Alex has been in day camp this week (he is officially at an age where he wants to go to ALL THE CAMPS – sports, science, Scouts, whatever), so I’ve been trying to knock out some writing and figure out to do with all the clutter in this house. I feel like I’m drowning in books and candles and plates and whatnots, and this morning it’s taken every bit of restraint I have not to run over to Target and buy three or four plastic bins and just LOAD ‘EM UP for the thrift store. I feel like I need to be more methodical than that, but by the same token, if I just go ahead and get rid of that bowl / those cookbooks / that basket that holds all the random pieces of paper, then it’s done and it’s gone and we’re probably not gonna miss it.

And listen. I don’t buy a lot of stuff for my house. Which is why I can’t figure out where in the world all this stuff comes from.

Earlier this morning I took a writing break and decided it was a good time to wade through the stacks of paper on the end of our kitchen counter. The month of May was so crazy that I sort of gave up on going through the mail, so today I paid the postal piper and sorted all of that stuff. I threw away most of it, but I also put wedding invitation dates on the calendar, ordered some graduation gifts, and basically felt like I was an organizational wonder.

Don’t worry. It’ll all be a train wreck again in a few days. But today? I CONQUERED THE PILE.

And in the process, I found something that I am oh-so-happy to save.

When Alex’s class was learning about persuasive writing this past year, his teacher asked them to write a letter to a parent and make a case for something that they wanted or wanted to do. They had to be logical, they had to be clear – and they had to deliver the letter to a parent. The catch was that there couldn’t be a conversation about the issue at hand; the parent had to write a reply and then send it back to school. Alex’s teacher read each response out loud to the class, and apparently they laughed their heads off.

Not literally, of course. That would’ve been terrible.

This morning I re-read our letters, and I got so tickled. It was such a great assignment because it encouraged the kids to write in a way that’s unique to their personalities, and it also provided some sweet moments between the kids and their parents. I love that I can look at Alex’s letter and hear his voice when I read, and the fact that I had to respond made me really think through my rationale for the answer.

By the way, he asked for an iPad mini.

By the way, I said no.

I’m pretty sure that Alex wrote the letter to me instead of D because he figured I would be more likely to say yes – but oh well. At least we had some good laughs in the process.

And I even have a handwritten souvenir.

Listen. I don’t know much, but I know that ESPN’s comprehensive coverage of the NCAA Baseball Tournament has felt a little bit like a big ole summertime gift this weekend. I mean, granted, our beloved Mississippi State Bulldogs have been playing in a regional in Lafayette, Louisiana, so that’s given us a vested interest in what’s going on, but I’ve found myself watching schools I’ve never barely even heard of before. Plus, there’s been a little bit of a rivalry angle – Kentucky and Louisville are playing right now, as are the Aggies and the Longhorns – and I love games with some behind-the-scenes history.

And really, I think that more than anything else all the college baseball has been my sign that I get to take a mental break. I spent most of the weekend sitting in Panera and trying to get words to turn into sentences which might perchance turn into paragraphs which might eventually help me finish this new book. Fortunately it was a really peaceful weekend in my local Panera; since school is out, there weren’t 14 soccer teams coming in for lunch at the same time, and that change alone eliminated about 85% of my people watching. That made it so much easier to write some sentences. Go figure.

Anyway, when I got home Friday, Saturday, and today, I turned on the TV and turned on the computer and pretty much zoned out with some baseball while I cooked supper. And then there was more zoning out after we finished supper. And after we settled in for some family time. It has been delightful.

Saturday also happened to be our 17th wedding anniversary, and it was filled with all the pomp and circumstance you’d expect from David and me. D spent the day painting Alex’s bathroom and the half bath. I stayed at Panera until 5, then came home and made beef stroganoff. It was pretty much exactly like one of those helicopter dates you see on The Bachelorette. And make no mistake: as far as I was concerned, it was perfect. The bathrooms look great, and D was happy that I made some good forward progress with the writing (listen – I keep things light and breezy on the bloggy end of things, but my people at home would tell you in ALL CAPS that the book stuff tends to preoccupy me on a WHOLE ‘NOTHER LEVEL).

Anyway, we had a super low-key anniversary, and that suited me just fine. Who needs a fancy night out when you can watch college baseball in yoga pants? (D would probably appreciate it if I clarified that he did not in fact wear yoga pants – that was all me.) And to top it all off, D said one of my favorite things ever after we finished our Saturday night supper.

Today is our 17th anniversary. D just said it's been 15 of the best years of our lives. So tickled. We've weathered a rough patch or 5. :-)

— Sophie Hudson (@boomama) May 31, 2014

THAT IS THE TRUTH.

And that’s real life, you know?

So now it’s the end of the weekend, and I’m still watching baseball. State is trying to rally in the 8th (it’s not looking good – but there’s always the 9th, I guess), my fellas are asleep, and tomorrow afternoon I’ll no doubt be at Panera again. It’s an oddly comforting pattern for these early days of summer.

(I’d be a whole lot more comforted if the ‘Dogs could score 9 runs in the top of the 9th.)

(But maybe I’d better take this calm however it comes.)

(Hope y’all had a great weekend!)

One of the big things on my summer to-do list is to complete Beth Moore’s new Bible study, Children of the Day: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. I’ve been excited about it ever since I first read that she was writing it, and this morning – when a sweet puppy dog woke me up a couple of hours earlier than I’d planned – seemed like the perfect time to get started.

Well.

I’m going to use the individual video sessions since I’m working through the study by myself, but I remembered this AM that I have have a whole set of DVDs that LifeWay sent me a couple of months ago (and yes, I know that the DVDs are good for individual use, too, but it seems to me that if they can be used for a group of people instead of just one person, then all the better).

SO. If you are in a group Bible study that would like to have the DVDs and the Leader Guide for Children of the Day, just leave a comment on this post. I’ll leave the giveaway open until Monday morning, and then I’ll select a winner and notify her ASAP.

Happy Weekend, y’all!

This giveaway is now closed.

– The wide-leg pants from Old Navy have been a high point this past year (I believe I’ve raved about them several times). It makes me so happy when I see friends here in town and they say something along the lines of, “THOSE PANTS – YOU WERE NOT KIDDING.” For the last month or so they’ve been out of stock, but THEY’RE BACK (and I’m just as envious as I can be of you people who wear a size small because you get to order the turquoise). Anyway, you can use the coupon code ONSAVENOW until the end of day today (May 28th) and get 25% off.

– If you’re a Mad Men fan, don’t miss Alan Sepinwall’s review of the mid-season finale. And after you finish reading that, you’ll get a huge kick out of his interview with series creator Matthew Weiner. Oh-so-insightful.

– My friend Robin linked to this article – 19 Brands You Didn’t Know Were Owned By Giant Corporations – on Facebook today, and I thought it was fascinating. Power of marketing, I reckon. But even though my mental image of Mrs. Meyer’s products being made in a tiny little warehouse is now shattered, I will remain loyal to the end. It’s forever my favorite.

– Another Facebook find: my friend Joy linked to an article that I have been thinking about all day. It’s called “Too Scared To Cry: Social Media Outrage and the Gospel,” and it addresses some of the pitfalls that come with having an “open mic” for our anger (even when it’s righteous anger) via social media. Lots of wisdom.

– Alex will attest to the fact that this is my favorite song in a really long time. It feels like a classic love song to me, but it’s still oh-so-modern. Makes me happy.

– Nester mentioned a print at gracelaced earlier today, and I am a little bit in love with it (especially since it’s my favorite of all the Bible verses). Gorgeous.

The 8×10 is only $16 and an 11×14 is $24 – such a great gift for a wedding or graduation.

– This tickled me.

Hope y’all have had a wonderful Wednesday!

Last week was our last week of school and the SEC baseball tournament, so we were chock-full-o-nostalgia about leaving 4th grade (Alex), getting to see our favorite team play (Bulldogs) and finishing the final semester as a high school English teacher (me – and this is a long story, but I’ve been teaching English for a real long time, only this past year I had to face the reality that my writing and teaching schedules weren’t really doing each other any favors, so while I’m still going to work next school year, my role is going to shift a bit – and I am very grateful for that but WAH, NO MORE TEACHING LITERATURE, WAH).

So the bottom line is that there were a whole lot of feelings in our house last week. We coped by watching a whole lot of college baseball. And while our Bulldogs didn’t win the tournament, we still had a blast. I got to see lots of former students (I will get to write more about this part of my life now that I will not be anybody’s 11th grade English teacher, so I feel totally free to say that my relationships with the kids that I’ve taught over the years mean the absolute world to me, and I tell my real-life people all the time that there just aren’t many privileges as sweet as a 16 or 17 year-olds who invite you into their lives for just a little while), and based on the number of friends that A. and his buddies saw walking around the ballpark, I think it’s safe to say that there’s a young person in this house who has a far more exciting social life than his parents can even begin to claim at this point.

Also, when I wasn’t mourning the fact that I’ll never teach The Great Gatsby again or yelling my head off when Wes Rea stole 2nd base during the Georgia game (Wes Rea was a highly recruited offensive lineman in high school) (I do not believe that his body type is necessarily designed for sliding into 2nd) (that made the base stealing all the more festive), I continued to fight some lingering plague-like symptoms, chief amongst them being a hacking cough that might leave you concerned that I was choking.

Friday afternoon Sister and her hubby came to town; Sister and I have never gotten to go to the SEC tourney together, so this year seemed like a fine time to start. We had a great time even though we lost to Florida, and we also have a story that we will tell for the rest of our lives about the man who sat behind us and assumed we didn’t know anything about sports because we’re women. It’s way too much to try to explain in a couple of paragraphs, but I knew we were in trouble at the very beginning of the game when the man tried to tell us what a double-play is. After he continued to offer instruction for the next three innings, Sister and I were finally able to convince him that the game was not in fact our first sports-related rodeo, but that wasn’t before my hackles got ALL THE WAY UP and I silently considered all of my pride-related issues when it comes to sports in general and the Bulldogs in particular.

I also silently considered the possibility of designing an impromptu Bulldog sports trivia contest to see if that man really knew his stuff, but then he admitted that he hadn’t been to an Egg Bowl since 1983 and suddenly I felt plenty secure in the fact that I would’ve totally smoked him.

Clearly I am a grown-up and very mature.

Sister and I did some shopping over the weekend, and I am happy to announce that I found a lamp replacement (Hazel broke my favorite yellow lamp a couple of weeks ago) at Home Goods. The shape is almost identical, and even though it wasn’t $10 like my yellow one, I was tickled to find something that looks similar – and I think we’re going to be able to paint it yellow, so WIN. The other exciting development is that Sister has fully embraced the resurgence of the palazzo pants (we were completely smitten with the Coco Bianco palazzos at SteinMart), so we had all kinds of fun trying on pretty much every pair we could find. THEY ARE A DELIGHT.

Today I decided to clean out my closet, mainly because my closet has started to make me feel claustrophobic and maybe a little bit ashamed. It’s one of those chores that I put off and put off and put off, and then the prospect of digging through everything feels so overwhelming that I just sort of shield my eyes and grab whatever I need and walk out. The last couple of days, though, I’ve felt like I was ready to tackle it, so this afternoon I started dragging everything off of the shelves before I could chicken out and decide to start a marathon of a TV show instead.

I’m not anywhere near finished, but I think I’m doing a good job of being ruthless in terms of what gets to stay and what has to leave. I spent most of the afternoon going through old purses and duffel bags, and apparently I haven’t gotten rid of any purses since Alex was born. Add to that the fact that there were a couple of small bags in the mix that I apparently never unpacked after we moved SEVEN AND ONE HALF YEARS AGO, and you can understand why I felt like I spent the better part of my day in a time machine.

I mean, it’s not every day when you’re confronted with the reality that there was a time in your life when you actually thought a picture like this one was a good idea.

Oh. Bless it.

And listen. I certainly don’t mean to cause sensory overload. It’s a lot to take in all at once, so if you need to focus on one element at a time, take a break, then come back for the next element, that is so understandable. Because first of all, there’s the hair (I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Paul Mitchell’s Freeze and Shine – as well as my Clairol curl sticks – for making that hair possible). Then there’s the lace collar (courtesy of Jessica McClintock, BUT OF COURSE). Then there’s the pose (I have no explanation) and the SINGLE ROSE. If memory serves I had this picture made for Mother’s Day either my senior year in high school or my freshman year in college, and I remember seeing the proofs and feeling sad that my hair didn’t look bigger on the sides because SURE. And what you cannot see is that I topped off the whole look by going barefoot in the picture, a clear indication that I had recently watched a very emotional Whitney Houston / Sheena Easton / Anita Baker / Phil Collins video where the female main character opted to not wear shoes.

I was very young and impressionable.

So. I may not be finished with my closet yet, but I can say for sure that I am finished with 1) lace collars 2) single roses 3) bangs that curl under. I would like to be able to say that I am finished with big hair, but I’m just not ready to make that kind of bold proclamation. You just never known what trends the future might hold, and I’d really like a redemptive shot to make the sides of my hair a little bigger the next time around.

I mean, palazzo pants are back, after all. Maybe curl rods and some econo-sized cans of Paul Mitchell Freeze and Shine aren’t all that far behind, you know?

Well, I’d planned to get this podcast up last night, but State’s baseball game with Georgia went to 10 innings, and by the time it was over (after 11pm, mind you), my nerves were far too frazzled to do any sort of editing and uploading and etc. I had to start a new book just to wind down and have any hope of falling asleep, and yes, I’m all too aware that I have some co-dependency issues when it comes to the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

This is not exactly a new development.

ANYHOODLE.

This podcast is hodgepodge (well, let’s be honest – all of them are), and we cover a big ole variety of unrelated topics: my incessant cough, Melanie’s home improvement goals, the end of the school year, and my new job as a personal assistant to an 11 year-old. It was all good times and big fun.

You can click here to listen. Or here. You can even listen right here (I just realized that we could do this a couple of months ago, and I think it’s a convenient listening option).

Or, as always, you can subscribe on iTunes if you’re feeling particularly fancy.

Hope y’all enjoy it!