Author / Kelly Mattei

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Posts by Kelly Mattei

I grew up in Alabama but have lived in Charlotte, NC, for more than 25 years...longer than I've ever lived any other one place. Growing up, we moved a few times, so when people ask where I’m from, I just say Alabama, even though I have lived in three other states. I have been married for 25 years, and we have one daughter, who has one year of college left. We love being parents, but we also love empty-nesting. We enjoy traveling, star-gazing, walking, and sunshine. I worked in the travel business for 11 years, and I’m always looking for the next place to visit, but interestingly, I don’t like going where everyone else is going. If everyone else is going to Italy or Greece, no thanks. I’d rather go to Latin America or somewhere in the US I haven’t seen before. I’ve never liked doing what everyone else is doing! I have visited 40 states and would love to visit all 50. I also consider myself a “connector.” I like helping people know other people. No, not for money…for fun.
by Kelly Mattei

Hooray for Low-Maintenance Friends!

A friend and I had some tentative plans for tonight. I texted her and asked if she was still up for it, and she explained something had come up with one of her children. She didn’t totally back out of our plans, but she knew I’d let her off the hook. I said, “I’m not going to hold your feet to the fire. You don’t have to go…no biggie.”  I’m a low-maintenance friend.

What does that mean? To me, that means that I love my friends exactly as you are. It means I don’t get mad if they have to change plans or choose to change plans.  I don’t have to talk to them every day. I don’t take it personally if they don’t return my calls, texts, or emails. I don’t “expect” them to be a certain way. I simply want them to be there for me when they can. I know real life gets in the way sometimes, and sometimes, you just want to sit on the sofa and watch some mindless television. Years ago, when we had our toddler playgroup, I told all my friends that I am a low-maintenance friend. I also told them I expect the same in return.

For example, if we have plans to go to dinner on a Tuesday night, and on Tuesday afternoon, I decide I just can’t pull it off…I call and say, “I just can’t pull it off.” And that is fine…no questions asked. My friends know they can do that with me, but I expect the same courtesy in return. If it’s an important event, it’s different…I WANT to attend important events. My friend of 20+ years, Mary Ann, uses our friendship as her example of “low-maintenance friendships.” We have the same views. It doesn’t mean one or the other of us is neglecting the friendship or taking advantage of the other. It means we can be honest and realistic. We don’t get bent out of shape about silly things. We don’t sweat the small stuff. There’s no pressure. We can be forgiving.

Here’s how I tend to look at it: we all mess up sometimes. There have been countless times I’ve messed up with friends…didn’t return calls, ran very late, accidentally didn’t show for something, or maybe I was just plain thoughtless or mean. I’m sure I’ve done worse things, and I have friends who have done all this too at some time. The great thing about low-maintenance friends? They don’t freak out. They don’t unfriend you on Facebook or give you the silent treatment. They forgive. After all, if we want to be forgiven by others, we have to be forgiving, right? You know…without sin/casting stones, right?

And frankly, it’s so much more fun to take the high road. In my younger days…meaning my teens and twenties…there were times I just couldn’t be forgiving. But I’ve learned.  There is no fun in that.  Staying angry just takes too much energy. It’s exhausting, and usually, it’s worse on the person who stays mad. It’s also simply the wrong thing to do. If I ever got mad at you in my teens or twenties, I’m no longer mad. Honestly, chances are I don’t even remember being mad.

Life is a lot more fun if you don’t take it too seriously.

One thing my mother always told me was that if I want to have good friends, I have to BE a good friend. Different people may have different ideas about what that is. But for me, being a good friend means giving your friends the benefit of the doubt. I might be able to remember the names of everyone in my kindergarten class, but I can’t always remember where I’m supposed to be on any given day. My friends know that, and they forgive me when I forget to do something.

This is a roundabout way of saying “thank you” to my friend who couldn’t keep our plans tonight. Thank you for reminding me how fortunate I am to have low maintenance friends. Thank you for being up front with me about tonight. Sounds crazy, right? It’s not. Right after she told me she couldn’t go, I texted her back and said, “I totally get it.” It turned into a love fest when she texted back saying, “I don’t deserve you.”  I texted back the same thing, and then she texted, “I enjoy having a low maintenance friend.”

And that was what prompted me to write this today.

In fact, THANK YOU to all my low maintenance friends out there. You know who you are. You’re the friend with whom I haven’t spoken in a few months, but you know I still love you. You’re the friend who didn’t return my call last week, but we’re cool. You’re the friend who didn’t care when I didn’t want to go to a concert with you. YOU ARE MY FRIEND.

Here’s one thing I know for sure about my low maintenance friends: you would drop everything to help me if I needed your help, and you wouldn’t complain. You would drive a long way to pick me up, or drive to New Orleans with me to get my passport renewed, or babysit my child in an emergency.  In fact, you’ve likely done it before.

My friends know I often say, “I do not do high maintenance friendships.” And it’s true. Too much drama? No thanks. There is nothing worse to me than a friendship that feels like work because we are always having to apologize to each other, or because the friend is too needy. I have been known to walk away from a friendship like that. While I love to think I can get along with virtually everyone, I can’t.

I can’t get along with complainers, whiners,  negative people, people who try to control me, or high maintenance friends. I don’t need that in my life, and at 50 (almost 51), I won’t even try anymore. It wears me out. It…is…exhausting.

Life is too short.

So, if you consider yourself a low maintenance friend, we would likely get along. Let’s hang out! But if I don’t return your call in a timely fashion, don’t freak out.

by Kelly Mattei

Mother/Daughter Traditions

This Mother’s Day will be my first without my mother. My sweet mother died in December, never getting to see 2018. As anyone knows, the “firsts” are tough. It has me thinking about things we used to do together.

One thing we used to do together was clean silver. Doesn’t sound like much of a tradition, right? I know, it sounds tedious, and it can be, but with Mother, it was fun. When I lived in Mobile as an adult, once a year, usually in December, we would clean silver. I would go to her house on a Sunday afternoon, and she would bring out all her silver and the silver polishing cream. We would sit for hours, polishing silver, talking, and laughing…always laughing. Our hands would ache, but we would keep working…and talking…and laughing…and working. After a few hours, everything was sparkling, and the holidays could begin. Every time I clean silver now, I think of her. I’m grateful for that memory.

I have found a much easier way to clean silver. I tried the aluminum foil dip method, but it didn’t work like I thought it would, and it created a sulfuric odor. I found Connoisseur Silver Wipes and tried those. They worked like a charm. With very little effort, my silver comes clean with these wipes. I highly recommend. You can purchase them at Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, or online at Amazon here.

When I was a little girl, she and I would make the traditional Easter Bunny cake together…you know, use one circular layer for the face, and use the other circular layer to make ears and a bowtie. At the holidays, we would make what we called a Marshmallow Cake, but I think some people call it a popcorn cake. Sounds weird, I know, but it’s very festive, and it’s what we did. Marshmallows, butter, peanuts/cashews, M&Ms….it makes a lovely treat, especially if you use red and green M&Ms. I’ve known people to throw in other things too…chocolate chips, pretzel pieces…you pick your favorites.img_85301.jpg

Once my daughter turned four or five, Mother would make biscuits with her every time we visited. I’m so glad they did, because it’s a good memory for my daughter. This year at school, her English class put together a cookbook of recipes, and my daughter’s contribution was the buttermilk biscuit recipe she learned from my mother. When I told Mother, she was thrilled, and now that she has passed, I’m even more glad my daughter chose that recipe and more glad they had that “tradition.”

After I was married and while Mother still lived near Mobile, for birthdays or other special occasions, we would have brunch at The Grand Hotel Resort in Point Clear, Alabama. She never wanted to go for holidays, because the crowd was crazy, but for birthdays, it was great. I remember going for several of her birthdays, for a few of my birthdays, and I remember meeting our family friend, Polly, for brunch there one Sunday. I specifically remember going for my 40th birthday. My daddy had died the previous fall, so it was a bittersweet celebration. My husband and daughter were there too, and we got some cute photos of our daughter playing on the hotel lawn by the bay.

 

It’s funny how these traditions start. Sometimes, you do something once, and you don’t realize it’s something you will continue.

Back in 2011, my friend, Leah, and I took our then-seven-year-old daughters to Los Angeles. It was a special trip. I had gotten passes for the girls to visit the set of the Nickelodeon show, iCarly, which was the hottest show on Nickelodeon at the time. Milly had fallen in love with the show when she was about four, so she was a long-time fan. The girls were excited, and frankly, so were the moms!

When we took that trip, it never occurred to me I would start taking Milly to LA every year, but I do. It has become a mother/daughter tradition. We have a favorite hotel, favorite restaurants, favorite foods, favorite shops, and now we have friends we love to visit. Every time we go, we make a point of seeing places we haven’t seen before, but we make sure to visit all our favorites too. Often, we take friends with us. Lots of times, she and I have talked about how it is our mother/daughter tradition, and I tell her I hope we will continue to do it till I’m really old. Maybe one day she will have her own daughter and continue the tradition with her. Don’t get me wrong. I plan to keep going as long as I can! We are making memories she can carry with her for a long time.

I wish I had started doing annual trips with my mother when I was younger. I wasn’t an only child, so sneaking off for mother-daughter trips wasn’t as easy. Plus, my brother always adds an element of humor whenever he’s around. We wouldn’t have wanted to leave him behind anyway. Daddy was funny too.

In 1997, though, I did take Mother on a trip we talked about for years afterward. We went to Mexico City, and it was a glorious, fun trip. I’ve loved Mexico City since 1982, when I visited with a group from high school. Mother and I covered as much of the city as we could in four or five days. The first day we were there, a Sunday, I decided we would go to Chapultepec Park like the locals do on Sundays. Chapultepec Park is Mexico City’s version of Central Park. It’s covers over 1600 acres, and it is the home of Chapultepec Castle, which sits atop a hill with a view overlooking the city. We walked all over that park that day, visiting the castle and the zoo, which was the first zoo outside of China to successfully breed giant pandas. It was a great memory for us that would have made a wonderful tradition.

As Mother’s Day approaches, it has me thinking of all sorts of things I used to do with Mother. Mostly, we laughed, and that’s a great memory. Her compassion and sense of humor were unmatchable. We miss her, but we are thankful to have great memories.

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by Kelly Mattei

Be A Tourist In Your Town

As a child, and later as an adult, I lived on the Alabama Gulf Coast, in Baldwin County and in Mobile County. I moved to Spanish Fort, on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay when I was seven, and my mother took us to all the local attractions. What she didn’t cover, the school did on field trips.

Interestingly, no matter where we live, most people rarely hit all the tourist spots in our own towns/cities. When my daughter was between the ages of three and ten, however, we visited a lot of the attractions in the Mobile area when we went to visit my parents. I was able to relive some of the fun, and I was able to learn even more about the area I had called home.

We visited the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park numerous times, and while my daughter was never interested in reading all the information about the ship, she was always interested in climbing all the way to the top. Often, while our friends were carefully reading every detail, she and I were feeling the wind in our hair from the crow’s nest on the ship. It has always been amazing to me that it’s so much more breezy up there. After climbing all those stairs/ladders, I needed that cool breeze!

If you have some time to be a tourist in your own city, it’s a lot of fun. I recommend going on a weekday instead of a weekend, as most tourist attractions are busier on weekends. To find out which attractions to visit in your own city, ask friends what they have done, or check out the local visitor center. Another great resource I love to use is TripAdvisor.com. It lists attractions in order of popularity, and you can read reviews to see if it’s something you and/or your kids might be interested in doing.

I have some friends coming to visit soon, and they have never been to Charlotte. They will be in town for a few days, so we can’t just sit around our house the whole time. Therefore, I’ve been doing some homework to find cool things to do with visitors…things that are unique to the Charlotte area.

Anyone who has ever traveled with me could tell you I do my homework. I visited a friend in another city a few years ago, and she said I knew more about her city than she did! That’s why I rarely write a bad review on TripAdvisor…I do my homework.

So, if you have friends coming to town this summer, here’s a list of family-oriented things to do in Charlotte.

CHARLOTTE KNIGHTS BASEBALL: Even if you don’t enjoy watching baseball, these games are fun. People of all ages enjoy going to these games, because there’s baseball, beer, and other entertainment. We are fortunate to have a great AAA minor league baseball park in Charlotte, and night games offer a beautiful view of the uptown skyline. This is fun for the whole family…even teenagers enjoy it! And it doesn’t get any more wholesome than a baseball game. The team plays at BB&T Ballpark, which is celebrating its 5th season this year, and there’s not a bad seat in the house. Regular season play runs through Labor Day,  and you can purchase individual game here. Make sure you check the schedule for special promotions. There are Fireworks Fridays and other special promotions through the season.

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Photo courtesy of Milb.com

BANK OF AMERICA STADIUM TOURS: Whenever I’m in different cities, I love to visit different sports facilities/arenas. I’ve visited stadiums and ballparks in cities all over the country. Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers, offers tours at the price of $6 per adult, $4 for children ages 5-17, and $5 for senior citizens. Children under five are free. See tour dates on the website here. According to the website, the stadium is a “working facility year-round,” so tours can adjusted due to safety or security concerns, but generally, the tours visit the stadium bowl, the Panthers locker room, the weight room, practice fields, PantherVision Control Room, the visitors’ locker room, a luxury suite, the various clubs, and of course, the team store. It’s an inexpensive way to entertain sports fans.

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Photo courtesy of panthers.com

CAROLINAS AVIATION MUSEUM This is a very popular attraction in Charlotte, and it became even more popular after they added the aircraft from Miracle on the Hudson, a USAirways jet. This is fun for all ages. The museum serves up some aviation history, as well. It’s not a huge museum, but it’s worth a visit. Kids seem to enjoy seeing the different aircraft displays and exhibits. The museum is located on the grounds of Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. You can see the website here. Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, and $8 for children and students. Children 3 and under are free. While you’re in the area, take the time to visit the Charlotte-Douglas Overlook, where you can watch planes land and take off. Info can be found here.

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Eastern Airlines DC-7 Photo Courtesy of Carolinas Aviation Museum

VARIOUS PARKS There are lots of great parks throughout the city. One of my favorites in Romare Bearden Park, located uptown on Church Street. This 5.4 acre park is great for families, and it hosts a weekly music series. You can get more info here. Ray’s Splash Planet is a water park funded by Mecklenburg County and operated by Mecklenburg County Park and Rec. With a lazy river, various water slides, and other water activities, it’s a great place to visit during the summer. It is currently undergoing maintenance and upgrades, planning to reopen mid-summer. Check the website frequently for more info here. Latta Park in the Dilworth area offers a great splash park for kids, basketball courts, tennis courts, a playground, and fitness trails. Fun for the whole family. See the website here. Freedom Park offers lots of festivals and activities throughout the year, and is a great place for a family picnic. Located adjacent to the park, on Sterling Road, is Discovery Place Nature. Kids love this place, as they can interact with some animals and see others they might not otherwise see. Worth a visit with children under 10. See the website here.

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Romare Bearden Park

US NATIONAL WHITEWATER CENTER If you live in the Charlotte area and have not visited this attraction, you need to go. We are very fortunate to have this in our area. With lots of outdoor activities, there is something for almost everyone. If you don’t enjoy outdoor activities, you might enjoy watching the rafting. If you like activity but aren’t into rafting or kayaking, you might enjoy the multiple bicycle trails, ziplines, ropes courses, the canopy tour, or some stand-up paddle boarding. I think lots of people are surprised to know they have more than just rafting and kayaking. My family has spent countless hours here. It’s not cheap, but if you think you will enjoy going more than once, get a season pass. You can see information about all activities and pricing here.

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Canopy Tour Photo Courtesy of US National Whitewater Center

CAROWINDS Even if you don’t enjoy amusement park rides, the people-watching at Carowinds is like nowhere else in Charlotte. Another attraction we are fortunate to have, Carowinds brings in people come from far and wide to ride the rollercoasters, watch the shows, and play in the water park. We have been going since our daughter was two years old. In fact, when she was between the ages of two and four, we went almost every day the park was open. Crazy, I know, but she loved the activity, and I loved being outdoors. Since we had a season pass, it was an inexpensive outing. She now goes with friends several times during the summer. Carowinds has some of the best, biggest, and fastest rollercoasters in the country. Lots of thrills! I highly recommend going on weekdays during the summer. Weekends are crazy. Or go without the kids and “be a kid again”! If you plan to visit more than once in a season, you should opt for the Season Pass. Check the website for daily rates, parking rates, and Season Passes. You can see the website here.

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Photo Courtesy of Carowinds

These are just a few of the “things to do” in Charlotte. We have lots of great museums and theaters, and countless fun things to do with families. We even have Segway tours of uptown and other types of tours as well. You can get more info from the Charlotte Visitors Center here. Or if you’d like to see some reviews of attractions, you can check TripAdvisor here.

Be a tourist in your own town! If that is somewhere besides Charlotte, see what TripAdvisor says are the top attractions in your area. And if you need to get away, Charlotte is a great place to visit! You can get a full dose of southern hospitality right here. The weather is great, and the people are friendly. It’s a beautiful city full of great things to do.

by Kelly Mattei

Let’s Hit the Road

As the end of the school year approaches, it means the summer travel season will be gearing up quickly. It’s one of my favorite times of year…the summer I mean, not the last weeks of school. Any time we have extra days, weeks, or even months to go somewhere, I’m happy.

I have one daughter, who is now 14, and travel is pretty darn easy with her.

Of course, there was a time it was a little more difficult, but that didn’t stop me!

Frankly, there’s not a lot of fun in traveling with an infant, so there weren’t lots of great vacations in that year, but things ramped up after that. I did take her to visit family regularly, though.

Infant travel was always a crap shoot. I vividly remember one flight when my daughter was about ten months old, and she wasn’t happy about being stuck in a car seat on the plane. She wanted to get out of that seat, and she let everyone know it. She cried. She fussed. And she cried some more. The man sitting across the aisle from me had the chutzpah to reach over, tap me on the arm, and tell me she needed a bottle.

I wanted to throat punch the guy, but I resisted the urge.

I gave him my legendary stinkeye and didn’t say anything. As a former flight attendant, I am aware that sucking on a bottle will help open a child’s ears at takeoff and landing. My child didn’t take a bottle. She was breastfed, and I knew she wasn’t needing that. Her ears weren’t bothering her. I knew what she wanted. She wanted to get out of that seat. If I had taken her out of the carseat to breastfeed, she would have wanted to get in the floor, and the crying would have gotten louder.

Stupid, stupid man. Bless his heart.

We all survived it. And every time I’m on a plane and a baby cries, I sympathize with the mother. I remind everyone around me that we’ve been there before…we were all babies at one time, and lots of us have survived it as parents.

When our daughter was a toddler, we traveled. We traveled by plane, and we traveled by car. I even traveled alone with her on a regular basis. My husband doesn’t like to travel as much as I do, so often, we were traveling on our own. I remember regularly trekking through airports, pushing my one-yr-old in a stroller with the carry-on bag in the bottom of the stroller, all while carrying the car seat strapped to my back. I felt like a warrior, and I must have looked like one too, as I would hear multiple times, “You go, girl!” or “Wow! You know what you’re doing!” I felt tough, and frankly, I was…and still am.

That carry-on bag that was tucked into the bottom basket of that stroller held all the tools of airplane survival. Keeping a toddler happy on a plane is the key to your own happiness and the happiness of the passengers around you. I always had “special treats” in that bag. I would go to Target and arm myself with lots of little things from the Dollar Spot…anything that would keep her entertained, and I would take cards and books with pictures of animals, cupcakes, and babies. My toddler loved pictures of animals, cupcakes, and other babies. Any little trinket she had never seen before was fun.

Often, I shared those “special treats” with other families on the flights who were not as prepared. I clearly remember sitting behind a family with their toddler daughter. She was whining and restless, till we started sharing our animal picture cards. She got happier, so her mom could relax, and we were happier too!

I also learned early to let my daughter wear whatever she wanted. When she was two and three, she flew many times wearing a Snow White costume top, a yellow costume skirt, and a pink plastic grass hula skirt pulled on over that, but she was happy…and she was proud of that crazy outfit she had put together. She loved all the compliments she received. I have a friend whose daughter wore her Daphne costume (from Scooby Doo) for months on end…but she was happy.

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My 2-yr-old daughter wearing her Snow White top and grass skirt while enjoying ice cream with my daddy.

Two and three- year- old girls also love to play with makeup. I discovered this one time when we were flying to visit my parents. You know how grocery stores have those tiny toy sections? I had been in the grocery store the day before we left, and I saw this cute little makeup palette for little girls. I grabbed it, thinking it might be entertaining for her on the plane.

Was it ever! We were only taking a one hour flight, but it kept her entertained the whole time! It was like “peace in a packet” for me! She put on eye shadow. She put on lip gloss. She put on blush. And of course, she overdid it…all of it. But it kept her happy and occupied, and therefore, I was happy. She looked like a two-dollar hooker when we landed, but I didn’t care. I had been able to relax for one full hour!

Traveling by car with an infant or toddler can be more tricky. Road trips less than four hours were OK. In 2004, when Hurricane Ivan was threatening the Gulf Coast of Alabama, we were visiting my parents, who lived near Mobile Bay. We had flown down, but we ended up renting an SUV to drive back to Charlotte, because flights were cancelling. We opted to drive overnight, so our 11-month-old would sleep all the way home. It worked out fine, till we got home, and she was wide awake, but we were groggy. We took turns taking care of her that day.

I discovered age five was the golden year…the year travel became super easy. Kids are more self-sufficient and can entertain themselves really well at five. Plus, they can manage their own carry-on bag of “stuff.”

When my daughter was seven, I took her on her first transcontinental trip. We went to Los Angeles, and it was one of the best trips ever. Not only could she entertain herself on the flight, but she could keep up with me all day without fussing! My friend, Leah, and her daughter met us there on that trip, and we still talk about that fun trip. I had learned years before on other trips the the secret to keeping a child moving is food. When my daughter was under age ten, I always tried to stop, sit down, and get her something small to eat every couple of hours…maybe an ice cream cone…maybe some yogurt…maybe some fries…maybe some peanut butter crackers…maybe a banana…anything that would give her energy so she could stay on the go. Now that she is older, she knows when she needs to grab a little something to eat, and she lets me know.  Also, stay hydrated…crucial.

Now that she is fourteen, we have taken countless trips together by plane and by car. We have walked many miles in lots of different cities and locales. We have climbed waterfalls, zip lined through rainforests, climbed a rock scramble, hiked a mountain, visited landmarks, toured cities, climbed lighthouses, and made lots of great memories.

We have made lengthy road trips with friends, and we’ve learned a lot along the way. We’ve learned about this great country in which we live, and we have learned what is necessary for a pleasant road trip…snacks, minimal packing, beverages, lots of quick stops, games for the car, and lots of laughter.

I no longer have to take a carry-on filled with treats for flights, but now, she always wants to take a friend or two. That’s perfectly fine with me. I truly have a “the more, the merrier” approach. I have found that if there are more people around, more events get locked into long term memory. Funny things are funnier in a group. Exciting things are more exciting with other people.

Now, our summers are shorter as she enters high school. Starting in ninth grade, varsity and junior varsity fall sports start practicing at the beginning of August, a few weeks before school starts. So, we have to cram in a lot of fun in less time. This year, all new adventures await, and I can hardly wait to get it started. I’m counting down to the last day of school.

Travel safely and have fun this summer!

by Kelly Mattei

A Spirit of Community

Community. This past Friday, a group of eighth graders changed my perspective on the meaning of that word. There was a time I would think of my neighborhood when I heard “community.” As I’ve grown older (not old…older), my perspective has changed, but it meant even more after a sporting event Friday. Sure, “community” can mean a neighborhood, but it can mean so much more, including a sense of fellowship with a group.

Friday, my daughter and her eighth grade lacrosse team played in the conference championship game. This team is made up of a group of girls who, for the most part, had never played lacrosse till last year. I think two, maybe three, of them had played before picking up the stick in seventh grade.

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In seventh grade, they got some great coaching, and they learned a lot. At the beginning of last year’s season, it was painful to watch sometimes…they couldn’t throw; they couldn’t catch. As the season progressed, we could see rapid improvement.

This year, in eighth grade, the improvement was remarkable. They are bigger and stronger than they were in seventh grade. They weren’t undefeated. They didn’t even have a fabulous record. But they worked hard, and they played hard.

Here is where the word, community, comes into play.

These girls have been supported by their families all year. The parents and siblings turned out for every game, cheering them on, and encouraging them. Occasionally, some classmates would come out to watch, but eighth grade girls lacrosse is not always a big spectator sport. We could see them improving as individuals throughout the season, and we saw them improving as a team, as well. Every game, they went out and did their best, no doubt.

They are a team. They formed their own community.

This past Friday, for the championship game, they learned just how big their community is.

After the girls won the semi-finals game Wednesday afternoon, they went to school, and they took to social media, encouraging their classmates and lots of other people to come cheer them on in the championship.

We are very fortunate. My daughter’s class at school is a good bunch of kids. Sure, bad decisions are made on occasion, but even good kids make bad decisions. Heck, even good adults make bad decisions sometimes. As a whole, and as a rule, these kids are good kids. Many of them have been together since kindergarten or even transitional kindergarten, and for the most part, they really like each other.

I’m not living in a pipe dream. They aren’t all best friends. They don’t all hang out together en masse all the time, but they respect each other and generally like each other. I volunteer at school a lot, and I’m always happy to see these eighth graders. Civility is alive and well with this bunch.

Friday, the team showed up for the game, and so did lots of their classmates. Interestingly, the parents of this grade are all pretty supportive of each other as well, and since they knew I would be at the game, several parents of classmates who wanted to go watch called and asked if I would “chaperone” their kids at the game. Our school wants middle school students to be accompanied by an adult. It doesn’t mean a 1:1 ratio. It means they want the kids to have an adult looking out for them…someone to be responsible for them. I was thrilled when I got the calls and texts, because I knew the kids were planning to attend..

When I arrived at the stadium, I was amazed. There was a big group of eighth graders, and even lots of younger students and a few older ones. Lots of parents who don’t have daughters on the team were there. I looked around and saw families with younger children, and before the game started, more and more members of our school community arrived…teachers, administrators, staff members, and lots of students of all ages. I was thrilled, and I’m sure the girls were too.

The girls’ classmates arrived carrying signs they’d made on posterboard! The eighth graders who were spectators…lots of boys and lots of girls…gathered together in one section of the bleachers. They cheered often, and they cheered loudly…great kids, I tell ya.

In the end, we lost the game, 8-6…two late goals by the other team. No one was happy about that, except the other team, but there were lots of supportive hugs on our side of the field after the game. Our girls had worked hard through the entire game, and while no one loves a loss, I was proud of how hard they had played, and I was proud of our school community. Winning is infinitely more fun than losing, but sometimes we learn more about ourselves and those around us after a loss.

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The team mom hosted the girls for the end-of-season party after the game, and while they were disappointed about the loss, they had good perspective.

They all know some of them probably won’t be playing lacrosse in high school. Some of them will pursue other interests, but these girls made some great memories together. There were lots of photos at the party, because for this generation, if there isn’t photographic evidence of something, it didn’t happen. I’m OK with that, though, because I know how pictures can bring back great memories when you look at them later.

I even have a few photos of the eighth graders in the bleachers. I’m saving those for their high school graduation in 2022.

I’m so proud of these kids’ sense of community. They understand the importance of supporting each other. I have a feeling almost everyone in their grade would have loved to be there, but some of them couldn’t be there for one reason or another. I hope they will carry that sense of community with them till they graduate and beyond.

One boy’s mother texted me hours after the game Friday night thanking me for “supervising” the boys at the game, adding, “I loved that they wanted to go support the girls’ team! The boys owe them after all those basketball games they stayed to watch.” During basketball season, the eighth grade girls’ games are before the eighth grade boys’ games, so often, the girls would stay late to watch the boys play.

I told her, of course, that I was flattered to get to “supervise,” adding that I love this eighth grade group.

Our girls learned a lot about competition from that loss, but they also learned a lot about themselves and their classmates.

They are learning great things about the importance of supporting each other. They are learning about community.

We’re all in this together!

by Kelly Mattei

Chicago! Chicago! (Epic Road Trip, Part 3)

For years, my friend, Mary Ann, and I talked about going on a “crazy road trip.” What we really want to do is drive Route 66. My friend, Neill, wants to go too. We haven’t figured out the particulars yet, but if we take all the kids, we’ll have to get a big ol’ Partridge Family bus, which actually could be pretty fun. I think I’ll look into that. I wonder if anyone rents Partridge Family buses? (And before you think I’m wrong there, “buses” IS the plural form of “bus”. “Busses” would be the plural form of “buss,” which means a kiss.)

Three years ago, Mary Ann and I loaded up her three kids and my one kid in a Ford Expedition, and we took a different crazy road trip, saving Route 66 for another time. It was a kid-friendly, casual clothing road trip…totally about seeing Americana. I’ve written before about the fun we had on the first two legs of the trip, and here is Part 3. Every part of the trip was exciting and fun. Every part of it was not perfect, but sometimes, that’s what makes the best memories.

In my post a few weeks ago about Part 2 of our epic road trip, I told you we made it to Chicago safely. We made it there in pouring rain, but we must have brought the sunshine with us, because the rain stopped soon thereafter.

We had only planned to be in Chicago for roughly 36 hours, so we hit the ground running. We checked into the hotel, and as I said in Part 2, our room looked out on the John Hancock Center, making it easy to find our way back from anywhere in the city!

We stayed at the Hilton Suites Magnificent Mile…not a luxury hotel, but perfect for a family stay, as every room in the hotel is a suite. It is conveniently located near good restaurants, Lake Michigan, tourist spots, and luxury shopping (which we were not doing on this trip). To see the website for the Hilton Suites Magnificent Mile, click here. The rates were good, and the staff was incredibly helpful. I wrote one of my most raving TripAdvisor reviews about this hotel, because the employees there are helpful, courteous, and friendly. You can see my review and the manager’s response here. (Scroll down to my review, titled “Wowed by the service!”)

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We let the valet take the car (he came down the street in the rain to get it when I waved to him) and had the bellman bring everything up to our suite, and then set out on our first adventure in the city. After traveling all day, we had four hungry kids on our hands. Since this trip was casual, we needed to go somewhere that would welcome us casually dressed and with four kids in tow.

The concierge recommended Doc B’s Fresh Kitchen on Walton Street, which was just a few blocks from the hotel…an opportunity to stretch our legs after being in the car all day. The food was good, and the atmosphere was perfect for our motley crew. Located in the Magnificent Mile area, this restaurant was most accommodating for us. If you’re in Chicago and looking for a casual dinner place in the Magnificent Mile area, this could be the place for you. See their website here. Mary Ann had the Tennessee Hot Chicken and said it was “OK,” but I had the Backyard Burger and thought it was fantastic. Even more special was the service. Our waiter, Taylor, took the time to write down the kids menu for us, since there wasn’t one available. We would definitely return with kids!

We turned in early that night, but the next day, we wanted to cram in as much activity as possible, because it was the only full day we had in Chicago.

We got up and starting securing reservations/tickets for the things we wanted to do. We knew we wanted to see as much as possible in one day, so we opted for an architectural tour by boat, a two hour bus tour of downtown, and a visit to the top of the John Hancock Center.

Everything started great. Our first order of business was the architectural tour by boat. We all loved it. Not only did if offer beautiful views of the city, but it also offered an opportunity for the kids (and adults) to see how the system of locks works from the river to and from Lake Michigan…fascinating for all of us. We highly recommend this tour, which you can book here.

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Going through the lock

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Chicago Skyline

After disembarking, we made our way to the nearest restaurant with a menu we liked. That restaurant was Sweetwater Tavern and Grille on Michigan Avenue…kid friendly. We all tried fried cheese curds for the first time there. Surprisingly, I had never had them, even though I’d spent a lot of time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the late 80s and early 90s. We unanimously declared them delicious! We also ordered beignets, and these two gulf coast girls who grew up eating beignets gave them two thumbs up! You can check out the Sweetwater website here. To try fried cheese curds in the Charlotte area, you can visit Culver’s just off Carowinds Boulevard in Fort Mill. Check out their website here. If you decide to visit, go on an empty stomach and try their Butterburger and fries too. Then, top it all off with their frozen custard or a shake…all delicious.

Cheese curds at Culver’s

After lunch, the bus tour took us on another architectural expedition…all very impressive in downtown Chicago. We purchased tickets and boarded the bus tour very close to the boat dock. Anyone can point you in the right direction. We visited the world-famous bean and Navy Pier before heading up to the John Hancock Center. The observatory there is now called 360 CHICAGO and offers breathtaking views of the city and Lake Michigan. When we were there, the TILT, an added attraction at the top of the center, wasn’t working, but we loved all the photo ops we had. This is a must-do, and if TILT is in working order while you’re there, you have to do it too. Check out the website and purchase tickets here.11221940_10207249962952203_752868439303655523_n

And this is when things got wonky….Mary Ann wanted Garrett’s Chicago-Style Popcorn, which I hear is amazing but I didn’t want to stand in line (over an hour!) for popcorn. You can see their website here. I knew my daughter wanted to visit Sprinkles for some cupcakes (click here) while we were there, so we split up, and Mary Ann took her kids to Garrett’s while we went to Sprinkles. We had planned to meet up for dinner, but my daughter wanted to go to Dylan’s Candy Bar and Cafe, while Mary Ann had a special place in mind for some Chicago-Style pizza.

In the midst of all this, Mary Ann’s daughter broke her flip flop and had to have new ones. Fortunately, when that happened, my daughter and I were in a cab headed for Dylan’s. We missed out on that “fun.” Since the American Girl Store was nearby, Mary Ann went there and paid a terrible sum for some flip flops for her daughter. It has been three years since this trip, but I feel pretty sure Mary Ann is still making her daughter wear those flip flops to get her money’s worth out of them…never mind that half her foot hangs off the back of them now!

So, while Mary Ann and family picked up a Chicago-Style pizza and brought it back to our suite, Milly and I enjoyed Chicago-style hot dogs at Dylan’s. She also ordered a mocktail called the Pink Cloud Lemonade…fun presentation and delicious! You can see their website and menu here. I should probably thank Mary Ann for letting me try the Chicago-style pizza and the popcorn after we got back to the hotel.11063784_10207249651824425_7273607532132704225_n

After a crazy busy day, it was time to pack up and turn in. We had another busy day ahead of us.

The next morning, we got up, checked out, and started our drive to Sandusky, Ohio, where we would be meeting friends from Columbus, Ohio, at Great Wolf Lodge. Of course, Mary Ann and I can’t drive straight through. We absolutely could not drive through South Bend, Indiana, without stopping in at Notre Dame. While there, we visited the stadium for some photos and shopped in the campus bookstore. We also got some photos with “the dome.” If you’re a Notre Dame fan, you won’t like this: we also pretended to take photos with the “girlfriend” of former Notre Dame football player Manti Te’o. See below. She’s standing between us…haha. Also, it was a road trip, so we were wearing comfortable attire…don’t judge.10438925_10207256465434761_5891661285876443717_n

Upon leaving South Bend, we traveled a little north, just so the kids could say they’d been to Michigan, and then we continued on to Sandusky, where my friend, Jennifer, and her daughter were waiting for us at Great Wolf Lodge! For information about Great Wolf Lodge Sandusky, click here. It doesn’t get any more kid-friendly than Great Wolf Lodge, and fortunately for us, they also have a bar!

Great Wolf Lodge was the perfect place for us to relax for the night before our big trip home. The kids all played in the water park, and the moms all relaxed next to the outdoor pool.

The next morning, we were homeward bound…but we took a little detour to a small town in Pennsylvania…for a funny reason. Read about that later in the final post about the road trip…coming up soon.

We highly recommend a trip to Chicago with your family. Our stay was so brief, it was just a teaser, but we will be going back.

Maybe one day we will make that Route 66 trip too. Know anyone with a Partridge Family bus?

Happy Trails!

Kelly

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by Kelly Mattei

Turning 50

Next weekend, I’m going to a friend’s birthday party. She’s turning 50, quite a milestone birthday. I asked her recently if she is as excited about her 50th birthday as I was about mine, and she said she’s not sure how she feels about it.

I turned 50 last year. If you didn’t have to tolerate me then, I will tell you I was pretty obnoxious. I was almost as excited about turning 50 as I was about turning 21…almost. I’ve never been as excited about one of my own birthdays as I was about turning 21. Turning 50 was a close second, though.

When my friend, Nikki, said she wasn’t sure how she felt about fifty, I thought, “She’s got this.” She’s a young fifty. She lives life to the fullest and has a positive outlook on life. All those things point to being happy about a milestone birthday.

Maybe I’m weird, but I look at fifty as a positive.

Of course, I look for reasons to celebrate. Fifty was the perfect excuse for celebrating myself! Fifty deserves Champagne at lunch and anytime I want it! Trust me, almost anyone who has had lunch with me in the past year will tell you I love Champagne with lunch.

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Bellinis in some adorable stemless flutes my friends, Jenn and Neill, gave me.

When I turned fifty in May of last year, I took full advantage of the fact that I was having a big, important, milestone birthday. My husband had turned fifty the year before, and he wanted no fanfare. I honored that. He didn’t really even want it mentioned. He did, however, go to the beach with some friends one weekend near his birthday. Judging by the late night phone call I received, he had a good time.

I didn’t want “fanfare” in the way of my husband throwing a party. Some sweet friends did come together and surprise me with a small dinner party, and some other friends took me out to lunch and to see Smokey and the Bandit (its 40th anniversary) on the big screen. Both events were great fun, as we had fun at the dinner celebrating my birthday, and we lusted after a young Burt Reynolds in the movie theatre after lunch. I wore a “50 Looks Good On Me” sash and black feather boa at dinner and a Smokey and the Bandit homemade t-shirt at the movie. ***Note: black feather boas shed, and if you have any sweat on your chest, the loose feathers will stick, making it appear as though you have a hairy chest.***

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My sweet friends humoring me by wearing Smokey and the Bandit t-shirts at the movie

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Drinking Dr. Peppers my friend smuggled into Smokey and the Bandit

My husband gave me a gift I planned: a trip to Los Angeles with my daughter and one of her friends (taking the daughter and a friend gave me lots of time to do whatever I wanted)…staying at my favorite hotel, where we had a lovely suite with a beautiful, gigantic patio that I enjoyed every…single…day. I love outdoor spaces; the hotel gifted me with a glorious outdoor space unlike any other.

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On my glorious patio at the hotel, recreating Faye Dunaway’s pose the day after she won the Academy Award. She posed by the pool, but she was a young, tall, skinny Hollywood star. I posed on the private patio, because I’m not.

While we were there, I visited with a friend who had just turned 40, and we traded “war stories” over dinner while watching celebrities dine. I also had the chance to meet two hot gentlemen, Tony Romo and Chace Crawford, and pretend I was just meeting them so I could take a picture of my daughter and her friend with them.

I embraced turning fifty. I see it as the age of respect. I have knowledge I didn’t have at 20, 30, or 40. I have experiences I wouldn’t trade. As a result of those various experiences, I have wisdom. If you’re thirty and want to tell me about “real life,” be prepared to get, “Bless your heart. I’m 50. Let me tell you about real life.”

There’s also something relaxing about being fifty. When you’re twenty, you worry about what other people think. When you’re thirty, that becomes less of a worry. You understand that when you go to a party, other people don’t really care what you’re wearing…they’re more concerned with what they are wearing. In fact, I like to think that at 30, that all went out the window with me. Some people refer to 40 as their “kiss my a** age” (I heard someone say that on David Letterman’s show years ago), meaning they stopped letting other people influence them and stopped caring so much about what other people think, but I think mine was 30. Some people who knew me in my 20s might argue that it was earlier.

If my mother were here today, she would tell you I was the “classic strong-willed child.” I didn’t cause problems, but I was stubborn. I was known for it in my family. Daddy always talked about it and wondered aloud where I got that lovely trait. He would often say, “If she doesn’t want to do something, or if she doesn’t agree with something, she is not going to give in.” Generally speaking, I didn’t care what other people did, but I wasn’t going to do something I didn’t want to do, and I wasn’t going to be talked into changing my mind about something.

As life has gone on, I’ve become less rigid, more relaxed, and most of the time, I don’t sweat the small stuff. I like to think I quit sweating the small stuff when I was in college. My parents used to say, “She might have been ‘switched’ at college” (a reference to Switched at Birth), meaning a different person came back than the one they dropped off four years before. Whatever happened, I had gained wisdom in those four years, and I’ve gained even more since…I don’t care who is right and who is wrong…unless, of course, it negatively affects me, my child, or my family. Then…well, you already know about Mama Bear.

For me, with age has come peace. I have peace in knowing God is in charge. I truly have peace in knowing there are some things over which I have no control. I have peace in knowing that I, generally speaking, try to do the right thing. I will admit that I’m perfectly capable of being petty, but I try to do the right thing most of the time. I have peace in knowing I have a nice family and good friends. I have peace in knowing I’m trying to raise my daughter to take care of herself and others. I have peace in knowing a small act of kindness can mean a lot to someone. I have peace in knowing my brother and I will talk almost everyday, whether we have something to say or not. I have peace in knowing he is happy. I have peace.

So, to my friend, Nikki, and all my other friends who will be turning fifty in the next year or two, this is my gift to you: Embrace the 5-0! Tell everyone you see you are enjoying your 50th birthday! Enjoy it! And don’t just celebrate it for one day; celebrate the whole dang year! Find the peace you deserve at 50!

My 51st birthday is approaching one month from today, and I have called this past year The Year of Me, this year that I am 50.

Unfortunately, I lost my mother during this year, but she laughed and laughed last May at how I embraced turning 50. She had a great sense of humor, and she was happy I was celebrating life. She was glad I took some extra vacations (my favorite thing to do), and she was glad I was spending time with friends and family during the year. She encouraged me to enjoy every single day. As my parents used to tell me, “Life is not a dress rehearsal. Make it good the first time around.” I’m certainly trying.

Friends, enjoy every day. Be glad you’re turning fifty. It’s a milestone. Eat cake! Cake is for winners! (Nikki knows what that means.) It should be a celebration.

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Now, let’s pop the Champagne!

Cheers!

by Kelly Mattei

The Gift of a Speech

When I was a freshman in college, I had the most adorable roommate. She was from Tennessee, and her name was Fannie. Yes, Fannie. Everybody loved Fannie. She was cute and funny, and she was fun. We are still friends, and she’s still cute, funny, and fun.

I had a pretty tough course load that first semester, and really, I have absolutely no recollection of what classes Fannie took, but I remember one class: Public Speaking.

Now, I applaud her chutzpah for taking Public Speaking her first semester of college. I was impressed, because there is no way I would have done that. In fact, I never took a Public Speaking class. I don’t remember a lot about her class, but I know she had to write and give different types of speeches. I think she had to give three or four different ones…maybe informative, demonstrative, persuasive, and last but not least…an entertaining speech. Yikes.

To the best of my recollection, Fannie never discussed the first two or three speeches with me. She wrote them; maybe she practiced them. I really don’t remember. But then, as we neared the end of the semester, she had to give the scariest speech of all: the entertaining speech.

What does that mean?! Does that mean you have to be funny?!

Oh, she struggled with it. I should say WE struggled with it, because I felt terrible for her for having to give an entertaining speech. That sounds like something that should be left up to a professional.

The night before her speech, she still had nothing. Was she supposed to come up with a Johnny Carson-style monologue? (Yes, it was 1985, and Johnny still had a few more years on The Tonight Show.) We were sitting in our room discussing different topics, but nothing was truly entertaining. It was painful. She was already convinced she was going to get an F. I think she even considered skipping class altogether. It was agonizing.

At about 10:00 or 11:00 that night, a girl from down the hall came into our room. Everyone on our hall had become friends early in the semester, so it was no surprise this girl would come in for a visit when she came home from a date. Actually, the surprise might have been that she came home from the date at all.

I’ll call her Mary Jane (not her real name). Mary Jane came in telling us she had just had the worst date ever. She had been so excited to go out with this guy. He was supposed to be fun, and he drove a fancy car. We didn’t know what kind of car it was, but it looked fancy. It was the 80s, after all, and we were 18, so we were shallow enough to think a cool car meant he was a cool guy.

Mary Jane went through the rundown of every single thing that had gone wrong on her date. Oh, it was terrible from the very beginning. He came to the dorm to pick her up, and he waited for her in the lobby. When they walked out to his car, he opened the doors that flew up like wings, and Mary Jane said, “I love your Lamborghini!” First mistake.

He quickly informed her it wasn’t a Lamborghini. He was visibly offended. It was a Bricklin. I’d never heard of it before, and I haven’t heard of it since, so I looked it up online. According to Bricklin.org, the Bricklin International Owners Club website, “The Bricklin SV-1 is a gull-wing door sports car that was assembled in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.” According to the website, it was manufactured from 1974 to 1976 before the company fell into financial ruin. Sounds to me like he’d have been better off letting her think it was a Lamborghini. It was 1985, after all, and the car was ten years old and manufactured by a failed company.

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Bricklin SV-1

According to Bricklin.org, the Bricklin International Owners Club website, only 2,854 models were manufactured.

That night, Mary Jane got in the car with the guy we will now call Mr. Bricklin and drove away. He took her to dinner. Mary Jane was a statuesque girl, standing about six feet tall. What she didn’t realize is that the “gull-wing” doors weren’t as tall as she was, so when she attempted to step out of the car, she banged her head on the door. She was making quite an impression.

I think they went to Cypress Inn, which is still in operation today on the banks of the Black Warrior River. While the food was good, dinner was disastrous. First, Mary Jane tried to order an alcoholic beverage but couldn’t produce an ID saying she was old enough to drink. Secondly, she flipped a salad into her lap.

So now she’s sober and wearing her salad dressing.

I think Mr. Bricklin wasn’t known for being a great conversationalist, so that was a failure too. I guess it’s a good thing he had the “fancy car” to get chicks. The only thing that would have worked better is a guitar…or maybe a spot on the football team. College girls love guys who can play guitar, and girls love athletes.

The date was a total bust. Mary Jane came home immediately after dinner, and we got to hear every dreadfully hilarious detail of every disaster that occurred. As she told the story, she was laughing, and we were rolling…laughing the way college girls laugh at stupid stuff.

She finally left our room and turned in for the night.

Fannie was still struggling with her speech.

And then it occurred to me: Mary Jane had just written Fannie’s speech for her! I said, “Fannie! That’s your speech!” “What?” “Mary Jane’s date! That’s your speech! Tell her date story as if it’s your own! Pretend you went on the Bricklin date! Mary Jane just gave you a speech!”

The next morning, Fannie stood up in front of a room of 100 people (I’m totally making up that number, but it was a lot) and told everyone about her Bricklin date that really wasn’t her date. She told that story as if it were her own. She totally owned that story, and she included every little funny detail.

And you know what? Fannie got an A.

I wish I could have heard her give the speech, but I was trying to time my entrance into the math building perfectly so that cute quarterback, Mike Shula, would hold the door open for me…like I said, guitar players and athletes.

Good times!

 

by Kelly Mattei

My Favorite Sports Website

It’s no secret that I love sports. I’m not a great athlete, but I’m a fantastic spectator. I love to watch lacrosse, field hockey, baseball (in person), soccer, football, basketball, tennis…I just love to watch sports.

My favorite sports are the ones in which my 14-yr-old daughter is participating. She plays middle school field hockey, basketball, and lacrosse.

However, my favorite non-daughter-participating sport is football. I love professional football, middle and high school football, but most of all, I love college football…specifically, Southeastern Conference Football.

I’ve been known to scare young children when yelling at the television during an SEC game. Unfortunately, I can’t watch all the SEC games, but I like to stay informed.

Lucky for me, there is a website, run by two young gentlemen, that caters to the SEC Football fan. It’s called Front Porch Football. To see their Facebook page (please like/follow it for updates and invite friends!), click here. You can go straight to the website by clicking here. Its creators, brothers Chris and Brendan Paschal, are the sons of my friend, Maureen, a school librarian who also has a website called Raising the Capable Student (click here…I’ll be telling you more about it in a future post).

The tagline for Front Porch Football is “We take SEC football as seriously as you do.” And they do.11825968_401491053378587_1538355822811269543_n

Chris and Brendan started Front Porch Football when they were both students at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Brendan is a senior there now, and Chris is finishing up his first year of law school at the University of South Carolina.

It all began in the summer of 2015. The idea came about while the brothers were sharing some BBQ at the Q Shack in Charlotte (see the Q Shack website here). According to the brothers, Chris was doing his usual complaining about “how the national pundits don’t know what they’re talking about” when discussing college football. Apparently, he believes pundits on radio shows should be able to answer callers’ questions. According to Chris, “Knowing who won the 1995 Iron Bowl or the latest on a 3-star prospect from Moultrie, Georgia, isn’t too much to ask.” Their mother (my friend, Maureen) suggested to Chris that they start their own website, and the rest is history.

They needed a name. Naming a website is tough. You want it to be catchy, but you want it to be relevant. Because their site is devoted mostly to SEC Football, Chris and Brendan wanted it to be authentic and Southern, but it needed to get attention. They thought, “How many Southerners out there sit on their front porch and talk SEC football?” A name was born. It seemed only natural to call it Front Porch Football.

Now that I’ve gotten all the formal stuff out of the way, I want to tell you what I LOVE about this site. First, it is informative. These guys know their stuff. Second, it is entertaining and oftentimes, downright hilarious.

They write about various SEC programs and do post-game wrap-ups, from which I garner valuable information and insight. They also started some podcasts that are usually under 15 minutes (I’m the guest in one…click here), and they’ve made videos analyzing matchups, picking winners with guest pickers, interviewing a middle-aged University of Alabama alumna (ahem!), and just talking football. I love their videos of weekly picks, because they do their homework. Usually, I have my own ideas about how a game will shake out, but often, they give me a different perspective. I only get mad if they pick against Alabama. They know not to look me in the eye if they pick against Bama. I’ll give them the wicked “stinkeye” my mother taught me.

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BUT what I find most entertaining are their original, hilarious videos. You may be familiar with their video that went viral on October 16, 2017. It is titled “Help a Tennessee Vol,” and it received over ONE MILLION views. In the video, with Sarah McLachlan singing “In the Arms of an Angel,” distraught Tennessee fans appear while a speaker asks viewers to be “an angel for a helpless Tennessee fan.” Of course, it’s a parody of all those ads we see all the time for helping orphaned animals. The University of Tennessee Volunteers have had a few rough years in their football program, and this past season wasn’t any better, resulting in the firing of their Head Coach, Butch Jones. Brendan saw an opportunity in the Vols’ misfortune; he created the video, and the public ran with it. (The University of Tennessee subsequently hired Jeremy Pruitt, the former defensive coordinator at The University of Alabama, and Butch Jones was hired as an off-field analyst at Alabama.)

The “Help a Tennessee Vol” video was shared on Saturday Down South and countless other SEC football sites. You can see it here.

Chris says the videos are Brendan’s “favorite thing to do regarding Front Porch Football, and he thoroughly enjoys poking fun at teams and fans.”

Other funny videos have featured “Burns the Backup,” in which the Paschals’ friend, Ryan Burns, portrays the life of a backup quarterback. I wouldn’t mind seeing him as a recurring character. You can see that video here. There are other videos featuring the brothers’ funny friends and classmates in contests naming all the SEC head coaches, complete with music from The Price is Right (click here); “The Battle of the Brothers” (in which the brothers display some really good “stinkeye” that rivals my own) before the Alabama/Georgia National Championship game (click here); and other hilarious scenarios. One of my personal favorites features the brothers in a parody of Home Alone’s “Angels with Filthy Souls,” retooled as “Playoffs with Filthy Bowls” (click here). Clearly, I enjoy the videos. They are good…really good. You can see ALL their videos by clicking here.

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And I can’t forget the polls they have on the site’s Facebook page. Recent polls have asked followers, “Which is the real Death Valley: Clemson or LSU?”(LSU won) and “Better Rivalry: Iron Bowl or UNC/Duke Basketball?” (That last one was a close one. Iron Bowl won, and I might or might not have had a hand in making sure the Iron Bowl won.)

I’ve known these gentlemen since long before Front Porch Football was even a thought. They are hardworking, clever, witty, and they come from a nice family…have to make sure you know that! In talking with them about the website recently, I asked them what their goals are for Front Porch Football.

They didn’t hesitate. They want to “establish a strong fan base that ranges from the hardcore fanatic to the casual fan to the Grandma/wife/brother who doesn’t know much about SEC football.” They know there are people who just watch the games and people who live for the games. There are fans who watch it because there’s nothing else to do, and then there are the fans who, on any given day, might be re-watching a game from the 1980s, with the late, great Keith Jackson (you remember him, “Whoa, Nellie!”) commentating. They want all these people to follow their page/site and contribute their opinions and comments. They want everyone to become engaged in the discussion.

They say they created Front Porch Football for the fans, so their other big goal is to provide fans with a platform to voice their thoughts about SEC Football. They say they will be making some exciting changes this summer to the site to get more fans involved. I can hardly wait!

Down the line, they’d like to expand their brand and product, “especially into the apparel market.” As students, they know money doesn’t grow on trees, so they’d like to bring some quality apparel to the market at an affordable price. Actually, Chris’s words were, “Of course, each school has their own swag, but it feels like you have to sell a kidney to buy a decent shirt.” The apparel is a longer range goal. Personally, I’d love to own some apparel from my favorite sports website. I’ve already told them I’m first in line when they get some t-shirts out there.

So here’s the skinny: if you love college football as much as I do, this is a great site for you. If you have no knowledge of football but would like to impress someone with your football “knowledge,” you can learn a lot at Front Porch Football. Even if you are just a very casual college football fan, these guys are wicked funny, making Front Porch Football worth your time.

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If websites could have cheerleaders, I’d cheer for this one.

***If you like the videos you watched through my links, please go to Front Porch Football on Facebook and like/follow their site. ALSO, please share this story in support of these guys and invite your friends to follow them as well!***

RTR!

Kelly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Kelly Mattei

My Favorite Mother’s Day Gifts

Mother’s Day is May 13…just around the corner.

This year, I will celebrate Mother’s Day as a mother, but I will not be celebrating it as a daughter. I lost my mother in December. If she were here, she would say, “Don’t get me a gift. I should give my children a gift, because y’all make me so happy to be a mother.”

Of course, we sent her something every year, if we weren’t with her. One year, I didn’t see her or talk to her till late in the day. She wasn’t happy with me, and rightfully so. But I did arrive that evening, gift in hand. I’d had a bad day that day, but I didn’t want to burden her with my problems on Mother’s Day, so I just took the heat. I learned my wicked “stinkeye” from her, you know.

This year, we will make a toast to my mother at brunch, and I will tell my daughter some stories about her. That’s how we celebrate Mother’s Day…brunch.

I won’t be sending my mother a gift this year, but maybe I’ll receive a gift (or two) from my family. If you need to get a gift for someone who doesn’t drop hints, here are some of my ideas (hint, hint):

SKYLIGHT FRAME According to their website, the Skylight Frame is a digital touch screen 10″ photo frame that displays your digital photos and can be updated remotely via email. It promises “clarity, color, and brilliance.” Part of the setup process is connecting it to Wi-Fi. From what I understand, each frame has its own email address, so you can update the photos anytime from anywhere. Sounds like the perfect way to display new photos in your own home or at Grandma’s. Priced at $159, I think it is a great gift (hint, hint). You can get more information and purchase the Skylight Framehere.

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FRESH FLOWERS I know it sounds cliché, but I love fresh flowers in my house. I think most women do. I love walking into my house and seeing fresh flowers, even if I was the one who picked them, ordered them, or purchased them. They don’t have to be the most expensive flowers, you know. If you have some lovely flowers in your yard (we have some beautiful roses), make up your own bouquet and present them to Mom.  There are lots of awesome places to get beautiful flowers. My personal favorite in Charlotte is The Blossom Shop, simply because they have never failed me. Everything they’ve ever done is beautiful. You can see their website here. You can also pick up fresh flowers at most grocery stores and make up your own arrangement.

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BAKED BY MELISSA MINI CUPCAKES I wrote about these recently, but I’m adding them here again, because they really are some of my current favorite things on earth. My friend, Amy, sent me some for my 50th birthday last May, and I think about them every day. In fact, I placed an order for my “family” (myself) earlier today. They are delightful little bite-size treats and come in lots of flavors. Personally, I love the package called the O.G. (Original Greats). You can’t go wrong with this. To see what they offer and place an order, click here.product-the-og-25-pack_1_

SEND A MEAL This is a website from which you can send a voucher to any recipient…on Mother’s Day, that would be your mom. Mom spends a lot of time keeping the family fed, so give her a break on a day of her choosing. Prices vary, but it’s worth a look. I’ve looked through their website many times, and every time, I find something else that looks fantastic. One friend told me she had ordered from them, and the food was fabulous. They have a vast array of offerings including pasta, pork, chicken, beef, meatloaf, and more! They even have meals for special diets like Diabetic meals and Gluten Free meals. Check out their website here.

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US NATIONAL WHITEWATER CENTER This is a great, fun place lots of people forget we have in Charlotte. For an adventurous mom, a gift of adventure at the Whitewater Center would be a great gift. One year, for my birthday, a friend gave me a Canopy Tour at the Whitewater Center, and it was an incredible time! Guides take participants through a series of ziplines and platforms around the Whitewater Center. There are lots of other activities at the Whitewater Center, as well. Check out their website herehttps://usnwc.org/.

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BY D GRACE OF GOD PRODUCTS While watching CBS Sunday Morning, I saw a story that I had seen before but forgotten. It’s the story of a man who received an unsolicited Facebook message from someone in Liberia. Believing it to be a scam, the recipient proposed that the sender take some photos of the living conditions in his area. After receiving some photos from him, he realized the man in Liberia needed a better camera. He mailed him a camera with which to take photos, thinking he’d never hear from him again. But he did. The story is a touching one, and worth a readhere. The two men are now in business together, selling photos of Liberia and more. You can purchase their productshere. When you give Mom her gift, tell her the story behind it, and she will be thrilled to be a part of it.png_book_1024x1024.png

Whatever you choose to do for your mother, remember…you only have one mother. After mine passed away, a friend said to me, “I cannot imagine losing my mother. I don’t have any other family.” I said, “You have your husband!” She said, “I can get another husband. I can’t get another mother!” Of course, we laughed.

Spend some time with your mother and do something thoughtful for her this Mother’s Day. These were some suggestions, but every mother is different. Do something she will like.

God bless mamas.

XOXO,

Kelly