Year: 2008

And then I drank a quart of Benadryl

Oh, what a weekend we had over here.

Mimi and Bops picked up Caroline on Friday afternoon and I headed straight to the mall because my birthday money was burning a hole in my pocket. Oh sure, I could save it, but why would I do that?

I was halfway to the mall when I remembered that it was tax-free weekend in Texas which translates to MASS CHAOS.

But because I am a fool for shopping, I decided to brave the crowds and take advantage of tax-free savings. I’m not going to lie, I barely made it out alive.

I limped out of the mall in need of fresh air and a weapon of mass destruction. The good news is that my foray into the bowels of hell paid off because I found a really cute pea coat, which is hard to get excited about in the dead of August but will be delightful in January.

Earlier that afternoon, I noticed I had a small rash on my chest. It was slightly itchy and red, but I decided it was a heat rash from all of our beach fun. No big deal.

P and I picked up barbecue for dinner that evening because everyone knows that pork ribs are the traditional celebratory meal for an eleventh wedding anniversary. As we sat at the coffee table, eating our dinner and watching the Olympics, (who says romance is dead?) I began to feel a little itchy behind my knees. And on my arms. And on my back.

I went to look at myself in the mirror and I screamed in horror. Actually, I’m not sure I screamed, but I did mumble a quiet, “What the heck?”

It was not pretty, my friends. Not pretty at all.

So I popped a Zyrtec or six and went to bed in the hopes of sleeping off my rash.

I woke up Saturday morning at 11:00 with a major antihistamine hangover. I kept splashing my face with water and trying to rub my eyes, but everything remained foggy. It was just like I was back in college after a night of too much Zima.

The irony is that I sold Zyrtec for years and always assured physicians that it shouldn’t make their patients sleepy and that it was much more tolerable than Benadryl. And, technically, that is true for 87% of the population.

However, I fall into the other 13%. It knocks girlfriend STRAIGHT OUT.

In fact, when P and I used to take 75 high school kids skiing every Spring Break and had to ride a bus for 17 hours, I would always take a Zyrtec so that I could sleep the entire way.

And then I’d take several more throughout the trip to drown out all the teen angst.

If you are the parent of someone who went on one of these trips, I’m sure someone else was watching your kid. I’m also 87% sure that none of them ever snuck out at night while I was in a comatose state.

Anyway, about my rash.

It continued to spread. I spent most of Saturday coating myself with hydrocortisone and popping any antihistamine I could find in the medicine cabinet.

I’m here to tell you that there is not a more romantic way to spend your eleventh wedding anniversary than all drugged up and slathered in hydrocortisone. That is HOT with a capital H.

I’d use my most alluring voice to say, “Hey baby, why don’t you come over here and put some of that Benadryl lotion on the backs of my knees?”

And for some reason, probably fear of contamination, he turned me down.

I believe the vows say IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH.

I finally decided that I contracted some sort of beach rash from all that moat-digging. P thought maybe I was allergic to something I used to clean the house earlier that day.

Later, I was talking to Sophie on the phone, telling her about my rash and our theories as to its origin and she said, “Well, it couldn’t be Mrs. Meyers cleaning spray because it’s all-natural and organic.”

I told P what Sophie said and he replied, “Well, so is the Gulf of Mexico so that doesn’t mean much.”

He makes an excellent point.

If there is any place in the world where a person is likely to contract a rash, it would stand to reason it might be a place where it’s a common practice to carry your Marlboro Lights in your cleavage.
Still

Eleven years ago today, at a little after noon on the hottest Saturday of the summer, this is where I was.

I’m the one in white at the front of the church.

A lot of things have changed in the last eleven years, but the thing that remains the same is that there is no one else I would rather spend my life with than him.

It’s been fun. It’s been hard. Most of all, it’s been an adventure.

We’ve laughed a lot and cried a little. We’ve learned what it really means to love someone for better or for worse.

It’s been more than I could have hoped for or imagined and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

I love you, P.

You’re still the one.
Whatever happened to Fashion Friday?

Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes, emails and sweet comments! I have to say, other than the fact that it’s just three years away from forty, thirty-seven is awesome.

We’ve been at the beach in Port Aransas since Tuesday morning, so this is how I spent my birthday.

I’ll have y’all know that I became so obsessed with building that moat that I continued to dig long after Caroline lost interest and headed back into the surf.

In fact, look what I did to my finger in my quest to make the BEST MOAT EVER.

The picture does not do my injury justice. It is a massive blister.

I blame the quality of the plastic shovel that I bought at Dollar Tree.

And the fact that my OCD was alive and well on my 37th birthday.

We got home late yesterday and decided to finish the birthday celebration by picking up Mexican food from one of my favorite restaurants.

Oh, and then I spent the rest of the night watching The Olympics and getting P to take pictures of the blister on my finger from various angles so that I can show it to Caroline some day as proof of her mama’s dedication to sand-crafting excellence.

Which just goes to show, while I may be a year older, some things never change.

And on another note, I promise I will get back to Fashion Friday at some point, but it clearly didn’t happen today and I guarantee it won’t happen next week. Let’s just call it a summer hiatus.

Y’all have a great Friday.
This is why she’s my best friend

For the last year, Gulley has told me that she wanted to do a guest post on my birthday. You have to understand that this is a big deal because she always swears she would never have her own blog because all she would ever write is “Today I did laundry. I drove carpool. I cooked chicken for dinner and served rice as a side dish. Then, I went to bed.”

Personally, I don’t think she gives herself enough credit.

Anyway, the following is by Gulley. You will notice that there are 37 things listed because today may or may not be my 37th birthday.

37 Reasons to love Big Mama
by Gulley

1. We laugh hysterically every day.

2. If we skip a day, we make up for it by laughing doubly the next day.

3. She randomly hates things. For example, “I hate pizza.” “I hate chinese food.”

4. She will hate things on your behalf. For example, “I hate [insert store name here] for being rude to you.”

5. She has given me the benefit of Fashion Friday for 19 years now.

6. She will find clothes for you, even if they would not suit her.

7. We have an unspoken hierarchy of the type of therapy needed for certain problems: cookie dough by the spoonful, queso, or a margarita.

8. The girl can cook.

9. When she has made something you like, she will call and say, “Come over. I made ______.”

10. We have shown up to drop the kids off at school wearing the same thing more than once.

11. She’s not easily offended and all the sensitive people want to be her friend.

12. Many times one of us has picked up the phone to call the other while the other was dialing.

13. She makes everything more fun.

14. She rarely ever complains about anything.

15. She is very tender and will cry with you when you cry.

16. She gives sound advice.

17. She loves God and his word.

18. On Thanksgiving we say the same thing every year: “Of all the things I have to be thankful for, you are in my top 5!”

19. She will go Christmas shopping with you all over town even when she is done with her shopping.

20. On any given day our conversation pendulum will swing from questions like, “Is my faith thrilling and delightful?” to, “What color velour is best? What are the top fashion finds right now?”

21. She DID buy our entire Bible study group blue suede fringe bracelets to wear during Believing God. She did NOT spend more time deliberating on the fringe than on the actual Bible study.

22. She always knows what to say, or what not to say. Even if it means telling me my husband is right.

23. She will run something over for you to wear in a moment’s notice.

24. She will pour over photos and magazines with you to find the perfect hairstyle.

25. She will listen and listen and listen and listen……

26. She is witty.

27. She loves my boys and bonds with them by playing games on the Wii, Uno, and going to t-ball games.

28. We share a passion for Aggie sports, especially football.

29. We both complete NCAA basketball brackets.

30. This person you see on the blog, she is all that and more, oh yes ma’am she is!

31. We can talk baseball better than two guys ever could.

32. I believe we will all have hair like hers when we get to heaven. She has no self-righteousness about this.

33. We include each other in our big moments.

34. When I start trash talking at sporting events, she is polite at first but she eventually joins in!

35. The first time we saw each other after we were both married we stayed up talking about marriage until 5 am. Then we wished aloud that stores opened at 5 am so we could go shopping.

36. When we went to New York together, I literally spent my last dollar on a must have track suit. She paid for my cab fare to the airport and my headphones on the flight home.

37. Because big news isn’t big until I have shared it with her.

Happy Birthday Big Mama! I love you more than my luggage!
I will not stop til I get enough

So I’ve pretty much spent every waking moment since Friday immersed in Olympic mania. I adore the Olympics.

It’s something about the purity of the competition, athletes that train constantly for an event that only happens every four years. The pride, the patriotism.

It makes me believe that if only I had stuck with my competitive swimming on the Westador Ducks swim team throughout elementary school that I could have been a contender.

Unfortunately I got tired of riding my bicycle the six blocks it took to get to the pool and, thus, ended my Olympic hopes.

However, I believe I have mentioned once or twenty times before that I was a UIL typist in 9th grade which was kind of like being an Olympic athlete except for the fact that I wasn’t a world class athlete, but rather a fourteen year old who typed more words per minute than twenty other freshmen in high school.

It was quite the accomplishment.

I was also a Mathlete.

Not really, but I like the term Mathlete. The real story is that it took me two attempts to pass Algebra II and even then I think I only earned a passing grade through the time-honored tradition of bribing your teacher with fresh donuts each morning.

Anyway, as I watch the Olympics, I’ve had a few burning questions and/or concerns.

1. Synchronized men’s diving. Thoughts? I mean I get the diving part, but who thought up the synchronized thing? It seems a little contrived.

Hey! You know what could make this dive even better? If we did it at the SAME TIME.

It has incredible potential as the premise for a Will Ferrell movie.

If your brother, nephew, or third cousin twice removed is a synchronized men’s diver, I don’t mean to offend. I’m just curious.

2. Female Chinese gymnasts. If some of those girls are sixteen years old, I’ll eat my hat.

3. Michael Phelps. I thought maybe I had a small crush on him, but realized I am getting old because my feelings are more along the lines of “Oh, he seems like such a nice boy and he loves his mama.”

But the burning question in my mind is what is he listening to on his iPod before races? Rumor has it that it’s Eminem or Young Jeezy.

See how I just threw Young Jeezy out there like I totally know who that is?

No idea.

If it were me (and I were back in the thick of the UIL typing competition) I know what I’d be listening to, a little “Bootylicious” by Beyonce and “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” by Michael Jackson.

It’s no wonder I was an award-winning typist.

So what would be on your iPod?

Please discuss all these (and any other) Olympic topics in the comments.
Adventures in grocery shopping

There is something that’s been going on in my personal life that I have been very reluctant to discuss. It’s been more than I can bear and has altered life as I once knew it.

It’s about my HEB.

For those of y’all who don’t know, HEB is a grocery store chain based in South Texas. The founder’s name was Howard E. Butt, thus, HEB. You have to admit HEB rolls off the tongue much better than, say, The Butt Store.

Unless you only sell hemorrhoid cream.

I spend over half my life at HEB. It is like my home away from home.

It all started about two months ago when I realized that my favorite manager, Dwayne, had been transferred to another store. I kind of knew it would happen eventually because Dwayne was the Michael Phelps of grocery store managers. (See how I just worked in an Olympic reference?)

Losing Dwayne was like losing a member of my family. He had been there for me since Caroline was a newborn baby, doling out Buddy Bucks and handing out balloons. Every time we went to the store, Caroline would look for Dwayne and run to give him a hug.

But Dwayne had to move on to greener HEB pastures.

The next thing I knew, HEB decided to quit carrying Tyson skinless boneless chicken breasts, which has required me to completely cut poultry out of my family’s diet because just the thought of raw chicken, or even cooked chicken with skin, makes me want to systematically rid the world of all chickens.

So, I’ve had my struggles with HEB as of late but, due to their South Texas monopoly, my only other option is to shop at Walmart and, frankly, I’d rather hoe my own garden.

Two weeks ago, I walked into HEB and noticed they had taken up all the linoleum. I figured we were getting some stained concrete floors and I was cool with that. I can handle change in reasonable increments, especially if it’s fashionable change.

However, over the last two weeks I have been to HEB about twenty-six times and each time the store is in a bigger mess than it was the last time I was there.

There is motor oil where the bread used to be, toilet paper where the Diet Coke was, and cereal in the middle of the produce department. I haven’t been this confused since I accidentally took twice the recommended dosage of some prescription cough medicine last winter.

I wander aimlessly around the store hoping I’ll find at least a few things I actually need. At times I stop and ponder why the wine is on the same aisle as the diapers and baby food, but then I remember Caroline’s first year of life and realize it’s just a clever marketing ploy.

The worst part is that every time I go back, the whole store has been completely rearranged again. So just when I figure out that the ice cream is across from the tampons (there’s that clever marketing!), they go and change it all around.

I kind of think they’re messing with me.

Yesterday, Caroline and I went to the store to load up on groceries. I was hot and tired because we’d already run about fifty-eight errands that morning and I just wanted the store trip to be over. Naturally, Caroline sensed this and decided she wanted to ride on one of the bench carts that create more navigational challenges than the Queen Mary in a swimming pool.

I knew it was going to be a special trip when I managed to knock over an entire display of Pecan Sandies before we’d even been there for five minutes. In my defense, it wasn’t really my fault since they weren’t on the cookie aisle but rather next to the charcoal and lighter fluid.

We went through the whole store like we were on a bad scavenger hunt while Caroline provided running commentary for everything. “WOW MAMA! YOU REALLY KNOCKED OVER A LOT OF COOKIES!!”

Finally, I had almost everything I needed, but couldn’t find the bottled water. I was desperate to find bottled water. Please, OZARKA, help me out.

I couldn’t find any HEB staff to assist me in my quest. They were all too busy unpacking boxes and arbitrarily moving around the stock. I was tempted to head back to the diaper aisle and load up a case of wine for immediate consumption.

About the time my blood pressure was about to shoot off the charts, I located the bottled water. On the dog food aisle.

Naturally.

We headed to the shortest checkout line I could find and just when I thought I was safe, Caroline yelled, “LOOK MAMA! THAT LADY IS SHOWING HER BOOBIES!”

I was too embarrassed to look around to see what she was talking about, but honestly I can’t blame that woman. She was probably hoping to attract the attention of an HEB employee to help her find the bottled water.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.