I'm it!

It's been a while since I did one of these, AND I finally-finally figured out my wireless. So what better way to celebrate than to kill time with a time honored internet tradition!? Kristine asked, so here we go, 7 random facts about me:

1-When I was first pregnant with MR I knew. We had gone through a couple of negative pregnancy tests, shows what they know, and BL began to think that I really wasn't pregnant. But I let a few weeks pass, knowing all along, and sure enough- Pregnant! I am wondering if it will be the same next time around...

2-I hate the numbers 4 and 34, and will do what I can to avoid them. I can't tell you why I dislike them so much, but I most definitely do.

3-I am really apathetic towards food. I truly enjoy a good meal, when it is prepared for me. If BL wasn't such a wonderful cook and I was largely responsible for my own consumption I would likely be living off of quick fix meals and boxes.

4-When I was in high school my aerobics teacher was an overzealous advocate of women's safety and preparedness for every possible terrible situation we might ever find ourselves in. She was always telling us the latest awful story that had been passed around in an e-mail forward. One story she told us was about a man who would hide under parked cars and wait for women to pass close enough for him to slash their Achilles tendon- then to take advantage of them. I have since never walked up to my parked car without glancing underneath the adjacent cars, just to make sure.

5-My bad for me but oh so good treat of choice is a Hostess apple pie. I know that those things are entirely artificial, but they are so damn delicious.

6-The current tally of pictures I have taken of MR since his birth (according to Picasa) is a little over 2,000. I have a problem.

7-BL and I are high school sweethearts. We started dating half way through senior year of high school and we continued dating through our college years to get married a year after graduation.

Now for the tags, and you're it:
-Soon to be mother of three, Kristi
-Almost mother of two, Jessica
-Mama to mini-Hunk, The Burp Cloth Babe
-My go-to source for new goodie recipes, Jamie
-Newly mother to three, Mary
-My fellow Northwester, Ann(ie)
-Little Elvis' mama, Meredith

Bibliophile

I am so stealing this from Soupy. I've been thinking that I need to make a list of books I need/want to read, so this shall help get me started. The most popular gift to give me is a gift card to the nearest Barnes & Noble (I am currently in the possession of two from my latest birthday). I love to wander into the store knowing I will walk out new stories in hand. But I often find that all those books on my mental list escape me when I am going up and down the aisles, and it is only later that I remember the books I meant to get. Several are on this list. Thirty seven down, sixty three to go.

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. "

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien; I am such a nerd, but I love these books. I get lost in them
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling ; I heart this series, it's not just for kids and it just wraps you up in another world. Love Harry Potter!
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible --some
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare -- perhaps not the complete, but quite a few
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden; I am mildly embarrassed to admit this, but I read through this under the pretense that I was really reading a true to life memoir. I was pissed when I got to the end and realized it was a work of fiction. Still love it though.
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown; I don't generally enjoy modern or mystery books, this is an exception to the rule
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ; what little girl hasn't?
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ; on more than one occasion, always for school
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ; starting this one tonight!
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ; heard many good things about this one but have never made time to read it myself
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ; true, it can be longwinded here and there but this is still one of my all time favorites. If you can't handle the book see the play!

I'm sure you wanted to know

I've been tagged!

Questions:
1. What were you doing 10 years ago? : Being a 15 year old, I really don't recall what that entailed

2. What are 5 things on your "To Do" list? : Numero uno- Laundry, make hotel reservation for BL's best friend's wedding, find shoes to match the dress I am wearing to said wedding, figure out where all of MR's bottles have disappeared to, wash said bottles (if found)

3. What are 5 snacks you enjoy? (In no specific order) : Cheez-its, string cheese, frozen strawberry fruit bars, guacamole, salt and vinegar chips

4. Name some things you would do if you were a millionaire : put away half (cause I'm boring like that), buy a comfortable (large) new home, take a nice trip... the usual

5. Name some places where you've lived : California, Spain, Washington- the end

6. Name some bad habit you have : I pick at my cuticles, I have done this on and off all my life. It's a nervous (gross) habit.

7. Name some jobs you've had : food server, bank teller, retail sales clerk. All as thrilling as the next.

8. Name those whom you are tagging. (If you want to.)
I'm not going to tag anyone in particular, join in if you feel like it :)

Truthiness

My husband and I had a disagreement last night. A stupid one. So stupid that it's not even what this post is about. There is one little piece of the argument that is still sticking with me though. He wanted me to run an errand, which I was going to do, but first I needed to put on my makeup. This made no sense to him. It was a quick trip, it would take me as long to make the run out as it would to prepare for it. And why bother anyways, I was freshly showered and cleaner looking than himself. In guy speak, this means I was good to go. I can't say this was the first time I had reflected upon the inequity of the pains women take to prepare themselves for public consumption versus that of men. I didn't use to always need makeup to walk out the door, quite often in my college years I would run to the store or the library as bare-faced as when I woke up. Now I can't remember the last time I walked out the door without my foundation applied and mascara on. I even will confess to wearing light makeup to the gym. Did this change because now I'm a mom? Is this my one little way of still feeling decent enough for other people's viewing? It's a small thing, and my regimen is pretty minimal. Foundation, blush, and mascara. But still I don't feel comfortable going outside without it. I know I am not the only woman who feels this way. I also know I am not above looking at another woman out and about make-up free and wonder about her reasoning. Did she not have time? Does she not care? I guess these are the things I worry other people will wonder about me.

This doesn't mean I am going to stop wearing make-up, I wear it for myself and my husband too not just for strangers. It just made me think a little bit more about my reasons. It also guilted me into going to Starbucks this morning without my "face" on. Wanna see?

Needs coffee

This is the face my son sees everyday, because if I am not going out then I am not making up. This is the face that I've been given to live with for these past (almost) twenty five years. And this is the face my barista had to smile at this morning. Not so bad I guess:)

Though the content of this post was inspired by my marital squabble, I must own that the form it took had been lurking in mah brain since I read HBM's (and others) Portraits of Truthiness