The Wordy Is Back, So By All Means Grab Some Snacks

26 October 2009 by

I am well aware that I probably enjoy watching sports a little bit more (AHEM) than your average girl. I have no idea why that is, but oh, I DO LOVE ME A LIVE SPORTING EVENT, especially if my Bulldogs are playing. In fact, if you gave me a choice between spending the day being pampered at some sort of spa or spending the day watching the Bulldogs play, I would choose the Bulldogs every single time.

I know. I’m weird. I can’t help it.

So last week, when all the hype surrounding the Mississippi State/Florida game started to build, I COULD NOT STAND IT. I thought it would be oh-so-fun to be in Starkville when the Gators rolled into town. And even though David had some other stuff planned for the weekend and couldn’t make the trip, he gave me his blessing to take the little guy on a road trip. Honestly, I had no expectations of being able to find tickets for the game since it was a sell-out, but I figured just being on campus would make for a mighty fine Saturday. Plus, our men’s basketball team was having an open scrimmage at noon, so, you know, YES, PLEASE.

As it turned out, my friend Daphne called me Thursday night and said they had two extra tickets, and I was TICKLED MAROON, I tell you. I told Daph later if I’d known when we met our freshman year that she’d be calling me two decades later to offer me tickets to the State/ Florida game, I would’ve bought her a big, new bottle of Paul Mitchell Freeze & Shine right then and there. I might have even offered to distress her blue jeans with some straight-up bleach in the dorm’s laundry room while I let her borrow my “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack cassette.

Anyway, early Saturday morning the little man and I hopped in the car and drove to Starkville. It was cloudy and gray outside – not to mention that the interstate was already pretty congested at 8 AM because of all the people driving to Tuscaloosa for the Alabama/Tennessee game – but I’ll have you know that as soon as we hit Highway 82 right outside of Tuscaloosa, the traffic all but disappeared, and the sky started to clear.

By the time we rolled into Starkville the sky was almost turquoise, and we parked in our favorite gameday parking lot and started walking to the coliseum. Alex was so excited that he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do first, but as soon as he saw all of the RVs in the coliseum parking lot, he became absolutely certain that he wanted to go in an RV and look around. In fact, when he spied a Florida fan who was sitting outside his RV in a lounge chair, he very loudly said that MAYBE THAT GUY WILL LET US INSIDE HIS RV, but I assured him that the Florida fans probably weren’t in the mood to give Bulldog fans MID-MORNING TOURS OF THEIR RECREATIONAL VEHICLES.

But do y’all know what was waiting on us when we walked up to the edge of the coliseum? Three RVs that were on display by a local RV dealer. IT WAS AN RV OPEN HOUSE, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Honestly, I felt in that very moment that the Lord had given us His gameday favor. Because I don’t think I have to tell you that there was a six year-old who bounded up the steps into that very first RV and thought he had entered some sort of magical wonderland where all the appliances were his size. He also had a total a-ha moment when he realized that if he owned an RV, he could stretch out on the couch and watch a big ole television WHILE SOMEONE DROVE HIM AROUND, and it made me laugh so hard. Honestly, I think that RV may have helped him to solidify some Life Goals.

We walked in the coliseum about an hour before the scrimmage was scheduled to start, and since there was really no one in the building except for the women’s basketball team down on the court, Alex decided he wanted to explore.

10,000 empty seats + many, many stairs = NON-STOP ENTERTAINMENT.

My friend Lea Margaret and her little boy got to the coliseum right at the end of the women’s practice, and Alex and Mac were deee-lighted to see one another.

It was so sweet to watch them together – because the last time they saw each other they looked like this.

It’s been a few years.

The boys had big fun watching the men’s basketball team – at least until they both decided that they were very hungry and very thirsty and really, really wanted to go to the bookstore. But no way was I going to leave The Hump without snapping the young’un’s picture on the basketball court.

I FEEL A SENSE OF COMPLETENESS NOW.

The afternoon was sort of a wonderful blur of maroon and cowbells and old friends and blue skies and mums. OH, YES. MUMS. Everywhere with the mums.

I loved the mums.

We were mighty excited to see our friends Todd and New Marti, who were in Mississippi for the game and a baby shower. And as you can tell by the pictures, Alex likes them just a little bit.

We also ran into my great friend from high school (and freshman year roommate), Amanda, who looks EXACTLY THE SAME, MY WORD, HOW DOES SHE DO IT?

Thankfully we have both left acid-washed jeans and ginormous hair bows far, far behind.

Alex and I claimed our spots for the Dawg Walk, and once we were settled, he staged an elaborate Larry Boy re-enactment with some pom-poms.

I can’t say that I understood what he was doing, but hey. He was happy. That was all that mattered.

When the team finally made the walk into the stadium, my little guy rang his cowbell like a champ. After all, IT’S HIS HERITAGE, PEOPLE. Brings a tear to mine eye.

And I’ll bet you that 12 or 14 people showed up for the Dawg Walk.

SWEET MERCY it was crowded. But OH, it was fun.

We spent the rest of our pre-game time tailgating with Daphne and her family. This was the point in the afternoon when Alex really started to get revved up about the game, and he told Daph that she really, really needed to put up a sign that said “NO GATORS ALLOWED” on the tailgating tent. Then he started singing a version of the fight song that ended with him screaming, “GO STATE! HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE LORD!”

Apparently that’s the lesser-known, Baptist version of the fight song.

We walked in the stadium about 45 minutes before the game started, and OH, IT WAS LIVELY. Alex told me that it was the best day of his life in the whole wide world, and then he said, “That team from Florida is nothing but a bunch of…BABY WORMY GATORS BLAH BLAH, Mama.”

I think we all know that if Tim Tebow had heard that level of smack talk, he would have run off the field in fear.

The ‘Dogs played a whale of a game even though they didn’t win (this play will go down as one of my very favorite Bulldog football moments ever). And after the game, we hung out by the field for a few minutes so that we could see our friend Bo, who’s #44 for the Bulldogs.

Alex waited so patiently – he was NOT leaving that campus until he got to see Bo.

And finally, he did.

It was just the sweetest. Bo gave Alex his gloves and a sweatband from the game, and you want to talk about a little boy who could not quit smiling, NEVER YOU MIND THAT IT WAS 10:30 IN THE PM?

Thrilled to pieces, he was.

As we walked away from the field we ran into even more old friends, laughed with them for a few minutes (Mart, I won’t forget to tell the flat-iron story) and very slowly made our way back to our car. It was a long day – twelve hours of on-campus fun – and we were ready to get to Daphne’s mama’s house so we could get some much-needed rest. But oh my goodness, it was THE BEST day. So full of sweet friends and tradition and nostalgia and laughter. More happy than my heart could contain.

Not to mention that I had the very best travel buddy in the whole wide world.

Go ‘Dogs.

Filed Under: Beloved Bulldogs, Family Fun

A New Fashion Catchphrase

8 October 2009 by

Yesterday afternoon I took Martha to Steinmarts. I took her to Steinmarts because she had been in town for a full three hours without making the pilgrimage to the mothership, and when Alex and I got home we found her sipping on her nineteenth cup of coffee and looking like she was ready for a shopping adventure.

I only had to utter half the word – “Stein” – before she threw on her turquoise jacket and grabbed her purse and walked briskly to the front door.

On the way to the Steinmarts Martha ran through her list of “a few things I’d like to find.” As long as I have known her – which, at this point, is the better part of thirty years – Martha has had a like-to-find list in her head. It changes, of course, depending on her fashion and decorative needs, but sometimes the like-to-find is a three-piece suit (jacket, skirt, pants) that she could wear to church and to weddings and to lunch with the girls if, you know, they were going somewhere nice.

Sometimes the like-to-find is a set of salt and pepper shakers with the same color of blue as those dishes that Rose gave her, you know the ones in the pie safe in the breakfast room? The ones with all the pretty colors?

Sometimes the like-to-find is a collarless black jacket with two buttons – but they have to be big buttons! not little buttons! – that she can wear with the red skirt from Dillard’s that’s not really a red-dy red but more of a burgundy-red, only not a true burgundy because she’s never really owned anything in that color, but the red-dy red skirt has sort of a high waist and so it would look cute with a short black jacket, but it really only needs to have two buttons to keep it a little dressier because if it had three buttons it would look more like something you’d wear to work in a bank or maybe even a law firm!

You really just never know.

Yesterday’s like-to-find list was a sofa, a wing-back chair and a small patio set, so I knew from the get-go that we weren’t going to be find any of it at Steinmarts. But I also knew that the siren call of the short, three-quarter sleeve jacket is strong and irresistible. And since I couldn’t take a page from The Odyssey and tie Martha to some sort of mast to help her resist the siren’s call, I opted to completely enable her.

Which is why we were in the Steinmarts for over one hour.

At one point Martha asked me to look at a black and white coat that she found. It really was cute, and I gave it a thumbs-up, but when she put it on, it was way too big in the shoulders and the sleeves hit her fingertips.

“DO YOU SEE?” she said. “DO YOU SEE HOW THIS ‘SMALL’ DOES ON ME? IT JUST WON’T DO! IT WON’T DO! IT’S JUST TOO BIG!”

And I’m standing there thinking that if I tried to put on that ‘small’ coat and worked with all my might to squeeze my arms in the sleeves, a movement of a mere fraction of an inch would turn the whole thing into something that resembled the Incredible Hulk’s t-shirt.

Seriously. A light breeze could blow in Huntsville, and those sleeves would fly off of my arms like rockets.

In the end Martha didn’t find anything – she felt like most of the clothes were “beigey-taupey” and not really anything she was looking for and certainly not anything on the like-to-find – but on the way home she told me a story about a yellow jacket that she recently bought.

I’ll spare you most of the details, but the gist was that Martha got an incredible deal on this cute little jacket that had a little bit of fringe on the sleeves and was sort of a bright yellow, but not a mustard gold! oh no! not a mustard gold! Then she said, “I know you write on the blog that I say things are darlin’, just darlin’, but this one REALLY WAS, Sophie, IT REALLY WAS.”

And then:

“Do you know what it was? Do you know? That jacket was darlin’ plus. It was DARLIN’ PLUS! It was SPECIAL. DARLIN’ PLUS!”

And I’ll have you know that in that very moment a single thought came to my mind: in a day or so I’m going to tell the internet about darlin’ plus. And when I tell them, they’re not going to believe it.

Because “darlin’ plus”? WHO SAYS THAT?

My mother-in-law. That’s who.

So in conclusion, internet, I just want to tell you something.

You aren’t just darlin’.

You’re darlin’ plus. Oh yes you are. YOU’RE DARLIN’ PLUS.

And you can hold that in your heart forever and for always.

Love,
The Daughter-in-Law of Martha / Mother / “Martie”

Filed Under: Family Fun

Title Goes Here

6 October 2009 by

So I know that maybe it seems like I’m not blogging as much lately. And I think that maybe the reason it seems that way is because, well, I’m not blogging as much lately. In fact, I have deliberately cut back on the amount of mediocrity that I crank out every week because 1) I am happily working more than I have in the last few years 2) those people sitting in the other room get annoyed when I’m on the computer too much and 3) I had an epiphany this past summer that I was living my life like I was chasing after something I couldn’t even identify.

And call me crazy (“CRAZY!”), but that seems like a pretty silly way to live.

I have long said that only about 10% of my life makes its way to the blog, but the irony is that 10% has gotten a whole lot of attention from me over the last few years. After all, I’ve devoted a big chunk of “writer”-ish energy to that 10%. There have been days when that 10% has flat-out dominated my time.

So I guess the bottom line is that I’m trying to be more mindful and protective of the 90% of my life that never shows up here. That’s why I took a bloggy break a month or so ago. It’s why I felt like it was time to let somebody else take over the tour-o-homes. It’s why there’s not always something new to read here every morning. It’s why my email is sort of embarrassingly neglected right now.

And it’s also why, for the first time in about three years, the blog feels like a real-live hobby again. And I LOVE that.

Anyway, I just felt like I needed to explain. And now that we’re all clear, here’s what I actually set out to tell you about when I started this post approximately sixteen days ago.

(Wordiness. It is my friend.)

(SO.)

Martha and I are taking a little road trip to Living Proof Live in Memphis this weekend. Honestly, I don’t know whether to keep a pen and notepad handy at all times or just hang a video camera from my rear view mirror and leave it running for four days straight.

Also: this is a completely unscientific guess, but I bet that I’m going to hear the words “jacket” and “Steinmart(s)” and “three-quarter sleeve” a combined total of 274 times between Thursday and Sunday.

I also bet I’m going to hear my name pronounced as “SO-phie!” about 372 times because that’s how Martha pronounces it when she gets really excited about something. And y’all know good and well that Martha will take one look at whatever cute jacket Beth Moore is wearing Friday night and say, “SO-phie! SO-phie! Do you see? Do you see? Isn’t that jacket perfectly darlin’? JUST DARLIN’! Do you think she got it at Steinmart(s)? Is that a three-quarter sleeve? SO-phie!”

It’s going to be fun! More fun! So much fun! Can you believe how much fun?!

!!!

MORE FUN!!!

Filed Under: Family Fun, Rambling

Dogs And Rebels Living Together

9 September 2009 by

Before I say anything else, I have to say this: there’s something very comforting about being the company of people who love dips as much as I do. I can’t help but feel that we should all stand in a circle and sing songs and then pass around a ginormous bag of Frito Scoops.

Which reminds me.

Our little family rang in the college football season this past weekend in Memphis at my brother’s house, where my sister-in-law kicked off the festivities (kicked off? get it? think I’m lame yet?) with some classic Rotel dip. It was so stinkin’ good, and at one point I think I actually PICKED UP THE BOWL and scraped around the edge with my chip.

You know how some people can’t bear to see a drop of water go to waste? I feel that way about cheese.

It was so fun to be able to watch the Mississippi State game with the family unit. Sister and I yelled like crazy (it is RIGHT and GOOD that we were able to be together for State’s first game), and the Bulldogs were victorious. Plus, we had a small staff of people checking the scores of other games during commercial breaks.

I know. I KNOW. Sister decided that we should call the den “the press box.” And don’t you think that the cat looks like she wants a laptop of her own? Maybe a tiny little chicken-scented one?

Anyway, considering that the Memphis branch of the family cheers for Ole Miss and the Birmingham and Nashville branches cheer for the Bulldogs, there was potential for a wee bit of SEC tension in the house. But I have to say: we did remarkably well. Even the children had a spirit of cooperation and unity.

Warms the heart, doesn’t it?

After the game we went out for a lovely dinner to celebrate Sister’s birthday, and LO AND BEHOLD our table was next to a TV that was showing the Alabama / Virginia Tech game. I didn’t watch much of it, but just knowing it was there was a soothing balm to my soul. By the time we got home from dinner the LSU game was on, and I actually fell asleep while I was watching the Tigers play.

So, you know, it was pretty much a perfect Saturday.

Now.

Pretend like there’s some sort of segue’ here.

Sometime in the next couple of days Melanie and I are going to record a podcast. And as many of you know, we like to plan our podcasts several minutes in advance and have been known to record two and sometimes even four podcasts over the course of an entire year. We like to think of ourselves as the semi-annual white sale of podcasting, only without the predictable schedule and high thread counts.

All that to say: if the eight of you who listen have any questions or topics that you’d like for us to answer or address when we record our new podcast this week, feel free to ask away in the comments. And if nobody has questions, that is totally fine. We’ll just talk about what we always talk about: college football and TV. And also our hair.

Hope y’all have a great Wednesday!

p.s. I’ll post the Christy Nockels giveaway winners later today…I haven’t forgotten!

Filed Under: Beloved Bulldogs, Family Fun

Big Fun Was Had By All

19 August 2009 by

One of Alex’s favorite people in the whole wide world is his friend AC. They’ve been big buddies for, well, their whole lives.

See what I mean?

They started school together a couple of years ago, and my sweet friend NK (AC’s mama) and I took them out for Mexican food to celebrate their first day.

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We did the same thing last year, and I remember thinking that they looked so old. So grown-up.

Photobucket

Which is why I nearly wept when I looked at the pictures I took of them today.

They’re getting so big.

Here they are with AC’s adorable little sister, who cannot possibly be three years old – it seems like she was born just a couple of months ago.

CLEARLY THE TIME IS NOT STOPPING.

Since Alex’s and AC’s schedules keep them at school a little longer this year, NK and I couldn’t take them out for back-to-school lunch. So we took them out for a back-to-school afternoon snack at Krispy Kreme instead.

By the way, Alex thinks that any tradition that involves a celebratory donut is SOLID GOLD AWESOME.

And when I asked him if he had a good first day of school, he said, “Oh. It was SO good, Mama.”

Happy first day of school, little man. We love you so much!

Filed Under: Family Fun, Oh Howard

Dear Summer, You Have Won Me Over

17 August 2009 by

I know I give summer a hard time.

There’s the heat.

And the humidity.

And the bugs.

And the humidity.

And the scorching sun.

Not to mention the humidity.

But this year, more than any other time in my adult life, I didn’t mind those things so much. I sort of enjoyed them, actually.

For the last two summers we’ve been dealing with no small degree of uncertainty in terms of some stuff and some things and blah blah blah being a grown-up is hard sometimes. While all of those ish-ahs still aren’t completely settled, they are a whole lot more clear. For the first time in a long time, I’m not trying to see what’s down the road. I’m just thankful to be where we are. And you know what else? This summer has reminded me over and over again that we are deeply, profoundly blessed to walk through life with incredible friends and family – even if we don’t see them every day.

Plus, any summer that heralds the discovery of the BoBerry biscuit is at least sixty-three kinds of memorable.


Music from Glory Revealed II

Summer 2009, you have been a delight and a joy.

What’s been your favorite memory?

Filed Under: Family Fun
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