An Event

On a 93 degree day, what brings together me and 3000 other Floridians (I'm guessing but really have no idea how many)? A whole lot of sweet corn and good music!

This is the second year I've gone to the Zellwood Sweet Corn Festival. They have a family night where Christian musicians come and play, and you get to enjoy all the sweet corn you can eat at the same time. I was a little worried there would be rain since a 40% chance was predicted, and we did have a brief sprinkling, but it passed quickly and the rest of the night was beautiful, especially when breezes would come by to cool us down.

My lovely friend Michele and her family and I rode together and made it through the heat and the crowds.

It was crazy packed this year. They ran out of water by 6:30-ish, but pop, lemonade and all sorts of food were in good supply. I had a giant corn dog (yum!) and of course the sweet corn! I filled up quickly and didn't get to eat much though.

The pictures below don't really do justice to explaining how packed it was, since you can't exactly see how far back in the distance the people are sitting and standing, and this isn't even a third of the view, but maybe it will give you an idea. I didn't get to meet up with some other friends because it was so tight, but we texted a little and I'm pretty sure they were by the lemonade stand way in the back there...


The lights of the cars were almost pretty, seeing them spread out across the hillside while everyone was trying to leave (again, this isn't even half of the cars).

I'm surprised that we actually got out of there much more quickly than I would've thought.

It was good friends, good music, good times. And I love that feeling of doing something special, then riding home for an hour or so while someone else is driving (thanks Mark!). It reminds me of being a kid and roadtrips to Wisconsin or Pillsbury concerts, and getting home really late at night but having had "an event."

Do you Q?

All of us have moments of life that stick with us forever. They are sometimes profound (the day I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior), scary (I have to look away when the child-sniffer or the stretched-out men are on screen in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), or hilarious (Jenelle and I laughing in tears and gasping for breath for 30 minutes when I got magazine ink all over my face and didn't know it).

There is one moment that I would have to classify as idiotic or at best utterly trivial, yet it comes to mind every single morning as I'm getting ready for the day. I wrote briefly about it in a creative writing class, and I've included the rough blurb below since I think of it so often.



"Q-Tips"

Cotton swabs--the hidden bathroom accessory which everyone uses but no one talks about. They're usually hidden away in an opaque container or stuffed into a corner of the medicine chest. How odd is it then that many people get a strange satisfaction by using the soft-tipped stick, yet not one of them talks about it. A year ago one of my usually uncouth friends brought up the feeling of pleasure from cleaning one's ears--every person involved in the conversation reacted with an astonished exclamation of agreement. Since then I've had the amusing experience of asking other friends' opinions of ear cleaning. The results were shockingly similar and in favor of Q-tips, yet each person also recognized that no one ever talks about this issue. Perhaps it is the mental picture of someone walking about with a cotton swab protruding from their head. Maybe it is the less-than-tasteful content which adorns the used swabs. If this is the case, why are Kleenex so widely used and part of polite conversation regardless of their bodily use? Maybe it's just the lot in life of Q-tips to suffer in silence as an essential but silent bathroom occupant.

Mirror

I don't know the author, but I came across this poem from the days of the girls' dorm at Pilly and wanted to share.

"Mirror"

I am just a mirror
Made by God's own hand
He smoothed me out and made me shine
According to His plan.
Each day He comes and peers into
The life that He made new.
How much of His face reflects?
As much as I let through.

Lord, I want to MIRROR You!

Say What?

I live in constant fear that I'll forget something. Anything. Everything.

It could be something big like my Mom's birthday (although I didn't forget it, I just kept forgetting to send the card) or little, like hair conditioner--I've been out for a week and a half and yet my brain can't remember that tiny fact the numerous times that I'm in the vicinity of a store.

I have a fairly good "emergency rememberer" which will set off a mental alarm when I've overlooked something. In fact, I think I'm in training for that maternal reflex we all remember...the moment where the family is driving to church Sunday morning and mom suddenly gasps with all the horror of the world in her voice. As dad swerves to remain on the road after his heartrate doubles, he anxiously asks what happened. Dismayed she exclaims, "I forgot to turn off the iron!" Now, I only buy irons and curling irons with automatic shut-offs to avoid repeating that specific line of history.

I have those moments in spades, it's just that they always come at times when I can do nothing about them. Writing lists is somewhat effective, but that's hard to do when driving down the road (I confess I still do sometimes, but only when it's REALLY important and when nobody else is around), or in the shower when paper becomes a bit of a problem, or in church when I'm really wanting to focus on spiritual growth and development instead of being distracted with a shopping list.

When I have my moments, I have to stay in a heightened state of panic to remember it until a time when I'm able to do something about it. Just the other week while I was dozing on an airplane for a business trip (which, by the way, always sounded glamorous when I was younger but truly isn't), it occurred to me that there was something wrong with my flight. No, not the one I was on--I had booked a flight earlier in the day for my trip to Minneapolis to be in my friend Emily's wedding (only a month and a half away--I can't believe it!). When I first checked out Travelocity or Orbitz or wherever it was, I had looked at staying for 12 days. Somehow when I went to nwa.com, the 12 stuck in my head and I purchased the return flight for July 12th, instead of 12 days after my arrival. For the remainder of the flight I had to mentally pummel myself to not forget until we landed and I could use my cell phone to check into it.

And yet, there are inevitably times when I just can't seem to bend my memory to my will. I forget to call or write or buy or show up. And then I become sad. I feel like I've disappointed myself by not appropriately showing friends or family that I care. And, that's the case with my most recent occurrence which prompted this outpouring. Oh no--I think I just thought of another I missed! (I'm not kidding) At this point, I can't do anything else but still reach out and say "I love you!" or "I'm thinking about you!" even if it doesn't happen to coincide with the dates that everyone else manages to say the same thing.

That's all. No happy wrap-up or conclusion, as would befit proper writing form. Just thinking about things and feeling the need to post rather than keep quiet.