Reality TV

One thing that most people don't know about me, is I love reality tv. I know it is not truly reality, and lately the shows have become super lame, but there is something about it that is addicting! Tonight the new season of the Bachelorette starts tonight and I am SO EXCITED! Ali is the new Bachelorette, and I loved her on the last season. I am excited to see who she picks!

The big cupcake

Once a week, me, my roommate and two other of our friends get together and make dinner and watch Glee. It is my favorite night of the week!! We have a great homecooked meal, Glee, and usually a movie or a game afterwards. Tonight after we watched Glee we spent hours singing Karaoke!

Tonight was extra fun because we were doing a birthday celebration for Jason! I was really really excited to finally get to make my big cupcake tonight to help celebrate. I fell in love with this cute idea and have not had the time or the occasion to make it yet.

Well.... I will just let you judge from the pictures how it turned out. The icing is covering all of the pieces falling off!
At least Jason seemed really excited about it!!
It doesn't look great.... but it tasted SO GOOD! Unfourtanely, I took one slice out of it and it crumbled like a sink hole. I think I need more practice.

Senior Club

We had our last Young Life Club of the year last week. In Young Life tradition, the seniors usually lead the last club of the year. These seniors did an amazing job. From the hilarious skits and fun songs, to the amazing message and testimonies, it was a great night. I am really going to miss this class. They are such a great group!

"May the God who gives you edurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 15:5-6)

The Volunteer State

I am sorry for another blog post about the flood. I didn't want to write another one, because I think they can be a little depressing. But this blog is kinda like my journal or a scrapbook for my life and the floods have really been on my heart and mind. Sorry to like the 5 people who read my blog! HA!

I spent Saturday doing some flood relief. The damage was truly unbleieveable. I cried most of the time I volunteered (shocking I know). The area that I volunteered in was really bad off. The water line in the house came up to my eyes. One house that I worked on, had not even been touched yet. Water was still everywhere. It was so sad.

I was throwing away all her things, demolishing her house. But what she really wanted was someone to listen. She really wants a hug, and to know that someone is there to care for them. I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who have volunteered with the flood relief. I have heard amazing stories and seen the pictures, but I didn't think it would be this hard.

Tennessee is called the Volunteer State, and now I know why! I was so blessed by the other volunteers working as well as the people who we were helping. What a lesson of love, compassion, and hope.

This is one of my favorite articles written about the flood. It brings hope, peace, and encouragement. I just LOVE it and have to share it! It is written by Patten Fugua who typically writes for a hockey website. Love this!

We Are Nashville

By

Patten Fuqua

Published: May 4, 2010

Allow me a moment to step away from the usual voice of this website.

What I am about to write has absolutely nothing to do with hockey.

If you live outside of Nashville, you may not be aware, but our city was hit by a 500-year flood over the last few days. The national news coverage gave us 15 minutes, but went back to focusing on a failed car bomb and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While both are clearly important stories, was that any reason to ignore our story? It may not be as terror-sexy as a failed car bomb or as eco-sexy as an oil spill, but that’s no reason to be ignored.

The Cumberland River crested at its highest level in over 80 years. Nashville had its highest rainfall totals since records began. People drowned. Billions of dollars in damage occurred. It is the single largest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War. And yet…no one knows about it.

Does it really matter? Eventually, it will…as I mentioned, there are billions of dollars in damage. It seems bizarre that no one seems to be aware that we just experienced what is quite possibly the costliest non-hurricane disaster in American history. The funds to rebuild will have to come from somewhere, which is why people need to know. It’s hard to believe that we will receive much relief if there isn’t a perception that we need it.

But let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.

Some will be quick to find fault in the way rescue operations were handled, but the fact of the matter is that the catastrophe could not have been prevented and it is simply ignorant beyond all reason to suggest otherwise. It is a flood. It was caused by rain. You can try to find a face to stick this tragedy to, but you’ll be wrong.

Parts of Nashville that could never even conceivably be underwater were underwater. Some of them still are. Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel are, for all intents and purposes, destroyed. People died sitting in standstill traffic on the Interstate. We saw boats going down West End. And, of course, we all saw the surreal image of the portable building from Lighthouse Christian floating into traffic and being destroyed when cars were knocked into it. I’m still having trouble comprehending all of it.

And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.

Because we are Nashville.

Nashville Flood

I have been having a hard time trying to find the words to write this post. Last weekend, Nashville got a massive amount of rain and flooded. Some people described this event as "devastating" "catastrophic" and "daunting." It is the worst natural disaster to hit Nashville and the death toll is still rising. Nashville and 52 other counties have been considered disaster areas. According to Mayor Dean, the damage assessment (so far) is 1.5 Billion. Yikes!

So I was out of town last weekend during all the storms. I was with some of my sweet friends in Atlanta for Marcy's Bachelorette party! Thanks to twitter, I was aware of what was going on, but did not know the full extent. Sunday, we couldn't make it back to Nashville because all the interstates were closed. I finally made it back on Monday to find the water STILL rising into downtown and Opryland. I also came home to find Nashville on a water shortage! So many of my friends and co-workers lost everything.

It makes my heart so heavy to see hear these stories and see these pictures. It has really affected me, and I am sure I will have more posts and stories from this event.