.want.

It is not often that Lisa is ahead of the latest fashion trends. However in the 90s she was the proud owner of 2 coach willis bags

Then in the late 90s she decided to do the most awful thing she could ever do to me. She gave them to good will (or so she says, I think she’s secretly using them in texas now that I want them!)

Normally I am all for her getting rid of things but I would never ok giving away something of value (why I still have 4 pairs of jeans in my closet that don’t fit)

I recently asked her to mail me the camel colored bag. She claimed she could not find it. I thought she was lying. It was the truth. Now I have to pay $300 for a new one. Vs getting Lisa’s vintage bag. I am still holding out hope that we will find the bag next time I’m in Houston.

mom keep looking!!! I know you would have wrong me so bad as to give such a classic bag to the poor. They won’t love it the way this poor girl will!!!

.she.is.not.a.pretty.girl.

while most southern girls hear their mothers say “bless her heart” or “she’s precious” my mother always said with a look of utter sympathy but a glimmer of snark in her eye “she is not a pretty girl” and sometimes “she is not a cute girl”.

my whole life i have hear lisa say this about various girls.  sometimes it was just to make me feel better that i was one of the only girls not invited to freshman year home coming (she mentioned this as all the other couples paired up and i stood alone), or that sophomore year (when homecoming fell on my 16th birthday) i was again not asked and she questioned about other girls who were.

when the boy i was “dating” in high school (we went on two dates and he got grounded for the summer for drinking at a party) got taken from me by my “best friend” she said “its ok ‘she is not a cute girl’”.  as if that would make me feel better, for being scammed by my bestie.

in college she tried to make my sicko freshman roommate seem like less of a B*TCH by saying “well “she is not a pretty girl”

most recently she (and about every other person who has seen the pictures) said this about the girl my ex bf cheated on me with.  as if 3 years wasted is fine because “she is not a pretty girl”.

other times it just came out of the blue, like when a girl would be making out with a boy at the bar and drunk lisa would just blurt out … “why is he kissing her ‘she is not a pretty girl’”.

recently AMC and i have been using the phrase and it just reminds me that while at one time i would have died if someone told me i was growing into my mother, i am now happy to have picked up such a unique phrase.  while i have not mastered the exact way she says it i feel like i have perhaps put my own spin on the phrase.  because sometimes someone can be dressed to the nines, have all the goods you want but just “not be a pretty girl” and as shallow as it is, it does make you feel a little better.

i would say it does feel good to look at people from high school and have lisa peak over my shoulder and say “oh what happened she is not a cute girl”.  but that would be shallow and we all know that i am not shallow and would never show people to lisa to have her honestly comment on their look just to make me feel better that i am now 25, not married, and living at home and without a job and $0.82 in my bank account.

so once again here’s to you lisa.  the best and only mother i have ever had.  i am so excited to become a little more like you every day (and bring amc along in the process)

 

NOTE: all the pictures are of little AJH and i.  and lisa would NEVER say that we are “just not cute girls”!

.cheap.is.a.compliment.

its sunday morning and raining.

thug and i are due to run 16 miles but i have a sore throat and do not want to harm it more by running in the rain, so we are waiting to see if this cold drizzle will let up.

in comes lisa.

she is getting k$ ready for CCD and tosses the lands’ end catalog at my father.  “i want you to get me this sweater at a discount”.  he has previously stated that he was just going to call up lands’ end and state that he would like a discount on said sweater.  obviously because of who he is they would just bow down and ship it to him over night for free.

(the sweater price: $59.50)

I sitting at the other end of the breakfast table doing school work about choked on my tazo  calm tea at this statement and rebuked both of my parents for being cheap.

lisa shot back “damn right i’m cheap.  if i was not you would not have such nice things.”  to which my father added that he already scoured the internet to find a coupon code for the sweater and will not have to call lands’ end and demand a free item.

apparently to the two people who gave me life there is not a problem with being cheap.  i myself am rather frugal but i would not go so far as to call me cheap.  as i have stated before my mother has a amazing ability to find a deal, clip coupons and save over half of her bill on a regular basis at the grocery store.  recently on a trip to khol’s to outfit k$ for a wedding she saved $250 of our bill.  total: $97.

she has also on multiple occasions worn down a check out worker so that she was able to use her coupon although it was not for a in store purchase, was expired, or was not valid on the items she purchased.  sometimes i see her point sometimes i am MORTIFIED by her behavior.

in college AMC and i would have competitions at the kroger to see who could save the largest percentage off the bill.  quite often i won only becuase i had a large unfair advantage.  every sunday my grandma (lisa’s monther) would get a paper and clip out the coupons she knew i could use and send them to me at school and later to my apt in chicago.  she now does the same for AJH.

i do admit that without my grandmother’s coupons and my sick need to buy only things that are on promotion with the store card i would not have been able to survive at school without working for 3 years or on my measly salary in chicago.

so on this rainy sunday i once again salute you lisa.  your sick compulsions have again infiltrated my life and against all odds turned me one step closer into being you.  i only hope that one day i do not throw a catalog at my husband and demand he find me a discount on a sweater, but then again most likely in 30 years my child maybe cringing at the same behavior!

.true.prep.

the darkest age of my life time was the early nineties.  while i was only in grade school the lasting effects of the ‘grunge’ error will forever mar my life.  while thankfully i had a mother who dressed me in cute outfits (would insert pics if i had access they are in storage) the mere fact that i once aspired to have a belly button ring, be on the real world, and like nirvana haunts me daily.

thankfully, i was enrolled in a parochial school and quickly learned to love the head bands, tartan, and the saddle and suede buck shoes she shoved my fat feet into.  I will never forgive these fat feet for not being able to fit into the pink saddle shoes i longed for.

to this day i long for these shoes.  if i ever have a baby girl she will get these shoes if i have to find a cobbler to make them for me.

this all beings said i get to my point with the turn of the millennium came a resurgence of something close to my heart.

.Preppy Style.

i am not the only one reveling in the fact that this has become main stream but i do long for the days when it was not in your face.  having attended the mother ship of the preppy child, miami university, i was finally able to find others like me and meet individuals who made my love look like a summer fling.  now on the verge of the next decade we have a new hand book to lead all of us preps in our never ending search of classic and timeless apparel.

i know many of you have lost as there has been no guide for our lifestyle as the The Official Preppy Handbook went out of print over 15 years ago (why my 10 year-old-self did not request this i am unsure!) Lisa Birnbach has come to the rescue with a new book True Prep: It’s a Whole New Old World.

here she is discussing it on the Today Show

you can also read an interview with Lisa Birnbach that Preppy Princess had on the preppy princess blog

.lisa.my.mother.

today is the day of lisa.  it is her BIRTHDAY!!!

while almost every day i celebrate the woman who gave birth to me today i would like to spend a moment to share with all of you the mass amounts of joy she has brought to my life.

she taught me how to cook/bake. without her i would be more like my little sister AJH and lost in the kitchen.  she has passed on her skill for my great-grandmother’s pound cake and cookies.  her skill for making dinners and her knack for an amazing appetizer.

she taught me to be the bigger person.  to always shave a smile and to not let others get to me.

she taught me to always be a good sport.  and how that life is better when people thing your a milf/cougar.

she taught me how to drink.  that having a signature drink its clutch for an social setting and that indulgence is better left for specific social occasions, christmas eve dinner, family weddings, and college graduations!

my mother has taught that finding a partner that is not only your best friend but your complete equal is the recipe for a lasting relationship.

above all lisa has taught me that being a good time always trumps your own feelings and that when you pretend to have a good time you actually end up having a good time. she has proven that car trips are awful but with a little sparkle they can be come a favorite memory.

last but not least lisa has pent the last 25 years being the best mommy i could ever ask for.  so today on your birthday i honor you!  so here’s to you lisa, my friend, my mother, and my idol.

you can see the poem i wrote about/for her on mother’s day here. and to see all posts about her just click on lisa over in the tag cloud!

.morning.coffee.

most mornings i sit at my computer while my parents get ready to go to work. the topics of conversation vary greatly but they are always amusing.

today, there was a discussion about who was the reacher and who was the settler in their relationship (this comes from a how i met your mother episode). now, i want to quantify this by saying that they have been together for 27 years on july 4th and both put up with each-others antics quite well. apparently thug always thought he was the settler and so did lisa. this caused a bit of a discussion that caused much joy to be injected into my morning.

you see every time she becomes a bit intoxicated, lisa, tells me and AJH that you must find a guy that is more into you then you are into him.  then she gets who ever is around to join into this conversation and take her side, mostly it is relatives but it has been sorority sisters’ mothers, strangers, and most oddly enough my father.  her theory is that if he likes you more then you like him he will never cheat on you and life will be wonderful.  now, i know how much my mother loves my father and i think she is all talk.  my take after watching them for close to 25 years (gulp this age thing is not getting easier) is that each must believe the other likes them more.  both individuals must believe that they are so lucky to have the other and want to continue in the relationship come what may.  i have been very blessed to be born into a family where the divorce rate is extremely low and have seen this play out over and over again.

that being said i will show you how lisa left for her job today.  she gets edgy about job being real and thugs not because he can go in and leave whenever he wants and she has to see patients all day.

lisa: bye fam i will miss you, as i go to my real job
thug: i will miss you like a communicable disease
lisa: after all the things i do for you, this is how you treat me
thug: i understand how it is… i like you, you put up with me.  no don’t kiss me.

.pray for you.

when i was little and people were mean to me lisa always told me to respond “i’ll pray for you”

during my teen age rebellious years when she and i would have bitter fights she would tell me that she was going to pray for me.  thank God she did b.c i am a much better person now then at the age 0f 15!

apparently a lot of mothers told their children this as Jaron and The Long Road to Love wrote a song about it called “pray for you”. the other day while i was driving lisa the song came on and she told me that every time she hears it she thinks of me and that awful thing that i went threw in december.  i only wish i would have heard this song before b.c i would have used some of the lyrics.

here is the music video:

don’t you just love it!

it makes me laugh and will deff be part of my marathon mix! (yes i have started assembling it any suggestions are welcome!

.grocery.

lisa just returned from her weekly trip to the grocery. (thank god it was getting sparce around here food wise.)

she is on top of the world as it was triple coupon day at harris teeter and she saved $54. paid $77 for $131 worth of groceries. there are few things in life my mother likes more then saving money at the grocery.  a trait she got from my grandma and has passed on to me.
I value this a lot more then my addiction to hallmark greeting cards, also learned from lisa.

during college AMC and i would have competitions at kroger to see who could save more.  sometimes its the little things in life that bring us the most joy!

happy sunday!