Author: Big Mama

I just want you to know – before I get into a big long, possibly boring summary of our weekend – that I have a stomachache at the moment. Not because of some type of virus, but because I ate a big piece of chocolate sheet cake even when I knew I was still full from dinner.

Why did I do that?

In hindsight, I should have skipped dinner altogether and just eaten the chocolate cake because that’s all I really wanted in the first place. As evidenced by the fact I asked P if he’d like me to bake a chocolate sheet cake tonight since I still had a little bit of buttermilk left from the one I made last week and I hated for it to go to waste.

Yes. Because a pint of buttermilk costs upwards of .89 cents.

Justification, you are my friend.

It’s just about wanting to be a good wife and saving us the heartbreak and possible financial ruin that could come from throwing away perfectly good buttermilk.

Anyway, we had a great weekend here.

On Friday, P and I went to lunch with our friends Lisa, Todd, and Angie. They were in town from Nashville for the Women of Faith Conference and so we decided we needed to expose them to real Mexican food as opposed to the faux Mexican food that you sometimes find on the Riverwalk. We took them to a place we love called Patty’s Taco House, home of the mini-puff taco plate that will change your life. And my heart broke for Angie when she revealed she’d never eaten a flour tortilla with butter on it. I don’t understand how that’s possible.

(Says the girl who made a chocolate cake in the name of not wasting buttermilk.)

After lunch we raced to pick Caroline up from school because they had early dismissal last week and she got out at 1:00. There is really no need for you to know this but I’ve already typed it and my stomach hurts from the chocolate cake and so I’m just leaving it there.

P and Caroline packed up to head to the ranch for Friday and Saturday because it was the weekend of the biannual shoot-out that P hosts for a group of men at our church known as the Sportsmen. It’s basically two days of a bunch of guys bringing their guns and their kids to the ranch and shooting targets and fishing and other generally outdoorsy type things.

Which explains why P sent me this photo late Friday afternoon. Please do not look if you are squeamish and/or wrestling with any sort of snake phobia. Unfortunately, I fit into both of those categories but it was too late for me once I looked.

And I think it speaks to my personality that I eventually came around to the thought that it would make a gorgeous belt.

On Friday night, in addition to looking at photos of my baby girl holding a dead snake, I went to the Women of Faith conference. It was fun, but by the time I got home I had a headache so I took some Advil and went to bed. And didn’t wake up until 10:00 on Saturday morning.

I’m not going to lie, it was glorious.

I spent the rest of the day in my pajamas watching football. At one point I realized I hadn’t eaten anything all day but was too lazy to get out so I called and had a pizza delivered. So essentially I turned into a nineteen-year-old college boy on Saturday. But without the keg and in a home that smells significantly better than a fraternity house.

However, I did have a burst of productivity when it became apparent that the Longhorns were going to stink up the Cotton Bowl which led to me cleaning out my closet. But I’m going to tell you about that tomorrow because it’s really a post of its own.

(What I’m omitting is that it’s probably a really boring post of its own, but I have to take my blog content where I can desperately find it.)

Eventually I showered and put on a different pair of pajamas than the ones I’d been wearing all day because basic hygiene and all. And then I spent some time on Pinterest, contemplating whether or not a kitchen island countertop made of reclaimed wood is actually practical or just good in theory, while I waited on the Aggie game to start.

Finally, at 8:22 ESPNU finally switched from the already over and dead Vanderbilt vs. Florida game to the A&M vs. La Tech game and I was pleased to see the Aggies had already scored a touchdown in their first possession.

Of course I was sad that I missed it since ESPNU felt like everyone wanted to see the last minute and forty-four seconds of Vandy losing to Florida. But ESPN is on my bad list right now because they’ve also scheduled this weekend’s game against LSU for 11 a.m. Guess what time Caroline’s soccer game is? 10:50 a.m.

(Which means I’m going to have to record the game and resist the temptation to check the score even though that never works for me because I have a problem.)

Anyway, by the time the Aggies were up 27-0 at the end of the first quarter I was kind of lamenting that it was going to be such a boring blow-out of a game. And then La Tech decided to wake up and the Aggie defense decided to take a nap and I basically jumped up and down on the couch and hid my face behind decorative pillows and hyperventilated and passed out and threw things at the T.V. and furiously texted Gulley and Jen for the next four hours.

Because that’s the other thing. It was the LONGEST GAME EVER. That dang game didn’t end until right before 1 a.m. and by that point I had enough adrenaline coursing through my veins to throw a bus down a city block. I could’ve taken enough Ambien to kill a horse and I wouldn’t have slept.

But Johnny Manziel saved the day again. And the announcers even started talking about him being a possible Heisman candidate. Which, on one hand, great. But on the other hand, he’s just a freshman and we still have huge games in front of us and I don’t want him to get a big head and be like Smash Williams that time he started to believe that he was the only player the Dillon Panthers needed and created animosity among his teammates.

And then I remember that Smash Williams is a fictional character who played for a fictional team in a fictional town for a fictional coach.

Which makes me sad. Mainly because I loved his mama on that show so much.

Then on Sunday I put on my pressurized spacesuit and jumped from the edge of space.

Or maybe I just helped Caroline with her skeleton book report project, made tacos for dinner and ate too much chocolate cake.

I really couldn’t be more excited about what I’m about to tell y’all.

The new Target opened yesterday. And it’s less than five miles from my house. And it has a Starbucks in it. If you walked outside around 9:30 a.m. yesterday morning and thought you heard the Hallelujah chorus, there’s a good chance it was me when I pulled into the Target parking lot.

I didn’t even need anything at Target. I just wanted to see it.

And here’s the verdict:

It looks pretty much like every other Target out there.

And just like I do every time I walk in a Target, I managed to walk out of there with stuff I didn’t even really know I needed. Except for the thirty new plastic hangers I bought. I was in dire need of more hangers. And P thought he was hilarious when I pulled them out of my Target sack and he said, “Way to go, Jen Hatmaker. Way to reduce the clothing in your closet.”

But this isn’t really about Target except for now it is. I really wanted to tell you about my day of shopping with Caroline on Monday. Mainly because I want to use it as a reference point the next time I decide it’s a good idea to take her to the mall.

It all started on Sunday morning. A cold front blew in and I went to her closet to find something for her to wear and remembered that she’d pretty much outgrown everything from last winter because she’s growing at a rate of two inches a week. But I managed to find a pair of jeans that were long enough as long as she tucked them into her almost-too-small boots and then pulled out one of two long sleeve tops that still come to her wrists.

So on Sunday afternoon we decided to tackle the boots first. She needed a good pair of cowboy boots for the ranch and just to wear around. We headed to Cavender’s Boot City because if you can’t find boots at a place with Boot City in the name then I can’t help you. And, sure enough, she found her dream boots after we were only in the store for about three minutes.

It was so easy.

Painless.

Drama-free.

And since that didn’t take much time, I decided we should run by Gap to look for new jeans. Other than the fact that we got into a small argument over whether or not she had to actually try them on in the store, it went fairly well.

(YES. YES YOU DO HAVE TO TRY THEM ON. Your father is the only person I buy clothes for without him trying them on. Mainly because he only goes in clothing stores about once every three years.)

(Please note: Cabelas and Academy do not count as clothing stores in my mind.)

We ended up with two pairs of jeans and a denim jacket. Sadly we didn’t end up with the other fifty-eight things I thought were darling because “that’s just not my style”.

But I still felt like she needed some new tops and maybe a sweater or two. Maybe even (BLESS MY HEART.) a dress. That’s why I decided it was worth it to spend the first half of Monday shopping at La Cantera. I figured Nordstrom wouldn’t do us wrong.

And it didn’t. There were dozens of cute tops and fun little skirts and jeans in all colors. But we only left there with one shirt because “these just aren’t my style”.

So we headed to Zara because it’s always been my ace in the hole. They have the best kids’ clothes and we’ve always found stuff there. Plus, Caroline always tells me she wants clothes that look like the things I wear and Zara has a bunch of things I’d wear if they came in my size.

Nope.

Nothing.

I held up leopard print leggings with darling tunics. Eighty-four different white shirts (you know how I love a white shirt), fur vests, denim dresses and funky t-shirts.

Nada.

(That’s nothing in Spanish. Because I am muy bilingual.)

I stood back and just let her look through the racks to see if she might have more success if she wasn’t hindered by my obvious love of something.

Ultimately she didn’t like any clothes in any of the stores and I had to bite my lip until I thought I’d pass out. And the worst part is I never could get her to articulate what “her style” is. Best I can tell based on past outfit choices, it’s a cross between what Taylor Swift would wear and a hobo.

And you can’t really find that at GapKids.

We left the mall with two shirts. And I’ve decided that it’s not my problem if she only has three things to wear all winter long.

Let’s just hope those three things look good with cowboy boots because those are the only shoes that come in her style at the moment besides her tennis shoes.

After the mall we went and picked up one of her friends so they could play that afternoon. But first I had to run a few quick errands, including a stop at one of her classmate’s homes. I left the girls in the car while I ran to the front door to pick something up and looked back and saw that Caroline had rolled down the back window and was hanging out of it.

As I walked back to the car I must have said, “GET BACK IN THE CAR” at least five times. My patience was at an all-time low and I thought my head might explode, but I really try to avoid going all Miss Hannigan when she has a friend with her. I hate to frighten children other than my own.

So I said, “GET BACK IN THE CAR” one final time as I opened my car door and got in the car. And I assumed that SIX TIMES of your mother telling you to get back in the car would suffice. But I was wrong. Because I shut my car door and immediately heard a piercing scream.

I had slammed the tip of her middle finger in my car door.

Which led to that whole motherhood dilemma of “I feel bad that you’re hurt” versus “You kind of had it coming because you didn’t listen”.

Fortunately it was just the very end of her finger. And I know it must have hurt like monkeys fixing your hair but we put ice on it right away and it honestly looks better than I thought it was going to look.

And that was my Monday.

Which is why I came home after soccer practice and ate a huge piece of chocolate cake for dinner. Because sometimes you just need butter and chocolate and flour.

And maybe a Target that’s only five minutes away.

I know this isn’t technically total silence since I’m writing something. But I felt like I needed to explain why.

There were two heartbreaking tragedies that I know of over the weekend.

A young wife and mother named Julee Turner lost her husband, Matt, in a car accident. He not only leaves behind his wife, but his ten-month-old baby girl. Today is his funeral.

The Ledet family lost their dad and two young brothers in a plane crash. They were flying to the Aggie game in Mississippi when the private plane went down.

I don’t know either of these families personally. But it’s a reminder that life is precious and that there are so many out there hurting for various reasons.

And so today I thought that you could take the few minutes it normally takes you to read whatever nonsense I write and say a prayer for these families and others who may be going through hard times.

Thanks, y’all.

Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

I didn’t post yesterday because we were very busy here with all our big Columbus Day celebrations. I cooked a turkey and we had a live band and a pinata in the shape of the Santa Maria.

Or maybe I just slept in and we had Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast.

Which was honestly better than a pinata because we had a full weekend and I might’ve lacked the arm strength to beat a papier mache’ boat until candy fell out.

I think I mentioned that I spoke at my mother-in-law’s church this past Saturday. And so I spent most of last week alternating between being a complete hermit and worrying. I’m not sure why I was so nervous but I think it was because I’d never spoken at a place where I knew so many people.

As it turns out, it was all fine. And actually fun to see so many familiar faces. I’m putting that in writing so I can save myself the hassle of all the panic attacks next time.

After the event was over on Saturday I felt like I’d ran a marathon. I was like TO MY BONES exhausted. But it was P’s birthday and I wanted to make him a chocolate sheet cake because that’s just the kind of wife I am. And by that kind of wife, I mean that I’m the kind who waits until the last minute to do something to celebrate her husband’s forty-second birthday.

Unfortunately, I think my brain was a little tired from all the morning events and something went awry in my sheet cake process. I still don’t know where it derailed exactly, but I think it was somewhere between the addition of the buttermilk and the eggs. And then the icing was just tragic. You know how icing for sheet cake is supposed to almost pour over the cake?

Yeah.

Mine just kind of fell in clumps over the cake. The cake with burned edges.

So apparently I can either speak to a group of people OR bake a good cake. Not both on the same day. That exceeds my skill level.

On Saturday night we went over to Gulley’s house to watch the Aggie game. Which, for those of you who follow sports may already know, ALMOST KILLED ME DEAD. Seriously. I was hyperventilating. I went through the seven stages of grief. TWICE.

And then Sophie texted me that she and her sister were watching the game and changing locations in the house in the hopes of altering the Aggies’ mojo. Not even two minutes later the Aggies scored to cut Mississippi’s lead to three and I texted Sophie “DO NOT MOVE FROM WHERE YOU ARE!!!!!!!!!” Because nothing really bonds people like shared superstitions about what will make nineteen-year-old boys play better football.

Then the Aggies pulled a win out of their hats. I would say they pulled it out of something else but this is a family blog. Either way, Gulley and I jumped and screamed like two fools all over her living room. I realize it’s just a game, but it felt huge for the Aggies to come from behind to win. That hasn’t happened in a long time.

(In truth, I kind of realize it’s just a game. After the fact I realize it’s just a game. During the actual game I tend to react in a way that would cause someone to think lives are at stake.)

Sunday morning we got up for church and I realized a serious cold front had blown through. If you live north of Dallas prepare to mock me, but temps plummeted to around 56 degrees and I felt like I needed a down jacket. It was freezing.

After church I spent most of the rest of the day wrapped in a fleece blanket while wearing flannel pajamas. I kind of wanted a fire in the fireplace. Maybe eat chili for dinner. Roast some marshmallows. In other words, I was in full winter mode.

Which is why it’s so depressing to find out that it’s going to be back in the 90s by the end of the week.

So that was our weekend.

Except I left out yesterday when I took Caroline shopping. But that’s a whole post of its own that I’m saving for tomorrow because I’m struggling to find words.