Granola State Continued

For a few weeks... Just Californians.

Sunshine State of Mind

No time to explain. Too much sunshine! Destin, Florida. Day 4.

Life Lessons from Downton Abbey

 

***Spoiler Alert!***

 

If you didn’t tune into PBS on Sunday Nights for Downton Abbey, you’d better have a good excuse. Were you flying a plane? Performing open heart surgery? Vaccinating children in Papua New Guinea? Surely there must be a good reason! The season 3 finale attracted over 8 million viewers and was the subject of 80,000 tweets the night it aired. Though season 3 ended tragically (Matthew!), it also left us with a few lessons to ponder over the next year as we wait for season 4. In an effort to steer clear of the drama that our fictional friends endured this season, here are a few hard lessons they learned for us:   

Have a Great OB/GYN

Poor Lady Sybil. You know you were standing on your couch screaming, “Go to the hospital already! Forget what that pompous doctor Sir Philip says! Take your hot Irish husband and GO!" Sybil’s family doctor, Dr. Clarkson, knew that she was suffering from eclampsia while in labor, but in the end he couldn’t convince the family or their famous doctor pal Sir Philip that she was in grave danger. Lady Sybil died from eclampsia shortly after giving birth to a daughter.

Lesson learned: Choose a doctor you trust, have a birth plan that they support, and make sure you have an advocate who will make everyone stick to the program.

"Sybil, I love you more than green beer, but I'm totally going to let your dad make every medical decision for us."

A Man is Not a Financial Plan

Viewers can deduce from season 3 that Cora, known downstairs as Lady Grantham, married Lord Grantham for his title and he married her for her money. Fine, we can say they were in love too if it makes you feel better. Lord G invested Cora’s fortune into a doomed railway scheme and ended up losing it all and putting the estate in jeopardy. They were almost going to have to move to “Downton Place” and live with fewer servants- egad! Good thing the Downton Abbey heir, Matthew Crawley, has the best luck ever (for now) and inherited money from his dead x-fiancée’s father. He reinvested it back into the estate therefore saving them all from having to brew their own tea.

Lesson learned: Don’t rely on others to make your financial dreams come true. Whether you help bring home the bacon or not, it’s smart to have an idea of what state your finances are in.

"Where should I invest Matthew's newest fortune? A balloon factory? Time travel research? Garbanzo bean farming?"

 

It’s Good to Have a BFF

When Mrs. Patmore isn’t whipping up a kidney soufflé or making snarky remarks to her kitchen maids, she’s chatting it up with her BFF Mrs. Hughes, the housekeeper. When Mrs. Hughes had to go see Dr. Clarkson about a lump in her breast she took along Mrs. Patmore as moral support. When Mrs. Patmore was being wooed by the raunchy spice salesman at the country fair, Mrs. Hughes told her that he’s a lecher and only after her crazy awesome cooking skills.

Lesson learned: You’ve got to have good friends who will look out for your best interest and aren’t afraid to tell it like it is. Also, beware of creepy men who only ask you about your cooking skills.

"Does this hat make my butt look big?"

 

Money Can’t Buy Happiness

Even though the aristocratic Crawley family has so much money that they actually pay people to button their shirts, they don’t seem to be terribly happy. Take Lady Edith. She’s continually bullied by her older sister, jilted at the altar by a geezer with only one working arm, loses her younger sister to eclampsia, and at the end of season 3 was being pursued by her newspaper editor who is married to a “lunatic” and cannot get a divorce.  It’s like watching post-Edwardian Jerry Springer.

Lesson learned: Having a lot of money does not make you immune to difficult times. Happiness is a choice.

"How can I be happy when I have a name like Edith?"

 

Stand By Your Man

Anna, who works as a ladies maid to Lady Mary, fell in love with Bates the valet, but they were only married for what seemed like five minutes before Bates was convicted of murdering his x-wife Vera and then thrown into prison. Don’t worry- Vera was absolutely horrible and nobody liked her.  Anna made it her business to prove that Vera had actually killed herself, that Bates was innocent, then succeeded in getting him exonerated, and did it all whilst tending to the ubiquitous needs of Lady Mary. Well done, Anna!

Lesson learned: We all need someone in our corner that will cheer for us and defend us when nobody else will. That Tammy Wynette really knew what she was talking about.

"Oh hey. While you were in solitary confinement I used all your dry shampoo. My bad."

 

Wear Your Seatbelt

Remember Matthew Crawley’s good luck? It ran out at the end of the season and he was killed in a car accident (actor Dan Stephens wanted off the series). Of course the show’s writer Julian Fellowes had to pull at our heartstrings and make the crash happen immediately after Matthew’s wife Lady Mary gave birth to their son and heir. Darn you Julian!

Lesson learned: Wear your seatbelt and keep your eyes on the road.

"La la la la la. Okay, the instructor said to keep my eyes on the trees. No- the fluffy clouds. Or was it the..."


Photos courtesy of pbs.org.

 



Real Christmas Photos

 

On Thanksgiving our friends Greg and Sally said they'd take our Christmas picture at a park by their house in College Station.

 

The sign of true friendship: offering to take pictures of a family with a toddler.

 

In order to get Wes to look in the general direction of the camera, Greg had to wear a duck hand puppet and make ridiculous quacking noises. 

 

Here are my three favorite outtakes.

 

The Trifecta of Awful

Eyes Closed. Head Turned. Speaking.

 

 

The Body Drag

We will drag you until we get a photo where it looks like we're casually strolling through the woods in our finery and my stiletto boots.

 

 

The Rag Doll

Perky and energetic toddler decides to go into dead weight mode.



Wes Wears Many Hats

 

The newest exciting clothing trend happening in the Anderson house is hats. Previously, Wes turned into a crazy person when I tried to put a hat on him. Now he naps and bathes in them.

 

Yesterday he used the dog bowl as a hat, and he has even worn coffee filters as hats at the grocery store. Like I said, he's a fan.

 

When Wes can't find his cowboy hat he will wear a bike helmet around the house instead, and that's just not normal. It covers his eyes causing him to bump into stuff, but it's okay because he has on the gigantor helmet.

 

It's sort of a symbiotic relationship.

 

 

Who Needs a Yeti? We've Seen Teeth!

Can I just share with y'all a picture of my boy that makes my heart want to explode with joy?

 

Do you know how hard it is to get a picture of his top teeth?

 

This is the Anderson equivalent of photographing Bigfoot.

 

Exploding. For real.

 



A Tale of Two Catalogs

Today I received two holiday catalogs in the mail.

 

Pottery Barn and World Vision.

 

The pottery barn catalog made me feel holiday-ish and nostalgic, and instilled in me a huge urge to own a large platter in the shape of a turkey. No seriously. I'm pretty sure that's what the pilgrims served the Indians (er- Native Americans) dinner with, right? The pictures are pretty and shiny and happy and make me feel like I need to have pretty and shiny things to be happy. And there is nothing wrong with owning pretty and shiny things. They do make me happy.

 

The World Vision catalog made me cry. Actual tears. Legit tears.

 (Has anyone seen my hormones?)

 

It's not a sad catalog with pictures of starving kids. To the contrary actually. The photographs show happy people. People who are holding animals and supplies that were bought by strangers in other, wealthier countries who realized that it's not all about shiny and pretty. And I guess that's what makes me cry. The loveliness of it all.

 

Last year I bought a couple goats for someone through World Vision. And before you get any thoughts like, "Oh that Jana is SO benevolent and awesome to the max!" you should know that I paid for it with a Visa gift card that I got from AT&T U-Verse for signing up for television service. So no, it wasn't all that benevolent and awesome. I didn't even really earn the money.

 

But it felt really good to spend that money on World Vision. I did it in Wes' name and they sent a little thank you card to him.  I cut out the picture in the catalog and put it with the thank you and stuck it in his baby book (which let's face it- has nothing written in it yet).

 

Tomorrow I'm going to look at the World Vision catalog with him and try to teach him animal noises. Which is probably pointless because I don't know what kind of noises alpacas make and whenever I ask Wes what ANY animal says he responds with "ROOOOAAAARRR!"

 

So I guess I have choices this Christmas. Buy a ceramic turkey? Or buy a real bird.

 

Keep the catalogs coming World Vision. You've got a lot of competition out there.

 

 

To hook those in need up with proper goods, visit www.worldvisiongifts.org.

TV and Assaulting Satan

Today Wes watched a lot of TV. Well, I can't be sure how much of it he actually paid attention to, but the electronic babysitter was on more than I want to admit. But I will say that we saw puppets cruising around New York, science kids, dinosaurs, trains, worlds made of words... you get it.

PBS extravaganza.

 

I was laying on the carpet by Wes and I started to feel bad.

Like maybe I wasn't a good mom.

 

I know why we call Satan the Enemy. He creeps in and fills me with self doubt.
I don't appreciate it.

 

So I sat there and started to think about the Truth.

 

Wes has a clean diaper. His tummy is full. His favorite snuggle is laying nearby. We  just read three books. I let him dump his blocks all over the floor (the ones with sharp pointy edges that scurry under my feet when I walk causing me to say not nice things at them). Our house is warm and safe. I have already given him oodles of kisses for the day. Later I am going to take him on a walk by the Waterway and to Frost Cupcakes for a treat.

 

And after I catalogued all the good things Wes had going on at that moment and for the day, I didn't feel so bad about myself. Or the TV.

 

And I felt like I had slamma-jamma'd the Enemy right in the kisser. All Batman style.

 

Ka-POW!

 

 

Round Top Ain't For Sissies

On Friday I had the pleasure of going to the place where people of all ages

(okay, middle aged-women and gay men primarily)

go to find priceless artifacts

 (in reality quasi-desirable junk of all shapes and sizes)

for low prices:

(not low enough) 

 

ROUND TOP.

 

If you are unfamiliar with what it is, it's basically a bi-annual antique/junk extravaganza held in various barns and fields along a country road in and around a tiny, barely on a map town named Round Top. Vendors come from all states to hock their goods, and I use that term loosely. We saw everything from velvet paintings, to old saddles, to salvaged industrial lighting to row boats to stuffed armadillos (I only saw one this year, so make that singular).

 

This time, I was joined by my lovely and talented interior designer pal Kate Duckworth of Maison Market. We left the babies with those deemed responsible (husbands) and headed out into the wild blue yonder (wait- is that the sky?) in her big ol' Texas truck. After making a pit-stop for donuts of course.

 

It was a lot of fun until we ran out of money, and that happened too quick.  I didn't take "artsy" pictures because I didn't want to haul around my ginormous camera, but here are a couple shots with the iPhone. If you like anything -no seriously- ANYTHING, then you should go to Round Top this spring. Because I guarantee that you will find it.

With sequins.

And rust.

Sitting next to a statue of the Virgin Mary made out of bottle caps.

 

 

 

In the end, here's how I did.

Bought:

Eames era fiberglass shell chair $20

white metal stool $20

vintage oil painting of two dudes in the wilderness: $40 (ouch)

two red buckets $10

delicious chopped BBQ beef sammy $7.00

Almost Bought and Didn't and Kind Of Regretting:

Catalina Island and Long Beach pennants

additional Eames chair in white

ten inch industrial wooden spools

metal marquee letters

Glad I Didn't Buy:

stuffed armadillo

stuffed crocodile

Injuries:

three fire ant bites

blisters from stiff unworn low top Converse

Garden Ridge Opened/There Goes My Budget

At some point last year, I sent up a little prayer asking God to help me be a better steward of my money. He listened, and shorty thereafter Garden Ridge went up in flames.

Temple of holiday decor, flameless candles, glass jars, cheap art, fake plants, pottery, an entire "Seen on TV!" section, obscure and random packaged foods from abroad, tiny little chotchkies. POOF! Up in smoke.

Apparently it was arson, but I'm not claiming any part of that. It happened while I was at Chuy's eating delicious enchiladas with that addictive tomatillo sauce. I saw the smoke, and hoped that it was nearby WalMart on fire and not Garden Ridge, because let's face it, this is Texas and there's a WalMart at every highway exit. But the nearest Garden Ridge is not near enough for me to even know where it is.

But hold on friends (insert trumpet fanfare here). Garden Ridge has re-opened! Wooooo!

I went the other night to check it out, and other than their decision to skip fall decor and go straight to Christmas, I was not disappointed.

Hello, nineteen aisles of cheap plastic Christmas bulbs! Good to see you, entire wall of doormats! I nodded to the eight rows of lamps and shades as I walked down to the reproduction vintage furniture quadrant. Greetings, fake factory cart coffee table! It was great. They even had a whole section of hospital scrubs, which has never made sense to me. But they were there, animal print and all!

And just before I left empty handed, (this was reconnaissance only) I spotted the one item that really epitomizes (1) Garden Ridge, and (2) Texas, the ten foot tall inflatable patriotic Marine Santa.

Welcome back Santa, and Semper Fi.