Didn't Make It

My husband, who often thrived on being as different from others as possible, was eagerly looking forward to turning 40. He couldn't wait. He was so excited.

He didn't make it.

Today would have been Chadwick's 40th birthday. We should be having carrot cake and painting the town red. I should have bought him an incredible fun gift. We should be playing with the Spiderman Jenga set I bought him for his 39th birthday (yes, really) and celebrating having made it this far together.

The time Chad & I climbed this tree, inspiring
our niece & nephew to follow suit. It's a great
tree for climbing.

I was tempted, when thinking for the past couple of weeks about this day coming, to lock myself in my house and refuse to come out. I also thought about going down to Town Lake and enjoying the quiet of the trail in a place that he loved so well (I will probably still do that, just not all day). Instead, I've invited friends over. We'll have drinks and snacks and toast to his memory. We'll sing goofy karaoke (I've been practising "On My Own"-- I still can't believe Les Mis karaoke is a thing) and laugh together. We'll do the things that he would have enjoyed doing if he were here with us.

So, here's a story I've been sharing a lot lately: Once upon a time in Bible Bowl, we were doing a sketch about unlikely superheroes. Chad was assigned "Opera Man," and in the five minutes between when we were handed the script at rehearsal and his first lines, he tweaked them and set them to Javert's part of "The Confrontation" from Les Mis. When we got to his line, he absolutely belted it out and amazed the whole room (not to mention giving us all a fright, since we weren't expecting it). Obviously, he got lots of cheers, and by the following week he'd perfected all his lines and could sing them all to different parts of "The Confrontation." He rummaged in the costume closet at church and came to the stage dressed as the Phantom of the Opera (minus the mask) and singing all of his lines. Cue much more cheering. No wonder all the kids liked him so much. And so Les Mis karaoke for his birthday isn't so weird, really.

And I'll get through one day more still standing, or at least with friends by my side who keep me from falling down.

Old Clothes, New Blanket

Got Chadwick's t-shirt quilt back from Too Cool T-Shirt Quilts. Here's the picture they sent me:

It's too big for me to take my own picture, unless I move all my furniture and lay it on the floor, which I'm not willing to do. It's a bit bigger than queen size. Eventually, when I'm ready, I'll probably put it on my bed. Unless I move to a taller house and decide to hang it up instead.

The quilting is great. I told the woman who made it to surprise me with the backing, and she went with this nice chocolate brown (since, as she pointed out, Chadwick had a fair number of brown shirts, so it went well with the front). Some parts of the quilting matches up with what's on the front side, like this turkey. It's the reverse of the Turkey Trot shirt in the middle of the right-hand side of the quilt.

So, I'm really glad I hired someone to do this instead of doing it myself. I'm even more glad I found Too Cool, since they've been nothing but helpful since my first email to them. And it was an awesome bonus that they have a local contractor, so we got to meet in person when I took her my shirts and again today when I picked up the finished product.

I was afraid getting it back would send me into another tailspin of grief, but so far I'm all smiles and no tears. A step in the right direction.

How we met the Family

Today, class, we shall discuss the Family Builders. (Yes, a couple of them are named Bob. Please do have a small chuckle.)

A long, long time ago, back in 2002, a couple of newly-married twentysomethings turned up at South Plains. They joined the college group, since one of them was still in college, but the other one of them wanted to be involved in childrens ministry, since that was what she had done since the dawn of time.

And then behold, there came to my searching eyes a notice in the bulletin: Bible bowl interest meeting today at 5 PM in the Bible bowl room. Contact yadda yadda yadda, etc.

So, I went that day at 4:45 PM to South Plains, where I wandered around a bit until I found an adult class and went in to ask the one person I knew where the Bible bowl room was. She handed me off to someone else, and we had this amusing conversation:

I: Where is the Bible bowl room?

He: (didn't understand the question): Are you looking for a Bible class?

I: No, there's a meeting in the Bible bowl room I want to go to.

He: (determined to finish his line of questioning): The class you go to depends on how old you are. Are you in middle school or high school?

I: (shocked silence while I try to remember the last time I was mistaken for a middle schooler)

He: (still waiting for an answer)

I: (pull myself together) I'm an adult, actually, and there's a meeting for people interested in helping with Bible bowl in the Bible bowl room. But I don't know where that is.

He: Oh! I'm so sorry. Here-- (stops a woman who was destined to become one of my best friends) Rebecca knows where it is.

Rebecca: What are you looking for?

I: (sighing to myself) I want to go to the Bible bowl meeting, but I don't know where the Bible bowl room is.

R: Okay, just come with me. I'm going there, after I get (etc.; I stopped listening because I was so happy to be on the right track at last)...

So, I followed Rebecca to the Bible bowl room, met all the then-teachers of Bible bowl, and was on my way to becoming friends with some of my favourite people on the planet. It wasn't until much, much later that I discovered that they all had been friends since college (or since I was in primary school, as I enjoy reminding them) and are still all in the same Sunday morning Bible class.

But here's how great that meeting was: Chad & I stuck around for six years of Bible bowl, thus opening the door for other people who didn't have kids in the program to likewise be teachers. (I don't say that to brag; it had just never been done before we turned up and we are tenacious.) And the even more amazing part is that of all the people we had over for dinner in these past few weeks before leaving Lubbock, four families were people that we met that very evening at a fun-filled Bible bowl meeting.

In the Merry Merry Month of May

Let's see.... birthday, check. Race, check. Youth weekend, check.

Oh, yeah. Slumber party.

Chad & I began doing stuff in the children's ministry at South Plains within a year of our arrival there 8 1/2 years ago. More accurately, I said, "Hey, I'm going to work with Bible bowl," and he came along for the ride. Since then, we've done a few rounds of Bible bowl, several quarters of Sunday school, and most recently, we've Journeylanded for a few rotations.

All told, we've met-- in some form or fashion-- almost every kid at South Plains between six and 19 years old. We love the South Plains kids. Some of them like us in return (and we're still surprised at the ones who like us the most!).

So, before skipping town I wanted to have some of the girls over for a slumber party. It took some doing to choose a weekend when most of us were in town and not running in a race, because today's youth are ridiculously over-scheduled (although that may be a topic for another post).

We played Concentration. We played Skip-Bo (I think). We played "Let's all go outside & flag down Mrs. Parrish because she can't find my apartment." I did a bunch of hair wraps (no word on how long any of them stayed in). We played Mad Gab. We played "Take pictures of Ruth because she's the first one asleep." We watched a couple of movies with the same actress-- I cannot remember which actress nor the names of her movies. (Told you I'm not a movie person.) We had popcorn & stopped all movie-watching long enough to make no-bake cookies at 1 AM (which Ruth managed to sleep through).

I'm told Anna Beth & Annie stayed up until 4:30 AM. I know for sure that everyone woke up when Gabby had to leave for work at 9. We had no-bakes and pancakes for breakfast, played some more Mad Gab, and one by one, they all went home. And they didn't completely wreck my apartment. Nor, as far as I know, did we keep the neighbours up too late.

I was sad for the night to end, because it's another sign that this era in our lives in coming to a close. Soon, so very soon, this

apartment that was filled with giggling girls will be filled with packed boxes. And then it will be emptied... and we'll be gone. The church that we have loved has not agreed to move with us to Austin en masse. Someone else will host the slumber parties and do the hair wraps. Someone else will make Saturday morning pancakes for other people's children.

Someone else will stay up to make cookies at 1 AM. I hope that one day it's these same girls, paying it forward in the same way I pay it forward now. I hope that it's at least a little bit due to our example.

And I know for sure there are girls in Austin who will want to stay up late, make hair wraps and eat cookies. I look forward to meeting them.

Words: Safe Passage, Part 2

So, about The Worst Bible Bowl Trip in History:

*First, we had to rent vans, because the church vans were in use.

*At the last minute, I was pulled in as a sponsor because one of the other women wasn't able to go.

*Then, Rebecca had to endure my panic attack at being one of the listed drivers on the rental van, when I had NO intention of getting behind the wheel of that van AT ALL. (That one was quickly resolved.)

*After that, we had about a 10-minute window to leave on time to get to our destination and pulled out of the parking lot of South Plains with approximately .005 nanoseconds to spare.

*We ran into a zero-visibility (not kidding) dust storm halfway between Lubbock & Abilene and had to slow down considerably, which used up every one of our .005 nanoseconds.

*And the final blow: We arrived in Abilene to discover that the only available hotel rooms were, erm, rather low-rent. (Unfortunately, all pics from this trip were lost when our old computer crashed.) So, we slept in smoke-scented hotel rooms in a questionable neighbourhood. (And my bedtime prayer freaked out the girls in my room, because I prayed for our safety. Oops!)

After such an eventful Friday, one of our girls lost her glasses Saturday morning. And the hotel had no breakfast on offer, so we packed into a McDonald's. When we arrived at the church for competition, Rebecca ordered me to come to the coaches' meeting while the rest of the adults did crowd control with our kids. (Okay, this was a low point only for me.)

Boring meeting... boring meeting... boring meeting... and then the gentleman leading the prayer wound up by asking that God would grant us all "safe passage" home. Now to my half-crazed brain, one uses the word "passage" only when sailing.

So after the "Amen", I turned to Rebecca and asked, "Are we going home by ship?"

She laughed for five minutes, then said, "Thank you, I needed that."

So, Safe Passage. Great phrase. Memories of weekend plans gone awry. Good friends to share them with.

Words: Safe Passage, Part 1

Thought I forgot about this little diversion, didn't you?

Safe Passage

In my mind, there are two reasons to use the word "passage": 1) You are on a ship. or 2) You have a sneaky way of getting out of your house.

Okay, this phrase has never changed my life. Probably never will, until I take that Atlantic crossing to England that I've been promising myself for years and that will have to wait until retirement. But I heard it at the ladies' retreat on Friday, when the closing prayer specifically mentioned "safe passage" home. And this little phrase conjured up a memory...

... Of what some would say was the Worst Bible Bowl Trip in History.

In the course of which, the little phrase "safe passage" lifted the spirits of two otherwise-frazzled women, one of whom, naturally, was me.

Come back later for the rest of the story, and in the meantime, I hope the South Plains Bible Bowlers are having the Best Bible Bowl Trip in History this weekend.

I was KIDDING!

So, in my previous post, I mentioned going on a 40-year wilderness trek in search of Moses, and that we might need search & rescue.

I was not being serious. But I think I was the one who jinxed us. Sorry guys!

Here then, split into a few posts for easier reading, is the blow-by-blowout account of our trip, written pretty much as it happened:

So our trip to Monahans started off as expected; we headed out at about 8:45, the kids were reviewing for the competition, adults reading or chatting, and our intrepid bus driver (Chad) was, well, intrepidly driving. We stopped off in Seminole for a break, then continued on.

Just a few miles outside of Andrews (at around 10 AM), we heard a bang!, which we wrote off as being a rock. Ha! If only. Barely a mile later, the bus took on a very alarming shimmy, so Chad got us off the road and stopped as quickly as he could (and safely, it should be pointed out). He & the other men up front hopped off in short order to investigate, rapidly followed by me, and pretty much all the boys on the bus.

Our front tire was gone. Except it wasn’t, because it had wrapped itself around—okay, I’m not into cars. It was wrapped around whatever that metal thing is. And said metal thing was bent. So, the men swung into action getting the bus jacked up, investigating, realising we didn’t have a spare tire, taking the bent metal thing off, and all the other stuff men do on occasions like this. The kids, meanwhile, thought this was the best event ever and were running around, playing with sticks, kicking up dirt, collecting bits of tire, and otherwise making their mothers crazy.

It was up to me to phone the other bus and get them to come back, because they had been far enough in front to not notice that we had stopped (the other two vehicles in the caravan did stop). Actually, it wasn’t entirely up to me, because about three people tried to get the other driver via calls & text, but since the other driver was, you know, driving, he didn’t notice. I tried a different tact, though: I called his wife. She got them turned around and headed back our way.

We loaded up all the kids on the other bus, all women from our bus (minus me!) in the Surburban, and waved good-bye. (I also sent my camera on with a girl who promised to take very good care of it. Who knows what kind of pictures we will get!) Meanwhile, another couple took off in their pickup to get the bent thing fixed, and another tire, and whatever. I’m really not a car person, so I don’t know what they were doing.

While they were gone, we stood around getting sunburnt and talking about sports. And discussing how “get the spare tire from the trailer” ought to be on the pre-trip checklist for church trips.

Tire came back, was reattached to the bus, and off we went. We’re on our way to a dealership in Odessa that has a wheel of some sort (ours, it turns out, is now cracked). It is 1 PM, and the competiton should be starting in Monahans right now.

What next?

Two hours, one long stop at a Ford dealership, and a one and one-half pizzas gratefully accepted from the car dealer (motivated to some extent, I think, by his desire to see some repeat business from at least one of these men), and we’re headed out of Odessa en route to Monahans. Also, a few phone calls have been fielded from mothers eager to share the news of their children’s accomplishments with fathers who stayed behind to see the church bus put back together properly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Arrived safely at 3:45ish. Greeted graciously by the ladies of 3rd & Dwight, who provided good sandwiches, kool-ade & cookies that are almost as good as my Grandma’s. Much discussion ensued between the adults—early- and late- arrivals—about the necessity for clearer directions on the pre-trip inspection sheet in regards to the location of the spare tire for the buses (in the trailer that we didn’t bring with us). General fat-chewing and laughter of reunion between friends who last saw each other three hours ago.

The end

I've mentioned in Bible bowl posts from the past that our kids are always so well-behaved and fun to be around on this trip, and despite not being with them for four-ish hours of the trip, I have to say they came through for us again. More on that later.

We arrived at Monahans in time for the final round, which we did not see, since we were in the foyer yakking. Then was some singing time for the kids while the kind people at Monahans tallied the scores, prepared packets for the coaches, and probably had a strong cup of coffee. Okay, maybe they didn't do that, but I certainly would have! This competition is my favourite by far, and it is due to the hard work that the church in Monahans puts into making sure everything runs smoothly. And despite all that hard work, they still have enough energy on Saturday to be gracious and friendly hosts all day long, and tolerate 100+ children running round their building like banshees (we did try to discourage the indoor running!)

Anyway! Our pal Morgan was doing the songleading, and he did a fantastic job. Before he went in, I strongly requested as many action songs as possible to get the kids tired! He agreed, but it didn't work. Oh, well, thanks anyway, Morgan.

So South Plains brought home some trophies for individuals and teams. I'm telling you, these kids work HARD. They all do. I was a high school Bible bowler, and I thought that I studied early and late, but the SP elementary kids have me beat. I am totally impressed by their hard work, and the effort the teachers put in. All that work is paid off, not in bringing home hardware to add to our collection, but in seeing the kids learn the Bible. Even the kids that seem like they are paying the least attention have a tendency to delight us when put to it, and answer questions correctly when they might have been expected to miss. These are some great kids.

Aaaaand... the ride home

So, long day (8 AM - 11 PM), fun, long periods of sitting still, excitement & emotions from winning awards, eating at a fun restaurant-- it all adds up to this: These kids are not falling asleep any time soon.

We ate dinner in Odessa (My apologies to Texas Roadhouse for starting a mini-riot at our table. My apologies to future Bible bowlers if you aren't allowed back to Texas Roadhouse. My apologies to parents for getting your daughters all riled up. If anyone else would like an apology, let me know.), then headed for Lubbock.

Let me put it this way: Our bus was LOUD. Riled up, indeed. They swapped stories, they played Truth or Dare (until I ordered them to stop; it was getting a bit out of hand), they sang, they poked each other, they bounced out of their seats until Chad asked me to enforce the wearing of seat belts. But finally, after a final load-up of sugar in Seminole, the noise level dropped down, and the kids (and I!) fell asleep. I think one of them stayed awake, but she wasn't making any noise, so I didn't notice.

Lest you think I am-- or was-- upset with the kids in any way, I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. I have a hard time being on my best behaviour for 15 hours (as those who are regularly around me will probably tell you), and I'm nearly 31 years old. How much harder is it for 9- to 12-year-olds? All that pent-up energy; we probably needed to drive to the nearest running track and let them work off some steam for 20 minutes before heading home. (Hey, we were late anyway; why not?)

So, tire drama notwithstanding, the trip was great. I bet I sleep good tonight.

Monahans, maybe

After promising (three years in a row now!) that we were done with Bible bowl forever, we are once again going on a Bible bowl trip. Tomorrow, we are taking a 40-year trek into the desert to see if we can find Moses.

Or, maybe the trip to Monahans only seems like a 40-year trek. It's three hours away, but the scenery leaves much to be desired. However, once we get there, the church is so friendly and they do host a great competition.

If you don't hear from me for three days, send out search & rescue.

Where did all these strange accents come from?

(By way of apology in advance: I can't seem to do anything with the formatting when I put photos on here.)

So we've just returned from our sixth Bible Bowl banquet.

(Yes, I did stop to count those on my fingers; if you are curious, our BB years have been: Matthew (2003), Life of Moses (2004), Luke (2005), Joshua, Judges, and Ruth (2006), Acts (2007-- we weren't actually involved this particular year, except that I went to a couple of competitions, we got t-shirts, and went to the banquet), and finally, 1 Samuel in 2008.)

This is a much-anticipated event every spring, if only because it means that the madness is at an end for eight months. But it is also a fun time to get together and act silly, and eat. And act silly.

I was thoroughly delighted that Randy, in the course of trying to use half-a-dozen accents in the space of 30 seconds, stopped to say, "That was a Scottish accent!" Glad that I could be such a good influence on those around me. Yes, my work here is done.

Pictures from the event:

Proud Bible bowl mothers (and sister). It's okay that their kids are teachers, right?

More proud parents (and sister).
















Charlie and Randy, trying to remember which accent they used last.














Tricia and Rebecca.




And the lovely Toni, enjoying the show (and possibly thanking her stars that she is not in it this time around).












Yeah, so I'm like the Bible bowl paparazzi now. I think I got a shot of everyone at least once.

Quite a photogenic group!

The aftermath of our first Bible bowl sketch. Actually, it was the second, but we were out of town for the first one.

The dress I wore that day had a ripped-out zipper, so like any good hillbilly, I safety-pinned it all the way up. This brought a lot of laughs from the other adults.

Bible Bowl: Part 2

I would say that we woke up nice and early on Saturday morning, but some of our group never really went to sleep, and in my hotel room, the awakening was neither nice nor early. Trains went by across the street at 30-minute intervals, which was sufficient to keep a lot of us from getting a good night's sleep, I'm afraid.

We had to load up to go to McDonald's for breakfast, because the hotel did not serve breakfast. Although it is fair to say that none of us really wanted to stick around there any longer than we had to, anyway, still it was an additional snag in our weekend. (By "snag" I mean "unplanned expense".)

So after loading up on fats and carbs, we headed for the church where the competition was held. Someone lost her glasses, quite a few children had early-morning grumpiness, and a couple of the girls apparently had their brains reprogrammed overnight so that all they could say was "Stop it!" to one another in really high-pitched, whiny voices. (Another side note here to say, this is probably the worst-behaved I've ever seen this group of children act, so it's not like I have much to complain about.) After a last-minute behaviour pep talk, we sent the children in to their holding area whilst the coaches went to a meeting. When I was a kid at these things, I used to wonder what it was the adults were all talking about. Now I know: Nothing. Although this meeting did give us a funny moment for the weekend. The man running the meeting prayed for us to all have "safe passage" home, so at the end of the prayer, I turned to Rebecca to ask, "Are we going home by ship?"

And the rest of the day went pretty smoothly. So far as I know the lost glasses were never found, one of the spectators took a phone call during the competition (really annoying the moderator, not to mention everyone else), and our scorekeeper thinks Lubbock is spelt "Lubic". We came home with a few ribbons and trophies.

And for some bizarre reason, they let me choose where to eat supper. I haven't worked that one out yet.

Bible Bowl Weekend: Part 1

I don't know if you'd call this weekend a comedy of errors, or perhaps the lighter bits of a tragedy, or maybe just what happens when a group of people get together and do things.

So on Friday morning Chad and I went to pick up the rental vans for the trip, only to find out (much to our horror) that we were the "only authorised drivers" of the vans. Chad and I were not planning to drive to Abilene. Turns out, though, that was a problem easily fixed.

So before we even left, one sponsor dropped out of the trip, one of the drivers came late (and had to be rushed to the car rental place to hand over his driver's license before we could go), and several of the girls started off their first round of bickering. So we left late, inciting Rebecca to panic (since she was in charge of all the arrangements). Then we ran into some zero-visibility blowing dust. All that and we still arrived in Abilene on time to get to the gymnastic sports centre.

I would like to take this opportunity to say, if you are ever bored in Abilene, go by the Gymnastic Sports Centre. It is fantastic.

After an enjoyable couple of hours of playing, we went to our (somewhat disappointing) hotel to check in and unload, and then on to Gatti's for the children to stuff themselves with pizza and finish running themselves ragged before heading back. Also while at Gatti's, I was dancing along to "YMCA", causing one of the other adults to remark, "I would say she is re-living her youth, but she is too young for that."

Whatever. Someday my grandchildren will be dancing along to "YMCA".

Safely home

Just returned from an eventful Bible Bowl weekend, about which I am anxious to blog, but for now I would prefer to go to bed!

This morning

This morning we are going to be fingerprinted for a background check for our adoption, and then I am leaving for a Bible bowl trip to Abilene. But first, I'm going to go run two miles.

We spent quite a bit of time with Angie (and some other people) last night. It was nice to see her after so long!

Hope triumphs once again!

I've agreed-- and this is one of those "moments of madness" that plague my life like so many, I don't know, gnats?-- to teach a children's Bible class on Wednesday nights.

Now, for someone who has taught many, many children's classes in her lifetime, quite a few of them right here at South Plains, you might not call this madness. And it isn't, actually; not to announce myself with trumpets or anything, but I have volunteered my services out of kindness. And also the triumph of hope over experience, so I have not always had the most smashing success with children's class.

In a couple of weeks, the Bible bowl class will finish the "teaching" portion of the class and move into "reviewing." Because of the way the children's classes are set up, the teachers would have to run the reviews with children who actually intend to participate in Bible bowl, as well as the other children who are there because their parents dragged them to church and sent them to class. And some other kids who are neither happy nor angry to be present. So I volunteered to take the children who do not intend to go to competitions into a separate class on Wednesday nights.

My plan for this class is to go over, by means of discussion, songs, crafts, and possibly push-ups if the children do not behave, things that (IMO) they ought to know by now. (It is possible that I am condemning myself to singing the books of the Old Testament on a weekly basis by taking this approach.) So far, the topics floating around in my head are: God Cares about You, Obey Your Parents, This Little Light of Mine is More than Just a Song, and Why We Have the Church. There are more in there, but they seem to be hiding behind some random neurons or something. My thoughts at the moment are consumed with how we will go over the first topic, that God cares about them. I admit that I was having my doubts about this topic, until a few minutes ago when I happened across a blog in which the writer mentioned that people have to be reminded-- a lot-- that God loves them. So be it, I thought; if adults have trouble with this, I'm betting their children do, too.

So if anyone has any suggestions on good topics for 4th & 5th graders, I would be overjoyed to hear them.

At least I got THAT over with!

I walked to work this morning, just because I could. :) Seriously I wanted to ride my bike, but what with conflicting weather reports about expected wind I decided not to take anything with me that couldn't easily be brought back home again if the wind were to pick up. And as my husband never tires of reminding me, my balance is bad enough in pristine conditions. Adding high winds to the mix is a recipe for disaster.

I stayed home the last couple of nights to do "peer reviews" for work, and it was miserable. Fortunately, they are done, turned in, and off my plate. Now I just have to wait for my own performance review to see if my coworkers all wrote variations on, "Su is kind of funny but she's a jerk." We were asked to be frank with our reviews, but I couldn't bring myself to write much that was negative about anyone else. The main reason is, I work with an amazing group of people. There is no one in that office that is not absolutely fantastic at what he/she does. So it is hard to come up with areas for improvement. Reason number two: even if said coworker does get on my last nerve, that does not affect his/her job performance. Or mine.

Anyway. I have Bible bowl questions to write, CPS paperwork to fill out, a quilt to, well, quilt, a blanket to finish crocheting (preferably before the baby is six months old!), two more crochet projects to start, a couple of cross-stitch projects that likewise need starting... Oh, dear. If only everyone I know (including us, I suppose) wouldn't insist upon having children at once.

Oh, dear, a new link to my blog...

Charlie very kindly linked to my blog from his own (far superior) blog, so now I feel obliged to say something intelligent. Yikes... taking the stage... all eyes on me... what shall I say???

Well, maybe I'll start with a confession of sorts. I stepped out of Bible bowl a few weeks ago. Why? I did some soul-searching and realised that I was doing it because I wanted to win. And I could, no problem. God has blessed me with an excellent memory and a gift for retaining what I read, so all I had to do to come home with another ribbon was read a couple of chapters every day for the next three months. Nae bother. I had grand visions of standing on the stage, holding my blue ribbon, while my friends took pictures (which would be displayed during the announcements at church the next day, naturally!). I rationalised such ideas by thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if I could recite the whole of Acts from memory?" Again, God has given me the ability to do so. And as a final (un)convincing argument, I even reasoned, "This is the last year I can do it-- next year we'll have children and I won't be able to go." Also true.

In the end, all justification aside, I came to the conclusion that winning a blue ribbon was not an acceptable reason for Bible study. Maybe it is for children (although I am not too excited about that, either), but for a woman who has been in Christ for 12 years, it is awful. I enjoy Bible study, I enjoy reading the Bible just for the sake of reading it, I enjoy discussing it with other people. I don't need a ribbon for that.

So, I've stepped out of Bible bowl, thus saving loyal readers endless posts about this sketch or that trip, and surely someone out there is grateful for that. :)