Clemntine is BACK! You wanted to the second installment of The Great Redneck Room Swap of ’07 and here you have it.

Why Wasn’t I Born Rich?

Because being poor has more comedic possibility. I’m sure that’s it.

When
we left our heroine, the living room looked like Santa’s sleigh had
tipped over and all the elves had thrown up there. The former playroom
was empty, but that was the extent of the redecorating. The adventure
continues…

Saturday
morning dawned bright and warm. Gadget Man went to get vitamin-rich,
whole grain tofu-frosted…who am I kidding? He went for donuts so the
kids could get all hopped up on sugar because nothing improves
children’s behavior quite like deep fried, sugar coated carb rings. I
went to Sherwin Williams because starting ALL OVER sounded like such a
smart plan in the overall let’s-get-this-painting-party-started sense.

At
Sherwin Williams, I was greeted by Eric. Eric was old enough to shave,
so I knew I had made a wise choice. I described the project, showed him
my lovely curtain and threw myself on his mercy. Nearly sqooshed the
poor boy. He showed me his recommendation for color, demonstrated
color-washing with paint and glaze and took me around the store helping
me gather all of the necessary supplies. In less than half an hour, I
was out of there with my confidence and my plan. I love Eric. I
big-red-puffy-heart Eric. I want to marry him and have his little paint
brush babies. But that would have to wait. I had painting to do.

When
I got home, we got started. We taped and then we painted. While the
paint was drying in preparation for the color wash, the older girls and
I emptied their room.

Oh. My. Lord.

I
won’t go into details here because this is a family-friendly
environment, but let me put it to you this way: Their room resembled a
thrift store on the wrong side of town, run by racoons. BLIND racoons.
Oh, the nastiness! And it was the worst kind of nastiness: Stealth
Nastiness. Upon cursory glance, the room would look reasonably tidy.
Oh, ho HO! That tidy façade was merely a ruse, my friends. Under the
beds, in the closets and in every spare (hidden) inch of space was the
most macabre assortment of wrappers, dirty clothes, cups, plates and
sliverware ever seen by human eyes. Think Montel Show during Sweeps
when they go to the house of the pathological pack rat. The only thing
missing was a bald, black former marine. NO. WAIT. I think he was in
there somewhere. GAH!!

At
7pm I began to apply the color wash over the freshly painted playroom
walls. I finished about 9 and, if I do say so myself, it looked GREAT!
I’m wondering where Eric would like to honeymoon and whether Gadget Man
would mind watching the kids while we’re gone.

I kid.

So, with the room painted a lovely shade of
colorwashed blue, I decided to reward myself. I vacuumed the empty room
and then went to the garage to bring in my favorite grown- up toy of
all time: The Hoover Steam Vac.

I’d
like to take a moment here and extol the virtues of the Hoover Steam
Vac. I’m a little bit addicted to carpet shampooing. I routinely (every
6 to 8 weeks or so) shampoo the high-traffic areas of our house. I have
the house divided into sections and I do one section a week. The hum of
the motor, the smell of the shampoo (heavy duty,
pet-stain-and-odor-removing, outdoor fresh scent thankyouverymuch), and
the sight of the grody gray dirty water that I pour down the sink in
the utility room while exulting in the knowledge that my family isn’t
living on that crud any more: sheer bliss. It’s my little piece of
heaven, people.

I
shampooed and went to bed, aching in ways I haven’t ached since I took
that dare on the band trip to the Rose Bowl in 1984. It was then that I
realized that I really should have been born rich. If I were rich, I’d
hire a decorator who would in turn hire painters who had some clue in
Hades what they were doing and we would all be on vacation in Cancun
drinking fruity things with umbrellas in them. In this version of my
life story, I’m also a stunning beauty who ROCKS the gold lame’.

I
woke up on Sunday just as poor and twice as sore. Mom and I went to Wal
Mart (if Wal Mart ain’t got it, I don’t need it, I always say) and
bought Baby Redneck a toddler bed. It’s a teensy little sleigh bed in
natural finished solid wood. I put the bed together, moved her toys and
clothes in and draped everything in Dora- ness. Dora bedspread, sheets,
couch, and wall hangings. It’s a shrine to an obnoxiously cheerful
5-year-old whose parents let her travel the world chaperoned by a
monkey with a shoe fetish. I’ve never been more proud.

Monday
was spent cleaning up the residual mess and restoring the Redneck
Domicile to it’s customary state of disarray. My next goal was to
redecorate WonderBoy’s room. He had requested silver walls with Hoover
vacuum cleaner posters. Mmmmkay. Planning and doing, as you may or may
not be aware, are to entirely different things.

The next week, in a feat of grace and acrobatics, I broke my left
big toe and cracked my right shin, which put the redecorating on hold.
The week I got the boot off (in October), I broke my right thumb.
Thumbs are handy things. I don’t take mine for granted any more. I got
the cast off my thumb in January (that’s just over 3 months, for those
of you keeping score at home) and to celebrate, I picked up a Target
brand pregnancy test (you celebrate your way, I’ll celebrate mine)
since I hadn’t had a visit from Aunt Flo since, like, Thanksgiving. I’d
had a couple of hot flashes (read: had to actively restrain myself from
removing my top in line at the grocery — who knew?), so I was pretty
sure The Change, it was a-comin’.

Sunday, January 27, 2008 was my 40th birthday. I got breakfast from
my children, a certificate for a day at the spa from my hubby, and a
"+" sign from God. No. Stinkin’. Way.

Yes way.

So, we
installed bunk beds in Baby Redneck’s room and performed a
Dora-exorcism. Now WonderBoy and Baby Redneck share a funky
denim-and-primary-colored room, and the smallest bedroom is awaiting a
fresh coat of paint and all the "stuff" that we Westerners think we
need in order to nurture our offspring. The bad news is that I had
gradually given away every last piece of baby equipment we owned. The
good news is that my sweet friends have blessed me with their
no-longer-needed baby gear and we are back in Baby Business. Again. For
the 5th time. At age 40. Don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of
humor.

Jeana is my wild and crazy friend from Days To Come. She has the cutest kids, the nicest husband, and the best sense of humor. If you aren’t reading her daily, you are missing out! We knew we were kindred spirits when we discovered we both rode Ms. Gulch bikes and wear skirtinis. Please give Jeana a very warm welcome, then head over to her blog to add her to your Bloglines!

Growing up in Small Town, Texas I graduated high school with a Sounda
Cum Laude accent, which faded a little when I moved to Big City, Texas
and disappeared almost completely when I lived in Salt Lake City for
nine months. I’ve been back in Big City, Texas for thirteen years and
I’ve often wondered if some of my accent has come back, but of course
the people around here wouldn’t really notice if it had. I’ve always
"heard" myself as sounding somewhat intelligent with a small, barely
detectable regional dialect. I would make jokes about it, like when Veronica
pointed out that "pen" and "pin" are not the same word and I was all,
"Of course not, they’re homophones just like "are" and "our," but
really, I thought any accent of mine was negligible.

Until we spent almost six weeks in London.

Suddenly I was painfully aware of how often I say "ta" instead of "to" and "-in’" instead of "-ing".

As in, "We’re goin’ ta the park."

And in case there is any confusion, let me confirm right now that the
English, in general, do not understand the word, "y’all". I never
realized just how often I said it until I tried not to say it.

Teaching my youngest son to read has made me even more aware of how we speak. After the fun with letter cards,
we moved on to sounding out. My son has an ear for very subtle
differences in phonic sounds, which sometimes can cause him trouble. We
have conversations like this:

"T. Eeeeeennnn. Ten. What is ten?"

"The number ten? After nine?"

Silence.

"We probably pronounce it more like "tin"."

"Oh! Tin! Okay"

"G. Eeeeettt. Get. What does "get" mean?"

"Like you go get something?"

Blank look.

Y’all. I didn’t want to say it. I really
did not want to say it, because his reaction would confirm just how
much of a hick I was. But finally my desire for a literate child
overcame my pride.

"We probably pronounce it more like "git"."

"Oh! GIT! I git it!"

This readin’ thing is gittin’ ta be sorta bittersweet, y’all.

Give it up for Emily, y’all. She’s back with even more hilarious adventure. I tell you, the fun never stops with this one!

Since my last post shared an embarrassing story from my past, I thought
my second post could show that as far as embarrassing myself, I
continue on to this day.  This story takes place when my youngest son
was about 18 months old and we had just moved into our new dream home.
During the first inspection, the plenum under the water heater had
some moisture and the inspector said it needed to be checked out.
Well, we had it checked and all was fine for about 6 months, then it
was VERY wet underneath.

I set up an appointment with the appropriate professional and made sure
that my husband was there. Although he doesn’t have ANY idea about how
a house ‘works’, he does have the benefit of being male and this seems
to give him an "I know what you mean" kind of credibility with
mechanics, plumbers and other male dominated professions.  Plus, I like
the whole ‘united front’ look. 

The heating/AC fellow arrived and I
showed him the problem and started to explain, "this same thing
happened about 6 months ago.  As you can see, my perineum is VERY wet
and I don’t know what to do about it or how it happened." 

In my
peripheral vision, I could see my husband go through a series of
transformations.  First shock, then understanding, then silent
laughter.  Lots and LOTS of silent laughter.  I didn’t know what he
thought he was doing!  He was SUPPOSED to stand their and look
knowledgeable, not hide out of view.  He was SUPPOSED to support me.
Good grief, what was he DOING and what in the world was so damn
funny???

The very nice heating/AC man stated that he needed some time to
diagnose the issue, so I walked over to my husband (who thankfully was
not in the view of the service fellow, even peripherally) to see what
was his problem.  He just looked at me, still giggling and wiping the
laughing tears from the corners of his eyes and said, "do you KNOW what
you said??"  Well, of course I did.  He then sighed, he knows me oh so
well, and said, "Think about it.  Just think for a minute." 

Well,
crap.  Here we go again. 

Perineum vs. plenum, they sound similar,
right?  Don’t they? You understand don’t you?  Anyone who has had a
baby, even if they are almost 2, still understands that you suffer from
raging hormones and pregnesia after effects.  Why I had to say "my
perineum", I have no idea, unless my subconscious mind likes to laugh
at me too.

Veronica is one of my favorite bloggers. You can catch her daily at ToddledDredge. She’s smart and she’s sassy: two of my favorite things. If you’re not reading her, I demand to know why. Other than the fact that she has an unnatural grudge against the Oxford comma, I can’t imagine why anyone would not make Veronica a daily part their lives.

Hello, faithful readers of Chilihead.  I am Veronica and I usually blog at Toddled Dredge, where my blog is read faithfully by a handful of people that includes my brother, who is just finishing up his tour of duty in Afghanistan. 

When Chilihead asked me to guest post, I was thrilled, and decided that I would branch out into a topic unusual for my own blog: sex.  My brother, after all, keeps in contact with me primarily through my blog, and asking a man to risk his life for his country is one thing; asking him to read when his sister writes about sex is entirely different.

Some things really are beyond endurance.

When I was pregnant with my first baby, I read a few books about pregnancy.You probably did too.  And maybe, like me, you felt a creeping sense of horror if the book you read mentioned that childbirth stretches out your, ahem, lady parts.  Permanently.  Apparently this is a terrible secret that only mothers confess to other mothers, with much insecurity and grumbling.  I recall Jenny McCarthy’s book about pregnancy in which her then-husband claimed that sex with her after the birth of their child would be like "throwing a hot dog down a hallway."

Classy fella.  Amazing that their marriage didn’t last.

Anyway, I was pretty nervous about the whole post-childbirth experience.  What if I was no longer attractive, what if I was boring, what if, what if…   One moment’s thought might have reassured me on this issue.  If having a baby really ruined sex for all parties concerned, then every child would be an only child, wouldn’t it?

If you are wondering how it turned out for me, then just count my babies (I’m pregnant with number four).  The hype turned out to be just hype.  Sex actually got better after we had a baby or two.  Not the first time, mind you – sex the first time after a baby is born is like being a virgin again, and I do not mean that in a good way.  But the effects of childbirth, once we got past the exhaustion, also meant an ease and freedom to intimacy that we did not have before.

I don’t mean to sell it all as perfect.  If your husband is a comparison shopper of vaginas, then you will have problems.  But if your husband is that sort, then you already have the problem, baby or not.  But if you are waiting on that first or second baby and you are worrying that CHILBIRTH WILL RUIN YOU, then stop worrying.  It doesn’t.

If my experience is anything to go by, it just gets better.

My friend Emily has agreed to write a few guest posts while I’m off chasing Guy Kawasaki and other blog babes at BlogHer ’08. Won’t you please give her a hearty welcome and leave her lots of comment crack? She’s totally worth it!

When Chilihead offered me the opportunity to guest blog, I was
thrilled.  What an honor!  What a challenge!  Aarrgh, I haven’t written
in FOREVER, what on earth could I possibly say?  So, after much
thought, I’ve decided to regale you all with a story that is a favorite
of my boys.  My first day of first grade.

Let’s go back in time.  Keep going.  WAAAAAAAY back.  Now STOP.  It’s
1973 and I’m heading off to first grade in a new state and a new school
in Norfolk, Virginia (and yes, we were a Navy family).  My mother,
knowing the importance of a good first impression, had bobby-pinned my
hair the night before in circle curls, with the bobby-pins
criss-crossed in an X to hold them in place.  I was in a brand new
white dress, with coordinating ‘to the knee’ socks and black shoes.
Now, let’s just say ALL of this was for the sake of the ever so
important first impression, I was not a girly girl by any stretch of
the imagination.  I was a tom boy that lacked anything remotely
resembling grace and more times than not, was confused for actually
being a boy.

As was typical in my day, the school children waited outside the
building until the bell rang and only then would the school doors open
and you would move as a throng until you were lucky enough to find
where you were supposed to be.  It’s probably important at this
juncture to say how important school was for me.  I LOVED the smell of
my books, I was a complete brown-noser with my teacher (a veritable
treasure trove of the information I LONGED to possess), and yet, I was
also a hopeless introvert who shied away from any kind of communication
with other kids.

I was giddy with excitement waiting for the bell and was running all
around to burn off my nervous energy.  Meeting a new teacher was the
equivalent of meeting Neil Armstrong or, better yet, Gene Roddenberry
(okay, so I was a geek then too). 

Finally, the moment arrived.  The
bell rang and I ran for all I was worth in my new dress, new shoes and
fancy hair.  Because the shortest distance between 2 points is a
perpendicular line, I bee-lined for the door like a bat out of hell.
This was an unfortunate choice because while the other children
actually WATCHED where they were going, I was only keeping my mind on
the prize.  My new, not a scuff or groove flat bottomed shoes found the
edge of a tremendous mud puddle. Based on my velocity, there was no
hope for me.  My feet were sliding as if down a ski slope and the top
half of my body just couldn’t keep up.  I slid for a number of yards
before landing flat on my butt in the middle of the wettest, gooiest
part of the puddle.  Mud was caked all the way up my legs and IN my
dress.  This, of course, was the source of BUCKETS of hilarity for my
fellow school mates, who all stopped their migration towards the door
to take a reflective moment and laugh their heads off.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the end of my tale of woe.  When I quickly
stood up, a boy started pointing at me and shouting at the top of his
lungs, "LOOK everyone!  She has a DEAD FROG on her BUTTTTTTTTTTT!"

Well, crap.  So much for much for first impressions.  It could only get better
from there, right?

First, we had the "when are you going to get here?" phone call. I made
her feel at ease with meeting me by explaining I had just had my axe
sharpened and bought a new freezer so I could go all Jeffrey Dahmer on
her ass and she’d have her face on a milk carton come next week.

Couldn’t
bring myself to do it. She was too nice. Visiting nearby family at a
reunion she took a WHOLE DAY out to come see me. At my house and in my
town.

I took her to a point of interest just outside town. Wish
I could share it, she’s the one who took the picture. She helped me
walk the dog, I drove her around, we had lunch while on our laptops (a
wee bit, she had 1,287,932 emails to answer) and while we were
lunching, she said another couple of women kept looking at us the whole
time. They were jealous, because we’re cool. It’s hard to be so cool.
And lunch took forever because we kept TALKING so much.

I made her a shirt that she’s going to pimp at BlogHer where she is a speaker.
Dude. I had lunch with someone who knows "stuff" enough to SPEAK at BlogHer!  OMG!

Anyway,
don’t know about Chili, but I think we hit it off. We seem to have a
pretty similar temperament. And we already knew we had similar
Libertarian leanings. And she laughed at all my jokes. That gets you
superstar bonus points when you laught at my jokes. FYI.

We discussed a topic that I think she might have to put up as a tutorial on Blogging Basics.  How to tell a friend you really love as a person that their blog is boring.
We’re calling it a Blog Intervention. It just might need to be a new
service provided out there in the great big blogosphere. Kind of like
those letters you can have sent anonymously telling someone they have
bad breath. You know? Because you care. Same difference.

Then she ran some errands with my girls, and they were dazzling her with their ability to be cute and form complete sentences.

Meeting
someone in person for the first time that you already sort of feel like
you "know" could be fairly intimidating. I keep hearing about it over
and over in regards to BlogHer convention (family vacation at the same
time for me AGAIN, I wonder if I’ll ever make it!).

I’m going to
give this real live meet up a 9 out of 10. The only thing that would
have made it a 10 is if she’d been here long enough in the evening so I
could make us a kickass meal and then we could have sat out on my back
deck in front of the chiminea and had a glass of wine, or three.

PS)
Here is photographic proof we really look like the photos we post,
because somebody could put some random picture up but actually have
scary, greasy hair and a goiter. Our thanks to Emersyn for butting into
the photo and thanks to Sammie for taking the picture (yes, my 5-year
old took the picture in my yard because we kept forgetting to have
other people do it when we were out in public because we could not stop
TALKING)

Clemntine is one of those people that you just adore, sight unseen. She makes you laugh because we’ve all been there. She tells a story in way that makes you pee your pants, but shout, "I KNOW!" And if you should ever meet her in person, she is just as wonderful. My friends, I give you the hilarity of Clemntine. As she says, "Hilarity ensues."

Early last August, I decided to pull the trigger on the Great Redneck
Room Swap ’07. We had a 4 bedroom house and 4 kids. TeenQueen (16) and
Pixie (almost 11) shared one room, WonderBoy (nearly 8- YIKES!) and
Baby Redneck (2.5) shared another room and we had a playroom with a
second TV, the toys, the guinea pigs and a queen- sized sleeper sofa.
One Friday afternoon, all that changed. The former playroom would be
redone a la PBTeen for the older girls, and their former room would
become the Chamber of Her Royal Hiney, Baby Redneck. Wonderboy would
again have a room to himself.

At
that point, I was envisioning myself as the director of Extreme
Makeover, Bedroom Edition. I had on my lived-
in-but-still-cute-enough-for-a- closeup yoga capris and a Chicago (the
musical, not the band) tee shirt from the late ’80′s. Ponytail? Check.
Paint chips? Check. Enthusiasm? Oh, checkidee doo da day! I’m ready for
my closeup, Mr. Pennington…

I
told the kids to empty the playroom while I zipped over to my friendly
neighborhood Home Depot. I could do it, I told myself, and they could
help. Except, you know, NOT. The paint counter was mysteriously
unmanned (or unwomanned, as the case may have been), but nothing was
going to deter me. I had my Pool Multi Tie-Top Curtain and I boldly
approached the Periodic Table of Paint Color Possibilities. In the
movie of my life (you know, the one where I’m played to subtle
perfection by Rachel Dratch), the soundtrack to this scene will be
Donna Fargo’s Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A. "Shine on me sunshine,
walk with me world it’s a skipadee doo da day…"

An
hour later, still no Paint Expert in an orange apron, and I had looked
at the dizzying array of colors so long that one of my eyeballs
actually rolled out of my head and had to be retrieved from under the
You Can Spackle! We Can Help! display. Pool Multi Curtain and I can
take a hint. We blew that popstand and made a beeline to Lowe’s.

At
Lowe’s, I was greeted by not one, but TWO Home Improvement Specialists!
Rapture! One was a fresh-faced youth who looked about 9 and the other
was a hormonal pregnant woman. The evening was ripe with possibility.
Ripe, I tell you.

When
I left Lowe’s at 9:30pm, I had tamed the Periodic Paint Table and
narrowed the choice down to five possibilities, which Helpful Hormone
Mama suggested through charmingly gritted teeth that I purchase in
$2.50 Auditions 8oz. samples. I left with my samples, a roller and a
bag of rags because, really, those raggy rags I have at home surely
can’t be good enough for Extreme Makeover, Bedroom Edition. Right?
Right.

I
walked in the door and found that my darling, obedient children had
indeed emptied the playroom. Into the Living Room. Which was now
ankle-deep in racetracks, Dora dolls and Game Cube wire. With just a
little Silly Putty, I could’ve made a time machine, but darn it, I just
didn’t have the time. Pity.

We
painted a few practice boards and I tried a couple of faux finishing
techinques that I had seen on TV. Where they do entire houses in 30
minutes, making us mere mortals think that we too are capable of DIY-
greatness. I’m telling you this because I love each and every one of
you and because most of you have quit reading long before now: faux
finishing and pro wrestling have a lot in common. Don’t say you weren’t
warned.

So,
to recap, Friday at bed time, my living room looked like the Clean
Sweep people’s yard before the Keep, Sell, Toss segment and for my 4.5
hours of paint-shopping, I came home with enough to lightly coat
Barbie’s Townhouse and Beach Cabana. Once. If Chili has another guest
spot open, maybe I’ll come back and tell you The Rest of the Story. Or
maybe I’ll just skip ahead to the part where, a short 10 months later,
we’re rearranging again for "Is it Menopause? NO! It’s a Baby!"
Hilarity ensues.

Jenny is an award-winning TV-watcher, peanut-butter-from-the-jar eater
and chore-avoider who usually can be found blogging at Absolutely Bananas and Seattle Mom
Blogs. Ok, ok, so she actually didn’t win awards for any of those things.  But she should have.  She definitely should have.

We’re sitting in our front yard enjoying the cool shade and even cooler beverages when CJ (our five year old) announces, “I have something to show you!”  He races around the house and comes back with his hands cupped around his latest treasure.

“Mommy, daddy, look!  I have a pet moth!”

CJ opens his hand to reveal a rather large brown moth.  Upon seeing freedom, the moth scurries to CJ’s fingertips … leaps… and plummets to the ground in a flurry of flapping, where it proceeds to hop about.

Jay reaches down and picks the moth up.  “What’s WRONG with this guy?”  He holds it close to his eyeballs and peers closely.  “It’s like… deformed.”

He holds the deformed moth out for me to examine.  To be honest I’m mostly uninterested in the plight of this latest insect… my sangria is doing a good job of holding my attention.  But I give the moth in Jay’s hand a cursory glance, just to be polite.  “Mm hmm”

“No seriously look!” Jay insists, “His wings look like they never developed. They’re puny.”

I look closer and, sure enough.  The moth looks strange and ungainly, with a stout body and teeny tiny little wings.

As I’m watching, the moth crawls to the edge of Jay’s hand and leaps off, his tiny wings frantically beating.

Flllllppppat!

He hits the ground upside down with his little legs kicking and waving and the tiny wings meagerly flapping.   Despite all the frenetic activity, he’s helpless to turn himself over.

Jay reaches down and offers a finger. “Here you go, little guy.”  The moth clutches the finger and Jay lifts him up. 

“Not again!”

The moth is desperate to fly… refusing to believe that his wings won’t carry him to lofty heights of freedom.  And so he leaps again, and again he falls like a rock, finding himself looking up at the sky from upside down.

“This is awful.” Jay looks pained as he helps his little friend to his feet.  “He instinctively wants to try to fly, so he keeps leaping.  But those wings are never going to hold him.  He’s going to kill himself!”

Tenderly he holds the moth, which desperately throws itself at the air.

It really is one of the more depressing displays of hopeless hopefulness that I’ve ever seen.

The little guy BELIEVES he can fly.

But he SO can’t.

Nature can be brutal.

And it just goes to show, no matter what they say, you need wings to fly.  Big wings. 

Jay carefully carries the tormented insect inside to live out its days in our butterfly habitat.  Where, Jay is convinced, he’ll be MUCH happier.

He does seem happier in there.  At least there’s not so much self-mutilation, so we assume he’s happier.

And I’m just happy to have a man who really CARES about a deformed little moth.  That’s a good man, I’m sure of it.

Don’t Try This at Home:

• Jenny from Absolutely Bananas (July 9)
• Clemntine (Who used to blog, but doesn’t any more. She totally should. You’ll see.) (July 10)
• Sonia from And the Pursuit of Happiness (July 11)
• Emily (July 17 & 21)
• Veronica from Toddled Dredge (July 18)
• Jeana from Days To Come (July 22)

Blogging Basics 101:

• Jordan McCollom from Momma Blogga (July 7-11)
• Lani from The Wooden Porch (July 14)
• Stephanie from Adventures in Baby Wearing (July 15)
• Sarah from Like a Warm Cup of Coffee (July 16)
• Jan Ross from Mrs. Who’s Open Book (July 17)
• Karen from Simply A Musing Blog (July 21)
• Karla from Looking Towards Heaven (July 22, 23, 24)
• Jennie from Wash Words (July 28)
• Deb from Mom of 3 Girls (July 29)