Several years ago, while I was going to school at OSU, I attended a great non-denominational church, Sunnybrook Christian Church. Shortly after I started going there, the church began a study of Rick Warren's book, 40 Days of Purpose. As part of this study, the church set up several small groups.
College Roomie and I were assigned to a hodge-podge group of sorts. Conventional wisdom in chruches probably tries to assign people to these groups by age, place in life, marital status, etc. Well, our group broke any type of definition. The members were: three senior citizens---one man and his wife....he operated their ranch and she worked at the extension office, and one widowed friend of theirs who was the principal of the church school; a young married couple in their twenties with no children; a second young couple with a baby on the way; college roomie, and me. Probably had the church been paying attention, they would not have gone with this grouping. But I'm glad they weren't, because I couldn't have hoped for one better!
Our 40 days quickly ended, but the group stayed in tact, meeting once a month, every month, to this day. And we've seen a lot of changes in the last 6 years. We've added a total of four new babies, a new great grand child, celebrated one couple's 60th wedding anniversary, celebrated two graduations, seen two retirements, watched countless moves, and our fair share of hard times including deaths and divorces of people in our families and lives. Through it all, the group remained in tact.
To this day, this group of people still cares about and inspires each other. I know that these people are always there for me, whether I need prayers or advice or just some encouragement as I try to live a life of faith. I think being able to see what faith looks like not just in my peers, but in people at all different stages in their lives has been invaluable to me. My small group family gave me that. 
Although I am no longer attending the meeting once a month, I stay in touch by email and I always try to see everyone when I am back in Stillwater. Last weekend, the young couple who had no children when we began happened to be here in town. As you can see, they added to the baby total! 
Our small group family may not look like most others, but we bonded unlike many others as well. I could not be happier to have these people in my life, and I am grateful every day that God worked his magic to bring us together. I truly believe they have helped make me a better person.
Quick update on the book....it is currently at the publisher and will be mailed out to buyers October 26! And, my friend is such a rockstar.....she went to a real recording studio and made an audio version of the book as well! You can 
So whether it means wearing cute shoes, or buying yourself flowers, calling your friends, writing a blog, listening to good music while you get ready, or whatever.....we all need to find something fun and exciting in every single day.
Now, in order to understand this, we have to go back to State Fair back in the glory days---circa 1999 ish. Back then, EVERYONE stayed in the dorms and there were concerts and/or street dances every night. I remember being 14 or 15 and getting all 14 of the lambs and 4 of the pigs fed and heading in to get ready for the dances. (The thought of this now completely exhausts me!) I promise you that the people my age tried our hardest to dance a hole in the floor of Tingley and in the street outside. It is amazing that our parents trusted us enough to let us go off running around the fairgrounds at all hours of the night--maybe times were different then or something.
So....apparently it's pretty easy to go from the young guy to the old guy at the horse barn, and from the fun loving teenager to the old lady in the stands. And I hear that life only goes faster and faster. I think the only thing for me to do is to really live up the stage of life I'm in. That way, when I'm sitting in the bleachers somewhere reminessing about this time in my life, I have really, really fun memories to look back on!
I realize that not everyone wants to write a book. Heck, I know a few people who don't even want to read a book. But regardless, I think that we can all take something from Crazy Canadian. When we have dreams and set goals, even ones that may seem unreachable, good things happen. If we set our goals, and then take things one step at a time to achieve them, we can eventually reach our goals. Live an Amazing Life is proof of that! I could not be more proud of my friend making her dream come true!
And you have to watch the video....they're just adorable. The Mrs. is officially in charge of planning my wedding one day. 
In the regular show, we also had a class winner in the crosses, but the picture of that lamb has not arrived yet. Stay tuned for another upate to come.
Quote of the Month:
First, the Blonde Oklahoma Girl and I were discussing boys. In particular, we were discussing this recent situation we keep seeing where they are into way younger girls, and ignore the fact that a great girl their own age is right under their nose. And, I'll probably get in trouble for telling on him....but I guess we'll see if he actually reads the blog. Cousin Swiss Mister was one of the worst examples. He wrote something in an email along the lines of "Girl #1 is Norwegian. She's smart and a PhD and she is really nice and cooks dinner for me and has a good head on her shoulders. But Girl #2 is a young, hot Spanish babysitter." (Note: Country names have been changed to protect the innocent). Needless to say, we were not impressed. The Blonde Oklahoma Girl's analysis: "He is being an ass in every language!" Well said!
I read a quote recently that I thought was a great explaination of life for a 20 something.