As I find myself planted oh so firmly back in reality, my mind keeps drifting back to this past weekend. It was my weekend in Nashville that I have been talking about for quite a while. Hutchmoot. Hutchwhat? Hutchmoot – a gathering (moot) in the place where rabbits reside (hutch). It was the event put on by the Rabbit Room community. You know, the one where they actually let a girl they had never met help out with it. Yeah, that one.

I sat beside Jamie Peterson, Andrew’s wife, at the Counting Stars concert on Friday night. It was really neat to watch Skye snuggle in Jamie’s lap as Andrew explained that Jamie knew her purpose was to rear those three precious children. It wasn’t in a “she is my wife and this is what she has to do” kind of way but rather a sweet understanding that she designed to fulfill that role. At my very core, I was made to take care of people. Unlike Jamie, I don’t have a row of little ducklings waddling behind me. So I have to find other ways to fulfill that need.

This year, God keeps asking me to just be who He made me to be and to trust that He will take care of the rest. Not always an easy task. As one of the Hutchmoot attendees referenced, I often feel like Gonzo in a world full of non-Gonzos. But this past weekend, I didn’t feel like an outsider. I slipped right in and found my place. My place – that felt good.

I realized Friday night after supper that the whole event was truly going to work. After everyone ate, they stayed. Nobody got up to leave. They just sat and talked. It was the embodiment of community. Somehow online relationships had translated into a real living, breathing thing. And I got to be a part of that.

A few moments that stick in my memory:

• Laughing as the sweet potatoes were washed in the dish washer. I work for a sweet potato company, but I have to say that this was a 1st for me.
• Watching Matt Conner curtsy whenever he passed me. Apparently, my accent demands actions like that.
• Receiving a text that someone from home was listening to Behold the Lamb and praying for us…right about the time that I was feeling so badly that I didn’t know if I could keep going. God graciously answered prayer and gave me a 2nd wind that had me sailing through the rest of the weekend.
• Having a blast in the kitchen with Evie, Whit, Lindi & Jamie even though it was hard work.

As Levar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow, “Well, don’t just take my word for it…” S.D. Smith put together a list of Hutchmoot blog posts, so check it out if you want to see what everyone else thought.

As I filtered through my Hutchmoot memories today, I saw a mental picture of the 10th annual Hutchmoot. Trust me, it is coming! And how often do you get a chance to be in on something from the beginning?

So Jim called last night. I wanted to ignore him…but who am I kidding? I can’t afford to do that.

I mean, he’s not my favorite. Actually, at times I sort of dislike him. But in the long run, he is really good for me.

At least, that is what I keep telling myself.

Especially since he wanted to see me again last night. I really wasn’t in the mood but decided to go anyway.

It wasn’t bad. I hung out and listened to Pandora radio with him. Let me tell you, music goes a long way to help me get through an evening with Jim.

Not sure why I was dreading it so much. Once I get there, I’m usually fine.

He does have his good side. I never have to dress up for him. For all he cares, I can wear an old t-shirt, hair in a ponytail and no makeup. Doesn’t bother him. But most importantly, he makes me feel better about myself. That is why I put up with everything else about him that I hate.

So maybe Jim isn’t such a bad guy after all.

Oh, I’m sorry…I made a mistake with his name. I really hate that spell checker doesn’t catch misspellings in proper names. He is Jim with a “G”. And a “y”. So Gym is my guy these days.

As I told you before, I have something to say. Honestly, when do I not have something to say? Yet I still am lacking the words.

They have been doing lots of road construction around here lately. Maybe they put up a road block in my brain. Yeah, that must be the problem.

But there is hope! At least I hope so.

Tonight is Girls Night. Once a month, some of the ladies at church get together for supper. We eat. Hang out. And talk. And talk. And talk some more.

I’m hoping that all that talking will get my brain in gear so I can tell you what’s on my mind.

UPDATE: Yard Sale/Bake Sale was a huge success. We raised over $800 for our mission trip. Thanks to everyone who supported us. I really appreciate it! Our trip is scheduled for the end of June. I will keep you posted.

Words can have very different meanings. In anticipation of my mission trip to the Dominican Republic in June, I looked to Merriam-Webster.

Mission :

• a specific task with which a person or a group is charged
• a definite military, naval, or aerospace task
• a local church or parish dependent on a larger religious organization for direction or financial support

Trip: 

• to dance, skip, or caper with light quick steps
• to make a journey
• to get high on a psychedelic drug

As far as I know, there won’t be any military needed. I hope there won’t be any dancing! And the only drugs involved will be my migraine medicine. But our journey does have several specific tasks in mind - encouraging the local Christian & Missionary Alliance missionaries, preparing Young Life’s Pico Escondido for camp life, and loving and assisting local families with community based projects.

Just a side note, there are 8 of us going on the trip. All females. So I have named us after my favorite meal at the local mexican restaurant. Pollo Loco. The Crazy Chicks. Ok, I realize that it is technically translated “crazy chicken” but crazy chicks sounds much better.

So in order to support the trip, the whole team is having a Yard sale/Bake sale tomorrow. Come join us. Shop. Hang out. Buy a brownie or two. And know that you are supporting a great cause. At least, I think it is because I am part of it!

You can find us anytime after 7am on Saturday, May 22 in the front yard of Missionary Alliance Church in Whiteville. It’s two blocks from the courthouse at the corner of Madison and Wyche Street. And if that doesn’t sound familiar, then you probably aren’t anywhere near us and won’t be able to find us anyway. So in your case, I recommend finding something else to occupy your Saturday morning.

I love to bake. It makes me happy. It calms me down. It keeps my creative side active. And all of that is a good thing!

And now, I get to give back through baking as well. This Saturday, April 17, is the 1st annual National Food Blogger Bake Sale. It is part of the Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale, which is raising money to end childhood hunger.

Bloggers all across the US are taking part…so you know my hand was high in the sky when it came time to sign up for NC. A couple of my bloggy friends and I compose “Team Tarheel Girls”. Don’t worry - you can support us even if you are Wolfpack or Blue Devils fans, we are just referencing our state (I think).

So if you want to help us out, you can:

• head over to Carolina Beach from 8am to 2pm on Saturday and purchase some of our amazing baked goodies. You won’t be sorry! We will be set up near the ESA Surf Contest. Depending on the waves, it will be near Hamlet or Canal Street.
• go to the Share Our Strength’s website and donate under the “Team Tarheel Girls” name

If you call me any night for the rest of the week, I know where I will be…in the kitchen. Lady Antebellum blaring. Cakes baking. Arms whisking. Batter beating. Having the time of my life.

Funds raised through Great American Bake Sale support Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger in America.  Nearly 17 million— almost one in four—children in America face hunger. Despite the good efforts of governments, private-sector institutions and everyday Americans, millions of our children still don’t have daily access to the nutritious meals they need to live active, healthy lives.

I arrived safely in Los Angeles last night. My baggage showed up about 30 minutes later minus my cute red leather luggage tag. Oh well, I guess I can write that off to the cost of travelling these days. Once I realized that my tag was missing, I started second guessing myself. Maybe it wasn’t my bag. I mean, there probably could be another red bag with a orange ribbon tied to the handle on the same flight. It could happen. Oh yeah, it also had a pink ribbon as well. Maybe that could happen too? But I’m going to guess that the likelihood of someone else pairing red, orange and pink together is slim to none. So I could safely say that it was truly my bag. That and the fact that the luggage sticker from Southwest said “Katherine Hinson”.

As I waited for Wallyce to make a final lap around the airport to pick me up, I looked at my bag again. Something else didn’t look right. I knew that the last thing I put in the front pocket was a 16 ounce Diet Sundrop for Wallyce. That is worth its weight in gold to a Columbus County girl now living in LA. I brought her one 2 years ago when I came out for Easter and I knew she was looking forward to it again. I opened up the pocket…empty! What!?!? Who would steal a Diet Sundrop? Apparently, there is a former Columbus County resident now working for the TSA. When they saw the bottle of liquid gold, they just couldn’t resist.

I had to break the Diet Sundrop news to Wallyce pretty quickly. Rip that bandaid off before she had a chance to know what hit her. She took it well. But I am pleased to say that there is a happy ending to my little story. When we got back to her appartment, I found a notice in my bag. It had been selected and had been examined completely by the TSA. The missing Diet Sundrop? Only moved. There was great rejoicing that night, for the lost had been found.

Last Saturday, I did something new. I met a couple of bloggers for lunch. Shari (from Tickled Red) befriended me on Tasty Kitchen. Once we discovered that we only lived an hour apart, we knew we were going to be friends. We decided to meet for lunch, along with Shari’s friend known as the Pie Mistress (from Pie Pans & Pigtails).

Things have been pretty swamped around here lately, so I don’t have time to properly tell you about it. Until I do, check out what the others thought about our lunch. Or maybe we should call it coffee because we did have coffee. But we also did a lot of talking. Fine - just call it a 4 1/2 hour fun lunch/coffee/talking/we actually dressed up and put on makeup for this girl date.

Tickled Red’s Account

The Pie Mistress’ Account

Oh yeah, I think I forgot to mention that all of us are redheads. They both have beautiful, long, loose waves. I’m the one with the constantly changing short hair. But it is all red. There aren’t many redheads out there and some people don’t quite know how to take us, so we have got to stick together!

It started with the Amish Friendship Bread. Everyone I know has mashed, babied and baked this bread countless times. But not me. My cousin got some from one of her students for Christmas and decided to share the love while she was home over Christmas break. So I have been mashing, babying and baking this bread for the last month.

For the uninitiated, Amish Friendship Bread is really cinnamon cake that takes 10 days to prepare. To begin at the beginning, it starts with a starter that someone gives you. Every day you follow the instructions, either adding items or mashing the bag. Finally on the 10th day, you make the cake and create 3 extra bags of starter to give away. Since I am me, I can’t just make the plain recipe. I have been concocting and make a sweet potato version that is to die for and a lemon poppy seed one that is pretty fabulous.

Several of my other cousins are making this bread as well. One of them said that she must only have 4 friends because that is all of the starter she has been able to give away. That got me thinking…I guess I have 2 friends then. Because that is all of the starter that I have given away. Don’t even ask me how many starters I have going at my house right now! And with everything else going on in my life, I started to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have any friends. Poor me.

But then last Friday, I wrote a post about hope in the midst of hopelessness. I had some comments on the post. Other people texted, called or emailed to check on me. And I realized that I don’t have many “typical” best friends - ones who live down the street and you see on a daily basis. But I have so many other connections that make up for it.

Family - my parents, siblings, niece/nephews, aunts/uncles & cousins who love me

Telephone friends like Wallyce - who listen to this East Coast girl pour out her heart while on the West Coast (and who let me visit her in LA)

Lunch buddies like Cheryl - who encourage me about my writing (and has promised to buy the 1st copy of my 1st book)

Busy moms like Jeanne - who keep me sane while keeping up with eight little children on Wednesday nights, allow their own children to love me, and let me stay at their house talking for hours after I finish babysitting

Blog buddies from afar like Dawn, Jana and Lindsey - who let me glimpse into their lives on a daily and weekly basis

New blog buddies like Shari and Jessica - fellow redheads who actually live only an hour away, so I get to meet them later this month

Young CPA friends like Scott- who write poems for the Sweet Potato Queen and email to remind me that I am a tough nut to crack and I will make it

Church companions like David and Jean Kelly - who faithfully read and laugh and share my writing with others (which means the world to me)

Once I started to list all of them out, and believe me this isn’t the whole list, it made me feel like the end of Follow That Bird. Miss Finch took Big Bird away from Sesame Street because there weren’t any other birds of his own kind. After a long hard journey, he finally makes it back home where Maria points out that while there aren’t any other “big” birds, they do have people, grouches, a snuffleupagus, other birds, kids and frogs. I think I will take variety any day.

So I guess it really did take Amish Friendship Bread to make me realize how many friends I do have.

I don’t know what the past year has been like for you. You might be a little sad to see 2009 go. You might be saying “Good riddance!” Or you might be somewhere in the middle.

While there have been some highlights for me (like starting this blog, the Daylights visit at Easter and my new nephew), it has been a tough year on many fronts. A year ago, something happened and I felt like my world completely shattered. It was just one more thing in a long line of hurts and emotional cuts. I often think of my heart as being black, blue, purple and green with fading bruises. In order to deal with it, I wrote a joking email about how someone had stolen my funny and I wanted to file a police report. (Here is a slightly tamer version.) In it, I told my closest friends a bit of what I was going through. Most of them responded with words of encouragement or Bible verses.

But one of my friends just wrote back and said “that sucks”. That was it, two little words, not even ones that I normally use. But they meant more to me than any other response. Because sometimes, there really aren’t words. It is just a matter of sitting in silence and grieving with each other.

So instead of filling the silence with the words my racing mind wants to blurt out, I am learning to reach out more by saying less.

If this has been an awful year for you, I’m not going to give you any sugar with your medicine. You know what, it just sucks. That’s it. It does. And until it doesn’t suck anymore, I’ll be here if you need someone to sit with you. Because sometimes, it is the time to weep. I’ll cry with you.

Strangers are made friends through an offer of shared suffering.

Stephen Parolini

Watch out.  They will get you before you know it.  They suck you in and all of the sudden; you realize that you have BABY ENVY. 

I love babies.  And it seems like they are everywhere you turn around these days.  This doesn’t bother me, except when the dreaded baby envy gets a hold of me.  It is insidious, creeping in slowly.  Until…bam, you’re overcome with the desire to take a little one home with you.  To love him, and hug him, and squeeze him, and call him George.

You get caught up in the sweet powder smell, the soft cooing, the infectious giggles and the smooth cheeks.  It makes it easy to forget the dirty diapers, the sometimes constant crying, the nighttime nursing, and the long days and nights.

That mother-baby bond is like no other.  At least that is what everyone tells me.  I know what it is like from the baby end, since I was once one myself.  But on the mothering side, I haven’t been there yet.  About the closest I get is when someone mistakes me for my Mama on the telephone.  I have heard that we sound quite similar. 

Maybe one day, I will be a mother.  But until then, I will enjoy all these sweet young things surrounding me.  My heart and arms will always be open to a baby.  To snuggle and rock.  To sing and sway.  But when the cries turn into screams, I will politely hand them back to their parents, and go on my way.  Smiling as I go.