babybloomr

OK, so it appears that it is now August.

I have no idea how that happened! I haven’t had summer yet!

May began with the one/two punch of a city-wide flood of biblical proportions AND The-Back-Injury-That-Dare-Not-Speak-It’s-Name-Mainly-Because-We’re-Still-Not-Exactly-Sure-What-Caused-It. I basically lost that whole month. It’s all just a misty haze of ouchy, ouchy PAIN with a side order of ouchiness and extra ouch sprinkled on top, and the booing and the hooing and the constant taking of the pain meds and did I mention the PAIN part? (Also, constipation from the pain meds, but that’s neither here nor there. And it wasn’t here for waaaaaay too long…)

Yeah, so that was May.

June was better, but once Family Fest was over we were basically flying the missing man formation around here because Russ was halfway across the world recording a cd. And yes, I do appreciate the irony of living in Music City where you can’t swing a banjo player without hitting a recording studio, and yet deciding to record a cd in the Faroe Islands! Where they also have recording studios, but mostly they have sheep. But if you ever had the chance to go to the Faroes you would totally understand why Russ wanted to record there. It truly is the most magical place ever, and the girls and I love it even more than Russ does. Shoot, I’m trying to figure out a way to justify having to move there myself for a while so I can…. uh….. blog. (Yeah, not very convincing, right? That’s a hard sell.) Anyway, June was also kind of a non-month. I still couldn’t drive very far or for very long, so heading home to Arkansas to visit the fam was out of the question, and even if I could drive we obviously wouldn’t go on any kind of vacation somewhere without Russ. I was also still going to the chiropractor every couple of days and having to rest every day, so I was just a BIG ball of fun. However Madi and I did both celebrate our June birthdays, so at least there was cake around. A lot.

And then there was July. I think we all owe Al Gore an apology and a muffin basket for pooh-poohing that whole global warming thing. Holy hell on a biscuit, it has been HOT! So hot that it sucks the life force right out of you. So hot that my tomatoes are basically cutting out the middle man and broiling themselves. So hot that I had to take a bath to cool off after I watered the plants on the deck every morning… at 8:00 a.m. But Russ was home and my back was much, much better so we did enjoy some family time. Madi and I took a quick trip home to Arkansas, which was great. The girls and I went to Bell Buckle, and Chattanooga and on various antiquing jaunts. We had guests over and ate dinner out on the deck, which we always love. And then, just as we were kind of settling into summer and starting to think, “Hmm, maybe we ought to think about taking a short little vacay to___” (fill in the blank with fun yet not too expensive  destination within driving distance), we looked up from our computers and it was dang AUGUST! What the huh?

So now we’re thinking about things like school, and that soon we’ll have to go to bed at a decent hour because we have to get up in the morning. *sigh* And even though I know that my ship has sailed, and we can’t put them biscuits back in the can— which is perhaps the best mixed metaphor I have ever mangled– I’D STILL LIKE TO HAVE MY SUMMER BACK! Sadly however, after extensive Googling it appears that no one has actually invented a time machine as of this week, so I guess I am left with no real option but to try to make the best of August. Maybe we can fit in a couple of days at the lake, a night at the Stardust Drive-In, or another trip home to Arkansas… At any rate, I plan on seizing the day(s) and enjoying the heck out of the the summer we have left.

August, prepare to get junk-punched.

So, remember a couple of weeks ago when I told you guys that I got invited to be the token chick on the Homecoming Radio Show with Bill Gaither, Kevin Williams, Mark Lowry and Phil Brower? I’ve been sitting on some great photos I took during my two day stint, but I needed to wait until Gaither.com  published my piece on it first before I blogged about it. Well, they did, so now I am free to tell you the REAL dirt from behind the scenes– which basically, is the torrid love story of me and Mark Lowry, my radio boyfriend.

OK, not really.

Don’t get me wrong, I am indeed crazy-go-nuts over Mark, I think he is one of the funniest people on the planet. He’s also an amazingly deep spiritual thinker and just an all around sweetheart of a guy.  However, since Russ loves him at least as much as I do AND he’s kind of like my dorky twin brother, trust me, romance is most definitely never in the air. But I did have such a ball sitting next to him during the taping– and I got a close-up view of the fact that he’s totally not kidding with all of those ADD jokes he makes about himself! It’s not that he’s antsy or can’t keep still, it’s more like he just needs to keep his brain occupied at all times so he won’t get bored.

So, he doodles. Mostly weird cartoons of what appears to be a Mark Lowry-like creature of some kind in concert. On acid.   Exhibit A:

**And Exhibit B:  (Wanna hazard a guess at who that other guy is….?)

**Here’s what he looks like while he’s doodling:

**Of course while he was doing that, Tori the Newbie was nervously trying to figure out how to put these bad boys on without wrecking my ‘do:

**And trying to remember to lean in a little bit when I spoke into this thing, keeping the spitting to a minimum whilst pronouncing hard consonants:

**And also seeing if I could read from this and somehow make it sound all natural and spontaneous like I WASN’T READING AT ALL:

**Of course Kevin and Bill are old hands at this whole radio thing, so they were totally relaxed:

**And unflappable Phil runs the whole show, making sure everything is timed just right and flows smoothly:

**Meanwhile, Mark was doing a lot of this:

**And this: (Well, to be fair we DID do 15 shows!)

But the main thing Mark was doing was making me feel comfortable, encouraging me, making sure I was included, pointing to his lines in the script and gesturing for me to take them– in general, just being a generous, loving friend.

And I had so much fun! They ALL could not have been nicer to me, and you wanna know the best part? It looks like they’re asking me back to do it again in November! I felt like I was back in grade school and the cool kids asked me to join their club! I have a feeling Mark put in a good word for me, which is why at the end of the day, I had no choice but to interrupt his doodling long enough to slide this note over to him:

(Come on. Can you blame me?)