Author: Big Mama

I woke up yesterday morning and my first thought was “How soon can I go back to bed?”. And so I got Caroline up, dressed and fed and then P took her to school. I sat on the couch with a cup of coffee and managed to stay awake until about 9:30 a.m. and then headed back to bed. I didn’t even feel bad about it.

Well. I didn’t feel bad about it until I laid in bed for an hour and never managed to go back to sleep. So I eventually got up and did my best to get some things done. I ran to the mail store to mail some packages, put some meat out to thaw for dinner, answered a bunch of email and then sat on the couch and read for a while until it was time to go get Caroline from school.

And I’m happy to report I feel about 58% better than I did on Sunday.

Oh. And I also made some homemade banana bread which makes me feel doubly productive because it combines making homemade baked goods with the frugality of not letting three bananas go to waste.

Anyway, the bottom line is that there isn’t anything much to tell around here unless you count that Caroline has the STAAR test over the next two days and has informed me that I need to cook her a healthy, nutritious breakfast. Experience has shown she won’t eat a bite of it, but she apparently believes just the smell of eggs cooking will enhance her test scores.

But I remembered that I’ve never given an update on redecorating Caroline’s room. In fact, it’s been so long since I’ve mentioned it that some of you may have no idea that there was ever such a thing in progress. So yes, Virginia, there is some new decor.

When Caroline was in first grade we painted her room the most shocking lime green you’ve ever seen, like it looked like The Hulk was about to come out due to the constant green glow, and she had my grandmother’s furniture and hot pink bedding. It was a sweet room but pink has really never been her thing and so she asked after Christmas if we could change it. And I agreed it was time to come up with something that better reflected her style.

So the first thing she decided was she wanted to change the walls from shocking lime green to the soft gray that’s in the rest of our house. SOLD. Just that change alone made such a huge difference. And then we bought a new bed, some new bedding, a desk and a chair and a couple of new things to hang on the wall. We still need a rug, a better lamp, and have some shelves to hang. Plus she wants her monogram painted above her bed again and so I guess that will happen eventually. But she loves her new room and I love that my hallway no longer has a lime green glow.

And just in case you want to know, the bed is the Sophie Tufted bed from Overstock.com, the bedding is from PB Teen, the green desk is from World Market, the walls are Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore, the Have Faith pillow is from 25:40 Love, and the Be Strong & Courageous canvas is from Lindsay Letters.

Feel free to offer any rug suggestions. I’d thought about a gray and white chevron but I’m worried that’s too many patterns competing, yet I hate to just use a solid color because BORING.

Finally in book related news, I’m excited to announce that Nobody’s Cuter Than You is officially back in stock on Amazon and it’s only $10.86 which is the most random price ever. And, for those of you who’ve been asking, I’m officially doing a book signing in College Station on Saturday, May 9th at 11 a.m. at LifeWay.

See you tomorrow when I might have something more interesting to say since I might actually leave my house today.

You know what I just realized as I sat down on my couch and started thinking about what I was going to write about?

That I took NOT EVEN ONE picture this entire weekend.

So the question becomes “If a blogger goes into the woods and doesn’t post a photo on Instagram, did it really happen?” because I was in the woods on Friday night and Saturday morning. Specifically, I was at Crier Creek right outside of Columbus, TX because I was the speaker for the Kingsland Baptist Women’s Retreat.

I invited my sister, Amy, to go with me for the weekend to keep me company and we had the best time. We left San Antonio about 1:00 on Friday and made our way to Columbus with a stop at DQ for a blizzard. This is where I have to tell you that the mini Blizzard has kind of changed my life. I always felt the small Blizzard was just more than I could eat for a road trip snack, but the mini is just sheer perfection. It’s like the tapas version of an ice cream treat.

Once we arrived at Crier Creek, we made our way down the country roads until we arrived at the General Store for check in and to figure out where we were supposed to go. And that’s when the sweet women in charge informed us they’d had a couple of women drop out because they were worried about the tornadoes.

Well.

I’d never wished more that maybe I’d thought to check the weather forecast. Especially when we arrived at the little log cabin where we were staying for the night. It was so quaint and very Little House On the Prairie which you know I’m a sucker for…except in the event of possible tornadic activity. So I began to read the instructions in the Camp Booklet that serve to inform you what you should do in case of a tornado – because apparently this isn’t an uncommon occurrence – and it advised that we should get under a mattress, away from the windows and should under no circumstances stand under a lone tree.

But I still couldn’t help but believe there appeared to be a better than average chance that in the event of a tornado I was going to find myself in a real life reenactment from the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy Gayle finds herself in a flying house.

Fortunately we just had a couple of downpours, some lightning and a few claps of thunder that caused the whole log cabin to shake, but no tornadoes. I spoke at the evening session and then Amy and I went back to our cabin and stayed up way too late talking and hanging out. It had been forever since we’d had that much time together and I loved every minute of it.

I slept like a rock in the log cabin because it had a/c window units and I do love a window unit. It makes a room super cold and provides just the right amount of ambient noise. And I also brought a big oscillating fan from home because I am working on ways to become even more high maintenance about my sleep habits.

On Saturday I spoke a couple more times and loved my time with the women from Kingsland Baptist, then Amy and I headed to Houston because I had a book signing that night at Barnes & Noble. We were originally going to head straight to Bops and Mimi’s house but made a quick detour to Anthropologie because I’d ordered a shirt that I was planning to wear that night but it hadn’t arrived in time.  Plus Amy volunteered to drive around the crowded parking lot while I ran in the store to try it on to see if I wanted to buy it and then return the one that P informed me showed up at our house about fifteen minutes after I left on Friday.  But Amy managed to find a parking place right up front and so we spent a few minutes looking around.  Since you didn’t ask for the epic three-part novella version of this whole fascinating story about a blouse, I’ll tell you that I decided against the shirt on Saturday afternoon but continue to have conflicting feelings about it so I may still end up keeping the one I originally ordered.

Once we arrived at Bops and Mimi’s we visited with them until it was time to get to the book signing. We were about 30 minutes early because my dad always worries about traffic and he felt we needed to leave the house by 6:15 and Mimi believed we could wait until 6:30. And then they compromised on 6:22 because that’s normal, yet we ended up leaving as early as 6:10 because we are apparently all a little compulsive and then sat in the parking lot for about 15 minutes until it was closer to time.

And then I signed books and got to visit with so many fun people. I’d been so tired after the retreat, but totally got my second wind and loved meeting everyone that showed up and catching up with old friends and family that I hadn’t seen in a while.

Remember when I said earlier that I didn’t take one picture this weekend? That’s the truth. But you know what I just did? Stole this picture off my cousin’s Facebook page. Behold the power of technology.

This is Mimi, Bops, Amy and a bunch of our cousins.  It’s sad that I’m the only one who seemed to believe the camera was in a different location.  Well done.

Sometimes I’m not my sharpest after I sign books for a while, as evidenced by the fact that I started to spell my own name wrong before it was all over.

Afterwards we went to go eat a little Italian food before we all went home and crashed.  Then I was up and ready to head home by 9:00 a.m. on Sunday which isn’t normally my way, but I was ready to see my people and have a little bit of downtime before the week started.

As soon as I got home, I unpacked my suitcase because I can’t stand to leave it packed and then did some laundry, swept the floors and went through the mail before I finally sat down on the couch – mainly because I suspected I was so tired that once I sat down I may not be able to get up.  It turns out that my suspicions were correct.

On a totally unrelated note, I just texted Gulley to tell her “Absolutely!” to answer a question she asked and it autocorrected to “Avail Purely!”.  Best of all, she texted me back to tell me she thought I’d come up with a new saying and was going to start using it.

AVAIL PURELY!

And have a great Monday.

Just a quick reminder! Don’t forget about the Nobody’s Cuter Than You bookstore contest. You can find all the details here.

Is it weird that I’m totally relieved to write a Fashion Friday post right now? I don’t know what it says about me that I find shopping for clothes on the internet some form of relaxation, but I really don’t care. It’s the truth. I enjoy online shopping. Maybe it’s because I can order stuff and have the anticipation that maybe this top will be “THE TOP” for a few days until it arrives and I realize it’s not all it was cracked up to be.

I guess what I’m saying is online shopping is the married person’s equivalent of online dating.

But I’m even more excited because I have a fun contest that I’m announcing today that comes with a lovely array of cash and prizes. Actually there is no cash involved, but there are prizes. And it will involve a little bit of effort on your part but I think it will be fun and I’ll love it because it gives me the chance to see your faces.

First, I will tell you that there will be two winners (even though you’re all winners in my opinion) who will receive a prize package that includes a $35 gift card to Milk and Honey Tees, two monogrammed acrylic stemless wine glasses from The Ikat Elephant, and a $25 gift certificate to whichever store you happen to use to fulfill the entry requirement.

Show them what they can win, Alex.

Cute tees from Milk and Honey

Acrylic monogram wine glasses perfect for the beach or pool or patio.

I feel like you can imagine the gift certificate without seeing a picture.

So here’s what you need to do for a chance to win:

1. Go to your local Walmart, Barnes & Noble, or LifeWay and take a picture of you or someone you love holding a copy of Nobody’s Cuter Than You in the store.

2. Post the picture to Instagram, Twitter or Facebook and include #nobodyscuterthanyou in your post so I can find your entry, along with a # for whatever store you choose for your photo op. (For example, #Walmart, #Barnes&Noble, or #LifeWay)

3. You have until next Friday to get your entries posted and then I will choose two winners at random and notify you on your post or by email.

4. Bonus points are not awarded for creativity, yet it will make me happy.

5. Have fun and hope you love the book.

And now for the fashion portion of the day:

1. side stitch chambray tunic

I really like this to wear with leggings or skinnies. It comes in blue, gray or white depending on your preference.

2. summers wedge sandal

Last summer Kate Middleton had these Stuart Weitzman cork wedges that I adored but didn’t buy because they were like a gazillion dollars and I’m not married to the future King of England. These aren’t exactly the same but good for those of us on a commoner’s budget.

3. teardrop bead necklace

This would look so cute for summer and would give a little pop to even a basic white t-shirt. It also comes in mint, ivory, navy and pink depending on your accessory needs.

4. ladder lace blouse

I love a loose, sleeveless top like this for summer. This one comes in black as well and is on sale for $59.95

5. so very classic cardigan

I realize you may have twenty of these. Or maybe that’s just me. Whatever. I just think it’s a perfect thing to throw over a tank on a cool night.

6. bali diamond belted dress

Love a good casual dress for the summer.

7. grant avenue embroidered blouse

I’m such a fan of an embroidered top with jeans and some wedges.

8. folklore embroidered blouse

See? I’m powerless over the embroidered top. This one would look amazing with white jeans or shorts.

9. franco sarto gia sandals

I actually saw these sandals when Sheaffer posted them on her blog a week or so ago and decided to order them even though I had conflicting feelings about that big toe ring. Would I be ok with my big toe being set apart from my other toes? There was only one way to find out.

They came in the mail this week and I ADORE them. They are so comfortable and look great with everything I’ve tried them with so far. I now embrace the toe ring. The Big Toe is the King Toe and should be treated as such.

10. j.crew embroidered tassel top

Isn’t this the cutest? It comes in black too and I honestly couldn’t decide which one I liked best. Perfect for warm weather.

11. j.crew swiss dot tank top

And this is a bonus number eleven feature just because I saw this after the fact and couldn’t make myself not include it even though having eleven things feels odd. I prefer even numbers and symmetry and for life to always make sense.

That’s it for today.

Don’t forget to run in your local Walmart, Barnes & Noble, LifeWay or what-have-you and enter your picture for a chance to win. Can’t wait to see all your faces.

Have a good Friday.

It appears that I have come down with a real, live cold.

I woke up yesterday morning before the alarm went off, mainly because I couldn’t breathe. And that tends to wake a person up.

But it came at a good time because my biggest plan for the day was to wait on the people who were coming to see if the large fans they’ve put in our attic and bathroom have dried it all out yet. The answer to that is no, by the way.

And the rest of the day I spent popping Sudafed and attempting to catch up on all the television I’ve missed over the last week or so.

(I need you to know that I originally typed “pooping Sudafed” and that would have been way too much information.)

I guess what I’m saying is I don’t have much to tell you unless you want to hear my thoughts on Nashville and Mad Men. And in case you do, I’ll tell you that if Deacon doesn’t live then I’m done with Nashville and I thought this last episode of Mad Men was bizarre and spent too much time on characters I don’t care about.

I also spent some time making some phone calls that I’ve been putting off for approximately forever. I managed to schedule a time to bring my car in for repairs and arranged to have someone come fix the crack in my windshield tomorrow morning. I got the crack when Gulley and I were driving home from Dallas and what I guess was a rock flew up and hit it. And the crack has continued to grow over the last few days. So essentially, my book tour to Dallas cost me an oil change, new radiator fluid and now a new windshield. Yet it was all totally worth it because Gulley and I got a picture in the bluebonnets.

Later in the afternoon I mailed off some books, bought some dog food and then ran into Target to buy coleslaw to use on the fish tacos P cooked for dinner last night. I also bought some new lotion and a travel-size bottle of Cetaphil.

I think that sound I just heard was several of you passing out from boredom.

Anyway, I believe the bottom line is that I am out of words right now. I cannot thank you enough for all the support for the book over the last week and a half. It means so much to me.

And I’ll see you back here tomorrow for Fashion Friday!

Just a quick book reminder. Amazon is working to get it back in stock and that should happen by next week. In the meantime, you can find it online at Barnes & Noble for less than $10. Just click here.

Y’all.

Yesterday morning P woke me up and I went straight to the kitchen to make Caroline’s lunch. And then I went in her bathroom to, well, use it and noticed the floor was soaking wet. I can’t even tell you how much this annoyed me and I was just about to call her into the bathroom to give her a lecture on not splashing water all over the place and making such a huge mess when I heard “DRIP, DRIP, DRIP”.

I looked up to discover a large part of her ceiling bulging like a balloon from the weight of the water that had collected in it from somewhere up in the attic. I may not be a smart man, Jenny, but I know what bad is.

P climbed up in the attic to look for the source and discovered that the overflow pan had overflowed. So I called the company to come repair it and they showed up but had to go back and forth from the attic to the backyard to figure out what was going on. Which is how I ended up trapped in my bedroom with Mabel and Piper who proceeded to squeeze themselves under my bed and rip up every roll of wrapping paper I store under there. There is so much confetti in my bedroom that it looks like it was the scene of a parade.

And this was all going on while I was getting ready to go speak to the PTO at a neighborhood school.

Needless to say, it all felt like the makings of a nervous breakdown.

The good news is we now have fans drying everything out in our attic and it can all be fixed. The bad news is that I am done with this day and am going to bed and your income taxes are due.

However, there have been so many things I need to mention and places I have written various things or done interviews and I want to share them with you in case you’re interested in listening or reading or just clicking away from my blog and watching paint dry instead.

So I’ve compiled a list to the best of my recollection below that you can look through in the event you’re not sick of me.

I’ll see you back here tomorrow. Hopefully with a dry ceiling and some sort of renewed mental energy.

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Upcoming Events:

– This Saturday, April 18th, I’m signing books at the River Oaks Barnes & Noble on West Gray in Houston at 7 p.m.

– On Wednesday, April 29th at 5:15 p.m., I’m speaking in Ozona, TX at the Boots and Besties Event. You can find out more information on their Facebook page.

– On Saturday, May 2nd, Sophie and I are signing books at Books-A-Million on Brookwood in Birmingham, AL.

– On Sunday, May 3rd, I’m the keynote speaker in Birmingham, AL at The Sav-A-Life Mother’s Day Brunch. You can find out more information and order tickets here.

– On May 15th I’m the keynote speaker at the Texas A&M Foundation’s Women, Wealth and Wisdom Event. It’s open to the public and you can find out more information and register here.

– I’m also really working on a book signing in College Station for my Aggie peeps. I’ll keep you posted when I know more, but it will tentatively be Saturday morning, May 9th.

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Places I’ve been around the internet and radio this week:

– On April 8th, I was a guest on The Marilu Henner radio show. You can find it here.

– I loved being a guest on The Happy Hour podcast with Jamie Ivey. You can listen here.

– I wrote a guest devotional for the Proverbs 31 blog yesterday. You can read it here.

– I was on the Debbie Chavez Show on Monday. You can listen to it here.

I woke up yesterday morning feeling slightly like I’d been hit by a bus. I wasn’t sure of my name or where I was and I’m pretty sure I had several dreams that involved me being at a nearby Chinese restaurant in town. Which is particularly odd because I do not care for Chinese food unless you count fried rice and hot and sour soup. I used to be obsessed with General Tso’s chicken back in the early 90’s but then I got a hold of some bad General Tso’s and that put an end to my love affair with the General.

Anyway, I’m sad to report that I didn’t feel much better as the day went on. I don’t know if it’s allergies or the beginnings of Bubonic plague, but my throat is really sore and my eyes feel like I can’t keep them open. This should make me super appealing to the group I’m speaking to later on today.

But I want to finish my recap of last week because if I don’t do it now then it will never happen and someday I will want to turn on “The Way We Were” by Barbra Streisand and let memories light the corners of my mind as I read back over these posts.

When I left off yesterday, Tiff and I had stayed up until 2 a.m. talking, so you can imagine how refreshed I felt when P woke me up at 7 a.m. the next morning. I packed Caroline’s lunch and gave P a quick recap of the rest of the night before and then he left to take Caroline to school while Tiff and I drank coffee and talked some more until she had to get on the road about 9:00.

The original plan was for Gulley and me to ride back to Dallas with Jen and Jamie and then fly back to San Antonio on Friday morning, but Jamie informed us a few days before that she needed to be on the road to Dallas by 6 a.m. Thursday morning and Gulley and I were both like NO THANK YOU. So we decided just to drive to Dallas by ourselves and back home to San Antonio the next day. You don’t have to twist our arm to make a road trip.

Gulley and I left San Antonio around 11:00 which is our preferred hour of the morning and began the slowest trip to Dallas possible. I don’t know why it took us so long but it might have had something to do with the fact we made 84 different stops for gas and bathroom breaks and Whataburger and, finally, a DQ Blizzard in Hillsboro. And while we were in the parking lot of the DQ, we received a text from Jen and Jamie asking where we were along with this picture they’d taken as they made the same drive earlier that morning. They challenged us to get our Thelma and Louise on.

And so we did our best, but stopped short of jumping off a cliff.

However, we did have a bit of excitement when we left the DQ and a light came on my dashboard indicating my oil level was low. I don’t know much about auto mechanics, but I felt like this probably wasn’t the best sign. So we did the responsible thing and drove immediately to an auto place when we got to Dallas. We ended up getting an oil change and some new radiator fluid and I felt a little bit like I was being scammed but when you might think your car needs a new flux capacitor and you’re five hours from home, I just decided better safe than sorry and stranded on the side of the road in Waco.

Gulley and I went straight to our hotel after we got the car taken care of because we both felt like we may not make it without a power nap. So we got in a quick twenty minutes of downtime before it was time to get ready and head to Jamie’s house before we went to Barnes & Noble.

Then we made our way to Barnes & Noble for the book signing. And none of the following people were there which is a shame because DALLAS.

(Can we talk for one minute about Lucy’s red jumpsuit? And the fact that I used to watch Dallas with my Me-Ma and Pa-pa almost every Friday?)

I will tell you that Dallas blew me away. I was supposed to go to Dallas for a book signing two years ago and ended up having to cancel because I had a stomach bug that we can never speak of again, but this trip more than made up for it. I got to see so many dear friends including my first college roommate, my dear friend Meredith and her brother and other people that I’ve just emailed with and been dying to meet in person. One sweet girl even brought a handmade sign that said, “You’re My Gulley!” to send to her best friend who lives out of state. It was the most fun and I was totally and completely overwhelmed by it all.

This is Gulley and me with our roommate Mer who we lived with our last year in college.

And this is Jamie, Jen, Gulley and me.

And this is Jamie’s sister and her daughter along with Sheaffer who some of you might know from her blog Pinterest Told Me To.

Meanwhile, as I was signing books, Jen decided she was hungry and ate the pizza some of her friends had brought her.

And I will confess that while there is no photographic evidence of it, I absolutely shoved a piece of pizza in my mouth as soon as I was finished signing books because it was after 10:00 p.m. and I was starving. I have no regrets because it was absolutely delicious. Then a big group of us met up at The Front Room next to the Lumon Hotel for a late dinner. I had a Croque Madam sandwich that was basically a grilled ham and cheese with a fried egg on top. I cannot even express how much I loved it except to say I’d eat fifteen of them right this minute.

By this point I was way too busy eating my sandwich to worry about pictures, but Gulley and I did get one with our dear friend Hite who will be quick to tell you he is mentioned in Chapter 11.

Shortly after this we made our way back to our hotel and basically fell into bed. It was almost 1 a.m. which means that was the second night in a row we’d been acting like we were in college instead of forty-something year old women and we could barely stand up for being so tired. We set the alarm for 9:00 a.m. and that’s the last thing I remember until I heard the alarm and Gulley said, “Man, my fingers are so swollen this morning.” And I had to remind her that’s what happens when you eat a fried egg and ham sandwich at midnight.

We threw on some clothes, made a quick stop at Starbucks and then hit the road to head back to San Antonio. The trip home went much faster and we only made a couple of stops, including one to take a picture in the bluebonnets because why not? It’s the Texas thing to do.

I was so glad to get home to my people and to catch up with P who had been a master at holding down the fort and keeping everything running smoothly while I was gone. We picked up Mexican food for dinner and just caught up on the last few days until we couldn’t keep our eyes open. Then on Saturday we went to Caroline’s soccer game and then straight to my book signing at Walmart where Caroline and Jackson roamed the store while I signed books. Also, Caroline found a nice hand that we ended up buying. I can’t even tell you how disturbing it was when she came up behind me and grabbed my shoulder with it.

Then Sunday morning P and I drove Caroline to Austin for a soccer game and Caroline and I had an afternoon meeting and then I wished desperately for Monday so I could get some rest.

And, with that, I think we’re pretty much caught up on life.

Now if I can just get caught up on sleep.

***A few quick book related things. I’ll be signing books at River Oaks Barnes & Noble in Houston this Saturday, April 18th at 7 p.m.. Also, the book is still in stock online at Barnes & Noble and is less than $10 which is practically free. Also, you might notice at the top of this post that there’s a place to sign up if you want to receive my email newsletter. This is a totally new thing but I plan to make it lots of fun with content and things that aren’t on the blog. Feel free to sign up if that interests you.***