Author: Big Mama

So I haven’t mentioned that I’ve been fighting a bit of a cold because every time I mention I have a cold someone will inevitably leave a comment about how they’re concerned that I seem to be sick so much of the time.

When the truth is that I don’t really feel like I’m sick very much at all. But I do have an eight-year-old who goes to school every day which is the equivalent of living with a petri dish so I’m bound to come down with the occasional cold.

I’m just glad that I haven’t crossed over into Hazel territory at this point. I just have heavy congestion in my head that has made me feel slightly miserable for the last few days and doesn’t seem to respond to Sudafed unless I take upwards of 120 mg of it which is precisely the amount it takes for me to feel like my heart might explode out of my chest.

And now you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this.

I wish I knew.

Oh. I just remembered. Because of all the cold/sinus/aliens living in my head I haven’t been able to sleep very well. I’ll go right to sleep but then wake up at some point in the night when I can no longer breathe through my nose and my right cheek feels like it’s caving in. I’ve tried various combinations of Zyrtec and Sudafed and Benadryl and vodka, but none of has really worked.

Then I was at HEB yesterday because we were out of milk and eggs and bread and chocolate, and I walked over to the pharmacy aisle to buy some more Benadryl. I really wanted to buy some more Sudafed but I am certain I’ve reached my pseudoephedrine maximum allotment for the month and was afraid I might be arrested on the spot for running a crystal meth lab.

As I perused the selection of cough and cold medicines I noticed the Nyquil sitting there on the shelves. Good old Nyquil. We had some good times years ago. There was a time period during my freshman year in college when I took Nyquil every night. I have no idea why, but I know that it helped me sleep like a baby.

I think it was sometime after I began my career in pharmaceutical sales that I started to look down on Nyquil. After all, it’s just a combination of Tylenol, an old school antihistamine, and a cough suppressant. I left Nyquil behind in favor of newer, fancier cold medicines.

But yesterday I decided to return to my medicinal roots. I bought the Nyquil. Granted, I bought the Nyquil capsules because I haven’t forgotten the way the liquid burns when you take a shot of it. Last night I took those Nyquil capsules and I slept the sleep of angels.

I mean, I’m sure I still snored like a sailor, but I was too drugged up to notice or care.

And isn’t that the point of all good medications?

Of course I also spent much of today falling asleep on the couch due to the after effects but that seems like a small price to pay.

I really wish I had a point to end this whole post and tie it up in a neat bow, but I can’t think of one right now. So I’m just going to go take my Nyquil and call it a day.

Oh, in case you’re interested, I wrote a post about some of my favorite movie quotes over on The Pioneer Woman’s Entertainment section. You can find it by clicking here.

Hope you have a lovely day.

We ended up having one of Caroline’s best little friends spend most of the weekend with us. And on Saturday morning when the weather was rainy and miserable it became apparent that we’d need some sort of activity to get us through the day.

Or maybe just to get me through the day.

So I took the girls to see the new Muppet movie and I might have cried during the scene where they all sing “Rainbow Connection” because I am a big sentimental sap and Kermit holds a place in my heart.

But that only took up a couple of hours.

Which is when I decided we needed to go to Hobby Lobby to load up on some craft supplies. Sadly I’d forgotten that Hobby Lobby isn’t the best place to be on a Saturday during the Christmas season when everything is 50% off. But I persevered in the name of crafting. Just like Martha Stewart would do.

I could lead you astray and make you think it was all for the love of the craft but the truth is we were already there and it seemed pointless to leave. Plus I had a goal. A crafting goal.

It’s like I don’t even know who I am.

If you’ve been reading the blog for a few years you may remember that my very favorite Christmas decoration is the flowerpot nativity that Caroline made at preschool when she was three. Here it is:

I’m not sure there is a more accurate depiction of the night of Jesus’s birth. Look how bedraggled Mary looks. And her hair is a wreck. As well it should be after what she’d just been through. A donkey ride. Labor in a stable surrounded by animals. That drummer boy that wouldn’t quit banging his drum.

Pa-rum-pa-pa-pum.

And so I thought it might be fun to have the girls make new flowerpot nativities and since Gulley is now the teacher of the preschool class that makes flowerpot nativities, I called her to ask what we needed to make them other than the obvious flowerpots.

Here’s the list in case you’re interested. We found all of this at Hobby Lobby.

2 medium flower pots
1 small flower pot
acrylic paint
2 medium wooden balls (for Mary and Joseph’s heads)
1 small wooden ball (for Jesus’s head)
fabric for their head coverings
doll hair (or you can just color it in with a Sharpie)
roll of grapevine to create headpiece and staff
moss
silver pipe cleaner (for the halo)
hot glue gun or gorilla glue

We waited in the checkout line at Hobby Lobby until I thought Jesus might return before we made it back to the car and then drove home with our craft supplies. And a few hours later we had created two brand new flowerpot nativities. Here’s Caroline’s:

Sure it lacks some of the charm of Mary’s wide-eyed frightened look from the earlier version, but it’s still pretty sweet.

And if I’m feeling really ambitious and brave before Christmas is over I might go back to Hobby Lobby and get us some more pots so we can add three wise men and an angel.

And maybe even a drummer boy.

Pa-rum-pa-pa-pum.

Sometime last week P informed me he was going to the ranch for the weekend. Which didn’t come as any surprise because I’ve been married to him for fourteen years now. I told him that was fine with me but I’d appreciate it if we could go buy our Christmas tree at some point before he left and if he’d get the decorations down from the attic for me.

And he happily agreed to both these things.

Which is why last Wednesday was the day we went and bought our Christmas tree. Or as I like to call it “The Day of The Year that Tests Our Marriage and Makes Us Question the Whole Concept of TIL DEATH DO US PART”.

It all began when I called him on my way to pick up Caroline from school and told him I was going to Target after I got her. And he said, “But I thought we were getting the tree today”.

Apparently he only thought that in his own head because I was under the impression we were getting the tree on Thursday. But I am NOTHING if not flexible and I told him Caroline and I could forgo our trip to Target in favor of getting a tree.

So we drove straight home from school, met him at the house and we all drove to the tree lot. I realize a tree lot really lacks the pizazz and charm of a tree farm, but we live in South Texas and that’s our option. We have to buy imported trees. Don’t let the fanciness of that fool you. It’s a lot on a busy street with a festive red and white striped tent and some workers that I think spend the rest of the year traveling with those carnivals that you see set up in mall parking lots.

Once we arrived at the lot it became apparent that the pickings were slim. (I feel like that should be “pickins'” instead of pickings given the atmosphere.) The tree selection was sparse at best and filled with a variety of pine that I don’t believe in. (Not because I don’t think it exists, but because I believe it’s ugly.) I like a Noble Fir. Christmas for me might be ruined without a Noble Fir.

Caroline and P found one they liked and I agreed that it was a pretty shape but it was only six and a half feet tall. And what’s the point of having nine foot ceilings if you’re going to buy some sad tree that’s barely taller than your husband? Caroline kept trying to sell me on the tree and P finally told her to give it up because he knows that I will not be satisfied until we find a tree that might not fit through our front door.

Ultimately I asked the tree salesman if he had any other Noble Firs in the 8-9 foot range that I could see. And to his credit he dragged out three more trees for me to examine until I found a tree we all agreed on. I’d actually liked the first one he pulled out but P asked me why I wanted “a fat shrub” in our living room so that killed it.

We bought the tree and then they shook it and netted it FOR FREE. Oh yes. Buying a Christmas tree is a real bargain. But then the tree salesman agreed to let Caroline stand on the “shaker apparatus” (probably not its real name) and her entire Christmas was pretty much made at that point. She also may have shaken loose a few molars.

It was only after we got the tree back to the house and made our first attempt to put it in the tree stand that we realized it had a very crooked trunk. P met this discovery with some decidedly un-Christmas like words and went to get his drill to try to fix the problem.

And that’s really when the Christmas spirit took a downward turn.

Caroline decided she was bored with the whole process and ran to play with the next door neighbors. In the meantime, P began to drill a new hole in the tree and we had this conversation.

P: “Why did we even get our tree today? It’s not even December. It’s November 30th.”

M: “We always get our tree at the end of November. That’s when we bought it last year.”

P: “You don’t know that. How could you possibly remember that?”

M: “Because I remember you griping about it last year too. I like to have MAXIMUM TREE ENJOYMENT. I WANT THIRTY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS TREE.”

P mumbled to himself as we made our second attempt to get the tree in the stand and I commenced with my yearly tradition of telling him, “IT NEEDS TO GO A LITTLE MORE TO THE RIGHT. NO. OOPS! I MEANT TO THE LEFT. IT NEEDS TO GO TO THE LEFT. I THINK IT’S STRAIGHT. GET UP AND LOOK AND TELL ME IF IT’S STRAIGHT.”

He stood up from under the tree, stepped back to survey it and said, “THIS TREE IS ENORMOUS. THE STAR ISN’T EVEN GOING TO FIT. I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU INSIST ON GETTING SUCH A BIG TREE.”

Which is when I’d had it. “You know why I want such a big tree?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the ONE TIME OF THE YEAR that I can make that dang antelope look proportional to anything else in our living room.”

And, lo, an antelope of the Lord appeared.

Except this year it’s a Santalope.

Ho. Ho. Ho.