Year: 2007

  • Quick weekend update

    A few thoughts from the weekend.

    1. Texas A&M is truly one of the greatest places on earth. It had been so long since I had attended a game at Kyle Field that I had forgotten how incredible it is. It is, seriously, the best place in the world to watch a college football game. And I’m only slightly biased.

    At halftime, in the middle of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie band performance, Former President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of Defense, Dr. Robert Gates, came out on the field and awarded an Aggie Marine, Class of ’03, a Medal of Honor for his service in Iraq.

    Honestly, it was the best part of the night and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the stadium. Incredible moment.

    2. On a less serious note, sitting a few rows ahead of us were some students from Kansas. They had on shirts that made us laugh out loud. Gulley and I had to get a picture with them.

    The only problem is that we love our 12th Man. The Aggies would have been much better off if he had eaten our coach.

  • I would gladly partake of your pecan pie

    A few of y’all asked about my pecan pie recipe (pronounce PIH-CAHN by the way, if you say pee-can, please don’t make this pie) and I’m gladly willing to share the pecan goodness with you. I’m not a huge fan of plain pecan pie, but throw a cup of chocolate chips into that bad boy and you’ve got yourself some good eatin’.

    And yes, I am in College Station having big fun, but through the marvel that is modern technology I am writing this on Friday for it to auto-post on Saturday. The internet is a wonder.

    Pecan Pie

    1 unbaked 9″ pie crust (I use Pillsbury’s frozen crust)
    1/2 cup butter
    1 cup sugar
    1/2 tsp. salt
    1 tsp. vanilla
    1 cup light Karo syrup
    3 eggs, beaten
    1 1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
    1 cup pecan halves

    In saucepan, brown butter until golden. Don’t let it burn. Set aside to cool.

    Add sugar, salt, vanilla, syrup and eggs. Mix well. Add lemon juice and pecans.

    Pour into unbaked pie shell and bake at 425 for 10 minutes. Then, reduce heat to 325 and bake for 55 minutes.

    And if you really want to know what good is, add one cup of chocolate chips to the mixture before baking. It will make you cry.

    It’s just that good.

  • Edition 6: Fashion Friday

    I haven’t even mentioned that Gulley and I are headed to College Station for a big college reunion type thing.

    But we are.

    We are leaving town around 2:00 today and will be sans the petites until early Sunday afternoon. Excited doesn’t really even begin to cover it. And yes, our kids are darling. We love our kids. But a break? A break is good.

    Even the Lord rested on the Sabbath. And He didn’t have to constantly heat up Dino nuggets.

    So, fashion has been foremost on my mind as I’ve begun packing my bag for a weekend away. There is nothing that stresses me out more than being away from my closet. It completely eliminates my compulsive need to be able to decide on a new outfit at the last moment.

    Plus, what of the weather changes that may occur? How do they know it will be 75 degrees and sunny on Saturday? How can I know how much the temperature will change between 6 p.m. kickoff at Kyle Field and 9:30 p.m. when the game finally ends? It’s like a roll of the fashion dice.

    I’m at the mercy of the meteorologists.

    And in other not-necessarily-fashion news, I got a haircut on Wednesday. After a long series of disappointments, I have returned head in hands to my former hairdresser. She knows my hair and I don’t know why I ever left her.

    I had a wandering eye that led me to bangs and I am repentant.

    She took me back and this was my second reunited-and-it-feels-so-good haircut since my return. The cut is great, but when she styled it she parted it on the opposite side from where it has been parted for the last 26 years or so. She said it was because changing the part gave me more volume.

    That may be true, but it has completely thrown my equilibrium off. I wish I were kidding when I say it has made my head noticeably lean to one side as if to compensate from the incredible weight of the hair. Not to mention the fact that my hair keeps falling in my left eye as opposed to my right eye. My vision is completely out of whack.

    And peripheral vision? Forget about it.

    So tomorrow I will style it myself, return my part to its proper location and once again be able to hold my head upright. Have I ever mentioned I don’t do well with change?

    On to the question portion of this post. This week I received a few questions that deal more with beauty issues than fashion. My first thought was that I don’t wear a lot of makeup so I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer beauty questions. But then I realized I can do the same thing I do with the fashion questions and just fake my way through it as if I know what I’m talking about.

    It’s a technique I learned from my days of selling pharmaceutical products where I arbitrarily threw around terms like “CYP3A9” and “Apo B Lipoprotein” and “Sugar Diabetes”.

    Here we go.

    1. Rachel asks: “As for lipstick, do you prefer matte or shiny? I hear that matte is making a comeback, but I’m still partial to a little bit of shine. Also, do you buy at the department store where you get to preview the color on your lips as well as hear a few kinds words from the ladies in black aprons or do you play guess and lose at the drug store? I like the bargain prices, but not my bin full of not quite right lipstick. What are your thoughts?”

    Matte may be making a comeback, but supposedly so are skinny jeans and you won’t see me wearing them. I am not a fan of the matte lip. I think even a hint of shine is much more flattering.

    Of course I may be biased because matte lipstick makes me think of my Aunt Fina who has worn bright red matte lipstick for the last 65 years. Or as she would say, “lipstickt”.

    That picture should encourage y’all to go with some shine. And also, serve as a lesson that a little bit of blush goes a long way.

    I have never been a department store makeup kind of girl. Mainly because I have the propensity to be a huge sucker for beauty products and if I dare to step in Sephora and let one of those lovely cosmeticians have their way with my face, I would feel compelled to buy every product they used so that I could replicate what they have just done. Once home I would realize they are professionals and I need more than the products to get the same results. And there I would be with hundreds of dollars worth of disillusionment sitting in my makeup bag.

    Not that I’ve ever done that. I’m just speaking hypothetically.

    I have always been able to find good products at the CVS and they will usually let you return a product if you get home and discover it’s the wrong color. Or y’all can do what I do and just buy the same colors all the time, but in different brands and formulations.

    My favorite lip products at this moment are Neutrogena Moisture Shine in Chic (pronounced Chick in certain circles), Covergirl Lipslicks in Daring, Almay Ideal Gloss in Wine Shimmer, E.L.F. Plumping Lip Glaze in Mocha Ice, and Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer in Nutmeg.

    And actually there are dozens more, but that’s just what was in my purse. I’m not kidding.

    Y’all will notice that these are all a variation on a theme and that theme is wine/brown/mocha tones. Keep in mind that I have a medium skin tone, brown hair and brown eyes. These colors look best on me.

    Pink, in any form or fashion of lip color, hates me. In fact, it despises me.

    However, if you’re a lovely, fair-skinned blonde girl, pink may be your BFF. I hope y’all are very happy together.

    2. Cricket asks: “I am in my early thirties and am noticing more and more CHIN HAIR each day! What do I do? Pluck every day? Is there a better way?”

    Yes. Pluck. Pluck like the wind.

    Or you could go see about laser hair removal for chins. But make sure you’re into pain and agony because it is every bit as painful as watching a “Diff’rent Strokes” marathon.

    That’s all I’ve got for this week because I need to do things like pack my suitcase and watch multiple weather forecasts so that I can obsess about the high temperature for Saturday and whether or not I’ll need a light sweater or a coat for the game.

    Maybe I should just pack both.

    Or maybe I should be more concerned about whether or not the Aggies can beat the hell out of Kansas.

    Y’all have a great weekend!

  • Just like they did in ye olden times

    The first cold front of the season came blowing in early Monday morning. And I do mean blowing in.

    The winds were howling out of the north causing the pecans in our pecan trees to come raining down on the roof. I woke up out of a dead sleep at 4 a.m. thinking we might be under siege. It sounded like we were being shelled.

    Blame it on watching “Band of Brothers” too many times, but I think I had some WWII flashbacks.

    Anyway, by the time I picked Caroline up from school, the sun was out and it was a better-than-lovely 65 degrees outside. We came home and went OUTSIDE to play, instead of doing what we’ve done since last June and curling up under an A/C vent while cursing the heat.

    The pecans that caused me to yell out “WE’VE BEEN HIT!” around 5 a.m. were scattered all over the yard. Three pecan trees, plus a rainy summer, equals a plethora of pecans. Some might even call it a bushel.

    We began to collect them in a pile on the front walk. It seemed like a good way to pass the time, plus I pretty much just sat down in the yard and collected about fifty of them within a one foot radius while I let Caroline do the serious hunting and gathering. Our pile got bigger and bigger, in spite of the fact that Bruiser and Scout are huge fans of the pecan.

    You know, the pecan is America’s nut.

    I don’t know if that’s true, but it could be.

    And this is completely off-topic and ever so embarrassing to admit, but as I searched for pecans I started singing a song with the lyrics, “You’re just a squirrel, trying to get a nut”. Ultimately I realized the song I was thinking of was “In the Rain” by Oran “Juice” Jones and I was equal parts amazed and horrified that a bad 80’s rap song came to mind so quickly.

    My mind is a vault containing mass amounts of useless information.

    Anyway, Caroline would crack the pecans by stepping on them and then feed them to the dogs. I think, after 4 long years, they finally saw her as a valuable ally, instead of the thing that replaced them and now sleeps in the bed they used to call their own.

    She won them over with the pecan goodness.

    Finally, it was time to go inside. So we left our big pile of pecans on the front walk and I told her we’d find more the next day. She has a phenomenal memory and sure enough, we were out gathering pecans again yesterday. And since it was Bop’s birthday and Bops loves pecan pie, I decided it would be a great idea to make Bops a pecan pie using pecans from our yard.

    After all, how many pecans do you have to crack to find enough for a pecan pie recipe?

    As it turns out, enough to make your thumbs start to bleed.

    Scout and Bruiser must be living right because they were able to procure pecans from the reject pile. Then at one point, an elderly gentleman drove past our house, slowed down and yelled out his truck window, “Don’t let them dogs eat too many of them pecans! It’ll plug them up for days.”

    And interestingly enough, all I could focus on was how I thought pecans would serve as roughage. A natural laxative, if you will. I was so busy thinking about this that it didn’t dawn on me that it was a little odd to have someone yell at me out their truck window about the bathroom habits of my dogs and their possible constipation due to massive pecan consumption.

    I mean they’re pecans, not a cheese log.

    Anyway, bottom line is we gathered our pecans, went inside and made a pie.

    With our own pecans.

    Just like Ma Ingalls might have done.

    And I make a mean pecan pie. If Martha Stewart were to compete with me in a pecan pie contest, I would dismantle her.

    Here are our pecans. One cup of pecans, otherwise known as the reason I have a Barbie band-aid on my thumb.

    Here is the butter as I’m browning it. This is the key to a good pie. Brown the butter, but don’t burn it.

    Caroline gets more joy than should be allowed just by cracking eggs. That’s a blow-pop in her mouth, by the way, not a cigarette. I don’t let her smoke while we’re baking.

    The prepared pie crust. Which I totally made from scratch and by scratch I mean that I took it out of the freezer and opened the Pillsbury package that it came in.

    Y’all didn’t really think I’d make my own pie crust, did you? Keep in mind, I’m the same person who bought pre-made Rice Krispy treats earlier in the week.

    Pouring the pecan mixture into the pie crust.

    And what do we have here? A beautiful pecan pie.

    Somewhere Martha Stewart is weeping with envy.

    And my dogs are trying desperately to have a bowel movement.

  • Working hard to keep us all entertained

    Caroline loves to spend the night with her Mimi and Bops . It’s something she’s done since they moved here a little over two years ago.

    It’s what I like to call a golden situation, because she loves staying with them and I love getting to go out with P, then sleep late the next morning.

    Not to mention, not being awakened in the middle of the night to serve as a bathroom escort.

    She is a high-energy kid. She literally runs, and jumps, and runs some more, until she drops. She rarely admits to being tired.

    In fact, one time this summer we finally had to drag her out of the pool and tell her she’d had enough. She argued with us until she finally just collapsed on her little swimmed-out legs.

    Fortunately, for her, Bops is a gamer. He runs, he plays chase, he plays hide and seek. Then she says, “ONE MORE TIME, BOPS!”

    And I’m pretty sure he collapses on the couch for a nap as soon as we leave.

    We came home last Saturday and Caroline walked in her room as I was unpacking her bag. She said, “Mama, I am so TI-RED!”

    “Well, you played hard over at Mimi and Bop’s house.”

    “I know. Bops just makes me run and chase him the whole time. He just wears me out!”

    I’m fairly certain that’s not the real story.

    Here she is after spending a day having to play hide and seek with Bops.

    Bless her heart. It’s not easy keeping up with a 62 year old man.

    Happy Birthday, Bops.

  • Hello Kitty! Goodbye Saturday morning.

    A girl I knew once told me, before I had kids, that the worst part of motherhood is having to go to amusement parks. At the time I thought that was an odd thing to say because what isn’t fun about amusement parks?

    Well, other than the bigger than life characters that walk around and pose for pictures. They creep me out.

    I’m talking about you, big stuffed Shamu. Just walk away with your unnaturally proportioned head.

    Truly, I don’t mind the amusement park experience. You start off the day fresh and full of high expectations of all the great fun to be had and that feeling lasts until you’re dragging everyone back to the car at the end of the day, sweaty, hot, cotton candy stuck to the side of your face, and $250 poorer than when you walked in.

    Good times.

    Plus, you always have a chance of winning a Nicole Richie doll.

    The parenting experience that I could just leave behind is the birthday party. All the birthday parties. Who knew there could be so many birthday parties?

    The 4-year-old social circuit is unbelievable. Seriously, it makes my own social life look a little pitiful by comparison. Caroline has 3 parties on any given weekend and I have…umm, well I like to be at church on Sunday morning.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m so thankful that Caroline has friends and we get invited to the birthday parties. I am. I really am. She’s a huge fan of the birthday party. Telling her we have a birthday party to attend on a Saturday morning is like someone telling me I get to sleep until 10:00, then go get a pedicure and a new outfit.

    It creates new levels of hysteria and excitement. Levels that really aren’t seen outside of anything involving High School Musical.

    So, Saturday morning, we had a double header. 10:00 a.m. birthday party at Kiddie Park, followed by an 11:30 a.m. party at one of her classmate’s homes. That is ALOT of hot pink icing.

    By the time I got up Saturday morning, Caroline was already dressed in her hot pink, bedazzled outfit. She was speaking in ALL CAPS and WAS SO EXCITED and all LET’S LEAVE RIGHT NOW! WE HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW! LET’S GO! LET’S GO!!!

    Which would have been fine, but it was only 8:30 a.m. And trust me, the workers at Kiddie Park aren’t the type to show up one minute earlier than their scheduled work time. Heaven forbid they get there early and change out the water in the boat ride.

    Anyway, after a long morning of IS IT TIME TO GO YET?!! it was finally actually time to leave. We headed out to Kiddie Park, rode some rides of questionable safety and unmentionable hygiene issues, ate a Hello Kitty! cupcake, and drank from some unknown child’s juicebox. Because, really, she likes to do all she can to ensure that she picks up some kind of illness for the upcoming week.

    Just as she was coming down from her Hello Kitty! sugar high, it was time to leave for the next party. This one had a bouncy castle. With Disney Princesses. And face painting. And even more Hello Kitty! cake.

    Who knew that Hello Kitty! had made such a comeback? I had no idea. She’s very hot right now. Like the next Paris Hilton or something, because she doesn’t really do anything, she just stands around with that blank stare.

    By the time we got home, the party hangover had begun. All the whining and complaining about being hot, tired, and having a headache from all the screaming. And Caroline wasn’t doing much better.

    It took me the rest of the day to recover.

    I’m just glad there wasn’t a big, life-size Hello Kitty! walking around.

    It would have pushed me over the edge.