Author: Big Mama

  • And she doesn’t pretend to be anything else

    The other day I was driving Caroline to school and she kept insisting that she didn’t want to go to school. I told her she had to go to school so she could learn stuff and be smart, just like her mama who uses impressive, descriptive words like “stuff”.

    As if to show me her vast pool of knowledge, she began counting to ten in Spanish.

    When she got to ten, I said, “You are so smart, what does Bops always say you are?”, thinking to myself that she would say, ” A genius!” because Bops always tells her, “You’re a genius.”

    So, I asked “What does Bops always say you are?”

    And she answered, “High maintenance.”

    See? She is a genius.

  • Beware of angry women wielding cuticle sticks and hot wax

    I have always been a huge fan of painted toenails. It is my personal belief that if you are a woman, there is no good reason why your toes shouldn’t be used to accessorize an outfit if you’re wearing open toe shoes.

    If God had intended for toenails to be bare, He wouldn’t have invented nail polish or the strappy sandal.

    I won’t even get into my feelings about men’s feet because it will only serve to confirm that I have some serious quirks. But let me just say, nothing will cause me to lose my appetite faster than seeing a man, with unkempt feet showcased in sandals, walking into a restaurant. I don’t like to see bare male toes, unless they belong to someone I love, and even then, I can’t look too closely.

    Due to all these issues, I spend a great deal of time trying to avoid looking at the ground during the spring and summer months. I am too afraid of seeing hairy, exposed men toes.

    And I’m sure all of your husbands and loved ones have perfectly nice feet. I just don’t want to see them, which is why I don’t look down. It’s my issue. I own it.

    So, while obviously I am not qualified to work as a pedicure technician at a salon, I am a huge fan of the pedicure. I realize there is huge irony to be found in my total willingness to let someone else work on my feet, when I can barely look at other people’s feet.

    But my thought is, if you’ve made the choice to be a pedicure technician, then you knew what the job entailed when you signed on. It’s not like you’ve been blindsided by the job requirements, like I was during my first job at Sound Castle Music when I was informed that in addition to selling cassette tapes, I was also expected to vacuum the store every night.

    Talk about high pressure.

    Anyway, the other day I decided to treat myself to both a pedicure and a manicure. I don’t always get manicures because I have nails that are the consistency of tissue paper, so there isn’t much point. I keep my fingernails short and unpainted, because as strongly as I feel about painted toenails, for me personally, I believe just as strongly in unpainted fingernails. My nails are short and unappealing, there is no need to highlight their shortcomings with a color called Cancun Fiesta.

    There is no fiesta happening at the ends of my fingers. Just short, weak sadness.

    Anyway, the lady gave me my pedicure first, and then we moved over to her manicure table, where she started my manicure by telling me to soak my sad, little nubs of nail in warm, soapy water. As she started to apply cuticle cream, she stopped, looked at me and asked, “Would you like me to wax your mustache while you’re here?”

    I don’t know lady, would you like me to flush your tip down the toilet?

    You can’t tell me she doesn’t have some anger issues due to working on people’s feet all day.

  • Who let the dogs out?

    I should have known how the day was going to go when my Saturday morning literally got off with a bang. As in a neighbor banging on our front door at 7:45 a.m.

    P had already left for work and Caroline and I had just woken up. And let me tell y’all that first thing in the morning, I am not only a vision of loveliness, but extremely coherent. In fact, years ago, I had to complete a drivers’ safety training course on a Saturday morning for a new job, and when I showed up, the DPS officer who was teaching the training wouldn’t let me get behind the wheel because he said he could tell by looking at me that I was still drunk from the night before. I had not had one drop of alcohol the night before and in fact, had gone to bed at 10:00 so that I could be fresh as a daisy for driver training.

    If that little anecdote doesn’t prove I’m not a morning person, I don’t know what will.

    Anyway, I was stumbling out of the bedroom when I heard the banging on the door, so I wrapped my robe a little tighter and scooped up Caroline because all the banging had scared her a little bit and of course, I had no idea what was going on or even what day it was.

    I peeked out the little window in our front door and saw a neighbor lady standing there, so I opened the door. She informed me that our dogs were out roaming the neighborhood, and since she walks by our house everyday she knew they belonged to us.

    I carried Caroline outside to assess the situation and could see our two canine fools running around about a block away. I called them and they came running, which was good for them because I had decided in advance that I wasn’t running after them. If they wanted to give up a gig that includes free food and trips to the ranch, then that’s their decision.

    I thanked the lady for taking the time to let me know about my two runaways and should have apologized for my confused look and shabby appearance, but it’s such a part of my morning persona that it didn’t occur to me until later after much caffeine consumption.

    The dogs came running in the house, exhilarated from their morning joyride around the neighborhood.

    I attempted to get us back in a leisurely Saturday morning mode after all that excitement, and finally bribed Caroline with a poptart and Veggie Tales so that Mama could relax and read the paper, which is the way God intended Saturday mornings to be.

    About an hour later, it was time for us to get dressed. Gulley’s oldest son Jackson had his first t-ball game at 10:00 a.m. and there was no way we were going to miss it. In fact, Jackson got to go meet the Aggie basketball team last week and he was telling Caroline all about it and she said, “Well, yes, but I get to go watch YOU play t-ball, Jackson.”

    She is learning all about feeding the male ego at an early age.

    So, I got dressed and then prepared to get Caroline ready. I told her she needed to try to go potty before she got dressed. She insisted she didn’t need to go and I told her we weren’t going anywhere until she sat on the potty. It was a battle and ended with her yelling “FINE!” as she ran in the bathroom and slammed the door.

    My thoughts exactly. If this is any indication, puberty is going to be one long festival of mother/daughter love.

    I was right behind her and was about to tear into her for both the yelling and the slamming. I was ready to launch into Respect Your Mama 101, until I got to the bathroom door, turned the knob and realized it was locked. And not on purpose.

    We live in a really old house and like all old houses, it has its quirks. The bathroom door has always had the tendency to lock if it’s closed too hard, but a few months back, P had purposely glued the lock to keep this very thing from happening. It seems that the slamming of the door, rendered his glue job useless.

    I tried to remain calm as I said, “Sweetie, you’re going to need to unlock the door. Turn the latch under the knob.”

    “This one, Mama?”

    “No, that’s the door knob. Turn the latch under that knob.”

    “Like this, Mama?”

    “No, that’s still the door knob. Look below the door knob.”

    “I’m trying, but I can’t turn it. You just fix it, Mama.”

    If only it were that easy.

    I headed outside thinking that maybe I could talk her through the process by looking in the bathroom window. I had to drag a bench under the window so that I could see in and try to coach her through.

    “Yes, sweetie. That’s the lock, now turn it”

    “Hold on Mama, I’m going to get my toothbrush to see if that will help”

    And I watch her grab her Hello Kitty toothbrush and begin to insert it into the keyhole.

    As my brain starts to come out of my ears, I realize I might as well go back inside.

    Finally, after many attempts to tell her how to unlock the door and several attempts to use a screwdriver to jimmy the lock on my side and a Hello Kitty toothbrush on her side, I call P. He suggests that I pull the door towards me to take the pressure off and see if she can unlock it. It worked.

    I hurriedly got her dressed as I gave her a shortened version of my planned lecture, got in the car and arrived at the Little League fields just in time to see Jackson during his first turn at bat. I guess Caroline was a little traumatized by the bathroom lockup because when everyone started cheering loudly, she melted down and started crying, which eventually required a trip to the concession stand and a bag of Skittles.

    In the midst of all of this, I made a crucial wife error. I forgot to call P and let him know I had managed to get the bathroom door open and to make it worse, my cell phone was on vibrate so I didn’t hear the ten times he tried to call to make sure everything was okay.

    He left his jobsite and hurried home to find the bathroom door open and the two of us gone. Envisioning that some bathroom tragedy had occurred, he was a little concerned.

    Meanwhile, we’re sitting in the stands eating our Skittles and cheering for Jackson, when Gulley’s cell phone began to ring. She picked it up and said, “Oh! It’s P.”

    And my heart sank because I knew that if he was calling Gulley’s cell phone, it was because he was worried and had been trying to reach me on my phone. I was right.

    So, note to self, always call husband first. Especially if the last time he heard from me I was in the middle of a crisis that involved our daughter being imprisoned in a room that gives her the option of sticking her head in the toilet or sprinkling herself down with Comet Cleanser.

  • Here’s what I’m learning

    “The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the adventure, we take it.” Oswald Chambers

  • 300 moments captured for all of the internet to read

    This post is officially my 300th post. 300 posts. Wow. That is a lot of something about nothing.

    I knew I was about to reach this historic moment and felt like I should do something special to commemorate it, but the thought stressed me out. So instead of writing brilliance, I’ll show y’all a picture of my new spring wreath for the front door.

    And no, I didn’t make it, which is a shame because that would make a compelling 300th post if I could tell y’all about how I used my glue gun to glue all those flowers painstakingly on a grapevine wreath.

    However, I did tell the lady at the store how I wanted her to make it, so while that doesn’t qualify me for Martha Stewart status, it seems like it should count for something.

    Happy Saturday Y’all.

  • We aren’t elite, but still it was sweet

    Here are some things that I learned from the game last night:

    1. If I want to take pictures at the game, it’s important to charge my camera battery prior to leaving the house. Otherwise, I will be forced to take pictures with my cell phone, only to learn upon arriving home that I have no idea how to upload the aforementioned pictures and can’t find my copy of Cell Phones for Dummies.

    2. My sister will not listen to me when I tell her to wear reasonably comfortable shoes because it’ll be a long walk from the parking lot to the dome. She’ll try to justify wearing the shoes because she walked around her house in them for 5 minutes before she left and they didn’t hurt at all.

    For the record, walking around the house isn’t quite the same as a 45 minute hike consisting of more flights of stairs than I can bear to think about right now.

    3. When she gets blisters on her feet from her non-practical, but very cute, shoes, she will be totally prepared because she carries band-aids in her purse for such an event.

    How are we related? It’s a good day if I can find a ballpoint pen in my purse, much less first aid equipment.

    If I could get my cell phone to upload pictures I could show y’all a picture of her cute shoes with the band-aids covering the blisters. I had to take several because she was worried that the first couple of photos made her feet look fat, and heaven knows, you don’t want the internet talking about your fat feet.

    4. The woman in front of us in the t-shirt line will feel that it is important to know the fabric consistency of every single t-shirt for sale and then proceed to do all of her Christmas shopping for the next ten years while checking things off her list.

    Serenity now.

    5. When I called the Alamodome ticket office and they told me the tickets I was about to buy were on the upper level, they weren’t lying. There are airplanes all over America tonight that weren’t reaching that kind of altitude. I am not kidding when I say we were sitting in the very top row of the very top level of the Alamodome. I have never climbed so many stairs in my life.

    We were so high up that I needed binoculars to watch the game on the big screen.

    6. In spite of channeling Boomama and screaming “COME ON NOW, SON!” for the better part of two hours, my team still lost.

    7. Memphis Tiger fans are pretty nice people, especially the ones sitting next to some crazy lady who jumped up and down while screaming “COME ON NOW, SON!” throughout the entire game.

    8. It’s best to not eat a dinner comprised of processed cheese in the form of Deluxe Nachos and processed meat in the form of a hot dog, when 20 minutes later you’ll be watching a game come down to the last second.

    9. Bloggy friends like Shalee will call me after the game to offer their condolences and maybe taunt me just a little bit, but it’s all in love.

    10. I couldn’t be more proud of the Texas A&M basketball team. This is a team that went 0-16 in conference just three years ago and ended up in the Sweet 16 this year. They are the stuff dreams are made of and I know this is just the beginning of an incredible era for Aggie basketball.

    We’ll see y’all at the Final Four next year.