Author: Big Mama

Yesterday morning I had to take the stay wag to the Volvo dealership to figure out my blinker/tail light situation. And P also pointed out that the speaker on the driver’s side door was out. I can guarantee that I could have driven my car for the next 864 years and never noticed that.

So I dropped Caroline off at school and drove to the dealership. Honestly, I was glad to have something to get me up and out of the house first thing in the morning. I’m not sure what happened but I think the process of writing the book turned me into more of an introvert than I was before. In fact, I told a friend yesterday that I’m one step away from being a hermit. That step being growing a long beard.

(Fortunately, I am being proactive about the long beard. I used my Sally Hansen hair removal on my upper lip last night and, judging by the way it burned like a fire in the Sahara desert, I believe I am now mustache-free.)

The problem is that my hermit-like ways combined with a week of having a sick child have made me lethargic. On Monday I even contemplated going to see the doctor to get checked for mono. But then I realized I don’t think I have mono so much as I’m just ready for Spring Break and a little break from the routine.

Anyway, after I dropped my car off and got the loaner car, I thought I’d stop by Joann’s Fabrics to check out the prices on white duck fabric. You’ll be relieved to know this isn’t fabric printed with ducks as I once thought, but just a sturdy white fabric that you use to make slipcovers. Because I’ve decided I want to get white slipcovers made for our couch.

I’ve also decided that I want to paint the living room, dining room, and kitchen a soft shade of gray. I realize that this will make the third time I’ve painted my kitchen in the last two years, but I really think this could be the one. Which explains a lot about how I dated back in my single days.

It really is Pinterest’s fault. All this obsessing about how I want to redecorate the house. And the fact that we have a T.V. sitting on my antique church pew because it doesn’t fit anywhere else. My whole plan started with just wanting some built-in cabinetry but has extended to the couch and the walls and new throw pillows and pictures for the walls.

Of course all I’ve done so far is spend more time on Pinterest pinning a bunch of rooms that appeal to me. Because that is SO MUCH EASIER than actually buying several gallons of paint and hiring a carpenter and having the upholsterer come out and pick up my couch cushions.

Here are a few of my favorite idea rooms. Because I would like you to join me in my obsession.

Yes. I would like some combination of all those rooms in my living room and dining room that currently look nothing like any of these photos. Well, except for the antlers. The antelope of the Lord ensures that we have the antlers covered.

And P has already nixed the tufted leather ottoman as a replacement for our current coffee table because he thinks it’s a dumb idea and we’ll just end up with a bunch of food and stuff spilled in all those tufts. To which I proposed a tray to set upon the ottoman. But he would rather continue to place one of my decorative pillows on our wooden coffee table every night and use it as a makeshift ottoman.

This thrills me to no end.

All this to say that Joann’s Fabrics wasn’t open yet so I went to Target instead and looked at their decorative housewares and felt overwhelmed and just went home. Actually, I stopped by Old Navy first and bought a cute skirt. Then I went home. To be a hermit and contemplate growing a long beard.

Then I went to lunch with Gulley and vowed to get out of my hermit-like rut. I am ready to re-enter the real world. And to buy paint. And see about getting some built-ins made.

Although I’m still overwhelmed because what comes first? Should I paint first? Which means that none of my furniture will really match the paint until I get slipcovers made? Or do we do the built-ins first? Which means that I’ll have to try to paint around them?

It kind of makes my head hurt.

And so I maybe I’ll do what I’ve done for the last two months.

I’ll just think about it some more.

Which, in the end, probably makes P happy because it’s free. And means he still has a few more months of putting his feet on my decorative throw pillows.

P had a meeting at our church last night so Caroline and I were on our own for dinner. I told her we could go anywhere she wanted. She chose Luby’s.

And she was genuinely surprised that Luby’s was totally empty when we walked through the doors at 6:00 p.m. because she has no appreciation for the fact that the majority of Luby’s patrons eat at 4:30 and are home watching old reruns of Murder She Wrote by 6:00.

So we ate our LuAnn platters and caught up on the day. Actually, I listened to Caroline’s running dialogue about the injustice of fractions and her thoughts on Harry Potter and how she wants to let her hair get really long and that she likes the smell of the new stuff I put in my hair and did I know that they threw piles of weeds at each other during recess and one of her classmates said that they shouldn’t do that because it hurts Mother Nature and Caroline responded with “Who cares? Mother Nature isn’t real. I’ll tell you who made these weeds. G – O – D.”

Which reminded me of a youth group skit I saw one time where the kids sang “You down with G-O-D, yeah you know me” and confirmed forever my belief that it generally works out best for everyone when Christian culture doesn’t try to rip off pop culture.

Anyway, the conversation was lovely. But the food.

I don’t know when I’ll accept that Luby’s is a far cry from the Luby’s of my youth.

I loved Luby’s Cafeteria from the days when it was still Romano’s Cafeteria. And then it was Luby/Romano’s Cafeteria. And then the Romanos must have gotten kicked to the curb because it became just Luby’s.

We’d go there after church on Sundays and wait in that long line. And I’d order the chicken fried steak which was known by its fancy name, breaded beef cutlet. With cream gravy and mashed potatoes and fried okra.

And jello in a fancy glass dish for dessert.

It was the meal by which I judged all other meals for a long time.

The best part was that Luby’s was a constant, unchanging presence in my life. Kind of like if God wore a hairnet and scooped out delicious mac and cheese.

(I actually feel that there will be mac and cheese aplenty in heaven. But no hairnets. Those will be reserved for hell.)

Even when I went to college, there was a Luby’s right on the corner of the Texas A&M campus with an interior all decorated in maroon. And anytime I craved a delicious meal lovingly prepared by women in hairnets, I would beg my roommates to head to Luby’s with me.

But at some point after that it began to go downhill. The fried okra wasn’t the same. The breaded beef cutlet became a little flavorless and chewy. And the mashed potatoes tasted a little too instant.

Apparently I wasn’t alone in the end of my love affair because, a few years after P and I got married, they closed a bunch of Luby’s, including the original one that was down the street from our first apartment.

But I held out hope when they were bought out by a bigger restaurant chain. Alas, all this brought was higher prices, a drive-through window, and an attempt to make Luby’s cool. It’s not supposed to be cool.

It’s a cafeteria.

Yet I still get lured in by Luby’s from time to time. The siren song of the mac and cheese is too powerful to resist. And I always hold out the hope that this time, THIS TIME, it will be like the Luby’s of yore.

Then I sit down with my LuAnn platter and am faced with the cold, hard reality of a study in culinary mediocrity. And I vow that this will probably be my last time to eat there.

(Please picture Scarlett O’Hara in the field at Tara shaking her fist at the sky.)

Until I crave the taste of a home-cooked meal. And remember that a home-cooked meal these days requires that I cook it since I am the cook in my home. And then I lament the fact that there aren’t any restaurants around who just serve good old-fashioned food that tastes like home.

Which brings me back to Luby’s. And the taste of disappointment.

Have y’all ever had a restaurant turn on you but you can’t let go? Am I alone in this journey?

Is there a light at the end of this cafeteria line?

(I don’t even know what that means.)

Last week was a little rough around here. I’m going to blame it on a combination of being busy and detoxing Caroline after a week of being sick and being waited on hand and foot.

Her reentry into the real world was a little taxing. On both of us.

But by Friday morning she seemed to be back to her old self. She woke up in a good mood and asked, “Mama? Do you still think I’m tired from being sick last week?”

I answered, “Well, you might still be a little tired.”

At which point her head spun around and she growled, “I AM NOT TIRED AT ALL ANYMORE”.

Well. Okay then.

So I sent Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm off to school and I spent the rest of the day doing laundry and cleaning up around the house so I wouldn’t have to spend the weekend doing laundry and cleaning up around the house. I have lofty goals for my weekends these days.

But I also knew we were going to be busy because Caroline had her first soccer game of the season on Saturday morning and her last basketball game of the season on Saturday afternoon. And I had big plans to take a nap somewhere in between those two events.

See? Lofty goals.

Naturally I was thrilled that a cold front blew through on Friday night and our soccer game was 9:15 Saturday morning when the wind chill was somewhere in the vicinity of 36 below zero. Which might be an exaggeration but that’s how it feels when you get used to the temperature being in the 80s and then it suddenly remembers it’s winter and bottoms out with gusty north winds.

But I huddled out on the bleachers with the other parents as we tried to remind ourselves we might miss this weather when we’re sitting out in 106 degree heat during the last games of the season. The grass is always greener on the other side of the thermometer.

We got home after the game and I nearly headed straight for the couch, but then decided instead to go vacuum out my car and get it washed. I have no explanation for this sudden burst of productivity.

Then I picked up lunch for us and brought it back to the house. By the time all this was over there wasn’t any time for my anticipated nap. I was so disappointed. I plan to do better to achieve my goals in the future. I believe it was Maya Angelou who said “When you know better, you do better”.

Next time, I will do better.

Especially when you consider that I wasted countless minutes vacuuming out a car whose regular backseat occupant apparently feels the need to stick every piece of trash she comes across between the seats. We could have lived for days off the peppermints from Sonic alone.

So we went to our last basketball game. Which I’m sad to say we lost after a season of being undefeated. But considering all the girls had already played a soccer game that morning, it was understandable that their energy was a little low. I mean, I was tired from just vacuuming out my car and sitting in the bleachers at two different sporting events.

There was a quick medal ceremony/cupcake party (Just like the Olympics!) after the game and then we went home to rest before we went to dinner with friends that night. Caroline and I were relaxing on the couch watching Parent Trap (the Lindsay Lohan version that always makes me sad at how cute she used to be) when she suddenly looked up at me and said, “Mama? I see that you’re starting to get some old lady marks on your face.”

And so I felt like the least I could do was help her back her bags before I showed her to the door.

I wanted to tell her that some of those old lady marks were probably exacerbated from sitting in the bone-chilling, dry north wind to watch her play soccer at 9:15 on a Saturday morning.

Later that afternoon I was blow-drying my hair and it insisted on doing some weird cowlick part thing. It’s never done this before. I didn’t understand. And then I looked closer and saw that it was parting in a way that perfectly showcased a new crop of gray hairs.

Between my old lady marks and that display, I’m feeling super great about myself.

So I spent the rest of the weekend asking for referrals for a good hair colorist who can make my hair the glossy, silky color of J.Lo’s but won’t charge me more than $50.

Not really.

I mean, yes really about wanting to find a great hair color person that can perform a miracle on my hair, but that’s not all I did the rest of the weekend.

We had dinner with friends on Saturday night and then went to church on Sunday morning. AND, we actually got there one minutes and thirty-seven seconds early which has never happened in the history of ever. We usually prefer to walk in ten minutes late and make the walk of shame down the aisle because P likes to sit in the second row. But, IN OUR DEFENSE, there has been a lot of construction around the church lately. It’s not all because someone can’t decide on a pair of earrings or a child who determines her shoes are “sprunchy” right before we walk out the door.

Sunday was a gorgeous day, but Caroline was tired (See? I was right.) and came home from church, took a bath and put on her pajamas. At 12:15. But she rebounded later and we spent some time playing outside and enjoying the sunshine.

On a related note, did you realize that next week is Daylight Savings Time? Me neither.

I’m just glad that we’ll be on Spring Break because Monday morning comes soon enough without losing an hour on Sunday.

Which reminds me that I probably need to go to bed.

As hard as it was to read some of the prayer requests yesterday, I was so glad that y’all shared them. I spent some time praying for each one of you. I’ve never really done that before because, honestly, sometimes it’s just hard to know about all the hard things happening in people’s lives, but I think it’s a something I’m going to start doing from time to time because there is nothing that brings peace like knowing people are praying for you.

Not to mention that it totally fits into my resolve to quit living in fear of all the what-ifs.

So, just know I’m praying for all those requests. For peace. For resolution. For strength.

I should also maybe pray that my days get a little more interesting because I am sitting here trying to figure out how to make a day spent running errands sound remotely exciting.

Yesterday morning I went up to Caroline’s school because she was doing the announcements. They do them like it’s a news broadcast so she was with a group of her classmates. And so I went to her classroom to watch on the big screen. I probably frightened a few children because I don’t believe in putting on makeup before 7:30 a.m. unless it’s under extreme circumstances.

But I felt like I got away with it because I put on my yoga pants and an Adidas t-shirt like I was leaving for an imminent workout. The truth was I waited until Caroline came back to class to tell her she did a great job and then went to Starbucks.

For many, MANY, months, Starbucks has been like my own little writing office. However, I’m kind of at a lull with the book right now (similar to the eye of a hurricane) but I’m in the habit of going to Starbucks at least three times a week. Basically I’m a step away from becoming the old retired guy I see there every morning who walks in, drags a chair from the nearest table to use as a makeshift ottoman as he sits in a comfy chair, drinks his coffee and reads three different newspapers cover to cover.

The only thing that differentiates the two of us at this point is I still don’t feel comfortable enough to wear my house shoes to Starbucks.

After a couple of hours there, I left to drive to the Volvo dealership because the dashboard of my car has been screaming for weeks that I have MULTIPLE BULB FAILURES. Not just one bulb failure. MULTIPLE. And I’ve realized that part of the multiple includes my left blinker. I wasn’t that concerned when I thought it was just a taillight, but when your front left blinker is out you become that annoying driver that never signals when you’re about to turn and no one knows what to do and chaos ensues.

So I went to see if they could help me with my multiple bulb failures and they can. On Tuesday. Which means I get to have five more days of being THAT person.

I drove from there to Target because I bought Caroline a t-shirt a few weeks back that she deemed unacceptable. It was pink. With hot pink hearts. What was I thinking? It was clearly offensive.

Speaking of, Caroline told me last night at dinner about a situation at school. And I told her that I thought what she was feeling was a little bit of jealousy and that was perfectly normal. She looked at me and said, “THAT IS SO OFFENDING. IT’S NOT JEALOUSY”. I apologized for being “offending” because she is teetering on the emotional edge these days and I wasn’t really up for a meltdown. Does anyone know if eight is the new thirteen? Because sometimes it feels like the new thirteen.

Anyway, I walked around Target and tried on some colored skinny jeans that were only $22. I really wanted them to work but they fit more like leggings and the waistband didn’t even cover my bottom while I was standing up. So who knows what fresh horror would be unleashed if I actually tried to bend over in them.

Then I meandered through the shoe department and found some gorgeous platform leopard print heels that don’t go with my life at all. Not to mention that I’d probably want to cut my feet off with a plastic knife if I wore them for more than five minutes at a time. They are more of a sitting shoe.

So I left the shoe department and looked at the Easter stuff and eventually made my way to small electronics where I debated buying a new blender because I’m on a huge smoothie kick right now and our blender is about the worst blender in the history of blending. You can’t even turn it on and off. I just have to unplug it and plug it back in. It’s a tedious process at best. But the smoothies make me feel so healthy and so I LABOR INTENSIVELY over the blender each morning.

I nearly bought a blender called The Ninja because, well, it was called The Ninja. But I couldn’t commit and hated to make a wrong blending decision. And after all that, I ended up leaving Target with just one thing.

A book.

I bought The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks because I’ve heard it’s good even though it appears to be about science and medicine. Two subjects I try to avoid. Which is ironic considering I used to sell pharmaceuticals.

But the point is that I spent an hour in Target and only spent $13.87.

It was a Target miracle.

And to celebrate, I stopped at Sonic and bought myself a large Diet Coke.

That was my day.

I can’t apologize enough for all the lameness contained therein.

Today is one of those days where I feel like I have a whole lot of things to tell y’all, but there is no way I’m going to format those things in anything other than a comprehensive list.

So here we go.

1. I can’t thank y’all enough for your prayers for Nena. She came through the surgery beautifully and they said they’ll have her up and walking by tomorrow. Which, quite frankly, I find amazing.

And while she hasn’t felt well enough to tell Gulley that she needs to throw her jeans in the trash, she did tell them that she woke up during surgery and thought she was at the beauty parlor.

Oh. I just got another update. She told Gulley to buy yellow or turquoise jeans for summer. I think she’s going to be fine.

2. Several of you have asked for an update on Jen. She starts chemo on Friday. Would so appreciate any prayers sent her way.

3. On a non-health crisis note, I received an early copy of Ree’s new cookbook in the mail last week and have already turned down about sixty-four pages of things I want to cook. I didn’t know that I could love a cookbook more than her first one, but I think I might love this one more. True story.

You can pre-order a copy right here.

4. Cathy, at Desperately Seeking WordPress, recently did a little makeover on my blog. Nothing to major, but just a little color change and making it a little neater. And, as usual, she had to endure 184 emails from me with things like “Maybe a grayish-yellow, but not too gray or yellow!” and “Maybe a pink, but not a pinky-pink”.

God bless her. She is great at her job.

Anyway, in the course of all those emails, she told me about a new conference called Refine. It’s September 20-21 in Bloomington, Minnesota and its mission statement is “Come as you are, take your next steps with purpose”.

You can find out more about it here.

5. Speaking of conferences, LifeWay has a new event this year called Abundant. The first one is in Houston on March 23-24 at Champion Forest Baptist Church and will feature Kelly Minter, Lisa Harper, Jen Hatmaker, Angela Thomas, Tammie Head, Jennifer Rothschild speaking and Travis Cottrell and CeCe Winans leading worship.

I believe that’s what you call an unbelievable lineup. I’m planning to be there because why would I want to miss that when it’s within driving distance? You can find out more and register right here.

6. A few of you have asked about my thoughts on The Bachelor this season. And I’ll be honest. I quit watching it about three weeks ago. I just couldn’t take it. My word at the boring.

I’m sure they may all be lovely people in real life but they made for remarkably unwatchable television.

Or maybe I just am a T.V. snob now that I record Masterpiece Theater on my DVR.

7. I’ll tell you what I am watching though, Bethenny Ever After. It may be my favorite reality show of all time. And I realize that’s a bold statement, but I really watch it and think I WANT TO BE HER FRIEND.

P just rolled his eyes at the computer.

8. If you haven’t tried Tostitos Artisan Roasted Garlic and Black Bean chips, then you’re life may not be complete. Tostitos didn’t ask me to say that. It was just in my heart.

9. So I’m still on my healthy eating kick. Even though I have allowed a few Hershey Miniatures into my diet because man cannot live by kale alone.

But I was craving mac and cheese the other day and found this recipe for Skinny Baked Broccoli Macaroni and Cheese. I figured it was better than nothing.

10. Yesterday in the comments a reader named Pam asked if we’d pray for her daughter who was having surgery. And I thought that I would love to know if there is anyone else out there that needs prayer for anything. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know.

Wow. Ten things. I had no idea I had that many things to address.

Y’all have a happy leap day.

And you know what? It was actually really good.