Year: 2011

  • The power is out

    If you’re reading this, it’s because the power cord for my Mac has decided to quit working. Conveniently, it decided to quit working when the computer was almost out of power. In fact, the red light is blinking as we speak. Or write. Or whatever.

    For those of you who keep up with the intricate behind-the-scenes workings here at Big Mama, Inc., you may remember that I just bought a new power cord over Spring Break. And because of that I’d like to tell Steve Jobs congratulations on being able to dominate the world of technology, but how about finding a power cord that lasts longer than two months?

    Meanwhile, P is cracking jokes about a government shutdown of Big Mama because I’m too powerful.

    He is hilarious.

    If you need me, I’ll be at the Apple Store talking to the geniuses.

  • Fashion Friday: Edition it rained here yesterday

    The fact that it rained here yesterday has absolutely nothing to do with today’s Fashion Friday, but it was the first time we’ve had more than a half inch of rain since last September and so it seems noteworthy. It would have been a perfect time for me to wear my rain boots except that it wasn’t raining when I left the house yesterday morning and the rain has had a tendency to fall apart before it actually makes it here and I was paranoid about looking foolish in my rain gear. Not to mention, rubber boots are a bit warm in May if the sun ends up shining.

    But, lo and behold, it did rain. And it was a deluge. I missed almost the whole thing because I was in the school auditorium helping with the dress rehearsal for Caroline’s second grade musical, but I did see that the sky was black as night and P called to tell me he could either pick me up right then or I’d probably have to wait for an hour until he could leave the house.

    You may be wondering why P would have to pick me up in the first place. Where was my car you may be asking to yourself. Well, I’ll tell you.

    P checked out the radar and it was all a mess of purple and red and florescent pink storms headed our way. And rumors of HAIL. OF HAIL. And so he put the stay wag in the garage and told me it needed to stay there. Away from the hail.

    In the end, it didn’t even hail.

    But it could have and that’s what matters.

    And now I’ve talked about the weather for so long you probably feel like you’re reading your grandma’s blog. Sorry.

    Here are some cute fashion items. There is nary a SAS shoe in the bunch and there totally would be if this was your grandma’s blog.

    1. usekh necklace

    I was in Anthropologie this week and saw this necklace in person and fell in love with it. Love the gold with the color accents that are perfect for summer.

    2. loveappella crochet top

    I realize a white top is a SHOCKING thing for me to feature, but I really love this one because it’s pretty yet it looks comfortable. And it doesn’t look like it needs to be ironed which is always a bonus.

    I’m also laughing at my ALL CAPS “SHOCKING” because Gulley has told me all week that I’ve been unusually dramatic when I say certain things. And by “unusually dramatic” I’m pretty sure she means COMPLETELY OVER THE TOP.

    3. daisy daze eyelet dress

    So, so cute.

    4. mad for mandarin dress

    I couldn’t get the picture of this one to work, but trust me when I tell you to check it out. It’s the perfect color for summer.

    5. long and lean jeans (white wash)

    Many people are afraid of the white jean. In fact, I myself spent a few years fearing the white jean. But then I found a pair that I love and can’t wait to wear.

    These aren’t them, but I tried these on the other day and they are just as good. Such a flattering cut and fit. And great to have some jeans that aren’t cut quite as low, but still look modern.

    6. chroma reflections maxi dress

    This dress is actually the reason I went in Anthropologie the other day because I’d seen it in person before and loved it but it wasn’t on sale. Then I saw it was on sale and so I ran out there to try it on and YOU KNOW WHAT? SOLD OUT.

    And it’s almost gone online too. It’s so much prettier in person than it appears in this picture and I’m sad I never even tried it on.

    Granted, I have no idea where I thought I was going to wear it but I thought this might be the summer I’d receive a plethora of invitations for glamorous summer evening cocktail parties. Even though I think we all know my summer evenings will basically be spent at the pool eating a hot dog.

    7. priya platform wedge sandals

    Great wedge sandals. And they’re from Target.

    8. pleated yoke tee

    I realize there’s a lot of Anthropologie this week, but that’s because I LOVE IT and I was actually in the store this week and saw some of this stuff in person. I really, REALLY, liked this shirt but I didn’t get it and now I can’t remember why.

    In fact, I feel sad about it. Why didn’t I get this shirt? It would look so cute with the aforementioned white jeans.

    9. double ruffle tops

    I did make it into Old Navy this week and saw these tops in person. They are the perfect lightweight top for summer and would look great with a pair of jeans or shorts.

    10. east indies chandeliers

    These are gorgeous. Love them.

    11. embroidered flora pullover

    I know. Eleven things? Eleven?

    I wasn’t going to list eleven things but then I saw this pullover from Free People and fell, as Journey would sing, STONE IN LOVE.

    This is about forty-eight kinds of my love language.

    That’s all I have for today.

    Y’all have a great Friday.

  • A list with a heavy emphasis on hair and skin care

    I know you were hoping I’d post a list of things today. Especially a list that’s beauty and skin care related. Or maybe you weren’t.

    But, either way, it’s what you’re getting.

    1. Oh, do I have a treat for you. In fact, I’ve been waiting all week to tell you about it.

    And now I’ve probably oversold it. But still.

    Last week I had the chance to meet a perfectly delightful girl named Reagan. She is a hairdresser in New York City (please say that like the old Pace picante commercials) and she was wearing her hair styled in a messy side bun that I coveted all day long.

    You may be wondering what any of that has to do with you.

    I’ll tell you. She has a blog called Hairdresser on Fire and she recommends products and gives hair advice and, best of all, posts video tutorials on how to style your hair in various ways. I have spent the last week attempting halo braids on anything that will stand still long enough, including Caroline’s American Girl doll.

    Seriously, I adore it .

    2. Many of you had questions after I mentioned dry-brushing my skin last week. All I know is my lymphatic system has never felt better.

    Actually, I don’t really know that I feel a difference in my lymphatic system, but my skin does seem softer and has a little bit of a glow to it. Not a weird alien glow, but a healthy glow. Just wanted to clarify.

    Anyway, here’s an article on dry-brushing if you’re interested in learning more about it.

    3. Speaking of skin care, I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about the Clarisonic electric face brush. I realize it’s a little bit pricey, but a person only has one face.

    Unless they are two-faced like a girl I remember from junior high.

    Anyone have any thoughts on the Clarisonic brush? Is it worth it?

    4. And on one last beauty-related note, I am in desperate need of new eye makeup. I kind of already knew this and then I went to dinner with Gulley and my friend, Julie, last Saturday night and we were all bemoaning the state of our various wrinkles, declining metabolism, and hormonal issues.

    I mentioned that I felt like my eyes have been looking exceptionally droopy and may have even pulled down on my eyebrows to highlight my fears of what I’m afraid my eye future may hold. Then I said I think part of the problem might be that I don’t really know how to properly apply eye makeup. That’s when Julie and Gulley both admitted they didn’t even realize I wear eye shadow.

    I think I need some eye shadow help. Any brands that y’all love or products or fancy tricks that make all the eye difference? Especially my fellow brown-eyed girls out there?

    5. I woke up yesterday morning with a scratchy throat that seems to be transitioning to sore. The good news is that I have to be at Caroline’s school tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. to help her entire class get dressed for their musical production.

    Which shouldn’t be stressful at all. Just the equivalent of trying to get a bunch of cats to wear pants.

    I’ll let you know how it goes.

    If I survive.

    See y’all tomorrow.

  • Dollars and sense

    Yesterday morning I dragged myself out of bed. This is becoming increasingly hard the closer we get to summer vacation because, frankly, I am over second grade. But the Texas legislature says we still have three weeks of school left even though everyone’s brain checked out sometime around Easter.

    And so I walked to the kitchen in a stupor because it was time to make the donuts. And by donuts, I mean Caroline’s lunch. Packing a lunch on a normal day is hard enough, but factor in the fact that I haven’t been to the grocery store in over a week and it was like one of those bizarre Quick Fire Challenges on Top Chef. Except this didn’t involve making a canape in thirty seconds using lobster and asparagus as much as it involved what kind of sandwich can you make using no lunch meat or cheese when your child doesn’t really care for peanut butter and jelly and the only other thing you have on hand are some questionable carrots and a triangle of Laughing Cow cheese.

    So I just did the best I could and threw in a granola bar, some cheese and crackers, four grapes, a stick of beef jerky and three Oreos in an attempt to compensate for packing such a lame lunch. Then I prayed that this wouldn’t be the day one of the other parents decided to join the class for lunch.

    It didn’t help that Caroline was in a big hurry to get to school because the school store is open on Tuesday mornings and was having a big sale and there was some item that she was “DYING TO BUY” and had “WANTED HER WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE”. We rushed through our morning routine like a pit crew at a Nascar race and the whole thing ended with me yelling, “GO, GO, GO!”.

    We just barely made it to the school store on time. Caroline took out the money she’d brought, picked out her item, paid her 75 cents and walked over to where I was waiting for her. Like you, I was dying to know what she had to have, what thing she’d wanted for her entire life.

    It was a pencil sharpener shaped like a foot.

    Well, of course.

    I know that if I didn’t have some deep foot-related phobias, I would certainly want a pencil sharpener in the shape of a foot. Because it’s super classy.

    After the foot pencil sharpener purchase, she still had money left over and I suggested she might want to buy a few raffle tickets for the PTO/Teacher raffle that’s going on this week. You can buy four tickets for a dollar and then place your tickets in various cans that represent items that teachers have donated for the raffle. There are iTunes gift cards, gift certificates to toy stores, and stuffed animals. A group of fourth grade teachers pooled their money together to offer $100 cash.

    Caroline filled out her raffle tickets and ran off to drop them in the buckets she chose. When she came back, she announced, “I put four tickets in the bucket for that stuffed pony and the other four tickets in the bucket to win the betta fish.”

    I said, “Did you see the bucket for the $100? You might want to put some tickets in that bucket tomorrow.”

    She looked at me with a look just short of a major eye roll, a look that conveyed she couldn’t believe how much I don’t know about life and said, “WHY WOULD I DO THAT? I ALREADY HAVE $100”.

    And I said, “Oh, okay”.

    Because she’d probably just blow it all on pencil sharpeners shaped like feet.

    _________________________________

    Philadelphia Cream Cheese has a huge recipe contest going on right now. Click over to my Philadelphia Cream Cheese post to see my recipe for squash casserole and find out how you can enter for a chance to win $25,000 and meet Paula Deen.

  • A day at the spa

    I so appreciate your understanding about my need to take the day off yesterday. Well, at least nine of you understood. The rest of you may have been all TO HECK WITH THIS I’M NEVER COMING BACK TO THIS LAME BLOG AGAIN. In which case you’re not reading this anyway.

    It was such a fun weekend, but it was non-stop action and the introvert who lives inside me was all talked out. I just needed about three hours on my couch to sit and listen to the sound of nothing. That’s what I did yesterday after I dropped Caroline off at school. And then I cleaned our toilets. I bet somewhere Gwenyth Paltrow was doing the exact same thing.

    I spent most of Friday recovering from my trip to Minneapolis because apparently it is very grueling for me to sit on an airplane and read InStyle. And then Friday night we went out to dinner with some friends and their daughter, Sadie, came home with us to spend the night with Caroline.

    Naturally, the girls needed a pedicure. Second grade is rough. Sometimes a girl just needs a little downtime.

    The sleepover was big fun until sometime after midnight when all of our personalities took a turn for the worse. Specifically, mine.

    Thankfully, the girls seemed to realize I was minutes away from putting them out in the backyard for the night and went to sleep. But they were up bright and early the next morning, ready for homemade cinnamon rolls. If you consider cinnamon rolls that make a POP sound when you open the can to be homemade. And I do because those things don’t ice themselves.

    Mimi and Bops picked up Caroline to take her to watch my niece, Sarah, play soccer while I dropped off Sadie and went to a baby shower for my sweet friend, Mary Emma, who was one of our high school students once upon a time when P worked for Campus Life. But now she is all grown up and expecting her first baby. And so I spent the morning catching up with some dear friends and passing around swaddling blankets and burp cloths and baby monitors.

    The rest of the day was spent trying to not anger Caroline who was going on about six hours of sleep, which is about six less than she really needs to function as a delightful human being. When I went to pick her up from Mimi and Bops’s house, she got frustrated with me because I didn’t understand what she was trying to tell me and finally said, “I AM TRYING SO HARD NOT TO LOSE MY TEMPER RIGHT NOW”. And then I think she may have spit some pea soup out of her mouth.

    But she did hand me the sweetest thing ever late Saturday afternoon.

    In case you can’t tell, it says “A spa for mother’s day after taco grosh 1:00 pm” which translates to “A spa for mother’s day after Taco Garage at 1:00 p.m.” As for the illustrations on the invitation, I’m not entirely sure. Originally I thought maybe she was planning to serve pepperoni pizza at her spa, but in hindsight I think it was a picture of a bowl full of water and bubbles.

    After she handed me the invitation to her spa, she escorted me in her room to give me the tour.

    First, she had provided a selection of jewelry for me to choose from.

    Then she showed me the mani/pedi station.

    I thought the overturned laundry hamper as a table was a nice touch, although I wondered what she’d done with all the dirty clothes that had been in there moments earlier.

    Also, please note she’d already prepared various spa treatments in advance.

    That would be a bowl of soap snowflakes that dissolve in water, some lotion and some green crystals that I wasn’t entirely sure about until she explained she just thought she’d use the green sugar we use to decorate Christmas cookies to do that “scrubbing thing” on my hands.

    I hugged her and told her I was so excited about my big day at the spa for Mother’s Day and, honestly, I couldn’t believe the effort she’d put forth. I mean, there were a lot of dirty clothes for her to dump out of that hamper.

    So after church on Sunday morning and lunch at Taco Grosh, we headed home to begin my day at the spa. She filled all her various bowls with warm water and then dumped in the sugar cookie crystals for maximum effect.

    I was able to choose my jewelry, but the nail technician was a little bit of a color nazi and rejected my choice of nail color. She had something else in mind.

    It’s a little bit brighter and more flamboyant than my normal style. Of course it may also be a little brighter and more flamboyant than Lady Gaga’s style.

    I tried to take advantage of a teachable moment and told her, “Nail polish really works best when you wipe the excess polish off the brush and do a few light coats”. However, I’m not sure she really listened based on the way she let the polish drip from the brush onto my nails and then smeared it around while she announced, “It’s so much easier to just put a bunch on at once”.

    After my nails were finished, she moved on to my pedicure.

    It is every bit as colorful as my manicure, but with the addition of several flower stickers on each of my big toes. I’m sure to either be a hit or labeled as “a little off” at the upcoming PTO meeting.

    This is the final product. I think my nine-year-old U.S. Olympics t-shirt really adds a nice touch.

    Finally, my time at the spa was over. Largely because she wanted me to take her swimming at the neighborhood pool. I have that same problem at my local nail salon all the time.

    But before the spa day was over, she told me there would be a special Mother’s Day performance. An innovative production called THE WATER CYCLE. Complete with paper stick figures.

    I always like to blend my relaxation in with some scientific knowledge so this was perfect.

    After a brief lecture on the water table, the show quickly deteriorated into the sun attacking the clouds for reasons that are unclear. Then I was told it was my job to clean up the spa while she put on her bathing suit. And that’s why I didn’t leave her a very big tip.

    Not to mention that when I tucked her into bed Sunday night, I said, “Baby, you made my Mother’s Day so special. Thank you for everything that you did. It was the best one ever.”

    And she replied, “Well, it was more work than I thought. How about you pay me five dollars?”

    Hallmark would be so proud to know that capitalism is still alive and well on Mother’s Day.

  • I’m blaming this on Monday

    We had a weekend jam-packed with so many activities and I had the best of intentions to tell you all about it and post pictures and all that stuff.

    But then we went to the pool yesterday afternoon and it was so hot and I came home and collapsed on the couch and that was when my intentions derailed.

    So I’m giving myself the day off. And I guess I could have just not posted anything until tomorrow but my OCD won’t allow me to do that.

    I’ll see y’all tomorrow.