Look what came in the mail today.
If my marriage could be summed up in a picture, then this would be the one.
And yes, that is a magazine called “Cheaper Than Dirt!”.
It bet it shares a lot of crossover subscribers with “Vogue”.
Except “Vogue” doesn’t use an exclamation point in its title.
But that’s really the only difference.
I just finished watching American Idol.
I AM SHOCKED THAT SOMETHING I READ ON THE INTERNET TURNED OUT TO NOT BE TRUE.
SHOCKED.
Of course maybe Jason read my post and decided to go with “Forever in Blue Jeans”.
Or maybe Paula was the one who posted the information I read yesterday because clearly she has no idea what she’s talking about the majority of the time.
Needless to say, y’all are probably no longer interested in the name of the website where I found my information.
Yesterday my day started at 7 a.m. when I woke up to find Caroline staring right at me asking me to tell her the story of the time I was a little girl and got stung by a wasp. That’s really all there is to the story, but ever since I told it to her about a week ago she has begged me to tell it over and over again. She is obsessed with my lame wasp story.
And honestly, if I had known I’d be asked to tell it so many times I would have exaggerated some details for dramatic effect.
Anyway, I gave her a very groggy rendition of the wasp story and then she asked me to tell her another story about when I was a little girl. So I told her about the time when I was a little girl and I’d ride my bike all the time.
“Is that it?”
Sadly, yes. That is it. Mama does not function well before 9 a.m. and that’s the best I’ve got.
And that pretty much sums up the rest of my day, which is why this post is just a list of random information.
1. I would like to assure all of y’all that Barbie Island Princess was not harmed in the making of the float. Yes, she has a little glue residue on her backside, but that’s not any worse than any former Miss USA contestant.
How do you think those swimsuit bottoms stay perfectly in place? A miracle?
It’s a miracle alright. A little miracle called spray-on glue.
Barbie has been returned to her rightful place in a plastic pink bin in the playroom. Her fifteen minutes of parade float fame are up.
2. Speaking of fifteen minutes of fame, I am so excited about American Idol tonight. It’s the American Idol that I’ve been waiting for all season.
Why? Why all the anticipation?
Two words.
NEIL DIAMOND.
He sings a little song called “Sweet Caroline”. Ever heard of it?
Last week I told Gulley that I would actually call in and vote for whoever sings “Sweet Caroline” and maybe even whoever sings “Forever in Blue Jeans”.
God has smiled on me because Jason Castro is singing “Sweet Caroline”. So I can vote for the Aggie and the song that has meant so much to me over the years.
Sadly, no one is singing “Forever in Blue Jeans”.
I do not understand this.
If I am ever given the chance to get up on stage and sing, “Forever in Blue Jeans” would be on the short list of songs I’d perform. Along with Amy Grant’s “Open Arms” because I sang it as a duet in 8th grade and totally brought the audience in the school cafeteria to its knees.
Or maybe just my parents told me I did a good job.
Same thing.
3. Gulley and I had a great guy friend in college named Trevor. One night he was over at our house kind of late and we made a convenience store run for groceries courtesy of my daddy’s Chevron card. I don’t remember everything we bought but I do remember that one item was an excessively large bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos.
I must have been scarfing them down in a very delicate manner because all of a sudden Trevor said, “Hey Mel, why don’t you give those Doritos a fighting chance?”
I bring this up because I am currently suffering from some serious hormonal imbalance that’s causing me to not give the bowl of M&M’s sitting next to me a fighting chance.
And, by the way, Trevor ended up marrying one of our very best friends. That has nothing to do with this story but it has provided my life with some nice symmetry.
Y’all have a good day.
Oh! I thought of one more thing. This week Fashion Friday is going to be about swimsuits.
Get fired up.
It was sometime around Easter when it dawned on me that April was right around the corner and I knew deep in my soul what was looming on the horizon.
So it was with fear and trembling that I opened Caroline’s school bag during the first week of April. Sure enough, there it was.
The note announcing it was time to make the shoebox Fiesta floats for the Fiesta float parade at preschool.
Joy.
The note gives parents the option of just sending a shoebox to school and letting the teachers make a float for your child.
Right.
I wonder if they offer some kind of complimentary therapy session for that poor kid? Hey kid, your mama doesn’t love you enough to spend hours slaving away with a hot glue gun and some glitter mixed with sand to create the perfect beach scene for Ariel the Little Mermaid.
It’s not like we have lives of our own. Lives that don’t normally involve using a hot glue gun.
The note also included a little reminder that this is a preschool project and your child should be involved in the process. Which is so nice.
In theory.
So I involved Caroline by asking what kind of float she wanted to do this year (y’all may remember that last year we did the Wizard of Oz float) and she answered without any hesitation, “Barbie Island Princess”, which worked out since we actually own Barbie Island Princess, her monkey and two little Island girls that came with an elephant named Sagi who raised Barbie Island Princess from an infant when she was shipwrecked on a desert island and before she was rescued by Prince Antonio.
What has happened to my life?
Anyway, I managed to put the project in the back of my mind for the next few weeks because I am nothing if not a procrastinator, but I finally realized the due date was quickly approaching so I headed to Michael’s to pick up float making supplies.
I loaded my basket with silk flowers in various colors, some greenery, glue sticks for my hot glue gun, and some bright Fiesta ribbon. While standing in line at the checkout, the woman in front of me looked at my basket and asked if I was making something for Fiesta. She was very perceptive.
I replied that my daughter had to make a shoebox float for school so I was buying materials. And she looked at me as if I had just announced that I was about to help my child cheat on the SAT’s and said, “My kids had to do those when they were little. I just had them put a few stickers on a shoebox and called it a day.”
Well good for you, lady.
Clearly you are very healthy and have your priorities in order. I happen to suffer from chronic OCD and the need to do simple craft projects in excess. It’s who I am.
My reasoning is that there will come a day when Caroline will come home from school and need help making a project for the Science Fair.
And she’ll be out of luck.
In fact, just the mention of Science Fair is enough to make me want to homeschool so that I can avoid all science-related homework. I know enough to teach Caroline that the Earth is flat and if she doesn’t listen to her parents throughout her teen years there is a good chance she will fall off into the abyss. That’s all the science she needs to know.
On a side note, when I was in tenth grade we were required to participate in the Science Fair even though it was clear that some people, who don’t need to be mentioned, were having enough problems just memorizing the periodic table of elements without having to come up with some sort of hypothesis and solution.
(By the way, thank God I spent all that time memorizing the periodic table because it has been ever so useful throughout my adult life)
I finally came up with an experiment that involved buying six goldfish with the goal of keeping three of them in total darkness and three of them in normal conditions and seeing which ones lived the longest. They all died within the week because I’m pretty sure I forgot to feed them on a daily basis due to the fact that I was very busy deciding what to wear to Junior/Senior Prom. Thus, my Science Fair exhibit consisted of six empty fish bowls and a piece of posterboard that said, “I Murdered Six Goldfish Due to Negligence”.
And then PETA came and hauled my Science teacher off to animal cruelty prison because he was an accessory to goldfish murder.
Not really but that would have been an awesome end to that story.
The real story is that I got a C – on my project which was basically a sympathy grade because I was scientifically impaired.
Anyway, the point is I am much better with Barbie Island Princess Floats and hot-gluing silk flowers.
Which is quite the marketable skill.
Caroline and I spent a Tuesday afternoon pulling flowers off stems and deciding where to glue them on the shoebox. The biggest challenge was figuring out how to secure Barbie Island Princess to the float without hot-gluing her bottom directly on the float because that seemed cruel. However, in the end, I had to hot glue her bottom directly to the float.
What do you expect? I hot glue bottoms and murder innocent goldfish.
Here’s the finished project.
And here’s Caroline in the parade.
I don’t need to tell y’all that this turned out so much better than my tenth grade Science Fair project.
At least so I thought.
Until I saw a little girl with a float that consisted of an electric horse that actually moved pulling a wagon made completely of popsicle sticks painted hot pink with Western Barbie riding in the back.
I bet her mama made a D on her Science Fair project.
Caroline spent Saturday morning perfecting her golf swing at the driving range with Mimi and Bops.
After one shot in which she especially impressed herself, she looked back at them and said, “I’m a natural. I should be on T.V.”
And then when she got home, P took her in the backyard so she could practice her casting and fishing skills.
I’m afraid she may be one pair of black tennis shoes away from becoming a senior citizen.
You know those moments in your life where someone says something to you that proves that they really know you? That they have seen deep into your soul?
I had one of those yesterday.
I have been putting off going to get my hair cut because I’ve been lacking a clear hair direction. It’s grown out quite a bit since I got it cut in early February and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cut it off again or just add some layers.
It’s a wonder I sleep at night.
But I decided last week that I needed to do something because the South Texas humidity has officially set in and my hair gets very large in the humidity, so I called my hairdresser and scheduled an appointment.
And because I was so desperate, yea even frantic to get my hair cut, I scheduled an appointment for Thursday at noon even though I knew I’d have to take Caroline with me.
Anyway, she was actually really good other than the fact that she wanted to collect all my hair trimmings and take them home.
After my hairdresser had blown my hair dry, we began to have the discussion I dread.
Bangs. Do I still want them?
How far back do I want them to go?
How long should they be?
Just remembering it makes my head hurt.
So I finally just told her to cut them like she did last time even though I know they’ll need to go through two weeks of intensive flat iron training and some growth before I really like them again.
As she clipped them back to start cutting I heard Caroline’s little voice say, “Mama? Are you sure about this? I don’t know if I’m sure about this. Are you sure?”
I know that over the years Caroline and I will have many times that we won’t understand each other. Times where we will frustrate each other to the point of weeping and gnashing of teeth. But in that moment we were one in the spirit of wanting to prevent a coiffure tragedy.
I love her.
And I realize this has nothing to do with fashion, but it does have to do with beauty and external appearance so just go with me here.
On to the questions.
1. Erica asks: “I’ve recently lost 30 lbs – going from a size 10 to a size 4. For the first time in a long time, I’m able to wear flattering clothing, however, I’m a little discouraged with the Spring styles (i.e. trapeze/swing tops, madras shorts, etc.) In addition to that, my budget is limited, so forking out $60.00 for a shirt is out of the question. Can you give me some classic, but trendy must-have’s for this (and next) season, that are flattering for a 35 year old mother of two?”
Congratulations, Erica. That’s an incredible accomplishment!
It’s hard for me to know where to start because I don’t know what you already have in your closet, but I’m going to assume you don’t have too much at this point.
I would start with a great pair of jeans. For me personally jeans are the glue that hold my closet together. Once you have a great pair of jeans then all you need are a few cute tops and you’re ready for anything.
Except maybe a formal occasion.
Since you don’t like madras shorts, I would suggest some dark denim shorts like these. Gap actually has another pair very similar to these that are on sale in the store right now but I couldn’t find them online. And while you’re at Gap you may want to get this skirt and you can wear it with t-shirts or tanks all summer long.
Here’s a cute skirt from Forever 21, which is also a great place to find affordable, trendy blouses like this one.
I also love these simple knit dresses from Old Navy. Since I haven’t seen them in person I’m not sure about the length but they would look cute with some leggings if they’re too short.
Have fun shopping.
2. Nicole asks: “My husband and I were invited to a gala, which not something we’ve ever attended. What in the name of the Clampetts do I wear? I want something more trendy than a black cocktail dress, but I don’t want to be out on a fashion limb, either. Any ideas would be fantabulous. Thanks!”
Is it a Regatta Gala? Because I’ve always wanted to attend a Regatta Gala.
And I hope I’m not too late answering this question because then I’ll just feel terrible.
If I ever had to attend an event in the evening that required anything dressier than my hula girl pajamas, I would wear something like this dress because hello gorgeous. Or this one.
This one is also really pretty and I adore a little drama in a dress.
Here’s one that is just a gorgeous color.
I’ve now spent the better part of an hour looking at evening dresses and am now wondering if P would think it was weird if I just delegated one night a month as Black Tie. Can you wear a cocktail dress while you watch The Office and eat leftover fajitas?
Okay that’s all the official questions for today, but several people have emailed me and asked about the shirt I was wearing in my post from earlier this week and wanted to know where I got it.
I fell in love with that shirt when I first saw it in the window of a little local boutique. I knew we must be together forever. And then I fell even more in love when I found out it was handmade by a woman right here in San Antonio and she only makes a few of each shirt design. Then I saw the price and knew that I was seeing the hand of God’s provision in my fashion life, especially since I have seen shirts kind of like it at Neiman’s right now for well over $100 American dollars.
So I did a little research for anyone who may be interested and found some similar shirts.
The internet is a marvel.
You can find them here or here. Or even on Ebay.
And they won’t set you back too many pesos.
Neiman’s has this embroidered t-shirt for $110.00.
Or you can just come to San Antonio, head down to the market and buy one for less than $20.00, then head next door for chips and hot sauce.
God bless America.
Y’all have a great Friday!
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.