Happy Texas Independence Day, Y'all!

Did you know March 2nd is Texas Independence Day? After all those years of living in Texas, I had no idea until this year. I bet my friend, Worley, has a holiday from work tomorrow since she seems to get off for every holiday I've never heard of before. Apparently there are big celebrations in NYC every year and this year was the 1st Annual Texas Independence Day Concert. It was a night of Texas country music - Robert Earl Keen, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Charlie Robinson, etc.... A lot of people I know were going, so I went too! It was one of those moments where NYC suddenly seems really small...like the times when I run into people I know on the street. I met a couple of girls from my Community Group there and also a group from my Book Club. There were also some people from the Baylor alum group there who I saw scattered about. It was a fun night!

Robyn from CG & I

Robyn, Sarah & ISarah's friend kept popping into our pics

Random boy who went to the bar and bought

a bunch of beer for his friends. They left left

before he came back with it. We thought this was hilarious so we had to

take a pic of us with all his extra beersLynn, Rosella, and I from book club...Christina

was there, too, but didn't get her pic!

Lynn w/ her husband Trent. His birthday is March

1st, so this was his NYC birthday celebration.

On Saturday, I also went to cook dinner again for the ladies at the Bowery Mission Women's Center. Such a neat place!! I met a great group of girls from church at the grocery store at 3:30 to buy all our ingredients and then we headed over to the home to cook in the awesome kitchen! We made Mexican food again....enchiladas, home made salsa, black bean dip, Fiesta Salad, and awesome brownies for dessert. For some reason, things were really chaotic this time -- nothing seemed to go right, but we got everything made and on the tables...just had to postpone their dinner 30 minutes! I got the chance to chat with a few ladies in the home - they are so interesting! Most of them are in the 1st phase where they are rarely allowed to leave the house, and never alone. One lady I talked to is at the phase where she is able to have a job. They are all so sweet and excited about what the future holds for them.

Last week I had a busy week again...too busy. I have kind of made a decision to keep my week nights a little more open in March, hopefully I can stick with it! Tuesday was Community Group and it was GREAT! I've really been praying for our group the past few weeks. I've been meeting with these girls for over two years and I think that they are so fun and love their commitment and consistency to the group. But, I've felt for a while now that something is missing. We just don't go as deep as I'd like to go...in our relationships with each other or encouraging our relationships with God. I've been wondering if I needed a change. But, the last 2 times I've gone, I've really enjoyed it and seen a different side of some of the girls - really opening up!! Our church is doing 40 days of Prayer during Lent. They are sending daily emails and we are all praying for the same things every day during the Lenten Season. I think prayer can be so powerful and am excited to see how it affects our church, its people, and our city. We are also focusing on prayer in our small groups during this time and it was really neat to see the girls in my group excited to pray together and we had a really good discussion about what prayer looks like to us and what it should look like. Last week, there were only 4 of us and it happened to be the 4 who are currently not dating anyone. We added a commitment to pray that each of us has one date during the 40 days - ha!

Wednesday night we had our Ash Wednesday service at church. There were a lot of people there, which was great! And it was good to remember what Lent should look like for us and begin to focus on recalibrating our hearts back to Jesus. I am very excited about this Lenton Season and am looking to put to death some things in my life that have taken to much control and re-awaken some areas in my relationship with Christ that I have let lay dormant for far too long.

On Thursday night, I took Rosella, Christina, and Lynn to a hockey game. Ros & Chris have been wanting to go for a while and I got an extra, so we got Lynn to join us. I forget how crazy hockey fans are. At the Knicks game the week before, no one really got excited and started making noise until the last few minutes of the game. At the hockey game, there is noise from the first minute on. They are really into it! It was a fun night. I haven't gone to many games myself this year, but have enjoyed sharing my perks with others. I have sent the guys on the staff at my church to a game, then the 2 girls on staff went with 2 other girls from church to another game - it was one of the girl's birthdays and she is a huge hockey fan! I also sent one of the girls who is on my S.S. teaching roster to a game with her boyfriend. And our ticket guy has gotten better about alerting me when our 4 Dallas tickets aren't being used, so it's been fun to let my friends down there go to games! I don't care that much about hockey, so I really enjoy letting other people go more than I enjoy going myself!

Friday night, I went to see the movie The Wrestler. I don't know why I thought I would like that movie. I really hated the wrestling scenes - it was so painful to watch!! Luckily, I was sitting next to a random guy who thought it was hilarious, so after a while his laughter spread to me and I got over being disgusted by it and found it kind of funny. I didn't really like that movie though.

Now all y'all make sure to where your cowboy boots tomorrow to celebrate Texas!!