8 Random things

about me.  Kenny (the amazing knitter guy) tagged me, so here goes.

I am addicted to hot wings sauce.

I am trying to kick the Diet Coke habit.

I love office supplies.

I used to be a Montessori teacher.

I love it when the leaves change–red’s my favorite color.

I am never happier than when I am by the ocean.

I make up weird nicknames for family members and pets–lots of nicknames.

The thought of dating again makes me want to throw up.

Please consider yourself tagged.  Or not.

Career Meme

Love Cecily’s new meme:

The career meme…
1. Go to Career Cruising, http://www.careercruising.com.
2. Put in Username: nycareers and Password: landmark.
3. Take their “Career Matchmaker” quiz.
4. Post the top twenty results.
5. Put the careers you have seriously considered in bold.
6. Italicize any that are part of your current job/career.

1.	Professor
2.	Clergy
3.	Foreign Language Instructor
4.	ESL Teacher
5.	Desktop Publisher
6.	Computer Trainer
7.	Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator
8.	Animator
9.	Fashion Designer
10.	Anthropologist
11.	Set Designer
12.	Costume Designer
13.	Addictions Counselor
14.	Motivational Speaker
15.	Corporate Trainer
16.	Communications Specialist
17.	Artist
18.	Graphic Designer
19.	Print Journalist
20.	Critic

Since I’m currently unemployed, I can’t italicize anything.  I did get a kick out of some of the choices.  Maybe clergyman (or clergyperson) is in my future. 😉

High school English meme

I’m supposed to be doing financials for the lawyer. I think I’d rather scrub grout. I’ll get it done, even if it means staying up late. Right now, though, I’m having one of those weeks when everything seems to go wrong, and I can’t get my head around being organized. Some examples: lost driver’s license, lost in the mail credit card, broken TV remote, camera memory card that won’t load, lost cord, forgotten cell phone charger.

Get the picture? Nothing tragic, but all brain draining. And there’s not much left to drain at this point. I have to give a talk in a couple of weeks at a Support and Recovery meeting, and truthfully, I keep hitting the wall when I think about what I’m going to say. Not that I can’t be honest (or is that the problem?), but I can’t seem to get down to the essence.

I read this post on internetmonk.com, and I’m processing the whole ‘being honest about self’ and how that fits with ministry. A bit of an aside, but I think it might be part of what I’m struggling with. My New England sense of privacy and that oldest child perfectionism.

Back to the avoiding the work I have to do. Our church meets in a high school, and I went to pick up my daughter from her class (they used to call it Sunday School, now it has some other fancy name). On the door was posted this assignment for some high school English class (or whatever they are calling that nowadays, says the old fogey). I loved it, copied it down and saved it for a future day. That day is today. Here goes:

5 things that make you angry

1. Having to repeat myself a million times.

2. Bad drivers.

3. Injustice.

4. Lies.

5. Arrogance.

6 Things that Make You Feel Awe

1. the ocean

2. the night sky

3. a prairie sunrise/sunset

4. a beautifully executed piece of art–poetry, jewelry, sculpture, whatever

5. unexpected kindness

6. God’s grace

5 Everyday Things

1. a good cup of coffee

2. my kids giggling together

3. scratching my cat or dog’s ears

4. an email from a friend

5. stretching when I wake up

List poem

Now turn those lists (or any list) into a poem.

I hate:

repetition, repeating, redundance

drivers

meanies

liars

and braggarts

But

I love:

the ocean

the prairies

stars

giggles and kisses

being alive

and

God.

Now, consider yourself tagged and do a high school meme instead of cleaning the toilets. Your family might not, but you’ll thank me for it.

Books, books and more books

A Book Meme

I found this over on Marsha’s. So many memes leave me cold, but this one seems interesting. Especially now that my book satiation period is over.

In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)

5. The Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)

6.  The Two Towers (Tolkein)

7.  The Return of the King  (Tolkein)
8. +Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. + Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13.+ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. *A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha
16. +Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)

18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20.+ Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

21. +The Hobbit (Tolkein)

22.+ The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
23. +Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24.  The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27.+ Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28.+ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)

35.  The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38.* I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. +The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
WHAT HAPPEN TO 49???? Missing in action, I guess
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52.+A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. *Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54.+ Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64.+ Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. +Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. +Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)

73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. +The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76.* The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79.* The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. +Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On the Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. *Rebecca (Daphe DuMaurier)

84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen)
87. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88.* The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90.* Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92.+ Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)

94. +The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. *The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

The soundtrack of my life

Sure to be a scary and slightly cheesy one.  Here goes:

Life Soundtrack
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here’s how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie
Shout out to Adele for the meme.  Not sure why she chose two for each section, so I did too.

Opening Credits:
a) I Need Thee Every Hour–Jars of Clay

b) The Nurse Who Loved Me–Perfect Circle (would that be my mom?  she’s a nurse)

Waking Up

a) Turning–Les Miserables Broadway Cast (I usually am la miserable waking up)

b) Come Back, Baby–The Ramones

First day at High School:
a) Symphonic Dance–Phil Keaggy

b) Embraceable You–Ella Fitzgerald (my first day of high school–NOT!)

Falling in Love:
a) The Valley–Jars of Clay (valleys of sorrow–sounds about right)

b) Nel Cor Piu  Non Mi Sento–Cecilia Bartoli (something about being destroyed in Italian–yep, that fits)

Fight Song:
a) Oh, Darling–The Beatles
b) Spanish Caravan–The Doors

Breaking Up:
a) You Knit Me Together–Steve Green (from my kids’ CD)

b) Nothing Special–Duncan Sheik

Prom:
a) That Lucky Old Sun–Louis Armstrong

b) Deck the Halls–David Huntsinger

Life:
a) Faith, Hope and Love–Mark Schultz

b) Walking with a Ghost–Tegan & Sara

Mental Breakdown:
a) So Far Away–Dire Straits (nope, that mental breakdown is just around the corner)

b) Yellow Submarine–The Beatles

Driving:
a) Suite No 5 in C minor–Janos Starker (NOT! way too mellow for my driving)

b) Bring Your Kingdom–Worship Songs of the Vineyard (the irony is great–does this mean that I’m going to die or the people that annoy me will?)

Flashback:
a) The Lord’s Prayer–The Cambridge Singers
b) Angel Child–Samite  (ha ha ha!  cool song, though)

Getting Back Together:
a) Blue Skies–Eva Cassidy
b) Nothing at All–Third Day (yep, nothing at all)

Wedding:
a) Eine Kleine Nachtmusik–Mozart
b) We Praise Your Name–Matt Shepardson

Birth of Child:
a) Naive–Chris Rice (oh yeah, I was)
b) There’s No Business Like Show Business/They Say It’s Wonderful–Annie Get Your Gun 

Final Battle:
a) Voyage Around the Moon–Saturn 5

b) Take Me to the River–Eva Cassidy (would that be the Jordan River?)

Death Scene:
a) Worms–The Pogues (perfect! you know the one–the worms crawl in . . .)
b) Carol of the Bells–Mannheim Steamroller

Funeral Song:
a) Ada Plays–Gabriel Yared (nice song!)
b) Shield of Faith–Alison Kraus & Union Stations

End Credits:
a) True Life Blues–Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard (I guess I’ll go out pickin’ and a’grinnin’)
b) Honor & Glory–Songs of the Vineyard

I did NOT cheat, but I think it’s ironic that of the 6356 songs on my iTunes, most of the ones that came up on a random shuffle were inspirational.  A reminder to behave myself even when ‘meme-ing’?  Hmmmmm.

Uno

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

No.
Explanations.

1. Yourself:
transitioning

 

2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse):
imaginary

3. Your hair:
red

4. Your mother:

understanding

 

5. Your Father:
supportive

 

 

6. Your Favorite Item:
yarn

7. Your dream last night:
forgotten

8. Your Favorite drink:
espresso

 

9. Your Dream Car:
hybrid

 

10. The room you are in:
cluttered

11. Your Ex:

unwilling

 

12. Your fear:
failure

13. What you want to be in 10 years?
belonging

14. Who you hung out with last night?

me

 

15. What You’re Not?
motivated

16. Muffins:
chocolate

17. One of Your Wish List Items:

windfall

 

18. Time:
precious

19. The Last Thing You Did:
wrote

20. What You Are Wearing:
casual

21. Your Favorite Weather:
crisp

22. Your Favorite Book:

narnia

 

23. The Last Thing You Ate:
mousse

24. Your Life:
roller coaster

 

25. Your Mood:
swings

26. Your best friend:
available

27. What are you thinking about right now?
cleaning

28. Your car:
functional

29. What are you doing at the moment?
dreading

30. Your summer:
fleeting

 

 

31. Your relationship status:
confusing

32. What is on your TV?
Nothing

33. What is the weather like?
unseasonable

 

34. When is the last time you laughed?
church