Just for fun

On dasher, on dancer, on sudafed and vixen

So. I have no voice.

Actually, I do have a little bit of a voice that sounds like a cross between Kim Carnes and someone who has smoked seven packs of cigarettes a day for the last fifty years, but not as smooth. In fact, I attempted to sing Silent Night to Caroline for her bedtime lullaby and she asked me to please stop. Granted, the coughing fit I had between the first and second verses kind of killed the mood.

On Friday I had to get out of bed and rally in time to go pick up three dozen cupcakes for Caroline’s class party. I’m not sure why I ordered so many cupcakes since that’s twice the amount of kids in her class, but math has never been my strong suit and I just throw about arbitrary numbers without really thinking about it. And have I mentioned all the cold medicine I’ve been on? Because it’s A LOT.

Plus, P was out of town all last week. His best friend lives in California and comes in once a year for their annual hunting extravaganza. I didn’t feel like I could mention that he was gone until he was actually back since I’m operating in a new state of safety awareness in combination with a strong sense of paranoia. But, needless to say, it’s no fun being sick when you can’t guilt the one you love into picking up dinner and taking your child to school every morning. It’s like a waste of a good cold.

But he’s home now and sitting on the couch this very minute with his friend as they look at various firearms and throw around terms like trajectory and hog leg. Which means that I’m about to take a hit of cough medicine and go to bed in the hopes that by tomorrow I can raise my voice in annoyance if the need arises. And, let’s be honest, the need will arise because it’s Christmas week and at some point I’ll have to launch into my time-honored lecture on the importance of having a grateful heart.

Fortunately, Caroline was pretty content for us to just hang out in our pajamas this weekend and watch every Christmas movie that came on the air. On the downside, she has seen way to many infomercials and has now added a Touch N Brush Toothpaste Dispenser and a Big Top Cupcake Pan to her Christmas wish list. She also woke me up at one point to let me know that there was a way for me to get rid of all my debt using some sort of debt consolidation program. It was at that point that I started fast-forwarding through the commercials.

Anyway, watching all those movies made me think of all the movies I like to watch at Christmas time, even if they aren’t necessarily Christmas movies. My personal favorite is Little Women. In fact, I think I’m going to watch it tomorrow with a cup of Theraflu by my side. How about y’all? Are there any not-necessarily-a-Christmas-movie (it’s my very own made up genre) that you like to watch this time of year?
Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer

“Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?” Clark Griswold

For the third year in a row, I seriously debated whether or not to participate in the Christmas Tour of Homes but then I remembered those famous words spoken by Clark Griswold to Cousin Eddie and I was swayed by the sentimentality of the season.

But before I show you basically the same pictures I show every year, I wanted to make you aware of two things:

1. There is a fabulous giveaway going on over on my Giveaways page. It’s courtesy of the nice people at CWDKids. They’d like to give one of you a $100 gift card for Christmas! Ho, ho, ho! (I don’t know why I did that.)

2. P is writing another post that I’ll put up tomorrow with answers to all your questions. There were too many for him to answer in the comments. Is it just me or are y’all sensing a blog spin-off reminiscent of when George and Weezie moved on up and left All In The Family?

And is it just me or did I just use the most dated spin-off reference in the history of forever? I should have gone with Three’s Company and The Ropers. Much more current. Unless you were born after 1981.

Okay, let’s start with the tour.

These are the windows in my kitchen.

Here’s a close-up shot.

(I feel the need to explain that the red bow on top looks much looser and free in person. I’m not sure why it looks weird in the pictures, but maybe it got nervous from all the attention.)

In the past I’ve just tied the wreaths with a red ribbon, but it has long been a dream of mine (since at least 2008!) to incorporate some hot pinks, greens, and blues into my Christmas decor. And thanks to Michaels and their vast array of 50% off ornaments and ribbon, I made that dream come true this year. I’m embarrassed to admit how much time I spent debating various ribbon widths and lengths of ornaments. Let’s just say that Mama may get some Xanax and a book called Keeping It In Perspective in her stocking this year.

Next up is the island in my kitchen.

It took me a while to figure out how I was going to tie those snowflakes. In the meantime, Caroline picked up the scissors and just began to cut ribbon all willy-nillyish. I used my calmest voice full of holiday cheer to explain, “You can’t just start cutting the ribbon. First you need to get a vision of what you want.”

She looked right at me and said, “I HAVE A VISION OF WHAT I WANT”. And so we went with her vision and used all the random lengths of cut ribbon to tie the snowflakes onto my light fixture.

Speaking of random lengths of ribbon, here is the chandelier in the dining room.

I used a decorating technique called tying a whole big mess of ribbon together and hoping for the best.

Caroline was in charge of putting the ornaments in the glass vases and obviously she had a vision because they turned out lovely, even though it took a bottle of Windex to get rid of all the fingerprints.

It’s hard to tell in this picture, but I surpassed some type of lighting record this year. I honestly lost count of how many strands of lights I wrapped around it, but I can guarantee you that P would be horrified to know how much voltage I’m running on one circuit. Let’s hope he doesn’t read this.

The important thing is all the lights with my new pink, green and blue ornaments added in make me so happy. I also love that the deer next to the tree is like a scene straight out of a wildlife book, if deer were stuffed and mounted on wooden plaques in the wild.

Oooh shiny.

Sparkly.

I always put a few pictures of Caroline with Santa around the house and on the mantle. And the flowerpot nativity she made when she was three is my favorite decoration of all time. Seriously, if I could only decorate with one thing it would be Mary with her disheveled hair and baby Jesus in his little pot with a sparkly halo made of pipecleaner.

Here’s our mantle. In the dark.

Maybe all the wattage from our tree is causing our living room lights to dim.

I added a some berries and bling (does anyone still say bling?) to the faux greenery this year to give it a little pop. And I had big plans to find some hot pink and blue candy canes for the mantle to add to my color scheme, but it would have required a trip to the candy store was obviously low on my priority list because it never happened.

This is a sweet little nativity that I bought several years ago and you aren’t going to believe this but that lace that it’s on came from Nena. Which means someone was selling it in a garage sale. And now it’s mine. I’ll be honest, it needed a little Febreze, but I think it looks sweet and it came from Nena and that makes me happy.

Of course maybe I’m just happy that it’s not a fleece men’s shirt in an XXL.

And finally, this is the view from the living room.

With a blinding light from my flash adding just the right touch.

It’s the little things that say “Hey, I’m a terrible photographer”.

For more fun and probably a lot more true decorating inspiration, go visit the other homes over at The Nester’s Christmas tour.

And don’t forget about the CWD Kids giveaway on my giveaway page.
A time-honored tradition that involves eating a lot of cheese

For about the last twenty years, Gulley and I have blocked off the first weekend in December for our annual Christmas shopping girls’ weekend. We spend all day Friday and Saturday finishing all our Christmas shopping and then stay up late on Saturday night wrapping all the presents.

Of course twenty years ago we didn’t refer to it as a girls’ weekend because we were nineteen and the weekend pretty much resembled what every day looked like, except substitute buying Christmas presents and wrapping them with buying new outfits for ourselves and flirting with convenience store employees named Al.

But ever since Gulley started us on the motherhood track almost eight years ago, the weekend involves a little more planning and coordination, which basically means P goes hunting and Caroline spends the weekend with Mimi and Bops so that we have my whole house to ourselves and it becomes just like our college apartment but with furniture that isn’t made of plastic and requires self-assembly upon purchase.

Our first stop on Friday morning was Starbucks because as Caroline has taken to saying these days, “DUH. WHY WOULDN’T IT BE?” Armed with our various caffeinated beverages, we headed out to Nordstrom Rack because I’d gotten an email earlier in the week announcing that they were getting in a whole new shipment that day. And it did not disappoint. In fact, we both bought a new coat for ourselves. I didn’t think I’d actually admit that publicly, but we did. We bought ourselves new coats because they were an additional 35% off already INSANELY low prices and it was 33 degrees outside with six flakes of snow and I have never felt like a purchase was more necessary. I feel that what I saved in the cost of potential hypothermia healthcare expenses more than makes up the cost of the coat.

After that we went to TJ Maxx because I was looking for some inexpensive red glass goblets for my china cabinet but there were none to be found, but we did find a few items for some people on our shopping list which was fortunate since that’s really the whole goal of the weekend.

(Well, that and eating lots of chips and queso.)

And then we found ourselves at Target.

We decided to go to this particular Target because we both feel strongly that the Target closer to our homes is completely overshopped. They never have anything good and I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this but it takes four extra minutes to get there and an additional two stoplights.

I’m not really sure that the foreign Target was any better, but we did manage to find quite a few things on the toy aisles and also nearly take someone out with the Rip Stick protruding from the bottom of our cart. I could not be sorrier that I misjudged the width of that aisle.

When we got back in the car, Gulley was able to cross several things off her list. This is a very important part of the process for Gulley. She has a meticulous list that she carries with her every year and painstakingly crosses off each item as it’s completed. However, this year she graduated to a full-on leather bound notebook that she clutched to her chest at all times in a grand display of shopping OCD.

I didn’t have any sort of list because I prefer to just guess at what I need and then get home and feel the agonizing disappointment and frustration of realizing that I didn’t necessarily achieve anything other than buying myself a coat and I’ll have to make another trip to Target when my love for humanity is already perilously close to expiring. And yet I mock Gulley and her Journal Of Christmas Accomplishments.

On Saturday, I thought we were going to hit a few stores and then go to the mall, but instead we apparently traveled back in time to 1983 because we saw this:

Denim. Puffy. Vest.

The only thing that would make it more wrong, if that’s even possible, is if it came with sleeves that zip on and off. Gap, I have seen the face of ugly and it is this vest. You should not design and sell clothing based on what was in my Big Bob’s closet back in 1978.

Then we saw this:

“Monchhichi Monchhici, oh so soft and cuddly. With his thumb in his mouth he’s really sweet. It’s fun to play with his little feet.”

Sure, I can remember that but can’t remember that we’re out of dog food when I went to the grocery store specifically to buy dog food. Perhaps it would be helpful if I’d carry a leather-bound notebook full of lists.

However, I’m a little sad I didn’t grab that Monchhichi because, not only does he make me recall catchy commercials from the recesses of my brain, a bit of bad news hit the wire this weekend.

(Who am I? Wolf Blitzer? Hit the wire?)

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it looks like Mr. Squiggles may have have the Faux Hamster Flu according to some consumer group and Santa may need a backup plan if there’s a big joy-killing recall about to take place.

I always thought that Mr. Squiggles was bad news. Here’s hoping that he keeps whatever funk he has to himself and doesn’t spread it Num Nums or Chunk, especially since I was DELIGHTED BEYOND ALL NORMAL REASON to discover that instead of the lame faux hamster exercise wheel that I thought I purchased at Walmart a few weeks ago, I actually purchased the garage and little hamster car.

I’ll just be sick if Chunk isn’t well enough to drive around the living room on Christmas morning.
I originally intended this to be a post about soup

I haven’t mentioned a few things that have been going on around here lately. For instance, have I mentioned that my sister is pregnant? And due any second now? And by due any second, I mean that her due date was yesterday?

I cannot tell you how much I wanted to take a picture of her at Thanksgiving lunch, post it on the blog, and announce that my sister had ruined our Thanksgiving by swallowing the turkey whole. But I refrained since women who are forty weeks pregnant tend to frown upon a good Thanksgiving turkey joke.

So instead I’ve spent the last week being incredibly supportive and calling her every day to ask, “Hey, what’s the deal? When are you going to have that baby? Why is it taking so long?”

Sometimes I dispense helpful advice like that I heard eating eggplant parmesan can cause you to go into labor. I’m not sure where I heard it or if I actually ever heard it anywhere as opposed to just making it up in my head, but it makes me feel like I’m doing my part in trying to get my nephew to show up.

Her doctor is out of town this week, but he scheduled her to be induced this Monday if the baby hasn’t left the building of his own free will by then. I tend to think he’s going to stay put because have you ever heard of a man who leaves early when he can relax all he wants and the food is free? Plus, thanks to my brother-in-law, I’m pretty sure he’s getting a steady feed of ESPN in utero.

In other news, about six weeks ago, AJ, our dear friend and official Big Mama family photographer (I just made up that title. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have that on her official resume.) took family photos of us down at her ranch. As chief photo stylist for the shoot, I’d dressed us all in a variety of wintery attire even though it was blazing hot outside.

P walked outside in his sweater and announced, “You have me for three minutes”. We spent those precious three minutes trying to act candid and like it was perfectly natural for us to all walk through a field, throwing our heads back in laughter and dressed like we were in the Arctic Tundra instead of South Texas.

It was a tender moment.

Two days later, all of AJ’s camera equipment was stolen out of the back of her car. They got everything, including our Christmas card photos which were probably exactly what they were after. So if you receive a Christmas card that features a picture of a family walking through a field and looking very hot (I mean temperature hot, not looks hot. Just wanted to clarify. Although P was totally rockin’ his sweater.) there’s a good chance the people who sent you that card are thieves.

The good news is that insurance reimbursed AJ for everything that was stolen, except for my dream of mailing out my Christmas cards by December 2nd. It’s not like I’ve ever achieved that dream before, but THIS WAS GOING TO BE MY YEAR.

Anyway, she was in town last weekend and sweet enough to come by and take a few pictures of Caroline. I gave up on the family photo dream because, honestly, it was short notice and I didn’t feel like fixing my hair. Not to mention that P was on his way out the door to the ranch as evidenced by this picture that AJ snapped.

Oh, and did I mention that P was wearing his digital camo pants? Not that they don’t scream STYLE SAVVY because, OBVIOUSLY, they totally do.

Also, when did my daughter get to be six feet tall?

I’m pretty sure the following picture won’t make the Christmas card cut.

And I promise you this one won’t.

If you ever grow concerned that your prayer life isn’t what it should be, I totally recommend watching your child take pictures with someone else’s very expensive camera.

And after seeing this picture, I’m also praying for some type of miracle cure to even out my skin tone. My word, sun damage much?

By the way, if my sister is reading this, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE YOUR BABY?
White hamsters can’t jump

You know why I love the internet? I mean other than the fact that it’s possible to spend an entire afternoon watching videos of squirrels dancing to Michael Jackson songs?

(Do not judge me. I was merely searching for things that might bring Caroline some amusement while we spend our evenings gathered around the computer in front of the fireplace just like the Waltons.)

I love that almost every comment from yesterday validated my use of all the words to tell of all the nothing. And so, while I didn’t get too many (or any) orders for my custom-made potholders (coasters? Barbie rugs?), I am secure in knowing that at least some of you don’t mind that I wouldn’t know succinct if it was a dancing squirrel on the internet.

Speaking of rodents, I have a big announcement to make. Santa Claus has secured a Zhu Zhu Pet for Caroline, complete with a hamster house.

I received so many emails informing me of Zhu Zhu Pet sightings at Cracker Barrel, CVS, and even a gas station in Louisiana. Apparently, Toys ‘R Us handed out golden tickets, like some kind of whacked out Willy Wonka, that could be exchanged for a Zhu Zhu Pet at approximately 4 a.m. when the stars aligned perfectly with Saturn or whatever.

It all seemed very mysterious and began to remind me of an old episode of 90210 where Donna and David hear about some super-cool party, but they can only find the location if they take an egg to a convenience store. Did I just make that up or was that an actual episode? And, if so, why did I spend such a good portion of the early 90’s watching a T.V. show with such stupid plot lines?

Says the girl addicted to BravoTV.

Anyway, after I wrote about my quest for the Zhu Zhu and read all the comments that basically said, “Yeah, good luck with that”, I reminded myself that the Christmas season isn’t about the giving and receiving of fake hamsters, took a deep breath and decided that if we were meant to bring home Mr. Squiggles or Num Nums that it would happen.

That calm, peaceful feeling lasted all of two seconds and then the crazy lady inside me who could use a hobby took over. I got on Amazon.com to purchase a Zhu Zhu Pet at a slight markup just in case of emergency. In the words of one commenter, I’d spend at least that much money on gas driving all over town to various Walmarts.

So I bought Chunk because he was the cheapest of the overpriced hamsters. Apparently Chunk, with his white synthetic fur coat, isn’t nearly as desirable as Mr. Squiggles and his realistic tawny coloring that makes him look exactly like a real hamster if real hamsters had wheels instead of paws.

But then I received a fortuitous email from a reader named Stephanie who’d had the foresight to purchase four Zhu Zhu Pets several months ago and only needed three. She said she’d love to send me the extra one in exchange for the $8.00 plus shipping cost, which, YES PLEASE. Anything to save me from being trampled in Walmart and being the subject of an embarrassing headline in the newspaper that would probably read:

“ACCOMPLISHED POTHOLDER WEAVER INJURED IN ZHU ZHU RAMPAGE”

I received Stephanie’s package in the mail the same day I received my package from Amazon. We are currently the proud owners of two Chunks, but not for long since I’m sending the overpriced one back to the land of greedy, price-gougers from whence he came.

To be honest, I thought about keeping them both and giving Caroline a litter of white hamsters for Christmas, but P and I were sitting around with my family after Thanksgiving lunch and my sister asked if I was going to head out to Walmart at the crack of awful to look for a Zhu Zhu. I told her my whole story and that I now had not one BUT TWO Zhu Zhus.

P looked at me from across the room and asked, “How much did you pay for that Zhu Zhu Pet from Amazon?”

“Well, it retails for $8.00.”

“That’s not what I asked. How much did you pay?”

(Dang. He has known me too long.)

“It doesn’t matter because I’m sending it back.”

(Which I wasn’t actually going to do, but I threw it out there because it was better than the shame of admitting in front of my whole family that I’d bought an overpriced hamster and I knew that’s where the conversation was headed. ABORT. ABORT.)

So there will be no family of Zhu Zhus on Christmas morning, but we’ll have a solitary Chunk, complete with hamster house (I bought it off Ebay. It retails for $21.00!), and an exercise wheel.

And I may even weave him a tiny bed with my loom.
And there you are, a shooting star

I have a confession to make and it involves a disco ball.

See? I told you.

I realize the most realistic scenario to explain the presence of a disco ball in my life is that I’ve been spending my Tuesday afternoons filming a remake of Saturday Night Fever and all I can say to that is DON’T I WISH. The truth is we’ve been spending the lion’s share of our Tuesday afternoons at the Rollercade.

I know.

It all started this summer when Caroline was invited to a birthday party at the Rollercade and she fell deeply, madly in love with rollerskating. And, really, who can blame her? If rollerskating doesn’t have an irresistible pull on the heart of people everywhere, then how do you explain the Olivia Newton-John classic, Xanadu?

I totally understand where she’s coming from, man, (Why am I talking like it’s 1976?) because once a girl discovers the feel of the wind blowing through her hair while she fast skates around the rink, it’s hard to stay away.

After her initial introduction to skating, she immediately began to beg to go back again. Fortunately for her, one of her friend’s moms emailed me to let me know that Tuesdays are half-price day and that a group from school planned to start meeting there almost every week.

So for the last month or so, we’ve spent several Tuesday afternoons skating. And yesterday was no different.

Except that I really didn’t feel like going to the Rollercade. There are just those rare days when a girl isn’t in the mood for the flashing lights of a disco ball, Michael Jackson music blaring overhead and the smell of old skates. I call those days Tuesdays.

But I’d promised we’d go and that she could bring a friend. So after school I brought the girls home for a quick snack, asked them sixteen times if they needed to go to the bathroom before we left, and then packed them in the car and headed to the rink to skate it out.

I decided I was going to forgo skating for the day and just watch them from a terribly uncomfortable bench on the side of the rink, but I told them to wave at me if they needed help. Just when Caroline got to the furthest point away from me, she began to wave. I walked over to see what the problem was and she informed me she needed to go to the bathroom. Apparently she didn’t hear any of the sixteen times I’d asked before we left the house.

And here’s the worst thing about the Rollercade, there are no doors on the bathroom stalls. I don’t think I need to elaborate on all the ways that disturbs me. Bathrooms need doors. I have no doubt that would have been one of the ten commandments if the Israelites had public restrooms in the desert.

Anyway, I escorted her to the restroom and then she fell on the way out and then she didn’t want to skate anymore unless I was going to skate too and so I paid the extra $2.50 to rent skates and put them on and then she decided she was fine and when could we order some nachos and she didn’t want me to skate anywhere near her and I could just free skate by myself.

(Do you see how that run-on sentence just wore you out? That’s because I’m trying to do the same thing to your brain that the entire experience did to mine.)

The good news is about that time the computer began to play Boogie Shoes by KC and The Sunshine Band. If you can be in a bad mood when KC and The Sunshine Band plays, well then my condolences. Maybe it will help if I tell you I did a tap dance routine to that very song when I was in fourth grade and wore a chocolate brown leotard with gold fringe, gold tap shoes, and an enormous gold headpiece. (Hello, 1979.) Needless to say, I was fierce.

I told the girls they could eat pizza from the snackbar for dinner. When I placed my order for four slices of pizza, the girl behind the counter informed me they don’t sell pizza by the slice on weekdays and I’d need to order the whole pizza.

“How much is that?”

“Nine dollars.”

“Sold. I’d like a pepperoni pizza, please.”

And with that, she took my money, reached into a mini-freezer and pulled out a frozen HEB pepperoni pizza that I happen to know for a fact costs $2.50 at the store. If I could do the math I’d tell you the percentage of that mark up, but I can’t do the math so I’ll just say IT’S A LOT. Of course I also noticed that they charge $2.00 for a pickle which is criminal and also why I’ve decided to get into the concession stand business.

Once the pizza was finally ready, she pulled it out of the oven and handed it to me without cutting it, so I asked in my nicest voice if she could please cut my $9.00 pizza into slices and she did, although she was a little surly about it. I really can’t blame her though. I’d be surly too if I had to wear a uniform that made me look like a referee. That’s why I never pursued a career with Footlocker. Well, that and my complete phobia regarding other people’s feet.

And so with that, we sat down to a nutritious, healthy dinner that will cause moms everywhere to admire my parenting prowess.

The girls had a little bit more time to skate once they were finished eating and Caroline even managed to find a sweet twelve-year-old girl who helped her finally let go of the wall and begin to actually skate a little bit. And I’m telling you, this girl could skate. She even played the air drums while she zoomed around the rink which in the land of the Rollercade is the equivalent to being the queen.

Just ask Olivia Newton-John.