the "funky couple"

Last night Matt and I went to a new homegroup that our church is having. We have been wanting to get involved with a homegroup (we recently joined a new church) but it seemed like all the existing homegroups were these long-established groups and we would be the "new guys" and that always feels a little awkward. Anyway, there was a new group starting up, so we decided to give it a try last night. Apparently there are really about 11 people that will be in the group, based on attendance the first 2 weeks, but last night a few folks were out of town so there were 7 of us-- a nice number for a getting-to-know-you kind of night. Two people in the group (the pastor and his wife, actually) we already know a little-- at least enough that if we saw them in Target or something, we'd stop and chat for a few. The other 3 people we didn't really know-- if we saw them in Target, we'd recognize that they went to our church, but not knowing their names, we'd probably duck behind the shoe aisle or something. You know how that goes. Anyway, so as we were getting to know each other, this one girl, Natalie, says to us "well, we may as well tell yall, cause it'll come up eventually anyway. People who don't know yall's names just call you the 'funky couple'. When I started coming to church, I said, 'who is the funky couple? you know, that couple that just always looks really cool?' and whoever i was asking, they knew I meant yall and said 'Oh, that's Matt and Erika.'" I mean, WHAT?? I busted out laughing. I have never, ever in my life thought that the distinguishing feature that people would nickname me by would be "funky"ness. I must say, though-- I'm pretty dang excited. So anyway, then for the rest of the night it was fun to laugh about how cool and funky Matt and I are...when in reality, if you even know us a little, you know that we're mostly just dorky and awkward.

As some people pointed out, though-- now I/we have a lot to live up to!! I can't just roll out of bed one morning and think "eh, I'll just bum it to church in my sweats today" (cause it's the kind of church where half the people ARE)...I have a reputation to maintain!! All in all, though, we had a really good time last night. We're so excited to get more involved with our church and get to know people better.

Right now, I'm doing laundry and Mattie's out for a run. He's running in a 5K this Saturday and has decided that today is a good day to start "training" for it. I say...it's 40 degrees outside. That should speak for itself. I, for one, am doing everything I can to stay warm. In a little while we're heading over to our friend Sarah's house for our Thursday night tradition of dinner and Lost. Tonight Sarah's making homemade chicken noodle soup-- YUM. I'm bringing asiago cheese bread and making homemade apple dumplings (my fave recipe from the December Rachael Ray magazine)....DOUBLE YUM. I love dinner-and-TV nights. Food, friends, mysterious islands...what could be better?