Author: Big Mama

Y’all.

It’s time for me to be honest. I mean I’m always honest, but I’m just going to give it to you straight.

I’ve been fighting a headache for the last six days. And before you tell me a bunch of horror stories about headaches and what they could possibly mean, I will tell you that I am capable of going to Hyper-Paranoid, USA all by myself. I’m sure it’s just sinus/allergies/devil considering the entire world is covered in pollen right now and the Texas weather can’t decide if it wants to be 95 degrees or 45 degrees so it just goes back and forth every couple of days.

In addition to my new status of headache sufferer, I’m speaking at a women’s retreat for my church this weekend. And that feels like it comes with extra pressure because, you know, if I bomb then we’ll have to look for a new church home and we really like our church. I’ve spent the last few days trying to finalize what I’m going to talk about and it’s been a struggle to get it to all come together. And the headache isn’t helping matters.

In fact, yesterday I decided to go get this thirty-minute trigger point massage thing in an attempt to help my headache because it seemed like a good idea. And I guess it would have been, except the sweet girl really had no idea what a trigger point was and the whole thing ended up feeling like that episode of Friends when Ross has to fake being a masseuse for one of Phoebe’s clients and he just massages him with wooden spoons. I’d have been better off buying one of those head tingler things they sell in kiosks at the mall.

And, finally, P called and left me a message from soccer practice last night informing me that Caroline had taken a soccer ball to the mouth and her tooth was loose and she’d need to eat soup for dinner.

Yes.

Because soup was the most important thing.

Was this a permanent tooth? Top or bottom? Was there blood? Did I need to call an emergency dentist? Those were all the questions I had other than what she’d need to eat for dinner. But since those answers weren’t going to available until they got home from practice, I just poured myself a large glass of wine. And heated up some chicken noodle soup.

When they arrived home I was relieved to hear it was a bottom tooth and that it didn’t appear to be out of place or anything, just a little loose. Part of my relief was due to the fact that Caroline might enjoy having a false tooth just a little too much. She’s a fan of anything that might be a gateway to a gross party trick.

But it doesn’t appear we’re headed down that road. Although she sipped and slurped her chicken noodle soup at a DEFCON 1 level of drama. I finally just had to walk away because I was seconds from calling a mortuary as I died a slow death watching her painstakingly eat that soup like her jaw was wired shut.

Anyway, all this is a long way of explaining that I’m taking a break from the blog for the rest of the week. I just need some time to rest and prepare for this weekend. And, to that end, I would so appreciate any prayers you want to send my way.

Thanks, y’all. See you next week.

So our weekend kicked off with the annual school carnival on Friday afternoon. Otherwise known as a giant beating to help the school make money.

I signed up to work the bake sale during the first shift so I told Caroline to meet me at the booth as soon as she got out of school and I also told her that she was UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES to win a hermit crab or a fish. I have no desire to ever own either of those ever again because they never fail to present me with a moral dilemma. Do I let them starve to death or do I feed them since I know Caroline is the Dr. Kevorkian of the sea life world?

The practical side of me says I just let them starve. But that feels so wrong. Of course it may be better than whatever fate met the two crabs that accidentally got set free in our backyard last fall. I’m 58% sure I saw a tiny crab claw hanging out of our dog Bruiser’s mouth one day. And, truth be told, I went ahead and just flushed our betta fish, Ruby Red Shankle, before she was dead but didn’t look like she was long for this world.

The problem is that every now and then Caroline will watch that episode of Phineas and Ferb where Buford loses his pet goldfish, Biff, and she’ll start to cry about how much she misses all the fish she’s killed over the years.

Which is why I said NO GOLDFISH.

But then I arrived at the carnival a few minutes before school dismissed and discovered there were bigger fish to fry. No pun intended. Specifically, the bake sale was sorely lacking in actual baked goods. I’m not sure what went wrong but somewhere someone lost the memo that they needed to send out a form requesting that parents send in baked goods. And so there was a mom frantically cutting the two cakes into slices and declaring the cake walk would be renamed a “Treat Walk”.

What the heck? You think these kids are just going to walk around and around to music for one slice of cake?

Which, actually, is what happened. They were perfectly happy to get two cookies for their cake-walking efforts and fortunately there was some sort of baked goods SOS sent out and moms began to appear out of nowhere with all manner of store bought bakery items.

And just about the time I began to dole out cupcakes for two tickets each, my child appeared in front of me. Holding a goldfish. Or three.

What part of her mother’s fragile psyche does she not understand?

She spent the rest of her time running around with her friends trying to make the largest ball of silly string while her goldfish friends camped out by me at the bake sale. And then when I announced it was time to leave, a miracle happened. Caroline announced she was giving her goldfish to one of her friends. Maybe because she sensed I was tempted to put her and the goldfish up for adoption and figured she might as well save herself.

And so we left the carnival without a fish. Hallelujah and amen.

On Saturday morning we drove across town for a soccer game and then we picked up Chick-Fil-A for lunch. P was astounded that our lunch cost $17.00 which I feel is a direct result of me telling him everything is $15.00. He’s a little out of touch with the current economy with the exception of guns and ammo for which there is no price too high to pay.

We actually got into a conversation about guns and he said that a friend of his always says his greatest fear is that he’ll die and his wife will sell his guns for what he told her he paid for them. Which is how I feel about the throw pillows on my couch. And the couch itself. And my jeans. And basically everything else I’ve ever bought for myself or this house.

Saturday night Caroline was going to spend the night with a friend but came home early as per her custom. Of course she didn’t decide to come home until 11:30. And between those late night shenanigans and a headache that won’t go away, I decided we needed to sleep in on Sunday morning.

Then later that day we went to a hockey game with a group of friends. Because you know what’s soothing for a headache?

Not a hockey game. But we had a good time and I didn’t have to cook dinner because we went to eat afterwards and that felt like a win even though our hockey team lost.

At least I think they did. I wasn’t really paying attention.

And that was our weekend. Here’s hoping things went as swimmingly for the goldfish in his new home that is, thankfully, not mine.

We had a good weekend around here.

But, honestly, I don’t have time to tell you about it right now because it’s time for the season premiere of Mad Men and, well, I have missed Don Draper.

So the weekend report will have to wait. I can imagine your disappointment because who doesn’t want to read a recap of someone’s weekend that includes a school carnival?

In the meantime, though, I thought I’d share these pictures of Caroline playing soccer. I could tell you they were from this past Saturday’s game, but they are actually from a few weeks ago but another mom with a fancier camera than an iPhone took them and just emailed them to us a few days ago.

But I think the intensity you see here will explain why I sometimes feel like I may have to put myself in a home after we finish debating what she’s going to wear to school in the morning.

To that sweet goalie’s credit, she got up and spit the dirt out of her mouth and only cried for about thirty seconds. Whereas I would have declared myself done with the game of soccer forever and demanded an immediate trip to the orthodontist.

I’m sitting here typing this at the desk in our kitchen because I’m in the midst of cooking dinner and this is what I like to call multi-tasking. We’re having pork chops. And I’m pretty sure they’re almost dried out because I can never time dinner exactly right on the nights P takes Caroline to soccer practice.

But what are you going to do?

Life here in first world suburbia is fraught with all manner of serious issues.

And this has nothing to do with fashion but I’ve just made an interesting discovery about myself that I’m 97% sure none of you will care about. I know almost every word to every song recorded as part of the “lite rock” genre of the 1970s.

I kind of knew this before but it has been confirmed as I sit and listen to a mix of 70s songs on Pandora right now. I know them all. Sister Golden Hair Surprise? Check. Sailing? Check. How Deep is Your Love? Check.

It’s the music of my childhood. And I just quit typing for three and half minutes to sing along with Jim Croce.

Anyway, here are some things I found this week. I’m going to be honest, Gulley and I went shopping on Monday and I was shocked at how little I saw in stores. I don’t know what’s going on right now with fashion, but it feels like slim pickings.

1. lexa striped boatneck

I like this. It’s on sale right now for only about $27 at Anthropologie and comes in some good color combos. Plus it’s the kind of thing I’d wear all the time.

2. north bay top

This would be cute with white jeans or shorts for the summer. I like the little bow detail at the shoulder.

3. lace hem pullover

This would be a great spring sweater and it’s on sale. I like the lace hem detail at the bottom.

4. roll the stone cuff bracelet

I saw this at Free People the other day and love it. It comes in several different colors and I love that it has a whole bohemian thing going on.

5. ruffled picea buttondown

I think this top is so pretty and feminine with that ruffle. And it comes in three gorgeous colors.

6. towne & reese sarah ring

Speaking of gorgeous colors, I love this set of rings. So fun for spring and summer.

7. sloane maxi

Okay, so I think this is already sold out again. But I LOVE it so much. The colors, the stripes, the cut. It’s all perfection. And you can sign up to be notified when they have it back in stock if you’re interested.

8. keynote presentable dress

Isn’t this cute? I have nowhere to wear it, but I think it’s precious.

9. printed henley tunic

Gap is hit or miss right now, but I like this. It comes in some fun prints.

10. chambray embroidered pintuck dress

And I like this. This is the same dress as the one in white I showed a couple of weeks ago. But I think I like the chambray better because it’s more versatile. Could even transition to next fall with boots.

That’s it for today.

Oh. I also forgot to mention that I wrote a couple of posts over on Incourage earlier this week in case you want to read them.

Y’all have a good Friday.

Have you ever wished that you could teach your child to talk like a hillbilly? Then GOOD NEWS.

I just spent all day Tuesday recording the audio version of Sparkly Green Earrings and I bet if you let your kids listen to it a couple of times a week there’s a good chance that they can achieve the American dream of speaking with a very prominent Texas accent. It’ll be just like that time Madonna lived in London for two years and turned British.

Several weeks ago, they called to tell me they would like to have an audio version of the book and could either hire an actor or I could do it myself. And I decided I should do it myself because, first of all, it would be weird to have someone reading a memoir of my life that isn’t me and, secondly, I didn’t feel like I could subject some poor actor who once had dreams of being a regular on General Hospital to spending hours of their life pretending to be me.

So on Tuesday morning I went to a recording studio here in town. Fortunately it was a different studio than the one I went to when I recorded the video trailer for the book. That experience turned out to be perfectly lovely, but when I pulled up to someone’s house and was asked to go around back to the garage, it all felt a little bit like a scene from Silence of the Lambs.

But the studio on Tuesday was in a real shopping center right next to an Asian restaurant called Wok This Way. So I immediately knew it was legitimate. Then when I went inside I saw that there were signed pictures of Willie Nelson and the owner hanging on the wall and one of my life philosophies has always been that if it’s good enough for Willie then it’s good enough for me.

The studio owner couldn’t have been nicer and he was so patient considering I really had no idea what I was doing. I just kind of pretended like I was reading Harry Potter out loud to Caroline and that it wasn’t being recorded because then I would have totally over-thought the whole thing and sounded like Mary Katherine Gallagher reading a monologue from a Lifetime movie.

For the next seven hours I read my book. And then my throat burst into flames and I died.

The end.

Not really though because then how could I be writing this right now?

The thing is that as I read the book, Bill the studio owner had to follow right along with me to make sure I didn’t miss a word or mess up anything. And I’ve never been more aware that I really wrote the book for women. Poor Bill learned more about my birth story and mechanical breast pumps than he could have possibly ever wanted to know.

But he was sweet and when it was all over he said, “Well now I enjoyed that story.” God bless him. Because you know it was a far cry from Willie Nelson.

I left the studio and felt like I’d run a marathon. But I made a quick stop at HEB to buy some Ricola cough drops in attempt to salvage my voice. Then I bought some pork chops because I had big plans to cook dinner.

Fortunately, when I walked through the door, P recognized that I could barely speak and suggested we order pizza. This is how I know he knows me. Because, technically, I don’t need my voice to cook but he knew pizza would be my love language.

As we ate dinner, I listened to them talk about their days because I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but OH MY THROAT. Caroline had taken the first part of the STARR exam that day. (STARR is the name of the worthless and expensive standardized tests that are issued in Texas schools.)

She had taken the writing portion of the test and I asked her what it entailed. Caroline said, “We had to write about our favorite season. So I wrote about deer season.”

We’ve raised her right.

And then I drank some hot tea, popped a few more Ricolas and went to bed.

The good news is I woke up on Wednesday with a voice, but then went to work out at Smart Barre. So now I can speak but I might not be able to use my arms until some time Friday afternoon.

A few weeks ago I was at a conference called DotMom in Frisco, Texas. Even though now that I think about it, I guess it was really more like a month ago. I have no idea. My last month and a half has been a haze of deadlines and stomach bugs and bundt cakes and battles over Easter sandals.

Anyway, while I was there, I noticed an exhibit for something called For Girls Like You, but I was busy and didn’t have time to stop and check it out. But I was curious because I have a daughter and I’m always on the lookout for anything that might be of use to me as I try to navigate the tricky waters of mothering a girl.

So I was excited when I received an email from Wynter. She’s the founder of For Girls Like You and the mother of four, FOUR, daughters. So, you know, she might know something about raising girls.

For Girls Like You is a ministry to young girls (ages 6-11) and their parents. It includes a quarterly print magazine, journal, and other print and web resources. The purpose is to introduce young girls to Christian values in a relatable way so they can walk passionately and boldly in who God has created them to be.

Wynter sent me a few past editions of the magazine and I gave them to Caroline to see if she’d like them. And she did. She read them in bed at night and told me at one point, “Mom, these have some really good advice about things I think about.”

And, trust me, she wouldn’t just say that. She’s a tough critic.

Today I have the chance to give away a gift pack to one of you. It will include a copy of the For Girls Like You Magabook, a Journal and Spring 2013 Magazine Issue, along with a subscription to the magazine. All you have to do for a chance to win is leave a comment. Maybe you can share how old your daughter is. Or how old your granddaughter is. Or how old the girl you have in mind for this is. Whatever.

One comment per person please. I’ll leave comments open until Friday and then choose a winner using a random number draw.