#1,814 Good Intentions + Mal’s House.

I’ve been planning all week—“Friday night, after work, I will make spaghetti and meatballs.” 

It’s been my mantra.

I truly don’t remember the last time I cooked. I know how that sounds, believe me. But I had big plans. Great intentions.

I worked on the big new project as fast as I could, and it still took me every minute of 10 hours to get to a stopping point for the day, and we’re on day 3 out of 5 of doing this. The thing is—and I think I can at least say this much about it—I’ve got to design a whole brand new collection for a new company and it has to be completed for a site launch on December 31. Which means I have to get all the initial designs completed, submitted, revised and finalized before we leave for New York in a few days. It’s been the gauntlet, churning out 2 new collections a day with 4 logos and 4 colorways per collection. I worked so urgently, it felt automatic, then inspired, then automatic, then inspired. I would feel stumped, without any creative solutions for an hour, then suddenly I would feel reenergized from the spark of an idea. And so it went on like that all day long, with the phone on silent, just me and my brushes and paper and computer. At 7 pm we finally turned out the lights and locked up the shop and made the block to the grocery and as I was hanging up the phone with mama in the parking lot of the Winn-Dixie, I started crying because of her question: “Do you know if Clark is going to be able to take Mammaw lunch on Sunday?”

My brain felt scrambled, unable to make decisions or solve one more problem, however minute. The thought of buying the groceries then having to prepare the ingredients before it even begins to cook and simmer for an hour became insurmountable.

And Ben said, “They’ve got pasta at Pizza Hut, don’t they?”

And the answer to that, we found, is yes—they do. They have very, very good pasta. And immediately, I felt great about the day.

Afterward we went to Dollar General where I purchased a $6 pair of men’s sweatpants with the elastic ankles and a pack of jumbo Smarties candy. For myself. Because I have earned it this week.

Once I had changed into my new, enormous, charcoal grey stretchy pants, we headed over to Jim and Mal’s to see if we could help them since they’re breaking their backs getting ready for Mississippi Magazine who will be here to do a Christmas story on their house next week. It’ll be published next Christmas so for now we are swooning over this month’s issue:

She’s got her table set in red toile china, black and cream striped ribbons on all her wreaths, lanterns, mercury glass and golden pine cone ornaments on her fresh 10 foot Carolina sapphire.

Ben was looking like a hobo’s band-aid because we had originally planned to go walking and he did not care what he looked like because no one would see us. So I took a picture to show you all.

My absolute favorite thing about the tree are the cotton boll branches tucked into the tree. Is that not perfect for their house?

I can’t wait to see the photos for the magazine. So cool.