– “Daddy, Mama’s TOTALLY gonna put that picture on the internet.”

– “Mama, I’m not supposed to praise you. I praise the Lord.”

– “OH, picklenuts.”

– “Mama? We reallllly need to go to Nashville. I think SuSu reallllly misses me.”

– “Mr.Traviswhat’syourfavoritesongonyournewCDJesusSavesLIVE?”

– “Girls should never say that boys are cute. They should say that boys are handsome. Or awesome.”

– “Dear God, thank you for this good day – and thank you for a good Jesus.”

– “You know? I’m not really a FAN of corn.”

This summer has been a good ‘un, y’all.

I like to think of myself as someone who’s pretty handy in the kitchen. I love to cook. I’d rather cook with a recipe in front of me, mind you, but when push comes to shove I can wing it. I can make do. If need be, I can fly by the seat of my culinary britches.

But every once in awhile there’s a misfire.

And last night. Oh, last night. Last night was one of my worst misfires ever.

My intentions were good. I was making Melanie’s chicken cakes (a favorite at our house), and I was scrambling around trying to figure out a side dish. I didn’t go to the grocery store yesterday because, well, I decided that staying in my pajamas was infinitely preferable, so I rifled through the pantry and decided I would make some homemade macaroni and cheese.

My mother-in-law makes her mac and cheese with a cheese sauce – which is a little bit different than my recipe – and since Alex loves her version so much, I thought I’d try to replicate it with some bowtie pasta since I was fresh out of macaroni. I was in a little bit of a hurry, so instead of dragging out another pot I just poured off most of the butter that was left in the bottom of the pan I’d used for the chicken cakes. Then I put the pan back on the stove and threw in a little flour. Stirred it all together. Added some milk and cheese.

Now I know what you’re thinking at this point: I should have banished that chicken cake pan to the henhouse before I started making my cheese sauce. But OH NO, I had to be Little Miss Convenience. Little Miss Don’t-Want-To-Wash-An-Extra-Pan.

Anyway, the sauce thickened up beautifully, but once I added the pasta, I noticed that the color was off a little bit. I couldn’t figure out what I did wrong, but as I re-traced my cooking steps, I realized that OH SWEET MERCY, I SHOULDN’T HAVE USED THE CHICKEN CAKES PAN BECAUSE THIS ISN’T CHEESE SAUCE AT ALL.

And then: OH SWEET MERCY, THIS IS CHEESE GRAVY.

And I think we all know how cheese gravies are sweeping the country by storm. They’re right up there with fish cornbread.

However, I held on to hope. I thought that maybe the concoction wouldn’t taste as bad as it looked and if it might turn out to be a happy cooking accident. I mean, it didn’t look like much, but food doesn’t have to be pretty to be delicious. Right?

Then I tasted it.

Y’all. It was so far past dreadful that it teetered on the edge of Official Side Dish Tragedy. If I had to give this dish – and please understand that I use that term loosely – a name, I’d call it Chicken Fried Cheese Gravy Pasta With Charred Bits Of Chicken Cakes.

Sort of makes your stomach rumble just thinking about it, doesn’t it?

But here’s the kicker. When it was time for supper, I warned my husband about the bowties. I told him how they didn’t turn out anything like I planned. How they tasted like chicken fried cheese gravy. How it wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit if he didn’t eat them because I was sort of embarrassed to serve them.

And y’all, he took one bite, looked up at me, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Hmmmm. Gravy! What’s not to love?”

Be sure to let me know if you’d like a copy of the recipe.

Well, we’re home now, and I don’t know whether I’m happy or sad to report that I didn’t see a single person at the pool in Gulf Shores who was wearing pantyhose. I mean, seeing one person in hose this summer is an anomaly. But if I’d seen two, I would’ve alerted InStyle magazine that we have us an Official Summertime Trend.

Anyway, now it’s time to play catch-up on all the business of real life: turning in forms for school, unpacking suitcases, buying groceries, wondering where all the pretty sand is, etc. and so on and so forth amen. I also have to get back in the habit of wearing clothes that button and zip, but I can’t talk about that right now because quite frankly after spending the better part of two and a half weeks in either a) a swimsuit / cover-up combo or b) pajamas, fitted clothes are clearly my nemesis. Last night I wore some pants that button AND zip to church, and you’d have thought I was in a straightjacket. The non-elastic waistband frightens and confuses me.

And now I would like to bore you with some pictures from the beach.

This is the third big slide at the place where we stayed. By my very rough estimation, we spent approximately 42 hours at this slide over the course of seven days. In fact, when we got ready to head home yesterday morning, Alex said, “Mama, I’m a little sad about leaving because I really love that slide and would really love to live here all the time.”

He and that slide forged quite the lasting bond.

He and his goggles also forged a lasting bond, as evidenced by the fact that he opted to wear them ON THE BEACH. WHILE HE PLAYED IN THE SAND.

Alex and his cousin J. spent lots of late-afternoon time on the balcony. Saturday I found them sitting in these chairs, looking out at the water and shooting the breeze like a couple of papaws. So sweet.

They’re good buddies.

And finally.

Yeah. I have no idea.

It was a great trip – as was our trip to Florida with Janie and the boys a couple of weeks ago – and we are so grateful for sweet family members who invite us to join them when they plan something fun. We’ve made some incredible memories this summer, and we are thankful.

We are also Deeply Overloaded on snack foods, which may explain my current disdain for fitted waistbands, but still. Good times.

Happy Monday, y’all.

In addition to all the cousins and the sun and the water and the sand, there are two other things that have contributed greatly to a certain six year-old’s happiness over the course of the last five days.

OH, THE HAPPY.

Hope your week has been great – I’ll post giveaway winners later today!

A couple of months ago my aunt C. invited us to spend a week at the beach with her and my cousins and my cousins’ kids. And I said oh, that’s really sweet and we appreciate it so much but you know we don’t really care for the beach, thank you.

AS IF.

Because I think we all know that the only time I don’t care for the beach is never.

So yesterday we drove down to Gulf Shores, and after we unloaded three different cars (I don’t want to say that we overpacked, but Paige and I had enough groceries in our respective vehicles to open our own convenience store; however, I do not apologize seeing as how the Walmarts had 2-liter Coke products on sale for one dollar a piece and how am I to respond in those circumstances? By ignoring the one dollar Cokes? I THINK NOT. I am supposed to respond by buying 12 2-liters.), we took all the young’uns down to the pool and swam for three hours.

CHOCK FULL-O-FUN. That’s exactly what it was. CHOCK FULL-O-FUN.

Anyway, since as it turns out I only have one teeny little bar of Wifi in this condo – and I can only get that one bar of Wifi if I hold my head just right and count backwards from 200 to 0, skipping every other odd number and simultaneously humming the theme song from “Hawaii Five-O” – I think that posting is probably going to be a little on the scarce side this week. Unless the Wifi Genie shows up tomorrow and drops about four more bars of signal strength in the immediate vicinity. Which is probably unlikely because last I heard the Wifi Genie was out at the pool, as well she should be.

So all that to say: I guess this is just one of those weeks when I’ll be here when I’ll be here, Wifi connection willing. And wherever you are, I hope that your week is a great one!

Love,
Me

p.s. I’ll still planning to announce the “Glory Revealed II” winners Wednesday or Thursday – and if you haven’t entered the giveaway yet, there’s still time!

p.p.s. It’s 8:20 in the morning, and Paige – who went for a walk on the beach at 6:30 and then apparently decided that we needed a few more things from the Publix – just walked in the door with about 10 more sacks of groceries. I laughed so hard that I wheezed.

p.p.p.s. – We’re having bacon, eggs and biscuits for breakfast. You can imagine my delight.