So, I posted on Facebook this morning that I have over 8,000 things on my to-do list today. It certainly feels like that! And blogging wasn’t on the list. But, I’m still drinking my coffee, which means I have an excuse to kill time online while doing so. And it struck me that there are few memes for Saturdays. So, I looked around to see if I could find one, and this one looks like fun! If you are so inclined, click over there and join us!

1. Have you ever been to Japan? If not would you like to travel there?

I haven’t been to Japan, and in all honesty, I don’t have any real desire to go. I mean, if I won a trip or something, I’d go. But it’s not a place I’ve ever dreamed of going. That’s basically true of most of Asia. Chalk it up to a fear of squatty potties! LOL

2. Have you ever played a game that required removal of clothing?

Evoking my Miranda rights…

3. Have you ever dated one of your best friends?

Uh…wow. That requires quite a long trip down memory lane. Seems like I vaguely remember some awkward kissing with a guy who was just a friend, but I couldn’t for the life of me give you his name.

4. Have you ever kissed someone you didn’t know?

Yes.

5. What is your secret guaranteed weeping movie?

Oh, there are two: Steel Magnolias and The Joy Luck Club. I know that Shelby’s going to die, but when it happens, I bawl like a baby. And when June meets her sisters in China, dang if I don’t tear up every single time!

6. What feature are you most insecure about?

My belly. Weight has always gathered there. I always look bloated or ten months pregnant even when I’m not. Having three babies just made it even worse. And when I lose some weight, it gets all weird and squooshy. If I ever get thin and rich, that sucker’s getting lopped off!

7. What do you miss most about being young?

True boredom. As an adult, there is always something that needs doing. And having the energy to do it all — energy is totally wasted on the young!

8. Who is the most annoying musical artist EVER?

I can only choose ONE? Spinning the Annoying Musical Artist wheel and it lands on — Neil Diamond! Oh, it just clicked over to Barney.

9. Have you ever applied for a job that was an internet hoax, asking for credit history and your social security number?

Heavens, no! I guard that stuff very closely, thank you.

Only time for a quickie top ten list this week: Ten Things that popped into my mind when I thought about things I love!

1. My amazing, all-loving, all-powerful God.

2. My stubborn, loves-his-kids, faithful husband.

3. My precious, smart, loving children.

4. My big fat snuggle buddy of a cat, Max.

5. My vicious, wimpy, funny dog, Annie.

6. Lovely, crunchy, warmly colorful fall leaves.

7. Trading candy with my boys from their Halloween stash.

8. Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

9. Friends. What would I do without them?

10. Moments of solitude.

(And no, I didn’t mean to rank friends below leaves, candy and coffee—I typed as things popped into my mind, and I just so happened to be drinking some pumpkin spice coffee as I looked out my window and Eli asked if I’d trade a lime Tootsie Roll for a chocolate one! LOL)

Make your own Top Ten list and share it here.

1. Berleen is sending you away again. You can travel anywhere in the world; one destination per day from Friday through Monday. Where do you go and why? I would go back to Scotland with our kids and visit all of our old haunts around Dunoon. The next day, we’d go to Toward Castle. Then I’d zip down to England and spend a day in London and another with our friends near Portsmouth. And then I’d be exhausted and wishing we could stay longer.

2. Would you keep a secret from the closest person to you if you thought it was in their best interest? Yep.

3. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you that you have not revealed in some other crazy meme. I absolutely despise having to wear reading glasses and have not read a single book for pleasure since I had to start wearing them.

4. You can have three wishes (for yourself, so forget all the ‘world peace etc’ BS) – what are they? To have a daughter or two, to be thin (with no sagging skin as will be inevitable if I ever do lose all the weight), and to be rich enough to live comfortably.

5. If you could change anything about your living situation, would you? Yes. I would move to a much larger house or add a second floor to this one.

6. Who is your favorite character from a comic strip? Please post one strip for us to laugh at. Lots of favorites, but one is Wanda from Baby Blues. (Click strip to view larger.)

7. Now we have found you dead. What five people do you want to MEET in Heaven? The babies I miscarried and never got to know, and my great-grandparents. (That’s more than five. Sorry.)

8. So since you are dead, what will the title of your life story be? “A Splash of Pink in a House of Blue”. Naturally!

9. Word association time! What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see the word pleasure? I like to maintain a “G” rated blog, so I’ll pass on this one, thanks.

10. Kimber is by the Arizona ocean. She finds a message in a bottle. What does it say? Well, if it’s Arizona, it would be a bottle in the desert. And the message would probably begin with “Press ’1′ for English.”

For more Thursday Thunks, click here.

Baby food peas with a spoonful of jarred ham mixed in, a dish of peaches, oatmeal with vanilla yogurt and cinnamon, and a cup of water.

In addition, he had a MumMum’s rice cracker in one hand, and a mesh feeder of chopped red grapes in the other.

Take a bite of cracker, then a slurp of grapes. Then shiver from the tartness of the grapes. Slurp up a few bites of baby food. Take a long gulp of water. Repeat until full.

Then it’s time to strip down for a bath.

His favorites, besides being naked for the bath? The rice cracker, the peaches and the water. He just loves his sippy cup of water.

He hasn’t had juice yet, which is fine with me. I might not give him any until he’s much older. All three of my kids are great water drinkers and I think it’s because it’s what they got used to having with meals as infants.

It’s fun to watch him try new things. So far his most hated food is green beans—just like his brother, Eli!

For more Wordful Wednesday posts, visit Seven Clown Circus.

2. Summer in Georgia is one miserable, humid, too-long, grueling nightmare to slog through before gorgeous, cool autumn returns!

3. One slightly enjoyable thing about summer: getting to wear all my fun flip flops.

4. To love someone is a choice—the feelings are nice when they are there, but true love is a choice to stick with that person no matter what.

5. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been on a long hike.

6. When I crave food, it’s usually something I haven’t had in a while.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to chillaxin at home, tomorrow my plans include softball, grocery shopping, cookie baking and cleaning, and Sunday, I want to go to church, have an early Memorial Day cookout with my family, then go to small group at the Caldwell’s gorgeous house!

For more Friday Fill-Ins, click here.

A long weekend is a fabulous thing indeed!

2. Where’s your picket fence?

In my dreams, around that beautiful old Victorian home I hope to own someday.

3. With a big smile on your face, you do what?

Welcome my husband home after work, and pass off the baby!

4. If I was to walk up to you, you’d do what?

I’d smile and say hello.

5. The list goes on and on. What list?

The to-do list around this house. It never, ever ends. Ever.

6. Does every rose have a thorn or does every thorn have a rose?

Isn’t that basically the same thing?

7. Talk dirty to me. What kind of mop/vacuum/dust thingymabob do you use?

I have a Rubbermaid string mop with a neat wringing feature, some kind of industrial vacuum whose name I forget because we inherited it second-hand a few years ago, and Swiffer dusters.

8. Your Mamma don’t like to fly and your Daddy don’t like to stay on the ground. Makes travel very interesting!

9. Ever had a suitcase packed by your feet, and if so where were you going?

Waiting to go to the hospital to have my first baby.

10. Have you ever ridden in a limousine?

Just once, in Hollywood of all places, when I went there to be featured in a documentary called Muse of Fire.

11. I went to bed too soon and got up to feed the baby?

12. “And this last mile I travel with you “, to where?

Probably to Target or Publix. Those are the only places I seem to go these days!

For more Thursday Thunks posts, click here.

That’s one thing I kind of miss from the days when my kids went to school. I should have an awards ceremony for our little homeschool. I think both boys deserve a medal for working around the baby this year. I bet that’s one you won’t see given out in the public schools!

Anyway, it’s been a little frustrating around here the past week, and I thought of all the fine awards I’d have won if anyone had been looking. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. “Symptom Dimwit of the Year” -BOTH my older kids had been sick for days before we finally took them to the doctor. Turns out they both had strep and needed antibiotics. Poor kids. I’ve been around this block before—why didn’t I realize sooner that vomiting + sore throats (usually) = strep?

2. “Best Sliding Save” when I dove over and caught Jonah just before he tumbled off my bed. (I’d been nursing him, he was asleep, and I thought I could sneak off for a quick potty break and make it back before he woke up. Wrong!)

3. “Scariest Shopper in Target”- Hold on to your hats. I was actually brave enough to go shopping without a drop of makeup on my face. I never do this. But I did.

4. “Master of the Swiffer Duster” – did some serious decluttering and dusting in my bedroom. And yes, my old feather duster sang “Who’s That Lady?” as I worked. For real.

5. “Most Unsympathetic Wife” – I won this while Donnie was sitting on a heating pad with a backache all weekend. Part of me felt bad for him, yet another part of me (the part that’s been through unmedicated induced labor—twice—and a c-section, and suffers daily from autoimmune arthritis pain, meaning that pretty much everything I do on any given day is accompanied by pain, that part of me) wasn’t very patient with him, I’m afraid.

6. “World’s Latest Removal of Easter Decor” – Yeah, I finally took down all the Easter decorations. I’d kept them up so long due to sheer laziness the fact that I like bunnies. Yeah, that’s it.

7. “Queen of the Shining Sink” – I will pat myself on the back for this one, because I hate doing dishes. (Zach and Eli have been delegated the dishes for a year or more. Eli unloads, Zach reloads and runs the dishwasher.) Well, with both boys sick for a week, dishwashing fell back into my lap, but guess what? I kept a good attitude about it! Shocking! But I didn’t enjoy it enough to pardon the kids from this chore. Sorry, boys. As soon as you’re better, it’s back to the sink.

8. I got an Oscar in the “Looking Calm While Panicking” category – I kept my cool appearance while Zach had a scary, struggling to breathe episode yesterday due to his chest congestion and swollen throat. My heart goes out to those whose kids have asthma. I’ve never experienced that with one of my children, and it was truly scary!

9. “Throwing In The Towel” -I’ve admitted defeat. I will never get all our clutter organized enough to have our own yard sale. So we are donating it all to our church’s yard sale later this summer. Sure, I’ll be helping out with that sale, but it’s nowhere near as daunting as organizing one of my own. And the proceeds go to a better cause anyway. (I’d probably blow our money on pizza and red-tag clearance items at Target.)

10. “Best in Baby Wrangling” I’ve had one cranky infant this week, but it turns out that the little guy was working on a new tooth that broke through today. That makes three, sparkling, little white toofies; two on the bottom and one on top. Which leads to next week’s award, “Persevering Through Breastfeeding While Being Bitten.”

For more Top Ten Tuesday posts, visit OhAmanda!

Wrestling with big brother…

Buddies for a lifetime…

Give me that camera!!!

Peek-a-boo! He was laughing his head off, but the minute he sees the camera, or any other gadget, he gets this glazed expression as he zones in on it. Then he tries to grab it. Typical guy—fascinated with technology already!

For more Straight Out Of the Camera posts, visit Slurping Life.

2. I’m looking forward to going to the beach this summer. Even if it does mean a day-long car ride with all the boys..and another day to drive back home again. A change of scenery, a ton of swimming, the salty ocean air–it will all be worth it!

3. Zachary coughing is what I’m listening to right now.

4. Potato salad must have chopped hard boiled eggs in it! Unless it is my Loaded Baked Potato Salad recipe, which is our all-time fave.

5. Trader Joe’s Wasabi Wow! Trail Mix was the best thing I ate today. Wasabi peas, almonds, peanuts, dried cranberries and golden raisins. It sounds odd, but dang, that stuff is addictive!

6. Today was pretty good so far…aside from Eli waking up sick. Viruses suck.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to further tweaking our homemade pizza recipe and another family UNO match, tomorrow my plans include Zach’s softball game–if he’s up to it–and some yard work, and Sunday, I want to go to church, then bake bread and a batch of THESE to take to our small group meeting that night!

For more Friday Fill-Ins, click here.

This week is going to be easy… just one question. Ok, well maybe not so easy. Take each letter of the alphabet and describe something in your life… don’t skip any!

A prayer a day keeps the doctor away. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.

Bacon. I don’t have any but I want some after reading with Eli about Laura Ingalls’ Pa butchering and smoking a pig. Yeah, proof I’m a Georgia girl. Gimme some smoked pork!

Croutons–garlic and cheese flavored. Eli and I snacked on some while reading today.

Donnie is fiddling around with our old ancient laptop and keeping an eye on the baby.

Eli is so wonderfully amusing and easy-going. Love my middle son!

Finances. Sigh. I don’t have to be rich to be happy. I’d just like to have enough that I can check our bank account without suffering a mini-panic attack.

Gorditas or spaghetti for dinner? That is the question.

How do full-time WOHMs do it all?

I am hungry. I should stop blogging and decide on something for dinner.

Jonah is like one solid chunk of muscle with a baby head on top. When I’m holding him and he lurches around in my arms, it feels like my joints are snapping out of place.

K shouldn’t be a silent letter at the beginning of any word. English is so weird. You realize exactly how strange through the process of teaching your kid how to read.

Lily is still the most psycho cat I’ve ever had, while….

Max lays flat on his back in the hall, like a fat, furry, feline speed bump.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen! (Anyone remember that old spiritual hymn?)

Our carport looks like an opening scene on the show “Hoarders.” I wish I were kidding. I miss having a real garage, with a door that closes!

Procrastination—it’s what I’m doing blogging instead of making dinner right now.

Quiet! I must say this at least ten times during every nap Jonah takes. God has a sense of humor in giving me a light sleeper for my third son!

Really hoping that we manage to sell 100% of that carport clutter at a yard sale, soon! (It’s all stuff that was stored at our old house, that we need to sort through. I’m kinda liking FlyLady’s advice that you can’t organize clutter; you just have to get rid of it.)

Savings accounts: what are those again, exactly?

This meme is not as easy as I thought it would be.

Unless you have juggled a fussy infant while simultaneously teaching two separate language arts lessons to two different boys, you cannot understand what it’s like to be me.

Vomit: let’s hope that Tuesday night’s episode w/Zach is the last I’ll see of that for a very long time!

Washing clothes is something I fear I will never, ever catch up on.

Xbox is one thing this family could totally do without. But I am completely outnumbered on this issue.

You would be astounded if you could smell how the one gardenia bush outside my window makes the whole house smell terrific! Yankee Candle could never duplicate this!

Zach has finally quit puking but is still under the weather, poor kid. He may be 12, but when he’s sick, he’s still my baby.