I had a great time in Memphis with my best friend this past weekend, even though I was still a tad under the weather. We both got much needed massages Saturday at Gould’s Day Spa in that beautiful downtown Memphis icon, the Peabody Hotel, and ate dinner at Rendezvous. I then slept the sleep of royalty because there were no small people to wake me up at 2 a.m.

How often do you get massages? Every time I get one I nearly kick myself for not doing it more often. This was the first massage I’ve had all year and I had to will myself to not come off the table when she worked the kinks out of my shoulders.

Taking a carriage ride around downtown Memphis with our four-legged companion, Hazel.

I need a little blog break this week, but true to real life I’m mouthing off elsewhere. I’m on deadline at work and I’ve got several things I want to get accomplished before Miss C starts FIRST GRADE August 11. Sniff.

Last week at Deep South Moms I wrote about exploring a possible job opportunity. It turns out it wasn’t something I would be interested in, but I’m glad I investigated it and went ahead with a phone screening interview, as nerve wracking as it was. I haven’t had a job interview in more than seven years, so it was a good exercise in resume updating, at the very least. The entire process proved so distracting, however, that I qualified for The Worse Mother Of The Year Award by completely forgetting to take Miss C to her weekly ballet class. So far she hasn’t mentioned it, but I may have to pay off her instructor and the other parents this week so they don’t ask where we were.

All kidding aside, the entire process validated something I already knew. My current flexible work schedule is something I can’t and won’t give up. I think God was trying to tell me, “Simmah down girl…you’ve got it made!”

I also wrote recently at Deep South Moms about finding my fashion mojo. I’m probably only two pima cotton t-shirts away from morphing into a Lands End poster mom, but I have added some fun pieces to my wardrobe recently.

At Savvy Housewife I’m having a PeaceLoveMom CARE t-shirt giveaway. It’s not only the hippest t-shirt ever, but it benefits a great cause. I’ve also posted a great roundup of online shopping sources for school uniforms to help you save time and money.

July is coming to a close and I’ve been remiss in thanking Sonia Sunshine for a highly esteemed committee induction. My boobs are more flopsy wopsy than itty bitty, nothing a great bra can’t remedy, but how great is it to have your boobs recognized on the Internet.

Note to self, quit using the word great.

Yesterday I was getting Miss A ready for daycare, and seeing the time inch closer to 8:30 I knew I needed to go ahead and take her to school wearing her bathing suit. Thursdays this summer are water play days and the kids kick off the morning scampering and squealing under the sprinkler on the playground. I apparently forgot that Miss A’s one and only wearable bathing suit was still in the washing machine after a spin on gentle cycle. It had been in the washing machine oh, I don’t know, maybe since Tuesday.

Desperate to find a dry, wearable bathing suit, I remembered Miss C had a stash of swimsuits in a bottom dresser drawer. Down in the corner, underneath a floral flannel sheet, I found a rejected Miss C suit from two years ago. It was an adorable pink bathing suit with ruffly tulle trim around the waist.

Miss A was thrilled! It was pink, it was girly, it had twirl appeal. Miss C, the armchair critic, had to chime in. “Ohhh, that’s an itchy bathing suit!” I gave her The Look. I didn’t want baby sister changing her mind, because the only option would be to possibly miss out on water play or send her to school nekkid or in a bathing suit three times too big, and mama was having none of that!

Miss A fell in love with the bathing suit and pranced to the back door, enthralled and dreamily proclaiming, “I’m stylish mommy. This bathing suit is stylish.”

Then she lovingly touched the crocheted strawberry on the front, stopped in her tracks and declared, “This strawberry? Is stylish.”

Miss A striking a pose and saying, what else…”Stylish!”

Most people who don’t know my hubby outside of business, where he is Mr. Technology Entrepreneur Guy, may not realize he has an awesome sense of humor.

The other night he walked into our bedroom while I was curled up in bed hiding from the girls, reading a magazine.

“I think I have what you had the other night,” he said, grabbing his stomach and feigning illness. “I think I have sympathy gas.”

I started laughing, but there was more.

“Wait a minute…I think I have sympathy PMS!,” he said. And then he walked off.

p.s. I actually wrote this yesterday before I started feeling quite ill and then realized it’s my annual July sinus infection time. You know, when my sinuses produce mass quantities of mucous and I generally feel like poop on a stale cracker and have night sweats and a scratchy throat. And also? I now have my period. July is my annual summertime funk. I swear between sinus shizzle and my husband’s horrible allergies I often fantasize about us packing it all up and moving to the beach or desert.

Nashville air quality?

Eff you. You’re dead to me.

I’m supposed to leave early Saturday for a girls’ trip to Memphis with my best friend, so I’ve GOT to feel better. Beale Street is calling.

Today hubby is spending the day with Miss C on a kids’ adventure river cruise and I dropped Miss A off at daycare. Miss A had on her pink strawberry tutu bathing suit for water play and I was wearing a Save the Sazerac al-kee-haul t-shirt I won from Traveling Mamas. Because it’s an al-kee-haul t-shirt kind of day.

She was nervous.

She joined us in the waiting area. We were the mammogram brigade, sitting in our shapeless hospital gowns (open toward the front) and waiting to be called back or told we could go home, flipping through old issues of In Style and Better Homes and Gardens.

She told us she had found a lump, but she didn’t think it could be anything. Her nervous laughter, however, revealed her hidden angst.

Her daughters, especially her oldest, weren’t worried, she said. Her son, though, had been acting out and had been unusually quiet lately. Her face lit up when she spoke of her children.

“He’s worried about you, bless his heart,” the grandmotherly lady to my right commented.

We all nodded our heads and smiled. I told her I had found a lump almost two years ago and that everything had been just fine.

I told her in all likelihood she was just fine, too. Most lumps are nothing to worry about, I reassured her.

“It’s better to get checked out,” I said. “But it’s hard to wait.”

She was nervous.

“Breast cancer doesn’t run in my family…and I breastfed all three of my babies.”

A nurse walked around the corner and called my name, interrupting our ladies chatter: a group of women diverse in age and race. She told me I could go home and that I didn’t need to schedule another mammogram for another year.

I drove home and I thought about her off and on all weekend.

She was nervous.

I hope she was okay.

Dear old high school classmates, especially those of you registered at Crackmates dot com:

Catch the social networking clue bus and join Facebook.com. It’s free and they don’t hold your guest signatures hostage by asking you to join for a fee.

Or, hey, be revolutionary. Start a blog! It’s almost free. It will only cost you darn nearly all of your free time. If you let it.

Cough.

So do you have a profile on Classmates.com? Their e-mails drive me nuts. I suppose I could unsubscribe to them. I actually had a friend from elementary school contact me through their site last year, but I’m wondering if all the free social networking options, from Facebook to LinkedIn (which I have thought about joining for career networking) will eventually lead to its demise.

Summer Saturdays at the Tennessee Agricultural Museum. Free.

Riding on a donkey named Eeyore in the sweltering heat. $3

Horse with a serious attitude? Priceless.

Is this Hello Kitty sandal too casual?

Oh, this is much better (koozie courtesy of Debunot.)

I have smashing good news about my breasts. I can resume my regularly scheduled mammograms; I don’t have to go back in for one year.

WOOT!

Cheers and have a great weekend.

p.s. If you’re like me, and didn’t make it to BlogHer, did you know they are doing smaller scale one-day events as part of their fall Reach Out tour in Boston, DC, Nashville, Greensboro, Atlanta and New Orleans?

On the way home from buying a new mattress Sunday (rest in peace old plank, hubby and I and our twinging backs will not miss you), the girls were giddy with late afternoon errand running tiredness and the amusement of pouncing on mattress after mattress after mattress. When the very young salesperson told us to lie down on our prospective mattress and just relax for 15 minutes or so to get a feel for it we laughed because by then the girls would have hijacked the store delivery truck and headed for the nearest McDonald’s.

I turned around to tell the girls something and Miss C makes a comment that can only come from a 6-year-old.

Mommy, let me see your Sponge Bob teeth.

What?

Mommy, you’ve got Sponge Bob teeth!!!

I am then bombarded with a litany of Sponge Bob insults from Miss C which somehow segued into boob talk (it’s either boobs or poop around here) followed by non-stop laughter and Miss C giving herself a wicked case of the hiccups from laughing so hard.

Mommy you’ve got Sponge Bob boobies!

No…you’ve got Patrick boobies!

And then the worse of the backseat club insults:

Mommy you’ve got Squidward boobies!

I’m not sure what classifies my boobies as Squidward boobies, but it can’t be good.