I’m on my way to a two day conference in Washington, D.C. 

I’m wearing clicky shoes.

I’m carrying a brief case.

My purse does not fit a diaper.

I’m going to drink alcohol with ice in it.

I’m going to take a bath in a clean tub, and I won’t have to scoop plastic African animals out of it first.

I’m wearing mascara and permanent bronze lipstick.

I’ve memorized ten intelligent things to say.

I’m going to drive by George’s place to throw him the bird.

I’m trying very hard not to gloat.

Spring To-Do List of a Teenager:

1. Make appointment at tanning salon

2. Buy black toe nail polish

3. Get snake tattoo on ankle

4. Make Mom take me to Payless for BOGO.

5. Cut off last year’s short shorts to make them this year’s short short shorts and ask Mindy, Marcie, Melanie, and Melissa if they make my butt look fat

6. Buy fake tanning lotion and Nair

7. Use fake tanning lotion and Nair on entire body and learn to regret it due to the inevitable itch

Spring To-Do List of a Twenty-Something Woman:

1. Make appointment at Tanning Salon

2. Get legs, panty-line, and upper lip waxed

3. Buy sexy underwear at Victoria Secret

4. Book vacation in Daytona

5. Sign up for extra weekly spinning class

6. Get a pedicure and a manicure

7.  Go one shade lighter on the highlights

Spring To-Do List of a Thirty-Something Woman:

1.  Shower

2.  Take in maternity suit.  A little

3.  Shave left leg to knee on Monday and right leg to knee on Wednesday

4.  Buy SPF 50 sun screen

5.  Buy more scrunchies and hair bands

6.  Sign up for mommy and me swimming lessons

7.  Order Turbo Jam

Spring To-Do List of a Forty-Something Woman

1. Pluck chin hairs

2. Shave ankles

3. Renew anti-depressants

I have some business to take care of here at SNM (I’ve just realized how cool that sounds - I’ve always wanted to write an S & M blog.) Forgive me while I blow my own horn because Greeblemonkey has given me an award: This is what she had to say:

“If Meg wasn’t way hotter than me, I would think we were twins. I can’t think of a post she has ever written that I haven’t screamed “Can I get an AMEN!?!?” at the end of.”

Okay, about the hot part, Greeblemonkey has never actually seen me and is going on the very few pictures I’ve posted of myself which are all at least sixty years old. About the rest, can I get an Amen?!?!?

Aimee gave me my very first award like a million blog years ago and pretty much put me on the blogging map. Any time I’m passing on awards, she’s the first on my list. She’s a daily read even on my busiest days. Plus, she knows how to do magical things like make some words red and get her archives to pull down, not to mention her photography is amazing!

And now I have to pass on this award to ten bloggers minus one because I’m pretty sure I just gave it back to Aimee.

2. OKAY, FINE, DAMMIT

Maggie has become another daily read and I’m quite sure she’s received this award already hundreds of times. Maggie has a way with words that inspires me. She is a story teller. She has an ability of letting you into her world and into her heart so you feel like you’ve known her forever.

3. The Well Read Hostess

I know you might be getting bored with my obsession, but she makes me laugh out loud every single day, and sometimes even twice a day. I have a feeling this woman’s weekly grocery store list is funny.

4. Family Clay

Clayjack is a new blogger and, HE’S A MAN! This is the first Daddy blogger who has caught and actually held my attention. He’s also just about the nicest guy you’d ever meet. Virtually.

5. From Here to There

Natalie has a way of being so human and so honest, she makes it easier to be me. I’ve followed her journey for a long time now and I love how she is always growing and striving to be all she knows she can be.

6. The New Girl

Who is not so much the new girl any more. I’ve so enjoyed watching TNG grow as a first time mother. She has a wicked sense of humor and her writing is beautiful. So is The Littlest New Girl!

7. Magpie Musings

I usually shy away from bloggers who are this intelligent, but she also lets her daughter dress like this, which makes us automatically members of the same very cool club. I’m so drawn to Magpie’s life in a quiet little house outside of New York City. Somehow our lives are as different as two snowflakes, but they keep falling on the exact same spot.

8. All Adither

If All Adither didn’t live on the other side of the country, I would park myself in her kitchen and never leave. She has a way of making you feel that comfortable.

9. The HG-Spot

If you can get beyond the whole Battlestar Galactica thing, HG is always funny and has recently gotten her bloggy groove on. It’s best if you believe in fairies if you’re going to read this blog.

10. Whimsy

Treat yourself to a trip to The Creamery. Whimsy, new mom to baby Bean, brings back the sweetest memories for me of the very beginning.

Hanlie, another Excellent blogger, gave me this award:

Before I bore the non-bloggers to bits, here’s my quick list of bloggers who know how to chat. I’m sure I could talk to them for hours:

Kathy Likes Pink

Sweet Home Alabama

Our Crazy Life

CEO Mom

The End of Motherhood?

Rainy Day in May

I could go on and on… but I’ll stop there before I lose the last of my readers.

On the subject of awards, I know I don’t get to comment on all of the blogs I’d like to as much as I’d like to, especially when I read them off my Google Reader, but if there’s an award for the funniest commenter, I think it should go to me. Let’s face it: I slay me.

I’m filching from WRH today because we’re back together.

Just to get it out of the way for those family members and close friends, so you don’t have to frantically scan the list for validation, I don’t believe in being on time. There. I said it. Ya happy?

1. Scientology. I have never and will never embrace Scientology even if I refuse to shoot the messenger.

2. Resolve Carpet Cleaner. If you actually tested the contents of those bottles, my guess is you’d find flat club soda and White Shoulders. It’s worthless. I’m all over Spot Shot though. (It does not take black Sharpy out of couches.)

3. Squirrels. Nathan has done this to me. What exactly is the value in the squirrel beyond chewing through the wires in our attic, tormenting my 12 year old dog, tipping over the squirrel-safe bird feeder, and laughing at me when I swerve to hit them in the road? Oh, wait. That’s commercial animation. Rats with tails.

4. The family bed. Please don’t hit me. I think very often the family bed is an excuse to insulate oneself from both physical and emotional intimacy with one’s partner, especially when the child/children need a parent in the bed to go to sleep.

5. Thank you cards. I carry around the guilt for every thank you card I haven’t written or, more accurately, wrote and never mailed, for the last twenty years. Why must we have such baneful torture practices in such an advanced civilization? Didn’t I say I loved it when I opened it? Please, please, please, Emily Post; could you make it so that counts? For all those who are still waiting: Thank you, thank you, thank you!

6. Waiting until the umbilicus falls off before bathing a newborn. We’re the only country that does that. There’s absolutely no reason other than to speed up the falling off process and to force women who stink from their own bodily contraptions after child birth to snuggle close to something that smells like the inside of an old thermos.

7. Spontaneous combustion. If I didn’t do it this week, it couldn’t possibly exist.

8. Political polls. Pascal said it best: we want to be deceived.

9. The sugar blues. Please. Nothing brings more joy to more people in this whole world than chocolate.

10. Forty is the new thirty. I beg your pardon; forty is the new twenty six.

Filch on, Friends!