Month: May 2013

Listen. This is going to have to be quick.

My sweet friend Annie flew into town yesterday and we drove to Gruene (a little town about 35 minutes away) to meet our friend Jenny for lunch at the Gristmill. And I ordered the chicken fried steak.

Yes, for lunch. I ordered the chicken fried steak for lunch. With mashed potatoes. If you’re tempted to judge me it’s because you’ve never had the chicken fried steak at the Gristmill.

On a side note, when we drove into Gruene, Annie looked at me and said, “Please tell me this is where we’re stopping because it’s exactly what I want Texas to look like.” In hindsight maybe I should have taken a picture of it all so y’all could appreciate it but it didn’t occur to me until just now. I am the worst blogger ever.

Then we drove back home, spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out, and now it’s almost 11:00 p.m. and there are thunderstorms on the way and I have to hurry up and get in bed because I like to be in bed during a thunderstorm.

I also like to be in bed by 10:00 p.m. these days but that ship has already sailed. Now I’m just racing the storm.

(On a kind of related note, our roof still needs to be fixed and P decided to go up there earlier and do a little patch work since it’s supposed to rain all weekend. He ended up using an old Romney/Ryan sign to patch things up. Let’s hope it works better than their campaign.)

Anyway, here are some things I saw this week. I’ll be honest and tell you I struggled to find ten things. Maybe it’s me. Or maybe it’s the clothing manufacturers.

1. gap striped 4 in 1 dress

Okay. Let me tell you about this. I tried it on in Gap the other day because they had it featured like it was a skirt. And I guess I totally missed the tag that read “4 in 1 dress”. I mean I saw the 4 in 1 part but I thought it was a skirt you could wear four different ways and the whole thing just baffled me.

Then I came home and saw it online and realized that it could be a strapless dress. Sure. For some people it totally could be. But you know what I don’t care to do ever again? Wear a strapless bra.

But I loved the stripes and the color. (It comes in several color combinations.) So I bought it, took it to my seamstress and had the top part just cut clean off so it can just be skirt without the bulk of a fold down part that gives me a strapless option I’ll never use.

I believe the kids call this repurposing.

2. old navy sleeveless collared crepe dress

I also tried this on. And it looks better in person than it does in this picture. I think it could be a great little summer dress to just throw on. Or even wear it belted with a pair of skinny jeans.

3. gold and turquoise moroccan necklace

I adore this necklace and it’s only $24.95.

4. florestra peasant top

I am a sucker for a peasant top from Free People.

5. lace overlay stripe tank

I think this is super cute.

6. gap denim jacket

I always assume everyone has a denim jacket because it may be the piece in my closet that I love the most. It’s definitely the piece that I wear more than almost anything. They’re just so versatile.

When I was a junior in high school I had the coolest Liz Claiborne jean jacket. You don’t even know. That’s how cool it was. And it got stolen out of my locker. I really can’t even explain the devastation.

Clearly the fact that I’m still bringing it up almost twenty-five years after the fact conveys the level of grief. I mean LIZ CLAIBORNE.

7. goodness gracious top

This top. Love. It also comes in white.

8. guatemalan love flip flop

9. blouse with pleats at the front

Do you know what I appreciate about Zara? They aren’t going to give this top a fancy name. It’s a blouse with pleats at the front.

Some stores might want to call it the “Gypsy Wanderer Blouse”, but not Zara. It’s a blouse with pleats at the front. The Europeans keep it simple.

10. old navy rockstar jeans

Jeans at Old Navy are on sale for $19. There’s never been a better time to get yourself some cheap, colored denim.

That’s it for this Friday.

Hope y’all have a great weekend and a happy mother’s day if you’re into that kind of thing.

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I also feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t quickly mention that Sparkly Green Earrings would make a great last minute Mother’s Day gift since, you know, it’s about motherhood. You can get it on Amazon or at your local bookstore or Sam’s Club or maybe a garage sale table. And now I’ll shut up about it.

So since it’s the Wednesday before Mother’s Day, I thought it might be fun to share a few quick things.

1. The lovely Ruth from Carol & Company jewelry has generously agreed to give away a $50 gift card to one of you.

If you win, you could use it to buy one of these acrylic charm circle initial necklaces that I think would be so fun for summer.

Or maybe something like this john wind gold initial bracelet that I have been coveting for the better part of a year.

All you have to do for a chance to win is check out all the gorgeous things at Carol & Company and leave a comment on this post telling me what you might buy if you win. I’ll leave comments open until Friday and then choose a winner at random.

But, best of all, you can get 10% off anything on their website for the next seven days when you use the code MAMA10 at checkout. And there are some darling things.

Why are you still here? Go check it out.

2. While we’re on the subject of great Mother’s Day ideas, I believe I have mentioned that my dear friend Sophie has a book coming out on June 4th. But you can totally go ahead and pre-order a copy on Amazon right now. And, trust me, your mom/grandma/sister/lady at the bakery will totally love it.

You can find out more about it, watch Sophie’s sweet book trailer, and read the first chapter by clicking over to her book page.

3. This post, So God Made A Mother, by my friend Ann Voskamp is stunningly beautiful. Just like everything Ann does.

Plus, there’s a great way to give a gift that gives back to help mothers in Haiti through Compassion International. It’s too late to get it in time for Mother’s Day, but not too late to make a difference. And I bet your mom will cry big tears if you share Ann’s words with her.

Don’t forget to check out Carol & Company and leave a comment here for a chance to win the $50 gift card. One comment per person please. Otherwise my head may explode and that’s really no good for anyone.

Have a great Wednesday.

Happy belated Cinco de Mayo!

I hope you all had a wonderful and meaningful celebration as you gathered around your beautifully decorated Cinco de Mayo tree.

What? Is that not a tradition in your family?

Yes. Mine neither.

I’m just rambling as I try to figure out how to begin this post and what all we’ve done over the last three days because I am tired to my bones. But it’s the good kind of tired like after you’ve had a ton of fun and not enough sleep.

As an indication of how tired we are and, thus, easily entertained, I’ll confess that P and I just spent six minutes of our lives watching a YouTube video of Spidey vs. The Yeti from The Electric Company. I have no explanation except to say we sometimes go off on random childhood tangents and the next thing you know we’re watching an orange sing opera from an old episode of Sesame Street.

The 70s were a simpler time, man.

Now you’d have apples crying discrimination that they weren’t chosen to sing and Yetis believing they’re being profiled.

Anyway, our weekend. That’s what this is supposed to be about. Not to in any minimize the plight of Yetis.

Friday morning, Caroline woke up with a sore throat and a headache so I let her stay home from school. I think there was a better than average chance that it was a combination of allergies and exhaustion and a May cold front that dropped temperatures into the 40s, but it felt like a good call to have a day on the couch.

However, I wasn’t on the couch with her because we had friends coming in for the weekend and I needed to clean the house and finish getting the playroom/guest room ready for company. I also made a trip to HEB where I bought every onion and potato and ear of corn they had on the shelves in preparation for our big Cinco de Mayo crawfish boil.

My friend Michelle arrived on Friday night and I’d warned her we were going to be totally lame because it had been a long, busy week. Fortunately, Michelle embraced the lameness and we picked up burgers for dinner and were all asleep by 10:00 p.m. The only way we could have been less fun had been if we’d chosen to subject her to YouTube videos from 1970s children’s television shows.

However, we had to get a good night’s sleep because Caroline had a soccer tournament all day Saturday. Which meant we had to get up at 6:30 a.m. and be at the fields ready to play by 7:30. This is not my optimal way to begin a Saturday. Or really any day.

We arrived at the soccer fields, in our fleece jackets because the weather is INSANE right now, and watched Caroline’s team lose the first game. And then a couple of hours later we watched them lose the second game. And then a few hours after that we watched them lose their third game. It was more than slightly disheartening. Especially when Caroline scored an amazing goal and it was called back because the referee said she was offsides. Which she totally WAS NOT because even the opposing coach agreed it was a terrible call.

But what are you going to do when a soccer referee decides to take out the frustration of wearing socks that are pulled up way to high and tight on a nine year old girl?

So we believed we’d reached the end of our tournament hopes and dreams even though we were told there was a slim chance we might make it to the next round. However, I eliminated that as a totally impossible scenario because how do you advance without winning even one game?

We drove home and began to get everything ready for the crawfish boil. My friends, MK and Kelly, flew into town and we picked them up at the airport just in time for all the festivities.

And then we spent the next few hours eating and laughing and peeling little crawfish as fast as we could.

There is really not much I enjoy more than a good crawfish boil. And I also have to mention that I made Pioneer Woman’s Tres Leches cake for dessert and it was so good. Like the kind of good that I haven’t been able to quit thinking about it. You should totally make one sometime soon.

We stayed up way too late talking and catching up on life. Which was why it was such a shock when P woke me up Sunday morning at 8:30 to announce that Caroline’s soccer team had made it to the semi-finals of the tournament and we had a soccer game in three hours.

What is happening?

How do you advance in a tournament when you haven’t won a game? I have no idea. It’s something about a point system. I’d try to give a better explanation but it might involve math and then CHECK, PLEASE.

So we all headed back out to the soccer fields to watch the semi-final game. And. We lost. But they played really hard and Caroline was thrilled to get to play one more game. Sadly, while you can make it to the semi-finals with all losses, it doesn’t help you make it to the championship game.

Then I ran up to Barnes and Noble for a book signing smelling like outside smell and sweaty soccer hugs. I’m sure someone will bottle that fragrance up in no time and sell it for no dollars because blech.

And the rest of the weekend and most of yesterday was spent eating Mexican food at various restaurants in various forms until I put my sweet friends back on a plane to Tennessee. Then we ate cereal for dinner because it felt like some detox was in order.

Cinco de Mayo isn’t for the weak. Only the fittest and those who can eat the most chips, guacamole and crawfish survive.

So here’s an early Mother’s Day present for you.

The Kindle version of Sparkly Green Earrings is FREE right now.

As in, FREE.

Like ZERO dollars.

See y’all tomorrow.