best thing anyone's ever said to me

first of all let's clarify. if you read the time stamp on this post it will read friday, 9:28 p.m. blogging on a friday night? yep, i'm that cool. all within good reason friends, i was hangin' out with ryan freakin' bingham last night and having the time of my life so i'm beat esta noche. (we'll talk about ryan in another post, because i definitely want to extrapolate on that topic...)

tonight though, i can't stop thinking about something that our secretary said to me at work today. her name is teresa and she doesn't really even know me that well, but i always try to pay her a complement and tell her she looks pretty or ask about her grandkids, but really, that's the extent of our relationship.

i was walking down the hall this morning and she touched me on the shoulder, and said (in her thick cajun dialect - she's from the bayou country), "shannan, i was thinkin' about it just now, and you are as sweet as honey and you are the most optimistic person i have ever met, but i would never ever mess with you. i think when you make up your mind or somebody does you wrong, you're a force to be reckoned with. come to think of it, you're what i call a steel magnolia. delicate as a magnolia, but tough as steel."

i don't know why that meant so much to me, but it did. i have always felt like i wasn't strong enough, but to hear someone else recognize such an inner-fortitude in me was extremely gratifying. i've been going through a rough time recently and i've been listening to this old dolly parton song on repeat, which i think really explains a lot about who i am. fall hard, but pick yourself back up. ironically, this song has a line in it about being a steel magnolia:

gentle as the sweet magnolia
strong as steel, her faith and pride
she's an everlasting shoulder
she's the leaning post of life
she hurts deep and when she weeps
she's just as fragile as a child
and she's a sparrow when she's broken
but she's an eagle when she flies

i'll include a cheesy video showcasing dolly since i do love her so very much:

everyone's been asking about...

the golf tournament that i just did for my charity last week, so i wanted to let you know that it was a TOTAL SUCCESS!

we had a nice field of golfers, valero gave us a HUGE sponsorship - love you valero!, the kids had a fantastic time...and best of all, THE NET PROFIT TRIPLED FROM LAST YEAR'S EVENT!!!

i share this with you because it is a huge testimony to the fact that God works for the good of those who petition Him and trust Him in ALL things - great or small.

TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE TOURNAMENT, we had ZERO sponsorship, no database, 20 golfers, and ZERO volunteers. at that point, i knew i was going to have to pull off something beyond me. i was so overwhelmed with such a daunting task that one morning I drove to work in the pouring rain and I just broke down and started bawling my eyes out on the side of the road. i was having to face the fact that i might get fired, i was planning an event in which we were going to go into a deficit and have to pay five grand to ironically have a fundraiser, and i was in this all alone. right then and there, i just prayed that God would take over and that He would open opportunities and put the right people in my path. my prayer was constantly matthew 25:40 and that the right individuals would see that "whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me."

well, suffice it to say, GOD IS GOOD. i could tell you a million cool (true) stories from the past two weeks - from random strangers handing me $500 checks in the grocery store, to mysterious anonymous donors making contributions without even knowing the dire situation, to big corporations cutting through the red tape to cut me a big check. God answered my prayers in a way that was beyond my wildest imagination. i know we see a lot of bad things happen and often question "where is God in this?" or "the whole world is evil," but believe me, there are still a lot of good, good souls out there. and yes, miracles still happen.

I want to thank EVERYONE who prayed for me or gave me words of encouragement or just had my kids on their heart these past few weeks. COULD NOT HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT YOUR SUPPORT. i stand in awe of what we accomplished. yes, i worked my tail off, but i give all the glory to God. THANK YOU!!!

feels like comin' home!

that's right, baylor homecoming was this past weekend and it was great. just great. i had been so stressed out about pulling off the golf tournament, that i totally didn't even register the fact that i was going back to wacko until i got there late friday night.

of course we got stomped by osu and the parade was a little more lackluster than usual, but the company more than made up for it. my entire extended fam (20+) made the voyage down, as did most of my best friends, and an unusually large representation of the class of '08. we made it to all of our old places - scruff's, cricket's, cafe cappuccino, lolita's, and are you ready for it...george's not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES! ah...the smell of crazy wings and the sound of pat green.

more than all of the baylor happenings though, i am most appreciative of my time spent with my best friends. i have longed and pined for their company more than i can ever express. since we're spread out all over the country we hardly ever see each other, but i carry them around in my heart always. we know each other so well that we pick up right where we left off the last time...

what's changed? instead of talking about frat daddies, the hills, and horrendous all-nighters, we now discuss IRA's, purchasing power when dealing with car dealerships, leveraging for better salaries, and being chamber of commerce members. what can i say, my small group of friends is pretty much kicking everyone's rear end and taking names. i am so honored and proud to be associated w/ my group of gals. we all seemed to agree that like-minded, goal-oriented individuals attract each other (gotta love that law of attraction) and that's how we all ended up together. just a sampling of what my bffs are doing: jess is taking over the sales dept at st. louis homes & lifestyles magazine and racking up clients all over the place, ali is top sales at state farm and pretty much runs the company, heather runs development for a prominent albuquerque NPO and is in charge of a 2.5 million capital campaign, britt's in grad school @ tulane getting her masters in social work and she's going to be the next miss louisiana after next weekend, cori jo is tearing it up in law school and clerking for my pops, and allison's shaping young minds and having the first little babe of the group! WOW. no slackers here. we may be baylor girls who prefer pedicures, hilights, and pretty jewelry...but we're all pistols and don't you dare underestimate us!!!

what hasn't changed? we're still fun. too much fun. :)

shame on me, didn't take one single picture this past weekend, but i do have some oldies if you'd like to take a stroll down memory lane...



house party in china spring baby!



random night senior year. we don't do serious very well. lawdy, y'all make me laugh.



ELITE! ELITE!



heather and i are retards that like to dress up in old dance costumes. we thought it was a good idea at the time.



my girlfriends and i used to go down to george's bar, we'd drink big o's until they closed down the place. talk about our lifelong ambitions...





scruffy murphy's. the site of most of my life's definitive moments.



told you so.



running through our "class of 2008 banner" at our graduation party.



i want each of you to know that i love you.
your friendship has challenged me, inspired me, molded me, and lifted me up when i have fallen to the bottom.
i thank God for y'all so much. every day.

what? you've got to be kidding me!

after i got home from work, i slipped into the t-shirt shown above, which happens to be an item from my FAVORITE store ever! i had to run a few errands in town (yes, i still say "i'm going into town" - can't break that habit) and i definitely wanted to get out of my stuffy suit. anyway, i struck up a conversation with three different individuals at the post office, carino's, and the republic golf club and the general dialogue was surprisingly the same:

PERSON X: can i help you?
ME: yeah, i'm here to pick up some items for the golf tournament.
PERSON X: oh yeah, let me get that for you. hey, never seen a shirt like that. that's pretty funny.
ME: (insert fake chuckle) yeah, i guess so. i promise it's clean, i just really like the song.
PERSON X: the song?
ME: yeah, "sunday morning coming down." kris kristofferson.
PERSON X: who's that?

WOW. one time, excusable. three? that's pushing it.

wade bowen's new video

i like it. i like it a lot. been a fan of this song since the day it came out over a year ago. in fact, i wore this track out down in mexico.

i'm glad wade's doing so good, he deserves it.

the infamous bu pig incident

so i just got off the phone with one of my old college room mates (catherine) and she asked me if i had any photos of aforementioned incident because she was talking about it with her work colleagues and they didn't believe her! i have been howling with laughter for the last five minutes thinking about that day we woke up to go to class and found a huge, nasty, black hog dripping in blood on our front porch.

"who would do such a thing to the theta mansion?" we asked ourselves. word got around about the pig and several culprits were named: KOT, the baseball team, the noze brothers...and to this day, we still don't know who did it. it became somewhat of a spectacle because he lay slain in our front yard memorialized with empty beer bottles, cigarettes, and a little tiny sombrero (offerings from passersby) for quite sometime. the story became so notorious that the campus newspaper even ran a story about it!

i spent days on the phone with animal control, and this photo was taken the day they finally came...



oh how i miss college.

baylor homecoming in four days. :)

that's what i love about sundays.

today's been a good day and i sure am grateful for good days. sometimes they're rare, sometimes they're nowhere in sight, but most of the time i just think they go unnoticed. in an effort to recognize a swell day and give it the credit it most certainly deserves, i thought i'd share with my blog world.

first of all, church was just phenomenal this morning. had a great lifegroup with intersect, where i got to meet some really cool, really genuine people who raved about my paula deen brownies! then our pastor, robert emmitt - who is AMAZING!, delivered this awesome message based on mark 14 and dealing with life's adversities and the cup of suffering. he talked a lot about tony dungy and wow, that man's faith is just flat out inspiring to say the least.

i left church feeling renewed and recharged, but mostly, full of appreciation for all the struggles and hard times that God has brought me through. whether i acknowledge it or not, He's always right there walking beside me, picking me up when i fall flat on my face. i think to myself, "what do people do without faith in their lives?" i just can't comprehend going through the travesty and heartbreak that is life without Jesus. how hopeless and unbearable.

after getting home, i called miss ali to come over and help me with a little project. since i've moved into the new apartment complex, i've been wanting to do something special for all of my nearby neighbors who i've met as we come and go.

now don't get any grand illusions, i'm not a fantastic cook, but i do love to bake and i have this deep-seeded notion that a piece of pie does the heart good. with this in mind, i have spent all afternoon baking pies to take to the neighbors and just finished hand delivering them.



the reaction? well, my goodness, you would have thought i just told some of these people they won the lottery!!! they were so blown away by this small token of goodwill, they just couldn't believe it. you know, i'll always believe that homemade gestures have a way of really impacting people. i know, i know. it's ridiculously corny, old fashioned, and reminiscent of decades gone by, but it's a way of life that i think is worth preserving.

it's so unfortunate that our society has socialized us to become isolated, self-reliant, self-absorbed people who don't even speak to each other in person anymore. if you happen to live in the same vicinity as this little girl from shallowater, texas, she just won't let it happen. sorry. :)


(thanks for the picture al.)

SAN ANTONIO RODEO BEGINS!

super stoked about the san antonio livestock show and rodeo this year. technically, it doesn't begin for 109 more days, but miss shannan is now an official member of the rodeo!

clay pulled some strings and got me on the STEER AUCTION COMMITTEE! (for those of you who don't know, this is THE most exclusive/prestigious rodeo committee! we even get buckles and jackets. ha yeehaw!!) we had our first meeting today and it's definitely a boys club, so i'm really going to have to prove myself. no worries though, i think i can persuade some investors to purchase grand champion material. at least i hope so.

discovered the following video, which i thought was amusing. it's true, there's just something about that damned old rodeo.

AWESOME video

can't wait until the game tomorrow!

i'm sorta, kinda ashamed...

but i really like this new song.

and miss underwood, you're smokin' hot. like really, i have a girl crush.

exciting things in the works

so, as i was flipping through the fall edition of texas music mag recently (great job guys!), i was so excited to find the lost highway records ad accompanied by the "t is for texas" sampler. lost highway records is a label out of nashville (and believe me, i know we're all skeptical about nashville), but these guys truly know good music. never in my life have i seen a record label with such exquisite taste.

i mean, seriously, they represent a truly stellar, phenomenal lineup - RYAN ADAMS, RYAN BINGHAM, HAYES CARLL, JOHNNY CASH, ELVIS COSTELLO, ROBERT EARL KEEN, BLACK JOE LEWIS, LYLE LOVETT, SHELBY LYNNE, VAN MORRISON, MORRISSEY, WILLIE NELSON, O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?, LUCINDA WILLIAMS, HANK WILLIAMS. so really, if shannan d'aun sowder was ever a record label, this is it. please visit lost highway records for more information.

here's the best part, i'm now going to be doing some work for lost highway. not quitting my job-packing up- moving out to tennessee kind of work (although that's not a terrible idea), but i'm going to be doing some grass roots, promo type stuff and i'm thrilled!!!!!!!!!!!!

my first big assignment is the ryan bingham show out at whitewater amphitheater on october 29, so you should all be there. RYAN BINGHAM IS BREATHTAKINGLY, UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING. the dead horses are great too. check him out!



i also want to hi-light some other lost highway artists - MR. ROBERT EARL KEEN. GO BUY "THE ROSE HOTEL!" IT'S FANTASTIC AND CLASSIC REK.



and if you haven't heard the "WAITING ON THE STARS TO FALL" single by HAYES CARLL...listen to it. it might make you cry, but it's gut-wrenching, tragic beauty. never heard a hayes tune like this, almost didn't believe it was him.

long live good music.

don't rock the jukebox...

but note to self: sitting on a stool at riley's tavern listening to gary stewart, kris kristofferson, and conway twitty doesn't help the cause.

[quote of the night: "listen sweetheart, i know you love country music and all, but do you really want your life to be a country song?"]

no, i sure don't.

support a cause!!!

this past saturday was united way's days of caring event and i must say that it was a huge success! this event is critical to non-profits because it matches a local business and an NPO together for a project. our losoya site is tragic to say the least (abestos, rats, bugs, needs to be condemned - hope you're getting a lovely picture in your head) and we got some help from a great company. i want to say a huge thank you to pratt & whitney for helping us with our building renovations. it is SO refreshing to see a big company take some corporate social responsibility and help out the community! and thank you united way - you're awesome.

while the economy has hit everybody, it has really hit the agencies hard. i know it's tight for everybody right now, but please remember to support a cause you believe in. it doesn't matter if it's kids, animals, autism, breast cancer, or education and it doesn't matter if it's $1 or $1,000,000 - your community desperately needs your support! to see the cause that i've basically given my life to, please visit here. ok, i'll get off my soap box and share with you a few pictures from the event:




our poor little building that's falling apart. the inspector told me that the foundation wouldn't last very much longer and that we're actually under a huge liability :/ i'm trying to get us on extreme home makeover!


let's be honest. this place is a wreck...thank goodness we're trying to make it more aesthetically pleasing.


gettin' my paint on.


a pratt & whitney employee working with one of the kids. beautiful. that's what it's all about.

this makes my day!

so remember a few posts back when i told you about the "george encounter?" i think i failed to mention that he was the auctioneer at "for the love of kids and harleys." well, when the man removed the very boots he was wearing and put them up for bid, i went a little crazy and started bidding with money i didn't actually have (see how much power GS has over me!) when the boots got over the 10k line, i decided i had to stop....so, obviously, i didn't win the boots. :(

however, the story circulated and bruce just brought me a pair of his old red wings signed "to: shannan. love: jorge estrecho." hahahaha oh goodness, i love it! thank you bruce graham...you know how to make a girl smile!

i have a crush...

a huge crush. his name is easton corbin. and i think we should get married.

beautiful, small town boy who drives a vintage pickup truck and does manual labor in his music video. what else do you need?

why i love johnny cash...

i apologize for letting "southern comfort" get a little dusty; i haven't been myself lately and therefore, i haven't felt like writing much. however, i finished a good book tonight and it spoke to me so much so that i had to tell you about it. the book i'm referring to is "cash," the autobiography by johnny.

i'd started reading it months ago, but always put it aside for other literary material, never making a real effort to polish it off. when i moved to the new apartment, i found it in the bottom of a box of books and picked it back up tonight. i just turned the last page only moments ago and already i feel melancholy that this particular journey with johnny has ended.

you see, i'm no ordinary cash fan. i'm like a student. i study everything about this man. in fact, this is now my fourth book to read about/by him. i think he's truly the most fascinating person - sinner. saint. poet. writer. rebel. abuser. christian. legend. he was such a tortured, battered soul, yet there was a real transcendent peace about him. despite his own personal demons and the toll they took on the people he loved, i believe he was such a good man.



actually, you know what, i think i'll probably name a son after him someday. when people say, "boy, why is your name cash? that's a funny name." he'll just shrug his shoulders and say, "i don't know? my mamma was always talkin' about this man named johnny cash and she figured it was as honorable a name as any to have."

i suppose i love johnny for several reasons. a) he was a country boy to the bone:

"inside me, my boyhood feels so close, but when i look around, it sometimes seems to belong to a vanished world. are there still places where a young boy can leave his house after breakfast with just a fishing pole and spend the whole day rambling and adventuring alone, unsupervised and unafraid, trusted and un-feared for? Perhaps there are, but I suspect otherwise. i think country life as i knew it may be a thing of the past and when people talk about being "country," they don't mean they know or even care about the land and the life it sustains and regulates. i wonder how many of those people ever filled a cotton sack."

"i love to dig in the dirt. i like to work in the fields. i come up here and i wear an old straw hat, no shirt, no shoes. i live the life of a country boy. i love to and i need to."



b) the man is utterly unapologetic about his faith:

"abc didn't like it. they told me i really oughtn't be talking about God and Jesus on network television. i told them that they were producing the wrong man here, because gospel music - music about the good news of Jesus Christ - is part of what i am and part of what i do. i don't cram anything down people's throats, but neither do i make any apologies about it. so don't worry about me mentioning Jesus, God, or moses or whoever else i decide to mention in the spiritual realm. if you don't like it, deal with it."

"when i spoke out about my faith, i didn't set out to prove myself. i didn't have to, because i'd been acting according to my belief before i spoke up, getting my spiritual high by singing gospel songs and trying, despite my many faults and my continuing attraction to all seven deadly sins, to treat my fellow man as Christ would. there never was any dividing line between the johnny cash of yesterday, today, or tomorrow."

c) he got to do some incredible things with some incredible people in his lifetime:

"i'd started up an informal tradition of "guitar pulls" in the big round room overlooking the lake, evenings when my favorite songwriters were encouraged to show up and we'd all sit around in a big circle and show each other what we had. kris kristofferson sang "me and bobby mcgee" for the first time on one of those nights, and joni mitchell "both sides now." graham nash sang "marrakesh express" and shel silverstein "a boy named sue." bob dylan let us hear "lay lady lay." guy clark came, and rodney crowell and billy joe shaver and harlan howard and everybody, just everybody."



"i'd met all the presidents over the last six decades and each had their own personal charm. bill clinton had the ability to make you feel like you were the only person in the room when he was talking to you. gerald ford and nixon had that same gift of focus too - and being with george bush was like spending time with an old friend from home, talking about hunting in the texas hill country."

d) when times arise that i don't believe in love - the everlasting kind - i listen to him talk about june, and i believe in it again.

"theologically, june and i are on even ground, but she's a prayer warrior and i'm not. she's so good at it, in fact, that sometimes i catch myself thinking that, well, maybe i don't have to pray, because she's praying for me. which of course is not a healthy idea and demonstrates one of the reasons she needs to pray so hard for me."

"i wish the whole world could know how great she is. she's smart and she's brilliant. she's got a great personality. she's easy to live with, because she makes it a point to be so. she's loving. she's sharing. the main thing, though, is that she loves me and i know it. i used to take advantage of that - because i knew she loved me, i could get away with more - but again, that's not a healthy idea, and it demonstrates one of the reasons why she needs to love me so much. june is formidable, she's my solid rock. she's my spark plug. she's got charm, she's got brains, she's got style, and she's got class."



"june is my life's companion. she's very loving, especially with me, and very kind - there are people who can be loving, but not kind, but she's loving and kind. she's a good woman. she's got standards. she's got tradition. she's got dignity. she and i have become so very close, so intimate. i think it might be because of all her prayer. i never see her praying, though, or at least when it's not obvious....but i know that's what she's doing all the time."

"june really found an appreciation among the young people too. one night after she came off stage in england, a nineteen-year-old covered in tattoos and piercings, tapped her on the shoulder and said, "mrs. cash, you really kick ass." when she's feeling down or discouraged i like to remind her of that and so i'll say, "mrs. cash, don't worry about it. you kick ass."

"so yes, we're close. whenever i face a professional decision i always put it to her and get her opinion, because i know she'll be both honest and objective with me - she's always the first to know about everything in my life. she's never judgmental. she's become everything that a wife should be, in my mind. we sleep together, we play together, we travel together, we work together, and we've found our particular place where we totally belong, in every avenue of endeavor."

TELL ME, JOHNNY CASH, DO THEY MAKE 'EM LIKE YOU ANYMORE?!?????