I wrote this about my Nanny almost two years ago but, since today is her 90th birthday, I thought I’d post it again.

She is the original firecracker.

My Nanny is 88 years old, but you would never know it. She has more energy and enthusiasm than people half her age. All of her friends are at least 15-20 years younger than she is because as she will tell you “I don’t like to spend time with old people”. In fact, the week before we arrived she had hosted a Bunco party at her house, you know for all her young friends in their 70’s.

She has always known how to stay young. I remember being in high school and walking down the street to borrow her clothes and her jewelry. I’m betting that not too many grandmothers have a wardrobe that their granddaughters would like to wear. You don’t see too many 15 year olds wearing SAS shoes with a nice paisley polyester blouse. But Nanny has always had style.

She was the first person I knew that owned a video camera, a VCR and an answering machine. In fact, my mama said that Nanny called her just the other day and asked “What is an iPod and do I need to get one?” I am sorry, but that is current.

When we walked through the door, it was all so warm and familiar. I can’t identify what her house smells like, but it’s a part of my life. Even when we got home on Sunday, I could smell it on my clothes and in my hair. It’s just the smell of home and comfort, a combination of Sir Walter Raleigh pipe tobacco, fresh cinnamon cake out of the oven and perfume. If I could buy it in a bottle, I would.

Caroline was in complete awe of Nanny’s house. There are more things to look at than you could possibly see in just one visit. She still has our old toy closet filled with toys from our childhood and books that bring back so many memories. Caroline walked into that closet, found a huge box full of more jewelry than you can imagine and said “Oh Mama, this is interesting”. It’s like a little piece of heaven on earth for a little girl, and I know because it’s where I spent so much of my childhood.

At one point, I was on the other side of the house and I heard a familiar noise that made me laugh out loud. It was the sound of Samba music coming from the electric organ that Nanny has in her sitting room. I knew that it was only a matter of time before Caroline discovered it and once she did, she was hooked. I spent a lot of hours playing that same organ with my sister making up variety shows and musicals that would rival the Sweeney Sisters. We’d put Nanny’s nightgowns on our head for our hair and drape ourselves in anything we could find in her jewelry box.

If you don’t want a honest answer, then you better not ask her a question. Sometimes she’ll even give her opinion before you’ve asked. When she came out of surgery last year, my mama was waiting for her and sat holding her hand. Nanny looked at her and said “I really wish you’d do something with your hair. It just looks terrible”. I have always thought she’s kind of like a mama cat, she likes to take all her babies and get them cleaned up just right.

I remember one Thanksgiving when P and I drove 7 hours to get to the lakehouse and when I walked in the door she said “Oh it makes me so sad that you don’t wear makeup anymore”. She feels strongly about looking your best (even on 7 hour car rides), in fact I don’t have a picture of her from this weekend because she didn’t have her “face on”.

The biggest thing (literally) that she worries about is all of her girls’ weight. Gulley said that she knew she was officially part of the family when Nanny told her she’d put on a few pounds. But here’s the kicker, anytime you visit she will always have your favorite dessert fresh out of the oven. It’s like she wants you to look good, but she also wants to indulge you in your favorite food. In fact, one of the first things she said after I walked in the door was that she had made my favorite banana pudding. It was so good I could’ve eaten the whole bowl. And oh my goodness, her sweet tea is like no other you’ll will ever taste. I’d be willing to bet that the sugar to tea ratio errs high on the side of sugar. It’s like heaven in a glass.

After Caroline finally passed out from the sheer exhaustion of looking through all that jewelry, Nanny and I stayed up talking. This has always been one of my favorite things about Nanny, she’s a night owl like me (or at least like me before I had a 3 year old that likes to wake up when it’s still “darken” outside). When I was little she always let me stay up late with her to watch The Tonight Show, in fact the night that Johnny Carson did his last show I was off at college, but I had to call Nanny on the phone because the sound of Johnny’s voice will always remind me of those renegade nights at her house where I was allowed to stay up until 11:30.

When we got up to leave the next morning, Caroline wasn’t ready to leave and neither was I. That’s the thing about Nanny, she knows how to make you feel like you’re the most important person in the world when you’re with her. She listens to everything you say and even when I was little, never made me feel like my thoughts didn’t matter. I think Caroline summed it up best as we were leaving, she said “Oh Mama, I want to take one of these road trips again sometime.”

Mama does too.

Happy Birthday, Nanny. Love you.

Caroline telling me a joke yesterday.

“Why did the potato go to the doctor?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because he couldn’t see.”

I think she left out some reference to the fact that potatoes have eyes.

But honestly I’m just glad she’s finally telling jokes where the punchline doesn’t always include the word “poop”.

Yesterday was the first day in about three weeks that Caroline and I didn’t have anywhere to be or anything we had to do. We spent much of the morning in our pajamas and finally headed out to run a few errands around 10:30 a.m.

This is the sad reality of motherhood. When you wake up at the crack of early, it seems like you’ve already lived half a day by 10:30 a.m.

I told Caroline we were going to run some errands and she ran in her room to get dressed. Heaven help me, the wardrobe issues are going to be the death of me.

It’s like living with J.Lo back when she was all “Jenny from the block and don’t be fooled by the rocks that she got”, and not Mrs. Marc Anthony.

Frankly, I miss the old J. Lo.

Caroline came out of her room wearing jeans that were about three inches too short, pink cowboy boots, a sleeveless floral print top, and a necklace that she fashioned out of two bracelets that came from Vacation Bible School that say “When in doubt, PRAY!” and “PRAY without ceasing”.

Which is exactly what I do every morning when she gets dressed.

And just for that extra bit of flair, she was carrying her Hello Kitty purse, had her huge sunglasses up on her head and was carrying a coffee thermos. I bet five dollars she and Mary Kate Olsen had on the same outfit yesterday.

But since I am beat down by the wardrobe and, inherently, there isn’t anything wrong with it, other than the fact that she looks like a hobo, I just went with it and we headed out to run some errands.

Our first stop was the mail store and then we walked down to the drugstore to pick up a few other things. This was a critical error on my part because there is a pet store in between the drugstore and the mail store.

Caroline begged to go in the pet store and I thought “What the heck, it’s summer. Let the girl have some fun!”, because what says summer fun like hearing a parrot squawk until your ears bleed?

Of course all she wanted to see were the rodents. And I have never been more grateful that she can’t read yet because there was a big sign on the cage of the Siberian Hamsters that said “FREE TO GOOD HOME. ASK YOUR PARENTS.”

Oh, that’s just what I need. A free Russian rodent that would, no doubt, demand high-dollar vodka, caviar and repeated viewings of Anna Karenina.

She was particularly interested in seeing what she called “the feeder mice”.

I asked, “What are the feeder mice?”

“They are the mice that you feed to snakes. Can we buy some to take to the ranch to feed the snakes?”

“What did you say, baby?” Mama couldn’t hear you over the gagging and her brain spontaneously combusting.

“I want to buy some feeder mice to feed the snakes.”

I suspect that someone has recently visited the pet store with her daddy, because the only mice she knows about from me are the kind that make dresses for Cinderella or hang out with ducks who don’t wear pants.

And I’m keeping it that way.

Okay, so where did I leave off?

Friday night. Philips Arena. Crying.

Change Friday night to Saturday morning and that pretty much sums up the whole weekend.

I went into the weekend really wanting to hear from God and it’s funny how He responds to that. I think He was serious with that whole “Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find” stuff.

Priscilla Shirer began her talk with Exodus 19:9. The minute she mentioned the wilderness I knew I was going to hear something powerful. I’ve spent so much time in the last few years feeling like I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going. I’ve watched our lives take some crazy, unexpected turns that have left me breathless.

I was so moved to hear her talk about how God often calls you while you’re still in the wilderness. He brings you there to show you who He really is and I can say without a doubt that the last two years of my life have taught me more about God’s power and provision than any other time in my life.

On Saturday morning I woke up at 6:30 a.m. BEFORE THE ALARM EVEN WENT OFF.

This has never happened in the history of my life.

I was so excited about the day that I was actually up and dressed by 8 a.m. AND WAS HAPPY ABOUT IT.

Saturday was another awesome day. And, yes, I pretty much spent the whole day wiping tears from my eyes.

By the afternoon I looked as if I had a bad case of the pink eye.

Note to self: Don’t be afraid to bring some Visine next time

Another note to self: Also, some Kleenex might be a good idea.

The only thing that wasn’t fabulous about Saturday were the real issues that arise when there are 19,000 women in one arena who all need to go to the bathroom at various points throughout the day. I, myself, can go about ten times before noon on a good day.

However, I didn’t want to miss one minute of anything so I just tried to focus on other things that were unrelated to water or flowing rivers.

Finally, it was lunch time. Sophie and I planned to eat lunch with Annie who offered to bring us lunch. She met us down on the floor so we could follow her to the designated lunch spot. We needed to go to the bathroom, but took one look at the lines and decided we didn’t have 58 minutes, or the better part of my life, to spare.

After lunch, I thought my luck might be better.

I am so naive.

Did I honestly think that the restroom situation was going to improve after 19,000 women spent an hour drinking Diet Coke and assorted Starbucks beverages?

I started to wait in a line, but I could tell that there was a good chance I was going to die from old age or a bladder explosion before I actually made it to a stall, so I just headed back to my seat. I figured if I was going to die I might as well be enjoying some good praise and worship music.

Thankfully, I was able to get to a restroom located backstage. Otherwise I shudder to think at how badly it all could have ended.

At one point I was even considering the purchase of a Stadium Gal for my next Deeper Still Event.

Stadium Gal, for when you’ve gotta go, but you wanna stay.

I am not kidding. It’s a real product.

Maybe someone could make a special Deeper Still Stadium Gal.

Oh, there are so many multiple meanings in that title.

Oh my word.

Why doesn’t Wordpress have some kind of numbered comments feature?

I believe I have seriously compromised my eyesight.

Too bad it didn’t just pick numbers 1-10. It would have made it much easier.

Anyway, here are the lucky winners of the Third Day CD.

Random Integer Generator

104 230 39 178 124
279 90 87 68 123
Timestamp: 2008-07-01 01:30:04 UTC

104 is Laura at Organizing Junkie

279 is Sarah who doesn’t have a blog, but has a gmail address

230 is Jennie who doesn’t have a blog, but has a yahoo email address

90 is Patty at Girlfriends in God

39 is Cheryl at Cheryl’s World

87 is Gwyn at Mommy Daily Vent

178 is Laurie who doesn’t have a blog, but has a msn email address

68 is LeAnn (AKA Frazzmom)

124 is Holly at Crown Laid Down

123 is Beverly at Dancing with the Daffodils

Congratulations, Ladies.

Please email me your mailing address at bigmama8303@yahoo.com and I’ll get your CD’s in the mail.

I slept until noon yesterday.

And I am not going to lie, it was glorious.

The weekend was so incredible, but it started at 3:30 a.m. Friday morning and didn’t end until I walked through my back door last night at midnight. And then I was so excited to tell P all about it that we stayed up until after 1:00 a.m.

God bless him for getting up with Caroline and taking her to church yesterday morning. He is a gem.

On Friday morning at 5:00 a.m. my dad picked me up to drive me to the airport. My flight didn’t leave until 6:30, but he wanted to pick me up a little early so he’d have time to go home and work out on his elliptical machine before he went in to the office.

The early morning workout gene seems to have skipped a generation.

However, I was never so glad to be somewhere early because when I arrived at the airport, it was totally packed. In fact, it was the longest security line I have ever waited in. I’ve never seen anything like it.

It was like discovering a whole new world that I never knew existed, like people who don’t enjoy cold Diet Coke over ice or chocolate. Weird and unusual. Who are all these early risers and where are they going at 5:00 a.m.?

And then, as I was waiting in the line at Starbucks to see if they offered caffeine with any sort of I.V. delivery system, I overheard a couple in front of me talking and the wife was trying to explain to her husband who Faith Hill and Tim McGraw were and it was taking quite a bit of effort because she wasn’t really sure who they were but thought that they “might do some singing on stage together”.

Lord have mercy.

This is why I don’t need to be around people who wake up at 5:00 a.m. Clearly, we are from two different planets. How do you not know who Faith and Tim are? Even if you don’t listen to country music?

I’m sure it’s because this couple is very sophisticated and well-traveled and would never try to beg a security guard to let them go through security with their flip-flops on because they forgot their fungus-preventing security socks (I haven’t actually trademarked that name, but I will eventually) and have phobias about their bare feet touching the place where thousands of other bare feet have walked.

Anyway, I arrived safe in Atlanta where the lovely Annie not only picked me up from the airport but took me to eat breakfast at The Flying Biscuit. Eating that biscuit was the first time I saw the face of God this weekend, but it wouldn’t be the last.

Annie dropped me off at The Omni. I checked in and got in the elevators to head up to my room, but I punched the bottom on the elevator and nothing happened.

Punch again.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

I stood there for five minutes in a non-moving elevator until I realized you had to insert your room key to get the elevator to take you to your floor. They don’t have that at the La Quinta.

Sophie arrived around 1:00 and we went down to the arena to watch sound check. We had no idea what exactly that entailed, but Travis had told us we could come down to sound check and it was either that or watch some old episodes of “Sanford and Son” in our room, so we chose sound check.

As soon as we walked in we saw Amanda and Janelle. It was so great to finally meet them in person. I also got to meet Travis’s sweet wife, Angela, for the first time which was so fun after hearing so much about her.

We all stood around and visited for a few minutes because they were all very busy doing official sound checking things, and then Beth Moore came walking up to us. I could have died.

I got to meet Beth, we hugged and I was pretty much speechless because I knew if I said anything I might go straight into the ugly cry. I think I may have said something like “You have no idea”, which is really so profound and eloquent.

I am quite the wordsmith.

I’m also pretty sure I introduced myself as “Big”.

Nice.

Everyone had places to be and things to do, so Sophie and I went back up to the room to catch some “Sanford and Son” and possibly a nap. That’s the benefit of not having any real talent, you’re able to just hang out in hotel rooms and watch Aunt Esther and Lamont. “Hey Dummy, here comes 5,000 volts of ugly”.

Finally, it was time to wade into the sea of 19,000 women to get into the arena. I have never seen anything like it.

We finally arrived at our seats and a little while later Travis and the Praise Team started singing. And that’s pretty much when I started crying.

I was just completely overwhelmed by the presence of God. Not to mention that I was sitting directly behind Beth, Kay Arthur and Priscilla Shirer. It was honestly one of the most surreal moments of my life.

And I just kept thinking, “God, how did I get here?”

But there was no where else I would have rather been.

I’ll tell y’all more tomorrow, because, seriously, could this be any longer?

That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.

One of the cool things about blogging is that you make new friends that you otherwise would have never met in real life.

And then, when you get to meet those friends in real life, it’s so much fun.

photo by Rich

At Deeper Still this weekend I was finally able to meet Amanda and Janelle.

You know what?

They’re even better in person.

I’ll be back tomorrow after I’ve figured out how to condense about 15,000 thoughts into one concise blog post.

Or maybe five concise blog posts.

In the meantime, you can read about it on the All-Access blog.

I used the handy random number generator to choose the winner of the Lindsey Kane CD.

And the winner is:

Random Integer Generator

13
Timestamp: 2008-06-27 19:43:26 UTC

Congratulations to Fab the Mayor, lucky #13, at Musings from My Little Corner of the World.

Email me with your address and I’ll get your Lindsey Kane CD in the mail on Monday.

Or maybe Tuesday.

But for those of y’all who didn’t win, I have GOOD NEWS!

Third Day is coming out with their new CD Revelation on July 29. You can go listen to all the awesomeness right here.

But here’s the GOOD NEWS. I have ten Revelation CD’s to giveaway!

TEN.

TEN WINNERS!

So, leave a comment and I’ll use my friend, the random number generator, to pick ten winners on Monday!

Remember how on Fridays I used to talk about fashion or something?

I’m not sure what happened.

And I realize I keep creating false hopes for all three of you who care about Fashion Friday because every Friday I promise that I’ll resume Fashion Friday the following week.

Honestly, I still intend to do Fashion Fridays because I enjoy them, but it will be sporadic over the summer. Because really, what do you need to know about summer fashion?

Wear shorts. Wear t-shirts. Wear skirts. Wear a swimsuit.

It’s all good.

As long as you have access to some A/C.

I’m leaving for Atlanta at 6:30 a.m. to attend Deeper Still. For those of you doing the math, that means I’m going to have to set my alarm for 4:30.

Oh the horror.

I haven’t set an alarm for 4:30 since Caroline was a newborn and her pediatrician said I needed to make sure she ate every three hours around the clock. That’s what I get for having a baby that only weighed 5 1/2 pounds.

The good news is that I managed to pack one carry on bag. However, since I’m only going to be gone thirty-six hours, it would have just been embarrassing to have to check a suitcase. Still, I haven’t traveled with just a carry on since my days of riding the Greyhound bus to Houston to visit my daddy with my rainbow duffel bag thrown over my shoulder.

So yesterday I spent the day meticulously obsessing over the inventory of my carry on. What if I spill something? What if I hate the shoes I pack? What if it doesn’t feel like a day for jeans and all I have are jeans?

You know, real problems.

Anyway, in spite of all my suitcase concerns, I spent most of the afternoon at the pool with Caroline. Everything was great until we stopped for a break at around 4:00 and I pulled out my cell phone to check in with P, only to discover that my cell phone wasn’t working.

Panic. Sheer panic.

How did my early 90’s self survive without a cell phone? Or as I called it back then, a CELLULAR phone.

I cannot even imagine all the time I wasted in my late teens sitting at home waiting for some loser to call. Time that could have been spent bettering myself or shopping.

Clearly, I couldn’t leave town (to a whole other state, no less) without a working cell phone.

The phone was working, it just said that I needed to insert the SIM card. I’m no technological wizard but I do know that the SIM card is the key to your cell phone universe.

So I took out the battery and took out the SIM card to research the problem. I used a highly scientific process to try to fix whatever was wrong with the SIM card, which means that I kind of rubbed it on my beach towel and then blew on it really hard.

After I put it back in the phone, it still wasn’t working. I can’t imagine why.

Caroline and I stayed at the pool a little while longer and then we left so that I’d have time to go to the AT&T store to say HALP! MAH PHONE IS BROKEN.

Since I couldn’t call P, I decided to stop by the house to let him know what was going on and share my STRESS. STRESS OVER MY NON-WORKING CELL PHONE. Nevermind that I spent the first twenty-four years of my life without one, I cannot function without it.

He opened it up while I stood next to him explaining that I’d already done that. “I’VE DONE THAT. I EVEN BLEW ON IT AND WIPED IT WITH MY BEACH TOWEL. CLEARLY, IT’S BEYOND HELP.”

That’s when he noticed that some idiot had put the SIM card back in facing the wrong direction. And it was kind of stuck. Which required tweezers.

And maybe some pliers.

But it finally came out.

P put it back in and turned on my phone. It worked.

He looked at me and said, “That’s a little thing I like to call doing it the RIGHT WAY.”

Whatever.

He’ll be lucky if I call him this weekend.

I’ll be posting updates on Deeper Still over at the LifeWay All Access blog this weekend.

I’m sitting here at the pool sweltering in the heat and wondering why I thought it was such a good idea to bring my computer.

Truth be told, I was curious if our pool really had wi-fi or if they just made the claim because what kind of moron brings their computer to the pool?

Turns out, the wi-fi is for real.

So is the heat.

And, apparently, so is the moron.

I chose not to wear my bathing suit today because I am tired of the pool and all the chlorine. My hair is about the consistency of straw, except not as soft and silky.

Anyway, after Caroline’s swimming lesson is over, we are headed home to bask in the A/C. I may even break out the craft bag in my desperation to stay inside.

Nothing reeks of desperation more than the willing distribution of glitter and glue to someone whose life motto is if a little is good, then A LOT is even better.

My biggest issue with the heat, other than the fact that it causes me to walk around with a bright red face and foul temper, is that it makes me want to run far, far away from the kitchen. By the end of the day it is just too hot to live, much less cook.

I just want to get a spoon, a quart of Dreyer’s Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream and call it a day.

There are two problems with this.

1. I would prefer to not gain fifty pounds over the course of the summer.

2. My people seem to want real food. With side dishes.

They are so demanding with all their “I’m hungry. What’s for dinner? Are we having hot dogs again?”

It takes all the joy out of my Dreyer’s Ice Cream.

Oh I kid. Nothing could really take the joy out of that. Because did I mention the chocolate and the peanut butter?

The problem is that when I look through my recipes and assorted cookbooks, nothing sounds good. Meatloaf in the summer is just wrong. Gravy in the summer seems unnatural. Frying something in hot oil seems redundant to the day I’ve already spent at the pool.

This is where y’all come in. I’m going to put up a Mr. Linky and would love it if you’d share your favorite summertime recipe on your blog and link it back here. If you don’t have a blog, then you can leave your recipe in the comments.

It doesn’t have to be sophisticated or complicated. In fact, the easier the better has always been my motto.

Not really, but it is now.

So, share the recipe love. Help a girl out.

Because, otherwise, P is going to ban me from buying anymore hot dogs at the HEB.