The Title of My Life.

Lately I have been pondering what I would title a book - if I was so inclined to write one. I have come up with several interesting options, some of them more inspired than others:

Confessions of a Twenty-Something (the clock is ticking on this title...a little over 5 years left)
Life With A Metronome
Church On a Budget and Other Lessons I Didn't Learn In School
My Secret Life as a CIA Operative
"Yes, I Work Full-Time" and Other Offensive Questions To Avoid

What would you title a book you wrote?

Lincoln Brewster was rained out. I was sitting 15 feet away from him. He played one song. And then it stormed. There are no words to describe my disappointment.

He said he'd be back. I'm holding him to it. And when he does return, I'll be there. This time hopefully only 10 feet away.

I know. I'm a groupie. It's sad. But I don't care!

Fort Knox

I'm trying to decide which is normal: living in a dwelling that is always locked whether I am in it or not, or dwelling that is never locked. My apartment is like Fort Knox. I dare anyone to try and enter. It is just habit that I come in the door, turn around and lock the deadbolt, than hang my keys on my keyholder right by the door. It doesn't matter if I am going to be home for ten minutes or ten hours, I always lock the door. And all of my downstairs windows are locked. In fact, I hardly ever open them. Locked tight.

I am house-sitting for a family that lives in house in a smaller town. They never lock their doors. Any of them. Or their windows. In fact, many of the windows are open. I came home tonight and it was after dark. I must confess to you that it took every single ounce of my courage to walk into a dark house that had been open all day. I keep thinking that someone is going to jump out of a closet at me.

This particular breed of fear is one I haven't experienced since I had to stay at my Dad's old farmhouse alone out in the middle of nowhere. I slept in the living room on the floor because somehow it seemed safer. I'm not sure why. But it made sense to me at the time.

I'll probably be fine. But just in case you never see me again...you know what happened!

Redeemed!

The weekend is redeemed! I just spoke with one of my long time friends and he has finally set a date to come and visit me here in good ole' Minden, NV. We spoke for a while on the phone and now I am reminiscing about some of our good times together:

Christmas Eve. Our families are good friends and spent every Christmas Eve together. We would go to the Christmas Eve service at church, go caroling around town, and then have a party (With Mary's little weenies. Mmmm so delicious). I really miss that Christmas tradition.

Thumb wrestling in band. We both played alto saxophone, and when we would get bored we would thumb wrestle. I never won. Not in eleven years. Not even once. It's very sad.

Solo and Ensemble contest. Every year in high school we would play a saxophone duet for Solo and Ensemble contest. Two of those years we even got perfect scores. However, I'll never forget our senior year when I had a total brain fart moment and played the pages our duet out of order. We "finish" and Lucas says to the judge, "That second page is really nice. Would you like to hear it?" The judge actually lets us play the piece over. We still managed to get a I rating.

High school dances. We went to three of them together. Sophomore year Homecoming Dance, Sophomore year Vice-Versa dance and Senior Prom. I still have pictures somewhere...

Serving together at the Peoria Rescue Mission. Our youth group would go there periodically and serve dinner. Somehow, Lucas always managed to be the dishwasher.

Too many other memories to count in this space.

How exciting! No one comes to visit me for almost two years and now I have three friends coming in one summer! Yippee!!!

The Rascals fall flatt....

I saw part of the Rascal Flatts concert last night up in Lake Tahoe. And I say part because we left before the concert was over. And I can't say that I'm sad about it, either. Even though overall the evening was ok, the concert was not what we expected. Here's why:

1. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was DRUNK. And I mean drunk. And lucky for me, the person immediately to my right was drunker than a skunk and was constantly bumping me. By the time we left I had seriously run out of patience for them. I have zero tolerance for stupidity like that.

2. The concerted "started" at 7pm. Except there were TWO opening acts. Rascal Flatts didn't even start playing until shortly after 9 pm.

3. Rascal Flatts was a disappointment on several levels. First, while we there they played very little music from the albums. They did several covers of other people's stuff, and the did what I would call "messing around." A few very large drum solos (they had two complete drum kits with two drummers. If I hadn't been annoyed it would have been cool.), a long fiddle solo, and a lot of TALKING. Which leads me the second reason I was disappointed in them. What they did have to say was not in the least bit edifying. In fact it was down right offensive. To sum it up - it was about drinking and fine women. Come on guys, you can do better than that. Plus, after two songs the lead singer disappeared from the stage for over 30 minutes!! What?? I came here to see YOU. Don't LEAVE. Ugh. We ended up leaving about 45 minutes into their set because Sunny had reached her physical limit for the day. I was not disappointed.

Now, having said all that, I am still grateful to have gotten to go - especially if you know the story of how we got in.

I do have a couple of positive comments about the show - the musicians were unbelievable. I was in awe of their sheer talent. And the stage was very cool. They had a huge LCD screen that projected images and created moods. The entire right side of the stage (from top to bottom) was probably 30 smaller screens. It created an amazing effect. To top it off, in the center of the stage was a "building block" thing that they band was on. The front of it was also another screen. There were some great pyrotechnics and lights. It was very cool.

At the beginning of their show the lead singer was talking in between a couple of songs and said something to the effect that they had taken a poll and their music and show was better when you were drunk. I think he might actually be right.

Thou Shall Not Panic. I'm pretty sure that is in the Bible somewhere. The eleventh commandment maybe. And I'm trying really hard. Really I am.

But it isn't everyday that I get asked out. And it certainly isn't everyday that I say yes.

Breathe...

I just had the most amazing night. God is so good!!

Jeanne Recommends...

I had the most delicious sandwich yesterday. So delicious that I just have to tell you about it. My sister and I had lunch at this great little cafe bakery in Minden, and having been there before we both knew what sandwich to order. It's called the Gregory. It is a Turkey sandwich on whole wheat with real cranberry sauce, cream cheese, sprouts and cucumber. My sister added avocado to hers and she loved it. Plus, the turkey is actual turkey. Not cut from a processed log turkey. Delicious, I tell you. Simply delicious.

O Happy Day!!

They're coming! They're coming! But Jeanne, who is coming? So glad you asked. Laura and Lindsey (only two of my dearest friends and some of the coolest people in all of Illinois) are coming to visit me in September. They have bought their tickets, marked their calendars, and taken off work. Yippee!!! You can't see me right now...but I am doing a little happy dance.

There are several things in life that I am very particular about. Really, truth be told there are many things I am very particular about. However, my obsessive compulsive tendencies are not the point of this story.

I am very particular about my keychains. I think it goes back to the fact that I tend to be sentimental. My particularness over my keychains started on a mission trip I took in high school to inner-city Atlanta, GA. It was there that I bought a very special keychain. I had had many keychains before this. In fact, my ratio of keychains to keys was probably around 10 to 1. But this new keychain was different. It was special. It was a small plastic rectangle that had a hollow footprint in the center filled with real Georgia dirt. I bought it at Stone Mountain. Honestly, I am not sure why I became so attached to this particular piece of plastic - but I did nonetheless. I discarded all other keychains in favor of this one. And I used this keychain all the way until its little heart just gave out my freshman year of college. What was I to do? I couldn't just FIND another keychain like that one. It was special. It was unique. It was the keychain I had when I started driving. I was just supposed to replace it? I searched. I looked. Every time I was in a store I would peruse the keychain section. Perhaps something would catch my eye. Maybe today would be the day I would find the ONE. To no avail, however. It was not to be.

Spring of my freshman year we went on our Week of E trips. My friend Christi was going to Puerto Rico. My wheels started turning. Maybe she would find a suitable replacement for me there. So I charged her with the duty of searching Puerto Rico for the perfect keychain. I was very specific. Something simple. Something small (afterall, at this time I had a lot of keys. Everything on campus locked...and everything required a different key). And above all, it must be something wonderful.

Success! She returned with exactly what I had been looking for. It was a clear rectangular plastic keychain with that said "Puerto Rico" on it and had the Puerto Rican flag. My search was over. I could stop looking. I could rest easy.

Until this week.

My sister recently took a weekend trip to San Francisco. "I bought you a present," she said. "It's nothing big." But hey, a present is a present - right? Gasp! It was a keychain. A little silver bear that has arms and legs that move. It's very nice. "Will you use it?" she asks me. "Yes, of course I'll use it. It is a very nice keychain." But my mind was reeling. I had a keychain. Was God asking me to retire my Puerto Rican find? Dilemma.

I hung Mr. Bear (That is what I am calling him) on my key hook by my front door. I of course could not make a rash decision about this. I have to think. I have to get used to him. Decide if he will be a loyal keychain like the others. But he was staring at me. Every time I would walk by he would call out: "Jeanne, use me. It's ok." How can you argue with a talking keychain? So yesterday I replaced my trusty Puerto Rico keychain with Mr. Bear. I still have Puerto Rico. He now holds my extra house and car key. I figure I can always take him back if Mr. Bear turns out to be a fraud.

Like I said...very particular.

Well, Dad has come and gone. It was great to see him if only for 2 days. He delivered my car (which by the way is simply heaven), took me to a movie (I do not recommend the Devil Wears Prada), bought me an electric skillet (Whoo Hoo...free kitchen items), and made me pancakes and sausage. It was delicious. He even made me extra so I could enjoy leftovers. What a nice Dad I have.

My sister's boyfriend is going to sell the Green Machine for me. He gets a commission for it, but I decided that it was worth it to not have the hassle of trying to sell it. I'm all about less hassle. I cleaned all of my things out of it the other night, and I was feeling oddly nostalgic. I'll admit it: I'm a sentimental fool. I've been a lot of places in that car. I moved across the country in that car. I have a lot of memories wrapped up in the Green Machine. And so even though I certainly did not want to keep her, I was sort of sad to see her go. Time to move on.

I had this horrible dream last night that my sister (no, not you Nina) was being really mean and made me cut my hair. It was odd. I woke up really relieved that I still had my nice haircut. I called her this morning to recount my tale and she promptly apologized for being cruel in my dream. That's what every good sister should do - apologize for what happens in my subconscious.

In other exciting news, I am having a CD player installed in my car in the morning. I'm very excited. Carson Valley has painfully awful terrestrial radio. I've been dying having to listen to it...and I spend most of my time fishing through the channels trying to find something good to listen to. I am eventually going to have XM Satellite Radio installed - but that purchase is going to have to wait a bit. I'll be satisfied with a CD player for now. :)

And that has been my life this week. What's been happening in yours?

Come Again??

I had one of those moments Saturday night. You know the kind of moment I'm talking about. The kind that stuns you and leaves you saying, "I'm sorry...what?" We are all prone to these kind of moments. Sneaky little devils.

I fear that the affects of this moment are going to be far-reaching. Not necessarily in a bad way. The moment challenged me. The moment made me evaluate what I think my future might look like. In short, the moment got me thinking.

I think God is using this moment to work on some fears. To work on some areas that I don't trust Him very well in. To work on some emotional baggage that I've chosen not to deal with. The million dollar question is whether or not I am going to let Him do anything...

Those darn moments.