Sexin' it up (for the cure, of course!)

I was excited to be included as a media for the Sexy for the Cure event here in Nashville last night . It is a benefit for Women Who Rock The Cure, a breast cancer awareness organization. This was a pink carpet event for the opening of Sex and the City 2 with a before and after party. And moi covering the pink carpet (with my fabulous gal-pal Leslie Barr on hand helping with photography and various other things) We had a blast. This was a Carrie Bradshaw fantasy for sure! Thanks to Kia Jarmon with the MEPR Agency for the invite! The evening started very conveniently a quarter of a mile from my new digs. Ah, how I am loving being a "city" girl. The before party was at Yolo Restaurant, right next door to where the screening was at the Green Hills Regal Cinema. Cosmos flowed and you have never seen such a sea of pink, like an explosion of Pepto Pismol. A girlfriends Barbie dream-come-true! Skyy Vodka sponsored and was on hand with theme drinks and lots of fun swag! Pictured is the "hello lover" bling ring and me and Leslie on the pink carpet. After Yolo we walked to the movie theater for the big pink carpet event. The stars/VIP's of the evening were the breast cancer survivors who won the essay contest "why are you sexy" and they were glowing! I got to interview one along with some of the fabulous SATC fans there glamming it up. I will post the video interviews later.
Leslie and I really enjoyed watching the movie in one of two sold out theaters and I will write a review on another post, but I will just say everyone applauded at the end and it made for a very fun girl's night out! The after party at The Crows Nest was JUMPING! There were Cosmos and Carrie-tinis (made with Blueberry Vodka) and a cupcake bar. Skyy Vodka was on hand again with more swag, fedoras and adorable SATC2 tank tops. What a great event and festive way to raise awareness for Women who Rock for the Cure!

Holy smokes!

A smoking toddler? This two-year-old sucks down two packs a day. Child abuse for sure. All I can say is, people are crazy!


http://www.parentdish.com/2010/05/26/boy-2-smokes-two-packs-a-day/?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl1|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parentdish.com%2F2010%2F05%2F26%2Fboy-2-smokes-two-packs-a-day%2F

Biscuits and Jam (session)

Just want to document our excitement of breaking in our new house this week. My girlfriend singer/actress Ava Dupree was in town from LA with her hunnie Wally Holmes who wrote the 70's mega-hooky disco smash "Rock the Boat". We wanted him to meet my dad who is a country hit-songwriter and hang with my music partner Grammy-winning songwriter Don Henry and his awesome wife Molly. So, Jim and I hosted. We wanted to do Southern-fare to give them a little local flavor. Jim bbq-ed organic free-range chicken (yes, we have some California in us!) and salmon. I made low-fat versions of my grandmother's squash casserole recipe, "fried" green tomatoes, mashed potatoes and I wanted to make beer bisquits b/c I grew up on them. I had never made them before but they were so easy and yummy! (Especially with honey butter!)Thanks Paula Dean for "Bubba's Beer Biscuits", just like my mother used to make.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/bubbas-beer-biscuits-recipe/index.html
After dinner we retired to the den for a jam session. Little Man was the self appointed sound man and was quite excited! Wally played trumpet, my dad played keyboards and Don played guitar for an awesome blues jam. Ava sang Route 66. I sang my dad's song "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" by Tammy Wynette. Don, Ava and I did "Rock the Boat" It was a hoot! Hope to have some youtube footage to post soon :)

The graduate

My little boy graduated from pre-school today, sniff sniff. It was extremely sweet. I was thrilled that he sat in his seat for the entire program (almost)and actually sang on some of the songs (haha). He got a diploma and gave a flower to mommy, these are the moments that make a mama weepy. I thank his teacher(s) so much for creating a loving environment and bringing him so far in two years. He knows his continents (at five), how to read many many words and knows good conflict resolution.
My dad came to the graduation in the midst of more thunder storms. More flooding was a concern that we tried to set aside for the ceremony. Ironically, after the festivities my dad wanted to take Little Man to buy a "graduation" present. The one thing my boy was attracted to was a huge "full body puppet" tht looked biblical. I thought it was Moses. It wasn't necessarily speaking to me and I thought it might take up too much space so I tried to encourage him to get something smaller and more, you know, perky ... like a chef or a zoo animal. But, he persisted so I agreed for him to get it. When they rung it up we found out that the huge character he was drawn to was NOAH! Though he did not get the significance, I found it quite fitting after a week of flooding!

Anyway, I am so proud of my sweet boy and feeling quite sentimental about this milestone of his pre-school graduation!

Flood Mama

Thank you, Betsy Thorpe, for this clever post title! We are digging out of the aftermath of our flood here in Nashville. FEMA has come to record our damage. Though it could have been worse it is going to set us back thousands. Our hot water heater is still blown. Because of flooding at one of Nashville's two water supply plants we have all been asked to cut our water usage in half until this situation is resolved.
For Mother's Day I went to one of my favorite restaurants in town with my dad, Jim and the Little Man. I was surprised to see that they were serving their fine food on (recyclable) paper plates, and the fine wine we ordered in (recyclable) plastic cups. It was weird to see, but admirable that they were doing the right thing by majorly cutting back on dish washing. They also are giving 10% of their profits to flood relief this month. You see things like that going on all over town. I am going to rename my hometown "Niceville"!

Mud Mama's Mud Room

Be careful what you call yourself ... I am now surrounded in mud! I am (along with my husband and the help of Steramatic) digging through the rubble of our basement from the Nashville flood of last weekend. Though it is sunny and 83 degrees today, Nashville is left to clean up from a flood the likes of which the city has never seen. I consider ourselves lucky, we have our house and our lives, but we have thousands of dollars worth of damage and damaged property. Our sump pump could not keep up with the demand of the 2 feet of rain in two days and at one point there was three and a half feet of water in our luckily unfinished basement. It knocked out our hot water and air conditioning because all of the wiring was down there. We are left with inches of mud and lots of soggy things that we are sifting through.So it is a big mess and a big expense. BUT, like I said we are still lucky. There are people we know that totally lost their homes and had to be evacuated by boat. People lost their lives. The Grand Ol' Opry and the Opryland Hotel are currenty under water. I know musicians who lost all of their equiptment (we lost our sound system)But Music City will heal! I am proud of my home town. No reports of looting, just people helping each other here in the "Volunteer State". It was frustrating that there was not much national media about this all week, but, last night Anderson Cooper put it as the lead story on 360 and apologized for not giving it more coverage sooner. He will be live in Nashville tonight.
I am feeling fortunate and sending love and healing to those who did not weather the storm as well. I heart you Nashville!

Rain rain go away!

Nashville is having MAJOR historic flooding. Please do an anti-rain dance for us! The basement of our new house is completely flooded, I mean a couple of feet of water and boxes are floating. The retaining wall is caving, this is crazy! And there are supposed to be storms all day.
I sure hope this rain stops soon and things get back to normal "God willin' and the creeks don't rise" (more)! Peeps in Nashville be safe and stay off those roads.