Author: Big Mama

Georgia on my mind

Remember how on Fridays I used to talk about fashion or something?

I’m not sure what happened.

And I realize I keep creating false hopes for all three of you who care about Fashion Friday because every Friday I promise that I’ll resume Fashion Friday the following week.

Honestly, I still intend to do Fashion Fridays because I enjoy them, but it will be sporadic over the summer. Because really, what do you need to know about summer fashion?

Wear shorts. Wear t-shirts. Wear skirts. Wear a swimsuit.

It’s all good.

As long as you have access to some A/C.

I’m leaving for Atlanta at 6:30 a.m. to attend Deeper Still. For those of you doing the math, that means I’m going to have to set my alarm for 4:30.

Oh the horror.

I haven’t set an alarm for 4:30 since Caroline was a newborn and her pediatrician said I needed to make sure she ate every three hours around the clock. That’s what I get for having a baby that only weighed 5 1/2 pounds.

The good news is that I managed to pack one carry on bag. However, since I’m only going to be gone thirty-six hours, it would have just been embarrassing to have to check a suitcase. Still, I haven’t traveled with just a carry on since my days of riding the Greyhound bus to Houston to visit my daddy with my rainbow duffel bag thrown over my shoulder.

So yesterday I spent the day meticulously obsessing over the inventory of my carry on. What if I spill something? What if I hate the shoes I pack? What if it doesn’t feel like a day for jeans and all I have are jeans?

You know, real problems.

Anyway, in spite of all my suitcase concerns, I spent most of the afternoon at the pool with Caroline. Everything was great until we stopped for a break at around 4:00 and I pulled out my cell phone to check in with P, only to discover that my cell phone wasn’t working.

Panic. Sheer panic.

How did my early 90’s self survive without a cell phone? Or as I called it back then, a CELLULAR phone.

I cannot even imagine all the time I wasted in my late teens sitting at home waiting for some loser to call. Time that could have been spent bettering myself or shopping.

Clearly, I couldn’t leave town (to a whole other state, no less) without a working cell phone.

The phone was working, it just said that I needed to insert the SIM card. I’m no technological wizard but I do know that the SIM card is the key to your cell phone universe.

So I took out the battery and took out the SIM card to research the problem. I used a highly scientific process to try to fix whatever was wrong with the SIM card, which means that I kind of rubbed it on my beach towel and then blew on it really hard.

After I put it back in the phone, it still wasn’t working. I can’t imagine why.

Caroline and I stayed at the pool a little while longer and then we left so that I’d have time to go to the AT&T store to say HALP! MAH PHONE IS BROKEN.

Since I couldn’t call P, I decided to stop by the house to let him know what was going on and share my STRESS. STRESS OVER MY NON-WORKING CELL PHONE. Nevermind that I spent the first twenty-four years of my life without one, I cannot function without it.

He opened it up while I stood next to him explaining that I’d already done that. “I’VE DONE THAT. I EVEN BLEW ON IT AND WIPED IT WITH MY BEACH TOWEL. CLEARLY, IT’S BEYOND HELP.”

That’s when he noticed that some idiot had put the SIM card back in facing the wrong direction. And it was kind of stuck. Which required tweezers.

And maybe some pliers.

But it finally came out.

P put it back in and turned on my phone. It worked.

He looked at me and said, “That’s a little thing I like to call doing it the RIGHT WAY.”

Whatever.

He’ll be lucky if I call him this weekend.

I’ll be posting updates on Deeper Still over at the LifeWay All Access blog this weekend.
Supper, supper, suppertime

I’m sitting here at the pool sweltering in the heat and wondering why I thought it was such a good idea to bring my computer.

Truth be told, I was curious if our pool really had wi-fi or if they just made the claim because what kind of moron brings their computer to the pool?

Turns out, the wi-fi is for real.

So is the heat.

And, apparently, so is the moron.

I chose not to wear my bathing suit today because I am tired of the pool and all the chlorine. My hair is about the consistency of straw, except not as soft and silky.

Anyway, after Caroline’s swimming lesson is over, we are headed home to bask in the A/C. I may even break out the craft bag in my desperation to stay inside.

Nothing reeks of desperation more than the willing distribution of glitter and glue to someone whose life motto is if a little is good, then A LOT is even better.

My biggest issue with the heat, other than the fact that it causes me to walk around with a bright red face and foul temper, is that it makes me want to run far, far away from the kitchen. By the end of the day it is just too hot to live, much less cook.

I just want to get a spoon, a quart of Dreyer’s Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream and call it a day.

There are two problems with this.

1. I would prefer to not gain fifty pounds over the course of the summer.

2. My people seem to want real food. With side dishes.

They are so demanding with all their “I’m hungry. What’s for dinner? Are we having hot dogs again?”

It takes all the joy out of my Dreyer’s Ice Cream.

Oh I kid. Nothing could really take the joy out of that. Because did I mention the chocolate and the peanut butter?

The problem is that when I look through my recipes and assorted cookbooks, nothing sounds good. Meatloaf in the summer is just wrong. Gravy in the summer seems unnatural. Frying something in hot oil seems redundant to the day I’ve already spent at the pool.

This is where y’all come in. I’m going to put up a Mr. Linky and would love it if you’d share your favorite summertime recipe on your blog and link it back here. If you don’t have a blog, then you can leave your recipe in the comments.

It doesn’t have to be sophisticated or complicated. In fact, the easier the better has always been my motto.

Not really, but it is now.

So, share the recipe love. Help a girl out.

Because, otherwise, P is going to ban me from buying anymore hot dogs at the HEB.
I agree with the Sham part, it’s the Wow I’m having trouble with

While I was gone last weekend (Have I mentioned I was gone? Will I ever quit talking about it?) Caroline and P spent some quality time together.

My first clue that they’d watched some television shows of the hunting and fishing genre came when I called to let them know that I had arrived at the airport. Caroline answered and said, “Mama? Is your plane here?”

“Yes. Are y’all coming to pick me up?”

“We’re on our way. Mama! YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT. I SAW SOME PEOPLE ON T.V. CATCHING FISH WITH A BOW AND ARROW!”

Call it intuition, but I was pretty sure that Dora and Boots hadn’t spent any time spear-fishing while crossing through the lollipop mountain and the chocolate forest.

Although how awesome would it be if one day Dora told Boots that in some countries he’d be considered dinner so maybe he should just look at the map and keep his mouth shut?

No? Just me?

Forget I said anything.

But of all the things she saw this weekend on the various outdoor programming, she found one thing that has left her completely enraptured.

The ShamWow.

Apparently the ShamWow appeals to folks who enjoy the hunting and fishing programs.

Later on that night, the ShamWow commercial came on. Caroline heard it, stopped what she was doing and ran into the living room.

“OH MAMA. YOU HAVE GOT TO SEE THIS!”

“What is it?”

“SHHHHH. Just watch. You’ll never have to buy paper towels again. It’s only $20.00. It lasts FOR YEARS. IT CLEANS UP SPILLS FAST!”

For the next three minutes she repeated every line of the ShamWow commercial back to me while P just smiled.

I have a feeling that someone in my house may have ordered the ShamWow while I was gone.

And y’all know he didn’t just order one.

Because the ShamWow can be used to dry your car.
So I’m still talking about the weekend

I was going to post about everything I talked about at She Speaks but, when I copied and pasted my Word document full of notes over here, it was incredibly boring.

Not that this is going to be any better but, you know, at least I’m going for effort.

My portion of the seminar was on blogging boundaries, etiquette and privacy. Which can basically be summed up by saying USE GOOD MANNERS AND GOOD SENSE.

There is no need to leave someone a comment letting them know that you are now dumber for reading their blog.

But just in case you want to read the whole boring page of notes, minus my less than witty ad-libs, I’ve posted it on a separate page which you can find here.

All two of you are very welcome.

On another note from the weekend, there was just this darlin’ girl leading worship. I immediately loved her voice and then I found out she’s an Aggie. It made me so proud.

Anyway, her name is Lindsey Kane. You can hear her here.

Go check her out. Get her to come sing at your church. Buy her CD. Download her on iTunes. You will not regret it. She has an awesome heart for worship.

So I basically stalked her so that I could tell her how great I thought she was and that we were both Aggies.

And it totally paid off because she gave me an autographed CD to give away to one of y’all.

All you have to do is leave a comment and I’ll use a random number generator to pick a winner on Friday.

In other news, Caroline and P survived the weekend. In fact, when I called home on Saturday to check in, P asked her if she wanted to talk to me and she said yes.

“Mama?”

“Hi Baby. How are you?”

“Good. Mama, I need to tell you something.”

“Okay, what?” (Preparing myself for an emotional speech about how much she misses me and can’t wait to see me.)

“I’m hanging up now. Daddy and I have to go.”

Seriously.

Is it just me or does that bring a tear to your eye?
And at some point I lost track of how many M&M’s I consumed

Several months ago Lysa Terkeurst from Proverbs 31 Ministries contacted Sophie, Shannon and me to see if we were interested in teaching a few sessions on blogging at the She Speaks Conference.

I believe my answer was somewhere along the eloquent lines of “I don’t have nothin’ else to do”.

Which is exactly what Loretta Lynn said in “Coalminer’s Daughter” when they asked if she could appear on the Grand Ol’ Opry the following week.

My response wasn’t because of lack of enthusiasm, but because I was pretty sure she had contacted the wrong person and would eventually figure it out.

But as it turns out, she meant to call me and so I spent this past weekend in North Carolina sharing my blogging “expertise”.

It was a short class.

Other than meeting Shannon and Sophie last fall, I had never met any other bloggers in real life before this weekend and I have to say it was so cool to be in a room full of other people who carry their laptops everywhere and take pictures of random things like plates of nachos or people’s feet.

I thought it was just me.

Except I would never take a picture of someone’s foot because I have feet issues. They are vast and complicated. I can’t really get into it right now.

I arrived in North Carolina on Thursday night and Sophie and I immediately went in search of chips and salsa. As we walked out of the hotel doors, we heard a sweet voice say, “Can I get a picture of y’all? You’re famous!”

And I thought MOTHER PEARL!, BRAD AND ANGELINA ARE HERE! while frantically looking around so that I wouldn’t miss them. It turned out she was talking about us. Sophie and me. The least famous of any two people who have ever walked through a lobby at Embassy Suites.

But we posed for a picture that could possibly fetch upwards of a nickel if it ever gets put up on Ebay.

Then we went somewhere and ate a plate of nachos that consisted of enough shredded lettuce to feed the entire rabbit population of North Carolina.

There are so many things I want to say about the weekend, but I don’t know where to start. I loved getting the chance to meet so many people whose words I have read, but have never been able to meet face to face. Every woman I met was just as sweet and funny as they are on their blogs.

The entire Proverbs 31 staff could not have been more helpful, encouraging and supportive. They went out of their way for every woman there. And I can’t even talk about the sheer fabulousness of Lysa Terkeurst’s hair or the tears will begin to flow.

As I flew home yesterday, I thought about the entire weekend. The experiences I had, the people I met, the things I learned and I just felt so blessed that I had the opportunity.

In fact, I only have one regret from the weekend that I will carry with me for the better part of the next three to four days.

Well, other than my regret that I referred to constipation in a room full of women.

This tunic.

It’s pure cuteness, is it not?

Off topic, but does anyone else see Inspector Clouseau in the corner of the picture?

The tunic was at Off 5th in the Concord Mills Outlet and I passed it by. Mainly because its retail cost was in the range of a number that could have caused some marital distress once I came off my giddy weekend high and returned home.

P doesn’t believe in spending a lot of money on anything that cannot be used to defend your life in threatening situations.

So with great regret, and after confirming that the store was not within moments of knocking 75% off the price, I walked away.

But I will remember it fondly forever.

Much like the weekend.

Thanks to Lysa and Proverbs 31. It was awesome.
Easy like Sunday morning

Well, I’m sitting here in the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina listening to David Crowder on a Sunday morning.

I mean, he’s not here. I am listening to him on my iPod.

But how cool would it be if David Crowder hit the airport circuit on Sunday mornings?

At least on the Sunday mornings that I happen to be traveling, which is pretty much never.

I’ve been up since 6:30 a.m. Can you tell?

So, that’s it. Big Mama OUT.

I’ll be back tomorrow with thoughts from the weekend.

Deep and compelling thoughts.

Or at least a report about how new wedge heels are good in theory, but can leave blisters when you wear them for twelve hours at a time.