Playing Catch-Up

4 October 2011 by

– Okay. If you haven’t read the comments on yesterday’s post, GO. They are HILARIOUS. I clapped and hooted when I read them, and quite frankly I don’t know how we’ll ever pick a winner.

– Yesterday I was so busy shutting down the bridge to fun that I forgot to tell you about the most wonderful thing that happened this past Sunday. I have listened to and loved Daniel Renstrom‘s music for several years, so you can imagine my joy when I discovered that he was leading worship at our church this past Sunday. OH, THE HAPPINESS. It was such a treat to hear him sing in person, and sweet mercy at the thoughtfulness and intention with which he leads. So, so good.

– Jennifer’s posts always make me think about how I can be a better, more intentional mama, and this post – which focuses on helping kids decide who they want to be – is no exception.

– Also: this post of Angie’s? Yes ma’am.

– I found the recipe for these Chubby Hubby Bars on Pinterest, and they may be my undoing. Because chocolate? And pretzels? And sea salt? And caramel? IN THE SAME RECIPE? Why, I believe I will.

Filed Under: Daily Awesome

I Was Previously Unaware That Such A Bridge Even Existed

3 October 2011 by

Well, today is my birthday, and I am 27 years old. IN MY MIND, AT LEAST.

Birthday delusions aside, I’m happy to tell you that Mamaw’s sciatica subsided over the weekend, though I seem to have added a sinus infection to the mix. Later in the week I plan to wrestle with a bout of bursitis and then maybe deal with an angina flare-up. So needless to say I am SASSY AS EVER.

As far as birthdays go, today has been a good ‘un. My fellas sent me some beautiful flowers, and since pedicures are in fact my love language, they gave me a gift certificate to my favorite nail salon. I rarely get manicures because I can’t stand it if my nails are longer than two centimeters, but the last time I got a pedicure (OPI Suzi Takes The Wheel – can’t recommend it enough), I totally caved and got a manicure, too. OH, I DID ENJOY IT. I loved having polish on my fingernails for, no kidding, the first time in approximately eleven-ish years, and I felt very hip and with it and now for the five whole days that the manicure lasted.

So I’m thinking that the whole manicure thing may wind up being more of an annual treat than a regular habit.

Tonight we went to Chuy’s for supper (SHOCKING, I KNOW), and it was delicious, as always. We came home and enjoyed some birthday cupcakes, followed by an extensive discussion about an upcoming math test. The eight year-old in this house is typically super self-motivated when it comes to school, but he’s concerned about a timed math test that’s coming up later this week. His daddy and I explained that we’ll just practice until the timed part doesn’t even feel like a factor, but the little man expressed some concern that practicing math isn’t quite as fun as other after-school activities.

And y’all, I don’t know what came over me, but I suddenly found myself dropping every single cliche’ about Why School Is Important. At one point I actually said – I ACTUALLY SAID – “Well, what you need to understand is that until you are totally prepared for this timed test, the bridge to after-school fun is SHUT DOWN. But when you take your test and do well on your test, the bridge to fun will re-open.”

Seriously. THE BRIDGE TO FUN. Who says that? Besides A CRAZY PERSON, I mean?

Eventually I realized that I didn’t need to run the risk of implying that A might wind up living in a van down by the river if he doesn’t do well on his timed math facts quiz, so D and I tried to lighten the mood with some silliness. All was happy and well within a few minutes, and we ended up having a sweet little prayer time that pulled the whole issue back into perspective. However, I have to say: for about ten minutes there I barely recognized myself. I’d had three glasses of unsweetened iced tea at the Chuy’s, gotten all amped up on caffeine, and before I knew what hit me I was wearing my academic police cap, mapping out a strategy for Math Success and SHUTTING DOWN THE BRIDGE TO FUN.

Sweet times. Precious memories.

So, to make my birthday joy complete, I would love it if some of y’all would jump in and share some parenting words of wisdom that you can’t believe you actually said. Maybe you threatened to turn the car around RIGHT THIS SECOND because CLEARLY WE DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW TO HAVE FUN IN THIS FAMILY, or maybe you gave an excellent lecture on how failing to plan is planning to fail and THERE WILL BE NO PLANS FOR FAILURE IN THIS HOUSE. And if you’re not a parent, don’t let that stop you from participating, because I bet you’ve offered some mighty fine words of wisdom to your nieces, nephews, siblings or godchildren.

I guess the bottom line is that if you’ve ever had an Oh my word I cannot believe I actually just said that teachable moment with someone who was under your care and supervision, now is your chance to share the joy of that moment with the internet. And we will laugh with you. Because even though the whole caring-for-children thing is hard sometimes, it can also be endlessly entertaining.

I’ll round up a few bloggy people to vote for the funniest comment in a couple of days, and just to make everything all official and fancy, the prize will be a $50 gift certificate from Amazon or iTunes (winner’s choice).

And listen. If that doesn’t re-open THE BRIDGE TO FUN, then I don’t know what will.

Fire away, my friends.

Filed Under: Rambling

Feeling The Burn

29 September 2011 by

So I’m trying to be diligent and dedicated and determined about setting aside some time in the afternoons to use the new-to-us elliptical machine. And I don’t even know if the term “elliptical machine” is correct – maybe you’re supposed to say “elliptical motion machine” – but seeing as how I don’t really run in fitness circles (nor do I really, you know, RUN AT ALL), I’m going with “elliptical machine” until someone tells me it’s wrong.

And even then I might not stop. Because I’m totally a rebel like that.

Anyway, the elliptical (sidenote: my mama would probably call it the “ellip” because she holds a special place in her heart for abbreviations, especially “fridge” and “mayo”) and I have been getting along pretty well so far. I mean, even though I have a love/hate relationship with exercise, I do find the elliptical machine to be the least offensive of all the many offensive exercise options that can fill me with dread and/or resentment on a daily basis.

And quite frankly I can’t think of a more ringing endorsement than that.

Earlier this week I decided that my afternoon elliptical time would be an excellent opportunity to catch up on Survivor and The Amazing Race, and that is exactly what I’ve done. I have reacquainted myself with Ozzie and Coach, with Ethan and Jenna. I’ve rolled my eyes while watching tribal councils and marveled that someone could lose a passport before she ever made it to an airport for the first flight of the race. Needless to say, it has been a precious reality TV time.

However, I’ve apparently been so intent on checking off my reality TV objectives that I haven’t spent enough time paying attention to my form on the elliptical motion machine / ellipitical machine / ellip. Because while I have no idea WHAT IN THE SAM HILL I’ve done, I can tell you with a great degree of certainty that all signs and symptoms seem to indicate that my right hip will NEVER, EVER BE THE SAME. It hurts when I sit down; it hurts when I stand up. It hurts when I walk; it hurts when I drive. And I’m tempted to tell you that it hurts when I seek my wool and flax and when I bring in food from afar, but I don’t want to push my luck. Even though I’m still totally tempted to tell you that my hip also hurts when I provide portions for my maidens and when I plant my vineyards.

I KNOW. I KNOW. I’LL STOP NOW.

The bottom line, I reckon, is that MAMAW’S HIP IS A-SMARTIN’. And I have no idea why. However, the good news is that there’s a certain way I can stretch that provides such blessed relief that it makes me want to sing Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life, so maybe if I just hold that position for the next 48 hours or so I’ll be good as new. I’m always a fan of a practical solution, you know.

Given all that, I reckon it’s time for me to go slather on the Icy Hot and watch an episode or four of Hee Haw. That Roy Clark is a STITCH, isn’t he? Not to mention that Grandpa Jones. Oh, he just tickles me to no end.

So if you need to find me, just follow the scent of menthol and methyl salicylate until you find me sitting on the heating pad and watching the Bulldogs play Georgia. Odds are that I won’t be doing much jumping up and down since MAMAW CAN’T TAKE THE PAIN, but I’ll still be forty-nine kinds of happy. College football cures a world of hurts, my friends.

Have a great weekend, everybody!
______________________________________________________

p.s. If you’ve been on some sort of internet fast and haven’t seen Melanie’s big book news yet, please join the rest of us as we squeal and clap our hands. I’m so proud of her.

p.p.s. Today’s the last day of the OnStar FMV Mirror campaign; here’s my review if you’re interested.

p.p.p.s. Your comments on my last post are absolutely delightful. Well played, bloggy people!

Filed Under: Rambling

Because I Luv Memory Lane

27 September 2011 by

Earlier this afternoon on the Twitter, Ree posed a question that stopped me in my tracks and then propelled me RIGHT BACK to 1979:

“Does anyone in this universe remember Luv-It jeans?”

Because, um, YEAH.

I actually had a couple of different pairs of Luv-Its. One pair had some sah-weet satin hearts on the back pockets, and another featured some satin roller skates. And if you weren’t a child of the late 70s/early 80s and are therefore trying to figure out what made Luv-It jeans so special and memorable, you may have picked up on the fact that it was THOSE SASSY SATIN APPLIQUES.

After I read Ree’s tweet, I spent some quality time reflecting on the days when I thought my Luv-It jeans were the absolute pinnacle of elementary school fashion. The only thing that made them better, of course, was when I accessorized my Luv-Its with a gigantor comb in my pocket (thanks, Holly, for that reminder), but obviously I tried to change up my fashion routine a little bit when I’d make a trip to the skating rink on the weekends.

I mean, if I was gonna break it down and backwards skate to some Donna Summer “On The Radio,” then obviously I wanted to look as much like Tootie on The Facts of Life as I possibly could.

Because Tootie? SHE WORKED IT OUT.

Anyway, all the thoughts about the Luv-Its jeans and whatnot prompted a stroll down my fashion memory lane (late 70s/early 80s edition). And these were a few of my favorite things:

1) Luv-It jeans. Obviously.

2) Mork & Mindy suspenders. Nanu-nanu.

3) Green corduroy Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. Mama bought them at McRae’s, and I thought they were very fancy.

4) Old-school Nike tennis shoes. White with a blue swoosh.

5) Wooden handle purse with reversible monogrammed covers.

6) Add-a-bead necklace.

7) Yellow t-shirt with “How To Roller Skate” instructions on it. It looked fab with my Mork & Mindy suspenders.

8) Painters’ pants. I thought they were FANTASTIC with a ruffled plaid blouse.

9) Reversible down puffy vest. If I close my eyes and think really hard, I can still smell the feathers.

10) Pink fake-silk shirt with a maroon ribbon around the neck. It was awful and wonderful all at the same time.

11) Yo-Yo sandals. They were perfection with a pair of culottes.

All righty. Your turn. You have no idea how happy it will make me to read about your best elementary school / middle school clothes-related moments.

I AM BESIDE MYSELF WITH ANTICIPATION.

Filed Under: Rambling

The .MOM Report

26 September 2011 by

Listen. I’m just as happy as I can be to report that the emceeing/hosting/interpretative dancing duties at .MOM ended up being surprisingly easy and breezy and DARE I SAY comfortable. Maybe it was because the women who were there were just as sweet and supportive as they could be. Maybe it was because the LifeWay folks totally set us up to succeed (Seth Worley and Jeff Venable were the brains behind the opening video, and Lydia Campbell made sure that we always understood what we were supposed to be doing during the event). Maybe it was because Mel and I have gotten to know the event team pretty well over the last three years and the built-in comfort factor was HUGE. Maybe it was a combination of all those things.

Because do you know what?

It was really, really FUN.

TAKE THAT, ALAMODOME.

I wish I had all the right words to sum up what made .MOM so special. I know I’ll fall way short if I try to explain it, but I definitely think that the solid teaching combined with God-honoring worship combined with good, old-fashioned fellowship made for a mighty encouraging two days. What I love most of all is that I came home with some real, practical, much-needed wisdom (along with some fresh perspective) about how I can better serve my people. So good.

.MOM is going to be in Birmingham again next year, and we would love to see you there (you can actually register now if you’re interested). Melanie and I are going to emcee again (WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE), and now that we know what to expect, I have a feeling that both of us will look forward to next September LIKE CRAZY.

There are several things that I am dying to talk about but don’t have time right now (a certain eight year-old said all 66 books of the Bible to his Sunday School teacher yesterday, and we have a date for celebratory frozen yogurt just as soon as he finishes school today). Chief among those things is the fact that the Duggars showed up for an impromptu .MOM visit Friday night, and Jim Bob and I had a bit of an awkward exchange over a microphone. It was one of those situations that struck me as so funny but I couldn’t act like it was funny and the more I tried not to get tickled the more I wanted to get REALLLLY tickled and finally I just backed up and stood behind the Duggars and tried to behave.

Just FYI: I don’t think I behaved nearly as well as those 18 kids (the littlest wasn’t there) and 2 grandkids.

I also want to discuss what happens when Melanie and I get to watch college football together. OH, IT IS LIVELY. But more about that later.

Okay. I’m off to get some yogurt. But I hope y’all are having a great day. And I hope that if you were at .MOM that you’re catching up on your rest. And I hope that if you weren’t at .MOM that you had a great weekend with your people. And I hope that somebody shows up at my house tonight with some fried chicken and mashed potatoes, but something tells me that it’s not gonna happen unless I decide to run through the drive-thru at the Popeye’s.

Which, now that I think of it, SORT OF SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN.

See y’all later!

Filed Under: Rambling

A Break Will Also Provide Plenty Of Time For All The Anxiety

21 September 2011 by

About three years ago I flew out to San Antonio to meet Melanie at a Living Proof Live event at the Alamodome. The plan was that Melanie and I would blog about the event like we normally do (over at AllAccess), and then afterwards we were going to help out at a Q&A session featuring Beth Moore and her daughters. If memory serves, the idea was that Mel and I would be responsible for some “witty banter” with the women who were waiting to attend the Q&A. In retrospect I think we were probably supposed to be like those warm-up people at talk shows – the people who try to keep the audience from getting too bored while they’re waiting on the people they really want to see.

And let me just tell you: that day in San Antonio, there were a bunch of women who reallllly wanted to see Beth, Amanda and Melissa. Which is understandable because, well, they’re darlin’.

In the weeks prior to the Q&A, Melanie and I talked about some possibilities for our “witty banter.” We figured there would be about 200 people there (in a small-ish conference room of some sort), and of those 200, we sort of (naively) assumed that maybe half of them would have read our blogs because we’d met and hung out with several of the women who were going to the Q&A. So, since Mel and I both enjoy procrastination and since we both felt like everything would go pretty smoothly if we were “bantering” in a room among friends, we decided on a very general approach and figured we’d come up with some specifics once I arrived in San Antonio.

Oh, our plan was flawed.

Our plan was very, very flawed.

For so many, many reasons.

First of all, my flight from Houston to San Antonio was cancelled, so I ended up pulling up to our hotel on two wheels about 45 minutes before we had to be at the Alamodome on Friday night. We ended up going to a late supper after the event, and we rolled back into the hotel at approximately 12:00 in the AM. Which makes perfect sense when you consider that we needed to wake up at 6:00 the next morning and then be responsible for witty banter later in the day.

(I can’t quit using the phrase “witty banter.”)

(I recognize that it might be annoying.)

(But still: “WITTY BANTER.”)

And then, once we got settled in at the hotel, the insomnia hit. OH MY WORD DID IT EVER.

Melanie and I are both what you might call High-Maintenance Sleepers, and have mercy did our collective sleeping crazy ever kick in that night in San Antonio. Both of us enjoy a sound machine when we sleep, but unfortunately both of us had left our sound machines at home. As a result, our room was so quiet that we could hear EVERYTHING going on in the hallway of the hotel. At one point we got so desperate that we turned on the water in the bathroom sink to see if that would mimic a sound machine and therefore SOOTHE OUR INCREASINGLY FRAYED NERVES, but it didn’t work at all. I finally drifted off around 3, only to wake up at 5 and find a wide-eyed Melanie sitting on the bathroom floor with her laptop.

She was typing a blog post. I don’t know why this would surprise you.

All that to say: we were exhausted when we got back to the Alamodome Saturday morning. The looming banter took a backseat to the fact that we were both a little desperate for sleep. And then, before we were even remotely prepared, the event was over and it was time for us to take our witty banter in front of the 200 women. Only – TRUE STORY – there were actually about 1,000 women LINED UP ACROSS THE FLOOR OF THE ALAMODOME, and I would venture to say that approximately 993 of those women were wondering who in the world we were and WHY IN THE SAM HILL they were being forced to listen to us.

To their credit, nobody actually screamed “WHERE’S BETH?!?!” when we walked out to the middle of the floor, but I guarantee you that most of those women were thinking it.

There are so many things I could tell you about those fifteen minutes of my life – those fifteen minutes THAT STRETCHED OUT FOR ALL ETERNITY – but I really don’t think there’s anything I could say to make you understand just how deeply, completely, filled-to-overflowing-with-awkward it all was. I mean, I’ve watched TV shows where someone stepped up to a microphone and froze, but I’d never experienced it firsthand until that fateful August afternoon. Melanie and I just, I don’t know, STOOD THERE, and all those women just, I don’t know, STARED AT US, and Melanie and I kept looking at each other and then looking at the women and then looking at each other and then looking at the women and IT NEVER GOT ANY BETTER, OH NO, it just became increasingly more painful and cringe-worthy with every passing second.

So Melanie decided to break the ice first, and here, HERE WAS HER OPENER:

“Hey. How’d y’all sleep last night?”

And then I looked at her and laughed nervously and launched into a seemingly endless description of our sound machine woes and how we turned on the water and then I found Melanie in the bathroom at 5 and OH MY LANDS IT’S LIKE I’M SPEAKING TO A FIELD OF CRICKETS AND BY THE WAY THE CRICKETS AREN’T EVEN SMILING.

After about five minutes we had the good sense to ask Travis to join us, and he totally saved the day (because, you see, the people there knew who he was, and they seemed to appreciate seeing a face that was infinitely more familiar to them than the faces of the two blogger people who couldn’t seem to do much more than stammer). Travis actually created some interaction and some fun (which, of course, was supposed to be our job, but we’d fired ourselves by that point), and somehow we made it to the end of our little segment.

I’ve never in my life been so happy for something to be over. And even though it was pretty epic in its terribleness (no kidding: I think the term “EPIC FAIL” was coined as a direct result of what happened on the floor of the Alamodome that afternoon), I like to think that the 993 women/crickets forgot all about Mel and me as soon as Beth and her girls came out on the floor for pictures and the Q&A.

Anyway, I’m sharing this NEVER ENDING TALE with y’all today because it adds an element of SWEET, SWEET IRONY to the fact that this weekend Melanie and I are the emcees for the .MOM Conference here in Birmingham. Once again Mel and I will be like the warm-up people on talk shows – only this time we are going to be PREPARED, yes ma’am we are. There are some real-live people who have worked like crazy to help us get ready for our emcee-related responsibilities, and we’re really excited about it. And also terrified. But still: really excited.

So, given all of that, I’m going to take a little bloggy break for the next few days. Tomorrow Melanie and I will hit the ground running just as soon as I pick her up from the airport, and you’d better believe we’ll be rehearsing for our emcee duties this time around. Several times, in fact.

LESSON LEARNED, ALAMODOME. YOU TAUGHT US WELL.

I hope that some of y’all will be at .MOM, and I also hope that you’ll come say hey if you’re there. Mainly because Mel and I will probably need a hug. And a pep talk. And then another hug.

Hope y’all have a great rest of the week!

Remembering the Alamodome,
Me

Filed Under: Bloggity Fun, Rambling
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