There’s a popular country song right now that proclaims, “Funny how a melody / sounds like a memory,” and every time I hear it I can’t help but think how true it is. Certain songs are so strongly associated with eras of my life that when I hear them I’m immediately taken back to a time, a place, an emotion.

Anything that was popular during the summer of 2001, for example, puts me in the lobby of the crummy dorm at Ole Miss where they housed us for nerd camp (let’s not talk about where the cheerleading camp girls got to live. No, we weren’t bitter…) watching TRL on MTV every afternoon. Here’s a gratuitous *NSYNC video to set the tone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWZKw_MgUPI

You’re welcome.

On my way to work the other day, I heard a Maroon 5 song that I hadn’t heard in years, and I was immediately reminded of my months getting ready to head off to MSMS. I think I was nervous about living with a roommate for the first time, and I remember making cute posters for our walls with paint pens, one of which contained the lyrics, “It’s not always rainbows and butterflies / It’s compromise that moves us along.” (P.S. Those are great lyrics to remember for, like, you know, marriage, and life, too!)

I could come up with so many more, but I’ll stop there for now. I know I’m not the first to have this revelation, and I won’t be the last (I mean, there’s even a song about the power of songs!) What is it about music that has such a power to evoke this intense nostalgia? Songs can dredge people and events out of my subconscious that I never would have remembered or thought of on my own. It’s a beautiful and wonderful (and sometimes sad) feeling to be reminded so vividly.

Does music have this pull on you? What songs take you back?

Y’all, I am exhausted today. We had a fabulous day yesterday watching the donations roll in for Twive and Receive, but it’s tiring being that plugged in an excited all day! I am glad it’s the weekend.

And on that note, take a peek at my bookshelf over on my friend Katie’s blog! Katie and I may have met in person once or twice in college, and I actually went to high school with her husband, but we have really gotten to know each other more through our blogs now that we live on opposite sides of the country. Go figure. She is doing a cool series featuring people’s bookshelves, and I’m pleased as punch to be showing you mine over there today!

Have a great weekend, and read some good books!

Fundraising often gets a bad rap. And you know, even though it’s what I do for a living, I’ll admit that copious mailings, endless telethons, and phone calls that inevitably come during dinner can be quite annoying. But fundraising is a necessary part of the life of any healthy ministry or nonprofit. And with the advent of so many new technologies, it’s exciting to see how the fundraising landscape is changing.

Social media (like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) is obviously a huge part of “the ask,” because of the ways it allows you to build relationships. But for many nonprofits, the thought of doing all these things on the Internet is utterly overwhelming, and many donors are scared of making online donations. Enter: Twive and Receive.

Twive and Receive is a really avant garde competition that is forcing nonprofits to dive headfirst into the social media world. It’s a 24-hour online giving challenge among over 200 organizations nationwide. Each city has one representative, and I’m supporting Atlanta’s contender, Buckhead Christian Ministry. The top 3 fundraising organizations nationwide receive a share of a $30,000 grant and the unofficial title of Most Generous City. The goal is to rally your “tweeps,” your Facebook fans, any bloggers you know, the local news media, etc. to spread the word about your cause and drive traffic to your donation page. (Of course, that’s the goal of fundraising in general, but this is a highly focused campaign because it’s limited to those 24-hours.)

After weeks of getting ready and planning strategy, Twive is finally here! You can view the full list of participants here to find the city nearest you! I am, of course, biased, and I’m hoping to see the donation widget below fill up by the hour.

If you’d like to join me, every donation goes toward helping BCM provide financial assistance to families so they can keep their lights on, stay in their homes, put food on the table, and dress for success. We’ve adopted the hashtag “ATLCaresMost,” and it’s seeing people care for “the least of these” and serve unselfishly that reminds me how much people really do care.

I’ll end my telethon (blogathon?) here, but I’m curious: How do you decide what charities to support? Do you feel comfortable making online donations?

I struggle with late night hunger. I’m not talking Taco Bell “4th meal” cravings. I’m talking gnawing, empty feeling stomach hunger that keeps me from falling asleep. I’ve always tended to get hungry at frequent intervals and needed to eat regularly, so I try to keep an eye on my hunger level and have a snack before bed if it seems I’m a bit peckish. But some nights I feel fine….until I’ve tossed and turned for an hour and all of a sudden realize that OH MY GOSH I FEEL LIKE HAVEN’T EATEN IN A YEAR AND I NEED FOOD NOW.

It’s really frustrating, because by that point, nothing I eat is going to be enjoyable. I don’t mind having a pre-bed snack, but once I get to the point of not being able to sleep, any nourishment is going to be for necessity’s sake only. For that reason, I often try to ignore it and see if I can fall asleep and avoid the awkward standing-in-the-dark-in-the-kitchen chomping a granola bar occurrence. But that’s usually a bad choice, because it only prolongs the inevitable.

It happened with a vengeance on Sunday night, even though I felt perfectly satisfied after not dinner and not hungry as I got ready for bed. No food that I could think of seemed remotely appealing, because all I really wanted to be doing was sleeping. I drank some water to see if I could trick myself into thinking I was full, but to no avail. I ended up grabbing a handful of trail mix and choking it down.

It’s hard to know what to do about this problem. I don’t want to force myself to have a snack before bed if I’m not hungry, because that would be useless calories. But I hate, hate, hate hunger-inflicted insomnia.

I try to have something small and protein-rich when I do need a snack:

• a glass of soy milk
• a few slices of sandwich meat
• a piece of cheese
• a small handful of almonds

Though there is the occasional night wherein I find myself eating cold chicken casserole and noodles straight from the container…yep. My late-night snacking isn’t the diet killer that women’s magazines always warn against. I’m not eating delicious things like ice cream because I crave them or can’t muster up self-control. I’m literally eating because I have to, if I want any sleep at all.

Do you have any times of day where you struggle with a need to snack? What are your go-to healthy and satisfy nibbles?

I can’t believe I’m typing this sentence, but this post is about roaches. Yup. (I’ll spare all of us and not include a picture.)

I grew up in Mississippi in a house with lots of trees in the yard. Ergo, we had roaches. Not that there were swarms or anything, but I would definitely see them around. And then the pest control guy would come, and after that we would only see dead ones. And so the cycle went.

I had a friend who was deathly afraid of them due to an unfortunate experience with one. I have a vivid memory of one night when she spent the night. We were watching some kittens for the weekend for a friend of my family’s, and she and I were sleeping in sleeping bags in the room with them. At one point, we noticed a kitten playing with something, which turned out to be a roach. She jumped up onto a chair like a shot. I laughed at her…but then calmly proceeded to go wake my dad up to kill it. Clearly I knew what men were for. ;-)

My college also was graced with numerous cockroaches. Sometimes if you were walking back to your dorm at night it would appear that the sidewalk was crawling away from you. I somehow was the designated brave roach squisher on my freshman hall….oh, how times change.

Since then, my encounters with roaches have thankfully become few and far between! In our last apartment, I think I saw one the entire 2-ish years we were there. Lately we’ve had a few that seem to be coming in through the pipes. When you live in the South, they seem to be a fact of life in the warmer months. It’s been infrequent–one now and then, in the kitchen or bathroom where it’s pretty obvious how it got in. But they seem to be particularly big ones, and I can’t handle them. Andy is clearly the designated cockroach killer in my life, and he rises to the occasion beautifully. And I have thus completely lost my tolerance for them. The other night after he was asleep, I saw one in the bathroom, and I didn’t want to go in there the rest of the night. I lay in bed in fear that it would somehow get up and crawl across me as I slept. I’ve now acquired my friend’s desire to jump on top of the furniture if I see one. No longer am I Laura the Brave Roach Squisher of my college days.

I’m curious as to how this phobia developed. I mean, I know it’s not unreasonable–roaches are pretty gross. But why did I used to not be that bothered by them but now can’t stand the mere thought of them? Our brains work in mysterious ways.

Do you have any phobias that have developed as you’ve gotten older? Who deals with the creepy crawlies in your household?