Mother's Day Photos on a Monday Daybook: May 13, 2013

 

Outside my window:

Bright and sunny, but too cold 

I am thinking:

about Taylor Swift's bangs. I saw her in concert on Saturday night and her bangs and her hair color are perfection.  I've been thinking about her bangs all day.
I am thankful:
for sons who pour love on their mommies on Mother's day - both for my sons and for my brother who was with my mom when my sister and I couldn't be yesterday.  Somehow my dad and brother convinced her to play golf and she promises it was one of the best Mother's Days EVER.

In the kitchen:
Fish and green stuff. 
I am wearing:
green Nike running shorts, black Nike running jacket, running shoes.
I am listening to:
Joe whistling while he studies Geometry.  Whistling means happy, right?  That's awesome for him, but for me, whistling means annoying.
I am going:
to watch The Voice tonight.  An adorable girl from my hometown is on it.  She has a crazy beautiful voice.  VOTE AMBER!
I am reading:
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach recommended by the lovely and talented Mrs. C.  It is a fictional story about a college baseball player.  Just started it, but I can tell it's going to be so good.  I'm loving the characters already.
I am hoping:
for heat.  What's new, right?  It's pretty outside, but it's a cruel joke.   Too cold for May.
I am wondering:
if any of my University of Texas buddies recognized our friend, Johnny, banging the wooden spoon on the pot in this AT&T commercial. Oh my gosh, I laughed so hard I almost peed in my pants.  Some things don't change it 20 years, huh?   
I am looking forward to:
school being out, sleeping late, blazing heat, being at the pool for hours.  24 days and counting. 
I am praying:
for women who struggle with pain and addiction to surrender to truth and to stop holding tight to fear and shame.  I've read so much about God turning lives around. I've watched God turn lives around.  He sees you.  He loves you just as you are, but he wants your life to be different.  There is nothing He can't do.  Nothing.
On my IPod:
Joe put Taylor Swift's Red album on my Ipod for me and I've been singing THIS ever since.  It's a happy, dorky, kinda song which is good for me because I'm a happy, dorky kinda gal.
I am pondering:
"The deal is- Motherhood isn't sainthood and we're all a bunch of sinners here and don't let anyone tell you any different - pushing something out of your womb doesn't make you a better woman.  Real Womanhood isn't a function of being a great mother, but of being loved by your Great Father" - from another stunning post from Ann Voskamp's A Holy Experience blog
A quote for today:
"Dear Mom, I love you so much I might blow up." - Drew in his Mother's Day card.


A verse for today:
"He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." - Micah 6:8
One of my favorite things:


Players proudly rockin' pink socks for their moms.

 

 

Daybook idea from http://www.thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

Happy Mother's Day Links

Moms,

I could never say anything more beautiful than THIS.

I hope, like me, that each and every line that Ann Voskamp writes here made you say, "Oh, this.  Yes.  This is mine.  This is my mom." 

As a child, I figured every mom was like mine.  I have found that not all are, but most want to be and sometimes their own brokenness or pain makes it too hard.  If you don't see your own mom in Ann's words, I hope you are able to know that God can help us be this person, even if we don't have children.  We can all love like this. 

And these words, these are you, Mom, to the core. 

(God made a mother) "who  believes that raising generations matters and weaving families matters and tying heartstrings matters and these people here in hidden places matter." 

"It had to be someone willing to keep loving when it made no sense because that's what love does."

This is how my mom loves even those who are not her children.  Even those who haven't given love back.  This is how she lives.  This is how God made her.  I am so very grateful He did.

Read Ann Voskamp, mommies, and then listen to THIS and have a blessed day.

I'm off to the ball field.  Later skaters!!

{this moment}: Whaddya say, Catch?

{this moment}:  A Friday ritual.  A single photo - no words - of a moment from the week.  A simple, special, extraordinary moment.  A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

 

Truth:  Cheating here.  Everything was rained out this week, so this is really from three weeks ago.

 

For more moments, visit www.soulemama.com

A&F Guy: Who do you think you are, The Fonz?

Oh, Abercrombie and Fitch guy.  You are so not.  We, Americans, we know cool.  We knew the Fonz.  You, sir, are no Arthur Fonzarelli.  Oh my.

THIS.

It's America, I know.  I love America.  I love capitalism and free enterprise.  I love freedom of speech.  You have every right.  I know. 
 
I'm having a moment here with you.  A moment where my fingers are literally ITCHING to write.  A moment where I am going to try really hard not to stoop to your level.  But, Mike Jeffries, CEO: 

You only hire the cool, good-looking people and some people just can't belong among your awesomeness? 

THIS GUY?

Please.  Just zip it, Spanky.*

Y'all, it hurts me to not go stooping here.  HURTS. ME.  And I have deleted so much ranting, you have no idea, so I'm going to tell some boring, convoluted stories because uuuggghhhhh.

The interesting thing is that I have started writing about this place before.  I have halfway written posts in my "Drafts" section from way back in September up until just about a week ago loosely based on Abercrombie and Fitch. 

And then Spanky just went and fell right in my lap this morning.

So, I feel compelled to just blab out those stories so that I won't start going off on Spanky and his innerness and his outerness and his clothes and his apparent deep-seated-cool-kid-envy that is clearly eating him up from the inside out. 

Anyway, in late August, I took my boys "Back to School Shopping" at the beginning of the school year.  I'll admit that I was kind of excited.  I know it's insane, but I was a little bit jealous of my moms-with-girls friends who were going to shopping malls with their daughters.  Crazy, huh?  I already knew how excruciating it had to have been for my mom to endure my trying on 114 pairs of Gloria Vanderbilts as a 12 year old.  I had already heard the horror stories of tears and arguments of my friends and their girls, but I was jealous.  I was thrilled when all three of the boys agreed to go to the mall with me and pick out of few new things for school.  They had not been in the mall since the days they ate Cheerios in their strollers and watched TV in the back of the Gymboree store.  This is the thing though:

The problem with girls is that apparently they care too much about every little thing.  The problem with boys?  At least with mine? 

Don't care.  At all. 

Whatever, Mom. 
That one's fine. Sure. 
OK, yea, I don't need to try it on.
Can we eat now?  Can we eat now?  Can we eat now?

I actually wanted to go to Abercrombie and Fitch; somewhere, anywhere besides Dick's Sporting Goods or Modell's or Sports Authority, because, come, on!  Just once?

Let me run down what happened at Abercrombie & Fitch. I needed a spelunker hat because I could not see a darn thing.  Why is it pitch black in there?  And now I'm thinking, how in the world do the cool, good-looking kids in here even know if there are other cool, good-looking kids in here, WHEN YOU CANNOT SEE IN HERE?  I also needed a gas mask because for the love, why is there cologne coming through the vents?  At one point, Drew started coughing and Kyle got really worried and told me that he thought the smell in there was aggravating Drew's asthma and he really felt like he should take him out of there.  So Kyle straightened up his gas mask and threw Drew over his shoulder and raced out of there like Forrest Gump saving Bubba in 'Nam.  It was a heroic move on Kyle's part, to be sure.  (Honestly, a red-headed kid with glasses, nut allergies and asthma?  So not Spanky's kinda guy.  Drew clearly was not invited.  I would like to see him tear up Spanky on a basketball court, though.  Just sayin') That left my 13 year old and me along with a line of teenage girls who were waiting to try on underwear made of denim.  So, he skipped the dressing room and I grabbed the shirt out of his hands and felt my way through the dark to the check out line.  At the end of my purchase, I was given this not-embarrassing-at-all shopping bag.  What in the name of Sam Hill is going on here?

Afterwards, we went to the food court which was the only part of the shopping/bonding experience that my boys liked.  We got over the trauma of the A&F experience with fast food and ice cream.  And I sipped my diet Coke with my darling children, placed my naked-men-shopping bag smack dab in the middle of the Taco Bell and the Chick-Fil-A wrappers and told myself that there would be no more of that place, thank you very much. 

So, maybe I'm okay with not being able to have a mother/daughter shopping experience.  Because those denim underwear things remind me that my girlfriend who works in a high school texted me on a lovely Spring Day last week. She said that at school the new motto must be "Sun's out, buns out."

Girls.  Please.  It is not cool to have your bottom hanging out of your shorts.  I heard some good advice on the radio the other day.  It was something along the lines of you want to attract a MAN, not simply a MALE.  Do you hear what I am saying here, ladies?

Ok, now.  In the interest of full disclosure and since I am clearly all wound up by Spanky and his comments and since I am all over the map and getting a little Judgy McJudgerson, I have to throw myself under the bus a bit.  A little humility goes a long way. (Take note, Spanky.)

We have evidence here of the pot calling the kettle black because check out yours truly in this lovely family portrait.  Thank goodness this isn't a very close up shot.  Me.  On the left.  1983 version of "Suns Out, Buns Out".  I'm pretty sure I wasn't attracting any males or men. 

Mom and Dad:  You have some 'splainin' to do.  Why would you let me out like this?  And why would you order this picture? Now I know why it's in the garage and not in the house.

*Why Spanky?  I have no idea.  It just seems appropriate somehow.

(Where is) Spring Lovin' 2013

The calendar is telling me it's May.  May supposedly means Spring.  I think it was Spring on Saturday.  And maybe on Sunday, but today (which is Tuesday even though I will probably post this on Wednesday) I would say to the calendar:  LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE.

Today it is pouring rain and cold.  I'm going to pretend that my trusty weatherman is not saying that it is going to be like this for the rest of the week.  I'm going to power ahead with optimism for hope and change and bring you the Spring Lovin' Post of 2013.

Here are some things I love about this season (or will love if it would just show up to stay.)

A Light Raincoat
(an appropriate place to start)
I really wanted to look like this when I went out today:

 Unfortunately, I looked like this:

 

 





Which you can see, is not very Kate Middleton, but a little bit Unabomber. 

Here's my advice for those who do not want to come off as  grouchy-Morton's-Salt-girl when it rains like I tend to do.  I love this really cute raincoat from JCrew.  The thing about it is that it costs an arm and a leg, so my opinion (is that necessary to say on my own blog?) would be that you should only buy this if it rains a ton in your area and if you aren't a crybaby when it rains because you don't want to spend that kinda cash on something you're going to scowl in all day.

This one from Macy's is more reasonable and on sale.  Go green - definitely.  You can't be grouchy in that color. This one would be even more reasonable except that it's from Target.  And we all know that its reasonableness will be cancelled out by all the other reasonable items that will jump into your cart at will and bust open your bank account while you're at Target. 

A Spring Purse
I'm in love with this purse from JCrew.



And this purse from Michael Kors. Even though it looks like a Barbie purse, it's not.  I just couldn't find a bigger image.


I also really love this one and this one, too in all the colors shown, but the thing is that I would only have enough money left over to carry an old mint, a tissue and a few pieces of lint in my purse after purchasing those two.  So, how 'bout this one which is so cheap that you can afford to throw in a People, and an Us and an InStyle to read when you are in the 114th inning of a game that never ends?

Cute Short Sleeve Tops
One of my favorite outfits for Spring is a short sleeve top, jeans and flip flops because lots of days in early Spring, it's just not quite warm enough for shorts yet.  Or maybe you're finding weird age spots on your legs and wondering if your shorts days are coming to an end.  Or maybe that's just me and that was too much information.  Sorry.
Anyway with jeans or shorts . . . how cute is this from JCrew?



Or this from Anthropologie?

Or THIS or THIS both from Modcloth.com.

A Spring Jacket
One problem with Spring is the need to have sleeves in the early morning or evening, so you need a versatile light jacket. I'm seeing denim jackets everywhere for all range of prices.  I think they're really cute with a casual dress like this one or this one or with shorts or colorful pants, but there is a dilemma I find with the denim jacket.

What if you are wearing the denim jeans/cute short sleeve top combo and then the game goes into extra innings and you start getting cold?  You need a spring jacket and if you throw on your denim jacket on top of your denim jeans you become all Justin and Britney. 

And nobody needs to see that ever, ever again, am I right?

So how about THIS which would be cute and could be dressed up if you're not at a ballgame (if there is such a thing in your life) or THIS which I think would be really cute at a baseball game when you are starting to freeze and praying, Dear Sweet Jesus, could someone PLEASE just field the ball on either team, puh-lease .

A Spring Scarf
Just with a white t-shirt and jeans.  Easy peasy.  Love this one from Gap

A Spring Dress
You people were very, very sweet giving me lots of compliments on the dress that I wore to Joe's Confirmation.  Here's a little secret.  It's from Talbot's.  Seriously.  Now, maybe you don't make a face when you think of Talbot's, but I honestly thought that Talbot's was a little grandma.  (Not like an actual diminutive senior citizen, but you know.)  I saw this dress in the window when I was in Charlottesville a month ago and I sort of couldn't stop thinking about it.  Which is sad because there are lots of other things I should be contemplating.  Anyway, last week I walked into Talbot's and there it was for 30% off.  EVERYTHING was 30% off and there were many, many non-diminutive senior citizenish things happening in Talbots.  Who knew?

THIS dress is also adorable and I have no where to wear it, but maybe you do.  A graduation or baby shower or wedding?  Or maybe out for a dinner which does not involve buffalo wings? I love the color.

Mother's Day
Mother's Day should obviously be very special, right?  My advice is to keep your expectations low.  Like this:

 

Go HERE to find other funny ecards for your mom friends and support a great cause.

Seriously, though, I have spent the past six years at least on baseball fields for Mother's Day.  Sometimes I act like I'd rather be at a spa, but really there is no place I'd rather be than watching my boys play and my man coach. (I'll take the Spa Day on Monday, though.)  Coaches/Dads - I probably lost you at Kate Middleton, but . . .  If your sport doesn't take a break for Mother's Day, consider buying a bunch of flowers from the grocery store and having your players give one to Mom.  It's not difficult and it makes a mama's heart melt a little bit.

Springtime Tunes
I also think that in the spring you need some good music to listen to on the porch, the deck, the dock, the patio or as is usually the case with me, in the car with the windows down.  I have listened to the song Mirrors by Justin Timberlake about 10 times a day every day this week and it makes me purely, completely happy.  This boy is unbelievably talented and he wears a suit and tie now instead of head to toe denim, so that's a step forward.  If perhaps Kyle is squawking around the 'hood about how he walked in when  I was imitating the back up singer moves while  JT performed this song on Ellen, I would just say two things about that: 

1.  Preteen boys cannot be trusted.
2.  If you sit on the couch while watching Justin Timberlake sing Mirrors, you might be dead inside.

Flowering Plants that I Cannot Kill
This is my azalea that blooms every year and makes me giddy, because I find it miraculous that I have not killed it.  The will to live in the face of a woman who knows nothing about plants is a wonderful thing.
 

Happy Spring, People!!!!

A Joe-Centric Daybook: May 6,2013

 

 

 

 

Outside  my window:
It's grey and cool.
I am thinking:
about all the little influences in my boys' life - church, academics, sports, friendships, technology, family members - as we try to raise them to be the men they can be.  I'm thinking about how one day I worry that I am gripping too tightly to try to control those things and then how the very next day I worry that I'm not gripping tightly enough.  I'm thinking maybe I need to take a breath and stop trying to see so very far down the road because I'm missing the now . . . the now that is flourishing and happy and hopeful.  The now that God wants me to live in and appreciate rather than flicking it away in anticipation of a future that only He holds.
I am thankful:
for the great joy and hope of Joe's Confirmation yesterday. (which was greater even still when we found that we had not one baseball event to run to after church.  A miracle of God, for sure.)
I am listening to:
the washing machine swishing.
I am wearing:
jeans and a pink and green madras top.
In the kitchen:
I got this.  I made a green drink.  I drank it.  It wasn't terrible.  The only problem was that I'm really an idiot and accidentally took the top off of the thing before it stopped spinning and the Juiceman turned into Linda Blair from The Exorcist.  I wore more of my green detox drink than I drank.  I know.  I go along in life thinking that I'm a relatively smart gal and then I find myself in the kitchen and wonder how I can function in the world sometimes.
I am going:
to buy some new socks for all three of my kids.  My children do not have one pair of socks without holes.  And this is where you say to yourself, "I am totally going to stop reading this blog if she doesn't stop throwing her glamorous life in my face."
I am hoping:
For Spring.  For real, like everyday.  Not for one day or two days a week, but for like the whole darn season, please.  Is it Spring or is it not?  Because one day I wear sandals and the next I need boots.  And I'm pretty sure that there are many more important things that I could hope for that have nothing to do with my First World Footwear problems.
I am reading:
Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos
I am wondering:
if Drew was really touched and inspired by Joe's confirmation ceremony.  He had a sleepover for a buddy's birthday Saturday night . . . in which there was, as is the case with 8 year old sleepovers, no sleep.

I am pondering: 
this article from Proverbs 31 Devotions.  I need to read this over and over and over again.
I am looking forward to:
visiting the George W. Bush library on the campus of SMU where I spent many a summer at cheerleading camp and where Steve and I were married 18 years ago.  It is a beautiful campus and I have been so jealous of the photos my friends, Kathleen and Kristen, have posted of their visit.  I cannot wait!
I am praying:
prayers of gratitude for Joe and his Confirmation classmates, for his wonderful mentor, Keith, and for the amazing Youth leaders at our church.  God has blessed us so very much by leading us to this church.  I am so grateful for the people He has chosen to serve the youth of our community.
On my Ipod:
Justin Timberlake.  He is ridiculously talented.  RIDICULOUS.
A quote for today:
"Freedom is very transformative.  It's transformative to individuals, it's transformative to societies, it transforms the world." - George W. Bush
A verse for today: 
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." - 2 Corinthians 3:17
One of my favorite things:

A few plans for the week:
in addition to shopping for boys' socks?  I can't really think of anything more exciting on the calendar.
A peek into my day:
It's my brother-in-law's birthday and he is one of my favorite people ever because he is one of the funniest people I have ever met.  For example, he drew my name for Christmas and gave me an awesome running jacket. (which I'm sure my sister did not pick out.  Ahem.) I was trying to knock out my Christmas Thank Yous quickly, so I sent him this incredibly boring thank you note and then Sister sent me a photo of his editorial review.

See, he's funny, right?  Happy Birthday Lieutenant Dan. (and a shout out to my nephew, James, too.  Happy 8th, buddy!)

Daybook idea from http://www.thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/



{this moment}: Meet Izzy: The Newest Member of My People

{this moment:  A Friday ritual.  A couple of photos - some words - of a moment from the week.  A simple, special, extraordinary moment.  A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

This is Izzy.  I didn't take any photos this week, but I received 648 photos of Izzy.  Izzy is the newest member of my people.  She actually lives with my best person and this is her family.  Aren't they beautiful?

 
Welcome to our people, Izzy.  We sure are blessed, aren't we?

For more moments, visit www.soulemama.com