Another day

Before I say anything else, I just want to say thank you for all the sweet comments and kind words. Just getting all my thoughts out made me feel so much better and to read everything you wrote was an unexpected bonus. I honestly read a lot of it with tears in my eyes at how awesome this little corner of the internet is and that’s because of you.

We are thoroughly enjoying our Spring Break over here which is a little weird when I tell you that Caroline woke up with a pretty bad cold on Monday morning. But it’s forced us to really do a whole lot of nothing and not feel one bit of guilt about it. We’ve watched a lot of Netflix and slept in and just enjoyed our time of not having one thing on the schedule. In fact, our only real excitement came on Monday night when P asked me to pull his truck in the driveway since it was on the street and I managed to run over our trash cans.

It wasn’t my finest moment.

And it was made even more stellar by the fact that a neighbor was walking his dog and saw the whole thing happen. I tried to play it off like maybe I’d done it on purpose as I sauntered over to assess the damage, but it’s hard to act like you meant to crush one of your trash cans resulting in garbage being strewn all over your curb. I tried to convince P that the trash can wasn’t THAT damaged since I was able to set it back upright, but the garbage men clearly didn’t agree with me because they took it upon themselves to throw it away along with our garbage when they came Tuesday morning.

So, all that say, we’ll be making a trip to Home Depot to get a new trash can. It’ll be hard for anyone to argue with our Spring Break excitement in light of that.

Here are a few things I’ve been wanting to tell you about:

1. Everyday Holy: Finding a Big God in the Little Moments 100 Day Devotional

This cutie cute devotional book that I wrote will be released on April 10th. I have held an actual one in my hands already and I can’t even tell you how much I love it. The owl’s name is Richard because the cover artist, Heather Gauthier, named him Richard and now he’s a star with his very first cover. I love him so much.

Anyway, this is the book that nearly killed me but I’m really proud of the finished product because I can honestly say that only God got me through it. There are 100 devotions that deal with all the things of life and it’s a mix of funny and serious because that’s what I do.

If you pre-order before April 10th, then you can get a free matching journal with Richard on the front. Just click here to go to the website, order from your favorite online book retailer, and fill out the form on the page. Best of all, you can get as many journals as devotional books you order, so it could be a great gift idea.

(When you enter your receipt number on the form, just put in parentheses how many copies you ordered!)

2. The Bible Binge with Knox and Jamie

I love the Popcast with Knox and Jamie so it stands to reason that I also love their new Bible Binge podcast. It combines Bible stories and theology with pop culture so it makes me laugh and is informative at the same time. I find it delightful.

3. Sex, Jesus and the Conversations the Church Forgot by Mo Isom

This book by my friend Mo Isom came out last week and I read it over the weekend. It is definitely not a light read, but as a mother of a teenager it is full of so much valuable information and insight. Mo writes in a such an honest, powerful way and I can’t think of a better voice to share how the church can better address sex.

Since I know some of you will ask, I think the content is appropriate for a teenager (14 and up) to read but it may not hold their attention depending on their maturity level. But I think it’s a must read for parents of teens if you’re looking for insight on how to talk to your teens about what the Bible says about sex.

4. Say Something Girl Talk with Sandra Stanley and Melanie Shankle in Dallas on March 27th

I’m so excited to be a part of this event in Dallas on March 27th. We’d love for you to join us for a fun night if you’re in the area.

5. downline Dobby Stripe white goose feather down pillow set of 2

This is so random, but many of you may remember that I have long been in search of a good pillow. I had settled on the My Pillow (AS SEEN ON TV!) for about two years even though I never really loved it. But then a friend recommended these pillows and I ordered this set of two for Caroline and me because she is her mother’s daughter and loves a good pillow. Also, the pillow shortage we experienced in Las Vegas made us feel like it was time to stock up.

I have to say that this pillow is a winner. I feel a little like Goldilocks when she declared that the bed was just right. It’s soft but not too squishy. The feathers don’t poke through the material. And it fluffs back up nicely. My only disclaimer is that I tend to like a fairly soft feather pillow that isn’t overly stuffed so keep that in mind before you order one.

Now I just need to see if I can order new trash cans on Amazon.

Except I guess I’d hate to miss out on the excitement of a trip to Home Depot.

Have a good Thursday.

First, let’s discuss that the spring time change is the most cruel of all the time changes. When I realized Saturday afternoon that we had to move the clocks up an hour, I felt a part of my soul die. We all hate it, yet we all do it. It’s like paying taxes or grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon, an inevitable part of life that makes you question everything you know to be true. The look on Piper’s face pretty much sums up how I feel about it.

Also, Piper bears an uncanny resemblance to Dobby the House Elf when she flops her ears back.

The good news is we are officially on Spring Break. You know what we have planned? Not much of anything and I am so thankful. These weeks since January have been so busy and we’ve had zero time off to just relax. We plan to shop, get facials, go out to eat, hang out with Gulley and her boys, watch Netflix and sleep an absurd amount of time.

Speaking of Gulley and her boys, Gulley and Jackson came to watch Caroline’s soccer game on Friday night and I managed to get a quick picture of the two of them together even though I basically broke all the rules of being the mom of teenagers by asking for it.

It was totally worth it. I told them I’d put it in their baby books. But, seriously, when did they grow up and get so big? For years Gulley and I used to load the kids up for Spring Break and head straight to College Station to watch Aggie baseball, but the kids all turned into teenagers and are too busy playing their own sports to go watch sports. Honey texted Gulley and I this group of photos on Friday and I almost had to get in the bed.

Look at those babies. That was Spring Break 2011.

And speaking of babies growing up fast, I want to take a minute to say something. This past Friday I had a few comments about how I never write real posts anymore. Someone even accused me of just doing Fashion Friday as a money grab. I’m normally not one to address critics because the internet is full of critics and there isn’t enough time. I mean, last year someone actually wrote that they wanted to beat me up in a dark alley because I confessed to setting Caroline’s hermit crabs free seven years ago. Good times. This is the world we live in.

I started writing this blog in July 2006 which now feels like the dawn of the internet. There was no Instagram, Twitter or even really Facebook at that point. It was just me sitting at a desktop computer every night and writing down thoughts from the day. I had a two-year-old at the time who went to bed at 6:00 p.m. every night (PRAISE YOU, JESUS. Although, full disclaimer, she woke up at 5:30 a.m. every morning so there was a trade off happening.) The blog gave me a creative outlet, helped me remember that I love to write, and captured memories that I would have otherwise forgotten in that haze of days when life was a blur of taking a toddler to feed the ducks and eat popcorn in a shopping basket at Target to pass the time. The blog opened doors to writing opportunities I would have never had and has given me the chance to meet people from all over that I never would have known otherwise. When I started writing this blog, there were no such thing as fashion blogs or lifestyle blogs, there were just blogs about life and so that’s what I did. As my dad says, this has always been the Seinfeld of blogs in that it’s about nothing. I love the interaction and the comments and the way this blog has given me a peek into your lives as I write about mine.

But here’s what I didn’t know back then. I didn’t know how fast time would go by. I didn’t know that in the blink of an eye that I would have a teenager and life would be filled with her activities and her schedule would keep us on the move. I didn’t know that kids get to an age where they are actually the ones to put you to bed because they’re still up doing homework at 11:00 p.m. I didn’t think about the inevitability of a day when Caroline wouldn’t want me to write about her on the internet. Yet here we are.

I have no plans to quit writing here because I still love it for all the same reasons. It’s just that I have learned I would rather live my life than stress about documenting it every night. Caroline usually decides that 10:30 p.m. is a great time for a heart to heart talk about life and I’m not going to pass up that opportunity because all those people aren’t lying when they say the days are long but the years are short. When funny things happen or I have a story to tell, I still want to record it here. But I’m also coming off a season where I wrote three books in two years. That took more out of me than I even realized at the time and I have just needed some time to rest. As I wrote Church of the Small Things two years ago, I really was writing to myself as much as to an audience about how it’s the day-to-day living and investing in your ordinary life that matters the most. I’ve always said that it doesn’t matter how many books I write or how many audiences I speak to if I end up neglecting the people who live in my house. It’s a non-negotiable for me.

As for Fashion Friday, I love to shop online. It’s like a hobby for me to find cute clothes and share them with y’all the same way I call Gulley to tell her I saw a pretty top at Gap that I think she would like. Yes, I use some affiliate links that I make some money from, but that money goes to offset the cost of blog hosting and maintenance which isn’t cheap. And I have very intentionally always and only recommended books, clothes, beauty products, music and whatever that I actually love and either already own or would like to own. That’s why I don’t do sponsored blog posts or other paid endorsements. I feel like a lot of you enjoy Fashion Friday and so it’s something I can do every week even if I’m too busy or if what’s going on in my real life feels too private to write anything else.

Anyway, maybe you’re thinking this is a lot of information you didn’t ask for. Maybe this really is like Seinfeld now and I just became George Constanza telling you “This is everything I am and all that I am capable of.” I hope this makes sense on some level even if you haven’t wondered or don’t care. I am so thankful for this blog and that something made me start writing it all those years ago. I’m so thankful for those of you who still read what I write and show up here to check in on us. And if the content or the posting schedule doesn’t appeal to you, then you are always free to click away.

That’s the beauty of the internet.

When I was a little girl, I was endlessly fascinated with the episode of Little House on the Prairie when a blizzard suddenly hits Walnut Grove and Miss Beedle had already sent some of the children home from school and Pa and the other men of Walnut Grove had to get out and find them while everyone else hunkered down in the schoolhouse to weather the storm. I have vivid memories of re-enacting this story all by myself and burrowing all the way under my Holly Hobby bedspread to the end of my bed as I pretended that I was Laura Ingalls in a covered wagon, trying to survive a blizzard. Let me add to the bizarreness of this by clarifying that I grew up in Houston, Texas where this scenario had not even a remote possibility of being an actuality. Not to mention that it was 1976, so the closest thing I was ever going to get to a covered wagon was a wood-paneled Plymouth station wagon.

All that to say that there is a still a little girl inside of me who still gets inordinately excited at the prospect of a winter storm even though I have been duped many times throughout my life by a meteorologist’s dire warning of an ICEPOCALYPSE or an ARCTIC BLAST or a SNOWMAGEDDON that turns out to be nothing more than a thirty-six degree day combined with rain that is indeed very cold, but is just rain. Not ice, not snow, not sleet, not frizzle.

So when the local weathermen began to talk of a possible “ice event” that could hit San Antonio this week, I was skeptical at best. However, I still channeled Ma Ingalls and drove to HEB to stock up on food and chocolate and, most importantly, wine. I realize Ma Ingalls probably didn’t actually stock up on wine but I promise you it’s only because they didn’t sell it at Olsen Mercantile.

Then on Monday afternoon, it was announced that school would be cancelled on Tuesday due to the icy weather forecast. As excited as I was for a three day weekend to turn into a four day weekend, I still thought it felt weird for an ice day to be announced when it was 72 degrees outside and I’d just picked Caroline up from soccer practice where she was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

But, let me tell you, it’s lucky that they made that call because I woke up this morning to this sight.

That, my friends, is a lone icicle hanging off the gutter of our back porch. Obviously, it was like we had just found ourselves in the very middle of the famous blizzard episode of Little House on the Prairie. It was terrifying but we will rebuild.

I will say we did get some freezing rain and even a few snow flurries before the day was over and we were all thrilled to have an extra day to just relax and hang out. Apparently my survival instincts kicked in because I consumed approximately 10,654 calories because I decided it was the perfect weather for crawfish étouffée and mini molten lava chocolate cakes. This is what happens when you spend an entire day in your Gap pajama leggings and an oversized sweatshirt.

So I thought I’d share my recipe for crawfish étouffée. I’ve shared it before but I looked back and realized that was eleven years ago and there’s a good chance some of you missed it. So here you go.

Crawfish Étouffée

1/4 c. diced celery
1/4 c. diced onion
1/4 c. diced bell pepper
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. black pepper
5 tbs. vegetable oil
1/2 c. flour
2 c. chicken stock or canned chicken broth
1/2 stick butter
1 bunch green onions, chopped (separate white and green parts)
1 lb. peeled crawfish tails (defrosted if frozen) – you can substitute shrimp if you prefer
Hot cooked rice

In a small bowl, combine celery, onion, and bell pepper. In a separate bowl, combine cayenne, salt, basil, thyme, and black pepper and set aside.

Make a roux: In a heavy skillet (preferably cast iron), heat the vegetable oil until very hot, then gradually add the flour. Cook over high heat, stirring constantly until it turns chocolate brown. Be careful not to burn it. (Side note: You can make your roux on the stovetop, but I’ve started making mine in the oven and it’s a game changer. Just mix your flour and oil in a dutch oven and cook for about two to three hours in a 350 degree oven. Stir it about every thirty minutes.)

Take the roux out of the oven and put it on the stove. Add celery, onion, bell pepper to roux. Add seasoning mixture. Let cook 2-3 minutes on low heat, stirring.

Add chicken stock to roux mixture, stirring until there are no lumps. Continue to simmer until sauce is thickened. In a separate skillet, melt butter, add white part of green onions, and crawfish; sauté 2-3 minutes, then pour it all into the dutch oven with the roux and vegetables. Simmer about 30 minutes.

Serve with rice and garnish with green part of green onions if desired.

It is so delicious and even better the next day. I also inadvertently learned a helpful cooking tip today which is if you keep your reading glasses on while you chop onions it keeps your eyes from watering. And with that epiphany, I felt my youth go gently into that good night.

Also, I cannot say enough about these chocolate lava cakes. I used Ree’s recipe. You can find it here.

So that’s what’s been going on around here. I also used this long weekend to watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime and LOVED IT SO MUCH. It is not family friendly, but it is so funny and so smart and the clothes are to die for. I’m in mourning that it’s over because I need to know what happens next.

And I’m also watching The Bachelor for the first time in forever. I don’t think I’ve watched it since Sean Lowe’s season, but I got sucked back in by Arie because I remember him from Emily’s season and he’s 36 and I thought he might bring some refreshing maturity to The Bachelor stage. The verdict is still out on that, but the ABC producers are killing it with the dramatic re-enactments and a ramped up kitsch factor. It is so over the top absurd that I am totally here for it. And it’s made even better by reading my friend Lincee’s recaps which you can find here.

Hope you have a great day or a great night or a great whatever hours are in front of you by the time you read this. Stay warm. And don’t forget that you can always break a desk into a bunch of pieces and burn it in the wood-burning stove if you get desperate.

One final thing. I keep forgetting to mention that I’ll be in Austin this Thursday evening, January 18th at Austin Ridge Church. You can find out more and/or register here.