– The winners of the Praise Baby CD giveaway are posted, so head on over and see if you’re one of the lucky ten.

– Today Barb posted some recipes for Super Bowl appetizers. And now what I want more than anything in the world is for someone to come over to my house and make all that cream cheese deliciousness for supper. Be still my cloggy heart.

– Gayle and some other bloggy friends were in Atlanta for Travis’ CD recording/DVD taping last night, and this post of hers sums up all my favorite parts of this crazy blogging world.

Updated to add: Kelly has posted an incredible update on sweet baby Harper. HUGE praise!

We got home a little while ago from Georgia, where we had, as our friend Todd’s daddy would say, a FAN-TAS-TIC time. We drove over for Travis Cottrell‘s live CD recording / DVD taping at First Baptist Church Woodstock, and it was about seventy four kinds of wonderful.

And by the way: FBC Woodstock? IS GIGANTOR.

I mean, I’ll bet you could get 300 people in there on Sunday mornings. Maybe even 350 if you squeezed in really tight.

Anyway, I am worn out from all the laughing and not sleeping that I did, and the sad part of that is that there were a bunch of people that I wanted to sit down with and, you know, HAVE A CONVERSATION, but our later-than-we-planned arrival combined with some bloggy bidness combined with trying to find people in a room of thousands wasn’t really conducive to that. I actually woke up this morning thinking about people I wanted to see but didn’t, but maybe I’ll do better next time. I hope so.

So now we’re home and I’m trying to catch up on a few things and then I will hopefully be able to put some words to all the stuff I’m thinking and feeling.

Until then, I can tell you that if you read Melanie’s blog today and wondered if the eggs she ordered were really that bad, I can tell you without hesitation that YES, THEY WERE HIDEOUS. Ohmyword. They have now replaced a soup made with Thanksgiving Day leftovers as The Food Item I’d Rather Not Think About When I Have A Stomach Virus. Honestly, there really aren’t adequate words to describe the foulness of those eggs, but because they made such a lasting impression on me, I will try: damp curdled milky chunks with salsa.

You’re welcome.

Now do have a delightful afternoon.

Last week the husband and I went to see Celine Dion in concert thanks to a free ticket hook-up from a bloggy friend. It was SUCH a treat. And while I typically try to temper my concert expectations because you never really know how someone’s going to sound live, there’s no question that I was fully prepared to be awed and amazed by Celine’s voice.

I mean, I’ve screamed “River Deep, Mountain High” enough in the privacy of my own car to know that IT IS NOT EASY TO HIT THOSE NOTES, PEOPLE. I couldn’t wait to hear her live.

And while we were at the concert, I received an unexpected blessing.

I need to pause for a moment and compose myself so that I can share it. My heart is still very tender from the experience, you understand.

Y’all, I spent at least one full hour carefully scrutinizing Celine’s hair and stifling the urge to stand up and salute it. It is glorious. A wonder, even. Something tells me she’s probably not pulling her hair through a cap and then sitting around for 30 minutes in her pajamas while she waits for some straight-up bleach to work its magic. Girlfriend had some volume and some lowlights that would make you weep. She’s my new hair heroine.

I just wanted you to know that. Because it matters to me.

And since I’m a fan of the Tough Questions, I have to ask: who’s your hair heroine?

I do hope that’s not too personal.

Thank you and have a lovely day.

Last night my beloved Bulldogs played the Vanderbilt Commodores, and right before the game started I asked Alex if he wanted to watch, too. He was all about it. At five he’s still not completely familiar with basketball terminology, but he’s big-time competitive and would probably watch a candle-making contest if there was going to be a clear-cut winner at the end.

Plus, in his mind the Bulldogs are always “the good guys,” and like most little boys, he lives to see a good guys vs. bad guys showdown. The only thing that would make said showdown any better is if the police walked on the court and took the “bad guys” to jail at the end of regulation.

For the first ten minutes of the game Alex subscribed to my “alternate activity” basketball-watching philosophy. While I wiped down the kitchen counters, he played with one of his Star Wars toys. Before long, however, the game captured our undivided attention, and we decided to go sit in front of a bigger TV and watch. No cleaning, no toys – just basketball.

It was divine.

When Alex was almost a year old my sister and I took him to the State / ‘Bama game. He wasn’t walking, was just barely talking, and if not for the bright lights and loud noises, he probably would have fallen asleep. But we had a blast.

Saturday night we sat in our very own house, watched every single play and cheered like crazy. At one point Alex even asked, “Mama? Can the players hear us through the TV when we yell for them?”

“No, baby, they can’t,” I answered. “But I like to think they can.”

“Me, too,” he replied.

And so we screamed.

Back in 2004 Alex sat in Sister’s lap and drank a bottle and, if memory serves, lost a shoe somewhere around row eight.

Saturday night he screamed “DEFENSE” and high fived and read Sister’s text messages over my shoulder.

He’s growing up, that boy. And the older he gets, the more he seems to understand his mama’s unique brand of basketball crazy. I can’t help but think that we have big Bulldog fun in store in the days and weeks and years to come.

By the way, the “good guys” won last night. 73-66. We could not be more delighted.

Go ‘Dogs.

I’ll go ahead and tell you right now that this post is basically going to be one big long run-on sentence THE LIKES OF WHICH YOU’VE NEVER SEEN, because the husband and I have to leave in about one hour and seven minutes and I need to whip my house into shape so that our sweet babysitter doesn’t think that we live this way all the time, what with all our decorative Star Wars action figures strewn about the living room and the oh-so-stylish dishes from this morning’s grits stacked up in the kitchen sink, and the kicker is that I really don’t have a whole lot to say other than OH MY WORD, IT’S COLD, and sweet mercy in heaven this week has offered an abundance of television riches.

Somebody give the Lord a handclap of praise.

And oh wait. I do have one more thing to tell you.

I am in the midst of a deep-rooted hair crisis and I desperately need highlights but I CANNOT spend the money to get salon highlights even though I really, really want to be more blonde at this juncture, which brings me right back to my never-ending home hair color dilemma and I promise I’m going to quit talking about my hair color woes at some point in, well, my life, but it might not be until I’m 85 and I’ve surrendered to the gray, and the only reason I say that is because I cannot picture myself sitting in a stylist’s chair when I’m 85 and patiently waiting for her to wrap my hair in pieces of foil, though certainly I could be mistaken in that assumption because if I’ve learned anything in this life it’s that I’LL NEVER SAY NEVER WHEN BLONDE IS INVOLVED.

So anyway.

I have to clean now. But I’ll be back later (“later” being tonight or tomorrow or 2013) with an “Office” recap because OH, HALLELUJAH, we get a new episode tonight.

In conclusion comma I leave you with the lone picture I took at our Christmas dinner, and I’ve been meaning to share this with you for some time but it just seemed so random, only now I have the perfect excuse because this whole post is pretty much an organizational disaster and would no doubt make my English professors so proud.

You’re welcome.

– I got a little weepy when I read “Today I Was A Mom” by Kathryn at Daring Young Mom.

– Anne at My Tiny Kingdom has a great bloggy idea called Flashback Friday – it starts January 16th.

– I loved the show to pieces, but I think maybe the “Moonlighting” folks should leave well enough alone. (link via Throwing Things)