Revolve!

We had a whirlwind trip to Houston this past weekend with a group of junior high/high school girls and four other adults from our church. We went to Revolve, which is the Women of Faith conference for teen girls. We had GREAT seats -- fourth and fifth rows from the stage on the floor -- so we got to see Hawk Nelson, KJ-52, Natalie Grant, Max & Jenna Lucado and others SUPER UP CLOSE. I had only vaguely heard of Hawk Nelson before. Turns out they are a high-energy band that is extremely popular with teenage girls. (And I really mean high-energy -- the lead singer acts like he gives himself regular caffeine injections.) KJ-52 was completely new to me. He's a skinny little white rapper dude who completely ROCKED THE HOUSE. Then there were all the other singers and speakers who all had powerful messages. It was an amazing event and the girls are already asking about going back next year.

Chad, Julia and Jenna also made the trip and hung out with my parents. The girls even got new Build-a-Bears. (In our house, Build-a-Bear is reserved for very special occasions, such as graduating from diapers into panties. At my parents' house, all you apparently have to do to get a Build-a-Bear is just show up.)

For some reason, I always forget how horrendous Houston's traffic is until I make a return visit. I did get a kick out of hearing my friend Julie, who grew up in England, comment on Houston's traffic in her lovely British accent. ("It's OH-ful! Just OH-ful!")

Two books I'm reading right now:

I mentioned A.J. Jacobs, the author of "The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible" back in September at the very end of this post. Now I've got the book he wrote about his experience. Jew by birth and agnostic by personal philosophy, Jacobs spent a year attempting to follow every single law in the Bible. I'm only a couple of chapters into it, but I have to say I really admire the guy for taking this on. So far, he has had his wardrobe checked for mixed fibers (outlawed in Deuteronomy 22:11) and refused to discuss the U.S. Open with his wife for fear she may mention Venus Williams (Exodus 23:13 forbids even mentioning the names of other gods.) The book is funny, but it's also interesting to see how an outsider interprets and attempts to live by the Bible. This is the kind of book I could finish in a day, but I've had to hold it at bay since I've got a heavy workload this week.

Last week at the library, I scored Eric Clapton's auto-bio. He's had an interesting life (beyond the music, he survived a monstrous drug addiction, as well as the tragic death of his young son) and I look forward to reading it.

Jenna au naturel

The other night at house church, Jenna -- for no apparent reason -- decided to walk into the living room, grab the bottom of her nightgown and yank it up over her head to show everyone what she was wearing underneath... which was absolutely nothing. So I snatched her up and relocated her to her room, where I attempted to have a stern talk with her about keeping her private parts to herself. But it's hard to have a stern talking-to with your child when you keep cracking up, which is what I was doing. So now she thinks the whole thing is a joke and is undoubtedly planning more revelations in the near future. She does have some jammies -- the kind with feet in the them -- that zip from the feet up to her neck. That may have to become her house church uniform.

I blogged about this amazing book a while back. (You can read my previous post here.) The author, Christina Katz, teaches a series of writing classes online, and I'm into week two of "Writing and Publishing the Short Stuff." It's been great so far. My classmates are women from all over the country with a broad range of experience. For class homework, I've already submitted a couple of blurbs to a major national magazine. We'll see what happens! Go here to read more about Christina's classes.

I'm really pumped about going to the Revolve Tour in Houston this weekend. We're taking a group of teen girls plus several moms. Since my parents live in Houston, Chad and our girls are going to hang out with them. Maybe we can buy Jenna clothes that stay on.