This week I

went to Stillwater for a business luncheon.
sang at a funeral for a woman who was a blessing to my family in many ways.
sat inside my car at the car wash while Mike washed it (I'm not lazy-he volunteered so I could keep Simon company in the car...ish).
had dinner with two of my greatest friends!
booked our non-refundable flight to New York City 9 months before we are leaving (ahhh, that makes me nervous).
attempted and successfully made three new recipes. (what an accomplishment for someone who can't really cook-ha)
schemed with my sister's boyfriend to help with the arrangements of his proposal. YAY!!
did NOT get pinched on St Paddy's Day.
finally broke down and bought Guitar Hero for Mike for his birthday.
bought Easter eggs and candy to get excited about Easter.
told Simon if he was a good boy the Easter bunny would visit him...he likes bunnies....and cats...not really, he hates cats.
was thankful the "skunk" got the boot on Idol.
got super excited when I realized there's only three weeks until a new episode of "The Office!!"

Amy Bookout is a bad girl!

When I was younger, coloring used to be one of my favorite things to do. My sister and I would take huge plastic boxes filled with crayons on all of our long family road trips, and I remember how we loved to doodle on the outside (and inside) of the crayon box. We would write words on there that were inside jokes between the two of us. Then we start saying the words under our breath in the car and start giggling like little school girls.

Imagine my surprise and my delight when my sister sent me an email this week of two pictures that she'd taken to show me what my niece had discovered while playing in the nursery at my dad's church:

I'm not real sure what I'm more surprised about...the fact that she found these after so many years...or that I wrote in my own handwriting that I was a bad girl. It does make me wonder what the heck I did that was so bad I felt the need to document it in writing.

I'm how old??

This weekend a group from our church went to "Winter Jam" at the Maybee Center, which included a full line up of Christian artists ranging from mellow and mediocre to full-blown head banging rock. I wasn't real crazy about any of the bands, but went more to socialize than anything else. We waited in line with thousands of other church groups and finally got in only to find a section that would hold us up in the nose bleeds...not ideal, but we'll took it.

Another couple in our church rode over there with us and we ended up sitting by each other on the end of our row. Looking around the Maybee Center, I realized that the majority of the attendees were junior high/high school-aged with the exception of some college students and the group chaperones.

It didn't become clear to me how out of place I felt until halfway through the first sets when the hard rock band took the stage and nearly all of the kids around me were head-banging. Picture this: me trying to be cool and clever and joining in with them. No scratch that...that's a bad thought and I'd like to not be reminded how silly I actually looked, when all it did was give me a headache in the end. I finally excused myself to go to the restroom to get any sort of relief from the noise and it was at that moment that I realized how "old" I really was. I was clearly out of place.

Mike, me and the other couple finally dismissed ourselves after the intermission and the second half began-it was all we could handle. I'm pretty sure we lost major cool points with the kids...if we even had any to start with.

I remember when I was their age, I would have thoroughly enjoyed a band that hard core and would have dove right in on the fun...maybe I would have blended in a little bit more...but then again, maybe not.