Weekend Review

Ryan told me he was going to get stripes shaved on the side of his head. I laughed, I did not believe him. Why on earth would he shave stripes onto his head? To prove a point, that he would indeed go through with it, well, he went through with it. Boys. So, when we found the glasses to match the head and the shirt, we had to take a picture.

I picked up A Thousand Splendid Suns early Friday and finished it on the plane ride home yesterday. Bawling. Some books make you cry all the way through and those are just good stories. But some books you can't really cry at all, at least not until the very end, because it is way too real and way too tragic to even really comprehend. Reading the book Night by Ellie Wiesel was like that. No tears. No reaction to something that seems so impossible. That is how I felt with A Thousand Splendid Suns, but worse. The Nazi's have been defeated. But the people in Afghanistan still suffer under the Taliban, our hand, and whoever else steps foot on their ground to wage war either for good or evil. War is war. People still get killed. The oppression in this book is staggering, perhaps mostly because it was not just sixty years ago, it is happening now. When the tears finally came they were not for fictional characters, they were real tears of mourning for people who have never truly been free. Read this book cautiously, it is hard on the soul.

Ryan and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary this weekend!!! August 10th, 2002. Unbelievable. The fifth year was for sure the hardest year, so coming to the end of that marks a wonderful moment...we didn't kill each other! Though we had a show Sunday, we were able to sneak away Saturday night and go to the beach and then my parents brought us to the Cheesecake factory to celebrate when we got home! It feels like the beginning of something new for us. Maybe that is just silly anniversary talk, but I like to feel like we can start over again each new year, and I can tell this year is going to be good.

Finally, I woke up this morning at 4 am. We drove to John and Sherry River's Ranch about an hour away and spent the morning with them live on KLUV (syndicated station around the country). He looks like a Texas legend doesn't he? That's because he is.

His voice fills my childhood memories. Telling the Christmas and Easter stories on the radio, waking me up in the mornings with that annoying little rooster (only annoying because I associated it with waking up!) and listening to 20 the countdown magazine every weekend to see who he would interview and what they would say. You have to be an old school Christian music fan to really know how far he goes back and how influential he and Sherry have been to the Christian music genre. Anyways, I was so giddy all morning, I felt like I was meeting dear friends, people who had been a part of my life for so long.

They were so kind to us and I am still smiling. It will never get old meeting people in this business that I have adored growing up and realizing that the thing I loved so much, I am now doing. Amazing.

He asked me if I only had ten seconds to tell his listeners something, what it would be? My answer? Make today a good day. Love deeply and passionately. Give someone a hug. And remember what Christ did for us, remember that you are loved.

Cheesy? Probably, but that's what I got for you today. Happy Tuesday.