Audra Jennings

Of course, by and large, I would rather not know what some people really think about me, but a certain email this morning had me wondering. A co-worker (shout out to Vicki) sent me an email with the subject line "Peep Show" and a note that this made her think of me. The attached photo had several pink Easter bunny peeps (you know those really disgusting marshmallow candy things). One pink bunny was wrapped around a stripper pole while the others were standing around wearing g-strings and pasties with money in their waistbands. Three big fat yellow chicken peeps were in the audience. I get that this picture was comical, and that someone was very, very creative with way too much time on their hands. I can appreciate that. Why this screamed my name, I still don't know, even though I asked. Vicki said that I was always talking about "my peeps". I may talk about my peeps, but I never realized I called them "my peeps". My dad was talking about junk email at ...

When I was a child, I wanted to be an actress when I grew up. My grandmother (the matchmaking one) thought this dream was utterly ridiculous. On the other hand, her favorite grandchild, my younger cousin Kyle, wanted to be an astronaut. This dream was great! Yet, all fell apart when Kyle had to get glasses. Evidently, you have to have 20/20 vision to be an astronaut. It was quite the sad day. While my brother played baseball and soccer, I begged to take drama classes. And so off and on I took drama classes over the years. I was in a few school plays over the years, and couldn't wait to take "Theater Arts" my senior year of high school because you could only take it as a senior in my small high school. As I have explained previously, I've tried out for several plays at the local theater over the years (going back to junior high). I've never been cast in a play though. The director had Jenny and I come in to read through a play yesterday. She was considering doing ...

For all the story that I gave earlier in the week in regards to the wedding invitation, my parents finally got theirs today - along with one addressed to my brother - three days after I did. All three were sent to the same address that then had a forward order. I still wouldn't have been surprised if I had gotten an invite and they hadn't. Guess I'm not so lucky after all. I woke up way too early this morning in an effort to get to work early in order to finish all of my reports before I needed to leave at 2:45 to pick up Paige from school. (I still had to go back to work with Paige and Peyton in tow to finish what little bit I had left.) I am not a morning person, and I actually woke up before my 5 AM alarm, so the rest of this post is going to be short. I'm TIRED! Peyton had been going on for weeks about a "by MYSELF" night at my house. She wouldn't let anyone else go out to eat at Don Jose's with us so that she could have enchiladas. She did invite ...

Check out The B&B Media Group blog for postings on new books that we are working on. There is information there on how to request copies of the book to talk about on your blog. Designer Women by Ruth Tuttle Conard Authentic Publishing ISBN: 978-1-934068-75-5/238 pages/softcover/$14.99 www.authenticpublishing.com Emmanuel Kolini by Mary Weeks Millard Authentic Publishing January 2009 ISBN: 978-1-934068-65-6/239 pages/softcover/$16.99 www.authenticpublishing.com Dying to Live by Clive Calver Authentic Publishing March 2009 ISBN: 978-1-934068-80-9/154 pages/softcover/$16.99 www.authenticpublishing.com

Because my post got so long last night, I'm continuing on with my story now. Back to the story of Kim's wedding: My mom feels that there may be hope for me to eventually marry because, after all, Kim didn't get married until she was in her 40s. She and her husband Jeff had lived together for a while, and finally decided to make it official. Why she didn't do it while her mother was living, I don't know. So anyway, they decided to just go ahead and do it in Vegas. Jenny and I arrived at the wedding chapel before any of my family arrived. Every time someone drove up, Jenny would ask, "do you know them?" "No, Jenny, my cousin is not the slut in the mini-shorts and four inch hills with the fake boobs." "Do you know them?" "No, Jenny, my family is not Scottish, and I'm pretty sure there is no way on God's Green Earth that Jeff would be wearing a kilt." Interesting people get married in Vegas. So, finally, I recognize, or ra...

I find today's installment of "Audra's Insanity" to be quite humorous, and hope that you do too. It is possible that you either have to hear me tell the story, or you have to be Jenny to find it funny. In case you haven't figured it out that my family is crazy by the stories I've told about my immediate family, then you just haven't heard enough stories about my extended family. If the writers of "Days of Our Lives" have run out of ideas (and believe me, when I quit watching a few years ago they had), they really should come talk to me and I'll give them some real life stories from my dad's side of the family that would give them some new material. My dad's family is pretty large. His father had three children with his first wife who died, then had five children with my grandmother. That makes for a large cast of characters. As the years have gone by, my dad and his "full-blood" siblings have grown farther and farther apart....

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Jason T. Berggren and the book: 10 Things I Hate About Christianity: Working through the Frustrations of Faith X-Media (March 1, 2009) ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jason T. Berggren grew up in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and was a part of the band Strongarm. After leaving the band, he earned an AA in Mass Communications and a BA in Theology. In 2000, he helped to start the Calvary Fellowship church in Miami, FL, fulfilling the role of Assistant Pastor ov...

Here is a very random fact about me. As of today, I have seen two cast members from the TV show The Facts of Life in person. I saw Blair (Lisa Welchel ) walking around the CBE convention today, and I saw Tootie (Kim Fields) in Orlando last year at ICRS . Just because it's random, and I'm in a random state of mind, here is a list of people I have seen in person without them being in a performance of some kind. Ty Pennington ( Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ) Kirk Cameron (Mike Seaver on Growing Pains ) Kathy Ireland (model - actually saw her going through Disneyland with her kids) Chuck Norris ( Walker, Texas Ranger ) Willie Aames (Tommy from Eight is Enough ) Joe Bonsall (of the Oak Ridge Boys ) Ann Richards (former governor of Texas) More randomness: I have taken Grammy Award winning singer Sandi Patty through the Chic-fil-a drive thru, former Miss America Heather Whitestone McCallum through Whataburger's drive-thru to get her a coke and gone grocery shopping with Mi...

Today, I worked at the Christian Book Expo in Dallas. I was able to have a few good meetings with media, meet with some of our authors, and caught up with some publisher contacts I had not seen in a while. We were also a part of the Believers Press booth. It's really a shame that the attendance was not as large as expected. There were times when the exhibit hall floor resembled a ghost town. I'll be going back tomorrow to man the New Growth Press booth, and can only imagine how light the crowd will likely be. I think I'm going to break down and buy a book or two (it is a book selling convention) and may perhaps have some reading time since I will be flying solo. One of my meetings was with Laura MacCorkle (shout out time!) , an editor at Crosswalk.com who covers several of the channels on their website, including singles. Since she too is a single, I could not resist telling her my Grandmother story from last night. I'm glad she got a good laugh out of the story. I to...

I'm in a much better state of mind today, but I don't have anything profound to say. It's not that there haven't been some things going on with me lately, but they aren't blog worthy. My current Facebook status is: "I don't think anyone pays attention to what I say the first time I say it." Maybe it's because I talk too much and no one pays attention to anything I say anymore. I'm really not sure. The most common instance of this is saying something to one of my parents. Literally, 15 seconds later, one of them repeats what I just said or makes a similar comment or asks the same question, except neither one paid attention to what I said even though I was with 5 feet of them. I think some people are ignoring me via email now too. Oh, well! I'm going to make more of an effort to just ignore such things when they happen. Obviously, blog readers, I haven't had anything worthy to say lately anyway. Anyone in the DFW area want to take a day ...

While I am finishing up my lunch time, I bring you today's blog. Today's blog takes on the phrase, "that's just how the cookie crumbles." I don't think the world is out to get me, but sometimes, I sure wish my cookie would crumble differently. (Or I wish my cookie was another flavor...dried out, hard oatmeal just isn't doing it for me...) To give you an update on my audition from Sunday--the one time I actually think that I may have made an impression on the director and might actually have a part in the play, they have to change plans. They are going to hold off on producing the play until some other time because they didn't have men try out for the parts, and only had 6 women try out for the 4 female parts. If it weren't for the men, the selection of women would have probably worked out. The director has not yet decided on whether she will find another play for the dates that this play was supposed to run or if they are going to have to do someth...

I forgot to wear green today. If Tina or Nancy pinches me... well it ain't gonna be pretty!

Maybe it's because I take a long nap on Sundays. Maybe I end up staying up a little later on Sundays than other nights before going to work, but on Monday nights, I'm exhausted. I was trying to watch Dancing with the Stars , but ended up sleeping for an hour on the chaise. That happens frequently on Mondays. I should have been on the couch if I was going to sleep because I always push my arms down on the chaise in a way that kills my neck. And I should have taken out my contacts instead of sleeping in them for an hour because my eyes dried out and my contacts permaplasted to my eyeballs. No bueno! And now for more randomness... Patience is not one of my virtues. I'm really ready to hear more about the play I tried out for and if the director is going to have to do a different play or if they audition a cast for another play or what. I just want to know. Paige is not going to be going to Nashville to the concert that might prove me to bad example. I doubted it would happen, ...

This afternoon, I tried out for A Bad Year for Tomatoes . We'll see if I get in or not. They may actually have to do a different play with all women since there were no men to try out for the male roles. I took a nap today between morning worship, the audition and evening worship. That's about the extent of today's excitement. My parents and I are still in discussions about when we will go on vacation. There's debate involved for several reasons. I'm ready to go somewhere. I haven't been anywhere in a year now since I went out to Vegas to drive back with Jenny when she came home. The trip to Brenham and Houston with the girls doesn't count in my book. So, I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Something better than doing laundry, checking email and Facebook , and watching "Surprise Weddings" on WE. This show has women proposing to their boyfriends to get married that night. They bring out the man to see the woman in a wedding dress and the host says, "Jane wants to marry you tonight on this stage." It's really quite dumb. Not to mention that I don't know how long ago this show was taped. There is no such thing as the Aladdin casino in Las Vegas anymore. It's now the Planet Hollywood or PH. I just happen to know that. I took the sheets off my bed when I got up late this morning, thinking I would have come home before 9 PM and am now waiting for them to dry so that I can make my bed and go to sleep. My Saturday consisted of getting up late, then going to Target, Lowe's, Belk and JCPenney in Waxahachie . Once we got back, we did pick up Paige and Peyton, and they got to see Mom & Dad's new house for the first time. That was pretty ...

There are a couple of readers of my blog who give me grief when I don't blog something funny. They don't enjoy it so much when I post press releases (you work at the same place I do - we're supposed to get online posts!) or when I review other books that I have read (I want free books like other bloggers on occasion ). So I warned them (at least one of them) that I was going to talk about them the next time that I posted. (Boy that paragraph above had a bunch of parentheses .) So, Christi and Penny, I'm talking about the two of you just because I can! Here's part of the reason why blogging has been slow today. Sometimes work is just work. And outside of work, I've not done much lately. You work with me - what would be the point in talking about it on here for your entertainment? Here's what I did last night: I left work, went to my parent's house, helped my mom hang her shot glass shelves, unwrapped the shot glasses, and helped put them on the shelves. ...

Can Anything Good Come From Hate? A recent article in Britain’s Telegraph brought international attention to a decision by Oxford University Press to remove certain terms associated with Christianity (i.e. disciple, abbey) from a popular children’s dictionary, replacing them with modern words like “MP3 player” and “blog.” In short order, this story has become fodder for the blogosphere, and it’s not hard to see why. After all, our understanding of the world and of ourselves is formed, in the most foundational sense, by our vocabulary. Words are powerful. Words are important. Author Jason T. Berggren is among the many who have spoken out against the attempt to expunge Christian words from the new lexicon. And so it comes as a surprise to many that his first book release is entitled 10 Things I Hate About Christianity: Working Through the Frustrations of Faith , with his website similarly dubbed http://www.10thingsihate.com/ . How could a Christian author—and former pastor, no less—use s...

Today, I bring you a book review. A few weeks ago, I reviewed Where Do I Go? by my friend Neta Jackson. Harry Bentley's Second Chance was written by Neta's husband, my friend, Dave Jackson and is a parallel novel to Neta's book. "What is a parallel novel?" you ask... Both books take place at the same time and have some of the same characters, but come from different point of views. Back of the book summary: Having retired from the Chicago Police Department, Harry Bentley was lying low with only one thing looming from his past: He’d blown the whistle on a gang of rogue cops and was awaiting the day when Internal Affairs would call him to testify and help put their leader, Lieutenant Matty Fagan , behind bars. His cover was working as a simple doorman in a high rise luxury apartment building on Chicago’s lakefront. And then Gabby Fairbanks and her husband, Philip, moved into the building’s penthouse. Gabby brought home a dumpy old bag lady, got a job at the Ma...