Another day

  • A post with a lot of information

    Hello.

    It’s me.

    I’ve been wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet.

    Someone should make that a song.

    I figured I better dust off the ol’ blog and write some sort of something before I forgot my password to get into it. Especially since forgetting passwords is my specialty. The other night I kept getting all these notices that someone was trying to log into my Twitter account and all I could think was “Good luck with that, sucker, because I can’t even remember my password.” I realize there are all manner of programs that can help with this, but then what would I do for fun?

    Things have been busy around here as May tends to be. Lots of end of the year projects and tests and finding various athletic uniforms that need to be turned in and driving to soccer practice. (And, let’s be honest, the true shout out goes to the teachers who are still holding down the fort after nine long months. You’re the real MVPs of May.) The good news is that Caroline finally got cleared by her doctor to return to normal activity after almost six weeks of being out of commission and I swear I saw the clouds part and angels begin to sing. She has always been a kid who functions better when she can basically exhaust herself with physical activity and so it’s good to see her back to her normal self.

    Last weekend Caroline and I went to Dallas for the Pop Cast Live with Knox and Jamie and had the best time. We stayed with my friend Jamie (a different Jamie than Jamie Golden of the Pop Cast) which is always fun and then did the show. I honestly can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed that hard. The whole thing was a delight and if you have the chance to go see them live, then you totally should do that. The junior high picture that Jamie shared of herself basically made my life complete.

    Here’s a picture of Caroline and me before we left Jamie’s house that night for the show. I need you to know the only reason I’m taller than her is because I had on heels. She’s about to be a sophomore in high school and I don’t even understand what’s happening.

    On Sunday morning we drove home and then spent the rest of the day doing nothing except unpacking and taking naps.

    And that’s really all that’s been going on around here. However, I do have several things to share that you may want to know about.

    1. Coffee and Crumbs Podcast

    I was a guest this week on the Coffee and Crumbs podcast and had the best time talking to them about motherhood. We discussed how I got the name “Big Mama” for the blog, the things we lie about to our pediatricians and other things about motherhood that catch you by surprise. You can listen here.

    2. Chin Up, America t-shirts

    Look what’s back for a limited run!

    Mandy at Milk and Honey tees has brought back our Chin Up, America! t-shirts for a limited edition run due to high demand. They won’t last long and this will probably be their last hurrah, so you may want to grab one before they’re gone if it’s something you want. You can find them here.

    3. Everyday Holy Instagram Contest

    Richard the Owl has put together the most fun giveaway over on my Instagram account. We are giving away 45 gift boxes just like the one pictured above with a stuffed owl, Everyday Holy dishtowel, Everyday Holy Journal and an actual copy of the Everyday Holy 100 day devotional. It’s just a little way to celebrate the one month anniversary of Everyday Holy being out in the world and to thank you for giving it such a great start.

    The only catch is you can only enter on Instagram. You can find and follow my Instagram account here
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    4. Say Something Event

    I was invited to speak at Say Something in Dallas a few weeks ago and they actually recorded video of my talk which doesn’t happen very often so I thought I’d share it here in case you want to watch. It’s all about how to give ourselves grace and finding our security in being who God made us to be.

    Please note that God made me a person who can’t help but talk with my hands. The only reason it’s remotely in check is because I had to hold the microphone.

    Hope you have a great Thursday!

  • Life in general: A not so brief retrospective of the last seven days

    Listen.

    I don’t know where the time goes. I just know that I look up and another week has gone by and a new one is starting, I feel like Caroline when she was a toddler and threw huge fits and then would look up at us after she calmed down and say, “Happen? Happen?”

    What happened was you lost your dang mind because the straw to your juice box broke. Kid, I’m sorry about your level 10 reaction to a level 2 situation, but all I can tell you is you come by it honestly.

    Anyway, we left town a week ago this past Friday for College Station. We spent the weekend with Honey and Big, along with Gulley and her family, and loved every minute. I fully embrace a weekend that involves eating chips and dip, watching various Aggie sports and being with people I love and this one included all of those things.

    Caroline and I drove in that Friday night and just hung out after making a quick stop at Aggieland Outfitters to buy their last three remaining Aggie sweatshirts since there was a cool front blowing through. Then Saturday we headed out to watch the Aggies play baseball against Alabama before eventually making our way over to Kyle Field for the maroon and white game. While it lacked some of the excitement of an actual football game, it was still fun to see the players on the field and you’ll be glad to know that I was doing a careful study of Jimbo Fisher’s coaching style and I believe he has it all under control.

    We drove home on Sunday and stopped at the Buccees in Bastrop along with what was apparently everyone else in the state of Texas. Caroline and I were both hungry and agreed that the chopped barbecue sandwiches they were selling smelled delicious, but felt that they would leave us with some regrets later on so we stuck to a bag of chips and Sour Patch Kids.

    Then last week was basically banana crazy pants. I can hardly even remember what we did but it involved a lot of trying to figure out geometry homework (Lord give me strength) and preparing for a Biology lab practical on a fetal pig dissection. (Lord give me even more strength)

    In the meantime, I did a lot of trying to figure out things to cook for dinner, laundry and attempting to get started on my next book.

    But on Thursday, our high school girls’ varsity soccer team was playing in the state semi-finals in Georgetown, Texas which is about a two hour drive from here and I ended up taking a carload of Caroline’s friends to watch the game. Caroline rode on a bus with the JV soccer team, but several of her friends wanted to go watch the game and somehow I ended up agreeing to being their chauffeur. Here’s what I learned from the experience:

    1. High school girls are very loud.

    2. There will never be a time when they see a sign that says “Road Work Ahead” that they don’t say “Road Work Ahead? I sure hope it does!” (This is apparently from a Vine and it’s the joke that keeps on giving.)

    3. They will decide to listen to “oldies music” on the trip which for them means Maroon 5 songs from 2012. Or, when they really want to throw it back, Britney Spears singing “Oops I Did It Again” from 2000.

    The honest truth is I enjoyed every minute of it and they were very sweet and made me laugh multiple times. Our soccer team ended up losing the game in the last 72 seconds which was a heartbreaker, but they played their hearts out and I was so proud of the girls for how hard they fought.

    As for this past weekend, we just did a whole lot of nothing on Friday and then went to Caroline’s club soccer game on Saturday. She’s out right now with an injury but we still wanted to support the team and then we had everyone over for fajitas on Saturday night.

    Also, I posted this on Instagram, but her coach had the girls do ice baths after the game in these huge trash cans in the back of his truck since they had another game on Sunday afternoon and needed to have fresh legs.

    I mean. If any picture ever summed up soccer in Texas, then this may be it.

    So that’s a not so brief look at life here over the last week or so. I’m sure I’m forgetting something but I can’t remember if there’s more. Of course I also couldn’t get the coffee pot to work this morning so it’s all relative.

    True story. P left early on Sunday morning to go to church, but I slept in. When I got up, I turned on our Keurig and attempted to make myself a cup of coffee, except it wouldn’t brew when I pushed brew. All I got were a few sad drops of coffee in the bottom of my mug. I’d just cleaned it thoroughly a week ago when the same thing happened so I knew that wasn’t the problem. I decided to use my best technological knowledge and unplugged it and plugged it back in. But this time it wouldn’t even turn on. I kept plugging and unplugging and pushing the button to turn it on…NOTHING. It was dead. You know what’s a sad turn of events on a Sunday morning? A dead coffee maker. (By which I mean a coffee machine that doesn’t work, not a dead barista. Clearly, a dead barista would be the worst thing that could happen on a Sunday morning.)

    Anyway, I decided I’d just have to stop at Starbucks on the way to Caroline’s soccer game. P got home from church as we were walking out the door and I announced, “The Keurig is dead! I’ve plugged it in and unplugged it and pushed the button and NOTHING!”. He asked, “Are you sure?” I walked over to it triumphantly and said, “LOOK! IT WON’T TURN ON!” as I pushed the button repeatedly.

    That’s when Caroline looked at me and said, “Mom. That’s not how you turn it on. You need to use the power switch in the back.” And then she and P died laughing at my expense.

    As my Pa-Pa used to say, “It’s hell to get old”.

    But, in my defense, P attempted to make a cup of coffee after we left and used the power switch and everything and it STILL didn’t work. So the bottom line is I WAS RIGHT. IT WAS BROKEN.

    And so I spent part of my Sunday afternoon going to Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy a new Keurig because COFFEE IS LIFE. Apparently without it, I don’t even know how to work basic appliances that we’ve owned for ten years.

    Have a happy Monday.

  • Book releases and ovens that won’t come clean

    Listen.

    I don’t even know what to say about how y’all have supported Everyday Holy. It means the world to Richard and me. I mean, look what you made happen.

    I posted that picture on Instagram along with this caption about Richard wanting to rename the devotional book Richard Calling since Jesus Calling is pretty much the bestselling devotional book of all time.

    And then look what happened next.

    The Jesus Calling folks are totally supporting Richard and his quest for a book deal. My heart couldn’t be more full. There will be no living with Richard from here on out. I’m concerned that he and Mabel may team up for a book deal and totally cut me out of the equation. As it is, I see Mabel taking notes behind my back all the time. I suspect she’s compiling information for her eventual tell-all.

    But in all seriousness, I am so grateful for your support. I’ve mentioned several times that Everyday Holy was so hard for me to write and some of that was because of all the pressure I was feeling about the fall release of Church of the Small Things.

    (I’m about to share a little behind the scenes of how the book sausage gets made so feel free to either keep reading or just click away if you prefer to believe that books just magically go out into the world carried on the wings of songbirds and fairies.)

    First, let me say that I love Church of the Small Things. It was the book that God put on my heart and in my head and it’s a message that I believe in so much. It’s actually my personal favorite of all my books. But the thing about having your fourth book published is that it comes with a lot of expectations and goals for it to surpass your previous books. I was essentially a dancing monkey trying to make sure that I wrote every article and was a guest on every podcast and basically did anything and everything I could to make sure it would be a success. And I want to clarify that this was pressure I was putting on myself more than anything. I am a people pleaser by nature and I wanted everyone to be SO HAPPY.

    Here’s the thing, Church of the Small Things has done well. It just hasn’t necessarily sold over and above what my previous books have sold. It hasn’t set the world on fire. No one is offering to turn it into a movie and Reese Witherspoon still hasn’t called me. (Although if I’m picking, I’ve always thought Sandra Bullock should play me in my life story because she confirmed she can do a good Texas accent in Hope Floats) And I’m totally fine with that. In fact, it’s been a good lesson to me that where I belong – where I live my life – is truly in the small things. That was the whole point of that book from the beginning. It’s just that behind the scenes of it all it started to feel messy and I lost the joy of what it means to get to write books because it felt like it was under a microscope. It was the book that broke me. I forgot that all of this was a dream I didn’t even dare speak out loud just six or seven years ago.

    All of this say, I approached the release of Everyday Holy with zero expectations. I basically said no to everything I was asked to do. It was all part of my YEAR OF NO. And I felt great about it. God has absolutely used the last six months of my life to bring my focus back to what really matters and to not worry about the rest. You know what matters to me right now? Soccer games, track meets, dinner with my people, wine time with my girlfriends, and sitting out on the back porch on a pretty day. The end.

    So it’s been a fun couple of days because everyone has been so great about Everyday Holy and welcomed Richard with open arms. I’ve already gotten so many kind messages about the first couple of devotions and how they have spoken to you or encouraged you in some way. And that’s what this is all about for me…letting God use whatever meager little offering I have to help someone in some way.

    Thank you for that.

    And since so many of you have asked, Heather Gauthier doesn’t have a print of Richard’s Third Espresso available at the moment, but she is working on it and we’ll let you know just as soon as it’s ready for purchase.

    Also, for those of you who pre-ordered the book, your free matching journals will ship separately from my publisher in the next week to two weeks.

    Finally, I shared on Instagram that book release day is always super glamorous for me. This time I managed to do three loads of laundry by 9:00 am. and then I almost hesitate to tell you what I did next for fear the envy will overtake you.

    I cleaned my ovens.

    We had an Easter brunch tragedy over here that involved a french toast casserole that boiled over onto the bottom of both my ovens. The whole house filled with smoke as I inadvertently created burnt caramel inside my ovens. Nothing says gracious hostess like not being able to see your brunch guests through all the haze.

    Then I did what I always do in these situations which is forget all about it after the smoke clears. So when I went to make baked ravioli for dinner on Monday night, all of that burnt caramel concoction on the bottom of the ovens heated up and smoked up the house all over again. It’s moments like these when P is so glad he married me.

    And so I vowed AS GOD IS MY WITNESS that I would clean the ovens the very next day, which happened to be book release day. I used a Pinterest solution I read about that involves baking soda and vinegar.

    Sadly, this is the after picture.

    So if any of you have any great ideas about how to get baked on grease off an oven door and burnt heaven even knows what off the bottom of an oven, I’d be so appreciative. I mean, I probably won’t actually clean it again anytime soon but it will give me something to do the next time I have a book release.

    Once again, I’m sorry to make life the life of an author seem so extravagant and over the top. All I can say is don’t hate the player, hate the game.

    And somewhere right now Caroline just felt embarrassed and doesn’t even know why.

  • For lack of a better title, here are five things I want to share

    The good news is it rained last night and the oak pollen appears to be temporarily defeated because I can actually breathe and my eyes aren’t watering.

    The bad news is the thunderstorm came through while we were sitting in metal bleachers at the high school watching a soccer playoff game. Not necessarily the place you want to be when a lightning storm hits.

    And we’d left Piper and Mabel in the backyard while we were at the game, so they were none to pleased with us when we got home and they’d had to find shelter on the back porch instead of under the bed which is their preferred thunderstorm location.

    Mabel wrote a haiku about it:

    Thunder and lightning
    Left outside on this dark night
    I will now shun you

    Here are a few things I wanted to share today that I think you might want to know about.

    1. An excerpt from Everyday Holy in MTL Magazine – The Glory in Our Midst

    This is an excerpt from Everyday Holy that I thought you might want to read. I still can’t believe I wrote a 100 day devotional. In fact, I was thinking that in high school I could’ve been voted Most Likely To Never Write a Devotional Book. Life is funny.

    Just a reminder that it comes out on Tuesday, April 10th, but if you pre-order before that day you can get a matching journal. It’s a little confusing, but just follow this handy tutorial.

    A. Go order Everyday Holy from your favorite online retailer. It’s lovely in person and a hardcover book for just $12.32 and it would make a great gift for graduation or Mother’s Day.

    You can find it here on Amazon, here at Barnes & Noble, or go to the Everyday Holy book page to see all your other online options.

    B. After you order, go to the Everyday Holy book page and fill out the form on the bottom of that page. Make sure you fill out all the information correctly. You have to fill out the form to get the journal.

    C. In the section of the form that asks for your receipt number, please enter your receipt and/or order number. Then, if you ordered multiple copies and would like to receive multiple free journals, put the total number you ordered in parentheses after your receipt/order number.

    D. The journals won’t be ready until a week or so after you get your devotional so don’t panic if you don’t receive one at the same time. It will ship separately.

    E. Thank you so much for spreading the word and buying it!

    2. Advice to writers by Joanna Puccini

    I get so many emails from aspiring writers asking for advice or how to get started. This article written by literary agent, Joanna Puccini, is about the most comprehensive guide to the writing and publishing process that I’ve ever read. I found it very informative and thought some of you might enjoy it if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

    3. When Life Grabs You by the Baseballs: Finding Happiness in Life’s Changeups by Jon Peters

    My friend Jon Peters has written a fabulous book about his life. We became great friends while we were both at Texas A&M and I’m so proud of him. He is the national record holder for the most consecutive wins by a high school picture and the first high school baseball player to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The book is about his life in baseball and his struggles after his dreams collapsed.

    I tend to recommend so many books that are more for women because, well, that’s what I read. But this would be a great one for any aspiring athlete, man or sports fan in your life. I really enjoyed it.

    4. lucid wrinkle resistant microfiber sheet set

    I bought these sheets from Overstock on a whim because we needed new sheets and figured I’d take a risk. I was skeptical because there are few people on earth who are pickier about sheet softness than me. I am high maintenance and do not even come at me with some sheets that get pilled after three washes. But these are incredibly soft and have held up really well so far. I highly recommend them.

    They’re on sale and just $45 for a king size set which is a bargain.

    5. Thoughts on soccer from Caroline, age 6

    I was looking through old videos in a fit of nostalgia because I just signed this baby up for Driver’s Ed and what has happened. But this video made me laugh. Some things never change, such as her love of soccer, winning, ability to be easily distracted and that I don’t know as much as her dad.

    Thoughts on Soccer from Big Mama on Vimeo.

    Also, I still have to remind her that her cleats only need to be worn on the soccer field if she wants them to last. Of course, back then, I had to tell her that because she wanted to wear them to first grade.

    Happy Wednesday. Keep it cool, guys.

  • This isn’t a podcast or a fashion post

    Well. I hope you all had a lovely Easter with your friends, family and various loved ones. Personally, I have no desire to ever see another egg in any given form for at least a few weeks. We have had boiled eggs, deviled eggs, egg casserole and egg kabobs. Not really on the egg kabobs but I felt like Bubba from Forrest Gump and so I went with it.

    Last week went by pretty fast because I drove to Dallas on Tuesday morning for a speaking event that night. The weather was horrendous, but the event was so fun and I got to spend the night with my friend, Jamie, and catch up on life so it was all totally worth it.

    Here I am signing books at the Say Something event.

    They were able to get in early copies of my new devotional, Everyday Holy, that comes out on April 10th and it was fun to see it live and in person.

    Anyway, I drove back home on Wednesday in the pouring rain and made it home in time to pick Caroline up from school. I’d tell you what we did for the next two days except I am sitting here and can’t remember. I guess it wasn’t very exciting. Oh, except I did go to Target to get some grand prizes for our egg hunt at church. Which is how I ended up driving through the car wash with a giant chicken.

    Friday was a holiday so we spent most of the day just hanging out. The weather was gorgeous. And then Caroline ended up going downtown with some friends that night to the music festival that was part of the Final Four festivities and so P and I had a big night of grilling burgers and sitting out on the back porch.

    On Saturday, I cooked most of the day to get ready for Easter brunch. Then we dyed Easter eggs because the rule in this house is that you are never to old to dye Easter eggs. If you don’t go to church on Easter Sunday with blue and green fingers, then you’re doing it wrong.

    Sunday morning we attempted to leave earlier than usual to make sure everything was set up at our Community Worship but failed miserably. This was due to several factors that included, but were not limited to, hair issues. Caroline may be a teenager now, but she still loves to throw in a last minute hairstyling challenge for me about three minutes before we walk out the door. We eventually made it and it was a really nice service complete with an egg hunt afterwards.

    (A few of you have asked about my sweater. I regret to tell you that it’s at least three or four years old. But I originally bought it at Blue Door Boutique.)

    After that, we came back to the house and Mimi and Bops came over for lunch, along with my friend Jamie and her family because they were in town for the Final Four. We ate and hung out for a while before everyone went their separate ways and then I took a nap that was one of those where you wake up and have no idea what day or time or maybe even what year it is.

    Every Easter I fight the battle of getting P and Caroline to stay in their church clothes long enough to get a good picture. Clearly, I lost that battle with P this year. Sometimes a man just needs his Birkenstocks and a t-shirt.

    Other than that, we’ve watched a lot of basketball, some Netflix and enjoyed the sunshine. I also feel like maybe the oak pollen is trying to kill me. And in what is a particularly disturbing turn of events, I’ve left my house three times over the last few days while wearing my reading glasses and haven’t realized until I’m outside that they aren’t my sunglasses or that I can’t see things that are far away very clearly. This feels like something I used to make fun of other people for doing and, yet, here I am.

    Hope all is well in your world. And that you have figured out ways to use all those boiled eggs and leftover ham.

  • The day the deep freeze died

    Let me tell you a little story.

    I think it was last Friday afternoon, after a week of Spring Break and moving into a weekend where we had no plans at all, that I wondered if maybe I’d been a little overly dramatic about how busy we are these days. Not that I would ever be overly dramatic in a million, billion years, but it was just a thought. I felt relaxed. I was caught up on laundry. The house was relatively clean and we had meals to eat, by which I mean we were going to order takeout and/or go out to eat all weekend.

    Sunday morning felt a little more hectic since we had to actually set an alarm and go to church and get everything set up for our Community Worship Service, but I still felt like none of that caused any real stress.

    I pretty much planned our Sunday afternoon around watching Texas A&M play UNC. Maybe you’ve heard of the North Carolina team. As in they essentially dominate the world of college men’s basketball and won the whole shebang last year. And maybe this makes me a bad Aggie (I prefer the term “realist”), but I really went into the game-watching experience with low expectations. Our basketball team has had some ups and downs this season and so I wasn’t entirely sure which team was going to take the court in North Carolina.

    In the meantime, the Aggie women’s team came back from a 17 point second half deficit against DePaul and Chennedy Carter sealed it with about the most clutch thing I’ve ever seen a college freshman do.

    I mean. I could not love it more.

    So that meant the Aggie women were headed to the Sweet Sixteen and, honestly, filled me with a little more sports optimism than I’d felt before it happened.

    And then – with all apologies to Tar Heel fans everywhere – the Aggies just dominated UNC. Like I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing on the T.V. screen. Friends were texting me and I was afraid to even move or breathe for fear of changing all the sports juju. It was like the Lord Voldemort of games and could not be spoken out loud. At one point, with about six minutes left in the game, P came in from outside and started to watch the game for the first time and UNC scored twice in a row and I told him he needed to go back outside. I wasn’t kidding.

    This was a highlight for me.

    All that to say, it was a great day for Aggie sports and a great way to wrap up what had been a relaxing Spring Break filled with no schedules or deadlines. Fast forward to Monday morning. Actually, let’s rewind to midnight when Caroline came out of her room, having not been asleep at all yet, looking for something to eat because her body clock didn’t know that Spring Break is over. I believe I said something loving and warm like “GET A PIECE OF CHEESE AND GO TO SLEEP.”

    Okay, so Monday morning.

    6:30 a.m. – My alarm goes off. I want to die.

    6:40 a.m. – It goes off again. I realize I have to get up and be an adult.

    6:42 a.m. – Wake up Caroline. She is excited about going back to school and eager to begin the day. This is a lie. She came a consonant shy of using profanity when I told her it was time to get up and pulled the covers over her head.

    7:05 a.m. – She stumbles into the kitchen half-dressed. I have prepared a nutritious breakfast of Honey Nut Cheerios.

    7:05-7:15 a.m. – I pack her lunch with whatever I can find because I failed to remember to grocery shop for school lunch stuff whilst I was relaxing during Spring Break.

    7:18 a.m. – Yell to Caroline that she needs to leave the house in TWO MINUTES.

    7:21 a.m. – She emerges from her room, tells P it’s time to go, and they head out the door. I pour myself a cup of coffee and sit on the couch with Piper and Mabel.

    7:30-8:30 a.m. – I check email, answer email, make a grocery list, a to-do list, read recaps of both Aggie basketball games, and check the Aggie message boards for any important news or videos I missed.

    8:45 a.m. – Decide to get to work on the outline for the new book since I was supposed to work on it about a month ago. And I have been working on it as long as you consider freaking out about it in my head as work.

    10:00 a.m. – P comes in and I ask him to go out to our deep freeze in the back and pull out deer steaks to thaw for dinner.

    10:05 a.m. – P walks back inside and announces that the deep freeze is making a weird noise and possibly not cooling the way it’s supposed to.

    10:05 a.m. until ten minutes ago.

    WE ARE AT CODE RED. I REPEAT. THIS IS A CODE RED.

    Maybe the deep freeze being out isn’t a big deal at your house, but it created a LEVEL 10 SITUATION here. Our deep freeze is full of all the wild game P has procured for us over the last year or so. Fish, elk, deer, quail and dove. If P had to choose between me or what’s in the deep freeze, he’d choose the deep freeze. I’m only halfway kidding. IT HAS ELK STEAKS IN IT. He would hug me, whisper that we had a good twenty year run and ride off into the sunset with his quail and venison. Lifetime could turn the whole saga into a movie called Not Without My Deer Meat.

    I had to find a repairman, call the repairman, and then we had to spend over an hour trouble-shooting possible causes according to the repairman. This involved moving the deep freeze, unplugging it and putting a fan behind it to see if it was just iced over. That didn’t work.

    You know what wasn’t happening during all of this? A book outline. Or grocery shopping. Or anything else I had planned to accomplish before I had to pick Caroline up from school.

    We went through our kitchen freezer to get rid of anything we didn’t want or need. I was forced to thaw out two packages of Trader Joe’s chocolate croissants and bake them and then stress eat them. We moved what we could from the deep freeze into our other outdoor freezer and to our kitchen freezer, but had to pull down coolers for the rest of it.

    What I’m telling you is it was no small ordeal. There were hair dryers involved and spraying down the inside with a water hose and all manner of other things that were a valiant attempt to fix a forty-year-old deep freeze. Seriously. It has been in P’s family so long that it has a dent in it where he hit it with his car when he was sixteen. Essentially, it’s a Shankle family heirloom.

    About the time we finally got everything put away and the repairman scheduled and had performed our own version of Sophie’s Choice over whether to save the California Pizza BBQ Chicken Pizzas or the homemade chicken noodle soup P told me to save and freeze even though we have never ONE time thawed out a meal we’ve previously frozen, Caroline texted me to tell me she was finished with track practice and I needed to come pick her up.

    So I drove to the school and picked her up, helped P finish cleaning up the mess from the freezer debacle, told C to finish her homework and straighten up her room and then turned right around to drive her to Young Life early because it was Redneck Rodeo night and a group of them were going to the thrift shop to find outfits and then eat dinner.

    I walked back in the door, stared at the pile of dirty soccer and track laundry that had suddenly appeared in my laundry room, threw together something for P and me to eat for dinner and am now sitting here at 10:00 p.m. waiting for Caroline to text me to tell me she’s ready to be picked up. AGAIN.

    Then she’ll come home, talk for an hour, finally go take a shower that lasts forever even though I’ll tell her to be quick and she’ll come out with a pore cleansing mask on her face and declare that she’s hungry.

    I will lose my mind and then go to bed.

    All that say, my Spring Break feeling of zen is a distant memory.

    But only ten more Mondays until summer vacation.