Introspective in Indiana

I just got back today from a second vacation. I asked for some days off, and headed off early Friday morning, September 2, for the state of Indiana to spend some time with my best friend, Steven Matlock and his family.

One of the highlights of my trip was meeting a college mate of mine, Jennifer, in the town she resides in, one I pass through on my way to Indiana. We met at Cracker Barrel in Zanesville, OH, about 2 1/4 hours from where I am. I admit I was a bit nervous...yeah, I can talk a lot, but it had been 20 years since we had seen each other.... if it was more recent, we could not remember.

My fears were groundless. We spent two hours at CB eating and chatting, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so refreshing to talk about the things we talked about. I hope we can do it again some time.

I headed on to Bloomington, IN where Steven works and where I lived for two years. If you are a Karen Kingsbury fan, that is the town where she set her best-selling Redemption Series - the "Baxter books" and the umpteen series that have been spin-offs of that series.

My one co-worker made the observation that it sounded like all I was doing was eating...... and yes, I did a lot of that. I met Steven at his place of employment and we headed to Texas Roadhouse. After hitting a couple of stores, we headed on to Orleans, IN where he lives. His entire family was over to his parents for the evening - brother and wife and 3 boys and sister and her husband and little girl. I had a great evening chatting with all of them and playing the Wii..... which resulted in my ordering a new Wii game from Amazon.

Saturday was a busy day. It started off with stuffed blueberry pancakes for breakfast from Bob Evans, courtesy of Steven's dad. Man...... I thought I died and went to Heaven - they are that good!

Steven and I headed back to Bloomington to get a stereo installed on his car at Best Buy and killed some time which included more eating..... I had to try the new mini burgers at Burger King. And yes - I shared them. :-)

We headed for Westfield, IN to visit my friend Cindy Matlock Rundell and her husband, Russell. Got there around 5:20. (Cindy is Steven's cousin) After seeing their new place of residence, we headed out to eat. I had never been to Five Guys and loved it, though their Cajun fries are so spicy my head sweat a river - but very good food. We followed that up with a trip to Handel's Ice cream - yum!

Cindy and Russell were kind enough to take us to Family Christian Stores nearby so I could check out their Labor Day door busters. And I did buy two - a CD and a DVD for $5 each - sweet!

After visiting with the Rundells, we headed back to Steven's house, getting home around 1 am. Surprisingly, we managed to get up and make it to church, where I got to see some more acquaintances and got to hear about the new endeavor of the church - the prayer stand. Marc and Melody Sankey, back from the mission field, talked about the stand and their experiences on Friday there. Cool stuff. If you, like me, had no idea what the prayer stand was, check out these sites:

Prayer Stand

Go Forth All

After a great Sunday dinner, I got in a great Sunday afternoon nap which ended with Steven waking me and telling me I needed to be ready to go to Sunday evening church in ten minutes. I managed to pull it off.

Monday..... Steven and I went out to breakfast with Steven Hight, pastor of Faith Mission Church in Bedford, IN, the church the Matlock family attends. We had a great time of eating and talking with this very wise man. And no, I didn't get a stuffed blueberry pancake. :-)

The whole Matlock family and I gathered at Susanne Matlock and Joe Mincer's house for a cook-out. I wanted to help out, so I made the mistake of bringing 3 bags of chips I had bought. We ended up with 12 bags of chips for 12 people. The table was half-full of chips.

I spent a lot of time on the trampoline with the Matlock boys and Steven's brother-in-law. An interesting experience being on a trampoline with Joseph Mincer. It was fun though.

It was rough telling Joe and Susanne and Michael and Kim and their boys good-bye. It is harder to say good-bye to someone when you don't know when you will see them next. Steven and his mother and I headed back to their place where we finished the day by playing some more of the Wii.

I left this morning for Ohio around 6:30 am. I stopped for gas a couple of times, a rest area once, and stopped at Bob Evans for...... a stuffed pancake with blueberries - again... awesome.

I safely arrived home around 1:45 this afternoon. I had great weather going down and coming back. I had a great time and was sad to have it end so soon.

I titled my blog post "Introspective In Indiana" for a reason. I found myself being very introspective while on my trip. And yes, that word actually came to me. I didn't come up with it just for my blog post. :-)

Sometimes we make life more complicated than it really is, and sometimes it really is complicated. I did a lot of thinking while I was away. Deep stuff. Some was probably brought on from talking to my friend Jennifer at Cracker Barrel - we hit on some pretty heavy stuff.... but getting away from everything and everyone also helped introspection to set in.

I am not where I want to be. I feel like I still don't know what and where I want to be when I grow up, yet I have most likely lived half of my life at this point. I find myself wishing God would send me an email telling me what to do with my life. It seems so meaningless and empty. I am single, staying with my parents for what was supposed to be a few months, but has turned into a few years. I need to find a better job, but have no idea where to look, where to go.
I am not - and have not been - happy with my church since moving back, but don't know where I should go.

I am single, and there isn't much chance of that changing.

I did a lot of looking at my life while away and know I need to make some changes, but the task is so daunting, I don't know where to start. So yeah, I was truly introspective in Indiana.

I am thankful I was able to get the time off and could make the trip. I shall now set aside my introspection and head to bed......