Author: Big Mama

  • Fashion Friday: Edition I can’t wear belts or headbands

    I’ll just go ahead and tell you that I haven’t really shopped in weeks. Maybe even a month. First, I was derailed by the bronchitis episode and then I spent a week at home catching up on things I hadn’t done while I complained about my bronchitis the week before. And then this week just flew by with the road trip to Houston and the sleep I needed to catch up on and the T.V. I needed to watch.

    Not to mention that I’ve unofficially placed myself on a spending freeze until I start Christmas shopping. There isn’t one thing I need right now. Except for maybe a few good long-sleeve t-shirts in solid colors but I can buy those DIRT CHEAP at Old Navy so that doesn’t really count as shopping as much as stocking up on necessities.

    While Gulley and I were in Houston on Tuesday night (Did I mention we went to Houston? Am I ever going to quit talking about it and move on?) we spent a little bit of time checking out various outfits at Bible study. Clearly this was before the actual Bible study part began because we are deeply spiritual and would never let ourselves be distracted by a great pair of boots once we were immersed in the word of God.

    But prior to that, we made note of several cute outfits and some darling boots. There were boots everywhere in spite of the fact that the temperature was well into the high 80’s. Which just goes to prove that Texas women are resilient. We are descended from hearty pioneer stock and certainly aren’t going to let the summer that will not die put a damper on our October spirit and our need to wear boots. Hot weather be danged.

    Another big thing we noticed were the belts. There were several belts being worn with various sweaters and tunics. And Gulley and I launched into an extensive discussion of the belt and the pros and cons therein.

    Which leads me to the first item on my list today.

    1. Nylon stretch belt

    I really am a fan of the belt. I think it can take a shapeless tunic and give it some structure. It can take a sweater dress from drab to fab. It can add pop to the right outfit.

    However, you will never see me in any sort of wide belt unless it is slung low across my hips or something because I suffer from a condition known as waist-impaired. It’s not that I don’t have a waist as much as it is that I am short-waisted and anything that cinches in at my true waist just doesn’t work for me.

    I really can’t even talk about several painful years in the mid-90’s when I desperately wanted to own several dresses from Ann Taylor but couldn’t ever make them work because the waist hit me somewhere around my ribcage.

    Wait. Does that mean I’m short-waisted or long-waisted?

    I’m so confused. All I know is I haven’t worn a belt since the days of high waisted jeans and braided Brighton belts with shiny silver buckles shaped like an alligator.

    But if you can make it work, then I think a good belt is a great thing to own. I also really like this Westchester pullback belt.

    2. Vintage floral headband

    About a week ago, someone emailed me to ask if I thought women in their thirties were too old to wear headbands with flowers on them. My official answer is no.

    In fact, I know several women who wear them and look absolutely darling. But, much like the belt, it’s not a look I can pull off. I’ve just never been a headband kind of girl even though I love them on other people.

    Plus they make my ears hurt.

    This crimson floral headband is super cute and makes me wish I was a floral headband girl.

    But I think I’m more of a knit pom and splendor hat or a plaid newsboy cap kind of girl. Even though I don’t know that I’d wear either of those in reality. I just like the idea of them. The knit beanie is very Rachel Zoe.

    3. Felt ruffle coat

    I know I featured a ruffled coat last week, but I saw this one and it is so inexpensive and just so adorable.

    Or maybe I just like that girl’s bangs.

    4. Prospectress boot

    I love these.

    5. Yellow cable knit scarf

    I love the fringe detail on this scarf and keep picturing it paired with a gray wool peacoat. Wouldn’t that be adorable?

    6. Gap leggings

    I have officially decided that while you can’t beat the price of leggings at Old Navy, I far and away prefer the ones from Gap. Mainly because they are as soft as butter and feel like pajamas.

    7. Sequined tank top

    What in the world? A sequined tank top? That is so fancy!

    But it’s almost holiday season and there might be parties galore in your future. Or you may be like me and have no social calendar to speak of but what if something comes up and you end up wishing you had a sequined tank top to wear? It could totally happen.

    Picture it paired with skinny black jeans and a black blazer or even a velvet blazer if you’re feeling extra fancy.

    And then you could top it off with a spritz of J. Simp’s Fancy Nights perfume. And please pronounce that as FAYN-CEE.

    (Also, did I just type J. Simp and leave it there? Am I twenty years old all of a sudden?)

    (I think I got carried away with the sequined tank top.)

    8. Haylie bootie by Chinese Laundry

    Listen. These are just a party in shoe form.

    9. Antique pocket watch necklace

    I am loving long pendant necklaces right now and so I have spent much time on Etsy looking at all manner of them. And something about this pocket watch one just drew me in. I love the vintage feel of it.

    10. Applique jersey top

    I was looking for something on the Old Navy site the other day and stumbled across this shirt which says it’s only available online. Which probably explains why I’ve never seen it even though Old Navy is one of my regular stops.

    But it looks so cute, comes in several different colors, doesn’t have to be ironed and costs $15.00. That’s some kind of garment trifecta. Except that it’s four things instead of three. Which makes it what? A golden sombrero?

    I’ll go with that. It’s a golden sombrero.

    Which means you can’t lose.

    Y’all have a great Friday.

    ____________________________________

    There’s a new chance to win a $100 gift card on my Kellogg’s giveaway page. Click over there to enter.

  • Houston and back

    So Gulley and I left for Houston around 1:00 on Tuesday afternoon. The only stop we made was at the Whataburger in Schulenburg where she ordered some chicken fingers and I had a Whataburger Jr. that was entirely too salty. I don’t know why I’m filling you in on completely meaningless details of our trip except that the massive sodium intake might have something to do with the fact that my wedding rings feel entirely too tight even twenty-four hours later.

    Someone asked in the comments yesterday what kind of music we listened to during the trip and bless your heart for assuming we ever quit talking long enough to listen to anything but the sound of each other’s voices. The last few weeks have been so hectic for both of us and this was the first time we’d had in forever to have more than a few ten minute conversations pieced together in various code languages so that our little eavesdroppers don’t understand every word we’re saying and repeat it back at some unfortunate time.

    Here’s a non-comprehensive list of some of our conversation topics:

    good hair highlights
    public school education
    the upcoming elections
    marriage
    wearing belts
    television, both reality and scripted
    what God is teaching us
    the holidays
    boots vs. booties
    our current breakfast food of choice
    movies we’d like to see

    I know.

    It was all fascinating. And most all of these things were discussed as we bounced from one subject (the challenges of marriage!) to another subject (laundry detergent!) and then back to the original subject (marriage!) before winding up somewhere in the vicinity of what we’d like to do with our hair.

    The three hour drive totally flew by and we had just barely made it to Houston before we decided we better head over to the church because I was completely paranoid about the parking situation and felt like the whole evening might be derailed if I had to find any type of alternate parking because it might mean I’d have to look at a map to find some sort of overflow lot and the whole thing just stressed me out. Fortunately, my obsessive tendencies totally paid off and we were about the second car to pull in the completely empty lot.

    (On a totally unrelated note, I still have a lingering cough from my bronchitis. P told me earlier tonight that he doesn’t like the way I cough. LIKE I CAN CHANGE IT. And just a few seconds ago, I started coughing and he paused the T.V. in the middle of an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight until I stopped. As if somehow my coughing was detracting from watching the men on T.V. trying to kick in each other’s heads. Sure, my cough is the most annoying component in this scenario.)

    Anyway, we had the best time. Tuesday night Bible study was amazing. Beth taught on the image of God and I’ll be processing it for days. Christy Nockels led us in worship and the whole thing was just so dang good. And her hair looked great.

    And then came the moment where I became socially awkward.

    After it was over Gulley and I were going to go get something to eat with Amanda. We were standing around and there was Christy Nockels. And I wanted to say something to her. Something like “I have loved your music for years” or “I listened to your song Glory Baby a million times the summer after I had a miscarriage” or “Your song Captivate Us makes me cry every time I hear it”. You know? Something normal.

    Christy looked at me and graciously asked, “Do I know you? Have we ever met?”

    I said, “No” and then stuck out my hand to shake her hand while I formally introduced myself like we were at a corporate business meeting.

    Then I felt like I had to explain who I was or why I was waiting around, so I said, “I have a blog”.

    The whole thing was very reminiscent of that scene in Dirty Dancing when Baby tells Johnny, “I carried a watermelon”.

    But she was just lovely and smiled and nodded at me like I was a normal person instead of some kind of socially awkward internet-type person who sits around in my pajamas and writes stuff on the computer.

    Even though, let’s be honest, if the shoe fits.

    Gulley and I set the alarm for 5:00 a.m. Wednesday morning and literally rolled right out of bed and into the car. We made a quick trip through the Starbucks drive-through for some serious caffeine and drove back to San Antonio.

    And, yes, we talked the whole way home.

    Because, fortunately, I am not socially awkward when I’m in the comfort of my own car.

  • On the road

    In about an hour, Gulley and I are going to hit the open road and head to Houston. Of course, by the time you read this we’ll already be on our way back home because we are giving new meaning to the phrase “whirlwind trip”. But when I heard that Christy Nockels was going to be a part of Beth Moore’s Tuesday night Bible study, I knew we had to throw caution to the wind and our kids to our husbands and hit the road.

    And I’m not even going to pretend like part of the reason isn’t because I’d like to see Christy’s hair up close. She has some seriously amazing hair.

    So Gulley and I are leaving the kids and the husbands behind and we’re taking a little road trip. All by ourselves. There is no telling how many problems we’ll be able to solve in the next twelve hours without a kid constantly interrupting to ask us if they can have a sixth popsicle or to inform us that Will is looking at them funny and they don’t like it and can we please make him stop and now he’s humming and it’s getting on their nerves.

    Good times.

    We’re going to head back to San Antonio around 5:30 a.m. because Gulley has to work and I am scheduled to speak to a womens’ Bible study group. Needless to say, we’ll be stopping at Starbucks for something in a size VENTI EXTRA CAFFEINE.

    I’ll be back tomorrow with a full report of how many times we stopped at Dairy Queen and how many of the world’s issues we’ve solved. Specifically, if we believe that NeNe’s son, Bryce, really has lost his mind and if the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills have reached new levels of Botox usage. Also, I hope to have some insight regarding Christy Nockels hair and what type of product she uses.

    But for now I’m leaving the computer behind because P says he needs it to conduct important internet research on various types of ammo and hunting apparel.

    Y’all have a great day.

  • It’s only a matter of time before she starts reading the Thrifty Nickel

    So I was all set to write an entire recap of our weekend on Sunday night, but then I watched the season finale of Mad Men and was so overwhelmed by all the twists and turns of Don Draper’s life that I was rendered temporarily incapable of discussing anything but events that take place at a fictional ad agency in the 1960’s. But I won’t be talking about any of that here because I don’t want to spoil anything for those of you who haven’t made it a priority on your DVR. All I can say is OH MY WORD.

    But enough about 1965.

    Last Friday morning started off on an interesting note around here. Mainly because P called the police around 6:30 a.m. when a strange man kept circling the block in his car with the lights off and finally parked right by our driveway. As it turned out, our neighbors were having a garage sale that was scheduled to open at 8:00 and the man was merely an early bird. And was soon joined by a whole band of fellow early birds who sat outside on our back steps and smoked their cigarettes while they waited for the neighbors to open up their garage. Needless to say, P was ready to run them all off our property and Caroline was completely invigorated by the drama of the morning.

    By the time we left for school, the neighbor’s garage was open and Caroline and I both saw racks and racks of what appeared to clothing, purses and all manner of boots. She said, “OH MAMA! LOOK AT ALL THAT GOOD STUFF OVER IN THEIR GARAGE!”

    After I dropped Caroline off at school, I decided it was only neighborly to go over and check everything out. Especially since I knew this particular neighbor used to own a really cute boutique here in town and there was no telling what might be over there. Sure enough, I was not disappointed. I totally scored. Not only did I walk away with a few brand new shirts and a great necklace, but I also found this adorable chandelier for Caroline’s room.

    Use your imagination and picture it actually hanging somewhere instead of just sitting on my bedroom floor.

    Then P walked across the street to investigate how I was spending the cold, hard cash I’d just begged him for and discovered what has become the greatest thing that has ever happened to Caroline EVER.

    When she came home from school on Friday and discovered her new beaded curtain hanging over her bedroom door, she exclaimed, “I DON’T KNOW HOW I COULD HAVE ANYTHING BETTER THAN THIS. IT’S WHAT I’VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF!”

    Which absolutely made the $3.00 we spent on it seem like a total bargain because how much is too much when you want your room to look like a Moroccan casbah?

    I had to pull myself away from the yard sale bargains because my friend, Jill, was on her way to my house. Jill is one of my oldest friends in the world and, before Friday, we hadn’t seen each other in over twenty years. Actually, we’d seen each other once briefly during our freshman year of college but I didn’t even remember that until she reminded me. Probably because that period of my life is kind of hazy due to a lot of BAD DECISIONS AHOY during that particular year.

    Anyway, Jill and I have been friends since second grade but lost touch sometime during college and hadn’t communicated at all until we found each other on Facebook about a year ago. As it turns out, she and her family are about to move to San Antonio. Which, HELLO SMALL WORLD. And the best part is that we picked up right where we left off and had the best time catching up on the last twenty years. It’s nice when you realize that the same people you liked at seven years old are the same people you like now.

    I picked Caroline up from school and she immediately requested that we head over to the garage sale, but, alas, they had already closed down for the day. I promised we could go on Saturday morning after her soccer game. Which is how we ended up over there at 10:30 a.m. in full soccer gear buying all manner of newsboy caps, pink hairpieces, faux zebra print jackets, a flower mirror, several pieces of costume jewelry, and a pair of floral suitcases that are right out of 1967.

    Caroline had brought her own money to pay for her purchases and so she approached our sweet neighbor with her pile and asked, “What kind of deal can you give me on all this stuff?”

    The neighbor looked at her and said, “Well, that zebra print jacket alone is priced at $30”

    Caroline just looked back at her. Unflinching.

    Our neighbor knew she’d been beat. She looked at Caroline and said, “You can have it all for $20”.

    Caroline thought it over for a minute. I assured her she was a getting a great deal and so she handed over her money.

    As we carried all her loot back to the house, she exclaimed, “OH MAMA! I DON’T KNOW WHY WE DON’T SHOP AT MORE GARAGE SALES!”

    And, thus, a new generation of garage sale shopper has been born.

    Nena will be so proud.

    And also probably a little jealous of what we found.

  • She believes less is more. More boring.

    Over the weekend someone discovered how a few well-placed accessories can transform an outfit

    from plain and boring to hobo chic with a side of Lady Gaga.

    At some point we may need to discuss the famous Coco Chanel principle of “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory.”

    But how is a girl supposed to choose between her newsboy cap and her hot pink hairpiece?

  • Fashion Friday: Edition a little of this and that

    This is where I usually like to tell some fashion-related story or just a regular story or basically any kind of little anecdote to lead into Fashion Friday. But I’ve spent most of the last week in some version of my pajamas and/or yoga pants and don’t really have much fashion-related insight to offer to anyone right now.

    Except for this. If you spend a good amount of time in some version of your pajamas and/or yoga pants and your husband’s old Abercrombie shirts, it will significantly cut down on your dry-cleaning bill/laundry time. Of course you’ll look like you’ve given up on life, but that’s just an unfortunate side effect.

    But I knew I had officially re-entered the land of the living when Caroline and I walked in Target yesterday afternoon to shop for assorted creepy decorations for our front yard and the first thing that caught my eye was a darling striped cardigan sweater. I made Caroline walk over with me so I could get a closer look at the quality workmanship and the price and, most importantly, if they still had my size and she said, “THIS DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A ZOMBIE. WHERE ARE THE ZOMBIES?”

    And that was the end of my clothes’ shopping for the day.

    Also, we didn’t find any zombies. I can’t say I’m too torn up about it.

    (I originally uploaded more pictures, but my computer ate them and I have no idea where my computer’s digestive tract is located. So I give up.)

    1. Mossimo Waterfall cardigan sweater

    This is the sweater I saw at Target and I think it’s adorable. And I certainly need one more loose, flowy sweater to add to my collection.

    It comes in oatmeal and cream or black and gray. I’d be happy with either.

    2. Funky tunic

    Oh my. I adore this. Just adore it.

    The end.

    3. Cable knit tunic

    This is one of those looks that I think looks great in theory but can be hard to pull it off. But if you can pull it off, then I implore you to wear it. WEAR IT LIKE THE WIND.

    I love it.

    4. Autumn’s in the air dolman top

    5. Nick and Mo Molly French jacket

    6. Mossimo peep-toe bootie

    I didn’t see these at Target, but I wish I had.

    7. Velour lounge pants

    I do not even want to get into the discussion over the appropriateness of velour pants. No one says you have to wear the full velour suit. No one says you even have to wear them out of the house. But if you can make it through the entire winter without putting on some velour, then you’re a better person than me.

    You’re also a less comfortable person than me.

    8. Ruffled wool-blend coat

    How cute is this?

    9. Asymmetrical pocket burnout top

    This top looks so cute paired with a slim-fitting long sleeve tee under it. Paired with jeans, it’s the perfect casual fall/winter outfit. It’s the layering that makes it work.

    And the softness.

    And the cuteness.

    10. Button-up scarflette

    I saw this and thought it was great because it’s so versatile. I like all the different ways it can be worn and I’ve always been a fan of keeping your neck warm.

    That’s it for today.

    Y’all have a great Friday.