The book club thingy on Peace Like A River that was originally scheduled for tomorrow is postponed for the time being. Robin and I are nowhere near ready – so we’ve agreed that it’s better to wait. The last week has been so crazy that I actually forgot about it until last night, so obviously I’m not exactly, you know, prepared to participate. As soon as we come up with an alternate date, I’ll let you know.

And there are a few of you who have emailed me to ask about the podcast we recorded this past weekend, and y’all are so sweet to, you know, care. But there are some definite SOUND ISSUES in that I sound like I AM SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS (I was the one holding the laptop) whereas Melanie and Shannon sound like they are whispering from a location far, far away. I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can do to balance the sound, but so far I’m not having much success trying to fix it.

So there are some technical difficulties, I’m afraid. But if this one won’t work, we’ll try to record another one from our respective homes.

I do apologize for any bloggy inconveniences these recent developments may cause.

On this week’s podcast, Caroline and Alex have a conversation with each other for the second time in their lives, though certainly it’s the first time that their conversation has been recorded, what with four year-olds typically not doing a lot of podcasting and all.

However, if you ask me, Miss Caroline definitely has a broadcasting career in her future. If she can just get over all that crippling shyness.

We also talk about how we met our husbands, the joys of childbirth, the greatness that is chunky jewelry, and our upcoming hey-we-finally-get-to-see-each-other-in-person weekend.

You know, the weekend when we’re going to make Shannon podcast with us. Because it’ll be fun.

Listen on the blog here:

Subscribe via iTunes here.

Subscribe via RSS feed here.

And oh have mercy, please feel free to leave questions in the comments. We love to read them and answer them.

And we think you’re pretty sassy yourself.

When you make sure to bring your camera to Nashville so you can document the Big Festive Deal for the internets as soon as you get back to your hotel room.

But you leave the USB cord at home.

Now while you may think that we’ve taken some time off from the podcast so that we could examine our split ends under our respective magnifying mirrors, the fact of the matter is that we’ve recorded FOUR podcasts in the last two weeks but have been plagued by either 1) unforeseen technical difficulties 2) stunningly sub-par content or 3) more often than not, a combination of the two.

It’s been such an encouraging time.

But this week we’re back and, as always, tackling all manner of pressing issues: our children’s Halloween costumes, how to make your hair sizzle – literally, the dilemma of using “y’all” and “fixin'” in places outside the South, the problem with body slimming undergarments, and whether or not the wide belt is a valid fashion option.

We also discuss the fact that I may have been a little obsessed with ‘N Sync. When I was, well, 30.

And last but not least, there are bloopers. Oh yes ma’am there are.

Listen on the blog here:

Subscribe via iTunes here.

Subscribe via RSS feed here.

Edited to add: converted the file to mp3. Have tried to upload about five times to one particular hosting company. Every single time the upload finishes my browser crashes. And the upload doesn’t save. Am trying not to throw things. Need break. Back later.

So here’s the deal.

There is one specific hosting company I want to use for the podcast. But said hosting company has been experiencing an “outage” for the last 36 hours, which leads me to think that perhaps they’re not the best choice after all.

So I’ve been trying to figure out different hosting companies, allotted bandwidth, limits on uploads, blah blah blah DOES ANYONE HAVE A CASSETTE TAPE? BECAUSE I KNOW HOW TO WORK A CASSETTE TAPE.

But the biggest hurdle of all is that my editing software exports an mp4a file, which apparently is deeply, deeply different from an mp3 file, and I’m having trouble finding a host who will let me upload my fancy file without telling me that there has been an ERROR! or a FAILURE! or that my FILE FORMAT IS NOT SUPPORTED!

So I’ve been playing “Even Then” over and over (I need the perspective), and I really do hope to have all of this worked out by lunchtime. And if I don’t have it worked out by lunchtime, well, that’ll be fine, too, although I’ll probably require some counseling this afternoon.

Thanks for your patience, y’all. I’m feeling better now because Mandisa is singing “Shackles” on my iPod. However, that may not help matters because I don’t know how I’ll possibly solve my podcast problems while I’m dancing around with my hands in the air.

I’ll (hopefully) be back in a little bit….

Last night Big Mama and I recorded our first podcast.

Yep. You read correctly. A podcast.

And if you’re wondering, “BooMama, why in the world did you and Big Mama record a podcast?” – well, the only answer I can offer is “Because we thought it might be fun?”

And it was fun. At least for us. Though the rest of you may beg to differ after you hear it. We tried to be all organized and have a list of things we wanted to discuss, but we still ended up talking about shoes, make-up, Britney Spears and our hair.

So we pretty much covered lots of deep philosophical issues.

Anyway, now I have to get D to help me edit it, then upload it – and Big Mama and I will each put a link on our blogs sometime this weekend
For whatever reason, before we recorded it I worried that it might be difficult for listeners – and I may be jumping the gun to assume that the plural form of that word is necessary – to distinguish Big Mama’s voice from my voice. Because IN MY HEAD we sound a lot alike.

But oh. No. No ma’am. After listening to what we recorded last night, I’ve realized that we do not in fact sound a lot alike. Not at all. Big Mama sounds like Texas. And I sound like Alabama. And apparently I have never acquainted myself with the suffix “-inG.” I stop at “-in’.” Every stinkIN’ time.

So if you’re bored this weekend, you’ll be able to find the podcast at either of our blogs. You can listen from the blogs themselves or you can download the file and listen on your iPod / mp3 player.

And because we agreed early on that there was no way we could refer to each other as “Big Mama” and “BooMama” in a recorded conversation and hold on to even the tiniest shred of our dignity, we use our real names in the podcast. I do hope that’s not terribly disconcerting.

Finally: while we were recording the podcast, we both had to wear headphones.

And for some reason that makes me giggle.