This is one of those times where I don’t even know where to start. Because with Mama here this last week I didn’t really chronicle what was going on with us like I normally would have, and as a result of my bloglag I have all this junk in my brain that I just need to pour out onto the computer, but where to start, oh where to start, hey I think I’ll start with Wednesday.

So Wednesday morning I was beginning the whole get-ready-for-the-day process after I jumped out of the shower, and I noticed something, um, weird.

And if you are a man who is reading this, you might want to run for the hills right about now.

Now I’m going to use a little bit of vaguery here because there are certain Google searches that I just don’t want to come my way, but I think you’ll know what I mean when I tell you that when I looked in the mirror as I was getting ready I couldn’t help but notice that there was some abnormal activity going on in the left chestage region.

I promptly broke out in a cold sweat and had to lie down.

I’m not kidding.

I told Mama about it, and she said that she had experienced the same issue before, which made me feel a little bit better. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something could be wrong, so I called my doctor and left a message for the nurse.

Feel free to pat me on the back about the calling the doctor part. Because there was a time in my life when I would have avoided the doctor at all costs and instead tried to diagnose myself using only the internet and a well-worn copy of The Merck Manual of Medical Information.

I finally talked to the nurse around lunchtime, and she said that while they weren’t overly concerned, they felt like it would be better to err on the side of caution – so they’d like to see me. On Friday.

THIS WAS ON WEDNESDAY.

THAT’S A TWO DAY WAIT, PEOPLE.

So now maybe you understand why last week I mostly wrote about the dress! And the necklace! And the shoes! I mean, since I was sort of preoccupied with the aforementioned abnormalage, ALL THE SPARKLY THINGS were a pretty good distraction.

Anyway, Friday finally got here and I went to the doctor and I am so happy to tell you that everything is perfectly fine. I’m far too embarrassed to tell you what the abnormalage was all about, but suffice it to say that it was something very, very normal. And in the end I’m so glad I kept my appointment because I have total peace of mind about that particular issue, and my doctor (who I LOVE) was oh-so-kind about my concerns and didn’t even call me crazy.

See? All’s well that ends well.

Friday afternoon D and Alex took Mama back to Mississippi, so I was actually home alone Friday night and most of yesterday. I wanted to tell y’all that I was ALONE, GLORIOUSLY ALONE when I posted about the granola Friday night, but I was feeling like a bit of a scaredy cat and didn’t want to give the Ring of Thieves^TM a heads-up about my isolation.

I had a perfectly lovely time catching up on all the episodes of “Survivor” and “The Bachelor” that I haven’t seen, and I also ate a great deal of granola. And read way too many pre-season basketball stories on the internet. And maybe ate some more granola.

Saturday morning (BORED YET?) I decided to head to the Steinmart(s) 12 Hour Sale, and I’ll just go ahead and confess that I have been in Steinmart(s) so frequently in the last week that the salesclerks get a little tickled when they see me walking through the front door, like OH HEY, IT’S YOU, THE CRAZY WOMAN WHO CAN’T DECIDE ON EARRINGS, and I just smile and wave and think OH MY WORD, I’VE TURNED INTO MARTHA.

It was really just a matter of time.

Anyway, I ended up finding a whole new outfit for the the Big Festive Deal (which is tomorrow night, by the way), and it is actually less expensive than the dress I found earlier in the week. I got some great chiffon wide-legged pants and a kind of asymmetrical shimmery top. The best thing is that both pieces are completely comfortable, and the more I have come to understand about the nature of my duties at Big Festive Deal, the more I have realized that the comfort factor is going to be huge.

However, the sassy / kicky shoes are history, I’m afraid.

I know. It is heartbreaking. I know.

Sometimes we have to make tough choices, y’all.

And I’m off to Nashville tomorrow.

Every year Someone To Whom I Am Very Close organizes a Big Festive Deal for her work. And while I can’t be terribly detailed about the Big Festive Deal, I can tell you that it takes place in Nashville.

And I think we all know that Nashville is really famous for its, you know, peas.

OH, I kid.

Anyway, Big Festive Deal is coming up soon, and for the first time ever, I’m getting to go. I’m not a real guest or anything, oh heavens no; I’m going to be STWIAVC’s official gopher for the evening. But it is a dressy event, and this is going to be quite a challenge for me considering that I haven’t donned what I like to call “them fancy clothes” since I went to a Christmas party in Louisiana in 1999.

(As you can tell, D and I are really plugged into the social scene.)

(But if you ask me, a huge problem with dress-up parties is that nobody wants to watch TV. I mean, why would I dress up to NOT watch TV when I could stay home in my pajamas and watch TV ALL NIGHT LONG?)

Anyway, I do have some very fun, wide-legged black pants that Mama gave me after I had Alex, and initially I thought I would wear them and try to find some sort of dressy top. So today I headed to the Steinmart(s) and tried on eleventy five different versions of dressy / silky / cocktail-y tops and jackets, all of which left me sufficiently underwhelmed.

I brought home (well, I mean, I BOUGHT it – I didn’t just walk out of the store with it) a very pretty long, celadon-green jacket that wasn’t especially dressy but could be passable with the right jewelry and shoes, but on the way home I kept thinking that since the jacket was made of a pretty thick material and had long sleeves and required an additional shirt underneath, I would no doubt be BURNING UP HOT at the Big Festive Deal, and y’all know that I do not enjoy being BURNING UP HOT, and really, what’s the point of wearing a pretty new jacket if you’re just going to be BURNING UP HOT the whole time?

So I decided the green jacket was out. And I also realized, in a moment of horrified clarity, that being properly attired for the Big Festive Deal was going to require something of me that I try to avoid at all costs: a trip to the mall.

Now the good news is that Mama is here all week, so I knew she would be great reinforcement at the mall in terms of helping with the little man AND helping me pick out something to wear. Because those department stores have A LOT of clothes, y’all. And I get a little overwhelmed.

We decided to start our search in Macy’s because I love their INC line, and by the time we made a half a loop on the main floor I had ten or twelve things to try on. I also had removed my child from at least two mannequin stands and reminded him no fewer than six times to use your inside voice, please since most shoppers aren’t really hoping to find a forty-two pound four year-old doing his best imitation of a ROARING LION when they’re trying to make their way through Better Sportswear.

Sweet memories.

We eventually made our way to a dressing room, and Mama sat down in an area where people can relax and watch television while their daughters or mothers or wives or girlfriends are trying on clothes. Now this idea is great in theory, but I would just like to point out that when the TV in the waiting area is blaring “The Montel Williams Show” and the sound system in the dressing rooms is blaring Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On” and a four year-old is running up and down the dressing room hallway blaring various renditions of “RAAAAAAAAAAR STINKY POOOOOOOOOPY HEAD RAAAAAAAAAAAR,” the Macy’s shopping environment ceases to be even a little bit relaxing.

This is not a criticism. It is merely an observation.

Anyway, after at least an hour of trying on clothes and soliciting the opinions of no fewer than three complete strangers and hearing Corinne Bailey Rae sing, “Just go ahead, let your HAIIIIIIR down” over and over again in my head, Mama and I settled on a very simple black dress that I’ll be able to wear forever. I have big plans to sassy it up with some fun shoes and jewelry. And here’s a picture:

In the interest of full bloggy disclosure, you should know that, well, I haven’t been the size of this model since I was thirteen. And I don’t think it’s the exact same dress because mine has a wider neckline, isn’t cut quite as low, has more of an empire waist and is just a smidge longer.

But other than those things, the picture is completely accurate.

And here’s my question: if you were going to wear this dress to a Big Festive Deal, what would you do for 1) shoes and 2) accessories? I am wary of doing the somewhat expected black shoes and pearls because I haven’t dressed up in a really long time and would prefer to have a little fun with what I’m wearing.

Which may lead you to wonder why I picked a simple black dress.

But still.

So if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them, just please don’t tell me to wear hose because NO, NOT GONNA, SORRY.

And if you have specific stores you recommend for great shoe or accessory finds (CHEAP! I LOVE CHEAP!), all the better. Just know that if you put more than two links into your comment, it’ll automatically go into the moderation folder, but I will rescue it as soon as I can.

Normally I do pretty well with fashion stuff like this, but today’s mall-related adventures left me all shopped out. So thanks in advance for your help – you’re the best internets in the whole wide world (web).

Okay, before I forget, let me just say thank you for all your kind remarks about our, um, driveway.

I’m telling you: you just never know what will interest the internets.

So you may rest assured that the next time I go outside I’ll tell the driveway all the sweet things you said, and I bet the encouragement will make the driveway happy because it’s almost 34 years old and probably feeling a little run down.

Or run over, if you will.

BADABING!

Now. Several more things.

First of all, the LSU vs. Florida game last night shaved a solid decade off of my life. We were so happy that the Tigers won, but have mercy it was a nail-biter.

Second of all, D, Daddy and I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum this afternoon, and if you’ve seen the movie you know that the part in Tangier? When that man was chasing that woman and Jason Bourne was trying to find them so he could stop the man from killing her?

WORE. ME. OUT.

Seriously. I just wanted to put my head down and take a little nap. Mainly so my heart would SLOW DOWN, ALREADY.

And third.

About a week ago I saw a note on Alex’s school calendar that we needed to MAKE A POCKET for him to take to school tomorrow, and the pocket should be big enough to hold a small toy.

Y’all, it has been stressing me out for a week. I mean, you know how you used to feel when you were in school and it was late Sunday afternoon and you knew you needed to study because you had a huge test Monday morning? That’s exactly how I’ve felt for about the last four days.

OVER A HANDMADE POCKET.

Late this afternoon I clicked over to Bev’s and saw that she had made some absolutely adorable bibs, and as I was thinking about how cute they are and how it would take me WEEKS to finish even one of them, I decided that I needed to just sit down and GET THE POCKET OVER WITH so that maybe I could relax a little bit tonight.

But you know, funny thing: when you’re not crafty, you tend not to have any extra pieces of fabric laying around.

I looked in every single closet in this house, and I finally found about half a yard of fabric that I bought one time to make no-sew scarves for the dogs (PINKING SHEARS, PEOPLE! PINKING SHEARS!). So I pulled out the fabric, rounded up a needle and thread, and sat down at the kitchen table to make a pocket.

No kidding: I was so undone about the whole thing that I broke a sweat. And became temporarily convinced that our air conditioner was broken.

And as proof of my almost total lack of participation in your typical mama-type crafts, my child actually walked up to the kitchen table, surveyed all materials, picked up a round black thing and said, “What’s this, Mama?”

“Why, it’s a SPOOL OF THREAD, baby.”

“What’s it for?”

“Well, in some cultures people actually use it to SEW THINGS or perhaps even MAKE SOME CLOTHES.”

He’d never heard of such.

So I finally cut out a pocket-type creation on my third attempt to tame the unruly fabric, and I spent the next twenty minutes sewing up the sides. I did remember to sew it inside out because I have in fact watched Martha Stewart’s TV show on occasion (SEE? TV IS HELPFUL, Y’ALL!), and once I examined the final product I knew deep in my heart that it was really, painfully ugly (LOOK, KIDS! GRIMACING PUMPKINS!), but I was so relieved that the whole terrifying ordeal was over that I really didn’t care.

Handstitched with luv by yours truly.

And what a precious family heirloom the Scary Pumpkin Pocket will be.

Today has been JAM-PACKED – I worked for a couple of hours this morning, then had a (very fun, actually) meeting with some friends from church, then had a thing at Alex’s school, then came home and tried to get the little man to rest but he would have NONE OF THAT, THANK YOU, then went to the grocery store and OH MY WORD would you look at this:

Now normally I’m a little OCD about the placement of my groceries in the back of my car: I like all the bags of cold stuff together and all the canned stuff together and all the Cokes and Capri Suns together, and before you start to think that I’ve lost my mind, I’ll just go ahead and confirm to you that YES, YES I HAVE.

But today there was so much stuff that I just threw it in the back of the car and hoped for the best.

Because I’m a rebel like that.

And OH! Miss Jennifer, one of Alex’s favorite people in the world, is back at our Publix and you have never seen a sweeter reunion than when Alex ran into the store earlier this week, made a beeline for her register, threw his arms around her and said, “I’VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH, MISS JENNIFER!” So all is right with his world again.

Anyway, Mama and Daddy are coming in for a visit tomorrow, which means that I need to change sheets and wash towels and, um, CLEAN, but before I bore you with my list of chores, look what was waiting for me when I got home this afternoon:

Lavender! From GiBee! Isn’t that the sweetest?

And it probably goes without saying, but it smells DIVINE. I have a bit of a thing for the lavender, you know.

And by “thing,” of course, I mean “obsession.”

Y’all have a great weekend!

So. Yes. ‘Tis true. Today is my birthday.

I’m now THIRTY EIGHT, my friends.

I am not sure how 38 is even remotely possible, especially considering that I am forever a young thang in my mind. In fact, earlier today I was referencing my age in an email, and I typed 28, and it took me a few seconds to realize no, that’s not right, no, YOU’RE OFF BY A DECADE, MA’AM.

I didn’t know if I was going to like turning 38, to be honest with you. My 37th birthday was a little rough for me because for whatever reason I always told myself that it was my cut-off for having another baby, so for the first half of 37 I felt like I had some sort of Major Biological Deadline looming.

And on top of that, I was surprised by how much I really disliked certain parts of getting a little older. I especially disliked the crater-size wrinkle in my forehead, and not even once did I look at the crater-sized wrinkle in my forehead and think, “Well, it’s a badge of honor; I’ve earned it!”

Instead, I looked at the crater-sized wrinkle in my forehead and thought, “I do not like you, crater-sized wrinkle. And if I were a Botox kind of girl, I’d take you out in a heartbeat. I might not be able to raise my eyebrows afterwards, but oh, I would TAKE YOU OUT.”

And while I’m at it, I’ll just go ahead and tell you that I also had some issues with gravity. Because gravity can be very, very unkind.

But about halfway through year 37, I hit a turning point. God started to open some completely unexpected doors, and after a few weeks of being scared to death about all the what ifs, I took a huge leap of faith and walked through them. The worry about my Major Biological Deadline gradually went away; I know that God knows if there’s another baby in our future, and right now, that’s enough.

And the wrinkles? Eh. I’ll just let the Hair Wizard make my hair blonder and sassier. Maybe people won’t notice the wrinkles as much if they’re BLINDED BY ALL THE HIGHLIGHTS.

I feel this is an excellent aging strategy.

So all that to say: the second half of 37 has been totally rockin’. Hands-down, it’s been the best time of my life so far. Even though D and I are in a little bit of a holding pattern right now as we wait on SOME STUFF RELATED TO SOME THINGS, I have never been more aware of God’s faithfulness and His provision. I have never been more certain that when He leads, I do not have to be afraid to follow.

That fires me up about 38.

And besides: LOOK! PRESENTS!

Okay, technically this wasn’t a birthday present. But it came in the mail yesterday, and you have NO IDEA how much I love this particular issue of Southern Living. There are tons of great recipes and fun decorating ideas, so I won’t just read this issue, I will STUDY it.

Internets, I would like to introduce you to my favorite shampoo in the whole wide world. I haven’t seen Mr. Aveda since I quit working full-time, but oh, we had a sweet reunion this afternoon. And I know you can’t tell, but it’s a big ole economy-sized bottle, and I’m thinking of building a special display case for it in our bathroom. Because it is a precious treasure.

Why headphones, you ask? For better podcasting, of course. And you have no idea how excited I was to get these. Which should pretty much confirm that I am as much of a geek as you have suspected.

Also: how well does my husband know me, y’all? I mean, an industrial-sized bottle of great shampoo AND fancy new headphones? It is no wonder that we are married.

Plus, you know, THIS:

OH YES MA’AM.

This is from Sister and Barry, and I’m here to tell you that a Steinmart(s) gift card is my love language. I’ll be using this little gem TOMORROW.

Finally:

HE TOOK A NAP! FOR TWO HOURS!

Even better: HE’S OURS!

Oh, I love our little family.

And so far, 38 and I are getting along just fine.

Three things:

Overwhelmed! is hosting her second annual Holiday Cooking, Blogger Style this Friday, October 5th. You can find all the details here.

Sprittibee is giving away a Kodak printer. Click here for more info.

And finally, Kathryn has a cautionary tale regarding a social networking site that invites you to share book recommendations with friends.

Happy Wednesday!