Weekend Happenings

Good Friday morning!

ANNOUNCEMENT! ANNOUNCEMENT! ANNOUNCEMENT! - Mindless Monday will be posted TUESDAY MORNING of next week. Don't forget! TUESDAY MORNING! (February 19, 2013!)

My mind is such a muddled mess of mindlessness, I am afraid my RANDOMNESS might be more random than ever before.

So, in no particular order of importance, Friday's ramblings will be in the form of a list.

Try to stay with me...

1. I hope you had a nice Valentine's Day. Since The Faulkner Five couldn't find a time last weekend or this week to have our annual Valentine's Day Banquet, we are having the Banquet in the mountains with the rest of my side of the family.

This is unprecedented, but I think it will be fun... and flexible.


This is from last year's Banquet.


I served breakfast with pink eggs and pink milk.

Don't tell anyone, but this year we're having a pink pasta dish.

2. I cannot find my battery charger for my camera. I keep it in the exact same wall outlet 24/7 because sometimes I lose things.

This morning, my battery charger for my camera is MIA.

I'm trying not to panic, but it's very difficult.

3. Roxie sent me a text Monday or Tuesday to come to the gym at 3:00 to take pictures. I didn't even ask, "What kind of pictures?" I just grabbed my camera battery out of the charger in the normal wall outlet and ran out the door.

That being said, the last time I saw my charger was Monday or Tuesday afternoon. Hmmm. Where is that thing?

When I got to the school, Coach was talking to the girls about the importance of being Area Tournament Champions. I loved she wasn't looking ahead to Thursday night's Sub-Regional game. I loved she was focusing on an important event in the girls' basketball season. I loved she was teaching them a lesson in "being still and enjoying the moment." I don't think enough adults stress that concept enough.

So I took pictures of each girl cutting a string from the basketball net as a keepsake.




It was a very special time...


And then it got a little silly.

Which was a good thing.

4. Even though we're having our Banquet in the mountains, I didn't want you to think the kids didn't get a Valentine's surprise on the actual "day."


The Chick loves a good lollipop!

5. As I may have mentioned earlier, we're going to the mountains for an annual trip.


Mikie will pour a bucket of cold water through the deck cracks on top of Katie and Roxie in the hot tub below... again.


Roxie and Katie will scream, act surprised and not speak to Dad/Uncle Mike for the rest of the evening... again.


We will celebrate Zac's birthday in the cabin... again.


It will snow (hopefully)... again.







I'll take another picture of Grandmother and all of her grandkids walking together in the mountains... again.


We'll make a lot of new memories together... again!

6. I have got to find that charger!

7. I know you are waiting for me to tell you about the Sub-Regionals last night against Mountain Brook. I mean, other than the broken Carnival Cruise Ship which finally docked in Mobile (I am so happy for those poor people) and the meteorite landing in Russia (TOO scary), it really is the only other big news story that matters.

The girls played so hard, but Mountain Brook beat us.

Man. It hurt just to type those words.

They started and ended games with group prayers on the court, and the Seniors led weekly team devotions after practice. I was so happy to see this banner hanging in the stands last night...


They chose "Playing for HIM" as their team motto for the season... and they did not disappoint.

Were they perfect? Did they NEVER get angry? Did they ALWAYS agree with the referees' calls?

Uh, no.

But did they strive to "Play for Him."

I couldn't be more proud of a team of high school girls and their Coaches.

They are classy, funny, sweet, beautiful girls, and I've enjoyed watching them play this season.











And that, my friends, is the end of the 2012-2013 Lady Rockets Varsity Basketball Season!

8. I have to bake a Valentine's Day cake to take to the mountains...

9. And wrap Zac's birthday gift...

10. And find my camera charger.

In other words, I need to scoot.

Since it is the "LOVE" month, I'm going to leave you with this OLD post about a blind date. (I had 16 blind dates in my dating career. Do you remember me telling you about those over the past four years?)

All of my blind dates had names, but I remember this one fondly as "Coach."

At certain times in my younger life, I was blessed (or cursed) with friends who had other friends they wanted to "fix up." Although the dread was almost unbearable, I would ultimately agree thinking, if nothing else, one day 20 years from then I would have something to blog about. (Just so you know, I know people weren't blogging 20 years ago!)

This particular story is probably number 11 or 12 in my Blind Date Career. I was, if anything, prepared for the absolute worse date in the history of the world... so you see I had a great attitude going into any and all blind dates.

My friend at work and her husband knew this wonderful guy who "would be just perfect for me." They would come along on the date (a UAB basketball game and dinner) to make things go more smoothly. (Actually, that was great. Having another couple I knew with me on a blind date was something I had never experienced before. No worries about conversation lapses; no talking through an entire date with something in my teeth because my friend would let me know; someone "talking me up" here and there.) This date already had more potential than all of my other dates put together.

I prepared myself for my blind date by buying a new sweater (I love sweaters... always my favorite form of clothing), a new pair of jeans and new earrings to match my new sweater... that I loved. If nothing else came from this date, I would have a new outfit.

I rode with my friend from work to the restaurant where her husband and "the date" would be meeting us. She had told me he was cute, and she had told him I was cute, so neither one of us was really expecting anything great or wonderful. However, Coach (not his real name) was a lot more than cute. Very, very handsome. Wow! I wish I had taken my camera. He was not blind date material at all.

Of course, being cute was not my strong point. I was, on occasion, funny. I was a good listener (if what you were saying was very interesting). I was tall, thin and had the softest hands on the planet because I slept with tons of Vaseline on my hands and feet with socks on them every other night of my life in my 20s. And usually when I first met someone on a blind date, I was wearing a new outfit. Those were my strong points.

I didn't know what Coach's strong points were other than he was very, very handsome. Have I already said that? During dinner, I also found out he was funny, and he thought I was funny (a plus). I'm not sure if he was all that interesting, but staring at someone without blinking because they are so handsome translates into attentiveness, so he thought I was a good listener.

At the basketball game, we talked and talked and talked, and I found out he had gone to church when he was a kid, but wasn't really interested in going at that particular time in his life. Well, I've got to tell you, with an ugly blind date that would have been considered a "deal breaker." No, no, no. I'm just kidding. With me, that was a "deal breaker" with anyone.

My relationship with God came first, and anyone I dated seriously (meaning more than once) had to have that same commitment. It was the number one rule. The big one.

Gosh, he was handsome!

No! A rule is a rule. So then and there, I "churched" him. I started talking about how I had accepted Christ as my Savior when I was 12 years-old, how much I enjoyed playing the piano at my church, how much I loved being Children's Choir Director, how I used to spend every Saturday in my teens visiting and working on the bus ministry, how my Granddaddy was a minister and my Daddy was a deacon, etc., etc., etc.

On the ride home from the basketball game, it was just the two of us. The conversation was very easy and natural... no awkward pauses. (Very rare in "blind date" circles.) We laughed, we joked and I "churched" him a little more by asking him to come visit my church with me sometime. At the front door, he looked at me and grinned, "It's a shame this isn't going to work out."

"Yeah, it really is," I agreed. "Are you sure you wouldn't want to come to church with me?" I asked hopefully.

"Maybe sometime," he said.

"Nope. The right answer would have been 'Is this Sunday okay with you?'" I said, only half kidding. He told me he just wasn't interested in church right now, and I appreciated his honesty.

Then he reached out and held my two hands. "Boy, you do have the softest hands in the world." My friend must have told him about my Vaseline/sock regimen.

"I know," I said with a sigh. He squeezed my hands, told me he had a great evening and then... drove off.

The next day my boss (a combination benevolent uncle/big brother) asked me how everything went. "Oh, it was fine," I replied.

"I'm sorry. It obviously didn't go well."

"No. It was a great date and he was a great guy... but I had to 'church' him."

"Oh, good grief. Why do you keep doing that?" my exasperated boss asked.

"One, it's important to me... and two, three and four, IT'S IMPORTANT TO ME," I tried to explain.

He shook his head, grinned and walked away. It was futile to try to talk "some sense into me," as he well knew.

My friend who fixed us up knew it, too. She came around the corner smiling, and said everything seemed to have gone well, but she had talked to Coach and he had told her the final verdict (attorney talk). "Well, maybe next time," she said cheerfully.

However, it wasn't the next time... and it wasn't a blind date. I waited patiently on the Lord, and was rewarded with the "whole enchilada" (a/k/a my Mikie). He loves it when I call him the "whole enchilada!"

I endured four or five more blind dates after Coach, knowing the "right one" would ultimately turn out to be the one God had planned for me all along.

But, I'll always remember Coach fondly, because he was by far my "best" blind date. And having become a "blind date" professional, no one knew better than me that the words "best" and "blind date" rarely go together.

Take care, and I'll talk to you TUESDAY MORNING. NOT MONDAY, BUT TUESDAY!

Sincerely,

The Enchanting and Unusually Verbose Belinda