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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Sweet Love

What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of.

Let's love people today. Let's really love them, though, and not just be nice to their faces and then talk about them behind their backs or even think mean things. Let's love people who are gay or straight or overweight or way too skinny or democrat or republican or Christian or Muslim or Jewish or atheist. Let's love people who are dumb or too smart for their own good or even smelly. Let's love people who are rich and those who are poor and everyone in between. Let's really love people who are mean to us - I think they might need it the most. 

And guess what? It starts with you right now; that's the only way. Because the world can't have too much love; it would probably just overflow into space and then the martians would feel loved. I want my little boy to live in a world that is just brimming over with love. 

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Shout Out

I have been reading home design blogs years before I actually had a home. I love catching up with Emily at Jones Design Company and Holly and Holly Mathis Interiors. Recently, Ashley at The Handmade Home has been doing a color tutorial series about using color in your home. I have been agonizing over several different color choices for the living room, master and Emmet's room since we first looked at our house. I have yet to purchase any paint... not even a sample. Anyway, I left a comment to Ashley about doing white well and she actually devoted an entire post to my question and used my name and called me sweet!! If only I could get her to come hand design my home... sigh. So here is the post about ME (well, sorta) on the Handmade Home:

http://www.thehandmadehome.net/2012/04/color-theory-101-doing-white-right/

Hopefully I will have some design in my home to show off soon :)

Lava!

Monday, May 7, 2012

From Scratch

This Easter I was faced with a unique conundrum. My Dad was working out of town and couldn't get back for the weekend, and I had already committed to hosting the fam over for lunch. A few days before, though, I realized something: It was just going to be me (plus Chad and Emmet), my mom, my sister and my grandmother. I laughed to Tab and Em about this, but they didn't get it. I am guessing you don't either. Here was my situation: NO OTHER WOMEN IN MY FAMILY CAN COOK! Seriously.

My Memaw heads the lineage of non-cookers. She is the most impressive because she somehow managed to do this as a preacher's wife in the fifties?!? Now, in her favor, things being "store bought" were a sure sign of well-to-do back then, so she was able to get away with cooking a chicken and heating up some sides and calling it a day. In fact, she used to get Allison and I store bought birthday cakes to save us from the ones my Dad always made us from scratch. And now, if you go over to her house, she will have all the salad and rotisserie chicken and iced tea from a jug that you could want. And she will make triple sure that you got enough to eat (and other such grandmotherly things), but she sure as hell isn't going to mix ingredients into anything.

Mom, obviously, didn't "Shake N Bake and I helped" in the fifties and sixties, so she just never picked it up. She would make sure I told you that she does make a mean green bean casserole and adds a secret ingredient (sugar) to Jiffy cornbread. A few Christmases ago, we were having some family and friends over for lunch, so my Dad and I had been cooking all morning. Since everything was pretty much managing itself, I went to curl my hair and Dad went to get dressed. About 5 minutes in, my Mom rushes in and says, "Shauna! Daddy asked me to stir the gravy but I think it might be burning!!!! Will you come look?!" This is a true story. I went in to look and it was just slightly simmering - I think she was concerned by the bubbles. I then relieved her of her duties and finished my hair when a more confident captain was at the helm.

Allison can't really be faulted with a gene pool like that, but I somehow managed inherited some cooking skills from Dad's side. Most of her problem, I think, is lack of effort. She and her roommate in college only owned 4 real plates and probably 4 sets of silverware. When she graduated, Dad and I made spaghetti for her and some of her friends the night before graduation. Y'all, I am not lying when I say that people had to eat in shifts so that we could wash the silverware in between. Same thing when it was time for dessert. Allison does have technology on her side, and she is pretty good at following instructions. So when she decided to cook for a boy she was dating, she had her own personal Alton Brown (aka Dad) via Skype to help her through. I am told it turned out well, but I have never seen any proof. She kicks ass at doing the dishes, though, for which I am eternally grateful.

All joking aside, I love that cooking together is me and Dad's "thing". One year for Christmas my gift to him was that I would let him give me cooking lessons. You read that sentence right; all my Dad wanted for Christmas was to spend time with me and to teach me some things. That is the kind of Daddy I have.

Maybe Mom, Memaw and Alli are just more progressive than I am... "We aren't going to be barefoot and slaving away in the kitchen - hell no! But we will mix up some brownies from a box for ya!" I wasn't aware of how weird this way until this Easter. Without my Dad, the meal was all on me. I did buy the ham pre-cooked and picked fairly easy side-dishes - but in all fairness, I didn't realize the meal was all on me until Friday and I was in denial about it until Sunday morning. Yep. I went to the grocery store on the way home from Easter Service.

Friday, May 4, 2012

May the 4th Be With You

The title has nothing to do with what I am writing about... I just think it's funny and it reminds me of last year when I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of my little CCB IV. Yep, he's the fourth born on the fourth (of June) at 4:38 pm. Chad asks me why I couldn't have just kept him in there for 6 more minutes?! Ha - he's joking, of course, but it would have been awesome.

So I have been trying to do some good deeds. Well, I guess I have actually been planning to do good deeds, and I probably shouldn't claim them until I have actually done them. But here's the thing -  it makes me feel like a really good person and it only takes about 4.6 seconds for me to get SMUG about it. Self, seriously? Are small things important for people to do? Absolutely. Is my small little deed just make me such a better person? No.

But then I feel like my haughty attitude cancels out the good I was trying to do. I am really bad at being humble, I guess. How do you take lessons in humility? I don't dare ask God for that because I know He will certainly show me how humble I should be and I am very much sure I do not want to know :)

It's like Joey told Phoebe - there is no self-less good deed because you always get something out of it - even if it's just a feeling. C'est la vie. Life lessons from Joey Tribbiani.

*Update: about four minutes after I wrote this post, my smugness got squashed. I am not lying. Thanks for coming through there, Lord :)

Thursday, May 3, 2012

About Me



I decided to start this blog to work out things that are on my mind. I actually am not sure if I even want anyone to read it. Why put it on the internet, then? you may ask... and it's a legit question. My view on the matter is currently teetering on the edge of narcissism and self-expression as we speak (er, type?). Accountability is the answer, I think. I journal sometimes, but I don't really have much motivation to do it because it doesn't ever have to be finished and so most of it isn't. Also, I like to write - but I really am not sure if I am any good at it. As one of my new favorite bloggers says:

"Because I did have a hunch that maybe I could write and maybe you’d like it. But I’ve also seen the American Idol auditions, so I know that a whole lot of people suspect they are good at things that they should actually never, ever attempt to do publicly." -Glennon at momastery.com

So I figure the only way to get better at writing is to do it every day - or nearly every day (I mean, I do have a job, husband, baby, house, friends, family...). I don't really even do Facebook status updates because I find that annoying - I guess what makes this better (in my head) is that no one is making you come and read it.

So, why "Lava"? Explanation to come.

About me: I drink red wine, I like to read, but don't do it often enough, I have the cutest little boy on the planet, my husband is funny and definitely the person I was hoping for all my life, I work in child psychiatry with depressed kids - which makes me really sad some days and leaves me feeling like I did some good in the world on others. I like to cook and bake, my house is kind of a wreck, I'd like to be fashionable - but I don't have the time or money to shop. I have two degrees - English and Psychology - and graduated Magna Cum Laude, and that is the second hardest I have ever worked for an achievement. The first hardest is that I gave birth naturally (aka no epidural)... I am woman, hear me roar!