Year: 2009

  • It all started with the singing telegram

    Yesterday morning after I dropped Caroline off at VBS (It is Crocodile Dock for those of y’all who knew what she was talking about when she referred to Skeeter and skunk spray. Well done. I am impressed with your VBS knowledge.) I drove straight to Target. Ever since the Target moved an extra seven minutes and three stoplights away, I feel as though I must plan my trips to ensure maximum productivity, especially now that the big oil and gas companies have started their annual tradition of summer thievery at the gas pumps.

    I went to Target with four goals in mind:

    1. Purchase birthday gifts for the 342 birthday parties that Caroline is invited to during the next two weeks.
    2. Find a set of travel-sized hot rollers because I am tired of sacrificing maximum hair volume for room in my suitcase. (Yes, I still use hot rollers. It’s how I roll.) (I apologize for the pun. I couldn’t resist.)
    3. Attempt to find some self-tanner for my face because I keep it totally covered in sunscreen and it no longer matches my body.
    4. To spend less than $100.00 and not get suckered in to buying any Mossimo goods or Balinese-inspired tschotkes.

    I am proud to say that I achieved all of those goals, although there was a close call with a swimsuit coverup and the verdict is still out on the self-tanner because for all I know it might make me look like I’m going through puberty by tomorrow.

    Unfortunately, my pride in my Target success was short lived. Gulley called while I was at Starbucks buying myself a congratulatory Venti Green Iced Tea (I’ll take that with two Splendas and lacking in the deliciousness that is Diet Coke, please) and mentioned that she was in Target looking at Father’s Day cards.

    Dang.

    Father’s Day cards. I knew I was forgetting something.

    I certainly wasn’t going to drive all the way back to Target because I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but the Target moved and it’s now approximately too far away for repeat trips. I told Gulley that I was just going to go to Hallmark and look for cards there. She told me that she’d thought about Hallmark but didn’t go there because she believes they have some big conspiracy going on involving a lack of traditional cards and a surplus of cards that talk or sing or tap dance out of the room when you open them and they charge $6.00 a card.

    Because you can’t put a price on being totally annoyed by a greeting card with singing hamsters.

    I kind of thought she was exaggerating even though I should have known better because Gulley and I never exaggerate or over-dramatize anything unless it’s our disappointment at Ed leaving “The Bachelorette” to go back to his job as a consultant in Chicago. But who can blame us because his departure RUINED the whole show and there is no way Jillian is going to find lasting love with any of the guys who are left. Breakdance instructors are fun to date but you don’t want to marry one because there’s a good chance he might do the caterpillar at your wedding reception and there are some wounds that are too deep to overcome.

    Anyway, I went into Hallmark and it was just as she predicted. There were a handful of traditional cards to choose from and then rows and rows of singing cards. Where are we as a society that we can’t just hand our fathers a simple piece of folded paper that says “Happy Father’s Day”? Will it add to my dad’s enjoyment to have a card that features Kool and the Gang singing “Celebrate”?

    Well, maybe. I mean it is Kool and the Gang.

    But I know for a fact that if I bought P a card with singing hamsters there’s a good chance we’d start our Father’s Day with mild profanity and homemade pancakes.

    I left the store empty-handed, then went home because it was past 10:45 a.m. which means it was time to get inside in the air-conditioning before the heat caused me to spontaneously combust.

    When I walked inside I was feeling a little irritable from the heat and the singing cards, but then I got the mail and my whole day changed. One little postcard made me feel as if I’d just won some sort of lottery. I wish I’d remembered to take a picture of the card but unfortunately I didn’t think about it until it was three layers deep in the kitchen trash.

    Do you know what it was?

    A card from the people at Nielsen informing me that my household has been selected to participate in the Nielsen ratings. They’ll be calling me this week to let me know more about it. I feel as if I’ve just been given the keys to a magical kingdom. In fact, I’m seriously thinking about purchasing some graph paper and colored pencils to properly chart my T.V. viewing.

    I’ve always looked at the Nielsen ratings and wondered “Who are these people and why do they not like all the same shows I like? What’s wrong with them?” But now, NOW, the viewing tables have been turned and I have a voice in what I want to see on T.V. Frankly, I am a little drunk with the power.

    Just know that if all of a sudden you see a drastic upswing in the ratings for “Tori and Dean”, “The Bachelorette”, and virtually any programming on BravoTV, you have me to thank for it.

    Well, and the folks at Nielsen for their brilliant choice in selecting my household completely at random.

    I’m just so glad they didn’t send me a singing postcard to let me know.

    Also, I just realized we’ll probably have to record P’s television habits as well. Good news for Uncle Ted and Ultimate Fighting!

    Nielsen has no idea what they’ve just unleashed.

  • Little person, big personality

    I spend a lot of time worrying that Caroline is too introverted and tends to keep her personality all tucked inside.

    VBS from Big Mama on Vimeo.

    I’d love to translate and share what any of that has to do with Vacation Bible School, but all I really understand is the “caw, caw” at the end because bird noises are a universal language.

  • All up in the grill

    Yesterday was one of those days that didn’t start off that great and didn’t end up much better. Caroline has VBS all this week and I actually had to wake her up at 8:05 a.m. so we could make it in time. You don’t know how it grieved me to wake a sleeping child, especially my child who tends to pop out of bed by 7:00 a.m. almost every morning of her life.

    By the time I picked her up at noon, she was exhausted and the backseat of my car basically turned into a scene out of a Greek tragedy. Except I don’t know any Greek tragedies with a plot involving a mean mother who won’t let her child eat only french fries for lunch and develop scurvy. I guess Sophocles couldn’t imagine that anyone would have to endure that level of cruelty.

    We walked in the back door and I told her to go rest on the couch while I fixed lunch. After a ham sandwich, some Scooby-Doo, and a little rest, she seemed to be ready to face the world again so we went to the pool for the afternoon.

    Let’s just say that before it was all said and done I had to say, “No, we are not staying five more minutes and we are not eating dinner here. If you ask me one more time then we’re not coming back to the pool for another week.” And then drama and chaos ensued.

    Note to self: Do not threaten actions that create entirely unrealistic scenarios. It’s 168 degrees outside. If we don’t go to the pool for a week, we will all certainly perish from a bad combination of heat and the stir-crazy.

    It’s not that I don’t enjoy eating dinner at the pool on occasion. In fact, I find their chicken fingers to be delightful on the days they aren’t totally burned to a crisp. Not to mention, the cheeseburgers are divine but there are only so many days you can sit around in your bathing suit and eat a cheeseburger. It breaks about six laws of nature.

    At the beginning of the summer, Gulley and I noticed that the pool had added popcorn shrimp to the menu. We both agreed it sounded good in theory, but worried a little bit about the care and maintenance of said shrimp. It seemed like a recipe for potential food poisoning, and heaven knows that no one is going to feel sorry for you if you get food poisoning from eating shrimp at a pool grill prepared and handled by sixteen-year-old chefs who don’t even have the sense to empty the trashcans before they become a haven for every bee in a twenty mile radius.

    But then one day my friend Julie made a bold move and ordered the shrimp. P decided it looked good so he ordered some too and he and Caroline ate their shrimp while I whispered silent prayers in hopes of exorcising any salmonella demons lurking within. There were no repercussions from the shrimp and it has since become Caroline’s favorite meal at the pool.

    Then I noticed the other day they’ve added salmon to their menu. It’s not like I’m a food snob. I’ve eaten my fair share of meals at Long John Silver’s and I come from a mother who has been known to eat nachos from the snackbar at Target. I just think serving salmon is asking for trouble. It’s like the pool grill is trying to be a little too big for its non-gourmet britches.

    I mean this is the same dining establishment where I ordered a grilled chicken pasta salad served with a piece of ciabatta bread and got pasta mixed with Italian dressing served with half a buttered hamburger bun. Those sixteen-year-olds think they are so clever, but I know ciabatta bread when I see it and it doesn’t look like the top of a sesame seed hamburger bun.

    I think they should stick to the classics; cheeseburgers, chicken fingers, hot dogs, chalupas. Leave the grilled salmon to restaurants that actually have to abide by some sort of health code. Serving fish products is a disaster waiting to happen.

    Of course so is taking an exhausted five-year-old to the pool after a long day, so what do I know?

  • The good news is that salsa and I have never been closer

    Before I ramble on and on about the weekend, I’d just like to say how proud I am that I have written things here that cause people to find my site when they google “My dog has a big, stinky glob on his teeth”. If that isn’t a sure sign that I’m cranking out some fine literary material, then I don’t know what is. I feel certain that Hemingway is rolling in his grave from the envy.

    It is with deep regret and sadness that I inform you that I have now been without a Diet Coke for five days. And it’s with even more sadness that I tell you that it’s made all the difference in the world. The constant burning I had in my throat for over a month has been totally gone since Saturday. I believe that the Diet Coke and I have been in a dysfunctional relationship for the last four years. I have loved it with all my heart and soul while it has been trying to take down my esophagus. It’s the classic tale of heartbreak.

    Girl meets beverage. Girl loves beverage. Beverage breaks girls heart and stomps it into a million pieces.

    Fortunately as I strolled the aisles at HEB on Friday in a desperate quest for a rebound beverage, something caught my eye, Lipton Green Tea Mixed Berry flavor. It whispered in my ear and vowed it would never leave me broken-hearted like the Diet Coke, so I took it home with me and we’ll see what happens. As of this writing, I find it to be delightful and refreshing.

    I even mentioned to a friend that I felt kind of healthy drinking Green Tea because it has so many health benefits. Her comment was that it was healthy when brewed the way the Chinese do it, but now that Lipton has gotten a hold of it there are no guarantees. Whatever. It totally says something about antioxidants on the label so I’m going with it.

    Anyway, I’m just thankful that I found a new source of caffeine on Friday because I had no idea how much I was going to need it before the day was over. Our church hosts the occasional family movie night during the summer and this past Friday night was the first one. P took Caroline and her friend S out to eat dinner and then to movie night. Since they weren’t going to be home until about 9:00, I called S’s mom to see if she could spend the night which was the cause of many squeals of delight from the girls.

    They got home around 9:15 all jacked up on movie candy and the sheer exhilaration that only comes from watching an overweight panda do some sweet Kung-Fu moves. The next thing I knew my living room had been transformed into some sort of beauty salon/horse stable for their American Girl dolls.

    In truth, Caroline doesn’t actually have a real American Girl doll but rather the Our Generation knock-off doll from Target because when she asked for an American Girl doll last year for her birthday I didn’t believe that she’d actually ever play with any kind of doll and certainly wasn’t going to bet $100 on it. It’s a decision that I have been proud of because that doll had laid half-clothed and isolated in some semblance of purgatory for dolls for the better part of eleven months before Friday night. Not to mention, Caroline doesn’t know the difference.

    Although the day is rapidly approaching when she’ll be able to read the “OUR GENERATION” tag that sticks out of Jenny’s torso.

    Really she has only herself to blame because Santa got totally burned by the pink Pottery Barn Kitchen that he spent way too much money on about three years ago only to have her play with it approximately two times, one of which was the other day when I threatened to sell it. Poor Santa, he was just so naive and enthusiastic about shopping for a little girl who, as it turns out, would rather have her very own hot pink rifle.

    The girls were having so much fun that I didn’t have the heart to make them go to bed. I loved sitting on the couch and listening to all their little conversations that began with “Let’s pretend that…”

    “Let’s pretend that Jenny is going to help Ruthie brush her horse.”

    “Let’s pretend that the horse is going to the beauty shop for horses.”

    “Let’s pretend that Ruthie wants to get her hair cut really short.”

    “Let’s pretend that Diet Coke isn’t some sort of toxic substance.”

    Actually, I think that last one was mine.

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  • GoodNite! It’s a contest.

    There is a very fun contest going sponsored by the nice people at GoodNites. Click on over to my giveaway page to read all about it!

  • I have nothing to say, yet here I am

    I wish I had something terribly brilliant and creative to write about, perhaps something that doesn’t pertain to any health issues or other equally boring topics. Unfortunately, we spent the entire day at the pool yesterday and I believe that the 100 degree heat combined with my cold turkey approach to my Diet Coke addiction has completely melted any original thought I had in my brain.

    Just imagine what will happen later today when it’s supposed to hit 103 degrees.

    103 degrees in June with no ice cold Diet Coke.

    That’s just eight kinds of wrong.

    So due to the fact that I can’t put together any kind of paragraph about anything, I’m resorting to a list of things that may or may not (leaning heavily toward “may not”) be interesting to anyone.

    1. I have recently discovered the show “Mad Men” and finished watching Season 1 last night. My plan was to make it my summer show, but unfortunately Season 2 doesn’t come out on DVD until July. How am I supposed to wait three weeks to see what happens next?

    Anyone have any good recommendations for a summer T.V. show? Because if it’s going to be 103 degrees all summer long, I’m going to need something to do that merely requires lying on the couch in the air-conditioning.

    2. Over the years I have tried many a candle in search of the perfect scent. My taste tends to vary depending on the season, but I recently rediscovered Trapp Candles in Guava/Mango. It’s like a little piece of summer in a cute glass jar.

    3. When Caroline got out of Sunday School last Sunday, I noticed they’d learned about Jesus feeding the five thousand. That night at dinner I asked her what they learned about because I wanted to hear her version. She told us some little boy brought some bread and fish to see Jesus, then two angry men tried to take it from him, and ultimately Jesus told them it wasn’t enough and went to a bakery to get more.

    They must be using a different translation of the Bible in her Sunday School class.

    4. Sophie is in Pittsburgh this weekend at Living Proof Live. She’s working behind the scenes with the event team and will be posting updates on LifeWay AllAccess throughout the weekend.

    I’m a little sad I’m not there because what if Beth has a question about the Bible and needs me to answer it for her? For instance, does she know about the bakery that baked all that bread for 5,000 people without the benefit of a modern day industrial oven?

    5. I wish I had something else, but I’m out.

    Y’all have a great weekend.