Author: Big Mama

A giveaway because I believe that reading is good

Yesterday afternoon Caroline and I went over to hang out with Gulley and her boys. When we got there I walked into her house and noticed immediately that her kitchen was a mess and I was all like, “WHAT UP with the kitchen?”

She explained that she had spent the entire morning and half of the afternoon preparing food to take to one of her husband’s co-workers who just had a baby. And let me tell y’all something, when Gulley brings a meal she doesn’t just show up with some sad-looking tater tot casserole. She goes ALL OUT. I’m talking creamy pork tenderloin, fresh green beans, homemade cinnamon cake AND pigs in a blanket for BREAKFAST the next day.

I would seriously consider having another child just for Gulley’s food.

Anyway, we sat and visited while she cleaned up the kitchen. I asked how the new mama was doing and Gulley said, “She’s just in that raw state of new motherhood”. If you’ve been there, you know exactly what she meant by that. Nothing prepares you for how much you’re going to love that little person, how worried you’re going to be that you’ll do something wrong, and how little sleep you can live on for endless weeks.

It’s RAW.

I remember many a night where I rocked Caroline endlessly while bargaining with God to just please make her go to sleep and please don’t let her have an explosion in her diaper the minute she finally drifts off. There was one especially bad day in those early weeks when my friend Jamie called me and I think I burst into tears. She said, “I know it’s hard to believe right now, but there will come a day when you will be able to go to put her to bed at 8:00 and she will sleep until the next morning.”

I’m still waiting for that day.

Oh, it’s a joke. Kind of.

But that simple statement was like a life preserver at that moment. I just needed to hear something from someone who had been there and lived to tell about it. I needed someone to tell me what Gulley told that new mama yesterday, which was, “You can’t screw them up at this stage. Just love them to pieces and they’ll be fine.”

Anyway, the point is that as we go through different stages of life, it helps to hear encouragement and practical advice. Sometimes you just need to know that what you’re feeling is normal and no one is about to cart you off in a white jacket. (Insert “Saturday Night Fever” joke here.)

Last summer at the She Speaks Conference, I got to (briefly!) meet Marla Taviano. She is a witty, practical, eloquent wife and mother of three girls who has taken the time to share what she has learned about marriage, sex, impending motherhood, and being a mama in four incredible books.

Her most recent book is called “Expecting” and it’s a beautiful devotional book that guides you through 40 weeks of praying for your baby as he/she/they develop.

You can go read more about her books and even some sample chapters by visiting her blog and looking on the right sidebar where it says “Books by Marla”.

And here’s the best part. Marla has agreed to let three lucky winners pick their choice of one of her books plus some gift card action to Target. Mossimo goods and a new book. Who can say they aren’t interested in winning that?

So here’s what you need to do.

1. Go visit Marla’s blog and check out all her books.

2. Come back here and leave a comment letting me know which one you’d like to have and maybe if you thought about leaving your husband with your newborn baby and finding the nearest hotel to get a good night’s sleep.

3. I will pick the three winners using Random.org on Sunday, February 1st.

1st place: Choice of one book and a $25.00 Target gift card
2nd place: Choice of one book and a $10.00 Target gift card
3rd place: Choice of one book

4. If you can’t wait or even if you don’t win, you can purchase Marla’s first three books for the stunningly low price of $20.00 on her site.

Y’all have fun and I’ll see you tomorrow with a brand-new Fashion Friday unless some unforeseen circumstances arise.

How’s that for hedging my bets?
Back in the days of the cigar-smoking grandpas

When I was at my Nanny’s house last summer, I found this old picture in one of her many photo albums. She has a million albums filled with all kinds of pictures of my childhood, but this one is such a piece of life as I remember it back then.

My Papa is the cigar-smoking barbecue chef in the picture. I can’t remember if that was a gas grill or not, but clearly safety and proper hygienic food preparations weren’t on the top of the priority list.

In the background is my Big Bob wearing his trademark gold jumpsuit with a pipe in his mouth, and sitting on the table is my great Uncle Bo who was the skinniest person I have ever met. He was also a Cajun who married into our Italian family and made the best gumbo in the world.

All three of them are gone now. They’ve been gone for a long time.

It’s funny how you can miss something that you didn’t even pay much attention to in the moment it existed. The three of them were just always there, presiding over the barbecue pit while the women stayed in the house and gossiped.

I don’t know when Papa built that little barbecue Taj Mahal, but I can’t remember a time that it wasn’t in his backyard. Every now and then he would update it with some new Astroturf on the floor or bring in an additional table, but it remained virtually the same until the day he passed away.

I’m not sure what he was cooking that day, but if I had to guess I would say links of sausage and burgers that were always well done. We ate so much spaghetti at Mema and Papa’s house that it always seemed exotic to have something different.

I loved those Saturday afternoons when the men would gather around the barbecue stand. The backyard was huge and my cousins and I would play baseball with my daddy and my uncles until the food was ready and Mema called us all to come in the house.

We’d gather in their huge kitchen, all sweaty and starving, and fix huge plates of food. It was always so loud that you couldn’t hear yourself think. A football game would blare out from the television and everyone would holler back and forth from the kitchen to the living room with a joke or making fun of how much someone put on their plates. I can’t think of a time I didn’t see my Uncle Carroll look at someone’s plate and say “DERN, that is impressive.”

It’s an expression we still use today because it is perfection.

After lunch everyone would find a place on one of Mema’s vinyl couches or on the floor to stretch out and watch football. I remember climbing all over my twin uncles as they lay on the floor because I was hoping to annoy them enough to go back outside and play more baseball. Eventually they would cave and we’d all head back outside until it was time for everyone to go home.

Last summer when I was in Beaumont, I drove to the other side of town to see Mema and Papa’s old house. Time hasn’t been kind to their neighborhood, but the house still looked just as I remember it.

I drove by slowly to take in the huge backyard that is the site of so many childhood memories and pulled into the driveway next to the side door where everyone entered their house. The memories haven’t dulled with time and I could almost see my Mema standing in the driveway blowing kisses and directing traffic as I pulled back out onto the main road.

As I drove away, I felt an ache like homesickness down in my stomach. A longing for a place that only exists in bits and pieces of my memory. A place and time that is gone forever.

But I will be forever grateful for that time, that place, those people. They shaped who I am. They taught me the value of spending time with family, laughter, football, and taking the time to grill some sausage while smoking a cigar.

And, ultimately, those are the things you remember. Even thirty years later.
Mile-high nonsense

How many blog entries have I started with “I’m up in the air right now”? By my mental calculation I believe the answer is A LOT.

The funny thing is that I don’t really like flying. It’s not so much the whole “you could come crashing down from 40,000 feet in the air” part as much as the “I don’t like being confined to small spaces next to strangers with possible cold and flu symptoms” situation.

And, really, the whole experience used to be a lot more pleasant but now that they want to charge me $2.00 for a Diet Coke, the bloom is off the travel rose. I mean, seriously, did the hundreds of dollars spent on the ticket not cover that Diet Coke?

Anyway, I’m up in the air on my way home from Travis’s CD recording. It was such an incredible night of worship and I get a little giddy thinking about his version of “Victory In Jesus”. I was able to all-too-briefly say hi to some sweet blog friends and I’m so sad we didn’t have enough time to all sit around and talk about life live and in person.

Perfect. The pilot just announced that there will be a little bit of turbulence and I swear if it causes me to spill part of my $2.00 Diet Coke, I’m asking for a refund.

Oh, and I also forgot to mention that I was reprimanded by the flight attendant. I’m sitting in an emergency exit row and she was trying to begin her lecture on opening the emergency hatch. Meanwhile, I was completely caught up in my issue of People Style Watch featuring what’s hot and what’s not for 2009 and didn’t even know she was speaking. I am a mother; I can tune out distractions like it’s an Olympic sport.

All of a sudden it dawned on me that someone was repeatedly saying “Lady in the pink scarf in seat 16A. LADY IN THE PINK SCARF!” Sure enough, I was the lady in the pink scarf who holds the safety of all the passengers in what are most certainly my less-than-capable, People-magazine-holding hands.

So then I had to pull out the laminated card in the seat pocket in front of me and actually pretend I was paying attention, which I wasn’t because let’s not even pretend I’d remember what to do in case of emergency other than completely panic.

In other unrelated airline news, I know I said I had a video that I was going to post. However, due to a vast amount of technical issues, I’m not entirely sure the video even exists at this point. I apologize, but rest assured in the knowledge that all you’re missing is another very low-budget Big Mama video production.

In closing, I am well aware that this is the most random post and has no coherent train of thought other than my outrage at paying $2.00 for a can of Diet Coke, but I am flat exhausted. It’s been fun to travel and see friends and what not, but I need a day or nine to recover. I plan to do a lot of sitting on my couch in flannel pajamas while eating homemade soup and catching up on all the fabulous T.V. that’s waiting for me with open arms on my DVR.

Because that’s just how ambitious I am.
165 minutes is too long

So I have this video I wanted to upload from backstage at the Travis Cottrell CD taping (Is taping even the right word? What do the kids in the industry say these days?).

Anyway, as we all know, videos never seem to go smoothly for me and I have encountered a glitch. But, GOOD NEWS, this time it’s not my fault and I can totally blame Vimeo.

Apparently it will be 165 minutes until my video is ready and I’m not waiting that long because it’s actually still Sunday night as I write this and I must go to bed because I am exhausted from all the fun.

I’ll post the video later today but in the meantime let me say that the recording (taping? live session? laying down tracks?) was so much fun and the entire praise team did such a great job. It’s going to be the best worship CD ever. Seriously.

In other news, I went to eat lunch yesterday with Sophie and Boodaddy. We went to a Mexican restaurant that appeared to be good because it was called “Restaurant Mexicano” and everyone knows that “O” on the end of Mexican signals authenticity. Sophie was smart and ordered nachos, which are always a safe choice.

I ordered Huevos Rancheros. Bad call on my part because I’m not sure the following picture features huevos or rancheros. If you have a weak stomach, I beg you not to look at this picture yet I am compelled to post it.

I believe those are the lesser cousin of Huevos Rancheros known as Huevos Feos, which translates to “Ugly Eggs” for those of you who don’t possess my extensive Spanish vocabulary of four to five words. It will be a long time before I can eat eggs again.

And for the record, I didn’t actually eat those. I just tore my napkin in half and covered them up so I didn’t have to look at them.

It’s too bad I can’t use that same napkin to erase the image from my brain where it is now burned for eternity.
I may need a nap

In the words of the immortal Willie Nelson, I am on the road again. Except not on the road. I’m in the air.

Y’all aren’t going to believe this, but I woke up this morning at 5:10 a.m. so that I could catch a 7:00 a.m. flight to Atlanta. I can’t remember the last time I had hot rollers in my hair at 5:20 in the morning and here’s hoping it doesn’t become a regular occurrence because, dang, I am tired.

Not to mention the fact that I think I put some of them in the wrong way due to the tiredness and I am having issues with some wayward curls.

Anyway, I’m heading to Atlanta, specifically Woodstock Baptist Church, for the live recording of Travis Cottrell’s worship CD. I have no idea when I became so jet-setty, but I’m just glad I run no risk of getting a speeding ticket during this trip.

I’ve been so excited since I found out a week ago that I was going to be able to be there for all the big fun and excitement, but therein lies my big problem. Ever since I was a wee child I have not been able to handle knowing anything in advance because it causes me to not sleep for all the anticipation.

Add to that fact a fear of not hearing the alarm go off at 5:10 a.m. and you have got yourself a recipe for a sleepless night. Especially when you have a husband who keeps you awake with his snoring until you banish him to the guest room at 2:43 a.m.

So I don’t really feel as impossibly fresh as I’d like but I’m hoping to catch a quick nap before all the festivities tonight.

In the meantime, here are a few things I’ve already observed on my trip.

1. Flying at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning means that the plane is not even half-full. Shout out to the flight attendant who gave me a whole row to myself.

2. When I purchased my necessary Starbucks at the airport this morning, I ordered my usual grande, non-fat café mocha. I didn’t mention the “no whip” part because I always assume it’s a given with the whole “non-fat” thing. However, they put whipped cream on top and my life may never be the same. It was delicious.

3. Dear Airtran: Please do not turn the heat on in the airplane. Yes, I realize it’s cold outside but when you have 50 people inside an insulated metal tube, there is really no need for heat.

4. It was a bad call to wear my Uggs with my jeans tucked in because, hello security line and having to completely undress. I can’t possibly replicate the tuck in excellence I had going on when I left my house at 5:45 this morning.

5. I bought an In-Style magazine to read during the flight, but sadly it is the very thin and always a rip-off February issue and I finished the whole thing in 13 1/2 minutes. I don’t feel I got my $4.13 in spite of the fact that Kate Winslet is wearing a black dress that would change my life.

I believe that is all for now. I’ll be back at some point with a full report of all the fun and what happens during a live CD recording. Just between you and me, I suspect there will be a lot of singing and what not.

I know you’ll be waiting on pins and needles.

I just hope it doesn’t cause you to lose any sleep.
Engraved Euniques winner

Thanks to all of you who participated in the Engraved Euniques Giveaway. The response was huge and was confirmation that I need to figure out why my comments want to crash after the magic number of 943.

How random is that?

942=okay. 943=system down, system down!

Seriously, does anyone know how I can fix that?

The good news is that all the comments remain stored in my main comment section on my dashboard so, even though you can’t see them, I still can. I’m so glad they don’t just vaporize into the vast world wide web.

The problem is they don’t show up in a handy numbered format, so I actually have to count. Like as in 1-2-3.

So I have never been so grateful that they handy Random.org number generator chose the number 80 as opposed to 864. It’s like I am one with the Random Generator.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

80
Timestamp: 2009-01-25 12:26:21 UTC

#80 is Michelle at Completely His.

Congratulations, Michelle. Email me at [email protected] and I will put you in touch with Engraved Euniques.