I feel fairly certain that half the free world reads Confessions of A Pioneer Woman, but if you belong to the other half, go read this. She’s been writing the story of how she met and fell in love with her husband.

I am seriously addicted to the story and wait for each installment like it’s a big bowl of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream.

Maybe one of these days I’ll write about how P and I met and fell in love. Of course, it lacks some of the drama and suspense of Pioneer Woman’s story, but does involve raw chicken and possible salmonella poisoning. Just like all great love stories.

I’ll be back tomorrow with Fashion Friday.

In case y’all are wondering how many times someone can ask “How long until we get there?” on a 3 hour road trip, I’ll tell you.

Too many.

About 20 minutes into our road trip to Bryan, the whining and crying about “When is this trip going to end?”, “When will we be there?”, and “How much longer?” were at a fever pitch until, finally, the kids told Gulley and me to be quiet and just enjoy the trip.

When we arrived at Gulley’s mama’s house, she was getting ready to have the whole family over for dinner. It seems that once the whole clan realized we were coming, none of them could stay away. So, 30 minutes after our arrival, Nena, Granddaddy, Uncle Johnny, and Uncle Glen came pulling up to the house.

We all sat down to eat barbecued chicken, sausage and twice baked potatoes. As a bonus, Nena brought a plate of deviled eggs because, really, is any gathering complete without deviled eggs? We ate until we were stuffed and Caroline loved the deviled eggs because “Hey! These taste just like hardboiled eggs!”

Imagine that.

Anyway, after dinner we all sat around to catch up on all the news. It seems that Nena wants to buy a new car and doesn’t really know what kind she wants, but is insistent that it must have a sunroof. I sat there thinking how chick Nena is to want a car with a sunroof, and envisioned her driving to the Winn-Dixie with the wind in her hair. Then she said, “YES, I must have a sunroof because on the news they always show people caught in floodwaters escaping from their sunroof. I need a sunroof so I can get out of the car if I’m caught in a flood.” (and no, I haven’t ever seen a newsclip of anyone being rescued from their sunroof either)

I asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“Nena, do you even drive anywhere when it’s raining?” I felt fairly certain I knew the answer to the question. “Well, no. But you just never know.” Uncle Johnny chomped on his cigar and said, “Well, Mama, just make sure if you’re ever caught in rising water, you open that sunroof before the water gets too high because, otherwise, it’s not going to work any better than the windows and then you’ve wasted good money on a sunroof.”

Later on, Uncle Johnny pulled me aside and said, “I’d hate to think about Mama getting caught in a flood, but I’d pay good money to see her try to get through a sunroof.” Which completely summed up my feelings on the matter.

At one point in the evening, talk turned from how to survive a flood to religious matters. Nena was telling us about her search for a new television. She told me she went into Circuit City and told them she needed the biggest and best T.V. money could buy and money was NO OBJECT because her T.V. is as dear to her as her Bible.

I feel certain that somewhere in Bryan, there is a Circuit City salesman who is enjoying a nice bonus thanks to Nena and her T.V. devotion of religious-like proportions. And really, who am I to judge? Once the fall season starts I will enter into my own television fervor because hello! The Bachelor! Friday Night Lights! Grey’s Anatomy!

And while we were on the subject of religion, Uncle Glen told us about his church. Uncle Glen lives in a solar-paneled log cabin in a little town outside of Bryan, and as Gulley’s mama will tell you, he has always been a little different. Nena thinks it’s because she cried so hard when she found out she was pregnant with him.

But anyway, it seems that the church he attends used to be Church of Christ, but membership kept declining so “they wheeled in a piano and an organ and changed the sign outside to say non-denominational, and now we’re up to 130 members”. And they are serious about the non-denominational part because during communion they put wine in the inner circle of the tray, along with grape juice for the former Baptists who still prefer to drink in the privacy of their own closets.

The only flaw in the new, improved non-denominational church is they recently discovered their preacher isn’t licensed or ordained after 8 years of marrying and burying various members of the congregation. It seems there might be some folks living in sin despite the best of intentions.

But, I’m sure it’s some consolation that they had lovely organ music during the ceremony.

The great thing about a trip to Bryan is that I get to see all of Gulley’s extended family. They all live in Bryan and if there is an occasion such as a birthday, y’all better believe they are all going to be there. I can remember many a time in college when Gulley and I would have to hit the family birthday party circuit before we were free to go on with our evening. Oh, and I could write a book on the summer we went to the Decatur Reunion, which isn’t just a family reunion, it’s a TOWN reunion. And people stay all week on the fairgrounds and like, camp out and stuff. With no air-conditioning.

Texas summer + no air-conditioning = 182 levels of wrong

Nena grew up in Decatur and her daddy still lived there until he passed away several years ago, but for years there was always the guilt to attend the Decatur Reunion because chances were good that Gulley’s great granddaddy wasn’t going to be with us by the next summer and even though he could no longer remember who anyone was, it would “just mean the world to him” to have his whole family at the reunion.

Anyway, since it was Gulley’s mama’s birthday, the whole clan descended on her house for a cookout. Uncle Glen came in carrying a laundry basket full of purple hull peas and dropped it in front of Gulley’s mama and said, “Happy Birthday, Sis. Here’s your present. I hate to eat and run, but I’ve got to be at Joe’s Bar before all the good lookin’ girls are taken.”

I got a lump in my throat witnessing such a tender moment.

He told us he had his eye on two special ladies. One he referred to as “Blue Bell”, the other “Sweet Hips”. Between those terms of endearment and the tender gift of a lifetime supply of purple hull peas, it really is a wonder some lucky gal hasn’t snapped him up.

Not to mention the fact that he lives in the middle of nowhere in a solar powered log cabin.

At some point in the evening, all the kids were running around the backyard and Uncle Johnny, who raises racehorses, noticed that Caroline is pretty fast. So, he gets Jackson, Will and Caroline to line up and run races to see who is the fastest. I honestly think he was about to start placing bets and discussing trifectas, when Caroline finally decided that her legs were “too TI-RED” and stopped running. I carried her inside and told Nena about the running and she said, “Well you know, Johnny’s horse finished NINTH last weekend at the races! NINTH! Can you imagine?” Somebody asked, “How many horses were there?” Nena said, “Probably just 10.”

And I just have to mention that Nena had on some darling, polka dot capri pants and when I said, “Well, Nena! Look at you, you are so stylish”, she said, “Oh, I know it and did you see my purse? It’s fabulous.”

It was fabulous, and she kept it with her all night long just because it added to her outfit. Every now and then she’d set it down and then remember she needed it to perfectly complete her ensemble, so she’d send someone in search of it. While retrieving the purse, Gulley discovered that Nena actually had nothing in there at all. It was purely for ornamental purposes because Nena is all about the style.

The other person we got to see was Nena’s good friend, Dorothy Jo. Dorothy Jo was wearing a hot pink suit and Nena said, “Oh Dorothy Jo! I just love that suit!” and Dorothy Jo said, “I know, I just love it, too. I bought it right off the rack and you know on a normal person I think these are supposed to be capri pants, but they fit me just perfect.” The whole look was very chic or as Dorothy Jo would say, “CHICK”.

That’s right.

“Oh! Your hair looks so CHICK!”

“That dress is just so CHICK!”

“Well, you know, she buys her clothes at Steimart and they are just so CHICK!”

It’s gotten to the point where Gulley’s mama, Gulley and I can’t even look at each other for fear something might be declared “CHICK” and send us into uncontrollable laughter from the likes of which we’d never recover.

And a trip to Bryan wouldn’t be complete if Nena hadn’t presented me with a gift she found at a garage sale. It’s been years since I have been the recipient of prime garage sale material, but this visit put me back on the list. Actually, truth be told, she had bought this item with Gulley in mind, but Gulley (who has been using this same tired excuse for the last 17 years) told her that, sadly, it didn’t fit. So, Nena told Gulley to give it to me because “it will fit her for sure and everything looks just beautiful on her! Just beautiful!”

Not everything.

Alexis Carrington Colby called today and wants her shirt back.

Of course, I may wear it one of these days. Someone might tell me I look chick.

Well, let me start by saying WE HAD MORE FUN. If y’all haven’t taken a road trip recently with whoever your equivalent of Gulley is, then get in the car and just do it. And if you don’t have a Gulley equivalent…GET ONE.

I started the day off running a little late. The plan was I would drop Caroline off at school at 8:45 and meet Gulley back at my house. But Caroline has some kind of animal like instinct that alerts her to odd phenomenons, like us needing to actually be out of the house by a certain time, and slept until 8:00. This would never happen on a morning where we have nowhere to be. Life is not that kind and certainly doesn’t care about my dream of sleeping past 7 a.m. on any given morning.

Anyway, I got Caroline dropped off and called Gulley on her cell to see if she was already at my house. She answered and I asked, “Are you waiting for me at my house?” and she said, “Yes, but the construction workers told me you had just left.” Which brings me to a whole other point about being under constant surveillance by the construction crew working on Tillie’s house next door. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t a slimy type construction crew making obscene comments or anything. They just notice everything that happens at our house.

They tell Caroline to have a good day at school. They ask P how business is going. They were so excited about my new car. And at the rate we’re going, we’ll be inviting them all for Christmas this year.

Finally, Gulley and I loaded up in my car and headed to her mama’s house to drop off Will and pick up her stepdad who we call Big, because he is, in fact, Big. And can I just interrupt this road trip recap to inform y’all that when we got in the car, the opening music to Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” was playing and Will knew what it was and started singing “Uh Oh, Uh Oh, Uh Oh”.

And that is why he is a rockstar and I love him.

Anyway, we picked up Big and were on our way. We had roadtripped with Big once before about 15 years ago, so we figured he’s already heard it all, so we talked freely about important womanly issues like how I should get my hair cut and what we were fixing for dinner these days. Actually, Big has been home from work for about a week while he’s waiting to start a new job, and he was a wealth of daytime T.V. information. He let us know that dark green, leafy lettuces are better for us than iceberg and he also knew some potential plotline information for Grey’s Anatomy because he saw McSteamy on Regis and Kelly a few days ago.

And that is why Big is a rockstar and I love him.

When we got to College Station, we dropped off Big and headed to the hospital to go see Tiff and her new baby boy, Zeke. It was so fun to walk in the hospital room and completely surprise Tiff. She had no idea we were coming because, let’s be honest, by the time you have your 4th baby, you’re wondering if your husband is going to show.

We hugged, cried and kissed that new, darling baby boy and then he was off to get circumcised. Talk about a buzz kill.

Gulley, Tiff and I met when we were all Diamond Darlings at A&M. One of the cardinal rules for Diamond Darlings is you can’t date the players, and while we all broke this rule, Tiff took it to the next level and actually ended up marrying one of the players. She is an overachiever.

And that is why she is a rockstar and I love her.

But seriously, she is one of the sweetest people I have ever known. One of the first times we ever talked, I asked her what her major was and she answered, “being a wife and mother”, which coming from anyone else might have caused me to reach for the nearest bucket to throw up in, but coming from her, it was just so genuine. She is super mom, but not in a fake way. She doesn’t pretend to have it all together, she just loves almost every minute of the chaos. In fact, one time when her girls were smaller she showed up at church and realized she had forgotten to put shoes on and instead of melting down, she just laughed and went with it.

And when she called to tell me she was pregnant I said, “Oh Tiff, I don’t know how you do it. I can barely handle the one I have!” and she answered, “Well, I think having just one is a lot harder than having three!” So obviously, she’s also a good liar.

She is always thinking of others. In fact, she runs a baking business and makes the most incredible cakes and cookies y’all will ever see. She spent the day and night before her scheduled c-section making the prettiest cookies I have ever seen and bagging them in little baggies and tying them up with brown ribbon and tulle, then placed them in a huge basket to bring to the hospital to hand out to all of her nurses and any of her visitors. Seriously.

And let me tell y’all that the hospital staff was knocking themselves out to take care of her. Even housekeeping got in on the action and was in her room begging for something to clean after they heard the rumor about the new mama with the cookies. In fact, I had to fight some of them off just so I could grab about 3 or 9 for myself.

Those hospital staff members get a little touchy about their free food.

Needless to say, Tiff and her baby were the hit of the hospital.

So, I decided if I ever have another baby, I am going to bring something real nice like some beef jerky sticks and perhaps an economy size bag of chips for the hospital staff to share, because obviously it’s the little things that count.

I’ve spent the last few weeks talking to AJ on a daily basis, just listening when she needs someone to listen and offering prayers and encouragement along the way. During this time, we’ve cried some and laughed a lot because sometimes you just need to laugh. As Truvy says in Steel Magnolias, “Laughter through tears is one of my favorite emotions.”

And since I shared our sadness yesterday, I thought I’d share some laughter today.

A.J.’s family is financially very comfortable. I mean her daddy is a surgeon and you don’t generally hear people say things like, “Well, you know he’s a doctor and they are just barely making ends meet.” They also tend to have friends that are in the same financial type boat, present blogger excluded.

Watching the last few months unfold has taught me a few things.

1. Apparently, when the upper class are facing tough circumstances, their friends send their maids over to clean the person’s home. Yesterday, AJ said there were no less than 5 maids in her home at one time.

I would have sent Cata, but there aren’t enough Grab its in the free world to give her the supply she would need to clean a house that size.

2. When they send food over, they do it with style. At one point throughout this whole thing, I told AJ that I would really like to bring them a meal and asked what they were completely sick of so that I could avoid it. Her answer?

Beef Tenderloin.

I was thinking more along the lines of receiving too many King Ranch Chicken casseroles made with Velveeta. It’ s not too often that you get to hear someone say, “I am just sick of all this delicious, high quality beef served with garlic infused potatoes and fresh spinach casserole with creme brulee for dessert.”

3. Instead of everyone bringing over their best fried chicken, tomato aspic, or potato salad for the funeral, they hire caterers. I honestly think there will be someone carving prime rib in the corner and an open bar.

AJ and I have laughed about all of this because even though it’s the world she’s grown up in, she’s down to earth enough to find the comedy in all of it.

Last night we were laughing about one lady who brought over some split pea soup in a reused milk jug. My personal opinion is split pea soup isn’t the most visually appealing food even when presented in a delicate, china bowl. AJ said her sister came downstairs, saw the milk jug full of soup sitting on the counter and asked, “Who barfed in the milk jug?”

Needless to say, the split pea soup remained uneaten.

I was over at Gulley’s this morning and I was telling her some of these things. When I told her about the split pea soup, she told me a great story about Nena.

A few years ago, one of Nena’s good friends passed away. Nena’s best friend, Jo, was making some soup to take over to the family’s home, so Nena decided to make some sweet cornbread muffins to accompany the soup.

Nena baked her muffins and wrapped them up to deliver, but saved two of them for she and Granddaddy to eat with their lunch later on. She and Jo drove over and delivered their soup, which I promise y’all was not in an old milk jug because Nena would never allow such unsavoryness, and muffins.

After she got home, she fixed her lunch and took a bite of her cornbread muffin. She said it was the worst tasting thing she’d ever had in her mouth and spit it out. It was so bad she couldn’t even swallow it. She ran into the kitchen to try to figure out what went wrong. And that’s when she saw the error of her ways.

Instead of spraying the muffin tins with Pam cooking spray, she had sprayed them with a can of OFF mosquito repellant.

She told Granddaddy what she had done and he said “You need to call those folks up and let them know that they can’t eat those muffins. It could poison them.”

Nena replied, “You hush your mouth. I’m not about to ruin my reputation in this town and let them know those horrible muffins are mine. If they get sick they can go to the emergency room, that’s what it’s for.”

I’m sure that family was wishing someone had just brought over split pea soup in a milk jug, but on the upside, they probably didn’t have to worry about mosquitos for days after the funeral was over.

A few weeks back, Gulley went to Bryan to visit her Nena and Grandaddy. When she goes to visit she and her boys stay with her aunt and uncle because, like most women her age, Nena has accumulated a variety of knick knacks that sit on crocheted doilies.

5 year old boys and knick knacks…not necessarily an ideal combination.

Gulley told me that one evening they were all sitting around her Uncle Johnny’s house and she was telling them how she and her husband are currently going through the Bible in One Year. Then, Jackson, her oldest son, asked, “Uncle Johnny, have you ever read the whole Bible?”

Uncle Johnny said, “Well, yes, as a matter of fact I have. I’d read it every Sunday during P&W (that’s Praise and Worship, y’all) and it only took me about 10 years to finish the whole thing.”

I’m betting it took him 2 years just to get through Genesis.

Five years ago this morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn and headed to Austin. Gulley was having labor induced bright and early and I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss a thing. I was nervous and anxious, after all this was our first baby and I had no idea what to expect.

As I walked into the hospital room that morning, Gulley was sitting in the hospital bed with an I.V. in her arm demanding that someone better turn Kelly Ripa off the T.V. before she ripped that I.V. out of her arm and walked out of there. I guess the combination of contractions and a bad reaction to an epidural will make you a little cranky. It didn’t help that her husband J was offering beef jerky to everyone in the room.

We waited all day long. Those poor nurses thought they could keep us in the waiting room, but they were no match for the family. That was our baby being born in there and no way were we waiting down the hall. I’m sure they loved us.

While we were waiting, I got hungry so Gulley’s mama offered me a Weight Watcher’s brownie that she had in her purse. I will always remember it as the worst thing I have ever eaten. Ever. Then finally, nine hours and one bad brownie later, the doctor came out to tell us that Jackson was here with a full head of red hair.

I’ll never forget that I loved him the moment I saw him.

Five years later, I’ve watched him grow from a baby to a sweet little boy. I’ve watched him take his first steps, say his first words, eat his first birthday cake. I’ve changed his diapers, rocked him to sleep, held him when he’s cried, and seen him learn to ride his bike without training wheels. I’ve watched him become Caroline’s best friend in the whole world.

I’m as proud of him as if he were mine. He lives life to the fullest and is always looking for his next adventure. As Caroline would say “Oh Jacks, you are SO GOOD at that!”.

I bet you’re going to be great at being five. Happy Birthday sweet boy.

And yes, tomorrow we will return to our regularly scheduled non-birthday posts. January is a big month.

I spent the better part of my college career living life on the wilder side. I can guarantee I didn’t miss too many Thursday nights (or Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays for that matter) at my favorite hang outs, as opposed to all the mornings that I didn’t actually make it to class. For me, class was just something I had to do on occasion so that I could get decent grades and Dad would continue to pay for the whole thing.

I’m sure reading this makes him proud.

In fact, I will confess that Gulley and I took golf as our P.E. class one semester and failed. The F was not due to our lack of golf prowess, although it could have been, but because we skipped class eighteen times. Obviously we had more important things to do like work on our tans. Plus, the golf teacher had once been Gulley’s Sunday school teacher and she kept assuring me that no way would he fail us because he had taught her Sunday school. She was wrong.

Anyway, towards the end of my FIFTH year in college, I realized that I was tired of the way I was living. I was making bad choices. At the advice of my friend Jen, I started attending a Bible study called Breakaway and it changed my life. Y’all can read about it here if you haven’t already.

During this time, I made friends that I will have for the rest of my life. People who nurtured me, encouraged me and prayed for me. People who showed me that being a Christian didn’t mean that I had to spend all my time in prayer meetings and playing miniature golf. One of these people was my friend Hite.

Since I was only taking four hours that last semester of college, I had a lot of free time on my hands, so Hite and I really got to know each other. I would meet he and Gulley for lunch at the student center almost every day and we would laugh until we cried telling stories. He also taught me how to use email for the first time, so in a way, he got me started on the whole computer thing, although I told him that I didn’t think the whole email thing would really take off because the addresses were way too long.

Forecasting technological trends is obviously not my gift.

About two weeks before graduation, about twenty of us decided it would be fun to go camping at Bryan Utilities Lake. Everyone met out at the lake and as people began setting up camp, it became painfully obvious that we could be divided into two groups: serious campers and complete novices.

I’m sure y’all can guess what group I fell in.

The serious campers set up their deluxe tents with their backpacks full of provisions and first aid kits, while Gulley, Hite, Jen and I pulled our pillows and a bag of marshmallows out of the car. In spite of our lack of preparedness, we had a great time. Everyone cooked hot dogs, sang songs, and told stories. It was the perfect way to spend an evening, until it was time to go to bed.

One of the serious campers took pity on the novice contingent and loaned us a blue tarp to sleep on, and we all put our pillows down looking forward to a night sleeping under the stars, which was great in theory, except that we had forgotten one key factor about being out at a lake in May.

Mosquitoes.

I will never in my life forget lying under the stars trying to ignore the mosquitos while Hite could not stop talking about how they were “eating us alive”. The novice campers had literally become a feast for the mosquitoes. Finally, we found a citronella candle and we all huddled around it, hoping that the scent would make the torture stop. Hite even composed “An Ode to Citronella”.

Then, about 3:00 a.m. the mosquitoes suddenly disappeared and in their place came thirty mile an hour north winds and pouring rain as a cold front hit. In May. In College Station, TX. What are the odds?

Suddenly, we all found ourselves wrapping up in the sad, little tarp, huddling around the citronella candle for warmth, and completely hysterical at our bad luck. Why it didn’t occur to us to get in the car and leave, I’ll never know. Obviously, I should have spent more time in class and less time drinking alcohol.

It is one of the worst and best memories of my life.

Two weeks later, I graduated and left college with better friends that I could have ever dreamed. Happy Birthday Hite. Thanks for being a forever friend.

And in a perfect twist, today is also Nena’s birthday. It’s only appropriate since she and Hite both have more style than anyone else I know.

Gladys Hardy on The Ellen DeGeneres Show

My sister sent me this and it is hysterical. It reminds me of my neighbor Tillie, who I’ll be telling y’all about sometime this week.

Enjoy! And Amy, thanks for sending it.