know, 2,000 little favors.  By noon today.  Stat.

(P.S. - I want you to know that, during the tears that came with the realization that our letterhead was long gone, I actually said to myself “Remember, AB, ministry is so fabulous.”)

(For the record, it doesn’t feel too fabulous today.)

(But I’m not in ministry based on my feelings.)

(’Cause if I was, I would be long gone by now.)

(I’m just sayin’.)

All of my college girls on Starlite’s leadership team are back in town as of yesterday, so we naturally had a meeting last night to go over some general things for the semester.  We’re in the middle of volunteer recruitment (which lasts a little over a week for us), so we have a lot to do this week ranging from hosting our annual Ice Cream Social to starting the background check process on all of the new volunteers.

Our real reason for meeting last night was to decide on a list of things that each member of our leadership team (including Allie and myself) will commit to this semester.  We have always had a list of guidelines that we follow that are pretty rigid.  For example, one choice we have asked our leaders and volunteers to make is to not drink any form of alcohol at any time — period (this should be a non-issue for our group that is under 21, but we do have several volunteers and leaders who are 21 or older).  We’re not interested in discussing whether drinking is necessarily wrong for Christians — we just simply don’t want to do it in front of young girls that we’re mentoring.  There are several other things that go with that list, but we decided to add a few more to it last night.

We spent a lot of time talking about how we want to come to Starlite as whole people; after all, the more “whole” we are individually, the more “whole” our team will be.  So we identified 11 different areas that we want to bring excellence to in our lives over the course of the next semester.  I was so proud to listen to the girls bring up topics that they struggle with and work out solutions to it among themselves while Allie and I listened in (and occasionally chimed in, of course).

Some of the things we decided on are what you’d expect: getting enough sleep at night (remember, we use college-aged volunteers); engaging in daily Bible reading and prayer; establishing and communicating with an accountability partner on a regular basis.

Some of what we chose surprised all of us, I think.  One of our girls mentioned that she felt like we need to make a concentrated effort to spend 30 minutes a week communicating with a member of our families that we don’t normally talk to on a daily basis.  We also talked about writing in our personal journals at least once a week and making sure that fruits and veggies — as well as plenty of water — are in our daily routines.

I pulled rank as the only person who is absolutely out of school (Allie’s finishing her masters’ degree and all the other girls are still undergrad) and said that I expected them to be at class regularly and to turn in all assignments.  They were still groaning when I threw down the second part of the gauntlet: I also expect to hear that they turned in their papers and assignments on time.

Rockin’ the leader high heels even when they aren’t popular, ya’ll. 

The funniest part of the evening came when one girl mentioned that we probably needed to have some type of commitment regarding our dating relationships, specifically the physical part of those relationships.  After quite a lively discussion, they agreed that anything from the neck to the knees should never be involved in anything (there’s more to this guideline, of course, but you get the drift).  Andi, one of our girls who was taking notes, kept struggling with how to write that guideline down and finally decided to just list it as the “hehehe factor” due to the giggles that kept erupting every time someone said “neck to knees, neck to knees!”  We’re available for purity speech bookings, you know — “Avoiding the HeHeHe one date at a time.”

Now I’ve just got to figure out how to explain all this to Imaginary Boyfriend.

Even though I have to spend this pretty Saturday working at the Starlite office, that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a little breakfast fun before I head out the door, right?

Roomie and I planned to sleep in and I’m happy to report that we made it all the way to 7 a.m. Once we realized that there was no way we would be able to fall back asleep, we decided that pancakes were in order.

I had this sudden idea that I knew how to cook pancakes, so I informed Roomie that I’d be making breakfast for us. And since ya’ll probably need plenty of cooking instruction from a pro like me, I thought I’d share my wealth with you.

First, get out your flour, eggs, etc. and make some homemade batter. And remember, pros don’t need to use recipes.

Next, instead of just making regular round pancakes, get some lovely pancake molds from your local fine cooking store.

Attempt to make a high heel shaped pancake. Disaster will ensue.

Give up and make regular round pancakes, including a very small one to send to the womb for Baby.

Or, you could just watch me attempt it in real life. The part where I grab the hot iron is just bonus material.

You’re welcome.

Welcome to another week of Fetus Friday! For those of you who are just joining us, read this to understand exactly why a couple of single girls will have a baby joining them in a couple of months.

Roomie and I have several questions to ask you this week, but unfortunately, I can’t remember all of them and I don’t think Roomie would appreciate me waking her up this early in the morning to ask what the other questions were. So, here’s the ones I can remember:

1. Can you please look over her registries and let us know if we missed anything? She’s registered at Babies ‘R Us, Target and (new!) Wal-Mart (remember, if you’re looking for Roomie’s registries in stores, she’s under the fake name Judy Star). *We just received some gifts from you sweet things! I’ll be emailing you to confirm we received them. It is so much fun to see actual things in the nursery, especially since Baby keeps getting closer and closer…

2. Allie (you’ll remember her as Miss Newly Engaged Starlite Gal) and I are giving Roomie a quiet shower in a couple of weeks. We need to know EVERYTHING that makes a baby shower great — and what doesn’t work, too! Tell me about your own showers, ones you’ve attended or — best yet — ones you’ve thrown.

3. Roomie’s awake! Apparently my typing is a bit too loud. I just asked her what I was leaving out and here’s what she said: “Ask ‘em how much weight I’m going to lose when I actually give birth so I’ll know what size of clothes to take with us to the hospital.” She also said “Why are you up at this time in the morning?” and “Can we sleep in tomorrow?” That’s just bonus material for you.

So there you have it — three different questions we need help with! Just so you know, we’ll soon be asking you for lists of what to take to the hospital with us so you don’t have to post that today when you answer the last question.

Also, thanks for being sweet yesterday. Ya’ll are just the best of the best.

Don’t forget to leave your link to your very own Fetus Friday post in the comments!

Edited to add a VERY important announcement: If you have sent an email to me (amybeth at starliteministries dot org) anytime between Sunday night at midnight and this morning at 8:30 a.m., your email has been lost due to a problem with our server.  They’re telling me that the emails can’t be recovered, so please send it again!

Ahem, if I may have your attention please.

It has recently come to my attention that the general population of blog readers do not care for reruns, especially if the announcement that said particular blog is a rerun is not found until the end of said post. This sentiment has been duly noted, most obviously when one of my Starlite leaders (cough, Becky, cough) sent me a text yesterday offering to rush off to the office to help with The Plumbing Flood.

That’s sweet, Becks, but you’re about seven months late on that offer.

Now, let me tell you my problem here: in approximately 24 hours, we begin what is fondly known as Volunteer Recruitment (also known as Pleasecomevolunteerwithuswe’llgiveyoucookies!). In 72 hours, my leadership team will be back and we’ll begin our marathon meetings (WHO IS EXCITED, GIRLS?!?!?) that lead into the new semester. And then there’s a whole lot of other stuff, too, but I don’t want to send myself into panic attack mode bore you.

And so, I’m left with the question of what to do with the bloggy over the next two or three weeks.

Do I put up reruns? No, ya’ll aren’t fans.

Do I go on a bloggy break altogether? No, I’ll lose my one fan (hi, Jenelle!).

Or do I just post occasionally instead of my usual faithful daily offering? We have a winner!

So, if you don’t see me around every single day for the next few weeks, you’ll know why. And if you do see me around (like literally here in Cleveland) would you mind to give me a little hug and tell me that everything will come together in time and that it’s worth it?

I may even let you carry a few vats of processed nacho cheese.

For some crazy reason, I woke up at exactly 3 a.m. last night. I tried to go back to sleep for over an hour, but the sleep fairies had apparently left the building.

I don’t wake up like that very often, but when I do, it is always around this time of the year. I think I carry the stress of Starlite to sleep with me sometimes and am so focused about what I need to accomplish the next day that I wake up way too early to do it.

I mean, really ya’ll — who wants to go buy 45 vats of processed nacho cheese while it’s still dark outside? Any takers? I didn’t think so.

As I tossed and turned last night, I kept thinking about my to-do list and wondering how we’ll get it done (of course we always get it done but…….). I knew that if I kept thinking like that, I wouldn’t be sleeping for many nights to come.

So, naturally, I made myself think about Goldfish crackers.

Around 4:36 a.m., I started wondering if cavemen ever ate Goldfish crackers. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Goldfish crackers weren’t around then, you fool.

You would be correct.

I, however, was apparently too tired to realize that and spent quite a good portion of time wondering what type of Goldfish cracker they would have liked the most. Regular? Whole-Wheat? Multi-Colored?

Personally, I’m quickly becoming a fan of the whole-wheat variety. But then again, I haven’t had one fried thing in over two weeks so I’ve apparently gone crazy anyway.

You’ll be happy to know that once I was done with my Moment of the Goldfish Crackers, I turned my thoughts towards this little bloggy and what I planned to write about today. I thought I could tell you about the whole cavemen / cracker thing but then I realized that? Hello? Boring.

Oops.

But no reason to fear my little loves because I had a fantastic idea of a question to ask you while I stared at my ceiling fan: If you could talk to the 23 year old version of yourself, what is the one thing you’d want to tell yourself? If you’re not 23 yet, think back to when you were 13 and tell me what you’d tell your silly little self.

Ready, set, GO!