Author: Big Mama

Here y’all come a wassailing

I have been so excited about Boomama’s Christmas Tour of Homes because back in July during the original tour of homes, I was new to this whole blogging world, so I felt more like perhaps an uninvited stalker than a warm, friendly neighbor dropping by to see if any of y’all might have some sugar cookies. Now that I actually know some folks and some folks know me, it’s much more fun to invite y’all into my home and getting to see where you live and how you deck your halls.

So, welcome to the holiday house of Big Mama.

This is our front door which no one really uses because I believe I have mentioned that it has a tendency to get stuck and make an unholy amount of noise when you open it, probably due to the fact that it’s eighty-three years old. However, it is the original door, it’s cute as a button and I love it with my Christmas wreath hanging on it.

Here is our Christmas tree. First things first, yes those are deer mounts hanging on either side and yes, I have to fight the tendency this time of year to put a red nose on one of them and call him Rudolph. Anyway, it’s a real tree and it smells like a little piece of heaven or you know, a little piece of pine forest. The picture doesn’t really show it well, but it has a ton of lights on it. I have a mix of ornaments on it ranging from a few Waterford ones that were gifts, to some that belonged to my Mema that bring back tons of memories just looking at them, to a stuffed Santa that P’s best friend brought us when he was living in Norway.

And yes, I do still need to wrap presents which explains why it looks so barren. I am nothing if not behind on everything this year.

This is the view from our living room into our dining room. P actually came up with the idea of wrapping the columns like candy canes a few years ago. That P is just a little bit crafty.

Here is a close up of the kitchen. I bought those wreaths at Michael’s for .99 a piece and love how they look hanging in the windows. There is also a platter next to the window that my friend Meredith made using Caroline’s footprint and turning it into a Santa Claus. It’s the plate that holds our milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Next up (if you’re still here) is the mantle. It has your standard garland, stocking hangers and stockings. Y’all may notice that our stockings have our names on them. I tried to be really cute and put Big Mama and P on ours, but it doesn’t really show up. So I’m telling you about it so that my efforts aren’t in vain. I also have a few framed pictures of Caroline from Christmases past.

The big Santa Claus was a wedding gift and I just love him. At some point in the past, some squirrels got into our attic (yes, I prefer to believe they were squirrels) and chewed some of Santa’s packages, but he still looks good and his beard covers the damage.

I’ll leave you with the symbol of why we celebrate Christmas. Let me first explain that our grown up nativity has mysteriously disappeared. I’m waiting for a star in the east to lead me to its whereabouts, but if that doesn’t happen I have my eye on a new one that I’m hoping will be on sale after Christmas. So, this is our nativity this year, which to me is appropriate, because it is a symbol of the stage of life we are in. Caroline loves to play with all the figures and I find them in a new arrangement every day. This is what I discovered yesterday.

I’m going to go back and check for clarification, but I’m almost positive that it wasn’t a donkey of the Lord that appeared.

Merry Christmas, y’all. Thanks for stopping by.
Wasting away again in margaritaville with Paula Deen, poopy pants and sugar cookies

Tuesday night I went out with my girlfriends for what we call Birthday Club. We always go to the same Mexican restaurant, drink margaritas and laugh until we cry. We all brought a bottle of wine to exchange, which I have to say was a great idea. I find this time of year you can’t have enough wine in the house or maybe it’s just because I have a three year old.

Anyway, last night we had a discussion about bad Christmas presents we have received in years past. Gulley won hands down with the jar of mayonnaise that she got from her mother-in-law one year. Expired mayonnaise. Seriously. A jar of expired mayonnaise.

Nothing says welcome to our family like expired dairy products.

Of course in all fairness, that was also the year her mother-in-law bought her own son a Polo shirt from the Ralph Lauren outlet and the sleeves were too short. When he told his mom the sleeves weren’t long enough, her response was that he should just keep his hands down by his side because then they might work.

I can’t make this stuff up.

We also covered a variety of other topics, including the Paula Deen episode where Paula is making iced gingerbread men cookies. Have y’all seen it?

Paula is decorating these gingerbread men and decides to decorate one like her husband Michael. She says, “Y’all I’m going to make this one real hairy like Michael and he’s going to be wearing white shorts because Michael loves to wear his white shorts. He’s so sweet I’m just going to bite his head off” and then she cackles that cackle that only Paula can do.

P walked in last year while I was watching it (because yes, I’ve watched it more than once…it’s oddly compelling) and said, “She is a nut.” And yes, she is. But she’s a rich nut that cooks great food.

Then yesterday morning, Caroline and I went to run errands. We had an important list of things to do such as buy stamps so that I can mail Christmas cards that don’t even exist at this point. I’m not sure how I dropped the ball on this (really I blame the bank for making me travel the first week of December), but I realized late last week that I had neglected to order cards. When I finally started the process, I had two separate online stationery companies tell me they could guarantee delivery for December 28th, which would be okay if we celebrated Kwanzaa. Anyway, the third try was a charm and I should have some Christmas cards to mail out sometime before the new year. At least my stamps are ready to go. That’s what’s really important.

We also had to run in Whole Earth to search for something containing acidophilous. To put it mildly and to help y’all keep your breakfast down, let’s just say that Caroline has had some intestinal distress over the last week. The pediatrician recommended sprinkling acidophilous powder on her food to help regulate her digestive system. And for the record, being regular isn’t necessarily the problem. But anyway, here’s hoping it works. I’ve actually thrown away four pairs of underwear in the last week.

It was really the only option.

In the afternoon, we went over to play with Gulley and her boys. I am beyond happy to report that the sugar cookie baking has officially started. Her countertop was covered in snowmen, christmas trees, and candy canes all just waiting to be glazed and sugared. The first bite of sugar cookie will be one of the highlights of my year.

And I guess this is what motherhood does to you…in one post I went from drinking margaritas with my girlfriends to throwing away soiled underwear and eating sugar cookies.

But not at the same time.
What can I do to get you in this car today?

The other night Caroline woke up about 4:30 a.m. which is really a great hour to be awakened because there is that voice in the back of my mind that tells me best case scenario, I’m getting maybe one more hour of sleep. I stumble into her room only to discover that the only issue is that she wants to get in my bed. Visions of being kicked, poked and possibly licked for the precious remainder of the night dance through my head and I tell her no.

I rock her for a minute, she pulls away and says, “Here’s the deal, you let me come in your bed and it’ll be so nice. It’ll be great. Okay. Let’s just go get in your bed.”

Here’s the deal? Did my child just say “here’s the deal”?

When did she become a used car salesman?

I turn down her salespitch, as compelling as it was, and tell her she has to stay in her own bed. She tells me she’s not tired. I tell her that Jesus will help her go back to sleep and have sweet dreams.

The next morning, I go in to get her and ask “How did you sleep?”

She says, “Not great, Jesus didn’t help me at all.”
Pork, it’s what’s for dinner

Last week, I mentioned that I had gone to dinner with my friend Hite and he had told me a story that left me with tears running down my cheeks and gasping for breath. I said I’d tell y’all about it as soon as he sent me some pictures to illustrate.

I am going to preface this story by telling y’all that there is absolutely no way that the written word can do this justice, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

My friend Jen lives just a few blocks away from Hite. We have all been friends since college and Jen and Hite hang out on an almost daily basis. Jen wasn’t available for dinner the other night because she is attending seminary, works almost full time, teaches 184 classes at her church, runs marathons and in her spare time goes on mission trips to Africa. She is what y’all might call a Type A personality. In fact, while we were roommates in college she would purposely wake me up at 8:00 a.m. because she felt I’d had enough sleep and needed to help her conquer the world. Amazingly enough, we are still friends.

Anyway, Jen has a lot of personality and never does anything halfway. You never have to wonder how she’s feeling about something because she will let you know, usually in a voice that isn’t necessarily an inside voice. In fact, she and Gulley have both been known to talk so loud that it has been suggested that they might have hearing problems.

Okay, so the week of Thanksgiving, Hite’s phone rings about 10:45 at night. It’s Jen and she is talking so fast and is so upset that he can’t even understand what she is saying. She tells him to get to her house right now. So, he jumps in the car and speeds over to her house fearing that something really bad has happened because she is so wound up.

He walks in the door and she is hysterical. He finally gets her to calm down long enough to find out that she walked out in the backyard about an hour before and saw some men in a truck stopped behind her house and when they saw her, they sped away. Then, about thirty minutes later she starts hearing some horrendous, loud noise coming from her backyard. She runs out to see what is going on and immediately notices the terrible smell.

In the meantime, her dog Willie has also run out to the backyard and is barking and going wild. She can’t get him to come into the house. Willie is no average dog. He already functions at a higher level of excitement than your normal canine. In fact, he has been known to get so excited that he has jumped through her plate glass window not once, but twice. Of course in the midst of all this chaos, he is beyond wound up.

Hite listens and hears all the commotion coming from the backyard. They go outside and he says the smell is just beyond awful and the noise is worse. He manages to get Willie back in the house and then goes to inspect the source of the noise. This is what he finds.

They are under Jen’s deck with slop and all. Hence, the smell…and the noise.

Just as they are trying to figure out the best course of action for renegade domestic pigs, six cop cars, a firetruck and an ambulance show up with sirens blazing in front of Jen’s house. It seems that before she called Hite, she called 911.

The police get out of the car with their electric tasers drawn and ready for action because as it turns out, Jen was so hysterical during her call to 911 that the operator taking the call coded her as crazy. Seriously.

I guess they figured anyone who lives in the heart of a major city who calls and hysterically suggests that some unknown perpertrators have placed something that appears to be livestock in their backyard has a high probability of being a little off.

Hite said the cops kept walking around saying “Bob, I’ve been on the force 18 years and never seen anything like this”. And then, “Carl, you ever seen pigs in someone’s backyard in this part of town?” They were stunned and weren’t sure about the next course of action.

They did volunteer that it was obviously either just a practical joke or someone had decided they no longer wanted those pigs, which they all agreed didn’t seem likely because why would someone drive to the middle of a city to drop off pigs in an upper middle class neighborhood.

How about those powers of deductive reasoning?

Jen said, “No one I know would do something like this”, but it seems that she was wrong. Apparently for some reason that I have forgotten, two of her friends from church had these pigs in their possession and had spent the week dropping them off in various church members’ backyards as a practical joke.

The next morning when they called to laugh and claim their pigs, the joke was on them because those pigs had been hauled off by animal control.

I’m not sure of their fate, but that night as Hite was telling me the story he had ordered the pulled pork and as he went to take a bite he said, “I hope this isn’t them”.

The end.
A little tutorial

A couple of y’all have asked about Gulley. Back in the days when only two people read Big Mama, as opposed to the five or six of y’all who read now, I wrote this post that explains exactly who Gulley is. I wrote it early on because she has always been a central character in my life (or at least for the past 17 years) so I knew her name would come up. So for those of y’all who are recently joining the party that is Big Mama, now you know.

Also, while Gulley isn’t her first name, it is what I have always called her. At this point in life no one else really knows her as Gulley, but old habits are hard to break.

She is real though. Not a made up character. Although if I were to try and make up a character I couldn’t come up with one even half as good. If y’all spent an hour with her, I promise you’d leave with mascara running down your cheeks and more stories to tell than you can even imagine.

And while we’re on the subject of characters in my life, tomorrow is Mimi’s birthday. Happy Birthday Mimi! We love you very much and hope you have a great day!
It will be like one long continuous day at the spa

Today is the first day of my vacation. One of the benefits of working for the bank is that I’ve been there long enough to accrue some serious vacation time, so I am officially done for the rest of the year.

WHOO HOO!

There is no limit to what I might get done in the next week. The house might get clean, some presents may get wrapped and some laundry might get folded. The mind boggles.

Please note that everything is prefaced with might. No point in overextending myself.

Of course Christmas vacation isn’t quite what it used to be, which was basically a chance to sleep until noon, catch up on Days of Our Lives, followed by a trip to the mall and maybe a movie later that night (which would explain why I saw Pretty in Pink 67 times).

Now vacation means I’m still up at some unfortunate hour, because for me anything before 8:30 a.m. is just sad. Oh, I’ll try to get Caroline to get in bed with me and watch a movie or something while Mama sleeps, but since she takes after her Daddy she has this peculiar way of greeting the day with joy and a tenacious can-do attitude. She’s a little like Matt Foley from SNL.

So, we might catch up on some crucial Noggin programming because heaven only knows what Dora has been up to, although it’s a safe bet that she’s still searching for the chocolate tree in the peppermint forest where her abuela used to live.

Then later we could head to the mall, but that just means we’ll end up in Pottery Barn Kids or The Disney Store where Caroline can whine about how she needs every piece of inventory in the entire store and Santa isn’t coming soon enough so we should just buy it today. And then I’ll drag her by the hand into Banana Republic to look for a few gifts and allow the well groomed salespeople wearing cashmere that has never been defiled by toddler hands to give us everything they have in the once over department as they have a spiritual holiday moment by thanking God that they don’t work at Pottery Barn Kids.

As for a movie, we could check out Happy Feet or whatever other animated movie is out there, but the problem with that is first of all, Caroline is completely opposed to loud noises that aren’t coming directly from her and secondly, sitting in a movie theater burns absolutely no energy which is a must for a child hopped up on candy canes and Pottery Barn Kids desire.

Ahhh yes, vacation. At least once I go back to work on January 2, I’ll get a chance to relax and unwind.