Earlier today my boys left the house so they could run some errands. In addition to returning a used car battery to Costco (don’t ask), they needed to buy wiper fluid, engine coolant, milk and eggs so that I could whip up a tasty little Poison Pie for supper.

Oh, I kid about making a poisonous dessert.

And besides, I only use engine coolant in special casseroles.

Anyway, they returned with everything on their list. Plus a couple of extra items.

Twenty-four. Krispy Kreme. Donuts.

In my house.

Shoot me now.

There’s a treat for you over on my links page.

Well, I mean, it’s a treat if you’re a fan of choreographed dance routines performed by characters with names like Troy, Gabrielle and Sharpay.

By the way, I couldn’t tell if the new movie has dance routines featuring basketballs or golf clubs, but…FINGERS CROSSED!

I’ve been working on a post off and on for the last couple of days, but last night I saw this meme over at JMom’s blog and thought I’d play along.

Because that post I’ve been working on? DRIVING. ME. INSANE.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

Living in Baton Rouge and getting ready to close on our first house. It was white with green shutters and the kitchen floor had a pronounced slope. Also: the hallway was so narrow that two people couldn’t walk down it side by side.

But it was a great little place for us. We had wonderful neighbors and went to Marble Slab with them just about every single night. When I wasn’t eating ice cream, I was teaching at a Christian school, and my time there was life-changing. No one was more surprised by that than I was. I still can’t think about those students – who are now oh-so-grown – without getting all teary-eyed. I’m totally crashing their reunion in a couple of years.

Favorite Snacks

pita chips and hummus

diet Coke over ice

a scoop of peanut butter, I’m not even kidding

pretty much any form of cheese

To Do List

I love a to-do list – mainly to try to keep myself organized. And I like to WRITE OUT my list because typing the list on the computer is not at all the same, NOT AT ALL. Give me a notepad, a fine point Sharpie and a little patch of quiet, and I will flat map out our day. I’m a fan of the to-do.

Today my list consists of the following:

1) take a shower (EVERYBODY NEEDS A GOAL)
2) movie with Alex
3) make Costco list for D.
4) phone call @ 2 with BP (a person, not the oil company)
5) change sheets
6) LAUNDRY
7) conquer a little bit of the email mountain
8) work on some stuff for my, well, work
9) edit podcast (you didn’t even know we still did those, did you?)
10) cook supper
11) write something (again: GOALS! I HAVE THEM!)

Jobs I Have Had

Babysitter, sales clerk in a gift shop, administrative assistant-y type person, teaching assistant, receptionist / proofreader at a printing company, teacher, whatever-my-husband-needs-me-to-do for his business, “writer”

Places I Have Lived

Mississippi, Georgia (just for one summer), Louisiana, Alabama.

So basically, you know, the Deep South.

Bad Habits

procrastination, worry, caffeine, eating too much, exercising too little, impatience

5 Random Things People May Not Know

My husband and I met in Sunday School. When we were seven.

I never moved until I went to college. I lived in the same house in the same town with the same two parents for the first eighteen years of my life.

The summer before my senior year of college I wrecked my mama’s car in the Winn Dixie parking lot. Mama blamed my faulty driving on the fact that I drank too much wine at my cousin’s wedding. FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT.

When I was in high school I was obsessed – OBSESSED – with “Moonlighting.” I had every single episode on videotape and can still quote them to this day.

I have a mental list of Random Things I Think Are Funny. And when I meet a person who happens to mention one of those things in conversation, IT MAKES ME GIDDY. Which is why I squealed and clapped my hands when I sat across the dinner table from Missy and Annie one night at SheSpeaks.

CDs I would want if stranded on an island

The Best of Passion (So Far), James Taylor, Indigo Girls, Dave Barnes, John Mayer

What I’d Do if I Were a Billionaire

1) Pay off anything that needed to be paid off.

2) Buy a small-ish place on some large body of water – because that’s something our whole family would use and enjoy for years and years to come.

3) Put aside a chunk-o-money for the little guy’s college / mission trips / grad school / whathaveyou. Same for any future young’uns, not that I know if there will be any future young’uns, but if there are, well, you get the idea.

4) Refuse to live extravagantly.

5) Donate generously to our church and other organizations we support – especially Compassion.

6) Take my whole family on a trip to Africa (siblings, in-laws, nieces, nephews, cousins – EVERYBODY).

7) Eat Popeye’s fried chicken at least twice a week. Because I have a very fancy, discriminating palate.

So. I guess that’s about all. I have completed my annual meme.

I feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment as I’m sure you can imagine.

And if you want – you’re it!

This post of Angie’s is absolutely beautiful.

Last week when Alex was going up and down the pool slides four or nine hundred times every afternoon, I had plenty of time to ponder Many Deep Thoughts of Staggering Thoughtfulness. And I would like to talk about one of those thoughts at this juncture, oh thank you.

Here it is.

There are a lot of people who go to the pool without ever getting in the pool. They just sit beside the pool. And then, if they do get in the pool, they do not put their heads in the water.

I do not understand.

Because to me the no-swimming option at the pool is like going to the movie theatre, paying for a ticket and then standing in the lobby for the entirety of the feature presentation.

BECAUSE YOU’RE MISSING ALL THE FUN, YOU SEE.

I mean, if I’m going to put on a swimsuit? And wear it in public? Well, I’m dang skippy gonna get some kind of reward for that, and I can’t think of any better reward than SOME RELIEF FROM ALL THE HEAT.

I have given this some thought, as you can tell.

So what about you at the pool? Are you a sideliner? Or a swimmer?

I long to know more.

Well, we’re home.

And I’m still in just a little bit of that post-beach fog. You know, the fog where you wake up and miss the water and the sand and then you wish that there were forty-five restaurants within rock-throwing distance where people would happily serve you all manner of seafood.

Unless you get to one of those restaurants around 7:00 at night, at which point you have better odds of turning into a fish than sitting down at a table and being served one.

The neatest part of the whole trip was that we got to see our families so much. In addition to David’s brother’s family being there, my aunt, uncle and cousins were right down the road, and we spent almost every afternoon at their place. Their condo had a bunch of pools – complete with elaborate water slides – so it was pretty much Kid Heaven. The little man had a blast playing with his cousins.

And I had a blast finding new and inventive ways to protect myself from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.

This was officially the vacation where Alex fell in love with every single aspect of a beach trip: the waves, the sand, the sun, the sunsets, the pools, the cheese sticks at The Oyster Bar, the family, the sleeping late, the whole deal.

And it was heavenly. Every single bit of it.