Author: Big Mama

I honestly have been sitting here for an hour and almost didn’t post anything at all. Which probably would have been the best choice.

I’m just out of words right now and there just isn’t much going on here unless you count my trip to Academy today to buy P some new shirts for work. It was terribly exciting. I had to choose between three different shades of blue and even threw in a green one for good measure.

And then I went to the grocery store for the third time this week because I forgot to buy lettuce the first two times I was there.

I feel like I owe you an apology for the lameness of it all.

But I did want to share a few quick things:

1. If you are in the Houston area, I’m speaking at Second Baptist Church (the Woodway campus) on Thursday, May 1 at 7:00 p.m. You can find out more details here.

2. My friend Jen Fulwiler who has a blog called Conversion Diary has written a great memoir called Something Other Than God that comes out this Tuesday, April 29th. I honestly read it in a weekend and so many things about it have stuck with me, most importantly is that it’s such a great story of how God pursues us even when we think we’re not interested.

I’ll be talking more about it at some point, but I wanted to let you know that if you pre-order before Monday, April 28th, Jen is offering a free download of an ebook she wrote called The Family First Creative: 42 Tips for Following Your Dreams While Putting Your Family First. You can find out all the details here. And you can pre-order her book here on Amazon or here on Barnes and Noble.

3. Maybe you’ve already seen this, but it made me laugh.

It also makes me nostalgic for college days when you had that much free time on your hands.

Have a great Thursday.

I’m sitting here on the couch late Sunday night and I think I may be on the verge of a Reeses peanut butter egg hangover. Or it could be that I fell sound asleep for two hours this afternoon after an egg hunt and a brunch that basically consisted of nothing but carbohydrates.

But it was the perfect end to a great weekend.

On Friday, we slept in a little bit and then P’s mom picked Caroline up to take her to see Rio 2. Truthfully, I wasn’t a big fan of Rio 1 and so it didn’t break my heart to miss the sequel.

While they were at the movies, I ran a few errands including going to Lowe’s to buy potting soil so I could plant some flowers in the pots on my front porch which have essentially held nothing but dirt since some time in January. I also decided for some insane reason to go try on swimsuits for the summer and you can rest assured that it didn’t end well. It didn’t help that there was a teenage girl in the dressing room next to me who kept asking the saleslady, “Do you have these bottoms in an extra small?” It got to the point where I wanted to yell, “WE ALL GET IT. YOU ARE VERY TINY AND HAVE NO CELLULITE. CONGRATULATIONS!”

After Caroline got home from the movies we ran to the AT&T store because I’d finally had to accept that I could no longer put off getting a new phone. I’d actually started this journey at Radio Shack because they were running a special on iPhones, but then there was some issue with my old plan being “grandfathered” by AT&T which was going to require me to talk to someone there. And so I decided to just take the bull by the horns and go to the AT&T store so I could talk to an actual person and avoid getting on the phone with a customer service rep whose sole mission in life becomes to get me try U-Verse.

Thankfully, the AT&T store route was the way to go and they offered me the same phone deal that I was going to get at Radio Shack and helped me figure out a better plan. It was all fairly painless in a way these things never are.

Later that evening, P, Caroline and I went to go eat Mexican food and then ended the night watching Nacho Libre because we love the classics around here.

On Saturday P took Caroline and a friend to the ranch where they basically spent the day shooting guns at targets.

Meanwhile, I cooked everything for Easter brunch and even went out on a limb and believed Pinterest and baked our eggs that we were going to dye that evening instead of hard-boiling them. I have to say that it was a success and it seemed much easier than boiling.

(In case you’re wondering, bake them at 325 for 25-30 minutes. You can place them directly on the oven racks, but I put mine in muffin tins because that’s what someone suggested on Pinterest.)

When Caroline and P got home we ordered pizza for dinner and dyed eggs. Then we all went to bed so the Easter Bunny could come and bring his usual assortment of candy, a pair of goggles, and a new swimsuit because the Easter Bunny is much more practical than Santa Claus.

Then we all got dressed for church which was so much less stressful because I’d vowed after last year that I wasn’t going to get worked up about what Caroline wanted to wear. And it worked out because she chose something perfectly lovely. She has just decided she is done with dresses for the most part right now and I can live with that.

Our church service was great and we headed home to meet my sister and her family and Mimi and Bops for brunch at our house. This was when all the carbohydrates happened, but I really have no regrets.

After lunch P and my brother-in-law, Chris, hid eggs for the kids and then we broke out the cascarones. Otherwise known as the reason I will still be finding confetti in my hair next month.

Here’s Caroline with her carton of cascarones. Please note the look in her eye.

And this is when she ambushed me.

All in all it was a great Easter filled with all the things and people I love. Or in other words, pardon the Easter pun, my peeps.

I think the only thing I am having a hard time with is how old Caroline looks in all these pictures.

And getting the confetti out of my hair.

Hope you had a great Easter, too.

After all my talk of not getting attached to Dory the fish, we had an interesting turn of events here. I knew several weeks ago that a mama bird decided to build her nest in the wreath on my front door. Sadly, it was in my fall wreath because I’m a procrastinator and meant to buy a new spring wreath but never got around to it for various reasons. None of which are legitimate.

So this mama bird built her sweet little nest in my fall wreath and, shortly thereafter, laid what appeared to be at least three eggs. The good news is we don’t use our front door as much as our back door and have managed to just open the front door very slowly and carefully about once a day to retrieve packages or any mail that gets left on our front porch.

But then yesterday P noticed that the eggs have hatched and we now have baby birds living in the nest on the wreath on our front porch. Which is a game changer. We can no longer use the front door at all lest we risk a wee baby bird falling out of its nest and that’s a chance I cannot take. Because while I am not attached at all to the fish living in the next room, I feel completely responsible for the well-being of our newly hatched baby birds. Or as I like to call them, Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Also, Caroline just announced her fish is swimming on its side. I’m no fishologist, but I believe this could be a sign the end is near.

Here are a few things you may be interested in (as if it can get any more interesting than my pet baby birds)

1. Kelly Stamps is going to start a new online book club on her blog. And I’m so excited that she’s chosen The Antelope in the Living Room as her first book. I’m even going to do a little video post over there at some point during the discussion process. You can find out all the details here.

2. Speaking of books, Alyssa Bethke and Robin Gunn have a new book that just came out yesterday. It’s called Spoken For: Embracing Who You Are and Whose You Are. It’s available here on Amazon and here on Barnes & Noble.

3. I loved reading this article about Yellowberry bras for girls. If you have daughters you’ll find this inspiring and informative.

4. Sophie wrote a great post about good music for spring over on Ree’s blog. Here’s what you need to know about Sophie, she’s always the person who tells me what I should be downloading on iTunes and has never led me astray. You can read her post here.

5. I think I may have to order myself one of these monogram trucker hats for the summer. Especially since I’m trying to be so careful about keeping the sun off my face at all times.

You can find them here.

And that’s it for today. I’m off to go check on my birds.

So here’s some news.

We have a new goldfish named Dory.

Perhaps you’re thinking that you don’t recall me mentioning that we were in the market for a new fish. Or maybe you’re not thinking anything at all because you couldn’t care less whether or not we have a new pet at our house.

But, either way, I’m going to explain.

Last Friday was the school carnival at Caroline’s school. This is an event that in the past has brought us two “free” hermit crabs and three goldfish. Then last year I wised up and made a “no new pets” rule before the carnival and told Caroline she was welcome to use her tickets on all manner of silly string and face paint and snow cones, but not for any game where the “prize” included a live animal.

And it worked like a charm.

So on Friday morning before I sent her off to school I reminded her that carnival fun could include basically any activity except acquiring a new fish or crab. But then we arrived at the carnival later that afternoon and I was caught up in conversation with some other mothers and, long story short, she caught me when my defenses were down and I basically said, “You can do whatever you want, but I am neither holding a fish for the remainder of this carnival or feeding it once we get it home”.

Five minutes and two spins of the wheel later, Dory was a part of our family.

I am so weak.

However, when she marched up to me – fish in hand – I reminded her that I wasn’t going to stand around and hold a fish for the next two hours. She kind of huffed at me in an exasperated way, but ran off with her fish in a plastic bag and I figured Dory wasn’t long for the world because it was about 90 degrees and you have to think being jostled around in a plastic bag sealed with a flimsy rubber band isn’t conducive to life. As evidenced by the mass grave of goldfish that you can always find on the side street of the school later in the evening.

Seriously, where is PETA in the school carnival game? How many goldfish and hermit crabs needlessly die each year in the name of raising money for the PTO? Can we not find some other prize options? Options that don’t involve parents having to go to the local pet store to stock up on fish food or freeze dried shrimp for hermit crabs?

(I admit that I still harbor some wounds and bitterness over being pressured into buying a fancy “Crabitat” for the hermit crabs she won a few years back. I realize I had other options but I felt that the crabs needed room to roam free. And clearly I was right because some of you who have been reading for a while may remember that they eventually ran away from home.)

The carnival ended a couple of hours later and I walked with her to retrieve Dory from where she’d left him/her under a table. She seemed pleased that Dory still appeared to be so vibrant and I did my best to avoid making eye contact with the fish because I realize it’s just a fish but I have this way of becoming emotionally attached and unable to just let something die. For instance, a friend sent me some beautiful flowers last week and it took me two days to throw them out after they were obviously dead because I felt bad for them. This is the emotional make up I’m dealing with here.

And so I spent the weekend not checking on Dory or asking if she’s fed Dory or wondering about Dory’s general well-being and whether or not she’s happy in the little bowl where so many fish before her have lost their lives. I will not give in. Because eventually the honeymoon period will be over and Caroline will quit caring about Dory and then the sole burden will fall to me unless I stand strong and repeat the mantra “it’s just a fish”.

Which is exactly what I intend to do.