Heartbreak

Well, it's a crap week for AU basketball. Yesterday the women lost badly to Rutgers, today the men lose a heartbreaker to Baylor. And I mean a heartbreaker. We had the chance to take the lead with just a few seconds left on free throws ... missed them both. Then missed the 3-pointer for the win — instead of taking it to the basket for the tie and overtime. It's a real bummer.

Actual serious post

So I've started reading this new book, "The Shack." It came recommended to me, first by one of my work friends, Meagan, and then through the Core Groupies. Before that, I actually hadn't known that it was a book that could be regarded as Christian fiction — that really just made me more interested in it, because I've seen people out and about reading it, and it was interesting that such a book could be so mainstream. 

Well, so far, it's a great book. The storyline is the last thing I expected, but I think it's just what I needed to read right now. I've really been working hard (and feeling like I'm mostly failing) lately at trying to figure out how to best build my personal relationship with God, and so far, this book has reminded me that it all starts with faith and with remembering that God loves me, in spite of my massive faults. The rest of it follows naturally. I can read the Bible all I want, but until I see God as a member of my family — as a part of me — then I can't have the relationship with Him that I was designed to. It's been really good for me to read and try to take in. 

When one of my best friends, Meg, goes through hard times, she tries to remember this phrase: "Let go and let God." I'm discovering, as I'm sure a lot of other people already know, that that can be the hardest part of growing up. Trust is a lot easier when you're a child. It's harder to come by when you're out in "the real world" and the success of every day hinges on a lot of intangibles. I worry a lot more than I used to, but that worry isn't helping me live a better life or be a better woman or a better wife. I've really got to hold to that simple phrase: Let go, and let God. I guess my prayer should be that God will find a way to make me do just that. 

Justin said we had to blog about it, so here you are!

Today I did my good deed for the day by cooking a nice meal (chicken pot pie, mac and cheese, rolls) and taking it over to Whitney and Justin's (along with a chocolate pie and Milo's tea). Lord knows when we have our kids, I hope people cook for us! Anyhow, I got to meet baby Hayes, who is just as adorable as you could imagine, and I got to spend a couple hours with Whitney, Justin and Hayes. We ended up talking about a whole range of things, and somehow Whitney and I discovered that we have basically the same shoe size (10 for her, 10 and a half for me) and pretty much exactly the same hands -- we held up our hands to each other and they're the same size, and our ring size is actually the exact same. It was definitely a girly-scream moment, and Justin obliged with an awesome girly-scream. And then he was like, "OMG, you totally have to blog about this!" But I think he was mocking us.

The weather outside is so gorgeous that it has just taken me right out of the funk I've been in for the past few days. I love Alabama so much when the weather's like this -- I go outside for a few minutes, and I believe I can do anything. In fact, it's inspired me to do some impromptu spring cleaning, so I'm going through the house trying to tidy up and get the house together to surprise Patrick. You won't tell him, will you? :)

March Madness has begun (as I'm sure you all know), but more importantly, our Auburn Tigers keep winning! The women's basketball team won earlier today to make it to the round of 32 in the women's tournament, and the men won last night to make it to the Sweet 16 of the NIT. I'm excited that both teams are continuing to play well, and I'd love to see us contend for a championship or two! 

OK, back to the Madness. Right now, the Jones team (that would be me and Patrick) are winning in our bracket challenge with the church group, but that might change today as a lot of our teams are in bad match-ups. The way we play March Madness, we all drafted teams to follow throughout the tournament, and the couple whose teams win the most will win it all. Yesterday, we had six out of seven teams with wins. Unfortunately, today, most of those teams aren't expected to win. For example, LSU (our team) is up against UNC ... you get the idea. Oh well. The games are still a heckuva lot of fun to watch. I love this time of year. 

Yay, Trey's here!

My little brother made a trip up here to hang with us for the night. So far it's going awesome ... we're watching Coming to America, which so far is pretty hilarious. Ah, I remember these days when Eddie Murphy was actually funny. That doesn't happen anymore, except for the Shrek movies.

Auburn won today! Of course, despite the fact that they're a No. 1 seed, they still weren't on TV. Boo. Hopefully they'll be on TV Friday night. Just two more wins and they're going to Madison Square Garden!

So, OMG, Twilight's coming out this weekend!! I couldn't be more excited. I mean, the movie wasn't a top 10 movie or anything, but I still loved it.

I'm at a week and a half of doing yoga every day! Patrick and I have been doing it together every day for about four days. We're pretty pumped about that.

OK, this was just a short post 'cause I was thinking I needed to do it. If y'all don't mind praying for a few things:

-My sister-in-law's job is about to drive her crazy, so she needs some love out D.C. way.
-Patrick and I both desperately need some time off to just spend some time together before we go crazy too.

Next post will be longer, I promise!

Ladies and gentlemen, your Auburn Lady Tigers!

OK, guys, I'm here right now, watching the Women's NCAA Tournament selection show. Our Auburn Tigers are battling for a possible No. 1 seed (likely a No. 2), and I'm here to record it for posterity. I'll also try to keep up with the other SEC seedings.

*Vandy's a No. 4 seed -- here's hoping we don't end up in their region since, as we all know, Vandy tends to beat us. After all, they were the only team to beat us twice this year (and we only lost to one other team)! If we get into the Final Four, hopefully they won't be there either. (Whew -- we're not in their region.)

*LSU's a No. 6 seed in the Raleigh region, and I think they're playing in Baton Rouge for their first game. That should be fair to the other team. 

*The commentator's talking about how tough Vandy played us. Once again, here's hoping we don't see them in the tourney. And here's hoping we don't see UConn until the Final Four. They are downright scary -- undefeated, and they have won every single game in double digits. Are y'all hearing what I'm saying? Every game. Double digits. 

*Still waiting to hear Auburn's name called. I'm hoping it's in this region ... Oklahoma City. Oh, no. It's not in this region so far ... if we're not in this region, then that means we've got a chance of being stuck in UConn's region, and Nell Fortner (Auburn's head coach) is going to cut somebody.

*Now they're announcing the bottom of the Oklahoma City region. Hopefully Auburn will be in this one. (UNC is the No. 3 seed here -- I love UNC's basketball program, and would love to see our girls play theirs!) 

*YES! Auburn's in here! We're playing No. 15 seed Lehigh in New Jersey. Ok, that kind of sucks that we're in New Jersey, but the point is that we wouldn't see UConn until at least the Final Four. Granted, we have a whole mess of teams to make it through to even get there, but we have the talent to play with anyone. 

*Oooh, they're commentating on Auburn now! I'm going to rewind my DVR in a minute so I can recap that. OK, here we go: Basically, they're saying that if we make it past our opening-round game, we'll have to play Rutgers on their home floor (also assuming they make it past their first-round game). That's rough for us, because Rutgers has got one of the best coaches in the game and a great home-town atmosphere, but I still believe we can play with anyone. They're also saying DeWanna Bonner would have to play big for us to advance past Rutgers, but that Nell Fortner knows how to use that as motivation for our girls. They also recap that Auburn, despite a lot of talent, has not won an NCAA tournament game since Nell's been there. 

*Now Pat Summitt, who is one of the best basketball coaches of all time -- men's or women's -- is talking about how this was a rough year for Tennessee. They won the national championship the last two years with one of my favorite players, Candace Parker, leading them. This year they were ranked most of the year, made the NCAA tournament, and it's still a down year. This is how dominant Tennessee is. Need any more convincing? Pat Summitt is the only coach in NCAA history to have 1,000 wins. She's been at Tennessee for 40 years. I love this lady. 

*Tennessee is a No. 5 seed in the Berkeley region, which puts the SEC with four teams in the tournament so far (I think). 

*Yay, we got another one! Mississippi State is a No. 11 seed in the Berkeley region, as well. 

*Another reason Tennessee is so dominant: They have the most consecutive bids to the tournament with 28. OMG. 28 straight years. And, they have never missed a Sweet 16 in all that time. Pat Summitt has eight national championships to her credit. And 18 Final Four appearances.

*No. 1 seeds: Oklahoma, Duke, Maryland and (surely) UConn. Yep, there it is: No. 1 in the Trenton region, UConn.

*Wow, Florida's in too, as a No. 8 seed in Trenton! That's six SEC teams so far! Looks like the girls are making up for the boys having such a down year ... and there's seven! Georgia's in as a No. 11 seed! I'm really proud of the SEC women!

*And the entire field has finally been revealed. Just to recap:

-Auburn is a No. 2 seed in the Oklahoma City region. They'll play No. 15 seed Lehigh this Saturday at 11 a.m. on ESPN2. Definitely gotta be there for that. 

-The SEC has seven teams in. That's gotta be the most or tied for the most out of any conference. And I think the lowest seed out of the SEC was a No. 11. That's pretty good. 

*SEC games:

No. 2 Auburn vs. No. 15 Lehigh, Saturday at 11 a.m., ESPN2 -- Oklahoma City region

No. 4 Vandy vs. No. 13 Western Carolina, Saturday at 7 p.m., ESPN2 -- Raleigh region

No. 6 LSU vs. No. 11 Green Bay, Sunday at 6 p.m., ESPN2 -- Raleigh region

No. 5 Tennessee vs. No. 12 Ball State, Sunday at 7:30 p.m., ESPN2 -- Berkeley region

No. 11 Mississippi State vs. No. 5 Texas, Saturday at 11 a.m., ESPN2 (Hopefully we'll get the AU game) -- Berkeley region

No. 8 Florida vs. No. 9 Temple, Sunday at 1:30 p.m., ESPN/ESPN2 -- Trenton region

No. 11 Georgia vs. No. 6 Arizona State, Saturday at noon, ESPN2 -- Trenton region

It's 7:20 a.m. in Alabama. I really need a camel.

That blog title will only make sense to you if you've seen "An Evening With Kevin Smith." 

Anyhow, I'm up this early because Patrick and I decided to get up at 6 a.m. to do some morning yoga. Of course, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to wake up at 6 a.m., and since I was worried about that, I ended up waking up at 4:12 a.m. Then I woke up every 15 or 20 minutes after that until 6 a.m. I guess that works. 

The yoga was good -- that's a week straight that I have done yoga every day. I think it's really helping -- I definitely feel more flexible, and I'm able to do the poses more easily than I did a week ago. Patrick's got his back problems, so I'm really happy he's doing the yoga with me now. It should help his back out a lot. It's not great that it's Monday, but I guess them's the breaks. Maybe I'll post some interesting stuff online later. Maybe I'll fall asleep at work. I guess it's a 50-50 chance. :)

First post ... amazing!

Ok, so I haven't had a blog in forever. Actually, I don't think I've ever had a blog. The closest thing I've had was that LiveJournal thing that you all may recall from, like, seven years ago. I didn't even do a good job keeping up with that, actually. You would think, being a journalist and writing for a living, I'd be better with this.

You would be wrong.

But now I've been forced into having a blog again by the girls in our Core Group (read: cult) who said, and I quote, "You're not a member of the group until you have a blog!" In fact, in the three times Sarah Hearn e-mailed me, every single time she managed to say some variation of, "START A BLOG AND TELL US SO WE CAN STALK YOU!" I definitely feel loved. And a lot of peer pressure. :)

Patrick and I did have fun coming up with a name for this, however. We have this favorite SNL skit with Garth Brooks and Will Ferrell, where Garth is willing to sell his soul to the devil for a hit song. Of course, the devil writes really crappy songs, which we love. So don't be surprised if one day you come to the blog and the name has changed from "Keeping Up With the Joneses" to "We've Been Bitten By the Love Bat ... And It's Driving Us Mad!" That's also why the blog's URL is myguitarwasoutoftune.blogspot.com. Sorry for the SNL nerdiness. 

Anyhow, I'm hopeful that this attempt at keeping up a blog will go better. It probably will if people will leave comments and at least let me know someone reads this. I'm going to try to update at least once a week, probably on Saturdays or Sundays. And for those who care about such things, I'll try and leave a list of prayer requests at the bottom -- that'll help me keep up with the blog, too. And I'll probably use this as an opportunity to pass on interesting or funny news articles (which I love to do on Facebook).

Prayer requests:

-That mine and Patrick's relationship with God will continue to grow

-That our relationship with each other will continue to deepen

-That my Mom won't be so stressed with work

-That my brother will be able to start thinking about college, basketball and his future with both of those