15 Things

Usually I don't do meme's. They just aren't my thing. But, then Little Prairie Baby did one, and I loved reading it. And, I realized that I always enjoy reading meme's. So, I had to ask myself, in these unusual times, the question is, why NOT do a meme?

And, since I've been sitting around sustaining the life of a piranha/wolverine/baby thing who thinks she needs to eat 24/7, and I've got the handy "notes" thing on my iPhone, which is pure genius, really, I could actually write stuff down as it came to me, instead of just sitting down and writing it in one shot. 

Because if I tried to write it in one shot, it would be horrendously boring. 

(A note on the notes thing on my phone: My notes currently hold the measurements for all the blank spaces in my house, in case I'm at goodwill or a store and I find a cheap bench or other piece of furniture that would work for that space, classic books we currently own so I don't buy duplicates, not that I've ever done that, and random other helpful things along these lines... do you have notes? Do you use them? If so, what do your notes contain? I'd love to know how else I can use my notes. :-))

She loves her sisters. They can usually distract her from the fact that she thinks she's hungry for about  1/2 hour at a time. And, they love her. It's such a blessing to watch that love develop.

 Also, someday I plan on using my camera again. In fact, I miss it quite a lot. But, right now I am SO thankful for a decent/okay camera on my phone, because hauling around a baby and a large camera would mean that I wouldn't have any photographic record of the past two months. And, that would be sad.  So the photos in this post are just random summer shots.

My summer pretty much looks like this. I wish someone could beam me to a camping spot, because seriously, I could totally do this in a camping chair as easily as my couch. Sadly, I'm the person who'd be getting us ready for camping, and I can't do this and get ready for camping at the same time, so no camping for us right now. I miss camping, can you tell?

So, here goes 15 things about me:

1. I always open my spice containers first thing home from the grocery store and toss the little holey stopper thing. The holey stopper things drive me nuts. Incidentally, this causes problems when you have a sister at your house who depends on the holey stopper thing to keep her from over-garlicking things. 

2. I leave shoes ALL OVER my house. Consequently I cannot complain about other people leaving their shoes everywhere.

3. If I shower first thing in the morning I take my coffee in the shower with me. If I shower at the end of the day I take my cold evening beverage of choice in with me. My husband finds this to be exceedingly odd. After 12 years, he still shakes his head over it every time.  Try it sometime, it's blissful! Shut the door, light a candle, water so hot you swear you're going be be all blistery when it's done, and hot coffee. It's the only "me time" I get currently, and I hold it very dear. Never mind the fact that usually there's a running commentary at the door that goes something like this:

"MOM! How do you spell sunshine?" MOM! Keira won't let me play with her! That's because I want to read! MOM! She's tattling! Well, I want to play with you! You NEVER play with me! I like reading so there! Why don't you draw something?! MOM! How do you spell karate!? Mom, I can't decide if I should draw a T-Rex or a Triceratops! What do you think I should draw? I want to draw a picture for daddy though, and he doesn't like dinosaurs, so what should I draw? MOM! I'm hungry! Will you make me something to eat? MOM! When are you going to be done?! MOM! How do you spell castle? MOM! Daria's screaming again! I think she's hungry! MOM!"

Or something like that. Really, it's blissful. You should try it.

4. I remove and discard dust jackets on books IMMEDIATELY upon purchase. Consequently my kids do too. No dust jacketed books are allowed in this house. 

5. I can't sleep if my ears aren't covered by my blankets.  Literally, can't sleep.

Point Defiance Zoo has camel rides. We HAD to get us one of those this summer. HAD to.

6. Wind chimes make me insane. Full on, lose my mind, think about murdering the neighbors insane.  There is nothing pretty about any of them,  not any kind. I hate them all. Every single neighbor around me has wind chimes right now, and it's breezy here all. the. time. 

7. I have my own vocabulary. It started when I was a toddler and called willow trees "down-dee trees". Now things like driveways are known of as inner-outers, and blinky lights on large power lines are yapper-zappers. Freeway on ramps are on-er-up-ers, or on-er-down-ers, depending on what they do. Few can understand, and even fewer can appreciate. I'm totally okay with that though.

8. I eat an obscene amount of apples. And I get withdrawals if I don't have them for a day or two. Give me a crispy cold apple and a spoonful of peanut butter--not the healthy crap, the good stuff, like Jif, and I am in heaven. That's my one "processed food" item I hold firm on buying.

9.  Misplaced quotation marks are completely baffling to me. Or, misplaced "quotation" marks are baffling "to me". See, isn't that horrifying?! I've come to the conclusion that there are people who can use them, and people who cannot. If you're one who cannot, then please spare us all and just don't do it.
10. I cringe every time I have to buy a new book. I'm a used book girl all the way. It's the tree-hugger in me coming out. Besides there's just something special about a book that's already broken in.

My Brie. Her expressions are endless. I love to watch her face while conversing with her, because every single muscle works overtime when she's talking. 

11.  I'm super obsessive about the lighting in my house. Throughout the day I go through and adjust blinds/curtains and lamps and lights according to what time it is. We have morning light setting, afternoon light setting, late afternoon/early evening light setting, and before bed setting, and after-everyone-is-in-bed-but-me light setting. It's very important that all lights throughout the house be on or off according to the time. And if we should get home from somewhere and meanwhile the time has changed enough for the lighting to need to be adjusted, I'm a twitchy scurrying light adjusting nut until all the blinds and lights are set how they should be for the time that it is.

12. For some bizarre reason, I used to dislike the color orange. Now it's one of my favorite colors, and it's beyond my comprehension how anybody could not like orange.

13.  I can't understand why anyone would ever want to scrapbook. I think it's years of paperwork that's scarred me for scrap booking--stacks and stacks of files all day long make for dreams about stacks and stacks of files at night, which makes for a person who has no interest in scrap booking whatsoever. It's the feel of paper in my hands, or something. I can admire it, I just don't like doing it. Not my medium.

14.  I love my man in a suit, but I'm plumb crazy about cuff links. Super rad invention, cuff links are. 
15. I could quite cheerfully never set foot in a shopping mall ever again. I don't consider shopping any sort of fun. That is what the Internet is for. The exception to that would be individual stores, which I don't mind in small doses, used book stores which I could live in, and antique malls, which I could spend hours wandering. I'm not a junk collector though. I only buy things if they're going to be useful, and I don't have to buy something to enjoy my antique mall experience.

Brown's Point Sunset. I've grown to love this place we live very much. Other than the rain of course. But other than that, it's great!

And, that concludes this riveting post.