Can I start off by saying that I had this entire post written and lost it all? Deep breath, don’t cry, let’s try this again.

In the spirit of copying things from last year so I don’t have to think, this italicized bit is what I wrote on 9.02.09 (not to be confused with 90210).

I so enjoyed your answers to yesterday’s question–what would you do if I handed you seven bucks? Little did you know, I wasn’t messing around. One of you is getting $7 in the mail this week, and the lucky winner is based on nothing more than my own whimsy.

Welcome to MarlaTaviano.com where Dreams! Come! True!

Or where Marla tries to buy new friends for a measly seven dollars. (hey, 7 bucks is nothing to sneeze at, as evidenced by all the cool things you all were planning to do with it!)

Back to 2010.

I seriously considered giving the 7 bucks to Rich who said he would buy flowers (or one flower) for his beautiful wife. Shalla is a friend of mine, and she has many small children and deserves many, many flowers. (Rich, how about you go buy her some anyway?)

And I love that my adorable friend Maddie (14) wanted to “go to Meijer and ride the pony 700 times!!!” Can you even imagine?

And I was tempted to choose one of you suck-ups who offered to hand the money right back to me.

But in the end, I picked the dude who said he’d “Give five to the homeless man on the corner and ask him to share the other two bills with someone (or someones in need).” Congratulations, Jeff! In the spirit of Radical, the $ is yours. On one condition–that you actually use it how you said you would. And then tell us how it goes. (And could you e-mail me your address please?)

And you guys should totally check out Jeff’s blog, Pilgrimage of the Heart. I hopped over tonight, and I’ll definitely be going back to read more.

And may I encourage each of you who would’ve given the money to organizations that help people in need (or directly help those people yourself) to take $7 of your own money and go bless someone today? That would rock my world.

Man, can I tell you how disheartening it is to rewrite something completely from scratch??

Anyway. A few items of business before I let you loose to celebrate a delightful 3-day weekend with the ones you love.

1. The Radical Read-Along starts THIS TUESDAY, September 7th! Pop on over here anytime Tuesday to answer a few introductory questions (about yourself, not the book).

2. If you’re up for extra chatting about the book on Facebook, come join our group!

3. A HUGE thank-you to M, S, P, M, S, R, and C for sponsoring a grand total of FIFTY-FOUR Radical books!! Isn’t that amazing?! Thank you for letting God use you in such a crazy-awesome way!!

And I thought to myself, why not just mooch a little bit more from last year’s post while I’m at it? Happy Weekend and here you go!

And I do have another question (which may or may not but most likely may not involve cash rewards). It concerns procrastination. What is one chore/duty/responsibility that you constantly find yourself putting off? And what activity do you find yourself engaging in while you procrastinate?

I literally sat and stared at my screen for FIVE WHOLE MINUTES just a little bit ago. And NOTHING. Nothing at all came into my mind. NOT A THING.

I know that all I write about lately is this:

Or this:

But, really, if you could peek into my head and see how FULL it is of that kind of stuff (Radical, Cambodia), you would understand. You might not like it, but you would understand.

So, at about 12:15am, in a moment of desperation, I decided to look back at September 1, 2009 to see what kinds of things I was writing about back then. Not shockingly, I was blabbing about all my “swirly” thoughts. My goodness, will I ever settle down?

But the last sentence of the post caught my attention, and I’d like to repeat it here for you today:

If I handed you 7 one-dollar bills right now and you had 30 minutes to get rid of them, what would you do with them? Go!

The only thing better than being in Cambodia and eating at Mike’s Burger House (whose burgers taste remarkably like In-N-Out’s) and drinking ice-cold Coke with free refills and laughing your head off and taking a moonlight tuk-tuk ride back to the guest house?

Is doing it with really good friends.

Are you reading Radical with anyone special? I’d love to hear about him or her!

p.s. A very happy birthday to my dear friend, Amy! I love you, girl!

p.p.s. Don’t forget to “Like” our Radical Read-Along Facebook Page!

One week from today!! RADICAL READ-ALONG!! Seriously, I can barely contain my excitement!

I even dreamed a couple nights ago that Francis Chan was reading Radical with us. Gabe says I am CLEARLY reading too much.

He may have a point. I’m re-reading Crazy Love (2nd time) and Radical (3rd time) simultaneously. Plus I just finished Interrupted (which I plan to re-read, this time w/pen in hand). And Francis Chan’s other book, Forgotten God (and I’m sorry, but I just can’t link another thing).

Speaking of Chan, I tweeted about my dream yesterday morning, and this is what my friend Keri said (she just moved to Singapore with her family):

I hear that Jackie Chan just bought an apt near us so you never know!! Maybe he WILL do the book study and he and I can meet up to discuss the book! I can’t wait!

Me: That would be sweet! But my dream was about FRANCIS Chan (the author of Crazy Love)!

Keri: OH!!!! Now I am laughing…….that’s hysterical!! That’s what I get for not double checking your post before responding! Hahaha….still going to hope for a Radical run-in with Jackie Chan. That totally just made my night……..I obviously need to go to bed!

Me: Well, if you DO happen to get Jackie on board the Radical ship, then I KNOW I’m a prophetess. This won’t be the first time I had a dream that directly related to something that happened later.

CRAZY things are about to happen, folks!!

I have so many things I want to ask you when we do our Introductions Post next week. I’m afraid it will be too much to cram in, so how about I ask you a question right now?

Where did you first hear about Radical and/or what made you decide to join the Read-Along?

My friend Jen gave me one of the hugest blessings of my entire life today. Don’t know if you remember this:

Just four days after we got home from Cambodia another group left for a trip there with Asia’s Hope. Our friend Holly’s mom, Judy, offered to deliver letters to Jen to take to our kiddos at the orphanage.

Gabe, Livi, Ava and I each wrote a letter to each kiddo. And printed out a picture of each of them with either me or Gabe. And we scrounged around our house to find jewelry, stickers, and any other trinkets that were reasonably flat to stick in each kid’s envelope. The girls gave up some stuff that was pretty special to them (and so did I), and we loved every second of it.

Then our friend Doug wrote letters to each kiddo and printed off pics of him with them. Then our friend Sharon found out about it at the last minute and drove some letters over as well (to Judy’s house, not Cambodia).

The envelopes were delivered safely to Jen (praise the Lord!) but she had been exposed to a nasty eye infection and wasn’t able to see the kiddos for awhile. This past weekend, she went out to the orphanage (40-minute drive from her apartment) and took a translator with her.

She took pictures and shared about the kids’ excitement here. I cried. And read it about 5 more times.

Our girls were playing with a friend when I first saw Jen’s post, then we went to a pool party and now they’re in bed, and I forgot to tell them about it. I cannot wait to show them the pics tomorrow. To see those beautiful kiddos holding our cards and wearing that jewelry and putting our letter stickers all over their fingernails?

Seriously. I’ve never felt so complete inside my heart.

I was made for this. God, show me what you want from me next.