my trip to Tuscaloosa + another groovy way to help!

Hello blog-world, friends, family, and fellow prayer warriors! 


Let me especially thank that last group for the support you've sent to Alabama by praying for strength, comfort, and direction for the future.  I think it is safe to say after visiting the Heart of Dixie this past weekend that God has wrapped his arms around that state and is sending so many volunteers & servers to spread His love and I hope that love continues to bring peace and comfort to the many people who are still suffering, lost, heart-broken, and in disarray... as they will be for quite some time but with the spirit that is alive and well in that special place, I see GREAT things in store for the future of Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and the entire state and it's beautiful, gracious people!  I am SO glad I went this weekend. 


Seeing the devastation was the most uncomfortable experience of my life. With our load of donations from Central Florida in tow, Dad drove and I squirmmed around in my seat in every effort to find a place of comfort as I looked at my 'second home' in a complete and utter, tragic mess.  There wasn't much Daddy and I could muster up to try to explain what we were feeling.  All we could keep saying is, "it's nothing like it is on the news, which is bad. But being here and seeing this is WAY worse."  We just kept saying that over and over... needless to say, we know devastation on a completely new and heart-touching level. 


That place -- that special place -- where I have spent the last 5.5 years of my life and where I called 'home' from August 14, 2005 - December 1, 2010 (straight thru without ever coming home for a summer or anything) was and is forever changed.

Here are the photos I snapped while we dropped off the donations & supplies!

Here's the view from my front porch that I last lived at in University Village...

the neighborhood across the street (Rosedale Community) and the neighborhood adjacent to my last apartment dwelling (Forrest Lake) were completely destroyed and where several residents and UA students lost their lives.  Words cannot express my sympathy.

This was a humbling experience and I can't even imagine what it was like in the immediate aftermath and days following the huge tornado outbreak crisis.  It was AWFUL, and I was there a week and a half later.

The state of Alabama still needs your prayers!!!

Like always, though, I was able to see beauty even in the most tragic and ruined of places.  There is a spirit, an emotion that is so present in that town, and I know now that it's not just championships on the grid-iron that fuel that town's fire... that place is not only moved by the grumble of Bear Bryant's voice but the grumble of mother nature's fury and the path it left behind -- each bringing inspiration to future, but marking it's major spot in history - and both bringing a town, a state, and people of every race, religion, and background together...

and if that's an all-around beautiful thing and what the true spirit of God's word is!!!  I can't wait to see what God has in store for the future there and everywhere.  Sometimes (and I know this first-hand), you have to lose the life and the things you knew in order to find the life and the things that awaits you... and when it is something like a fire, or a tornado, an earthquake, or another form of nature's fury, you can find trust that it was constructed by the man upstairs for a purpose.  Somedays it will be hard to see that because the destruction can overwhelm us, but rewards await he who is faithful. 

Trust me.

I want to send a VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to everyone that helped me in my relief efforts by bringing supplies, food, clothes, money, neccessities, and etc. to me so that I was able to make use of my pre-planned trip to Alabama and turn it into a service opportunity.  It is comforting to know that I am amongst friends, family, and a community that is so willing to help out others that are complete strangers... and on a personal level, it means a lot that they know how special Tuscaloosa is to me.  It may not be where my roots are - I am back living there, now - but it is where my branches formed, where I sprung to life as a young woman, where I fell, stumbled, and got back up again and where I learned to embrace myself as Baily.  I am proud and gracious that the Lord made me a server because I was gung-ho on giving back to the place that helped shape me and to the people who gave to me when I was in a time of need and suffering.  I love you Tuscaloosians!! And fellow Central Floridians - thank you for helping me shower T-Town with that love!!! I'm lucky to have been "made" by the experiences I've gained in both places.  I couldn't ask for anything better!  Orlando to Tuscaloosa LOVE!

Thanks, Dad for your help that day and for the moral support you always are.

Except, I think this experience - seeing "ground zero" in our favorite little college town - was just as shocking and life-changing for him as it was for me.  I am glad to have a Dad who taught me how to care for others first!  He is the most unselfish man I know and my Mom is the most unselfish and giving woman I know so it's no wonder they were a perfect match :)

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Do you want to know how you can give to the relief efforts in Tuscaloosa in a REALLY nifty way?!?  CHECK. THIS. OUT.

This awesome blog is hosting a Blogger Baby Shower for the little tiny victims and their mothers in Tuscaloosa.  As a mother-to-be with a little sister who lives in Tuscaloosa (sound familiar!?!) she and other blogger-friends of hers are hosting this fantastic virtual party and I invite you!!!

Here's how it works:

Simply visit the baby registry that they have set up at Amazon.com.

CLICK HERE

Then, pick out what you'd like to donate! 

Amazon will automatically send and deliver the package to a church in Tuscaloosa who has volunteers that are assigning the supplies with the correct needs of each mother and baby.

By doing this, we are able to help the hundreds of mothers who are in desperate need of these basic neccessities in order to care for their infant.  Knowing what it is like to be displaced, without a home, and amongst destruction after losing everything - I can only imagine what it would be like to have to care for and worry about the needs of an infant baby being met when it is so often a struggle just to get back on one's own two feet. Pray for these mothers and pray for these babies!!

Items start at just $8.99 at this super-cool e-baby shower, so there is something for every budget!

Plus, by purchasing something to donate, you are automatically entered to win some pretty cool prizes (like a $50 giftcard to HomeGoods by The Insprired Housewife and a $25 giftcard to At The Picket Fence)

Props to these ladies for hosting such a wonderful baby shower and service project!

May God shower them with many blessings!

Peace & Love

Baily

a song called lochloosa and lochloosa sounds like my home.. for florida...

Lauren and Whitney bought me some suprises when they were in Seaside, Florida over the 4th of July Weekend. Supposedly there's this new record store there that I hear I would "just looove!" and they brought me a couple teases home. They bought me the Michael Jackson 'Thriller' album, Janis Joplin's *ORIGINAL PRESSED* 'I Got Them Ol' Kozmic Blues Again, Mama!' album, and the JJ Grey & Mofro 'The Choice Cuts' album.

The JJ Grey & Mofro album was one I had never heard before (the Michael Jackson and Janis Joplin albums came out obviously several decades ago so I've given my ears a listen a few times on each of those). But the 'The Choice Cuts' vinyl is already well-loved by me.

It got me through a pretty treturous week of studying for that killer Social Psychology exam. But I just got home from it, and I rocked it's gypsy soul. I really do like this lecture, and the material is enough basic theory that I can apply my previous knowledge to it, but it goes into depth in the social and cognitive domains of psychology and there's always a bold-fonted key term in the textbook that I don't know, so it's been pleasantly challenging. I stop there, and go no further, because the last thing I need is to say that and then completely _beep!_ myself when the next two exams are the pit-fall of ever being both pleasant and challenging and becomes HELL.

But I love this album because there is a lot of Florida heritage that are written in the lyrical component of this different style of music. It's swamp-folk and country-rock and a little bit of jazziness mixed with mountainy bluegrass strings. I can put it simpler, into two words: I DIG. (I have even facebook-statused some of the lyrics about my beloved swampy sunhine state!)

Here are some of the lyrics I just love and this new band of interest for me definitely gets a high five for singing some good tunes about the very misunderstood nature of my homestate...

FLORIDA!

Homesick but it's alright / Lochloosa is on my mind / She's on my mind /

I swear its 10,000 degrees in the shade / Lord have mercy knows - how much I love it /

Every mosquito every rattlesnake / Every cane break - everything //

Every alligator / Every black water swamp / Every freshwater spring - everything //

All we need is one more damn developer taking her heart out //

All we need is one more Mickey Mouse / Another golf course another country club /

 Another gated community // Lord I need her /

Lord I need her // And she's slipping away /

Homesick but it's alright / Lochloosa is on my mind /

She's on my mind / She's on my mind

-JJ Grey & Mofro 'Lochloosa'

guess what I DID recently that caused me to miss the good ol' days?? 

i t . i s . w h a t 

 m y . f r i e n d s . d i d

a l l . s u m m e r . l o n g 

w h i l e . g r o w i n g . up 

a couple weeks ago Chaceface and I went N a little ways up the interstate to Smith Lake and enjoyed a day of laying in the water on a raft. Not just any raft. The kind of raft that is considered some prime real-estate on Jones family vacations. A couple cold beers, my boyfran, and a weeks worth of stresses being deferred so that I could

.e n j o y.

.m y.

.S U N D A Y.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was really quite amazing and much, much, much needed!

I wigged.. and I mean WIGGED out when I jumped off that dock into dark and unknown waters and let me anxieties get the best of me as I splashed and cyclopzed around and up that ladder back onto the dock. Chace got quite the kick out of it and intead of saying,

"No, Baily... we're not in Florida - you can swim in lakes, no alligators!"

like a good and compassionate boyfriend would and instead said,

"I bet you someone bought a pet alligator like a dumbass and has let it go in this lake once it got too big and now it's breeding out of control and bringing alligators to my lake!"

Seriously? What.the.heck....???

Could he have not let the fact that I am the MOST-GULLABLE girl he's ever met in his entire life refrain him from saying anything, because by the time I could get me and my not-so-nineteen-year-old-body (complete w/my newest version of big-woman-curves) out of the water, I had already convinced myself that this lake-neighborhood is made up of a bunch of imbeciles with stray pet alligators, which are in a breeding frenzy right below me in

 my very unfamiliar and horribly uncomfortable area of unbeknownst dark lakewater.

I finally warmed up and we enjoyed our day hanging out on the

S H O R E L I N E

o f . a

f r e s h - w a t e r

L  A  K  E

a n d . n o t . h a v i n g

t o . w o r r y . a b o u t . a n y

A L L I G A T O R S

l i k e . w e . h a v e . t o

w o r r y . a b o u t . i n 

t H e . S u N s H i N e . s T a T e

Come see us in Alabama and Florida!

We've got pretty lakes, but it is our beaches that really need your everyone's help!!

The Gulf Oil Spill is staining our very beautiful and much-loved white sandy coastlines.

Our tourism is bruised.Our wildlife are in danger.

And the spirit of those perfect Southern summers still linger,

but it's hard to feel the free-spirited charm of 

O L D  - F L O R I D A  

because of the brutal reality that there is a spilled and spewing detrimental disaster sittingvery unwelcomed in her panhandle's harbors. Just above

the Land of Sunshine and in the Heart of Dixie is the

S T A T E   of   A L A B A M A

where all the well-mannered and good-souled folks are breaking their backs to help out their country, their state, and their fellow Southerner, despite the bitter reality of the unwanted spill of darkness that masks our waters and plagues our shorelines.

message me and tell me how you have contributed to the relief efforts in wake of the BP Oil Spill

i may (or may not) have a personalized

Expressive Journal: starter-kit that i put together to give-away

to ((someone)) who appreciates the things that I appreciate, like:

advocacy, peace, love,

unity & community-service

THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT A TYPICAL BLOGGER "GiVe AwAy" THAT YOU MAY SUSPECT

NOPE - NOT WHATSOEVER

BUT I THINK IT WOULD BE COOL TO HEAR OTHER'S STORIES OF

NATIONAL//or// STATE//or//COMMUNITY//  VOLUNTEER WORK!!!

*if no one wants to share their story by leaving me a comment, then I will use this time to be up on my soap-box  advocating service oriented and volunteer work  EVERYWHERE, especially with the Gulf Relief Efforts

BUT I THINK YOU WILL LIKE SOME OF MY  IDEAS FOR MY OWN LITTLE WAY TO (INEXPENSIVELY) GIVE BACK TO THE SOUTHERN-COASTAL ECOSYSTEM, THE LOVE AND COMFORT THAT THOSE SaLtY SHORES AND CrYsTaL cLeAr WATERS

 GAVE ME OVER THE YEARS ON THOSE CHERISHED FAMILY VACATIONS

AND ON ALL OF  THE PREPPY, COLLEGE, SPRING-BREAK WEEKS THAT  I SPENT IN

destin, florida . gulf shores, alabama . panama city beach, florida

and

 orange beach, alabama . pensacole, florida . marco island, florida

"at the Bama Breeze, you're one of our own down here, you never drink alone down here, good God I feel at home down here." -Jimmy Buffett's ode to The FloraBama

Oh ya, P.S. I think everyone should go see "GROWN UPS"

because it reminds me of how awesome those summer weeks were when my family

(along with any other family or families we were summer-vacay-ing with)

w o u l d . p u t . t h e . w o r d

F  U  N

☮

i  n t o . t h e . w o r d 

d  y  s  F  U  N  c  t  i  o  n  a  l

will write more on my next study-break!

it helps me vent... thank God!

☮Peace ☮

and

Love

 - bjj -