“The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the adventure, we take it.” Oswald Chambers
This post is officially my 300th post. 300 posts. Wow. That is a lot of something about nothing.
I knew I was about to reach this historic moment and felt like I should do something special to commemorate it, but the thought stressed me out. So instead of writing brilliance, I’ll show y’all a picture of my new spring wreath for the front door.
And no, I didn’t make it, which is a shame because that would make a compelling 300th post if I could tell y’all about how I used my glue gun to glue all those flowers painstakingly on a grapevine wreath.
However, I did tell the lady at the store how I wanted her to make it, so while that doesn’t qualify me for Martha Stewart status, it seems like it should count for something.
Happy Saturday Y’all.
Here are some things that I learned from the game last night:
1. If I want to take pictures at the game, it’s important to charge my camera battery prior to leaving the house. Otherwise, I will be forced to take pictures with my cell phone, only to learn upon arriving home that I have no idea how to upload the aforementioned pictures and can’t find my copy of Cell Phones for Dummies.
2. My sister will not listen to me when I tell her to wear reasonably comfortable shoes because it’ll be a long walk from the parking lot to the dome. She’ll try to justify wearing the shoes because she walked around her house in them for 5 minutes before she left and they didn’t hurt at all.
For the record, walking around the house isn’t quite the same as a 45 minute hike consisting of more flights of stairs than I can bear to think about right now.
3. When she gets blisters on her feet from her non-practical, but very cute, shoes, she will be totally prepared because she carries band-aids in her purse for such an event.
How are we related? It’s a good day if I can find a ballpoint pen in my purse, much less first aid equipment.
If I could get my cell phone to upload pictures I could show y’all a picture of her cute shoes with the band-aids covering the blisters. I had to take several because she was worried that the first couple of photos made her feet look fat, and heaven knows, you don’t want the internet talking about your fat feet.
4. The woman in front of us in the t-shirt line will feel that it is important to know the fabric consistency of every single t-shirt for sale and then proceed to do all of her Christmas shopping for the next ten years while checking things off her list.
Serenity now.
5. When I called the Alamodome ticket office and they told me the tickets I was about to buy were on the upper level, they weren’t lying. There are airplanes all over America tonight that weren’t reaching that kind of altitude. I am not kidding when I say we were sitting in the very top row of the very top level of the Alamodome. I have never climbed so many stairs in my life.
We were so high up that I needed binoculars to watch the game on the big screen.
6. In spite of channeling Boomama and screaming “COME ON NOW, SON!” for the better part of two hours, my team still lost.
7. Memphis Tiger fans are pretty nice people, especially the ones sitting next to some crazy lady who jumped up and down while screaming “COME ON NOW, SON!” throughout the entire game.
8. It’s best to not eat a dinner comprised of processed cheese in the form of Deluxe Nachos and processed meat in the form of a hot dog, when 20 minutes later you’ll be watching a game come down to the last second.
9. Bloggy friends like Shalee will call me after the game to offer their condolences and maybe taunt me just a little bit, but it’s all in love.
10. I couldn’t be more proud of the Texas A&M basketball team. This is a team that went 0-16 in conference just three years ago and ended up in the Sweet 16 this year. They are the stuff dreams are made of and I know this is just the beginning of an incredible era for Aggie basketball.
We’ll see y’all at the Final Four next year.
Wow. I did not mean to get everyone all riled up. I just thought I was posting a little anecdote about my sister and Dat Nguyen.
It’s all okay. Someday we will all meet in heaven and the Aggies and the Longhorns can join hands, sing a few rounds of Friends are Friends Forever and have a group hug as we gather around Mac Brown with Vince Young seated at his right hand.
Oh, I’m joking.
Moving on to another subject.
Caroline still wears a diaper to bed at night. I’m pretty sure this is a normal practice for any three year old that doesn’t sleep on rubber sheets in a plastic bubble. Of course, I’ve also wondered at what point she can stop wearing a diaper at night. I’ve heard experts say it’s when she wakes up consistently dry in the morning, but I’m afraid that since she has inherited my urinary genetics, waiting for a succession of dry mornings would mean her future college roommate will wonder what in the world is up with all the Pampers in their dorm room.
The thought of telling her she can get up and use the bathroom if she needs to during the night is terrifying. I have visions of waking up at 2 a.m. to a living room covered in mini-marshmallows and Trix Cereal, while Dora the Explorer blares loudly from the television.
Giving her that kind of control is, in my opinion, the equivalent of saying, “Honey, Mama doesn’t need her sanity. You just go ahead and wake me up every hour on the hour to let me know that you just went tee-tee and when you get tired of that, just turn on Diego and watch him rescue spectacled bears all night long.”
What I’m trying to say is, I can’t help but feel it’s a bad idea.
Anyway, I’m unsure of this next phase of potty training and in truth, the entire potty training experience has bewildered me. I once believed that potty training was a sprint. You start off, gain some speed and momentum, and cross the finish line minus a few Clorox wipes used to wipe up messes along the way.
In truth, potty training is more like a marathon. It’s neverending, it’s exhausting and instead of cheering spectators helping you get to the finish line, you’re being heckled by a three year old who you swear purposely makes her tee-tee come out in a jet stream so fierce that it manages to douse you as you squat while holding her on the potty in a public restroom. So, in truth, it may be harder than a marathon, because at least in a real marathon, you just get doused with Gatorade.
A year later, I am still trying to figure out how we can make it a whole week without throwing away a few pairs of underwear, because isn’t life all about setting goals?
The other night, as Caroline was brushing her teeth before bed, I asked if she needed to potty one last time before I put her diaper on. She insisted that no she didn’t and she didn’t even need to try. Because I am a fool, I took her word for it, and put her diaper on.
As we were reading stories, I felt her wet her diaper.
“Caroline, did you just wet your diaper?”
“Sure, I did.”
“Why? Why would you do that when you just told me that you didn’t need to go?”
Blank stare.
I changed her diaper, while mumbling a bunch of stuff about how from now on she is going to have to try to go whether she says she needs to or not, and how diapers don’t grow on trees and wasting them is just contributing to global warming, and the disintegration of the ozone, and my checkbook.
She looked at me in the midst of my tirade and said, “Mama, you’re not being very nice. You’re fired.”
Great. Thank you Donald Trump.
I told P later that Caroline better rethink that decision. Nobody but her Mama is going to do this job for the current payscale and benefits, not to mention the excessive amount of laundry required as we finish what is, hopefully, the last leg of our potty training marathon.
Okay, so Janet from Life with the Wisners, mentioned in the comments yesterday that she couldn’t picture my sister getting excited about a sporting event and yes, for many years that was true. She was the Texas A&M student who would actually miss a home game to go shopping while the mall wasn’t crowded because EVERYONE else was at the game.
I know…I don’t get it. I mean I love to shop, but this is Aggie football we’re talking about.
In case y’all don’t understand the level to which she was lacking in any kind of sports appreciation, I’ll tell you a little story.
A year after I graduated from A&M, P and I drove to College Station for a football game…and to see my sister. Mimi and Bops were also in town for the game, so pre-game we all went to Deluxe to eat lunch because they have the best cheese fries on the planet and what is better before standing and yelling in the hot sun than eating a plate of greasy, potato goodness? As lunch was winding down, we started talking about walking over to Kyle Field, when my sister announced that she wasn’t going to the game because she needed to study.
Excuse me?
Not going to the game?
If we didn’t look so much alike, I would have requested a DNA test to make sure we were related.
Anyway, we went to the game while she and her friend headed back to her apartment to watch it on T.V. and study. During this particular game, one of our defensive players named Dat Nguyen (pronounced WHEN) made several spectacular plays. We cheered and yelled and celebrated as the Aggies won the game.
When we got back to my sister’s apartment, we were all talking about the game and how exciting it was, when my sister said, “Boy, it sounds like it was really windy!”
Blank stares all around.
We asked what she was talking about since none of us had noticed any wind. She said, “Well, everytime I started watching the game, the announcers kept talking all about THAT WIND!”
Really? That wind?
Or do you think maybe they were talking about our star defensive player, DAT NGUYEN?
I am not making this up.
However, everything changed for my dear sister during her junior year in college when she started dating her future husband, who, to his credit, is a huge sports fan. All of a sudden, she began attending football games, soccer games, basketball and baseball games on a regular basis. Love had transformed her and she learned to at least enjoy the social aspects of sporting events.
Shortly after her inauguration into college sports, the Southwest Conference disbanded and the Aggies became part of a new conference y’all may have heard of called The Big Twelve, which is most commonly seen as The Big XII. My sister and her future husband were watching one of the first football games of the season when she looked at him and asked in all seriousness, “What are all those signs that say BIG times ELEVEN?”
Nevermind that she was majoring in math and should have had an appreciation for the use of Roman numerals.
Needless to say, she has come a long way and I couldn’t be more proud. There is nothing that warms my heart more than when she’ll call in the middle of an A&M game and say, “Did you see that play? Can you believe he caught that ball?”, and the crowning moment was when I called her on Sunday to see if she was interested in going to the Sweet 16, and she knew exactly what I was talking about.
So, in one of the great ironies of all time, she and I will be attending the game together, while her husband stays home and babysits their 20 month old daughter, which just goes to show that what she may lack in sports knowledge, she more than makes up for in negotiating skills.
And in other Sweet 16 news, because I really can’t think about anything else, well, other than the fact that Jordin Sparks on American Idol blew me away last night. She is 17 and so poised and talented. After she sang, I turned to P and said, “Do you know what I would have been like if I had been on national T.V. when I was 17? I’d have stood there waving like an idiot yelling ‘LOOK AT ME Y’ALL, I’M ON NATIONAL T.V.!!!'” which, in truth, may not be that different from my reaction if I find myself on T.V. while at the game on Thursday.
Sorry, I wandered.
Anyway, regarding my attire for the game, I would much rather white out than maroon out. I am going to have a hard time marooning out, due to the fact that all the sporting goods stores here in town are completely covered in burnt orange Longhorn paraphernalia, as if the Longhorns are in the Sweet 16, instead of home crying in their pillows about the whipping put on them by USC. It is a sad day indeed when a great basketball school such as Texas A&M is not properly represented in the athletic apparel market. So, due to the lack of good common sense by local retailers, I will be wearing a nice, white shirt directly from my closet.
And in truth, our tickets are so high up in the Alamodome that I could wear nothing and still not get on camera.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.
Select an online retailer below.