Book Club Lovers: There’s 11 days left until the Slow Reader Friday post of The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. The chapters are not tough to read, so jump on in if you haven’t started reading yet!

Top Mommy Blog Update: MIP is now in the top 15% of all the blogs on Top Mommy Blogs! Click on the Top Mommy Blogs button to the right of this post if you like what you find here. Thanks, my dear readers, for all of your help with this!

Women of Faith: I am taking a group of 15 women with me to the Dallas Women of Faith conference on Sept. 19th and 20th. See Patsy Clairmont, Sheila Walsh, Anita Renfroe, Nichole Nordeman, Christine Caine, Priscilla Shirer, Matthew West and more! Tickets cost $ 79 and a hotel room (Holiday Inn Express) is $ 60 plus tax/per night, double occupancy. An optional box lunch from Jason’s Deli is $ 12.00. Email me here for further details, if you’re interested.

Good morning, Word Lovers and Happy Birthday, Hubby, wherever you are! 🙂

Last week’s Word of the Week (WOW) was diktat. Merriam-Webster Online describes diktat as: a harsh settlement unilaterally imposed or a decree or order. That’s pretty much how my offspring would say the house ran when they were younger–settlements harshly imposed by Mom or Dad or both! 

Today’s WOW is cadge. Here are my guesses for cadge: cadge: (ˈkaj) 1. a cadet’s badge 2. a badger catch 3. an Ivan Rodriguez catch (That’s just for you, DSL!)

What are your guesses for cadge? Send me an email here to let me know about them.

Wednesday’s Post: If The Offspring Ruled the World…

You Might Also Like: Word of the Week: diktat; Word of the Week: toxophilite; Word of the Week: bricolage; Word of the Week: spume; and Word of the Week: kickshaw

Book Club Lovers: Have you started The ONE Thing by Gary Keller? No? Get started! It will probably change the way you approach your daily life!

Top Mommy Blog Update: MIP is now # 136! Thanks for clicking on that button to the right of this post to help MIP’s rank improve and for allowing it to be discovered by others! You can click on that button each time you visit here to hopefully help it make it to the top 100!

Last week’s WOW (Word of the Week) was toxophilite. Merriam-Webster defines toxophilite as a person fond of or expert at archery. I think we can say that Katniss Everdeen is a toxophilite. 

Today’s WOW is diktat. I can’t wait to find out the real definition for this one–it’s just too much fun to say! But until we learn the actual definition next week, here are my guesses for diktat:

diktat: (dik-ˈtät) 1. a toddler’s way of saying “Tic Tac” 2. Richard’s tattoo 3. the Turkish word for dictation

What’s your guess for diktat? Submit it here!

Wednesday’s Post: What You Can Tell about MaryAnn from Looking in Her Purse…

You Might Also Like: Word of the Week: toxophilite; Word of the Week: bricolage; Word of the Week: spume; Word of the Week: kickshaw; and Word of the Week: preterit

MIP Book Club Lovers: The August MIP Book Club Selection might just change your life…Do you have your copy? If not, go here for details.

Top Mommy Blog Update: Thanks to YOU, MIP is # 193 of the Top Mom Blogs world-wide! And it’s # 9 in the Everything Else sub-category. Click on the “button” to the right of this post to further bring MIP to new people and new audiences. Thanks so much for helping me with this!

Good morning, Word Lovers! Last week’s WOW (Word of the Week) was bricolage. Merriam-Webster Online says that bricolage means:  construction achieved by using whatever comes to hand. Does this mean that MacGyver did a lot of bricolage? 

Today’s WOW is toxophilite. My definition guesses are:

toxophilite (täk-ˈsä-fə-ˌlīt) 1. having a toxic reaction to the music of the Chi Lites (Half of you just googled Chi Lites, right?) 2. the toxicity that results when Phil lights a cigarette 3. a current resident of Philadelphia (who is actually a native of France) who believes that taxes are too high (Okay…so that one was really reaching…do you have better suggestions?)

What’s your definition guess for toxophilite? Send me an email here.

Wednesday’s Post: Lessons Learned from Buying 3 Homes…

You Might Also Like: Word of the Week: bricolage; Word of the Week: spume; Word of the Week: kickshaw; Word of the Week: preterit; and Word of the Week: offal

Book Club Readers: The review will be out for Songs in the Key of Solomon this Friday, along with the August MIP Book Selection (and this one is a must-read, folks!)

Attention Chronic MIP Readers: If you like this blog, would you be so kind as to click on the “top mommy blog” button on the right side of the screen? That allows more readers to find this blog. Thanks so much for reading and for helping this blog find more people!

Good morning, Word Lovers! Last week’s WOW (Word of the Week) was spume. Merriam-Webster Online says that spume is frothy matter on liquids, as in ocean foam. Living in central Texas we don’t see a whole lot of ocean spume.

Today’s WOW is bricolage. Here are my guesses for bricolage:

bricolage (brē-kō-ˈläzh) 1. a brick’s worth of logs 2. a log’s worth of bricks. 3. what happens when a Parisian breaks a leg

What’s your guess for bricolage? Submit it here.

Wednesday’s Post: It won’t be about my Colorado vacation (And the crowd says, “Yesssssss!”)

You Might Also Like: Word of the Week: spume; Word of the Week: kickshaw; Word of the Week: preterit; Word of the Week: offal; and Word of the Week: shinplaster

Last week’s WOW was written while flying to our family reunion vacation in Estes Park, CO. I think it’s safe to say that a fun time was had by all and it went by too fast! Believe it or not, the meaning of kickshaw was actually discussed while preparing dinner at our vacation home there! So, just to allow my extended family to relax about such an important issue (Yeah, right.), here is Merriam-Webster Online’s definition for kickshaw: a fancy dish.

This just blows my mind because we tried a little experiment while in Estes Park. Each family selected a night and made a homemade dinner of their choice. Some of my family members may disagree, but it was positively awesome to see what each family decided to make for all of us and then enjoy that meal together. If you ask me, every night featured kickshaws!

This week’s WOW (Word of the Week) is spume. Here’s what I’m guessing for definitions of spume and today I just feel like giving you 4, instead of the usual 3:

spume: (ˈspyüm) 1. a fuming spoon 2. the splash a Six Flags log flume makes at the bottom of that last “dip” 3. to supposedly assume 4. a speaker’s volume

What are your guesses for spume? Send your guess here.

Wednesday’s Post: Shopping List for a Destination Family Reunion Vacation for 24 people…

You Might Also Like: Word of the Week: kickshaw; Word of the Week: preterit; Word of the Week: offal; Word of the Week: shinplaster; and Word of the Week: perdure