Blogger Love and Odes to the Kittehs

I’m way behind on my Blogger Awards, so here’s a little catch-up:

Thanks to Lisa Gail Green for the Mommy Blogger award. I love it! This is likely the only Mommy-related award I will receive this summer, as I’m perfecting the art of yelling at my kids (“Stop fighting or the computer’s off for a week! I swear I mean it this time!”).

Thanks also to Margo Berendsen for the ten favorite things award. This one requires I divulge 10 things that make me happy. Now, of course my family and friends and good health and all that. But what are the top ten things that bring an instant smile to my face on the bleakest August afternoon?

1: Tea, black, no sugar, and don’t even think about milk
2: Green Day
3: Sunshine without humidity
4: Glee
5: Kitten toe warmers
6: Praise for my writing
7: Star Trek in any form
8: Chocolate in any form
9: Jude Law
10: Clockwork anything <– a recent addition

And finally thanks to Joanne Brothwell for the Versatile Blogger award! Just to show how versatile I am, I’ve converted all my lovely blogger awards to a slide show on the side bar —> It’s rather awesome, if I say so myself.

This one requires that I share seven things about myself, and since you already know what makes me happy, I’ll share seven things I’ve done that maybe seemed crazy at the time, but that I don’t regret:

1) Drive across the country by myself – twice
2) Take a helicopter ride over a volcano
3) Have 3 boys
4) Leave California when I graduated from college, never to return (except to visit)
5) Apply to the astronaut training program
6) Fly to Ely and canoe and portage the Minnesota Boundary Waters – all in 48 hours
7) Write a novel

What crazy thing have you done and not regretted?

And I have TWO BONUS selections from the Summer Journals. Poetry has rated highly in journal entries thus far, probably because of the low word count. The endless fascination with the cats is a little harder to explain.

Cats
by Mighty Mite (7 years old)

Cats are crazy, cats are fun.
Cats are cooler than a ton.
Cats can climb up trees we can’t.
It’s the cats.

The Ballad of Techy Flycatcher
by Dark Omen (11 years old)

Techy started out like all normal cats
She ate some crunchies and stole some hats
She slept on this, she tore up that
She drank some milk and clawed up Pat*
Soon to be the greatest of all the cats.

Have you ever seen a greater cat?
Have you ever seen a greater cat?
Have you ever seen a greater cat?
Than Techy Flycatcher?

But then she cornered that big old fly
Had him there, wouldn’t let him by
Though Daddy struck the final blow
It’s Techy who’ll be revered so.

You’ve never seen a greater cat!
You’ve never seen a greater cat!
You’ve never seen a greater cat!
Than Techy Flycatcher!

*RL friend who was once greeted unkindly by Techy

p.s. Come back tomorrow for a Guest Post by Adam Heine: Boy Books!