If there’s one thing Southern gals know how to do, it’s gab. Silly or serious, all it takes is a glass of iced tea and time. Pull up a chair, kick off your shoes, and make yourself comfy…get ready to dish!
SF Day 1: Glad We Packed the Jackets!
Doesn’t it always happen? We get everyone out of the bed at the crack of dawn to make our 9 am flight, drive across town to the off-site parking, and once we get into a spot, the sky opens up and Noah’s flood commences. Poor DH got soaked loading all the suitcases onto the shuttle bus. He’d mostly dried off by the end of the flight to Atlanta. We grabbed some grub in the airport, then boarded the flight to San Francisco.This is one friggin’ big country. The flight was about seven hours long, but since we gain three...
read moreGoin’ Back to Cali
Technically, I really am “going back to Cali,” to quote my dog LL Cool J, since I had to cross into California to work my way down to Lake Tahoe a couple of years back. But I’ve never spent any quality time there. This year, the denizens of Chez mimi will have a real life summer vacation in the Golden State. We fly to San Francisco tomorrow–first time Frick and Frack have ever been on an airplane! We’ll spend a couple of days by the Bay, then rent a car to drive up the coast to Ft. Bragg in Mendocino...
read moreMusings: Mamma Mia!
You could feel the estrogen in the room when Frack and I went with our friend Melanie (Melanie’s lovely daughter was at the beach) to see Mamma Mia! this weekend. I think I’m one of the few North American women who has not seen this show live, so everything was new to me.Surprisingly, the ABBA songs adapt themselves very well to the plot. The short version: Donna (Meryl Streep) has a lovely 20-year-old daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) who will be getting married tomorrow. Sophie has never known her father. After finding and...
read moreTen Memorable Vacation Moments
Crunch time coming. A week from tomorrow, we fly out to San Francisco for the family vacay before the RWA Conference. Cleaning and shopping abound. Until then, some pre-holiday reminiscing.Calling seats in our 1976 Chevy Caprice Classic Estate station wagon. Just like this one, except ours was red and had a CB antenna on top. Baby Bro usually got the “way back” seat while sis and I fought over the back seat.Winning my first Highland Dance trophy on my birthday at the Flora MacDonald Highland Games in Red Springs, NC–wearing...
read moreCreepy Crawly
Last night, DH and I heard two of the most dreaded words in parenthood: head lice. Seems a good friend of Frack’s who spent the night the other night got a call from another friend about creepy crawlies. Good friend has them, and lo and behold, so did Frack.Let’s just say that a full hour and a half of wash, sit, rinse, comb, comb, comb ain’t too fun either for Frack or her mama. Tears and recriminations all around. Mostly tears. What can you say? Not to mention the fact that any mention of a creepy crawly of that sort makes...
read moreTen Favorite Movie Characters
Today DH and I have been married 13 years! Interestingly enough, today’s Ten on Tuesday topic is Favorite Movie Characters. Since we’re both movie fiends, that’s appropriate. Here are ten one (or both) of us love:Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride (“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”) Actually, nearly all of the characters from The Princess Bride could have made this list.H.I. McDonnough from Raising Arizona (“Um, I’ll be takin’ these Huggies, and whatever...
read moreAmerican Girlz
Today, Frack and I took my mom and a couple of her friends to Kit Kittredge, the first theatrical release of an American Girl movie. If you don’t have a daughter in the tween range, you may not be aware of the marketing juggernaut that is the American Girl company. The American Girls are a series of dolls, each from a specific period of U.S. history. Each doll comes with historically accurate clothing and accessories, plus a book about her adventures. Each book has some historical information about the period in the back. As a history...
read moreMusings: Miss Potter
I’m a sucker for movies about writers, so when I saw previews for Miss Potter, I knew I’d want to see it. Of course, like most thoughtful movies about women, it lasted all of two nanoseconds in the theaters, so I had to wait for it to scale the Netflix queue. It was worth the wait.Miss Potter, of course, is the Beatrix Potter of Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck fame. This movie is a fanciful look at her life, including flashbacks to her privileged childhood and the process that brought us the most successful children’s...
read moreBirthday Girl!
Baby girl, aka “Frack,” is nine today. Nine going on twenty-six, that is. She’s gorgeous, if I do say so myself, with a wonderful sense of fashion (don’t know where that comes from, since I am the least fashionable woman I know this side of frumpy) and a goofy sense of humor. She truly is the kind of sunshine that mamas and daddies sing about making them happy when skies are grey.So we have best buddy sleepover going and dinner by request (pork roast, parmesan risotto, and broccoli casserole), and sometime this week...
read moreClassy Dame: Emma Thompson
I so want to be Emma Thompson. She’s clever, funny, opinionated, and she knows how to steal a show. She’s an Oscar-winning writer (Sense and Sensibility) and an Oscar-winning actress (Howards End). Plus, I don’t think I can imagine anyone else doing proper justice to Professor Trelawney. My heroine!
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