Another day

  • Fruit basket turnover

    I never want y’all to think my life is all glitz and glamour. Which is why I hesitate to tell you that I went to Discount Tire yesterday to get the tires of the stay wag rotated and balanced. Apparently it was vibrating. Of course I drive it every day and had never noticed that it was vibrating, but P drove it to church on Sunday morning and claimed that he could feel the vibrations in his legs.

    Honestly, I was a little skeptical, but he insisted I needed to have the tires balanced and rotated since that was probably the culprit of the vibration. And so I drove there right after I dropped Caroline off at school yesterday morning and, I KID YOU NOT, the first question the tire guy asked me after I told him my husband claimed it was vibrating was “Are you feeling the vibrations in your legs or the steering wheel?”

    I explained that I wasn’t feeling anything anywhere, but my husband felt it in his legs. This all seemed to make complete sense to the tire guy as he marked something on his chart. It must be some kind of super secret man knowledge.

    And as exciting as I’ve found it to be to sit in Discount Tire and ogle all the displayed tires for an hour while they fix my car, I asked Gulley if she would pick me up and take me to Starbucks while all the tire magic happened. So she picked me up and we went to Starbucks and to get pedicures.

    (My new favorite color is OPI’s Do You Think I’m Tex-y?)

    (Yes, at least partly because of the name)

    Then we went to lunch for good measure. We are way behind on our conversation time this month because they just spent a week at Disney World. I couldn’t mention they were at Disney World before because I operate under a heightened state of disclosing whereabouts and empty house paranoia. But now I can tell you they were at Disney World and Gulley will gladly admit that she researched this trip more than she researched having her first child.

    Anyway, we ate lunch and then went our separate ways because it was almost time to pick up the kids from school. I stopped by my house and laid down on the couch for about ten minutes because going to Discount Tire is EXHAUSTING. (Actually, I’m in the midst of a bout of insomnia and haven’t slept well in about four nights) Well, I managed to fall into, as Caroline would say, DEAD SLEEP in those ten minutes and woke up with that WHO AM I AND WHERE AM I AND WHAT DAY IS IT kind of thing going on.

    I headed to pick up Caroline from school and called Gulley on the way to tell her I didn’t think I could stay awake long enough to go see a movie later on. (The movie had been all my idea because I’m dying to see Bridesmaids, but then I saw our option was 9:55 AT NIGHT and what am I? A vampire?) While we were on the phone we continued a conversation we’d started earlier about our kids and their friends and wanting them to have a close group of friends as they grow older.

    I said, “Well, they’re still so young. And, really, once they get to junior high it’s probably like that game where you throw a deck of cards into the air.”

    Gulley was quiet for a minute until she asked, “What are you talking about?”

    And I said, “I mean they’ll change and friendships will change and it will be like that card game or that thing people say about fruit.”

    Gulley said, “Are you talking about a fruit basket turnover?”

    “YES. THAT’S IT. Or maybe fifty-two card pickup. I couldn’t decide.”

    This is why I need my best friend.

    And also why I need to get some sleep tonight.

    I’ll see y’all tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll have something more exciting to talk about than a trip to Discount Tire, although that’s hard to beat.

    _______________________________________

    If you don’t read anything else today, you have got to read this post by Shaun, A Magic Trick for Kristen. It will blow your mind.

  • For lack of originality, this was our Memorial Day weekend

    So I took Memorial Day off.

    But I kind of figured y’all knew that I would because I rarely post on holidays since I try to follow the same schedule as corporate America. I realize it’s been over three years since I worked for corporate America, but I always enjoyed the holidays and vacation so I’ll keep that part.

    We have had some kind of busy holiday weekend around here. It was filled with friends and sun and fun and crawfish and sunscreen and felt like the absolute perfect kickoff to summer. Except that Caroline has to go back to school tomorrow.

    Dear Texas Legislature,

    The answer to this whole education budget crisis might be found if you didn’t insist on making kids go back to school for three days after Memorial Day in what is sure to be nothing more than taxpayer-funded babysitting. My best guess is you could save at least half a kajillion dollars in air-conditioning costs alone. Not to mention the fuel it costs to run the buses.

    Sincerely,
    Bitter in San Antonio

    My plan was to start our holiday weekend with some big fun at the pool. I called Gulley and asked if I could pick up Jackson (Will was sick) and take he and Caroline to the pool on Friday evening. I had big plans of letting the kids swim until they burned all their energy and feeding them some stellar pool snack bar nachos for dinner. So you can imagine the disappointment when we showed up at the pool all sunscreened up and ready for BIG POOL FUN only to discover that the pool isn’t open on Friday nights yet. It was a crushing blow.

    There was a lot of whining until the kids finally told me to be quiet and suggested we call Mimi and Bops to see if we could swim in their pool. In the end it all worked out, except there are no pool snack bar nachos at Mimi and Bops’s house but pool beggars can’t be choosers.

    On Saturday morning we drove out to the lake to spend the day with some friends. It was around 165 degrees outside so it took us all of four seconds to jump in the water. I spent most of my time in the lake on some sort of float because it is my greatest fear in life to actually touch the bottom of any type of lake with my feet. And I just have to live in denial that the water is also home to a vast amount of fish. Let’s not even speak of the turtles.

    Eventually we headed out in the boat to tube. P and Caroline went first.

    And I thought it looked like a lot of fun so I decided to go next.

    Which explains why I woke up Sunday morning feeling certain I’d been run over by a truck while I slept. My Pa-Pa always said, “It’s hell to get old” and Sunday morning confirmed that he wasn’t lying. My forearms are starting to cramp up even now as I type this out.

    After all the tubing “fun” and my possible concussion, we all sat down and ate more crawfish than should probably be allowed in one sitting. There is nothing that feels more like summer than a day at the lake and a crawfish boil.

    Sunday morning we went to church and then went to the pool later that afternoon for more sun and swimming. Our pool grill is under new management and the special of the day was ceviche. Which sounded so good except for the part about it being at the pool. I just have a lot of concerns and questions about the origins of the fish and freshness. Food poisoning is way down on my list of things I’d like to experience. Right after going on a paddle boat ride.

    I asked one of our friends if he’d be willing to order the ceviche and call me at noon on Monday to tell me how it was, but he declined. I can’t imagine why.

    Caroline’s friend, Ella, ended up spending the night with us and then we all got up on Monday, hung out in our pajamas for a while and went to the pool again.

    And that pretty much sums up our Memorial Day weekend.

    In fact, I might just set this post to repeat about once a week for the entire summer because, in case you’re new around here, that’s what our summers look like. We wake up and go to the pool. Except for the days when we go to the pool. And then there are the days when we go to the pool.

    And now I’m off to get some sleep before I have to get up and pack the first of three more school lunches.

    That just ain’t right.

    __________________________________________

    Compassion has taken another group of bloggers on a trip. They are currently in the Phillippines and I have already cried twice reading their posts. Make sure you read Shaun’s post, What Exactly is Compassion International?, if you want to know more about Compassion and how they help children all over the world. I also loved this post by Emily and this post by Kat.

    Also, don’t forget to check out my latest post for the Real Women of Philadelphia Community. There are some great recipes to be found.

  • This only adds to my issues with chicken

    I feel like I’ve hardly even talked about what we’ve been up to around here lately. I mean other than making habitats out of Cool Whip containers for doodlebugs and then leaving them there to die like some type of roly poly genocide.

    (Speaking of, y’all were a wealth of bug information yesterday. And, yes, doodlebugs and roly polys are all the same to us, but I was struggling with the proper spelling of roly poly and so I went with doodlebug.)

    (I had no idea it wasn’t a universal term.)

    But given the fact that I wrote an entire post about finding doodlebugs, it’s probably safe to assume that not much has been going on here these days.

    Last Friday was Field Day at Caroline’s school. Otherwise known as another way to fill the time during these last meaningless days of school that the legislature forces on everyone. So I went up to the school to watch all the Field Day activities and sweat my body weight in 142% humidity.

    Fortunately, there were plenty of water-based activities to keep the kids cool.

    Even though there were some geniuses who advised the kids they shouldn’t get too wet.

    Yes. Because it’s perfectly reasonable to hand seven year olds buckets of water and water guns and ask them not to get wet.

    But since I know my seven year old well enough to know that asking her not to get wet in the vicinity of water is like asking Justin Timberlake to not be awesome, I sent her with a dry change of clothes. And a towel.

    There were all kinds of different games, races, and that type of thing, but my particular favorite was the Rubber Chicken throw. This involves a net and a variety of rubber chickens being hurled back and forth over it.

    This is Caroline demonstrating perfect rubber chicken throwing technique.

    That picture was taken right before I was hit in the head by a flying rubber chicken. The combination of the rubber material combined with the velocity of said chicken packed quite a punch. So I spent the rest of the day explaining that I had a headache because I got hit in the head by a chicken.

    And, no, I didn’t explain that it was a rubber chicken because I wanted the whole thing to have an air of mystery.

    After it was all said and done, Caroline was wiped out.

    Or maybe she just had the eye of the tiger. I don’t know.

    Then Friday night we picked up Chris Madrid’s tostada burgers (Chris Madrid’s is the best burger place in San Antonio. He’s not like our neighbor or something. Just wanted to clarify.) and watched Prince Caspian in our effort to embrace all things Narnia.

    And then Saturday night we grilled fajitas and watched Voyage of The Dawn Treader.

    C.S. Lewis would be so proud.

    Then Sunday we all read aloud from Mere Christianity.

    Not really. On Sunday I was busy having one of my worst parenting days ever. I can’t talk about it right now because it’s still not funny, but let’s just say we had our own d-list version of a four part Greek tragedy. Honestly it was more about me getting my feelings hurt than anything else. We got the whole thing resolved and issued tearful apologies all around and went to go see the movie Rio. Because nothing makes you feel better after a bad day of parenting than to go see some lame movie about two almost extinct blue macaws in Brazil.

    Then we went to Gap to take back a pair of jeans I’d bought for Caroline.

    (This is riveting. We ate fajitas! We ate hamburgers! We watched movies and returned a pair of jeans!)

    Monday we rolled of bed and geared up for the last full week of school. And by geared up I mean that we screeched out of the driveway on two wheels to make it there on time. Barely.

    I’ve spent the last few days running all the errands and doing all the things I planned to do all year long while Caroline was in school. But since I felt there was no challenge in spreading those things out over 180 days, I decided to try to get them all done in one week while running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

    Or is a rubber chicken with my head cut off?

    I’ll never tell.

    I like to keep the air of mystery.

  • The post without a title

    I realize it’s becoming a weekly thing for me to put up some sort of list but our life just isn’t that exciting these days. So unless you want to hear me complain about packing school lunches for the thirty-fifth time or to know what I bought at the grocery store yesterday, this is what I have to offer at the moment.

    1. The other day I noticed some of the paint is peeling on our back house. Some of you may remember that I painted it all by myself about three years ago and I can assure you I will NEVER do that again. P says the reason it’s peeling is because I didn’t scrape and prime the entire thing first. Sure, like that was ever going to happen.

    Anyway, while we were talking about paint, (or at least while I was talking and P was listening) I said, “I think when it’s time to get the house painted again I’d like to paint it some sort of dark blue-gray color.”

    P looked at me and replied, “That’s so weird. I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

    “You have?”

    “No. Why would I spend time thinking about what color our house should be?”

    He’s a gem.

    2. As I’m writing this, we’re flipping the channels back and forth between Dumb and Dumber and some backwoods game show on the Spike network (naturally) called Repo Games. That sound you hear is my IQ dropping by at least forty-two points.

    3. A few of you asked about the shirt I had on in the picture the other day. It’s by Tracy Reese and I bought it ON SALE at Anthropologie a few weeks ago. It was $15.00.

    And it’s not available online anymore or I’d link to it. You might be able to find one in your local store. Or if you just want a striped top I really like this one or this one.

    4. Caroline’s new favorite hobby is digging in one of the flower beds in our backyard. This isn’t really a big deal since the dogs don’t allow any actual flowers to survive in that bed and so it’s become her own personal place to dig for worms and such.

    Yesterday she was out digging and found what appears to be half of some type of old bracelet or necklace. She rushed in with her treasure, showed it to P and said, “DADDY! LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND! I THINK THIS MUST HAVE BEEN LEFT BY THE INDIANS!”

    She took her treasure to school today and I asked if everyone thought it was cool. She said, “Yes. My teacher said I was a anshrmeorhiphologist. That’s a person that digs up old stuff.”

    “You mean an archaeologist?”

    “I don’t know. That doesn’t sound right.”

    Yes, but anshrmeorhiphologist totally does.

    5. We’ve spent the last several months reading The Chronicles of Narnia out loud as a family every night before bed. I can’t tell you how much we have loved it and we finished The Last Battle yesterday. We were all so into it that we read about three chapters every night because we couldn’t wait to see how it ended.

    But now our time in Narnia is over.

    During dinner we discussed other series we might enjoy reading together, but couldn’t decide. At one point I even had to shush P and make slashing motions across my throat while Caroline wasn’t looking because he was bad-mouthing the Little House on The Prairie series by saying he’s sure it was a THRILLING adventure when Mary went blind and started her own school.

    Sacrilege.

    So I think my people are more into some action and adventure. I would love any suggestions.

    ______________________________________

    Blogher and Purina are learning about ProPlan Selects. Click on over to check it out.

    Also, don’t forget about the Real Women of Philadelphia Community and recipe contest. You can find out more details and get my recipe for jalapeno bacon-wrapped duck by clicking here.

  • I walked the line

    There are eleven days of school left.

    I just thought you might want to know.

    That means I have eleven more mornings where I have to cobble together whatever meager offerings are in my refrigerator for Caroline’s lunch box. I used my last Lunchable yesterday so there’s a good chance she’ll go to school tomorrow with an overripe tomato and a leftover cinnamon roll.

    Oh I’m just kidding.

    I’m going to eat that last cinnamon roll myself.

    Several weeks ago, I promised our little friend Kate that I would pick her up from school and take her with me to pick up Caroline from “big girl school”.

    (Hold on. P just interrupted my train of thought to ask where Albany, Texas is. Clearly this is much more important than the blog post I’m trying to write.)

    (Albany is 135 miles west of Dallas.)

    (Also, Kate is three years old. That’s what I meant by “little” friend. Just wanted to clarify that she isn’t abnormally small or anything.)

    Time got away from me and I realized this is Kate’s last week of school so it was now or never. I made arrangements with her mom to pick Kate up from school, then gymnastics with Caroline and then, for the grand finale, Chick-fil-A for dinner. Let it never be said that I don’t know how to show a three year old a good time.

    So yesterday I picked Kate up and spent the rest of the afternoon confirming that it’s probably for the best that I only have one child. Mainly because that seems to be all my brain is equipped to handle. Or maybe it’s just that I am so used to having only one fairly self-sufficient person to keep up with that I forgot small children don’t know how to buckle their own carseats or wipe their own bottoms or avoid traffic.

    Anyway, I picked Kate up and lugged her 150 pound carseat across the parking lot and then spent about fifteen minutes in the blazing heat trying to remember how to secure it.

    (Wait. Now P wanted the computer so he could look up a snake he saw yesterday. Very pressing matter.)

    (He’s pretty sure it was a bull snake.)

    (I didn’t ask him where he saw it because I’m afraid he’ll say our yard.)

    (Having one computer is terribly convenient and enjoyable.)

    After I sweated all my makeup off trying to get Kate in the car, we drove to “Big Girl School” to pick up Caroline. She had requested that Kate and I walk up to get her because I think she was hoping for the chance to impress Kate with an up close look at the big leagues of elementary school.

    It totally worked. Kate was very impressed and even intimidated by all the big yellow school buses and screaming kids running to catch them.

    We spent the rest of the afternoon getting ice cream, playing dress up, attempting to get dressed for gymnastics, changing hairstyles 843 times to match each other and then actually arriving at gymnastics ten minutes late. The girls went in to their classes while I sat in the waiting room and attempted to catch my breath and wipe the chocolate ice cream off my white shorts.

    What I really wanted to do was lay down and take a nap.

    But then my friend Julie came in with her kids and a shoebox. Initially I didn’t think much of the shoebox until she sat down next to me and I noticed part of the top of it was cut open. She had a baby bird in it. A baby bird she rescued from her dog’s mouth.

    She has christened the baby bird Johnny Cash for reasons that are unclear other than maybe he was lost and now he’s found. I don’t know. She had to bring Johnny Cash to gymnastics because it was time for him to eat. And so we sat and visited while she fed Johnny Cash some sort of mix she bought at the pet store, like it was all perfectly normal and people bring in birds in shoeboxes to gymnastics every day.

    You might be a redneck if you bring a bird named Johnny Cash in a shoebox to gymnastics. Or if you’re friends with a person that carries around a bird named Johnny Cash in a shoebox.

    The girls finished with gymnastics and I attempted to corral Kate and Caroline toward the car but first Kate wanted to change out of her leotard and back into the nightgown she wore to school that day because it was pajama day. And so we did a quick wardrobe change and then headed to Chick-Fil-A.

    Which is where our food arrived just in time for Kate to need to go to the bathroom while Caroline wanted to stay in the playplace and I just wanted to make sure our chicken nuggets didn’t get thrown away. And then Kate hurt her toe and Caroline didn’t like her chicken wrap and I self-diagnosed myself with strep throat or a migraine headache or something.

    The bottom line is I SALUTE YOU MOTHERS OF MORE THAN ONE CHILD.

    Especially my friend Julie because she not only has three kids but a bird in a box named Johnny Cash.

    And, in all seriousness, I adored having Kate and can’t wait to do it again.

    After I get some sleep.

  • Help me, Fat Albert, you’re my only hope

    Well, as it turns out, P was able to fix the power cord. I’m not sure exactly what he did, and I hate to bore you with all the highly complicated jargon, but it seemed to involve disconnecting the whozeewhatzit from the flux capacitor and, TA DA, let there be light. Or power to my computer.

    Technically I should probably still take the power cord back to the Apple Store and get the whole thing checked out, but I’m going to Scarlett O’Hara it and think about it tomorrow. Or the next time it quits working at an inconvenient time and I curse myself for not just taking care of it in the first place.

    So our weekend kind of started on Thursday night because we attended Caroline’s school musical. She gave a riveting performance as Wednesday Addams of The Addams Family. It basically consisted of her class singing the theme song while they all snapped on cue.

    But she got to wear stage makeup and a pretty black dress and that was enough to make her supremely happy.

    Even though she did experience some serious envy over the class who got to perform “Footloose”. And, let’s be honest, who can blame her?

    After the performance, Caroline was ready for a star-studded after party but since it was already 8:30 all she got was the option to go home and go to bed because Friday was still a school day. Have I mentioned that I am so ready for this school year to be over? Because I am so ready for this school year to be over. Only twelve days left.

    Not that I’m counting down the minutes until we can enjoy a big schedule full of nothing.

    By Friday night I wasn’t feeling that great. Mimi and Bops called to invite Caroline out to eat with them but she told Bops, “Let me get back to you on that” and ultimately decided she’d rather stay home and eat the barbecue P had picked up for dinner since I wasn’t feeling so good.

    About a month before, she’d watched the original Star Wars movie that’s now called something else because of the three newer Star Wars movies. I could tell you all their names but that would require two things of me:

    1. Some internet research.

    2. For me to actually care what they’re called.

    So let’s just go with the original Star Wars movie. And then she’d watched the first part of The Empire Strikes Back after her Uncle Chris (who is slightly obsessed with all things Star Wars and may have named his son Luke just so he can say “Luke, I am your father”) loaned her his complete set of Star Wars DVDs.

    But she’d never finished The Empire Strikes Back and decided Friday night was the ideal time to watch the whole thing. So she and P went back in the bedroom to watch it while I laid on the couch and read a book and thought about how much my throat was bothering me.

    Two hours later they emerged from the bedroom. I could tell Caroline had been crying and still had tears in her eyes as she exclaimed, “MAMA! YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE THIS. DARTH VADER IS LUKE’S FATHER! AND THEY FOUGHT AND HE CUT OFF LUKE’S HAND EVEN THOUGH HE’S LUKE’S FATHER!”

    It was the shock of her life.

    Almost as much of a shock as it is to me that I have a daughter who is now obsessed with all things Star Wars. And who may have attempted to perform several Jedi mind tricks on me throughout the remainder of the weekend. Does this mean she might end up attending conferences where people dress like Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader?

    Naturally, (or not, depending on your level of fanaticism) we spent Saturday night watching Return of The Jedi, only to discover that Princess Leia is Luke’s twin sister. Consider Caroline’s mind OFFICIALLY BLOWN.

    I woke up about 5 a.m. Sunday morning with a cough that wouldn’t quit and ended up staying home from church because people at church are usually funny about someone in the seats behind them hacking like they’re on their last legs with a bad case of the tuberculosis. Caroline stayed home with me where we remained in bed and watched Return of the Jedi for the second time.

    Later that day she tried to convince me she’d had a dream the night before about the neighborhood swimming pool and thought maybe God was trying to tell her that we should go to the pool. But I wasn’t buying into it because I knew the water would be too cold since our nights have been a little chilly (like 65 degrees but we are Texans) plus I am in desperate need of a new sun hat for the pool because my old hot pink one has totally lost all shape and, like I told Gulley, makes me look like Dumb Donald from Fat Albert.

    I wish I were kidding.

    Which begs the question, is it worse to attend conventions dressed like a Jedi Knight or to wear a hat that makes you look like a marginal character from a 1970’s cartoon?

    I guess either way our family may have it covered.

    _____________________________________________

    I have a new post up about the Real Women of Philadelphia Community and your chance to win $25,000. There’s also a recipe for jalapeno bacon-wrapped duck (or chicken) (or turkey). Click here to read more.