Month: February 2013

Fashion Friday: Edition Sparkly Green Earrings giveaway

Y’all.

First off, I will never ever in a million years be able to thank you for all the kind words and comments and emails. I read through my comments and cried. Several times.

It may have been ugly.

I have never loved you more.

I wish we could all get together for one giant party with a bottomless basket of chips and queso and celebrate the official release of Sparkly Green Earrings today.

And I have loved seeing all the pictures of you with the book on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and the ones delivered to my door by carrier pigeon. Thank you for that.

I also don’t want to keep bugging you but it would be awesome if you could go “Like” it and leave a review on Amazon today. Or this weekend. Or at some point when you have time. Or never. Whatever works for your schedule.

You’ll be glad to know that I prepared for the book release just like Hemingway used to, by which I mean that I washed the slipcovers on my couch and spent most of the day wrestling them back on to the cushions. I know. It’s all very glamorous.

And then I took my car to the carwash and did laundry all day and swept my house from top to bottom. Gulley said that it really is like I’m having a baby because I’m nesting. Yes, nesting and slightly neurotic. I may be experiencing some adrenaline surges.

Anyway, I’m so excited because I have a special giveaway to celebrate the release of the Sparkly Green Earrings. You have the chance to win a signed copy of the book (I’ll sign it however you want) AND your very own pair of sparkly green earrings, specifically my very favorite Kendra Scott Danielle earrings in green.

I have these and cannot express how much I love them. You’d be shocked at how many outfits they work with. You will love them and wonder how you lived without them in your life. I promise. Not to mention that emerald green is the color of the year for 2013. That’s real. I didn’t make it up.

Just leave a comment for a chance to win. I’ll leave comments open until Sunday and then email the winner.

In other news, because real life still goes on even on book release day (see above: washing slipcovers), here are some cute things I found this week:

1. sweet tea crochet top

This is the kind of top I just love. Perfect with jeans and cowboy boots. And maybe green earrings.

2. munich crocheted sweater

I saw this and loved it immediately. I like the charcoal color, but I also love that it’s the perfect thing to layer over a top and jeans. Or with a skirt. Or over a dress. It’s very versatile is what I’m saying.

3. greek goddess dress

Nothing in my life requires this dress. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like it a lot.

4. water nymph scalloped blouse

Love the color. It would be gorgeous with white shorts or jeans for summer.

5. lightweight patterned shirt

Have I ever mentioned that I am a sucker for a gingham shirt? Not to be confused with a gangnam shirt.

Old Navy had these in the other day and I ran into a girl I know and she was buying one. And then mentioned she was going to get the pocket monogrammed. I may have swooned. Because Laverne DeFazio will always be my style icon.

6. maura shift dress

This may not be long enough to actually wear as a dress. I have no idea. But it’s really pretty and would look good even with leggings. And it comes in some gorgeous colors.

7. striped bow tank

Stripes? Bow? What’s not to love? Except that it’s sleeveless and my arms have issues now due to a chronic condition called lack of push ups. However, it would be darling under a light jacket of some sort.

8. crochet trim shift

Is it just me or is a lot of stuff crocheted this week? I believe we’ve stumbled upon a trend.

Obviously I love this because it’s green. And obviously most humans will need to wear it with some sort of leggings or pants.

And it would look great with the Kendra Scott earrings while you sit reading Sparkly Green Earrings.

9. picado necklace

I just really like this. Fun for spring.

10. notched v-neck tee

Have I featured this before? I can’t really remember because I may have killed a few brain cells trying to get the slipcovers back on my couch. Either way, I really like it and it comes in some gorgeous colors.

Including green.

Which would look great with the earrings.

Because if you give a mouse a cookie he’s going to want some earrings or something like that.

Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win the Kendra Scott earrings and a signed copy of Sparkly Green Earrings.

Thank you so much for everything. I promise next week we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled program and it won’t be about the book all the time or anything. It will be about important things like my hair.

And if you’re new here and thinking, WHAT BOOK? You can click on the widget below to buy a copy from your retailer of choice.

Y’all have a good Friday.
Sparkly Green Earrings

So.

Y’all.

This week is a big week in my little corner of the world. After four years of back and forth and maybe I’ll write a book and no I can’t write a book and now I’ve written a book but books take forever to actually come out and be placed on bookshelves in bookstores, Sparkly Green Earrings officially releases this Friday, February 8th and rumor even has it that it’s already on the shelves in various stores.

(By which I mean that I saw it at Lifeway and it was on a middle shelf and I moved it to the top shelf next to Jen Hatmaker’s book because I’m no dummy.)

I feel like I’ve been pregnant for about twenty-six months. The good news is I’m having a book and not a baby elephant.

Although I think baby elephants are very cute.

Sparkly Green Earrings is so special to me. I remember being about ten years old and picking up a copy of Erma Bombeck’s book If Life Is A Bowl of Cherries Then What Am I Doing in the Pits? and reading it from cover to cover because I thought it was hilarious even though I had to be too young to understand some of it. And while I am no Erma Bombeck, I wanted to write a book that you could leave out on your coffee table and not be afraid for your ten year old to pick it up and start reading. In our culture of trashy commercials and other questionable things, that’s become a rarity. I wanted to write a book that will hopefully make you laugh and cry and feel a little less alone.

As much as it all still doesn’t seem real, I look at Sparkly Green Earrings sitting on my bookshelf and it’s a reminder that God sees us. He sees the little dreams we have that we’re scared to voice out loud but whisper as a prayer in the dark. And then he works all things together for his good and puts pieces together in ways we never could have imagined.

SparklyGreenEarings4 from Big Mama on Vimeo.

I couldn’t be more humbled. And grateful. And so appreciative because none of this would have happened if y’all didn’t show up here to read the silly words I type out on the computer every day.

Over the last year I have been so thankful for your kind words and your prayers and your support. You have encouraged me and blessed me and cheered me on more than I can ever convey. You’re a part of this book, in one way or another, and I would love for you to be a part of it again this week as it’s released.

And on Friday I have a really fun giveaway planned just to say thank you for all your support.

Here are some ways you can help make the launch of Sparkly Green Earrings a success. You can do all of these or any combo. Or you can do none of them. I mean that. But maybe you could still buy a copy and use it as a doorstop or for kindling on a cold winter’s night.

1. Buy the book

It’s officially out this Friday, but I happen to know a few of these retailers are already shipping it out. I’ve also heard it’s even at Sam’s Club and I don’t know if anything says REAL AUTHOR like being sold in the same place people can buy toilet paper and dog food in bulk quantities.

Here’s a handy widget if you’d like to purchase it from one of the following places online.

2. AMAZON REVIEW

You can start leaving reviews for the book on Friday and it would be great if you would take the time to leave a review. I’m not sure why that’s important, but people who know things tell me it is.

And I believe them because, while I can tell you all about the Crawley family or Friday Night Lights, I know shockingly little about book sales.

You can just briefly write your thoughts on the book and don’t feel like you need to lie and say it’s the best book you’ve read since To Kill A Mockingbird. However, I hope it’s better than the instruction manual that came with your refrigerator. I have lofty goals.

3. SOCIAL MEDIA

Feel free to post about it or tweet about it or hire one of those airplanes that writes stuff in the sky.

You can also find easy ways to share the book or tweet or pin or hashtag or whatever the kids are doing these days on the official book page.

Also, I’d love to see pictures when you have the book or see it at a store. Nothing would make me happier than seeing my book in your hands. Except maybe if it’s in a shopping cart full of economy sized toilet paper and Ol’ Roy dog food.

4. TELL YOUR FRIENDS

You know, everyone you see today. And tomorrow. And this week.

And for the next year.

5. PRAY

This book is the thing in my life that God wouldn’t let me give up on. And I don’t know why. But my prayer is that it makes women everywhere know that they are normal and we all make mistakes and sometimes we all want to run away from home to a really nice hotel. I want it to be an encouragement and help us all take some time to laugh.

The bottom line is that I’m beyond grateful for you. It means so much that you even care about Sparkly Green Earrings.

For me, this is a dream come true. And it’s also filled with a little bit of insecurity as evidenced by all the dreams I’ve had in the last week where I’m jumping off a cliff and realize there’s no net or someone tells me my nose is too big or my eyebrows are too wild.

But y’all are my safe place.

Thanks for being a part of this. And now I will stop before I start crying and can’t stop and get those ugly puffy eyelids.

Love you so much.

Thank you isn’t enough.
Donuts and nine and half years

I watched The Bachelor last night and I’m going to tell you that I realized why I could never be on the show. Other than that I’m forty-one and happily married and wouldn’t get in a bathing suit on national television for any amount of dollars.

They would never get me up in a helicopter.

Those girls all “OOH” and “AAH” and “my boyfriend has a helicopter!” (Which NO he does not. ABC rented him a helicopter.) and they seem to have no qualms about getting on in. But I do not like heights. Therefore I would be all CHECK PLEASE.

And so that’s why I’d never go on The Bachelor. Other than I’m married and forty-one and also a little bit of a germophobe. Oh, and I wouldn’t drink goat’s milk. And before you’re all “Goat’s milk is delicious!”, I need to tell you that I don’t like cow’s milk either. I do not care for milk except sometimes if it’s chocolate and/or in a milkshake form.

I feel so much better now that I’ve got that out there. I’m sure you’ve all been wondering.

Anyway, I woke up yesterday morning as tired as I was when I went to bed on Sunday night. It was one of those nights where I know I must have slept but I think I was working really hard in all my dreams and so I woke up tired. And then I had to put together a lunch for Caroline using nothing but two slices of ham and a Jedi mind trick.

Normally I would have felt guilty about the sad state of lunch affairs, but I knew I was bringing in Krispy Kreme donuts that afternoon to celebrate her half birthday. I realize most people don’t celebrate half-birthdays but her sweet teacher makes sure even the kids with summer birthdays get to have a celebration at school.

So I pulled together a lunch that would probably embarrass our family name and then P took her to school. Then I went to Starbucks in an attempt to get some writing stuff done because I knew if I tried to stay home I would fall into a dead sleep on the couch in ten minutes flat and that tends to be unproductive.

My Starbucks friend (the one I make bets with about important stuff like Kate Middleton’s pregnancy and Johnny Manziel winning the Heisman) had asked for a signed copy of my book a few weeks ago. Although he informed me he probably wasn’t going to read it after I told him what it was about. Which, HILARIOUS. I admire his honesty.

But I brought him a copy yesterday and he thumbed threw it and declared he was going to read it after all. It didn’t look as “religious” as he thought it might. I have no idea what that means, but I’m going to go with it.

And so after I spent a few hours attempting to get something done which really looked more like alternating between checking Twitter and Facebook and reading about Downton Abbey, I drove out to Krispy Kreme to pick up donuts. It was Caroline’s idea to bring donuts instead of cupcakes because she’s not a big fan of the cupcake and she was very specific that she wanted Krispy Kreme instead of Shipleys.

So I schlepped across town to the nearest Krispy Kreme and ended up buying thirty-six donuts because have you ever been in Krispy Kreme? I was powerless to resist the smell. And even though there are only twenty-two kids in Caroline’s class, I decided that extras weren’t the worst thing that could happen.

Swarms of killer bees are.

I have no idea where that thought just came from. See? Tired.

I brought in the donuts during the last forty minutes of the day because Caroline’s teacher is smart enough to know to let those kids take that sugar high on home with them. And she turned up the music while everyone put on their Krispy Kreme hats and danced around the room.

This was before she’d even had a donut.

And this is after.

Then I tied her to the front of the car and she pulled us all the way home.

It was good times.

I’m a big fan of nine and a half.

***Edited to add that the mannequin head is Elvis. Not the real Elvis. Just an Elvis head. It got photographed at a bad angle, which happens to the best of us.***
The only super in our bowl was the chili

So it’s Monday.

Actually it’s Sunday night as I sit here typing this. P and I are watching the last five minutes of the Super Bowl after the big power outage brouhaha.

(Is it just me or is brouhaha a totally underused word?)

And I also left the room for an hour to watch Downton Abbey in the other room because I needed to see how the Crawley family was doing after all the events of last week. The answer? Not good.

However, the Dowager Countess had some lines that were solid gold and made me laugh out loud a few times.

We’ve had a pretty low key weekend. On Friday night Caroline and I went to eat with Mimi and Bops. P opted to stay home because he’d spent every evening of the past week taking Caroline to soccer boot camp and then basketball practice. And so when he finally came in after work and laid down on the living room floor he announced he wasn’t moving until it was time to get in bed.

And I didn’t blame him.

So Caroline and I went out to eat but then she decided she didn’t feel good at the restaurant and when you’re waiting to see if your child is going to throw up it kind of puts a damper on your enjoyment of some tacos nortenos.

But by Saturday morning she was feeling better and had a basketball game at 10:00 a.m. I’d instructed P to wake me up at 9:10 because my desire to sleep in a little far outweighed my desire to not look like a hag.

Caroline played a great game and then we celebrated by driving through Sonic for breakfast burritos. I’m not sure why I decided a breakfast burrito from Sonic was a better choice than a real breakfast taco from a real Mexican restaurant, but sometimes my Southeast Texas roots come out and I can overlook a flour tortilla that’s thinner than tissue paper filled with what might be fake eggs. Especially if it comes with a side of tots.

And then we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out until Caroline’s friend Sadie came over to play. The girls gave each other manis and pedis and then made what can only be described as informational videos on the computer in the kitchen. If you consider informational videos to be anything that describes the importance of saving the narwhals or talking in a voice at a decibel level dogs can’t hear.

Later that evening we went over to Gulley’s house for dinner. And the kids played and the adults talked and laughed until way too late. Which is why Caroline cried on Sunday morning when P woke her up for church. She sat, tearfully eating her Cheerios and asked, “Don’t you people know that a kid needs at least ten hours of sleep?”

Which is ironic coming from the child that has caused me to lose countless hours of sleep over the last nine and a half years.

After church Caroline went to hit golf balls with Mimi, Bops and my niece Sarah. Gulley and I made a quick trip to a few stores to see if they had anything cute and she found a few things. And then I came home and fell into a dead sleep on the couch for about thirty minutes because apparently kids aren’t the only ones who need at least ten hours of sleep a night. So do forty-one year olds with head colds that won’t go away.

And then we had a big Super Bowl party. By which I mean that I made chili and P, Caroline and I sat around the coffee table. For dessert P ate about forty-two mini Snickers out of the candy jar because everything in moderation.

That pretty much sums up our weekend. I apologize that I can’t make it any more interesting than this, but some weekends are just like that. A whole lot of nothing with the people you love.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Fashion Friday: Edition the Super Bowl is Sunday and a giveaway!

Yes.

The Super Bowl is Sunday. And I’m pretty sure the Ravens are in it but I couldn’t tell you the name of the other team right now if you paid me cash money. That’s how much I care about professional football.

But I’m sure we’ll cook chili and P will watch the game and I’ll watch the commercials and then he’ll decide he doesn’t care about the halftime show and turn it right as Beyonce is taking the stage which will be the only thing I’m really interested in.

Anyway, I’m really excited today because I have a great bracelet to give away to one lucky winner. The nice people from The Impeccable Pig contacted me and said they would like to give away a piece of jewelry. And so I chose this bracelet because it was my personal favorite.

I love a cuff bracelet. I love gold. I love turquoise. It’s the perfect bracelet trifecta.

And one of you can win one for yourself. All you need to do is go visit The Impeccable Pig website and tell me about something cute you found in the comments.

As for me, I am loving this cathedral top. I think it would look so cute with white jeans or shorts in the summer.

And I also love this blue sun necklace.

Here are some other things I’ve found this week:

1. towne and reese deep teal & turquoise earrings

One of the reasons I love Carol & Company, other than because they have gorgeous jewelry, is that they are so generous. The owner has a friend who is currently fighting breast cancer and they are giving her 20% from all sales on February 1-2 to help ease the financial burden.

If there was ever a good excuse to go buy some cute jewelry for yourself, this is it.

2. zig zag chiffon scarf

A good scarf can change an outfit. This is one of those scarfs.

3. all roads embroidery tunic

I saw this in person yesterday and am still thinking about it. It’s the perfect thing to throw on with jeans or shorts during the spring and summer.

4. fitted boyfriend teacup shirt

I like this shirt. The teacups might be a little precious for me, but they’re small enough that I can deal. Also, it seems like it’s a versatile length.

5. studded swing dress

Gorgeous color. And perfect to wear with leggings and a denim jacket right now. And then maybe with white skinny jeans this summer.

Or maybe with bare legs if you’re younger than me.

6. matinee chevron blouse

I know. Chevron. Every week.

But this is a shirt not a dress so it’s TOTALLY DIFFERENT. It comes in aqua or black.

7. canvas trench coat

Tim Gunn once said every woman needs a trench coat. I don’t know if that’s true. But I do know that I have a black trench coat that I bought almost ten years ago that I still wear from time to time.

And this one is cute with the pop of color in the lining.

8. denim shirt

Denim shirt. If you don’t have one, I think you need one. It’s versatile.

9. printed tank dress

Honestly, I threw this in because I was having a hard time finding ten things I wanted to feature. And I’d never actually wear this because it’s not really my style. But I think it would be cute on someone.

10. 3/4 length sleeve t-shirt

I ran in Zara yesterday and tried on this shirt. And almost bought it. And now I wish I had so that’s my tale of woe for the day. Anyway, it’s a great length and super soft.

That’s it for today.

Y’all have a good weekend.

And I hope Beyonce wins the Super Bowl.

Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win the bracelet from The Impeccable Pig.