Caught in the Act & HOUSTON, We Have Lift Off!

Saturday night The Father Load and I went to see Eclipse. Since I know many of you lack my enthusiasm for the Twilight series, I shall spare you the gory details Jacob and Jasper are HAWT! We got home a little after 10 p.m. and chatted  a bit with my brother-in-law, who was visiting for the weekend and sitting for the girls. Hubs and his brother went downstairs to play Wii and I took the dog outside to potty a few minutes later.

When I stepped onto the front porch with Monster, he immediately started growling. I followed his gaze across the street and saw a gaggle of teenage girls frozen, looking at me. There was a ton of toilet paper hanging from my neighbor's trees. I smiled and gave them an enthusiastic thumbs up, but I think in the darkness they still weren't sure which team I was on.

They needn't have worried. I'm not so old that I've forgotten the fun of rolling (or "T-P" ing, as it's referred to in the Midwest) a cute guy's house.

One of the girls came running towards me from across the street and as she came closer I realized she was one of our babysitters. I started snorting with laughter and told her I'd keep her secret. She grinned, said a quick, "thank you!" and hurried back to join her friends. I dashed inside to call hubs and BIL up to witness the debauchery. By the time they came out onto the front porch, the getaway car (a minivan, no less) was waiting and the girls were finishing up their handiwork. The Father Load laughed and said, "Boy, they did a terrible job," and for a split second, I think we all silently considered running over to help them.

One of the few times I ever dared to participate in something like this I was 12 years old, and my parents figured it out and made me return the next day with my friends to clean it up. I made a mental note then that it was really stupid to roll my crush's house when he lived on the same street as I, only about five houses down.

I'd like to think when it's my kids doing the rolling, I'll be driving that getaway minivan.


P.S. Stay tuned for a green post on Friday, when I'll be linking up with Deb over at Menopausal New Mom. If you'd like to do your own green post then too and link up with us, we'd love it!

P.P.S. I will be heading to Houston the weekend of 7/16 to visit Lee the Hot Flash Queen and Tracie of Stir-Fry Awesomeness. If you live nearby and would like to get together, please give Lee a holla!

Tickled Pink Today With Holly of 504 Main

I'm Tickled Pink with Holly over at 504 Main because she's the genius behind this whole idea and it's a good way to help me appreciate the little things and take special note of everything around me. It's also a great way to meet new bloggers, share ideas, and have fun! Holly was one of my first few followers and has remained loyal despite her incredibly busy schedule, her new book deal, and her popular blog.

Today I am telling you about bloggers who have me Tickled Pink. It's about everyone else today, readers. It's about highlighting those who have made me pause, think, cry, swoon, and tweet from the mountaintops.

I am Tickled Pink with Mindy over at The Inquisitive Mom, who featured a touching and very real series about her father's battle with cancer. I'm linking to her post on it, but her sisters and her mom posted their memories as well. It was interesting to read the different perspectives, and my heart aches for their loss. I thought it was very brave of Mindy to share their stories in this type of forum and I hope you'll take the time to go and read them.
I am Tickled Pink with Cathy over at Antsy Pants who wrote this incredible post about Real Beauty. And she won Salt's Hootie giveaway this week, but I guess I can forgive her...

I am Tickled Pink with Tracie over at From Tracie, who wrote a very honest, important post about sexual abuse. It's also about parenting and protecting your children by teaching them what they need to know. Read it here.


I'm Tickled Pink with Tami of Hearts Make Family and Lee of Headaches, Hormones, & Hotflashes for starting up their amazing new gig, Raising Awareness Thursdays. These wonderful women are taking the time to bring us out of the Blogosphere and educate us. They're reminding us to think about things going on outside of our little blog bubble. Particularly poignant was last week's post on Multiple Sclerosis, which affects another bloggy friend of ours, MiMi over at Living in France. MiMi graciously shared her personal thoughts on the disease and I really learned a lot. Read her perspective here.

I'm Tickled Pink with Sunday over at Adventures in Extreme Parenthood. Not only did she bare her boobs and deal with that scare very well, but she wrote a lovely tribute to her best friend that made me cry. Because I wish I had a friend nearby like that...Sunday, I'm Tickled Pink for you!

I'm Tickled Pink with Naomi over at Organic Motherhood with Cool Whip. She wrote a phenomenal post this week entitled, "How To Train Your Dragon, which you can read here. It's all about parenthood and the frustrations that go along with it. Being worrried you're not doing it right, setting limits, setting boundaries....go visit Naomi NOW. Also, she's scraping together her Mom Prom Post today, so stay tuned!

Speaking of Mom Prom, I'm Tickled Pink with The Mommyologist for finding her niche and initiating this whole Bringing Mom Sexy Back thing. My Mom Prom was such a fun experience and I'm looking forward to whatever else Mary has up her sleeve. She's helping us prove that we are more than "just moms" and perhaps we've let our "selves" slip away gradually. But we can shimmy into a dress and some heels and instantly feel better. Be sure to watch her audition & vote for her video on the Oprah site!

I'm Tickled Pink with Traci over at 38 and Growing. She's an avid supporter of Heifer International, an organization devoted to fighting hunger and poverty. But it's not as simple as handing out food. Traci is accepting donations and matching many of them herself to buy a cow for Heifer International. Read about her plan here and make sure to leave a comment, because she'll donate $1 for every comment you leave. But hurry, because we only have a few days left!

I'm Tickled Pink with Stephanie over at The Blue Zoo. She's an amazing mom to her FOUR boys and in this groundbreaking and brutally honest post she was brave enough to show her mommy tummy. Stephanie had a tummy tuck last week and is recovering well. I'm thrilled for her, and I'm so impressed that she had the courage to show everyone how a woman's body changes during pregnancy. Get well soon, Stephanie!

Finally, I am Tickled Pink with my new owlette necklace on its way from Heidi. Make sure to visit her darling Etsy shop, Lizziboo Felt Creations. Heidi is so nice, works really fast, and sells darling things. I love animals, critters, and creatures of all kinds, so this is right up my alley, especially since I didn't win Hootie from Salt. But I'm not bitter because I've got my own Hootie coming! Isn't he sweet? So go check out Heidi's shop!

What are you Tickled Pink about? Write your own post and go link up at Holly's place!

Me in my Bumpits, Peeps to Follow (Round II) & Link to SNARKLER VLOG!

(This is me in all my BUMPITS glory during Snarkler. Sadly this vlog was too boring to air)

I don't do "awards" posts anymore. It's not that I don't love and appreciate them, it is simply that I am quite disorganized. I forget who awarded me what and what the rules are, and who I passed awards onto the last time. So in the future, I will simply be doing basic lists like these---passing along links to those bloggers I adore. I expect you to at the very least check them out, say hello, and leave a comment. If you like what you see, click on that "Follow" button. Spread the bloggy love!

Here they are, in no particular order:

Tami  @ 29 & Holding

MiMi from Living in France

Peeling An Orange With a Screwdriver

Maven @ A Fabulously Good Life

Sarah @ The Stroller Ballet

The Boob Nazi @ How Could You Not?!

Salt @ The Wife Diaries

Unabridgedgirl

June @ 3! A Charm

That One Mom @ The Only Parent Chronicles

Joey @ Big Teeth & Clouds

Polly @ 5th Sister

****And without further adieu, please go visit Lee over at Headaches, Hormones & Hotflashes. During Snarkler weekend, she, Daffy at Batcrap Crazy, Tracie at Stir-Fry Awesomeness and I did a vlog.Thanks to Daffy for all her hard work editing! View at your own risk here!

This is one of those shots where I agree I could use a little makeup. I look tired. Snarkler wore me out!

Lee needed some beer to get over her HOTFLASH!

What's Snarkler without goodies from my favorite nearby bakery, Dolce?

Snarkler 2010: It's Going to be Epic.

Many of you have noticed this cute button on my sidebar with the sparkly red shoes. Several months ago, these became the symbol for Snarkler, the first annual meeting of snarky bloggers held here in Kansas, the land of Dorothy, ToTo and all things Oz. In attendance will be Daffy of Batcrap Crazy, Tracie of Stir-Fry Awesomeness, Lee of Headaches, Hormones, & Hotflashes & CCWA , and me.

We've been looking forward to this for a long time and since I'm hosting, I'm nervous. I've met Lee and Daffy once before, but I'm sure Tracie will think I'm a freak. Moreover, we've never all been in the same room together. It could get interesting get your minds out of the gutter. Do you have any questions you'd like to ask one or all of us? We're planning on doing a vlog where we'll give you the answers. I can't promise my Tourette's won't resurface, especially if alcohol is involved. I've been so stressed and out of it lately that this weekend is just what the doctor ordered--FUN with girlfriends!

These lovely bloggers arrive here in KC on Friday, 3/5 and will leave on Sunday, 3/7. Therefore, if you have any submissions, NOW is the time to act. Leave 'em in the comments.

How To Achieve Comment Utopia

I am guest posting today over at Lee's CCWA blog on How to Achieve Comment Utopia. Like I'm some expert or something! Go check it out when you have a chance!


**Comments have been turned off.**

Are You Addicted to Comments? Then I Have the Support Group For You!

Do you crave lots of comments on your blog posts? Are you slightly obsessed? Then let me introduce you to CCWA, or Comment Crack Whores Anonymous, the brain child of Lee the Hotflash Queen.

Join the site, apply to be a featured member, and feed your addiction

in the comfort of others just like you!

**Comments have been turned off.**

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for Funky Mama's brand new cd! If your little ones love to sing, dance, and groove, they're sure to love her as much as my girls do!!

Blog Housekeeping or Why noreply.com gets you NO REPLY!

I love blogging, but there are a few things that frustrate me, so I'm going to tell you how to fix them in the words of two blog experts, Tami over at Hearts Make Families and Lee of Headaches, Hormones, & Hotflashes fame. They say it all so well that I'm not even going to bother.

Tami did a post last week and here's a brilliant excerpt:

I think I've been double taxing myself. I try to respond to every comment by email unless of course you have the no-reply blogger dot com that drives me nuts.


NO REPLY AT BLOGGER DOT COM

I hate it. I despise it. I want to respond to you all by email. I love responding by emails. I love talking to you all. I want to know about my readers. So I respond to every email I get. Until I see the hated "no reply at blogger dot com." To make it easy for you to remove it, I am going to post directions here for you:

Go to your Dashboard on Blogger.com. Hit your edit profile, right next to your picture, avatar or whatever else you have showing. Scroll down to the line that says : Show my email address and CHECK THE BOX. Hit save.

For those of you who do not want a regular email address to show, go to Gmail, Yahoo or any other number of places and get a FREE, yes FREE, email account and set it up.

WORD VERIFICATION


I hate hate this as well. I don't know why but my eyes do not do this well at all. Or I hit save and then close. Guess what happens? You don't get my comment and sometimes I don't realize. So I might have been commenting all along. Now to turn off this awful thing and to help all of your commenters' eyes, do the following:

Go to your Dashboard at blogger.com. Click on Settings, which is under the name of your blog. Click on Comments, which is on the top of the page. Scroll down until you see this: Show word verification for comments? Click the box that says NO. Click Save settings at the bottom of the page. Please do not leave this page until you have saved settings.

I am begging you to fix these things to help me get to know each of you even better in the future.
_______________________________________________________________________

Lee The Hotflash Queen wrote a post last October about the very same subjects:

**Disclosure. I am citing my own opinions and no other irritated bloggers encouraged or gave me sexual or monetary favors for the writing of this post. I am not responsible for any offended egos in the writing of this post.**


NO REPLY AT BLOGGER DOT COM
How I hate seeing this!! First of all, I can’t tell you how many times I have responded to comments from my email, because truly, some of the comments make me laugh so hard I snort, and then hit send only to realize that my email will be floating in never never land for eternity.

Where do these emails go?? Seriously. Where do they go??

I am not the type of gal who is going to respond to a comment in the post. I’m just not. I like to streamline. I like to hit reply on my email and then respond and hit send. Instead, I go to the respective blog to comment…which I do anyway…and then comment on the post they have written, thus not giving me an opportunity to respond to the numerous fabulous and hysterical comments I receive.

PEOPLE THIS MUST STOP! I am sure the blogger fairies are tired of trying to catch all my emails that are sent out there with no home!! So, I am going to teach you all how to change this, and I am going to do it in a way that there will be no more excuses!!
(end of excerpts/quotes)
and you can read on from there her explicit instructions....

Please please please, for the love of all that is bloggy, fix these things. It will make me more inclined to comment, reply, respond, etc.

THANK YOU!!!!!