Year: 2009

G.E.: They bring baked goods to life

I guess I probably knew from the moment I had a daughter that a day would come when the Easy Bake Oven would enter our lives. It’s really inevitable that at some time in a girl’s life, she will be overcome with the desire to make baked goods using nothing but a packet of powder, a teaspoon of water and a 100 watt lightbulb.

So when Gulley and I were in the midst of our Christmas shopping weekend and she asked if I thought Caroline would like an Easy Bake Oven, I laid down in the aisles of Target and cried.

In reality, I told Gulley that I thought Caroline would love the oven so she bought it for her for Christmas.

Two days after Christmas we all exchanged gifts and, sure enough, Caroline was thrilled with her very own oven. Gulley’s son, Will, was so impressed that he quickly informed us that he’d like Caroline to make the cake for his birthday party using her new Easy Bake Oven, which would be such a sweet idea if the cake was larger than one serving size.

And really, even then, it would have to be just one person who doesn’t really care for dessert.

Anyway, the next day we busted out the Easy Bake Oven at the bright, sunshine-y hour of 7:00 a.m., but then tragedy struck when we realized we didn’t have any 100-watt light bulbs. P and Caroline quickly headed to Home Depot to secure the proper wattage because he is much nicer than I am and, let’s be honest, you know he was hoping for some of that cake.

Easy Baking from Big Mama on Vimeo.

There are a few things I’d like to point out about the video.

1. I have always believed that “if we don’t get stirring, it won’t be good”. It’s practically my life motto.

2. Please notice that I had my large whisk at the ready. Clearly, I’d forgotten that those packets produce about two tablespoons worth of batter and the large whisk was an ambitious choice.

3. I love the way she enunciates “CUP. CAKE.” I believe her enunciatory skills may be directly inherited from her great, great Aunt Fina who definitively ended every word with a “T”.

4. Something about the way she tells me “We can share it” seems insincere and totally reminds me of Dwight Shrute on The Office.

5. I adore the phrase “a little jiffy”. I wish I could take credit for teaching her that, but she is completely self-taught.

And speaking of self-taught, I don’t know where she learned to lick the batter of her fingers like that.

Certainly not from me.
The future’s so bright

Here’s Caroline with Scout before she left for the ranch with her daddy today.

And one more.

I don’t think Scout was sad to see her go.
My New Year’s Eve was on fire

One of the nice things about having a blog is that I really don’t need to use my memory to remember anything that’s happened in the last two and a half years. So about a week ago, when P and I were trying to remember how we spent last New Year’s Eve, I just pulled up December 31, 2007 from the archives to read all about it.

As it turns out, P had the flu and I was about to get it. I brought in the New Year passed out in our bed after heavy doses of Nyquil. All the scene needed was a giant Swatch watch hanging on the wall and it would have been just like my freshman year of college.

Clearly it was going to be hard to top last year’s festivities.

Over the last several months, P has become involved with a group at our church called The Sportsmen’s Group. This is basically a group of guys who like to hunt and fish. They all get together about once a month, grill stuff they’ve killed, and wear matching t-shirts that say “Meat is Murder. Tasty, Tasty Murder. In Jesus’ Name.”

Not really about the t-shirts, but I like to picture it that way in my imagination because it entertains me.

Anyway, one of the men that P has gotten to know called him on Monday and invited him to go hunting at the King Ranch. If you’re not from Texas that may mean nothing to you, but if you learned about it in 7th grade Texas History then it’s pretty cool. The only problem was that he’d be gone on New Year’s Eve.

I told him I didn’t mind at all if he wanted to go, but he needed to keep in mind that I’d planned an exciting evening involving me wearing my sexiest flannel pajama bottoms paired with an alluring 1993 SWC Champs Aggie sweatshirt and dining on a frozen Tombstone pepperoni pizza. Did he really want to miss all that?

So he packed up his guns and left for South Texas.

Caroline and I went to eat Thai food with Mimi and Bops and then she decided she wanted to spend the night with them. So I was all by myself to ring in the New Year and, honestly, it was just fine with me.

I put on my softest robe, pulled my hair back and gave myself a little mini-facial complete with an overhaul of my eyebrows. Once I settled in on the couch I gave myself a complete manicure, then sat back with the computer to enjoy five or six hundred rounds of Pathwords while I waited for the ball to drop in Times Square.

It was delightful.

But at some point, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and decided I needed to take advantage of this alone time and perform a little more beauty maintenance. I like to keep a little mystery alive in my marriage, so I try to refrain from upper lip hair removal while P is on the premises.

Yes, I said hair on my upper lip. I have olive skin and brown hair. It’s part of the Italian heritage package. And, ladies, if you are of a certain age and/or have dark hair and think you don’t have an upper lip issue, then it might be time to invest in a good magnifying mirror.

Anyway, I went in the bathroom and slathered my upper lip with Surgi-Cream hair removal, like I’ve done a million times before, but this time I immediately felt a burning sensation. I didn’t worry about it until it became apparent that the Surgi-Cream was having some sort of chemical reaction with something I’d already put on my face, so I wiped it all off as fast as I could.

Yet the burning continued.

Y’all, it was so bad that I had to apply ice for the next hour.

So, to recap, I spent my New Year’s Eve giving myself a chemical burn on my lip and repeatedly looking in the mirror to see if blisters were beginning to form before finally taking two Tylenol P.M.’s for the pain and going to bed.

My lip appears to be recovering nicely from the trauma, but here’s hoping next year I just have the flu.