Month: November 2010

  • Yes, I’m still talking about my Christmas tree

    So yesterday morning was Monday. And I’ve become a big fan of stating the obvious.

    I knew that eventually the Thanksgiving break would end and it would be time to join the real world again, but that really didn’t make it any better when the alarm went off. It also doesn’t help that our alarm is P’s cell phone and he has it set to some kind of mamba ring tone. He says it’s because he’ll hear it, but I suspect it might be because he knows it drives me insane enough to make me jump out of bed. Or at least to roll over and growl, “TURN IT OFF. TURN IT OFF. FOR ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THIS WORLD, TURN IT OFF.”

    We all managed to get out of bed and start our morning routine. I dropped Caroline off at school with a coyote skull gently packed in her little sequined leopard print messenger bag. Yes. A coyote skull. She found it at the ranch last week and couldn’t wait to bring it in for Show and Tell. Bless her teacher’s heart.

    Once I got home I knew I could no longer avoid the run I’d been trying not to think about all last week when I decided that exercise should not interfere with my enjoyment of the Thanksgiving holiday. I put on my running shoes, cranked up my sweet tunes, and spent the next thirty-five minutes feeling like I was wading through quicksand. My loose hypothesis is that a steady diet of cream of mushroom soup and butter in various casserole forms has a tendency to make a person feel a little sluggish.

    After I plodded my way around the neighborhood, I came back home to hydrate myself and pass out for about forty-five minutes before running my long list of errands. First up? A trip to Michaels to get more Christmas tree lights. Second? I ran in Charming Charlie’s to buy the zebra-print koozie with hot pink feathered trim that Caroline fell in love with when she saw it on Saturday. I don’t know why she really needs a koozie, but I can understand the siren song of the zebra print trimmed in pink.

    Anyway, I finally completed a whole list of errands and I won’t bore you by going into all the details. When I finally got home I decided to go ahead and put the lights on the rest of the tree so that Caroline and I could get to decorating as soon as she got home from school.

    I continued my vertical light strategy around the back of the tree until it was adequately wrapped, then I put one more strand around the entire tree just to ensure maximum light coverage. And then!

    AND THEN!

    I plugged in the lights and marveled at their beauty. And also at the fact that I managed to buy some sort of twinkling lights by accident and half my tree has a significant twinkling effect.

    AND THEN!

    All the lights went out at the same time. Darkness. Total darkness.

    Fortunately P happened to be home and I summoned him to the living room with a delicate, “OH NO! ALL MY LIGHTS JUST WENT OUT! WHAT HAPPENED? OH THE HUMANITY!”

    He looked at me and asked, “How many strands do you have plugged all together and plugged into this one outlet?”

    “Ummm. Eight?”

    (Or twelve.)

    “That’s too many. It overheated and blew a fuse.”

    Technically, I knew when I was connecting strand after strand of lights that this venture was ill-advised thanks to the directions on the box the lights came in. However, I choose to think of those directions as more of a guideline than the gospel truth.

    P fixed my fuse and told me I’d need to go buy an extension cord and a power strip. So I picked up Caroline from school and we headed to Walgreens to buy the necessary supplies. And then I had to come home and try to reconfigure my lighting scheme. The good news is this gave me the opportunity to evenly distribute the twinkly lights so my tree doesn’t look like it’s bipolar.

    Now it just looks like it belongs in a nightclub in Las Vegas. Which is so much better.

    After the lighting was all straightened out, I turned our T.V. to one of the satellite radio channels that plays continuous holiday music and Caroline and I began to hang the rest of the ornaments as we sang along to Jingle Bell Rock. It was all very festive in spite of the fact that it was a crisp 82 degrees outside.

    All of a sudden a song came on that I’d never heard before. I knew immediately it was Dwight Yoakum. And as I listened to the lyrics I realized he was singing that Mama said Santa can’t stay and Santa looked a lot like Daddy as he drove away.

    Wow.

    Way to bring us all down at Christmastime, Dwight.

    I told P about it and said it was the second most depressing Christmas song I’ve ever heard. The first being that song about the little boy who’s trying to buy new shoes for his mom in case she dies and meets Jesus on Christmas Eve.

    P looked at me and said, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but I have serious concerns about your listening habits. Why would you listen to any of that?”

    It’s a valid point.

    However, he doesn’t know that I’m the same girl who spent much of Christmas 1987 listening to Dolly Parton sing Hard Candy Christmas over and over again on my York stereo with cassette player while I cried over a breakup with a boy whose name I can barely even remember now. I felt like Dolly and I were united in our feeling of barely getting through tomorrow, but committed to not let sorrow bring us down.

    Which is more than I can say for Dwight Yoakum.

  • Jumping the Christmas shark

    I thought I’d go into excruciating detail about how we spent the rest of our Thanksgiving weekend, but I can hardly remember. I think it was Saturday before I regained consciousness from my whipped cream hangover and all I really know is that we watched a tremendous amount of college football. Between all the close games and the amount of butter contained in most holiday casseroles, I can only imagine that it proved to be a banner weekend for cardiologists all across the United States.

    About noon on Friday, P decided that he was going to head down to the ranch to spend the night. I asked him if he had any interest in getting the Christmas decorations down from the attic for me before he left. And so he did. Even though it’s his personal belief that the last weekend of November is too early to decorate for Christmas. In fact, he told me that I jump the shark on Christmas decorating every year. I think what he was trying to say is that I jump the gun on decorating. Jumping the shark would imply that I might pay the neighborhood children to perform a living nativity in our front yard every night from now until Christmas.

    Which now that I think about it, PURE AWESOME.

    So maybe I’m inclined to jump the gun AND the shark.

    After P left, Caroline and I began to go through all the decorations. Everything appeared to be accounted for except for my MERRY AND BRIGHT sign. And I’m trying not to take that as a sign of things to come. I plan to enjoy the Christmas season with my MERRY AND BRIGHT firmly intact.

    I managed to get most of the inside decorated and even made a quick run to Michaels in the midst of Black Friday madness to look for turquoise ribbon. It totally paid off because I found the perfect ribbon for 70% off. I also bought a wreath hanger that’s too small for our front door and some pink glitter ribbon that called to me from the aisles.

    (I don’t know why I think you care about any of this. The ribbon! It’s fascinating!)

    (Their frames were also 60% off and I nearly bought two black ones and then I didn’t because it’s Christmas and I felt guilty buying things for myself and now I regret that I didn’t just buy them. Why do I overthink everything?)

    Caroline and I took a brief break from all the football and Christmas decorating to go see Tangled in 3-D Saturday afternoon. We both absolutely loved it. And then we ate Mexican food with Mimi and Bops because leftover turkey was dead to me and I hadn’t had Mexican in over six days. Well, unless you count that A.J. and I met at Cafe Salsita for breakfast earlier that morning. But that’s breakfast and it’s different from dinner. And now I’m just stating the obvious.

    Night is different from day. The moon is different from the sun. Brad Pitt before Angelina Jolie is different than Brad Pitt after Angelina Jolie.

    Sunday morning we went to church and then I attempted to take a Christmas card picture of Caroline. The verdict is still out on that whole process, but I’ll keep you posted. Then the time came to go get our Christmas tree.

    Mimi and Bops always do the tree thing with us. We all meet at the lot, load both trees up in P’s truck and then take their tree back to their house before we head home and attempt to get our tree to stand up straight. This process is met with varying success each year. It’s the whole getting the tree to stand up straight that has been the cause of marital stress in years past. Apparently one of us has a hard time knowing what a straight tree looks like.

    I’ll go ahead and admit that I am that person.

    Me: “OH! That’s it! Just like that! PERFECT!!”

    P: “Ok. It’s all tightened down.”

    Me: “Well, now I think it may need to go a little bit more to the left. Or maybe it’s the right.”

    And this scenario tends to cause a bit of frustration.

    But this year we got smart and realized the advantages of child labor.

    Oh sure. She tried to complain that she was too tired to help after we made her carry the tree in on her back, but what’s the point of having kids if not to get the benefits of free labor?

    Just wait until we make her hang the outdoor lights later this week while we threaten that Santa won’t come if the house isn’t properly illuminated.

    Speaking of proper illumination, after we secured the tree in an upright position, I began to wrap the whole thing in lights before we hung any ornaments. Last year I read somewhere, probably Sadomasochist Monthly, that it’s better to string the lights vertically on the tree instead of wrapping them around the tree. True to form, I have no recollection of why this is supposed to be better but yet I did it anyway because some person in some article I can’t remember said it was the best way to do it.

    And I have to disagree with that unknown person in the unknown article because now I appear to be short by at least two strands of lights. Caroline and P tried to convince me that it doesn’t matter because it’s just the back part of the tree and no one will notice.

    But how am I going to jump the shark this Christmas if I don’t have a tree with a maximum display of wattage?

  • A Thanksgiving day in the life

    Here is a brief rundown of how I spent Thanksgiving, complete with a timeline.

    8:45 a.m. – Praise the Lord. Caroline just woke up and is happy to curl up next to me and watch some hideous movie about Barbie leaving for Paris after a break up with Ken and trying to save her Aunt Micheline’s fashion line.

    At least that’s what my sub-conscious absorbed as I drifted back to sleep until I remembered I had to finish cooking some side dishes.

    (On a sidenote: I cannot say the words “side dishes” without thinking about an old episode of South Park where one of the characters is served a plate of waffles and he says, “Am I to understand there will be no side dishes?”)

    (I don’t know why I think that’s so funny.)

    9:27 a.m. – Get out of bed. Put broccoli-rice casserole in the oven.

    9:31 a.m. – Make whipped cream. Possibly lick both beaters clean and eat another enormous spoonful before I hide it from myself in the back of the refrigerator.

    9:42 a.m. – Start thinking about the whipped cream again. Might have pulled it back out and eaten another spoonful.

    9:51 a.m. – Roast butternut squash because Caroline has been obsessed with all the squash varieties and begged me to make some.

    10:16 a.m. – Worry that maybe the whipped cream isn’t sweet enough. Take another taste just to make sure. It’s all about whipped cream quality.

    10:20 a.m. – Realize I have made a strategic cheese error with the broccoli-rice casserole and it has more of a soup-like consistency. Cook more rice in an effort to compensate for the superfluous cheese.

    10:32 a.m. – Look at all the Black Friday specials on the internet and realize that bargains aren’t important enough to get me out the door at 4 a.m.

    10:57 a.m. – Cut up brussels sprouts to make Bobby Flay’s pomegranate brussels sprouts recipe.

    11:06 a.m. – Begin to get the seeds out of the pomegranate.

    11:08 a.m. – Man, these pomegranate seeds are juicy little suckers.

    11:11 a.m. – Change my shirt so I could let my other shirt soak in stain remover in hopes of removing the pomegranate juice.

    11:22 a.m. – Pull the brussels sprouts out of the oven. P walks in and asks if someone has left a dirty diaper in our kitchen.

    Clearly he is not a fan of the sprout.

    11:30 a.m. – Realize we needed to be at Mimi and Bops’ house in thirty minutes. Tell Caroline to go get dressed.

    11:32 a.m. – Put on makeup, curl my hair even though it doesn’t stand a fighting chance against the 112 % humidity.

    11:46 a.m. – Walk in Caroline’s room to find her walking back and forth through her beaded curtain. While wearing her pajamas.

    11:47 a.m. – I think I blacked out.

    11:48 a.m. – Yell, “WE NEED TO GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD!”

    11:52 a.m. – Walk back in the kitchen to finish the butternut squash puree. Caroline comes in to taste it and declares she is not a fan. It would have been nice to know that at 9:51 a.m.

    12:16 p.m. – Arrive at Mimi and Bops’ house. Immediately regret that I wore a jacket and my tall boots. The 80 degree weather is not cooperating with my sartorial selections.

    12:35 p.m. – My sister and I jump around like idiots trying to get our children to smile for a picture that Mimi and Bops can use for their Christmas card.

    12:38 p.m. – Realize the smiles only get more fake and the eleven month old only gets more whiny as the minutes tick by.

    12:39 p.m. – Decide that surely we had something that could pass as a Christmas card photo.

    12:45 p.m. – Ate lunch until we were all sick.

    1:00 p.m. – Decide we all had room for dessert.

    1:30 p.m. – I think I blacked out.

    4:45 p.m. – I rally as a cold front begins to blow through town. Hallelujah.

    6:00 p.m. – Realize it is time to get my game face on.

    6:10 p.m. – Shower, put on flannel pajama bottoms and lucky A&M shirt. Heat up leftovers in spite of all our earlier claims that we’d never eat again.

    6:55 p.m. – Begin to hyperventilate and talk very loudly.

    7:00 p.m. – GAMETIME.

    7:10 p.m. – Watch the game and begin to text furiously with various friends in between throwing decorative pillows and trying not to say words that aren’t Sunday School friendly.

    8:15 p.m. – Aggies finally score a touchdown. I’d like to think that the fact I punched my couch repeatedly as Cyrus Gray ran down the field helped tremendously.

    8:16 p.m. – Sophie texts me and tells me she and Sister are cheering for the Aggies and even willing to get out the vacuum if needed, which always works when her Bulldogs play. I shed a tear at the display of devotion.

    9:06 p.m. – CYRUS GRAY!!!! LOVE HIM!!!!!

    9:20 p.m. – FUMBLE!!!! OH NO!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!! Maybe it will help if I eat some chocolate pudding.

    9:28 p.m. – These announcers are on my last nerve. They all are in the midst of a bromance with the t.u. quarterback and Mac Brown.

    9:32 p.m. – VON MILLER!!!!! LOVE HIM!!!!! Gulley texts me and says if she ever has another son, she’s going to name him Von.

    10:08 p.m. – I am now texting things like “I’m SICK. I FEEL SICK” and “TERRIBLE CALL! THAT WAS A TERRIBLE CALL!” Sophie texts me and says she has just walked into her kitchen. I know this is her solution when a situation looks dire.

    10:14 p.m. – WE HAVE TO GET A THIRD DOWN. WE HAVE TO GET A THIRD DOWN. I FEEL SICK. MY HEART CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE.

    10:17 p.m. – Tannenhill fumbles. I am dead. I die. WAIT! HE GOT IT BACK. HE FELL ON THE BALL! I WILL LIVE TO SEE ANOTHER DAY.

    10:25 p.m. – We punt the ball, the last five seconds tick off the clock and I begin to breathe normally for the first time in the last three and a half hours. GIG ‘EM AGGIES!

    10:27 p.m. – Resist urge to write, “Dear Longhorns, Good luck in your bowl game. Oh, that’s right. You’re not going to a bowl game.” on my Facebook wall. Because I’m trying to be the bigger person.

    10:32 p.m. – Decide to eat a celebratory helping of chocolate pudding with extra whipped cream.

    10:40 p.m. – Bops calls me to confirm that the Aggies won the game before he watches it. He has learned that he can’t handle the stress or time commitment of watching his favorite teams play unless he knows for sure that they win. So he records them on the DVR and watches the game after he knows the outcome. Unless they lose. Then he deletes the game and saves himself the stress.

    The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

    10:45 p.m. – Going to bed. I have worn myself flat out.

    10:56 p.m. – Say a prayer of gratitude for all my blessings. My family, my friends, cold weather, the Aggie win, and another year filled with so much more good than bad. And for y’all.

    Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

    GIG ‘EM AGGIES!!!!!

    (I promise I won’t use this many exclamation points again. Until our bowl game.)

  • The giving of the thanks

    I’m going to take the next two days off because I went to the grocery store yesterday and it almost killed me.

    And the worst part is I have to go back again.

    I hope y’all have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family, friends and your favorite foods!

  • The wonderland years

    While we were in Bryan over the weekend we took the kids to Santa’s Wonderland. It’s become something of an annual tradition for us and I don’t think the holidays would be the same without it. There’s really nothing more than a hayride looking at lights and drinking hot chocolate in 78 degree weather that makes it feel like Christmas is right around the corner.

    We had to see Santa to make sure he knows what everyone wants this year.

    Will was very concerned that he might change his mind before Christmas but we assured him that he could write Santa a letter and let him know about any changes.

    Caroline felt that her time at Santa’s Wonderland wouldn’t be complete without a trip through the petting zoo. And so I squashed all my feelings about farm animals and possible communicable diseases and let her go on in.

    I think the goats got a little frustrated with her when they realized she was doling out her food one grain at a time. She was a little drunk with power. Until a sheep chased her down and she realized her strategy might not be in her best interest.

    And I totally hate to get sappy on y’all, but I’m going to anyway because it’s Thanksgiving week and I just have felt so overwhelmed with gratitude lately.

    From the moment we walked into Santa’s Wonderland, I felt myself get a little bit weepy and nostalgic. The kids were running around trying to catch faux snowflakes falling from the sky. (Not really. They were actually falling from the fake snow machine on the roof, but whatever.) They were laughing and spinning all around and it was just one of those times when I felt like I was witnessing a golden moment of childhood. Just pure delight. And I felt so unbelievably blessed to be a part of it all. To get to be part of these three little lives.

    (It didn’t help my emotions that some guy on stage was singing “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong at the time.)

    Suddenly it dawned on me that the first time we ever took them to Santa’s Wonderland, they looked like this.

    And now they look like this.

    So for Christmas this year I’m going to have to tell Santa that I wish everyone would quit growing up so fast.

    My heart can’t take it.

  • Road trip! With exclamation points!

    On Friday, P and I went to Caroline’s school for a Thanksgiving Feast. And I’ll just go ahead and confess that my expectations were low. So imagine my surprise when I found the instant mashed potatoes with faux gravy to be delightful. If that isn’t a prime indicator of PMS, then I don’t what is.

    Of course, considering that I’m a huge fan of Hormel chili and the occasional can of Spaghetti-Os, it’s not like anyone can accuse me of being a culinary snob even in the best of times.

    Shortly after the feast was over, P headed south for the ranch and I went home to finish packing for the big road trip Caroline and I had ahead of us. There is nothing like the feeling of power that comes over me when I can pack a suitcase and limit Caroline’s wardrobe choices.

    A little after 3:30, Gulley and the boys showed up at the house to pick us up and, after insisting everyone make one more stop in the bathroom, we hit the open road. The kids did not disappoint us. We’d only been in the car about six minutes before one of them asked, “How much longer until we get there?”

    I replied, “We’ll get there when we get there. Don’t ask us that every five minutes.”

    “Okay…but how much longer ’til we get there?”

    The good news is they only asked about forty-two more times over the next three hours. And in between times they alternated which two of them were going to annoy the other one until that one decided to tell on the other two. Then they’d interrupt Gulley and me so they could rat out their fellow man. What they didn’t know was that Gulley and I decided before the trip began that we were going to have a strict policy of telling them “WORK IT OUT YOURSELVES” because we were too busy discussing wrinkle creams and the Aggies chances against Nebraska.

    We finally arrived at Honey and Big’s house and I have never been so happy to be greeted with homemade chicken salad and some incredible artichoke cheese dip. I think I was in my pajamas in about 10.3 seconds with a plate of food in front of me.

    The next morning the kids woke up at the crack of dawn and rode with Big to pick up Shipley’s Donuts. They came home with enough donuts to feed all of us and at least twelve of the neighbors. And then they went outside so Jackson could teach Caroline some of his sweet football moves as I reminded them, “REMEMBER THAT HE IS THREE TIMES YOUR SIZE. DON’T BE TOO ROUGH.” Because Caroline is a little bit like one of those pint-size fluffy dogs that thinks she can take on a German Shepherd and win. And then she’s surprised when she gets leveled.

    By mid-afternoon we headed out to Kyle Field for all the pre-game festivities. Big and Jackson had tickets to go to the actual game, but the rest of us decided to just enjoy all the fun and then go home to watch the game on T.V. Not to mention that since there were 90,000+ people there, extra tickets were a little hard to come by.

    When we showed up at Kyle, it was literally a sea of maroon. I have never seen anything like it and I kept Caroline’s hand in a death grip because I would have never seen her again if she’d gotten away from me.

    We watched the band get ready to lead the football team into the stadium.

    Then Gulley and I posed for a picture because we almost felt like we were nineteen again. Except for the kids. And the fact that our hair is significantly flatter. And neither of us were wearing a Leslie Lucks dress.

    After a few minutes we heard the sirens of the police motorcycles escorting the team bus. The band began to march and the team made their way into the stadium while the kids lined up to give them high-fives.

    That’s a terrible picture of the whole thing and I have no idea who that blonde kid is. Just thought you should know the whole thing was much better in person.

    About that time, three fighter jets flew right over us and the kids were in complete overload that there were so many blessings to be had all in one moment.

    After that, Will and Caroline insisted they needed to get their bounce on.

    Then it was time to watch the Corps of Cadets march in. Caroline and Jackson stood at attention the entire time.

    And then Jackson and Big went in to Kyle Field while we walked around a little bit more and then finally headed back home to make sure we got there in time for kickoff. I don’t know that I’ve ever been more proud to be an Aggie than when I saw how incredible Kyle Field looked on T.V. It was a vast ocean of maroon with Twelfth Man towels waving so much that it looked like snow falling.

    We sat on the couch, we jumped up and down, we screamed and yelled and we watched the Aggies pull off the upset. It was glorious. I even used exclamation points on my Facebook status and I rarely use exclamation points. Especially in triplicate form.

    But THE AGGIES WON!!! We are ranked. In November. And it feels pretty dang good!!!

    As we drove into town on Friday night we were on University Drive, which goes right by the A&M campus. I looked over at Gulley and asked if she remembered that night almost twenty years ago when the Aggies had just beat the Longhorns and we were on University Drive in a car filled with friends and a trunk-load of Frito-Lay chips doing some serious backseat dancing to Groove is in the Heart and eating Cheetos Paws and maybe drinking cheap beer.

    (I feel like I need to give a brief back story. Gulley has an uncle that used to drive a Frito-Lay truck and he always had mass quantities of chips to dole out. And we were poor college students and took full advantage. Her daddy had shown up at the game that night with his trunk full of chips to pass on to us if we wanted them. Which, OF COURSE, who turns down free chips?)

    (Also, the Cheetos Paws were a taste sensation. I don’t know if they make them anymore but it was some cheesy goodness in the shape of a cheetah paw.

    (It was a loose version of a cheetah paw. Kind of an abstract Picasso-type interpretation.)

    (Also, if my dad is reading this then I’m just throwing in the part about the beer for literary embellishment purposes. We were actually on our way to the library after the game to study.)

    (Oh, and on the way into town, Jackson asked if you have a locker in college and we explained that you don’t need one because you only have three or four classes a day and you just bring the books you need. He asked what you do with the rest of your day and we said that we treated it like a full-time job and spent all our free time studying so we could be prepared and make excellent grades. I realize you shouldn’t lie to your children but they really don’t need to know about that semester their mothers failed golf because we decided it was more important to lay out by the pool and get a good tan.)

    Anyway, where was I? I’m just rambling to nowhere.

    So I asked Gulley if she remembered that night and we died laughing because of course we remember that night and those idiots with big bangs and Brighton belts throwing back some Cheetos Paws. And I asked, “Would you have believed it if someone would have told us then that twenty years later we’d be driving down this same street in a decidedly family-friendly SUV filled with McDonald’s Happy Meals and three kids in the back telling each other to stop humming?”

    We both agreed that neither one of those nineteen-year-old girls could have even fathomed such a thing. And it probably would have sounded terrible to us at that time.

    But you know what?

    It really is the best.

    We wouldn’t trade it for anything.

    Not even a bag of Cheetos Paws.

    Gig’em Aggies. Beat the hell outta t.u.