1. I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying this season of Survivor. I wasn’t planning to like it because, well, Phillip Sheppard is no longer a contestant. I miss Phillip. I miss how he wanted to play a game and make some bold moves.

2. There is not a single new show on the fall TV schedule that has managed to hold my attention for more than one episode.

3. Needless to say, I am concerned about the state of my television goals.

4. Yesterday I worked the Hoop It Up booth at the fall festival. For the record, I do not feel that the Lord has gifted me in the area of working the Hoop It Up booth.

5. I’ll take Hoop It Up over the face painting booth, though. I worked the face painting booth two years ago, and it took me approximately seven and a half months to recover from the stress of it all.

6. I still occasionally experience face painting flashbacks.

7. Does anybody still get together with friends and play cards? We used to play cards with friends all the time, and I miss it.

8. I’m the most passive-aggressive spades player you’ve ever seen, by the way.

9. Seriously. I’ll grin and make lighthearted conversation, and I’ll be plotting how to TAKE YOU DOWN the entire time.

10. I also enjoy canasta.

11. I think it would be nice to see a resurgence of card-playing in the 21st century family. Let’s get on that, people.

12. I would appreciate your insight and commentary on these matters.

13. I like what you’re doing with your hair. It looks really good.

On the off chance that you’re keeping score at home, you may have noticed that I’ve been dealing with a higher than average number of mild health-related annoyances. Nothing serious, mind you – just, well, aggravating. And a wee bit funny. So, just for kicks and giggles, I thought we’d run through a list of the odd maladies with which I have been afflicted in the last three weeks. This is going to be some RIVETING CONTENT, my friends, so pull up a chair and sit a spell. It’s time to TALK ABOUT SOME AILMENTS.

Here’s my list. Giddy up.

1. A skin condition flare-up. My husband assures me that I don’t need to go into details with this one, and that’s precisely why I’m leaving out the specifics. But it happened the week of .MOM. At the time I told Melanie that while I had known to expect a little opposition from the enemy since I was stepping way outside my comfort zone, I certainly wasn’t expecting anything with such a Job-like flair. But yes. Icky skin stuff. NOW THE INTERNET KNOWS.

(It’s much better now, in case you’re wondering. And even though I’ve overshared, I do hope that you’ll still be able to look me in the eye should we ever meet in person.)

2. A sciatic nerve issue. Honestly, I don’t know whether the skin troubles or the sciatic nerve troubles would win in some sort of Mamaw Medical Olympics, but I’m thinking that the sciatic nerve stuff gets a slight edge because it results in some hobbling and possibly even the use of a cane.

3. An unfortunate incident with some tricky shoes that resulted in me falling down WHILE SEEMINGLY WALKING NORMALLY and landing on my left knee and then catching myself with my hands and then being helped to my feet by a kind young man who was trying to do the right thing by checking on me but I could tell that he wanted to laugh because, hello, I FELL RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. Said incident was remedied by retiring to the nearest restroom so that I could cry in private and then pretend like I was totally fine even though my knee looked like I was a four year-old who took a really nasty turn on her Big Wheel.

4. A crazy bout of jaw and facial pain. Like can’t-possibly-take-enough-Excedrin-Migraine jaw and facial pain. That’s actually why I went to the doctor last week. But as it turned out, the doctor said my trouble was what I initially suspected…

5. A sinus infection. Really, a sinus infection seems so bland and run-of-the-mill in the midst of all the falling and sciatic-ing and whathaveyou. But it’s been an easy fix. And for that I am grateful.

6. An unhappy wisdom tooth. Please see #4. Because when the crazy jaw and facial pain didn’t disappear after I started the antibiotic, I consulted my dentist. And the dentist said, “WHOA, NELLIE, THAT WISDOM TOOTH HAS TO GO.”

(My dentist didn’t really say, “Whoa, Nellie.”)

(But wouldn’t it have been great if he had?)

Anyway, getting rid of that wisdom tooth is gonna be my big happy fun time next week. I just keep reminding myself that I’d rather get ‘er done now than for that tooth to revolt on me while I’m in Ecuador. I do not want to have to VOY AL MEDICO EN ECUADOR.

And then, Sunday morning, I had the sweet privilege of encountering what I hope will be the final chapter of this illustrious I’ve-gone-all-to-pieces epistle:

7. A stomach virus. Oh, I’m not kidding. I was in church (by myself, no less), all ready to hear sweet Katie Davis share her story, and I started to feel decidedly not at all normal. I squirmed and fidgeted and tried to pretend that I wasn’t increasingly nauseated, but nothing worked. Once the cold sweats started, I decided I’d better make a move, so I quickly got up from my seat, walked out of the sanctuary and was so taken aback by how weak in the knees I was that I darted into the nearest hallway and SPRAWLED OUT ON THE FLOOR OF AN EMPTY SUNDAY SCHOOL ROOM.

Oh, yes ma’am. Just keepin’ it klassy at Brook Hills.

And I’ll tell you what: I was not at all – NOT AT ALL – optimistic about making it out of that Sunday School room without throwing up first. But after about five minutes, I heard a still, small voice say something along the lines of “IT’S NOW OR NEVER, SISTER.” I stood up, walked as quickly as I could to the little man’s Sunday School room, told him we were gonna head home a little early and then skedaddled to our car POSTHASTE.

The good news is that we made it home safely.

The bad news is that it was not my favorite afternoon of all time.

Once the worst was over, though, I slept and slept and slept and slept and slept and slept some more. Today I have continued the sleeping trend. I have also watched about twelve episodes of Say Yes To The Dress, which may well be the most perfect sick day TV show ever. It’s not hard to follow, there are pretty dresses, Randy’s voice is oddly soothing, and if you doze off and miss about 15 minutes, you can pick up right where you left off even if there’s a different bride on the screen.

Anyway, I’m all better now. Rested. Good as new (except for that pesky wisdom tooth). However, I would like to point out the sweet, sweet irony of my list considering that I’ve been trying to exercise pretty regularly on the elliptical motion machine/elliptical/ellip and have gradually cut out all post-lunch caffeine. Which means that I have one cup of coffee and one Diet Coke a day. Which means that I no longer drink Diet Coke all day long. Which means that I HARDLY KNOW MYSELF ANYMORE.

So there you have it. I have now written a whole post about all the many ways I’m falling apart. It’s like the internet is my Mamaw Davis’ kitchen, and I’ve turned into my Aunt Myrt and feel compelled to share Here’s What’s Not Working while I drink my morning coffee.

My ONE CUP of coffee, mind you. JUST ONE. ONLY ONE. BARELY EVEN A TEASPOON OF CAFFEINE.

It’s been a crazy three weeks. Fingers crossed that there’s a little patch of boring on the horizon.

That would be so nice.

Love,
Mamaw

– I’ve already notified the person who won the Nations Outfitters giveaway, but I thought y’all might like to know, too. The lucky winner is Rhonda (comment #280), and she has claimed her prize.

The folks at Nations also have one more treat for y’all: if you place an order with them between now and October 31st, you can use the promotional code BOO MAMA (two words) for a 10% discount on your entire purchase. Fancy!

– I know that several of y’all follow Katie Davis’ blog (Kisses from Katie) and have supported her ministry, Amazima. Tomorrow Katie will be at The Church of Brook Hills in Birmingham at all three services: 9, 11 and 6.

– This post by Becca, Scars & Stretch Marks, is absolutely beautiful.

– Ann writes with great wisdom and insight about One Thing That Might Help Any Relationship. So good.

– Earlier this week Holly linked to some of the cutest business cards I ever did see. I have no need for business cards, mind you, but if you do? These will delight you.

– Your comments on the post about funny things we’ve all said to kids were HILARIOUS. I think I’ve read all of them twice, and I will continue to go back and read them on days when I need a good laugh. Oh my word they are a treasure. And in the end, it was too hard to pick just one winner, so our illustrious panel of judges has declared a tie between Sarah and Melissa.

Here’s Sarah’s comment:

I’m sure we’re the only ones with this problem. Certainly everyone else’s children have this completely together. But — my kids are a little pokey around bedtime. One day a few months ago, the Husband had HAD IT. So he instructed them in the bedtime routine in a more military fashion. I say that as people who have zero military experience, by the way. In any case, it went like this:

We laughed for weeks.

And here’s Melissa’s comment:

The Christmas that my oldest was 2, we set up our Fisher Price Nativity on the bottom shelf of the entertainment center so it would be easily accessible and within his reach. One day, I was on the phone with a friend in the kitchen and looked over to find him teeing up the baby Jesus to hit with his plastic golf club. Apparently, he thought the sweet replica of the King of the Universe would be a nice substitute for a golf ball. I yelled out just as he made contact “no sir-we do not hit baby Jesus with our golf clubs!” My friend who was on the phone with me died laughing and said, “that’s something you won’t ever say again.” She was right-with all the Christmases that have passed, I have never again had the occasion to repeat that sentence-lesson learned.

Sarah and Melissa, you each get a $50 gift card to either Amazon or iTunes. I’ll be emailing you with details. Congratulations!

And thanks to all of you who left comments on that post. You’re hilarious. And your comments are priceless.

Hope y’all have a wonderful weekend!

Today was one of those days where I woke up with high hopes for balancing all the normal weekday responsibilities, but by 7:02 in the AM I’d already flat-out blown it. The day didn’t get much better from that point on – I lost my patience not once, not twice, but THREE times before the clock struck noon, and I spent the rest of the afternoon with that sick feeling you get when you know that you’ve reacted in ways you shouldn’t react and basically gotten so sick and tired of your own dadgum self that you’d fire yourself from being yourself if you could.

BANNER DAY.

However, this afternoon when the little man got out of school, he greeted me with the news that he aced his math facts test. I was so tickled for him because it can’t easy to be eight years-old and have your BRIDGE TO FUN shut down for the better part of two days, but by diggity he hunkered down with that math and got ‘er done. So needless to say, the BRIDGE TO FUN has officially re-opened. As well it should have.

Anyway, in the aftermath of a crazy, not-so-good day that I’m honestly sort of eager to put behind me, I thought I’d share a few things that have made me smile lately. A turn-that-frown-upside-down sort of thing, you understand. And by the way, if you’re reading this and happen to be the mystery person/people who left balloons and a sweet card on my mailbox this past Monday night, THANK YOU. It made me happy then, but it made even happier today when I thought about it again. So, so sweet.

Okay. HAPPY FUN TIMES. Here we go.

1) Project Runway

Despite the fact that the runway music has a tendency to lull me to sleep, I have loved this season of the show. And I think this season’s top five contestants may be my favorite mix of personalities so far (not to mention that they’re all crazy talented). I just noticed that a new After the Runway show started tonight, so I have the DVR fired up and ready to go the next time it comes on.

2) The Strange Case of Origami Yoda & Darth Paper Strikes Back

Last weekend I was looking for some new books for Alex, and Melanie suggested a couple of books by Tom Angleberger. Alex got such a kick out of both books, and I got such a kick out of hearing him laugh out loud while he read.

3) Sister Schubert’s Soft Dinner Rolls

I bought these for the first time yesterday. They seemed like a nice alternative to the Sister Schubert yeast rolls and Parker House rolls that I normally buy. And I have to say: THEY ARE SO TASTY. They remind me of the rolls that Mama used to serve for Sunday lunch, only they’re even better than that. They’re well worth a try if you’re looking to change up your normal roll routine. I think it’s good to keep the roll routine interesting, don’t you?

4) A Pinterest find

I ran across this Bible verse art on Pinterest earlier today, and it did my heart good, oh yes it did.

5) A blog reader named Brenda sent me this picture yesterday. She said she’d seen it on Facebook and decided I needed to see it, too.

I couldn’t agree more.

Truer words have never been spoken, my friends.

If I knew how to do any sort of activity that requires a needle, I’d put that little slogan on a pillow in a heartbeat.

But as it stands I’ll just stare at the picture. Because it makes me laugh.

Have a great weekend, y’all!

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.

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!