My Favorite Things

Rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things...

When the dog bites,
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad...

(words from "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music)

I was thinking about this and started mentally coming up with some of my own "Favorite things". I thought I'd post them here.

• hearing my girls giggle
• watching my girls get along
• hearing of good things my children have done
• dates with my husband
• time with family
• hot showers
• quite, uninterrupted hot showers
• fresh baked cookies - especially gooey ones with chocolate in them
• good coffee
• sleeping in
• time alone
• time with friends
• new clothes
• a clean, organized house (but I don't want to be the one to clean it! Organizing is fun but cleaning, not so much.)
• the smell of new babies
• watching sappy romantic comedy movies (like the John Hughes movies of the 80's)
• eating a meal that I didn't have to cook
• BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) although I am not able to go right now. I miss it though! That was my favorite Bible Study! Someday I want to go again!
• clean laundry - and truthfully, I kind of like doing laundry... sick isn't it?....
• traveling (although flying is not as fun as it used to be!)
• tap dancing
• watching Emma tap dance... and looking forward to watching Anna dance as well
• dancing with my husband
• candles
• music - I just wish I was muscially talented!
• getting mail, regular mail, email, it doesn't matter - even blog comments work for me. :-)
• the beginning of each new season, but especially spring and summer!
• the warmth of the sun
• Christmas
• being creative
• having a suntan
• having Dave plan a trip and it being a complete surprise for me - he did this for our 10th anniversary. :-)
• water skiing
• camping

I am sure I can come up with lots more! I get so bogged down with the day in and day stuff... it is fun to think of things I like, instead of spending so much time, thought and energy on things I don't like! It was fun to come up with my list (yes, I like lists...) even if I can't always do or have the things on my list, it is nice to at least think of things I like!

My latest time waster...


Dave introduced to me a game on www.primarygames.com It is an arcade game called Pengapop. The demo lets you play up to 20 levels. Today I made it to level 20 with 208250 points. This is my latest time waster... forget solitaire and freecell... this has much more excitement to it. :-) I really don't spend my days eating bon-bons and playing video games, but every now and then I do sit at the computer... especially when Anna is napping. I did do something productive before sitting down at the computer though- I worked out first.

Speaking of working out, no more Kathy Smith tapes from the 80's for me. Sorry Kathy, but I found someone new. Jennifer Giardi (I think that's her name). It is a video called 10 Minute Solutions - Dance Mix with five 10 minute workouts so you can pick and choose the areas you want to work on. You can do them in any order and as many as you want. I usually do 3 at a time. If I only have 10 minutes, I can just do one. I figure doing one is better than doing none! Anyway, it is a fun way to workout.

So now I can workout, blog and play pengapop. Life is good. :-)

Reality bites...

My alarm went off this morning... something I haven't used in a couple of weeks. After laying in bed listening to Billy Joel sing "My Life" and reminiscing for a minute about watching Bosom Buddies, I got out of bed and got ready for the day. I had to wake the girls up and neither one was too happy. Emma said her eyes were open, but she was still asleep. Anna cried that she had to get dressed and couldn't stay in p.j.'s all day. Then it was off to school for Emma. She begged me to walk her in and after fighting with Anna to get out of the car, we made it inside the school only to have Emma take off and never look back. She didn't say goodbye or even care that we were walking behind her. Why did I walk her in? I could've just dropped her off, saved Anna from walking in and saved myself a headache. But once Emma was at school and it was just Anna and me, all was calm. Thankfully, Anna and I had a mellow day. Oh the joys of reality! I wish Dave could be on a [paid] vacation forever... and that Emma's school started at 9:30 instead of 7:50 and went until 12:00, so pick up time didn't interfere with naptime... and that the girls were happy to see each other in the morning... and ... Why doesn't the world revolve around me and what I want? Reality just isn't as much fun as my dreamworld. :-)

I think I surprised him...

Today is Dave's birthday. It is a monumental year... he is entering into a new decade. In order to properly celebrate, I thought it would be fun to have a lifelong friend of his from California come visit. I spoke with Darin and his wife Janie about it this summer when we saw them and they seemed interested. Earlier in the fall, Darin let me know the flight was booked. I kept the secret for months. That was hard to do. It became really difficult the last few days. Fortunately we had an appraisal set the day before Darin and Janie showed up, so getting the house ready for company was easy enough to do. The closer it got to their arrival though, the more excited I was, and the harder it was to not tell Dave. But I managed to keep quiet and he was very shocked when he opened the front door yesterday and there stood Darin and Janie! He was in shock for a long time. It has been fun having them here. I am so thankful they could make it out here and celebrate Dave's big day. I am sure it is a birthday surprise Dave will not soon forget. :-)