This week Big Mama and I tackle some really tough issues: the challenges of parenthood – including but not limited to vomit and scissors, the use of wild game in home decorating, the ongoing debate regarding skinny jeans, and Can Hillary’s Hair Be Saved?

We also have answers to some of your questions AND the first-ever podcast anecdote about Martha, not to mention Delightfully Cheesy (although perhaps temporary) theme music and some bloopers, to boot.

Really, it’s just like Christmas.

Only not.

But we do hope you enjoy it.

And if you don’t, please don’t tell us. We’d prefer to live in denial.

Thank you and have a lovely Labor Day weekend.

Listen on the blog here:

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Y’all know that I love to give away some music.

And when I got a copy of Casting Crowns‘ latest CD earlier this summer, I knew right away that I’d love to share it with the internets.

Because I think that many of us know that Casting Crowns can offer up some Christian Power Ballad Gold like nobody’s business.

“Voice of Truth,” anyone?

How about “Praise You In The Storm”?

COME ON, NOW.

And seriously, if you enjoyed Casting Crowns’ previous CD’s, you’re going to love this one, too. It’s heartfelt and worshipful and inspirational – everything good.

So if you’d like to win one of the five copies I’m giving away, here’s what you do (by the way, I totally got this idea from Shannon – just to give credit where credit is due, you know):

I’ll close comments Tuesday morning around 9:00 central and then use a random number generator to determine who wins.

Happy Friday, everybody!

(and p.s. – I’ll get our new podcast up sometime tonight or tomorrow morning. Provided that the computer and the Evil Microphone don’t conspire against me.)

So I’m happy to report that both of my lungs are still present and accounted for despite my best efforts to vacate them from the premises. I’m much better now, thankyouverymuch, although I seem to have passed on my affliction to my husband, who is now trying to cough up one of his lungs as well. In fact, there’s been so much congestion and whatnot in our house over the last two weeks that I will forever think of this particular time of our lives as HackFest ’07. We’re thinking of making t-shirts.

But aside from a disproportionate amount of coughing, things have been pretty normal around here. I went to Panera a couple of days ago to get some writing done (or, I should say: get some “writing” done) but ended up doing little more than attempting to plow my way through my inbox. And then a sweet lady asked me to help her get her laptop connected to the internet, and when I said, “You know, I think you have a firewall setting that we need to disconnect,” I realized that at some point aliens have overtaken my brain and infused it with mysterious bits and pieces of computer-related knowledge.

Because there’s really no other explanation for the fact that I have become a person who is capable of offering some light technical support to a stranger who is attempting to connect to a WiFi network in a local coffee shop.

(However, the aliens still haven’t taught me how to make a DVD play on the television in our living room. Baby steps, I guess.)

Also: thank you so much for all of your funny, encouraging comments about the podcast that Big Mama and I did. I can’t even tell you how much it means to us that you took the time to listen and to give us some feedback.

Because here’s the thing: I don’t think I’ve ever been more nervous blog-wise than when I finally put up that podcast link. It’s one thing to put your crazy in writing, but there’s something that feels infinitely more vulnerable about letting people hear your crazy – not to mention your voice and your accent (not that I actually have an accent, mind you – that was a purely hypothetical example).

So all that to say: your sweet comments are appreciated more than you’ll ever know, and if I could play a clip of “More Than You’ll Ever Know” by my pretend-BFF Christy Nockels right here, I absolutely would.

(But I think doing that without permission might result in some sort of fine and perhaps even a brush with legal action.)

(Which really isn’t the best way to win over your pretend-BFF.)

Anyway, we’re going to try the podcast thing again in the next couple of days, and I can promise you that it will contain the same level of deep, philosophical conversation that you heard in the first one.

Specifically, we will be analyzing the proposed foreign trade policy of every presidential candidate as well as taking a thorough exegetical look at the book of Leviticus.

Oh, who am I kidding?

We’re totally talking about lip gloss. Along with other issues of critical international importance.

And we do hope you’ll join us again.

A few days ago Alex and I had to get out of the house in a hurry because some people were coming by with a realtor. I had been cleaning and scrubbing and vacuuming since about 7:30 that morning, so by the time we made our hasty exit at 11, I was a mess. My hair wasn’t fixed, I hadn’t taken a shower, I was wearing zero make-up, and I had on these gaucho-ish workout pants that are not attractive in the least but are as comfortable as all get out when you’re spending a morning up to your elbows in Pine Sol.

I didn’t have time to change clothes or, you know, bathe before we left, but I was so frazzled by that point that I really didn’t care. I figured I’d run through the McDonald’s drive-thru, grab some lunch, and then Alex and I would head to the park and commence with the killing of time. Plus, given the condition of my appearance, at least if we were at the park people might think that I’d been hoofing it on the walking trail just moments before I sat down at a picnic table to systematically demolish an order of McValue fries. And a cheeseburger.

As soon as we got to the park Alex noticed a lady who happens to work at his Mother’s Day Out, and all I could think was, “WELL, THAT FIGURES” because it never fails that I run into someone I know when I look my absolute worst. We made small talk for a few minutes, and in an attempt to explain why I looked like death warmed over, I offhandedly mentioned that oh, someone was looking at our house, we were in a hurry when we left as she could probably tell, ha ha ha ha ha, all the while hoping that she wouldn’t think I was some deranged mama who was unfamiliar with Why Good Hygiene Is Important.

In the meantime, a little girl who was probably one and a half kept running over to me, lifting up her arms, and trying to crawl into my lap. Alex was infinitely entertained by the fact that “the girl baby” wanted to play with his mama, and since the girl baby’s parents didn’t seem to object, I picked her up and let her play with the toy from Alex’s Happy Meal. She’d sit in my lap for a little bit, then jump down and run to her mama, then climb back in my lap, and so it went for about the next ten minutes.

When the little girl climbed down for about the twelfth time, I mentioned to her mama, who looked to be about my age, that I was flattered that her daughter seemed to like me so much.

And here is what her mama said to me:

“Well, you do look like her grandmother!”

OH YES SHE DID.

OH YES SHE DID.

I just sat there, stunned, trying not to feel offended, reminding myself that I’m not in fact getting any younger and that being a grandmother is one of life’s greatest blessings. Grandmothers are loving, they’re wise, they’re treasured – they’re the apples of their grandbabies’ eyes.

However, grandmothers are not, as a general rule, IN THEIR THIRTIES.

So in my head I tried to put a spin what she said, tried to remember that I didn’t exactly leave the house with a youthful glow that morning, tried to justify that maybe she meant the grandmother and I have a similar body type, or maybe the grandmother and I have a similar-sounding voice.

But at the same time, I couldn’t help but channel a little bit of Suzanne Sugarbaker and think, “Well, if I’d wanted to be insulted, I’d have stayed at home and waited for a crank call!”

And please don’t misunderstand. I have high hopes of being a Sassy Grandmama, as I know several of you are. But I’ve sort of envisioned my late 50’s / early 60’s as being the Sassy Grandmama years. Not, you know, NOW.

I mean, y’all. I can’t help but feel like I may need a touch of the Botox.

Perhaps the plastic surgeon will give me some form of senior citizens’ discount!

And just FYI: I’m considering changing the name of the blog to BooMamaw.

Consider yourself warned.

This post was originally published on October 12, 2006.