Summertime To-Do List

This is a super exciting summer for me. 

Lots of changes. Lots of reason to make sure I get the most out of it.

So I'm making a to-do list.

you got mail

1. Make care packages to send to the ones I love at camp!

I've never wished I was a camp counselor as much as I did the day I left training weekend for Fuge camps and I went back to work while lots of my friends were going off to work a summer of camp. Since I can't be there, I have plans for some pretty fun packages. And since I've put it online for people to read, I'm now accountable to actually go through with it. Even going to the post office. Mailing things other than a letter can be pretty challenging for me. Be on the lookout campers!

dinner with friends

2. Outside dinner party

It's summertime in my favorite place- the South! So let's enjoy watermelon salad and fireflies in the backyard. 

The Honda Element will be ideal for this

3. Movies at the drive-in

When I was little, I was obsessed with the movie "Grease". Was there anyone who wasn't? Irrelevant. I always wanted to go to a drive-in which is a lot harder to find when you live in Miami. Apparently there are two not far from Nashville and I already have a signed affidavit from my roommate Mary and her boyfriend Rob to take me. 

Gold

4. Colored eyeliner

Between the Hunger Games and my regular Pinterest perusings, I'm really wanting to try colored eyeliners this summer. Let's start with gold. We'll see where we go from there. I'm not good at applying make-up or doing my own hair, so maybe this'll help me look like I know what I'm doing.

What do you have on the docket for this summer? 

Things I Love: Surprises

Surprises might just be the best thing ever invented.
Flower surprises.
Present surprises.
Love surprises.
Magic surprises.
All of them.
I'm not picky.
Send them my way!

Flowers!

Surprise Yourself

Baby Surprise

So many flowers

Sophia Grace & Rosie

Twin Surprise

Presents & Cookies

Vintage Surprise

Surprise Time

Breakfast Surprise

Time To Wake Up

Upcoming Shows

Just a quick post letting you guys know about some places you can see me stand on a stage and tell jokes (if that's the kind of thing you've been dreaming of for a long while):

1. Sunday, May 13th - Zanies Nashville - Zanies Showcase
     Show starts at 7:30 PM
     Call ahead or buy tickets at the door. Tell them you're a friend of mine and your tickets are just $5!
     615.269.0221


2. Wednesday, May 16th - Zanies Nashville - Nashville Standup Showcase
     Show starts at 7:30 PM
     Tickets are $5. Serious. Dinner at Wendy's will run you more than $5
     615.269.0221


3. Sunday, May 27th - Bongo Java (by Belmont) Upstairs Theatre - How To Like Yourself
     Show times: 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM
     Tickets are $7
     Reserve your tickets now at www.ErinAndMeLissa.com
     This original comedy stage show is a creation of the Erin & MeLissa creative machine and guest stars
     the most excellent James Austin Johnson. Just when you thought, "could they pack in any more fun
     and surprises?", we were ready and waiting to answer "Yes. Yes we can. And we will."

     Know that seating is limited so make sure to visit the website and reserve your tickets for
     How To Like Yourself now.

Tuesdays Are For Inspiration

I just came back from the beach.
The worst thing is the day after you've come home from the beach.
Let me tell you.
BUT, I did get to read a lot of books at the beach, including "War of Art" by Steven Pressfield.
Finally.
And I took lots of notes.
Here are some of my favorite parts of the book:

fighting dragons

Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill.
Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give and that no one else has but us. Resistance means business. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death.

The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit.

We don’t just put off our lives today;

we put them off till our deathbed.

Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.

Resistance loves pride and preciousness.

Resistance says, “Show me a writer who’s too good to take Job X or Assignment Y

and I‘ll show you a guy I can crack like a walnut.”

Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
If we were born to paint, it’s our job to become a painter.
If we were born to raise and nurture children, it’s our job to become a mother.
If we were born to overthrow the order of ignorance and injustice of the world,
it’s our job to realize it and get down to business.

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love

is prostitution.

Sword & the Stone

Are you born a writer?
Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace?
In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don’t do it. It may help to think of it this way.
If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion
and you don’t do it,
you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself.
You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act or bid for attention on the part of the actor.
It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution.
Give us what you’ve got.

Sunday Mornings

Occasionally I start to get overwhelmed with the details of my life,
which is more often than I'm proud of because I'm a crazy person.
Is this my life?
Is this my career?
Is Nashville where I'll live?
What if none of my ideas are good ideas?
What if my plans never come to fruition?
What if I never get married?
What if I never have kids?
What if this is it?
Should I be happy right here?
Am I just being a whiney baby who doesn't know how good she has it?
Am I supposed to be working toward something else?
Who is saving the orphans in Africa right now, since I am currently wasting my time writing this and now wasting your time by asking you to read it?

It gets worse.
Sometimes I have horrible visions of meteors crashing into the earth, or of the Mothman.
Man, I'm afraid of the Mothman.
I start to freak out.

This is a picture of my feet.
The other foot belongs to my pastor.
He probably doesn't know I took this picture (and it's probably for the better because I looked pretty creepy doing it) but this was from Easter Sunday.
The true story is I sit next to him most every Sunday because my job requires it.
But this means that for more Sundays than not, I've stood next to Mike Glenn for worship, prayer times, small children playing violins, you name it.
While other people are sitting with their families or their Sunday school classes, I'm down on the front left pew next to the pastor.

Now how does this relate to my crippling Mothman fears?
Here's how:
Sometimes I start to get carried away by the rush of questions I can't answer.
I don't know what the heck I'm doing with my life, honestly, and that makes me have panic attacks.
And then I remember that on Sunday, I'm going to sit next to my pastor.
In a church with 8,000 members and more than 100 staff serving an even bigger community known as Brentwood, me.
I don't know why, but it's true.
I am a crazy girl from Florida who really loves Harry Potter and could eat her weight in Peeps.
I don't exactly know why I'm in Nashville, much less how I've been able to stay alive for going on 4 years. I don't know why I changed my major to Hospitality Management from Film and got involved with planning events. I don't know how I have the friends that I have. I don't know who convinced me to go to such a big church when I clearly didn't like them.
Other than God.
He makes the plans and whether it makes sense to me or not, here I am.
Whether I want to every day or not.
Qualified or not.
Logical or not.

So maybe I can relax a little bit.
There are lots of questions I want the answers to, but I've seen over and over again that it's all being taken care of.
Sometimes I get answers to questions I didn't even think to ask.
Maybe when I start to ask questions about the future,
I need to take a minute to take in the answers I'm getting to all the questions I had so long ago.
And if anyone needs me tomorrow, I'll be the one on the front left pew, next to the guy you're waiting to hear speak.
And the next Sunday? Who knows. But definitely tomorrow.

Tuesdays Are For Inspiration

A few words I love to remind me of what I want to be everyday:

I'm going to make everything around me beautiful-

that will be my life.

-Elsie de Wolfe

And though she be but little,

she is fierce.

-Shakespeare

on your head

If I stay in one place, I lose my mind.

I'm a pretty impossible lady to be with.

-Kimya Dawson

You have to do stuff that average people don't understand,

because those are the only good things.

-Andy Warhol

la lune

You are called by God to do something bigger than yourself.

And it's supposed to scare you.

Ergun Caner

I'd like to be more approachable,

not less weird.

-Chloe Sevigny

I have no special talents,

I am passionately curious.

-Albert Einstein

And you?
Who do you want to be?

Tuesdays Are For Inspiration

I'd like to start off by saying that I think Steve is right.

He's normally right anyway, but I wholeheartedly agree in this instance.

I have never prayed so much and so hard as I have the past couple of months.

Because my life has been the worst?

Because my life has been perfect?

Because it was life or death?

No, I think I'm really starting to realize what and who I love.

And when you know those things, they have a way of becoming a priority.

I love...

-Comedians. The weirder and smellier, the better.

-My brothers. They sound just alike on the phone. They are polar opposites. They are both some of the funniest humans I know.

-The ladies of the 555. They understand that a photo of a unicorn baking cupcakes is always well-received.

-Writers and travelers and adventurers and map-makers and storytellers who see life with no walls.

So who do you love?

And do they know it?