Month: March 2009

Edition 54: Fashion Friday

First of all, I need to apologize to the makers of the Slanket/Snuggie. After two days of temperatures that haven’t gotten above 50, I would sell my Aunt Pearl to own a Snuggie.

(I don’t really have an Aunt Pearl.)

(I could actually go up to HEB and buy a Snuggie if I really wanted one. I’m just being dramatic.)

The point is that if someone tried to judge if I was alive by feeling my feet for any sign of warmth or life, they would bury me alive. Not even my Uggs can help me now.

Okay, so many of y’all asked about the green sundress Caroline was wearing in Tuesday’s post. I found it at TJ Maxx for $10.00. It’s a brand called Hype and it must run small because that dress is a size 8. I always check TJ Maxx for their kids’ clothes because they have some amazing deals and carry a lot of brand name stuff.

Kids have a total racket going with that whole “growing out of things” issue that they have going on. It’s all a pretty clever scheme to ensure a whole new wardrobe every season. Technically, I guess I could eat eighteen pans of brownies and grow out of my clothes too.

On a totally different note, last Friday I drove to Georgetown to talk to a MOPS group about fashion. They asked me to discuss spring trends and how to make the most of your wardrobe. So in lieu of answering questions today, I thought I’d share with you all the fashion advice I imparted in Georgetown, Texas last week.

1. Before you buy anything or go shopping, SHOP YOUR CLOSET.

I realize that sounds totally depressing and, trust me, it totally is. However, you may be surprised to find a few things that you’d forgotten you own. This happened to me in the form of a cute white tuxedo shirt I bought from Gap about six years ago and have now worn twice in the last two weeks.

The most entertaining way to do this is to invite a friend over whose opinion you trust, give the kids a bag of glass to keep them occupied, and try on EVERYTHING in your closet. Pants, jeans, dresses, shoes, and accessories.

EVERYTHING.

2. Make four piles: KEEP, DONATE, THROW IT OUT, ALTERATIONS

Here are some guidelines: If it’s stained, pilled, or faded then throw it out. Don’t look at me like that, THROW IT OUT.

If you haven’t worn it in two years, throw it out or donate it. The only exception is if it has the potential to be a quality vintage piece someday. I don’t care what anyone tells you, those faded pink capri pants from Old Navy will never be considered vintage.

Be honest about what you think needs to be altered. In fact, if you don’t take it to a tailor within two weeks of putting it in the Alterations pile, then you need to get rid of it because that garment is never going to become acquainted with a needle and thread.

3. Group what’s left by category and color.

Be prepared to mourn the lack of quantity in your closet, but console yourself with the fact that you never wore any of that other stuff anyway. It was all just a grown-up version of a security blanket, Linus.

Once you have a moment of silence for the dearly departed, put everything in categories according to whether it’s a shirt, jeans, dress, etc. Look at everything and put together some complete outfits, including shoes and jewelry.

If you’re really anal and organized, you can write potential outfits down on paper, or you can be like me and just remember them using Jedi mind tricks.

4. Now figure out what you need to fill in the missing space.

Do you need a new white t-shirt to wear under something? Some new tanks? Maybe a new statement necklace or a cuff bracelet to make an outfit pop a little bit?

You may not be able to go buy it all at once, but at least you know what you have and what you need. This will keep you from owning eight of the exact same black tanks from Old Navy.

Purely hypothetical scenario.

5. Every closet should have a few essential things, no matter the trends.

(Am I about to do an outline? Shut up. I thought that was a completely impractical skill set, like quadratic equations.)

(Is there really such a thing as quadratic equations?)

A. A great pair of jeans that are comfortable and fit well.

I am a believer in spending a little more for a great pair of jeans because, if you’re like me, you’ll wear them all the time. You can find great deals on designer jeans at TJ Maxx, Ebay, and even Sam’s.

What kind of marvelous world do we live in when you can purchase high-end jeans and bulk toilet paper all in one convenient location?

B. A decent pair of workout pants or yoga pants.

There will be days that you don’t want to dress up and if you have some decent looking athletic wear, you can just give the illusion that you’ve been working out, as opposed to giving up on life.

C. A comfortable, yet stylish pair of shoes.

Sneakers, flip-flops, cute sandals, mary janes, clogs, cowboy boots. Something you can wear every day and still look cute.

Of course, it’s also nice to have some shoes that aren’t as practical but fill up a little place in your heart and make you happy.

D. A well-fitting swimsuit and coverup.

(I also truly adore this one but we need to spend money on things like food) that allow you to chase your child around the pool while maintaining your dignity.

I hate to open this can of cellulite-fearing worms, but it’s true. If you have a child then it’s hard to avoid the swimsuit in the summer time, unless you hire an aquatic nanny.

E. A nice outfit for dinner out with the girls or a date with your husband and/or significant other.

Maybe a cute, short-sleeved linen jacketor fun top paired with jeans. Then there’s always the option of a casual dress, or maybe a little more tailored dress, or even a skirt.

Okay, that is a lot of information for one post. I was going to start in on trends for spring, but I’m going to save it for next week for two reasons. First of all, because I can. It’s like a cliffhanger or, rather, a clothes’ hanger. (I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself even though I know it’s stupid.) And secondly, I need to get a good night’s sleep because y’all have inspired me to finish out our Spring Break with a day o’ crafts and mani/pedis tomorrow. It’s going to require all my energy.

I’m putting up Mr. Linky if you want to add any fashion information to this post. You may also want to check out a great fashion post that Kelly wrote this week. She had some great bargain finds.

Have a great Friday!
This post just put me to sleep while I wrote it

I watched the weather forecast on Tuesday night and listened to our local meteorologist as he predicted that rain and extremely cold temperatures would arrive around noon on Wednesday. So I went to bed with a master plan for Caroline and me to hit HEB before the front arrived. A trip to the grocery store wasn’t really part of our official Spring Break Agenda since I already went late last week, but P informed me that we were out of EVERYTHING.

If you’ve been reading here for any length of time then you know that by “EVERYTHING” what he meant was Nilla Wafers and Zantac 150. He suffers from acid reflux and a love of plain vanilla cookies.

Naturally, the weather man was wrong about the cold front’s noon arrival because it’s what weather men do. I don’t think they mean to lie; I think it’s just God’s way of letting them know they need to quit telling him his business. God’s in charge of the weather even if he doesn’t wear a cheap suit and point to a fancy computer satellite map.

By the time Caroline and I woke up, it was already windy, cold, and rainy. However, we went ahead and ventured out to HEB because what part of Zantac 150 and Nilla Wafer deprivation do you not understand? And, in all fairness, we were also out of Diet Coke and Sour Patch Kids. There was no way I was going to survive an entire day without either of those items. We’re not cavemen.

So we went to the store and then we came home.

Spring Break just keeps getting better and better.

I thought I’d share the rest of our day in pictures.

I cleaned out the refrigerator.

I cleaned this light fixture that hadn’t been cleaned since we installed it almost six years ago.

I cleaned the stove top until I could see my reflection.

In the meantime, Caroline tried on every outfit in her closet, including her Wonder Woman Costume.

She also spent a lot of time walking around with her new travel pillow around her neck.

And then at some point, she took the camera from me and took some pictures of her own.

This is Bruiser.

This is his ear.

And this is the picture I started to color.

I realized I was hanging on by a thin thread when she wanted to turn the page to do a connect-the-dots and I began complaining about how she never lets me finish my pictures.

And that pretty much sums up our day.

On the scale of Spring Break fun, it’s going to be pretty hard to top.

Any suggestions for something to do on a cold, rainy day besides play Sorry, otherwise known as the board game that is now dead to me?
The fishing trip

On Monday afternoon, P mentioned that he would take Caroline to the ranch to go fishing on Tuesday, which worked out nicely because I don’t think another trip to the mall would have gone over all that well. However, if she’s really good, we may hit Target later today. I like to save things like that for special occasions.

Apparently, I’m not the only one suffering from some sort of Daylight Savings Time jet lag because Caroline slept in until 9:15 yesterday. In fact, she was sleeping so hard that she didn’t even wake up when Shorty began raking leaves right by the bedroom window. P rushed outside to ask Shorty to quit raking leaves since Caroline and I were still asleep and for some reason Shorty took that request to mean that he should instead get out the leaf blower and BLOW the leaves out of the yard right by the window.

Because that’s so much quieter.

Anyway, in spite of the roaring sound of the leaf blower, she slept until 9:15. That has happened approximately NONE other times in her entire life.

By the time she woke up, P said they needed to get going if they were going to make it to the ranch, otherwise he’d have to go without her. I guarantee you have never seen someone get a pair of Wranglers and some camo on a child that fast. She was ready to go in about 5.2 seconds with a cup full of dry cereal and a juice box in her hands.

I spent the rest of my morning running a few errands. Then I came home and decided that our bathroom cabinets desperately needed to be cleaned out. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I threw out an entire garbage bag full of various toiletry items, including some Immodium AD that expired in June 2004. On the bright side, it’s nice to know that we haven’t needed any Immodium AD since the early 2000’s.

Apparently my makeup bag is the place where lipgloss goes to die. There were at least sixteen different variations of lipgloss, which is astounding since I wear the exact same color every day. I started trying on various shades to see if any of them were keepers and unfortunately came across some kind of All-Day Lip Color that cemented itself to my lips, which wouldn’t have been so bad except that it was some sort of day-glo coral tone.

Why do I even have that? Did my Great Aunt Fina come to visit and leave it in my bathroom?

So while I threw out six pounds of lipgloss and Maalox (I guess I have some sort of irrational fear about possible stomach ailments that never come to pass. Pun not intended.) my peeps had themselves a big time catching fish and riding around in the Polaris.

I sent the camera with P for the day, hoping he’d get some pictures of the catch of the day. It’s very important to me that we document our Spring Break with photographic evidence of all the fun. He took one darling picture using his cell phone and sent it to me.

I’d love to show it to y’all, but the problem is that I don’t know how to get pictures off my iPhone and onto the computer. Part of the problem may be that I don’t actually have an iPhone, but just a four-year-old hot pink Motorola Razr phone which seemed so cool and edgy four years ago and now is just a constant reminder that technology has passed me by and left me lying in the gutter of total uncoolness.

It’s probably kind of how Bill Gates feels.

However, I did get some video of Caroline talking about her day after they got back home. She was channeling her inner Steven Spielberg, so it took a couple of tries to get the whole story, but here it is in all it’s amateur quality.

Spring Break Fishing Trip from Big Mama on Vimeo.

Here’s hoping that she’ll always say “be-cept”.

Also, the temperatures are supposed to drop into the forties complete with some sort of monsoon later today. It’s going to put a real damper on Spring Break ’09.

Pray for me.
Survival of the fittest and most unenthusiastic

Okay, I’ll admit it. We watched “24” at our house last night.

I know I said we were done with it, but how could we just walk away without knowing if the President would survive the attack by a militia who were not only skilled enough to attack the White House by killing one handyman with a screwdriver, but also managed to bring in a laptop and a complete arsenal while scuba-diving in the Potomac?

What can I say? I guess I like television programming that causes me to suspend my imagination beyond all human reason, which explains why I kept watching “Diff’rent Strokes” even after Dixie Carter married Mr. Drummond and that little red-headed boy with the bowl cut moved into the penthouse.

And also why I kept watching “E.R.” after Dr. Romano not only got his arm cut off by a helicopter, but was then later crushed to death by a helicopter that fell out of the sky. What are the odds?

Anyway, enough about television.

(Like I could ever get enough of the T.V.)

Yesterday we spent our first official day of Spring Break at the outdoor mall here in town. Here is Caroline in front of Neiman Marcus.

I feel like I need to document the week in pictures so that someday when all of Caroline’s friends are reminiscing about their fabulous Spring Breaks spent at Disney World or an exotic beach somewhere, she can pull these out and say, “My mom took me to the mall”.

And all her friends will be totally jealous because who cares about having breakfast with Cinderella compared to riding the escalator at Nordstrom and climbing under clothing carousels while your Mom looks for sale items at GapKids?

In all fairness, she was the one that wanted to go to the mall. I was glad she suggested it because our other option would have been a trip to the zoo and I’m just not a big fan of the zoo. Actually, that’s not true. I think the zoo would be great if not for all the animals.

So we spent Monday in various children’s clothing stores where she completely blew my mind by turning down pink shirts covered in sparkly butterflies and instead grabbed a darling brown dress with nary a unicorn or bedazzle on it and declared it, “A KEEPER!”

I’ve never been so proud of her taste, but I kept it to myself because any indication of enthusiasm from me might have been a death sentence for the cute dress.

The good news is that both the dress and the President on “24” both lived to see another day. There is nothing Jack Bauer or a little lack of excitement can accomplish.

Except for maybe scuba-diving into the White House while carrying a laptop.
I’d like to dedicate this post to Daylight Savings Time

Our Spring Break officially started at 2:00 p.m. Friday afternoon and we started it off much like I used to start the Spring Breaks of my past, except instead of heading to the beach with a pack of Zima and suntan oil (Note to 20-year-old self, you will regret both of those decisions later in life), we went to Pizza Hut to meet with Caroline’s t-ball team.

This is our first foray into the team sports arena or field or whatever, so we are excited. Everyone knows most colleges offer lucrative athletic scholarships for t-ball players and we feel pretty sure we have a prodigy on our hands. Never mind the fact that she’s most excited about her pink baseball glove and hopes the uniforms aren’t brown, I have no doubt she will be totally into the mechanics of the game once the season starts.

When we arrived at Pizza Hut, we met her coach and the other players and parents. Most of the kids already knew each other because they all go to the same school. Caroline was beyond excited that her “boyfriend” from her class is also on her t-ball team. I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by “boyfriend”, but judging from their interaction at Pizza Hut, I believe it means that you take turns hitting each other on the head and laughing a lot with pizza hanging out of your mouth. It made me so nostalgic for the days when P and I first started dating and did that exact same thing.

The coach informed us that our first practice would be the next day at 10:00 a.m. As parents we were all supportive and said, “Dude. It’s the first Saturday of Spring Break and it’s just t-ball. We’re not looking for anything other than a reason to hang out at the little league fields and eat snow cones on Saturday afternoons.” So he postponed practice until the following week and then probably went home to make some calls to see if he could coach a team of kids with parents who have goals and ambition.

One of Caroline’s best girl friends is also on the team and after the meeting she came home with us to spend the night. This was the first official sleepover for both girls and my friend Julie and I kept calling each other with updates until the girls fell asleep after hours of giggling and coloring Disney Princess pictures and we realized it was actually going to happen.

They wanted to sleep on air mattresses on the floor of my bedroom, which I bet won’t be the case when they’re thirteen.

Of course, with all the Caller ID technology these days, it takes the fun out of the primary sleepover activity of calling boys and hanging up on them. Plus, you can’t call the local radio station and dedicate REO Speedwagon songs because who listens to the radio anymore? And for that matter, who listens to REO Speedwagon besides people over thirty-five?

On Saturday I was exhausted from all the sleepover fun, but I had to make a trip to HEB because we were having some friends over for dinner and I figured they probably didn’t want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Caroline went with me and I bought her a new coloring book in exchange for the promise that she’d let me take a nap. And she was true to her promise other than the forty-seven times she woke me up to ask if I thought Cinderella’s dress should be purple or blue.

Our friends came over on Saturday night and we had a great time. It had been forever since we’d all been together so we thoroughly enjoyed catching up on each other’s lives. In fact, we threw caution to the wind and hung out until 9:30 p.m. even though we knew it was really 10:30 with the looming time change, but we felt like it was worth it because otherwise we wouldn’t have had time to discuss our denture cream and arthritis.

Then came Sunday morning and Daylight Savings time officially killed my weekend buzz. I don’t know why the government insists on taking the extra hour away from us every spring, but I am certain it’s because no one in Congress remembers what it’s like when you’re trying to recover from listening to two five-year-old girls laugh into all hours of the night and then demand blueberry pancakes at 6:45 a.m.

It’s enough to make me reach for a Zima.
My cowgirl