I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Monday night I went to dinner with my friend Brittany. Sometime during our conversation she asked if I had seen the video of Ben Rector covering Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody". Brittany had seen him perform it live a few weeks ago and found the video afterwards and has since then been obsessed.

I totally get it, because after watching it one time, I too became quickly obsessed. Homedude is legit. The craziest part is that they recorded this only a few days before Whitney Houston died.

What Brittany might not have known is that this was by far my favorite Whitney song. In fact, it was the only song I owned of hers. So thank you, Ben Rector, for making me love it even more.

If you have three minutes, and you love this song, or even if you don't, you won't be disappointed. Let him entertain you.

May I Direct Your Attention Elsewhere?

Although I'm on a social media fast, I decided blogging was here to stay. The truth is, I don't spend near as much time blogging and it is such a wonderful outlet for me. Plus, these next few months are filled with a lot of fun things, and if I have time, I hope to blog about them so it is well documented. Things like half-marathons, wedding showers and baby showers, oh my!

However, I have to admit, being off twitter and facebook has been quite the stretch for me. It has been hard. Period. All of the sudden, I'm not connected to the social world. And that is straight up weird. But at the same time, very good. I am already seeing fruit from it, which has been really sweet. That alone encourages me to keep on keepin' on. (And don't worry, I've replaced that time spent doing something else, but that's another post for another day.)

Being off twitter was hardest this weekend when I was at a Girls Conference in Nashville. You and I both know twitter was going crazy and I missed out on all the fun! Bummer. But I lived! I hope to blog about that as well this week. It was greatness.

Anyway, I really hopped on here to point your attention to another blog.

My friend Becky, whom I've only met a few times in real life, but have known virtually for a few years, asked if I would consider writing a guest post on her blog. This month she's highlighting dating, relationships, marriage and all things love. Since we all know I'm not an expert on dating or marriage, she asked if I would consider writing an honest letter to my married friends from a singles perspective. After a little hesitation, I agreed and finally, this past Thursday, towards the end of February, bless my heart, sent my letter to her and she posted it today.

Since I'm not on twitter or facebook, I thought I'd share the link here. I am honored she asked me to write on her little corner. It really made me think. Feel free to hop over, or feel free to ignore it, the choice is yours. I pray it encourages somebody! I honestly think the world of my friends, married or single.

And with that, I'm out. Happy Monday, peeps.

Unnecessary Noise

I have typed and re-typed the first sentence of this post a billion times. Ridiculous if you ask me, because I'm getting on here to say one simple thing.

As of tomorrow, I am putting myself in time-out as far as social media is concerned.

It's time.

It's beyond time.

I know I don't owe this post to anybody, because who really cares that I'm about to unplug, but I'm writing it for myself. And more than that, I'm writing it for accountability.

Social media is a big umbrella, but I am specifically unplugging from twitter and facebook.

Why? Because I'm ashamed at how many hours I waste browsing each of those websites.

I could take or leave Pinterest. And my blog? Well, apparently it's not been a distraction lately as you can see by my lack of posting, but facebook and twitter? They monopolize my time more than anything. Someone asked if that meant email, but email is a must. I had to ask myself what brought me the most distraction and stole most of my time, and what really was entertainment. Email is far from entertaining to me. Recently I've been so thankful for the fact that these things didn't exist in high school, and really, until later in college, because if I would have had facebook as a high school student, I'm not sure I would have graduated.

This has been a long time coming and I've fought the conviction, but I told somebody today that if I really didn't want to give it up, it was probably a sure sign that I needed to.

Why am I so attached to it anyway? Am I that afraid I am going to miss something? Disappoint my "followers" or friends? Are my only connections happening online? What am I trying to promote or secure? These are just a few questions I've had to ask myself. Because let's face it, twitter is flat out fun sometimes.

The truth is, there is a lot on my plate right now and I feel like I can't focus on one thing well. And when I can't focus, I resort to the most mindless things like facebook and twitter.

However, I was most convicted about it last night when I was writing in my personal journal. There are a few things I'm asking the Lord to give me clarity on and immediately after writing them out I thought to myself, how can I hear the Lord clearly when there is so much noise in my world? So much unnecessary noise that I used to not even have to fight against. Somethings gotta give. Something has to be eliminated, at least for a little bit.

It just so happens that tomorrow begins this Lent season and no other time than now seems appropriate.

So beginning tomorrow morning, I will deactivate my facebook and delete my twitter app.

Although I'm really fighting it, I already have a sense of peace. Will it be hard? No doubt. I'm a very social girl who loves social media. But the exchange will be so much sweeter.

I'm already looking forward to the books I plan on reading, the face-to-face dates I plan on having, the fun texts and the phone calls to friends. You see, when you're not consistently hooked up to the social world, you have to do those things to keep up with your friends, just like the old days. Doesn't that sound lovely?

I've made up every excuse in the book to keep these two outlets going, but I've run out of clever excuses. In fact, I happen to run the facebook page at work and even that made me second guess my decision, but thankfully, the Lord made me smarter than I am and I've got that all worked out, too.

Who knows, maybe this here blog will see a little more action since I won't be wasting my random thoughts elsewhere.

I know for a fact I will see the goodness of the Lord. When it's all said and done, He really is better.

Why I Loved Today

Mondays used to be one of my favorite days. I know the word Monday and the word favorite are not typically found in the same sentence, but it happened to be my day off. For three years, Mondays were a day of solitude, rest, and sabbath. Although I often felt guilty, it was beyond necessary because my Sundays were labeled insane.

One of the hardest parts about transitioning from working at my former church to working at LPM was not having my Monday.

Granted, there is something to be said about having two days off back to back, and quite frankly, I love that my Sundays are the exact opposite of insane now, but it took some getting used to. Let’s be honest, more often than not, Mondays live up to their stereotype.

Although I find myself at my desk come Monday morning these days, I have to admit it isn’t half bad. Instead of looking forward to a day off, I look forward to our staff prayer and devotional time. Being in the Word for that hour is just as refreshing.

Today, however, happened to be a very good Monday.

Here is why I loved today.

For starters, I had a great, refreshing weekend. I spent Friday night with some of my favorite people celebrating an amazing friend. Saturday I had the entire day to do whatever. Can I get an amen? I ended up checking off a lot on my to-do list and it felt so good. On Sunday, not only was church so wonderful, but then I spent the evening at a friends house socializing. I realize we all gathered in the first place to watch the Super Bowl, but not one minute was wasted on that T.V. Instead we sat in the dining room and laughed our heads off. It was so good for my soul. Having a good weekend like that made my attitude returning to work on Monday pleasant.

Secondly, the first thing I received at work today was some snail mail. You can just go ahead and add snail mail to my list of favorite things. I forget how much I love the written word until I receive it. It made me realize that I need to get back into sending cards to friends, I used to do that all the time and these past few years have gotten away from it. There’s just something about a tangible card as opposed to an email or text. It’s special.

Thirdly, like I mentioned before, every Monday we have staff prayer and devotional time. Every Monday never ceases to amaze and encourage me. However, today I truly wish I could have recorded our prayer time. I would like to put it in my pocket and take it with me everywhere I go. Without going into detail, the Lord knew exactly what prayers needed to be prayed, and I not-so-selfishly received every prayer and word spoken over me during that hour. Sweet prayers were prayed without my prompting or asking. I’m claiming every single one of them and believing God to do what only He can do. Quite honestly, I went from really distracted to refocused. Can I get an amen?

Finally, last week through a series of events and circumstances, I had to un-install and re-install Microsoft Office on my computer. I may be Media Assistant, but I’m not a genius when it comes to technical things, I’m more so technologically challenged. Anyway, I thought I did everything right until Thursday afternoon when I realized I completely wiped out my entire work email history and every contact. I had a knot in my stomach. I called a few of our folks that do things like this for a living and I was told I was out of luck. Honestly, my email inbox looked like the first day of work. That is until today when my BFF Randy whom I met for the first time face-to-face today saved the day! He recovered my entire email history all by the click of a few buttons while I stood and watched in amazement. MacBookPro extraordinaire. It was truly a Valentine’s miracle. Jesus does love me, this I know.

And just for good measure, meet Baby Maddox. My former college roommate, Megan, is the proud mama of said baby girl. She filled my baby love tank Saturday. So excited for she and Daniel and the new season ahead!

How can you not love this face?

I'm smitten.

Megan looks amazing!

Oh, and here’s a picture of my BFF and me Friday night. I’m abnormally tall. She’s abnormally short. It’s how we roll. (If you can't tell, she's on her tippy toes.) I love her.

Sometimes we get really tickled. Then this happens.


And that, folks, is what I consider to be a good Monday. I'm thankful.