Day 4- Snuggie Jam Fest

    Howdy!
Happy Friday!!!! I know it sounds cliche but I love the moment on a Friday when you're done with class and real responsibilities. You might still go do something proactive but the knowledge that you can, if you wanted to, veg out on the cough and watch 6 episodes straight of Law and Order SVU is pretty fantastic. In high school, during the fall semester, Fridays mean its High School Football night. At least in Texas high school football was always such a huge deal. Now you might be asking yourself, "Self, why is Erin rambling about high school football?" I promise it has relevance, I even will pinky promise you!

   If you're from the Cedar Park/Leander/Austin/whatever-else-is-around-here area then you know that Cedar Park High School (Go Timberwolves...?), after going from a 5A school to a 4A school, became rivals with Lake Travis High School. These games got INTENSE. You did not miss these games! I mean why would you? You wouldn't be able to participate in conversations for like a whole year or something!! I'm totally being sarcastic but at the same time also trying to prove a point. You did not miss these games. Period. I was lucky enough to be in choir (hahahahahah SAID NO ONE EVER) but seriously the one perk was we sang at every home game. Which meant we got in for free and we already had to be at the game in the beginning so why not stay and see it out? Also there's a chance that you might get trampled by the football players since everything was timed so perfectly  for us to start walking out with mic right after the football players storm the field! (Seriously that is one of the most terrifying things ever)

Anyways Happy Friday and in honor of the first Friday of this blog I shall share one of my favorite high school football memories I have with my mom!

Memory #4-

   So like I said I was in the high school choir (woo) and we sang at every home game (woo again). This particular game was the last home game of my senior year and it was against none other than Lake Travis (Our big rivals boo hiss). Long story short...it was a big deal. Especially for the seniors. I don't particularly remember where my dad and brother were at the time of the memory, perhaps they were at the game I'm not sure I do know that my mom was at home and in bed. So anyways we got up to sing the National Anthem, after barely avoiding death from the football player stampede. I remember not feeling sadness, even though this was my last home game as a Cedar Park High School student. I just remember not wanting to be there. For the first time ever I, Erin Langford, did not want to stay for the game. 

  I honestly don't remember why, I just remembered that I wanted to go home. So I made up some lie to my choir friends and rushed out to my car and called my mom. As soon as she picked up I lost it. I just started to cry with no particular reason why, the emotions man they just came flooding out. So I got home and my mom had in one hand our matching Texas A&M snuggies (Whoop) and in the other hand two boxes of Swedish fish. Next thing I know we're driving to the Cinemark, wearing our snuggies and chomping on the Swedish fish (while using our incredibly horrendous Swedish accents because that's what you do when you eat Swedish fish) watching Puss in Boots......You know the movie that was made for children...not 18 year olds and their 40 something year old mothers....

    But...It was one of the best nights that I can recall having.

I miss those kind of nights the most.

Love Always,

Erin 

Day 3-Mmmm Sugar

Howdy!

  I hope you're all finding ways to stay warm today! On days like this all I want to do is go home, go directly to my bed and hibernate in a nest of blankets with a bottomless mug of hot chocolate...that sounds really good right about now. Another thing I loved on cold days was when I would come home from school and the whole house smelled like soup. I know that's not very descriptive but in my household there was only one soup that my mom made consistently, it was kind of like tortilla soup but jacked up. I definitely could go for a bowl...or three right now!
   If you haven't noticed I'm a hard core rambler, so I'll apologize in advance for the next 360 something posts I've got left!

Memory #3

   I have to warn you this memory is going to make my mom and I look like freaks but sometimes when you're in the moment nothing seems weird. This would be one of those moments. Back in my junior year of high school my mom and I were sprawled out on top of her bed working no something when this commercial for Orkins came on. Let me tell you this was definitely one of the weirdest commercials I've ever watched.

So before I continue watch this splendid commercial-

    Uhmmm WEIRD RIGHT!? Don't get me wrong though all the Orkin commercials are super strange but this one made my mom and I just flat out lose it! So it became a normal thing for us to randomly say "Mmmm sugar." Even when it made no sense but usually it was in the private comforts of our house/car.

    One day though my mom took me out of school for a 'college visit' to wonderful College Station and of course we had to find a place to stop and eat. So we decided to eat at Boston's over on University Dr. which if you've ever been there its not super fancy but its kind of like an upscale bar...maybe? Anyways it wasn't the place to have a freak moment like we did. So we ate our lunch(/maybe dinner who knows) and we had decided to get dessert. So while we were looking over the menu my mom slowly (and super creepy like) whispered "MMmmmm sugaarrrrrr." and without hesitation I whispered right back "MMmmm sugaarrr." The waiter had just walked up to witness this, to his favor made no face of concern and asked us for our order. We got some kind of brownie type thing and seriously the whole time between every bite "Mmmm sugar." It was almost like a competition to see who could be the creepiest and this poor waiter had to put up with all this. We were just sitting there oblivious to the weirdness and having the time of our lives. When the check came we paid and on the back of the receipt, that you leave on the table, we naturally wrote "Mmmm sugar."

    

  I hope this sounds as funny as I remember it being or at least reminds you of how weird my mom was and how much she embraced it. 

 Have a good day! (And stay warm!)

Love always,

Erin 

P.S. 

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P.P.S

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Day 2-Inner Beauty

Howdy!

  Before we dive on in let me first express how BLESSED and truly loved I felt yesterday by everyone’s support for not only me but also this journey that I'm starting! Thank you ALL for being some really rockin’ individuals (8 

  Secondly a couple different people messaged me individually thanking me for starting this blog because they needed to remember the happy times too…So consider this your daily dose of a good chuckle or two that could lead to remembering your own memories of my mom. I will say for me that personally this blog has already started to comfort me. Last night I lay awake in my bed. Not because I was crying and thinking “Oh! Woe is me to have to endure such tragedy!” but because all of these fantastic splendid memories, that had previously slipped my mind, that rushed into my brain.

I truly hope that this blog gives you everything that I think its going to give me. To quote my very lovely roomie (COUGHAMYCOUGH),”It gives those who knew your mom a reminder and for those who didn’t the chance to get to know her and learn more about you.” I’d like to think that’s true.

With that being said….

Memory #2-

   Before I get to into this memory I’ll give you some background info to why I chose this memory! Currently I’m a youth counselor at A&M United Methodist church and it seriously is one of the best things in my life. Anyways tonight in bible study I will be leading a group of middle school girls (with the help of some fantastic godly women) in a lesson about inner beauty and I instantly pictured my mother. 

  After a couple rounds of chemotherapy, like most women, her hair started to fall out in chunks. So one day she decided to just shave it all off. I’ll be real here, bald heads freak me out. Like they give me the heebie jeebies. I have no clue why but they do. So when my mom shaved her hair off, I was nervous that I’d be to weirded out to look at her.To my surprise she worked it. In her head she saw herself as being fabulous and so did everyone else who knew her. Don’t get me wrong she missed having hair, but she was an expert in making something unpleasant into something you could smile about. You could literally throw garbage at her and she’d find some way to make it into the greatest thing you had ever witness. She really had a knack at that.

  So anyways in honor of me talking about inner beauty tonight, here is a picture of the queen of inner and outer beauty, taken right after she shaved her hair off.

The first thing she wanted to do with her new look was naturally to dress up like Britney Spears…If you’re not sure what I’m talking about google search “Britney Spears shaves her head” back in 2007 and compare….Ladies and gents half of my chromosomes come from this woman. 

Have a great day!

Love always,

Erin

P.S.

Sorry for the blog change and the awkward format of the last two posts!
It'll get better from here on out! PROMISE (;

Day 1-It was the Best Times it was the Worst Times

Howdy!
My name is Erin. On January 28th 2012 my Mom/Best Friend died after her second battle with Breast Cancer. Today marks the two year anniversary of her passing. So I said to myself, “Self, what can I do this year that can actually do some good? Because eating a tub of Ben & Jerry’s (while initially satisfying) does absolutely nothing good in the end.” AND that my friends is how this idea came to be. As one of my lovely friends (COUGHMELODYCOUGHHI) described it, it will be kind of like ‘Coping Resolutions’ starting and ending on one of the worst days I have yet to encounter. What are these goals? I thought you’d never ask….

1. I will write about an awesome memory/characteristic of my so very awesome mother, so that one day I can show my future family.
2. I will donate AT LEAST once to Locks of Love.
3. I will run as many charity type runs I can find/do and donate to said run.

That being said I will end this post with an awesome memory…ENJOY

Memory #1-

The photo that is shown below was one of the “bloopers” from my sort of kind of senior photo shoot a month before my mom passed away. We had spent the whole day in this park and let me tell you….IT WAS FLIPPIN COLD! Anyways so the photographer used my mom as sort of his light assistant, in case you were wondering what the heck my mom is doing in this picture. Anyways I mainly chose to talk about this today just because this picture always makes my chuckle and it was one of the last good days my mom had before she went to the hospital. Also when we first arrived at this park we had no idea where we were going so we started to wander around and out of nowhere these peacocks came and CHASED US DOWN! Good times.

That’s it for now! Come back and share some laughs at the weirdness of my life with my mother….

Have a great day! (:

Love Always,

Erin

P.S.

GO HUG/CALL YOUR MOTHER AND TELL HER YOU LOVE HER K THANKS BYE