Year: 2010

  • We smelled of chicken and candy canes

    I’m sitting here right now enjoying the glow of my fully lit Christmas tree. Before P left for the ranch last Friday, I pleaded with him to please, SIR, figure out what is wrong with the illumination on our tree. So he switched out the fuses and BEHOLD there was light. And then he grabbed his hunting bags, kissed me goodbye and said he’d see me sometime before next Thursday.

    Great.

    Thanks for being specific.

    So I started off the weekend at Caroline’s class Christmas party. This is Caroline before she left for school that morning. Please note the constant motion. And the wee elf jeans. And the poor photography.

    The party is where I discovered that it isn’t the best idea in the world to give a room full of second-graders a bunch of green icing and ice cream cones and tell them to make trees. Unless of course your end goal is to see how many things you can stain with green food coloring, in which case ACES.

    To my credit, it wasn’t my idea.

    On Friday night we ate Mexican food with Mimi and Bops because that’s what we do on Friday nights. And then Caroline decided to kick off her Christmas vacation by waking up at 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning. And I kicked off Christmas vacation by handing her the remote control and telling her to find one of her recorded Christmas movies to watch while I spent the next two hours drifting in and out of sleep. Which probably explains why a fear of claymation figures and abominable snowmen has now embedded itself into my subconscious.

    A little bit later, I dropped Caroline off at a birthday party for one of her friends and then I sped off to MJM Shoes in a desperate quest to find her some red shoes to wear for Christmas because she has inherited a narrow foot from her father’s side of the family and it’s darn near impossible to find pretty little flats that fit her feet and cost less than her first semester at college. However, I totally scored the cutest little Michael Kors red flats for $19.99 and they actually fit. And she actually likes them. It’s a Christmas miracle.

    Later that afternoon I called Gulley to see if her boys wanted to go with us to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Will wasn’t sure at first because he’d just set up what promised to be a lucrative pecan stand in their front yard and hated to leave his business venture. However, he was swayed by the promise of buttered popcorn and still managed to make $5.00 before we arrived to pick him up.

    We all loved the movie and the popcorn and the Dr. Pepper and the assorted boxes of Sour Sprees, Sour Patch Kids, and Sour Straws. Apparently all we want for Christmas is some dental work.

    (Oh, I just realized that I totally forgot the part about organizing my shirts. I did it in between the birthday party and the movie and realized that I own eleven white tank tops. I don’t even understand.)

    (Yes. That’s all I have to say about the shirts. I’m sad that I used it as a ploy on yesterday’s post because it’s confirmation that my life can be kind of dull.)

    Anyway, Gulley and I originally planned to load the kids up in the stay wag on Saturday night, stop by Starbucks for hot chocolate and drive around and look at Christmas lights. But by the time we got back to Gulley’s house after the movies, I was starving and in desperate need of a meal. I guess half a bucket of popcorn wasn’t filling enough.

    (On a side note, Caroline and I saw a commercial for this disturbing game called Pop the Pig where you feed the pig these little hamburgers until he pops. Allegedly, it’s the number one selling game in Europe. Or maybe it’s just marketed by the same people as L’Oreal Elnett and they just use that as their primary marketing scheme for every product. Anyway, Caroline told me she wanted that game and I told her at the rate I’m currently eating she’ll have a real live version by Christmas. Seriously. I’m off the rails. I’d blame PMS but P says I blame everything on that.)

    So instead of picking up hot chocolate, we drove through Church’s Chicken and cruised around in the station wagon eating fried chicken and looking at Christmas lights while Gulley and I took turns yelling things from the front seat like, “QUIT FIGHTING ABOUT WHO’S GOING TO SIT IN THE BACK ON THE WAY HOME AND ENJOY THE BEAUTIFUL LIGHTS” and “WE DON’T NEED TO TALK ANYMORE ABOUT WHO TOOTED BACK THERE. JUST LOOK AT THE BABY JESUS IN THE NATIVITY!” The whole thing kind of felt like a punchline to a Jeff Foxworthy joke.

    The kids all wanted to have a sleepover so I said the boys could come over to our house. As Gulley went to pack their sleeping bags, Will looked at me and said, “Mel, I’m a little afraid of what your breakfast might look like. Maybe you better just take us to Shipley’s for donuts in the morning.”

    Later on I told P what Will had said and he told me Will was right to be afraid because breakfast around here usually looks like nothing. Which totally isn’t true. I keep a box of granola bars on hand at all times. But I realize there are some snobby breakfast-types who don’t feel that counts.

    And so we went to Shipley’s the next morning. For the children. It was all for the children. And maybe for the chocolate iced donuts and sausage kolaches.

    Then, later that day, Caroline and I left town to go meet P at the ranch for the night.

    And that was the weekend.

    The end.

    ___________________________________

    Don’t forget to click over to my giveaway page to read about Chef Boyardee’s Club Mum and for a chance to win a $200 gift card.

  • The obligatory Santa Claus photo

    So here’s the deal.

    We had a great weekend. There was Mexican food and friends and Christmas lights. It was all very merry and bright.

    And then we headed down to the ranch to spend the night and we are currently all tucked into bed and Caroline is as close to me as physically possible without defying the laws of physics.

    (I don’t really know any of the laws of physics because why? It just sounded like a good thing to say.)

    I’ll tell you all about the weekend tomorrow. And, oh, it will be so worth the wait. Especially the part about how I organized all my white shirts and my black shirts in my closet AND folded all my sweaters neatly.

    But for now I leave you with this.

    I don’t know who that big girl is sitting on Santa’s lap or how she ended up being in second grade in the blink of an eye, but she sure is cute.

  • Fashion Friday: Edition I wasn’t sure it was going to happen

    Well.

    Here’s the deal. I wasn’t even sure that Fashion Friday was going to happen because I was very busy yesterday attending Christmas programs and running from heck to breakfast trying to get 13,532 things done before it was time to pick up Caroline from school.

    And then I went to dinner with Gulley and AJ and ate some macaroni and cheese that has changed all my expectations of food and what it should do to a person’s soul. Plus, AJ was wearing a scarf that was so adorable I feel it should be the sole focus of Fashion Friday. However, after repeatedly grilling her about where it came from, it appears that it hails from a “boutique in Dallas”. Thanks for being specific.

    Just know that it was red and kind of ruffled. ADORABLE.

    On another beauty related note, I asked Caroline earlier this week what she thought we should get her teacher for Christmas and threw out a “maybe a gift card?”. She said, “OH MAMA! WE SHOULD GET HER A PEDICURE! SHE LOVES PEDICURES!”

    “Really? Did she say that?”

    “No, she didn’t say that. But who doesn’t love a pedicure?”

    For the record, I didn’t even know what a pedicure was until I was twenty-five years old. Caroline is clearly an overachiever.

    So here are some things I’ve found this week. Please note there are no pictures because it was enough of a struggle to come up with links because the mac and cheese has made me very sleepy and ready for bed. Also, this may or may not be the last Fashion Friday of the year. In fact, I think it’s safe to say YES. Last one of the year.

    1. Horizontal Cable Turtleneck

    It is a testament to how cute this sweater is that it’s almost sold out online. Get in the store and buy one. And make it pink because it is just dreamy in pink.

    2. Cable Open Cardigan

    I know. Another open cardigan.

    But this one is cable knit which makes it totally different.

    3. Ruched Collar Bell Sleeve Coat

    Love this. But I don’t need another coat unless it decides to be lower than seventy degrees here for two consecutive days.

    4. Always Skinny Black Jeans

    I bought these earlier in the fall. And maybe I’ve already mentioned them here. I can’t remember.

    Then I made Gulley buy a pair. And we are both in love with our skinny black jeans. They have magical qualities that make you feel instantly thinner. Even when you’ve eaten mac and cheese with a side of fried chicken and a fried egg sandwich for dinner.

    Hypothetically speaking.

    5. Craftsmanship Capelet

    I really just want to be able to walk around in something called a capelet.

    “Please make sure you don’t get cranberry sauce on my capelet.”

    6. Ruffle Front Cardigan

    Well, this is just adorable. And I need another open front cardigan.

    7. Tinley Road Blanket Scarf

    It’s not as cute as AJ’s scarf, but it also doesn’t come from “a boutique in Dallas”. Which means I can actually link to it.

    8. Roll-up Flannel Pants

    Because I am cold right now.

    9. Iconic Lace Dress

    So impractical, yet so beautiful. If I were a carefree hippie type, I’d totally buy this.

    10. So Fine in the Alpines Scarf

    Oh look! A red scarf! It’s cute. But not as cute as the one AJ had on last night.

    That’s all for today.

    Y’all have a great Friday.

  • Santa’s got his groove back

    You want to know what I did yesterday?

    I watched this about one hundred and forty-eight times.

    It never gets old.

  • A story about a book

    Listen.

    I was so happy to know that so many of y’all could embrace my decorating woes yesterday. I knew marriage was going to take some work along the way, but I had no idea that part of the deal was learning how to decorate around what used to be an 800 pound animal.

    But today I am totally shifting gears. Of course I have to give you a little back story because that’s what I do.

    Four score and seven years ago, I was facing my second senior year as a student at Texas A&M. It actually wasn’t quite that long ago, but it feels like it. Especially because I aged twenty years last night alone as I helped Caroline learn her lines for the second grade Christmas program.

    Anyway, I was a lost soul during that time. I’d had my heart broken, called off an engagement, continued to chase after meaningless things I thought might make me happy, and spent enough time at bar called The Tap that I had my own VIP card. And was proud of it.

    But life was starting to wear me down. I was tired, confused, lonely and walked around feeling empty most of the time even though I had plenty of friends and the occasional class to keep me occupied. Not to mention, I was terrified about the future because most companies aren’t really lining up to hire the girl who graduates while on scholastic probation and I hadn’t met the right boy to marry and solve all my problems.

    Around that time, my friend Jennifer told me I needed to go with her to a Bible study called Breakaway. And it is a sign of how desperate I felt that I actually said yes and agreed to go. I walked into First Baptist College Station that night with low expectations. I’d grown up in church and had been really involved in my church youth group once upon a time, but I had fallen so far away from all that. Honestly, I felt like I was too far gone. God couldn’t possibly want me now.

    We sat towards the back of the sanctuary and I remember two things as vividly as if they happened yesterday. The first was the minute the worship leader began to sing, I began to cry. Like ugly cry. The second thing was a young guy named Gregg Matte walked on stage and began to talk about how we are called to be children of God and to shine like stars in the universe.

    (That happens to be in Phillipians 2, by the way.)

    But more than that, he talked about grace and mercy and how God loves us more than we could ever imagine. I don’t know that it was the first time I’d ever really heard about God’s grace and love, but it was without a doubt the first time I really grabbed a hold of it and decided not to let go.

    Over the next few months I actually became friends with Gregg and all of his friends. They were unlike any group I’d ever known. They talked openly about their faith and made decisions based on what they felt like God was calling them to do. I loved spending time with them because, without even knowing it, they challenged me to be the person God intended me to be and to quit settling for less.

    By watching Gregg lead his life, I learned what it means to seek God’s will for your life. I’d heard people talk about it, but I’d never seen it in action. Especially not with someone my age. I knew Gregg had graduated with a degree in Marketing but decided to stay at A&M and continue to lead Breakaway Bible Study. And this was at a time when the economy was actually thriving and big firms were waltzing into the business school and offering what seemed like fat sums of money to starving twenty-two-year-old college students. I’m sure there were people that thought he was crazy for making the decision he did, but he knew it was his calling. Breakaway ended up growing to become the largest college Bible study in the nation and there is no way to measure how many lives it has affected.

    And, ultimately, Gregg not only pointed me closer to Jesus. He pointed me to my dear husband who likes to hang antelopes in our living room. After I moved to San Antonio in the fall of ’94, he suggested that I should get in touch with P because we were both lonely and friendless. And that’s how he ended up being part of our wedding party almost three years later, just two weeks after P had been an usher in his.

    Gregg Matte is now the head pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church. He and his wife, Kelly, are dear friends to P and me even though our lives rarely allow us to ever see each other anymore. But they fall in that category of people you know are your people even when life is busy because they are the real deal. We have seen them live out their faith and face hard times and live with hearts that seek God with all that they have.

    Which is part of why I am so excited to tell y’all that Gregg has written a book.

    It’s called Finding God’s Will: Seek Him, Know Him, Take the Next Step. He sent me a copy right before Thanksgiving and it is just so good. He has always been one of the best storytellers and his voice rings out in this book. It’s such a great combination of personal stories combined with practical wisdom about how we can hear God in our lives and know where He’s leading us.

    No matter where you are in your journey with God right now, Finding God’s Will has so much to offer. If you’ve walked with God for a long time, it will inspire you to seek Him more. If you’ve never known Him at all, it will show you who He is and what He’s created you for. It’s about living a life that matters, a life that says you want to make a difference, a life that God is calling you to, whether you’ve heard Him yet or not.

    I cannot recommend it enough.

    Seriously. You need to read this book. Or maybe you just know someone who needs to read this book. I happen to fall in both those categories.

    Finding God’s Will by Gregg Matte is on sale for $13.59 at Amazon right now.

    Oh! And what do you know! It’s also on sale online at Barnes and Noble or available at your local Barnes and Noble store.

    My only regret for this post is that I can’t find the picture of Gregg fishing with P at the ranch about twenty years ago. I don’t know if the fish were biting, but there were plenty of mullets to be found.

    Y’all have a great day.

  • There’s no business like toe business

    I am sitting here right now trying to come up with words for the weekend and feeling an enormous sense of accomplishment because I managed to make a fire in the fireplace all by myself. And, yes, our fireplace is a real fireplace that actually requires things like wood and kindling. I would be lying if I said that the whole scene doesn’t feel a little bit like something right out of Little House on The Prairie, assuming that Ma Ingalls lit her own fire and then sat on her couch while she watched the lights twinkle on her Christmas tree as she typed on her laptop.

    So, when we last spoke or you last read or whatever, I mentioned that I’d nearly burned my house down in an attempt to microwave some mac and cheese and also possibly broken three of my toes. The update is my house still smells like the seventh circle of sulphuric hell, particularly when I use the microwave, and I’ve downgraded my injuries to just one broken toe. I feel certain it is broken because I kind of want to throw something across the room any time I step on it the wrong way combined with the fact that it is a lovely blue color with some black thrown in.

    In spite of my toe injuries, however, life must go on. Although it is going on while I complain incessantly about my toe. Which kind of reminds me of how I was at the Compassion Bloggers’ Reunion dinner after Deeper Still and was going on and on about how HARD AND STRENUOUS it was to work the merch table and sell all those $2.00 t-shirts. Then Shaun Groves introduced me to Dan Woolley who happened to be sitting two seats away from me. For those of you who may not know, Dan was the Compassion employee who was trapped in an elevator shaft buried under rubble for sixty-five hours after the Haiti earthquake last year.

    This is why I should just stay home and work on my fire-building techniques. I’m really not suited for public gatherings.

    Anyway, I’d promised Caroline a month ago that I’d help chaperone her class field trip to the Witte Museum and even though I was in a lot of pain and at a complete loss as to appropriate footwear, I knew that just like they say in the entertainment industry, the toe must go on.

    (I am so sorry. I could not help myself.)

    I hobbled my way around the museum looking at all the animal habitats and bug exhibits while Caroline basically acted like she didn’t care one way or the other if I was there. And I spent most of my time realizing that I’ve always been bored by most types of science and that my tall brown boots were a bad choice.

    After the field trip was over, I went back to Caroline’s classroom because I’d volunteered to watch the class while her teacher attended the teachers’ holiday luncheon. Before she left the classroom, the teacher asked everyone if they learned anything at the museum that morning. Every hand went up except for Caroline. She said, “Caroline? You didn’t learn anything this morning?”

    “Nothing I didn’t already know before I went.”

    I’m not sure how we’re going to survive the next fifteen plus years of formal education.

    Eventually all my field trip/chaperone/volunteer duties were over and it was time to get ready for the annual Christmas shopping weekend. Mimi and Bops picked up Caroline around 3:30 and I spent the next hour icing my toe and popping Advil in preparation for Gulley and me to hit the mall.

    By the time Gulley got to my house I was all psyched up on the rush of adrenaline that comes with the prospect of shopping and temporary freedom from motherhood. I felt like my toe and I were invincible. And we were. Until I got to the entire other side of the mall from where Gulley and I had parked and realized I was actually in a lot of pain.

    Poor Gulley ended up having to haul my large packages and her own through the mall as I pitifully hobbled back to Dillards. A lady in Sephora even stopped Gulley to tell her she felt sorry for her that she had to carry so many large bags. Which made us completely hysterical.

    And that was the theme for the rest of the weekend. We were completely hysterical. I can’t even count the number of times I laughed until I cried. We covered topics from the PTO to her recent trip to Vegas to Brett Favre to our fear of sending text messages to the wrong person to playing blackjack to how no one is really sad when your pet dies except for you. There was also a moment on Saturday night when Sophie texted me to ask if we’d heard that Will Muschamp had left Texas to take the head coaching job at Florida. Gulley and I admittedly got a little high on schadenfreude.

    I’m just being honest.

    Anyway, by the time we finished shopping on Saturday we’d visited just about every store in the San Antonio area with a significant portion dedicated to the aisles of Target. We were exhausted but thrilled at the accomplishment of being finished with our Christmas shopping and headed back to my house to wrap all the gifts.

    We wrapped and talked and laughed and eventually discovered that VH-1 was airing Top 100 Songs of the 90’s. I don’t think I need to tell you that it felt like the programming team at VH-1 reached into our very souls at that moment. And so we continued to wrap (and sometimes rap) as we listened to the songs that were the music of our lives as we survived college, found jobs, wore denim vests with wrap skirts, mended broken hearts, learned that wine shouldn’t come out of a box, discovered Ross and Rachel, and eventually met our husbands and got married.

    My only regret of the weekend is that we finally wore out and went to bed around 2:40 a.m. after discovering that M.C. Hammer’s Can’t Touch This was number sixteen on the list. Gulley had already fallen asleep on the couch so she asked me the next morning, “What was the number one song of the 90’s?” And I had to admit that we hadn’t made it.

    And now we’ll never know.

    I’d be willing to be money that Sir Mix-A-Lot made it to the top ten though.

    So that was the weekend.

    It was good.

    Now I’m going to go take more Advil and get some ice for my toe while I sit in the glow of the fire I built with my own two hands, several pieces of wood, and more lighter fluid than is probably safe.

    _____________________________________________________

    Today is the Christmas Tour of Homes over at the Nester’s blog. I guarantee there will be tons of gorgeous homes to check out. I didn’t do a post because all my stuff looks the same as last year and it seemed redundant. However, here is my post from last year in case you’re new and are overwhelmed with curiosity.

    There is a chance to win a $200 gift card from BlogHer as part of a new Chef Boyardee program. Click over to my giveaway page to leave a comment for a chance to win.