lists are the theme of the month around here

I apologize – if it weren’t for NaBloPoMo I would spare you the uninspired, meaningless posts. (At least MOST of them…. ) What do you think – is it better to post consistently, but not necessarily great stuff, or is it better to wait till you really have something to say? Of course, I suppose sometimes we don’t learn what we have to say till we say it.

Anyway, when in doubt, or short on time, make a list? Here are a couple from List My Life, an ebook from Log Your Memory.

Fonts Preferred

1. Garamond
2. Futura
3. CK Cursive
4. Impact
5. Delicious

Songs Performed

1. What Child is This?
2. Total Eclipse of the Heart
3. All I Ask of You
4. Carmina Burana
5. Ave Maria

Weddings Attended

1. aunt’s
2. best friend from high school
3. brother-in-law’s
4. father’s
5. mother’s

bullet points of randomness

[from here, via Owlhaven. LONG AGO.]

Tomorrow: no appointments, which is a welcome change from visits and dentist and other such things lately

Feeling: rather like a failure today

Happy Because: I have interfacing now (thanks B!) and will perhaps finally be able to do the bags I’ve been yearning to sew.

Today I: visited with people, and ate a tasty BLT for lunch.

Laundry: is not veering out of control as of yet

Something I know: dinner is not going to make itself

Currently reading:  Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (I think I need to stop; I’ve read it before, but it’s not a good time now); The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Wanting: To get my backup/restore DVDs and try to get my computer life together again

Favorite gadget: I’m a little burned out on “gadgets” of late (i.e. technology crashing on me); maybe the wrist cord and carabiner on my keys?

Thankful that: my friend took the girls to dance tonight

Wondering why: I struggle so hard with recovering from a “crash” – whether large or small. Als0 – why didn’t I post yesterday?

Paint me a picture

Some pictures to break up the monotony of it all. Another cool meme from Velocibadgergirl:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food? (Way too many, had to pick just one.)
3. What high school did you go to? (My poor school appears to have been demolished and rebuilt elsewhere. I really liked this library.)
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. What you want to be when you grow up?
9. What do you love most in life?

1. my name, 2. Greek salad, 3. Library (ais 2007), 4. Multi-colours, 5. James Marsters – Houston, Tx, 6. Eggnog, 7. ‘So what are you doing this Australia Day ?’, 8. World Famous Novelist, 9. Tibetan Buddhist Monks Creating the Love and Compassion Sand Mandala

5 things in my frig

This was for an assignment in the Jessica Sprague class, but I think it works well as a meme.

Name 5 14 things in your frig right now.

1. Heavy cream – I like oatmeal with just peaches (Dole bottled peaches) and cream. Yum!
2. Glass water bottle – I like to drink it cold.
3. Various sauces – Worcestershire sauce (in my family growing up, we called it “WORshterSHEEshterSHOOshtershire Shaushe.” But only because we were being silly. (I think it was Dad’s name for it. He had a lot of those things.)); Thai peanut sauce; Soy Vay teriyaki; Grey Poupon; ranch and blue cheese dressing; mustard, ketchup.
4. Three or four half eaten apples, sitting on the shelves – lately my son (almost 4) starts eating an apple, then sets it in the frig.
5. Miracle Whip, but no mayonnaise at the moment. Growing up, my dad liked mayo and my mom liked Miracle Whip, so we always had a jar of each in the frig. I usually ate Miracle Whip. Nowadays, we usually have both as well, but we’re out of mayo at the moment because we mostly eat that, especially the kids.
6. Half-full gallon of 2% milk. I hate 1% and skim or powdered. My husband, N, doesn’t care.
7. Veggies in various states of decay/dried out/on the brink. Bagged spinach that needs to be thrown out, also broccoli; baby carrots, grapes, some limp celery; fresh garlic – soooo good.
8. Yogurt and cottage cheese, large containers – N’s been eating a lot of it, doing Body for Life.
9. Dill pickles. I love the fancy kind, Claussen and so on, but none right now.
10. Lunch meat – variety pack of turkey (oven roasted and smoked) and ham, from Costco. My daughter love love loves turkey sandwiches.
11. Package of turkey hot dogs, almost empty. My son often gets in there and grabs a hot dog to eat, cold. Goosey boy. (He also isn’t big on cheese – especially “fake cheese/cheez” i.e. processed – and will usually refuse to eat butter.)
12. Two packages of 18 eggs. One is certainly not full, but still, we go through eggs very slowly.
13. A third of a gallon of apple cider. Love it.
14. Small bottle of real 100% maple syrup, and a bigger jug to refill it. Only real maple syrup for me – you use less of it because it’s sweeter, and it’s not full of weird chemicals.

know thyself meme

Found this meme last NaBloPoMo I believe on this blog, but never got around to doing it. I like the tree question.

“Know Thyself”

What is/are YOUR:

Easy how-to ways to beat a bad mood?
I pretty much never find it easy to beat a bad mood, but here are some things I should do more often: Listen to music I love. Go outside. Get immersed in something creative. Read a really engrossing book. Be forced to actively take care of 10 or 15 toddlers (okay, I really don’t want to try this too often), or even just two of my own. Take a shower (cry there if necessary). Have a drink of water and a healthy snack. Or maybe a slice of cheesecake. Nap. Just be willing to let it go (perhaps my biggest hangup).

Never-fail lip color? I don’t wear much make up. But I do have a plum color that is almost exactly one slight shade darker than my lips, and I wear it often.

Personality type (via myersbriggs)?
INFP. Every. freaking. time. (Not that I’ve taken the “real” one. But all the permutations I have taken agree.)

Greatest strengths and weaknesses (like in a job interview, but, you know, honest)?
Strengths: I am creative. I am non-judgmental, and good at seeing many sides of an issue. I am a good audience and easily amused. I am empathetic and a good listener, and a quick learner, very bright.
Weaknesses: I am slow with action, easily distracted, and suffer sometimes from paralyzing perfectionism. I procrastinate, don’t deal well with confrontation, and give up too easily.

Names of the trees in your yard? Cottonwoods, mesquite, and one pine/evergreen which I don’t know the specific name of. (I don’t think there are any palo verdes in the immediate vicinity, like there were when we lived in the city. Or maybe in the whole valley? Lots of pecan trees, but none nearby that I know of.)

Mother-in-law’s favorite flower?
Um, I have no idea. She doesn’t strike me as a flower type of person so much. But I don’t know my own mother’s favorite flower either.

Challenge: 6th Picture

I found this challenge on Owlhaven, thought it was cute.

Also easy! And you should all do it.

Go to the picture files in your computer, find the 6th file folder, select the 6th picture, and post it!

Now, mine were a little deeper nested than that – it was the sixth folder, in the sixth folder, and then the sixth picture in that. But whatever. Here it is:

June of 2005. We had a crib then. My baby boy was much more of a baby boy then. And that’s my daughter’s feet – also much chubbier and baby-er than they are now. That was a fun, impromptu photo shoot.

Update on last post: so I finally did it. And got up early this morning. Haven’t gotten a lot done, but hey, any progress is good.

tagged

Yeah, thanks a lot Nora…. It’s okay actually, there are people who want to know what our new place looks like, so here’s a bit of it, as good a way as any. Even though we are still not unpacked (maybe this weekend will see some substantial progress) and I feel terribly unsettled. But I have internet! (Maybe that’s why we’re not unpacked….)

Rules for this meme (which needs a name, isn’t that compulsory?): Take a pic of each of the 10 things listed — and you have to do it right away. (Also tag five people, if you want.) No cheating either, rearranging, hiding, posing your children doing something educational or otherwise socially acceptable. Here goes!

***

1. The Refrigerator

Still stocking back up on food since we ran down the supply before moving – also still figuring out where things will GO.

2. The Laundry Room

Not so much a “room” as a “hall with cupboard” – but PLEASE don’t think I am complaining. I’m not even complaining that the dryer seems to take an hour plus to actually dry anything. I am just so thrilled at the very notion of actually doing laundry in our own house.

3. The Bathroom

This is the bathroom in the kids’ room – note the striped towels on the floor. No door either. Nor fan, hence the can of air freshener. But hey.

4. The Closet

Our master bedroom closet – it unnerves me slightly because it has NO DOORS. Why? But note how it is NOT full of camping equipment and boxes of seasonal clothing. Woohoo! See below, #7.

5. The Kitchen Sink

Has a sprayer, and no longer leaks. Yay!

6. Self-Portrait

Of my shirt. Haha! Oh fine:

7. Favorite Room of the House

At the moment – the storage room. It is so beyond novel to actually have a place to put, oh say, camping equipment for example, that is not our bedroom closet. Excellent notion. (And you saw our closet already.) Also note, there is an extra frig/freezer. It needs to be wiped out and plugged in – but I’m excited.

8. What are your kids doing right now?

Playing outside, in the rain — sort of: they are filling cups with water off the porch. But still managing to get soaked. And wearing their pajamas still, no less.

9. Dream Vacation

This question doesn’t really seem to fit. I have several dream vacations – one of which to Australia and New Zealand, but hello, I have no photos of them, nor can take one right away! because, well, I haven’t been there yet. Thus “dream vacation.” Unless it’s s’posed to be one you’ve already gone on… that would be Ireland but sadly those photos are not digital and you can’t have one.

10. Favorite Pair of Shoes

They are new, and very cute; sadly it seems that I MUST wear socks with them – nylons alone will absolutely not cut it (say the blisters on my heels). Hopefully socks (perhaps some knee socks as well!) will take care of that problem – because they’re SO cute…. Also perhaps not wearing them while shooting a wedding will help as well….

***
There you go, Nora, happy?? 🙂 If anyone else would like to do this, feel free. I will tag DreamsofNyssa, Katie the Scrapbook Lady, Loralee, Becky (who also just moved, but hey) and Nancy. But no obligation, people.

the prettiest tag clouds ever

Wordle.net

Fun – though I think the java tried to freeze my Firefox and I had to use IE. But so pretty! And customizeable! Here’s one of an entry I did a while ago (last NaBloPoMo).

color quiz

I’ve done this color quiz before, but it’s still interesting. (Plus I can’t find my results from last time.) (From the Sweet Shoppe blog.)

Here’s part of my results:

Your Actual Problem
The fear that she might be prevented from achieving the things she wants increases her need for security and freedom from conflict. Is therefore seeking stability and an environment in which she can relax.

If you’d read the journaling from one of my recent scrapbook layouts, you’d be impressed too.

7 random things meme

Well, I was tagged by Velocibadgergirl (who is totally cool because she is reading the Dark is Rising books), and then again by Happay, so fine, fine, here it is! (Are there any random things I haven’t already shared here? I guess we’ll find out.)

Seven Random Things About Me

Rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2.  Share 7 random or weird things about yourself.
3.  Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4.  Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Seven random/weird things about me:

1.  I nearly always carry a notebook around. I feel really naked and anxious without one. Also without my watch, though I’m not a punctual type of person.

2.  I would much rather buy: office supplies, notebooks, scrapbooking stuff, yarn; than: shoes, clothes, make-up.

3.  I always reread my favorite books. Many many times. Why wouldn’t I? I loved it the first time….

4.  I have this bad habit of putting my hair in my mouth. (My kids are helping me try to break this – they reprimand me every time.) I don’t chew it or bite it, I just sort of … feel the texture. Weird, yes I know. Good thing it’s too short for that right now.

5.  Every time I think about cutting my hair I have this moment of hesitation – the actual thought process goes: But what if I go back in time to medieval Europe, where short hair on a woman is socially unacceptable? (Yeah, I read Timeline, movie okay, book is better; apparently think about it way too often.) Then I smack myself in the head.

6.  Favorite pies: pumpkin definitely number one, then apple.

7.  I get into these little fixations (like GUMBALL, and yetis); they are fun and somehow a little comforting to me.

Oh dear, I don’t know who’s done this and who hasn’t. No idea at all. Sorry. Take it if you need it.