Another day

My next few weeks are crazy busy with all the book release stuff and so I purposely didn’t plan much for this week so I could just enjoy a little downtime. And the weather has even cooperated because it has rained pretty much all day, every day which has been very conducive to my ability to both get some work done and watch several episodes of Hart of Dixie on Netflix.

I have also been conducting an experiment with Caroline’s lunch that I’m calling “Will the grapes go bad or get eaten?” This experiment involves me packing grapes in her lunch on Monday and then putting those exact same grapes back in the refrigerator that afternoon when I discover she didn’t eat any of them. I repeat this process daily until the end of the week, at which time I throw the grapes out because they are a little worse for the wear after all the mileage they’ve seen at the bottom of her lunchbox. So why do I pack the grapes? Because it makes me feel better that she has a healthy fruit option in her lunchbox.

I can’t control whether she eats them or not, but someday when she’s grown up she’ll never be able to say, “My mom never packed fruit in my lunch.” Also, I know you’re going to suggest maybe I try other fruits and I have with pretty much the same results most days. At least grapes can be recycled for a while unlike their more fragile, delicate fruit cousin, the apple.

Yesterday I decided to get out and run a few errands. I ended up at the mall because I had a dress I’d bought for Caroline that I needed to return. And this led me to trying a few things on because I am powerless to resist the siren song of cute clothes and a dressing room. However, the time I spent in the dressing room only served to confirm that I am perplexed by fashion right now. I’m not a ruffly, flowery kind of person and everything feels very ruffly and flowery. I also am not interested in having my shoulders hang out of a top or a dress, nor do I want to wear a bodysuit or an outfit that requires a belt. I’m pretty sure this is how people end up wearing sweatpants all the time. Except now they’re called “joggers”.

So I left the mall with nothing except a long sleeve thermal top that I couldn’t resist because it had three things going for it:

1. It had shoulders.
2. It was incredibly soft.
3. I correctly identified it as a top instead of it being a minidress that I just thought was a top.

Anyway, it was while I was driving home from the mall that P called and asked me if I’d forgotten to pay our water bill. I asked him why he thought that and he said that the city had just put a lock on our water meter and shut our water off because they said we hadn’t paid our bill.

Hmm. Well, that is problematic.

It made me want to ask him, “Water we going to do now?” but it didn’t seem like the right time for a pun. This is what twenty years of marriage has taught me.

I pulled over and looked online at our bank account and texted him proof that I had INDEED paid the water bill this month and it was clearly their error. Meanwhile, he headed up to the water department to figure out what was going on while I burned with self-righteousness over how we were clearly being wronged. I was already thinking about what I would like to tell them and I’ll tell you the phrase “HEADS ARE GOING TO ROLL” was part of my imagined rant.

And, as it turns out, I did INDEED pay the water bill this month. However, I neglected to pay the water bill in June and apparently they hold that kind of thing against you. Although, in my defense, I never received any indication that I had missed a month and that we were accumulating late fees until they actually locked us out of our water.

Whatever. June was a busy month.

All that to say it was one of those days that I had to remind P that I have other gifts.

But being able to tell the difference between what designers call a top or a minidress isn’t one of them.

Y’all.

It’s been so long since I’ve just written a normal update on life that I believe I have forgotten how. But I feel like so much has been going on that I can’t even remember everything I wanted to make sure I remembered. So here’s the short version of what I’ve been up to:

Slowly losing my mind.

Thank you for listening.

I realized this morning that this is our fourth week of school. I mean we’re getting progress reports sent out this week which means we are in full on school mode even though I feel like my brain is still trying to wrap around the routine and schedule of it all. Just yesterday I felt genuinely surprised when I had to get up and figure out what to pack in Caroline’s lunch, like it was a whole new thing instead of something I’ve been doing for the last three weeks.

But it has been non-stop around here. When you start the first week of school with a solar eclipse and end it with a devastating hurricane and then follow all that up by driving to Dallas for a soccer tournament during a gas shortage on Labor Day Weekend with a child who starts running a fever, it leaves you feeling a little bit like IM’MA NEED A MINUTE.

And then last night was Back to School night where parents walk their child’s schedule and meet their teachers. It was the first time I’d ever actually been inside the high school with the exception of the auditorium and I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing. I thought P was going to know it all since he actually attended the exact same high school thirty years ago, but apparently his memory is either bad or they’ve moved some things around. For instance, we ended up in the Rocketry department trying to find the cafeteria. The thing about having a high schooler is I am totally relying on Caroline to be a self-manager. I trust that she is doing what she needs to do to keep her grades up and make corrections on tests and all those things because she has proven to be responsible for these things in the past and tends to stress about her grades more than I do, but sitting in those classrooms last night must have awakened some latent post-high school stress in me because I dreamed all night about oversleeping for exams or getting lost on the way to Biology or forgetting Geometry theorems. Which is interesting considering I never really learned any Geometry theorems to begin with.

All that to say, the schedule has been crazy. Between soccer and school and having a book coming out in less than a month, I’m in need of a vacation or a nap or a nerve pill or some combination of all three.

Here are a few pics just so I can look back and remember what was happening in this span of three weeks that I barely remember.

This was during the Labor Day tournament in Dallas. Her team made it to the semi-finals which was actually exciting because Dallas tournaments are usually the toughest competition we face. Like I said, Caroline was sick all weekend long but wanted to play anyway, so her coach put her in for limited amounts of time during each game. And I was glad she was able to contribute something because when we arrived in Dallas late Friday night and she had fever, I had my doubts that she’d even get out of bed. I made her get in the shower and in her pajamas so she could go straight to sleep and she hugged me and said, “I can’t believe I’m sick and we’re here in Dallas and staying in this really terrible hotel room.” And she wasn’t wrong about any of that.

But we made the most of it and had a good time with maybe the exception of the Aggies losing to UCLA. On the upside, I have now experienced an emotional reset when it comes to this football season and am prepared for whatever comes our way…you know…like nearly losing to Nicholls State.

Then all of last week was basically a blur as I tried to play catch up on some projects and collected things for Hurricane Harvey relief. At one point my guest room was at least three layers deep in bins of clothes, boxes of diapers, towels, linens and hygiene products and I have to say that as awful as all of this has been and will continue to be for people, I have been so encouraged to see the way everyone has pitched in to help each other. It’s made even the most cynical part of me believe that most of us are always looking for ways to help.

Even Mabel.

She has found solace in writing haikus as she is wont to do.

Water rises deep
Yet humanity prevails
What time is dinner?

Okay, so maybe she lacks a little introspection.

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well. Let’s continue to pray for those in Texas and Florida who have been so affected by Harvey and Irma and continue to find ways to help them rebuild their lives. My web designer, Cathy, has put together a raffle with some great prizes and all proceeds go directly to benefit Hurricane victims. You can find out more here. And Bayou City Fellowship in Houston is also a great place to find resources on how to help or donate.

Have a great Tuesday.

I know I keep talking about how hot it is but that’s just because it’s so hot. And the fact that I’ve been hot for the last two months didn’t go well for AT&T when I called them today because our modem isn’t working AGAIN. When I hung up the phone, Caroline looked at me and started laughing as she said, “You just told that guy you weren’t interested in resetting our modem for the 64th time and they better get someone out to the house or we’re about to change internet providers. You weren’t playing, Mom.”

That’s right. Because it’s hot and I need my internet to work. And guess who has AT&T coming out to the house tomorrow?

Anyway, here are a few things that might prove to be a nice distraction from the fact the sun in angry at the earth right now:

1. All in All Devotional by Sophie Hudson

This devotional by Sophie is just so good. I have a copy and Caroline has a copy and I don’t know which of us is enjoying it more. The great thing about Sophie is that she has spent years working with teenage girls so she gets all the ins and outs and struggles that they deal with on a daily basis. And, let’s be honest, we all have some teenage girl left inside of us somewhere so I really think women of all ages would enjoy going through this devotional. It would make a perfect back-to-school gift for the girls in your life.

2. This dog:

Caroline showed this to me yesterday while we were at the orthodontist office and I couldn’t quit laughing. I don’t know what that says about me and my current state of mind.

3. teddie organics rose hip seed oil

I know that I have touted many a product over the last ten years, but this one is honestly a new favorite. I bought it after seeing all the five star reviews on Amazon and then found out it’s what Kate Middleton uses and it just confirmed my love. I’ve been using it morning or night and I really do think it’s making a difference in both my skin tone and texture.

That’s it for today.

Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday.

You want to know what’s been going on around here this week?

Let’s start with this.

The puppies locked themselves in the bathroom on Sunday night. It was every bit as peaceful of an experience as you might imagine.

Since the first day we brought them home, we’ve put them in Caroline’s bathroom to sleep at night. This is the benefit of having a room you’re about to completely redo. You can use it to contain two small animals who find new and unique ways to destroy everything they touch. So we put their kennel in there with the door open, a few chew toys, food and water and then shut the bathroom door.

And most nights they whine for a few minutes and then they’re out like a light. As well they should be considering they spend most of the day expending enough energy to run a nuclear power plant. But on Sunday night I put them in there and they were quiet at first but then proceeded to lose their minds.

There was barking and whining and door-scratching and enough canine theatrics to make Cujo say “That’s enough”. (Assuming Cujo could actually speak and not just growl.) And I became concerned that something was wrong. Specifically, I kind of worried maybe I’d forgotten to close the toilet seat and maybe one of them had gone for a swim. So I went to open the bathroom door to give myself the peace of mind that neither puppy was in the toilet (there’s a sentence you don’t really think you’ll ever write) because I knew I’d never sleep for worrying about it all night. And that’s when I discovered that in all their jumping up and down at the door that they’d managed to lock it.

Here’s where I found myself in a quandary.

Do you wake your husband up at midnight to inform him that the puppies have locked themselves in the bathroom and you’re worried that one of them might be in the toilet?

I decided yes.

So P stumbled out of bed in his boxer shorts to come to the rescue like a real live superhero. I think it goes without saying that his excitement over the entire situation was palpable.

Then Caroline heard the commotion and came rushing out to see what was going on and when I explained the puppies had locked themselves in the bathroom she wailed, “OH NO! What will we do? Are we going to get them out?”

No. We’re just going to seal up the bathroom like it’s the Titanic.

The problem is this is an old house and the bathroom lock requires a skeleton key. Which we do not have. In fact, we had this same problem when Caroline was three and she locked herself in the bathroom, which led P to glue the lock shut so you couldn’t lock the bathroom door anymore. However, the puppies managed it just fine.

(When Caroline did this when she was little, I coached her through the door on how to unlock it. Our puppies did not seem to understand what I was saying in spite of my very specific instructions.)

Ultimately, P had to unscrew the door plate and use pliers to unlock the door. Piper and Mabel rushed out, neither having been in the toilet which was indeed closed. In other words, it all could have waited until the morning except that I wouldn’t have slept all night. Of course after all that excitement, it wasn’t like I slept that great anyway.

As for the rest of the week, it’s just been busy doing all the things that come with the last week of school. P and I went to eat lunch with Caroline on Monday because we wanted to have one last lunch with her at elementary school even though my mind can’t really take in that she’s moving on to junior high. I’ve been trying to get 1,046 things done that have been on my to-do list since the beginning of the year yet haven’t gotten finished. And we still have a pool party and 5th grade graduation to go.

In totally unrelated news, a reader named Heidi sent me a shirt a while back from her store called The Ikat Elephant. Here’s the link to the store on Facebook. Every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. CST she puts several really cute things up for sale and this week she’s offering my readers 15% off your entire purchase when you use the code BIGMAMA15 at checkout. Quantities are limited and the sale only lasts for 24 hours.

Here are two things she has this week that I adore:

This comes in several different colors.

And I love this with white jeans and turquoise jewelry.

Plus there are some great long camis and a few other cute tops. So don’t forget to go check it out.

I also have a post up on Pioneer Woman about my thoughts on Mad Men this season. You can find it here.

Now I’m going to go put my puppies to bed and hope they don’t lock themselves in. You can guarantee I’m double-checking the toilet seat is down so I can have peace of mind.