Five Minute Friday: Things I'm Pondering

After a really, really, really, really, really long hiatus from FMF posts (the last one was in...April!), I'm feeling list-y today so I thought I'd share some of the things I ponder now and again. Beware. :}

1. I wonder what I would do if I ever happened upon a dead body? It seems to happen with great regularity to people on television and in movies, and people are dying or being murdered every day, right? Thus, it seems perfectly reasonable that some time in my life I might stumble upon one somewhere, and I can't help but wonder how I'll react.

2. Why does the cardinal mock me? One of my photographic goals has been to capture that bright red bird against a background of snowy white in the winter. Or against a background of evergreen any other time of year. I'm not too picky. But every time I see one of these guys (and yes, we're talking males only here because the females aren't the bright red ones), he'll sit in one perfect spot forEVER...until I go to retrieve my camera, and he's gone. Every time. Soooo frustrating!

3. How can I not own size ____ knitting needles??? Seriously, my collection of knitting needles is huge. HUGE. While I don't have that many straight needles because I don't use them often, and I have a limited number of DPNs because I prefer other methods for knitting in the round, I have dozens of circular needles in lengths ranging from 9" to 48" and in sizes from US000 to US15. Among those, I have multiples of the sizes I use most frequently, such as US2 for socks and US6-8 for most of the garments I make. How, then, can I not have the correct size needle in the necessary length for the project I decide to start at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night? It boggles the mind.

4. When is my daughter going to quit growing? Seriously. She's taller than me now. Her feet have passed mine already so we can't even share shoes. We have the hardest time finding skirts for her because they all end up being too short. I guess I can only pray that she maintains this lovely, tall, willowy figure throughout her life. It's the least nature can do for her considering the fact that she's the one of my three kids who ended up with braces, glasses and Crohn's.

5. What is it about the midnight hour that says "play time" to our dog? Muffin sleeps. A lot. Most of the day, in fact. (I'm beginning to suspect that she's really just an odd looking cat. :}) Other than her brief waking breaks to eat, pee and poop and occasionally get into something she shouldn't, she seems quite happy to spend most of her time curled up wherever I am. Sure, if we put her on the leash and take her outside, she's happy to be out there sniffing around, but other than that, she's a snoozer. Until nighttime. After everyone else is in bed and I'm the only one up with her, she suddenly decides it would be the perfect time to run around and play. And when I decide to turn in for the night and try to get her to come with me to her little nest next to my side of the bed, she's started playing the "Let's ransack the waste cans" game that now requires me to stash all waste baskets in the house out of her reach before I lay down. Crazy dog.

Five Minute Friday: Good things...again...

It's Friday, and one aspect of my life is still in big, giant suck mode, and it is threatening to consume me. I do not want to give in to that. So! Instead, I thought I'd resurrect Five Minute Friday, which I haven't done in eons. Today's topic will be: Good-things-to-think-about-in-order-to-try-and-stop-obsessing-about-that-which-I-have-no-control-over. 

Or maybe just Good Things would be a more manageable title? Here we go!

1. Regardless of how unbelievably hard or sad or unmanageable life seems at any given time, I know that God is God, and I always trust him to work things out according to his good purpose. He's never let me down.

2. Five days until Florida. YES!!!

3. It is raining like crazy today, but that just means it is not snowing and spring is here.

4. Tonight is a martial arts night, so I can go kick, punch and throw willing subjects to the ground.

5. My WIP list is at an all-time low...only six items! Awesome!

6. Only 20 days until Spring Fling and my trip to St. Louis for a long weekend of knitting goodness.

7. My grandson turns four next week...love that little boy so very much. :)

8. I have three children I love more than life itself...they are always a blessing to me, no matter what is going on in their lives. (No one said parenting would be easy, right?)

9. I have a husband who is more loving and patient than I deserve and who probably should have been mentioned before #9 on this list.

10. There are seemingly a bazillion day lilies springing up green leaves in my flower bed...can't wait to see how many blooms I get this year.

11. I'm almost 30 pounds lighter than I was last year at this time, and I feel so good!

12. I'm learning to spin beautiful yarn, and it makes me so happy to do so.

13. I have friends who I know I can always count on...another immeasurable blessing.

14. No matter what else, there is always hope.

See? I feel better for doing that!

I hope you all have some good things going on in your Friday. :)

Five Minute Friday: Fall...

Wow, I haven't done a FMF list in a long time! So it is fortuitous that today is Friday and I have a list topic in mind! Fall. I can't get fall off my mind lately. It happens every year around this time, but this long stretch of unseasonably cool days we've had have definitely put me in mind of September or October rather than August. I'm even wearing a pair of my hand-knit socks tonight, for goodness sake! It's a treat!

What other treats do I look forward to as the days get shorter? Here's my FMF list to explore just that...in no particular order...

1. Cooler temperatures! 

2. Colorful leaves.

3. Apple pies.

4. Canning an overflow of tomatoes (if they ever turn red this year!)

5. Knitting woolly things.

6. Wearing sweaters!

7. A return to the routine of the school year.

8. An end to reruns.

9. Firewood stacked on the back porch.

10. Starting to see the winter constellations.

11. Plans for a fall camping trip.

12. The smell of the cool fall air outside.

13. The smell our house has when the furnace first starts to run (not sure why...it's probably really dusty and unhealthy, but the smell is comforting to me).

14. Planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

15. Remembering past fall seasons.

16. Frost.

17. Pumpkins.

18. Mums.

19. Bales of straw and scarecrows and Halloween decorations.

20. The harvest moon.

21. Re-reading "Dancing at the Harvest Moon" (which I do every fall!)

22. My birthday, which I share with my BFF!

23. Thoughts of New England (where I will be going for a long weekend in September with aforementioned BFF to visit this amazing writer!)

24. Bonfires.

25. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I'm sure there are more things I could list, because I totally love fall. It is my favorite season of the year. Me + fall = true love. I heart fall!

Five Minute Friday: Good things...

I've been in kind of a crap mood this week, for no real apparent reason (PMS withstanding), so I thought now would be an excellent time to make myself focus on some good things in my life, if for no other reason than to guilt myself into stopping the incessant stream of internal whining I've been listening to in my brain. So, here goes...good things...in no particular order...

...healthy family.

...new MacBook.

...Clarks concert tomorrow.

...a vivid imagination.

...tank tops.

...tattoos.

...fuzzy doggies that love you even after you've yelled at them for peeing on the carpet.

...good coffee.

...yarn, and yarn, and yarn.

...knitting wearable things with all the yarn.

...getting together with friends.

...tickets to see Wicked this fall.

...dark chocolate.

...meeting new people and finding out you have really cool things in common.

...feeling like you belong, even for a little bit.

...conversations with strangers in the grocery store.

...rockin' music on my iPod.

...cooler temps and lower humidity.

...Ninja Warrior.

...fresh produce.

...dreams of crazy things that will probably never happen but are vacations for the brain just to dream them.

...the full moon.

...silence late at night.

There. Feeling a little better now. :)

Five Minute Friday: Live, from Florida...

Yes, I'm blogging from my mom's in Florida right now. And as such, I thought I'd make Florida the topic of this week's Five Minute Friday...so for the next five minutes, the reasons I'm happy to be in The Sunshine State!

1. Despite the fact that the sun has not been out and the rain seems to have followed me from PA, it IS at least warm here. Humid, but warm. I'll take it.

2. I'm getting to spend four days' of quality time with my Mom, something that has not happened before in my adult life. My mom is going to be 65 this year, and she's in good health, but the older she gets (and the older I get), the more I value the time I get to spend with her, especially now that she lives so far away from me.

3. Being here in Florida means I am not sitting at a garage in Virginia with my husband with a broken down (Budget) rental truck filled with our oldest son's family's belongings on it's way to their new home in NC. While I feel irrationally guilty that I am here having a good time while he is dealing with this, I am pretty thankful I am not there, because I imagine tensions are going to be running a little high before all is said and done.

4. Got to eat a yummy shrimp salad croissant with the best potato salad on earth at my favorite little restaurant here, Cafe Karibou. Mmm.

5. I can spend the next four days relaxing and knitting to my heart's content.

6. Having the whooooole bed to sprawl out in. ;)

7. Hot tub. Ahhhh. (A new addition here at the house since I last visited! Only probably is it is not possible to knit in the hot tub.)

8. No dog to clean up after.

9. Shopping! Wheeee! :)

10. Wine ad beer sold in the grocery stores. Seriously, PA is behind the times on this one. (Stocked up on a couple bottles of blackberry merlot today...a couple glasses of that while I'm in the hot tub and my aforementioned feelings of guilt will likely be washed away. LOL)

Off to knit for a bit now...maybe with a glass of wine....

Five Minute Friday: Keep 'em Separated

Ok, so most of my friends will easily enough testify to my rather diverse and eclectic taste in music. It runs a wide gamut...classic rock to swing to rockabilly to (some) rap to (some) jazz to folk to indie...you get the picture. Lately, I've been in a pretty good alt-rock mode, which has me listening to The X on the radio. They play the likes of Linkin Park, Beastie Boys, Three Days Grace, Alien Ant Farm, Beck, etc. Cool stuff. Lots of songs I love but also lots of other songs I don't really know.

One such song came on the radio yesterday...The Offspring's "Come Out and Play." If you're familiar with this tune, you know it opens with an instrumental intro, followed by one line, "You gotta keep 'em separated," which is then followed by a whopping 16 measures of riffing instrumentalization before you get any more lyrics that might give you a clue as to what the song is actually about.

So, I was driving in the car, heard that first line, and then sat there wondering for 64 beats, "Ok, so, what do you need to keep separated?" I figured the song could be going anywhere, so I started making my own list of things that should be kept separated. I was kind of surprised by how many combinations I came up with at the time.

I actually had to come home and Google the lyrics before I figured out that the song was about keeping rival kids from shooting the crap out of each other (which, incidentally, was not one of the things I thought of during those 64 beats...just sayin').

Anyway, I thought I'd use this topic for FMF this week...just what DO you have to keep separated??

1. Boobies (all those bras out there built to lift and separate!)
2. Gas and fire
3. Sodium and water (or potassium and water, both combinations illustrated as having explosive capabilities by MacGyver and the Mythbusters team during their MacGyver special)
4. Bickering children
5. The whites from the darks
6. The wheat from the chaff
7. Your husband and your boyfriend (LOL, as if)
8. The men from the boys
9. Me from any more opportunities to buy more yarn!
10. Your favorite bamboo knitting needles from your cat (cats like to chew bamboo needles)
11. Your recyclables
12. The Hatfields and the McCoys
13. Chocolate from sunlight (waste of darned good chocolate otherwise)
14. Vampires and wooden stakes
15. Gremlins and midnight snacks (remember that movie? I think I saw it a half-dozen times. LOL)
16. If you're a picky toddler, every food on your plate lest they accidentally touch and then be deemed inedible and yucky.

Ok...I'm out. Anything you need to keep separated? ;)

Five Minute Friday: More/Less

I made the decision this year to make more of an effort to listen to my body and follow its directions. Because honestly? It tells me things. It tells me when I need to sleep more. It tells me when I've eaten something I shouldn't have. It lets me know when I'm treating it well and when I'm not. When I listen to my body, I'm so much happier. When I don't, I suffer and so do others around me because I feel crappy.

I was doing pretty well the first couple months of 2008, then we went out of town in late February, and I never got quite back in gear with the listening. But I really need to. Boy, do I need to. (At the moment I'm suffering from a kick-ass headache that I believe was precipitated by the most sinful piece of chocolate cake I've ever eaten. It was to die for. Unfortunately, I'm paying the price for all of that sugar now. :P Not fun.)

In the spirit of this issue, this week's FMF is a dual list...things I know my body is telling me I need more of and less of...

I need more...

1. Sleep, and starting at an earlier hour than 2 a.m.
2. Fruits and veggies. The garden is growing. This should help!
3. Water.
4. Movement. I hate the word "exercise"...to many negative connotations. I just need to get up off my a** and find more reasons to move.
5. Whole grains.
6. Meal planning. I eat so much better when I think ahead a little bit.
7. Motivation to make positive lifestyle changes.
8. Healthy proteins.

I need less...

1. Refined sugar.
2. White flour.
3. Sedentary activities (how to knit while taking a walk?)
4. Coffee. One or two cups is plenty.
5. Last-minute meals, because they are usually full of processed foods that make me feel icky.
6. Grocery shopping without a list.
7. Fast food stops.
8. McDonald's sweet tea and Starbucks mocha frappuccinos. Argh. Both should be controlled substances, they are so addictive.

What's your body telling you these days? Are you listening?

Five Minute Friday: Job reflections...part two...

Yesterday I shared the history of my soon-to-be-ending job and how much I love it and though I may not have mentioned it specifically, I will be so sad to see it come to an end next month. I've wondered, off and on, since getting the news that the shop is closing, why God would let me find a perfect job like this and then let it only last for a year. Not doubting the Big Guy's wisdom or anything, but it is one of those mysteries of life I'm wont to ponder.

Throughout my ponderances, I've realized that a lot of good things have come from this brief yarn shop stint, some I could have guessed and others I'd never have thought of. So, for today's FMF, I'm going to list -- in no particular order -- as many of these good things as I can think of (though I may have to add more later because I'm really tired right now and may leave something important out).

1. Generous employee discount used to enable personal yarn stash enhancement.

2. The almost weekly opportunity to do the 50% mark-downs, thus giving me first dibs on the discounted yarn and further enabling my personal yarn stash enhancement.

3. Becoming friends with six enjoyable, wonderful ladies.

4. Working as a clerk and operating a cash register for the first time in many years, which I found to be quite enjoyable (and using the change-counting skills I learned back in my Burger King days of high school LOL).

5. Deriving an unexpected boost to my sense of self-worth as I realized that I was still employable after spending nearly 14 years out of the work force at home raising kids (intermittent periods of self-employment not counting).

6. Regular opportunities to stare at/fondle/sniff all the yarn I could want.

7. Learning...oh, the learning...about the yarns, about gauge, about reading patterns, about finishing, about fixing mistakes in my knitting, about so, so, so many things. It was a year of immersion education. Absolutely priceless.

8. Learning about my body and proportions and sizing and the fact that I am not as big as I tend to think I am. Really an eye-opener.

9. Related to #7, learning that it is entirely possible to knit myself a sweater without seeking out the absolutely hugest-sized, sack-like pattern I can find, and that I can, indeed, wear something more fitted and look good in it.

10. Getting to know customers and their likes and dislikes and quirks and realizing that I'm not as completely anti-social as I sometimes think I am about people. :}

11. Tuna salad. (What I brought for lunch 90% of the time...I almost never eat tuna salad, but it became a comfortable Saturday lunch staple, and I'm going to miss that! LOL)

12. Having the chance to teach others how to knit. Loved giving back to the craft in that way.

13. Getting a little paycheck with my name on it twice a month. Kewl!

14. Being constantly inspired by colors and textures of yarn all around me.

I know there's more, but I'm beat, and I have to go to work in the morning. (Yeay!)

Five Minute Friday: Good Things that Happened Today

Today was a pretty good Friday, so let's go with that for today's FMF list!

Good things that happened in my life today...

1. Found the cutest pair of new shoes that will henceforth be this summer's everyday-ish casual, quick slip-ons...


2. Found very cute turquoise-colored, summery, wrap top that does not make me look fat(ter that I really am).

3. Though not looking for one, found very pretty summer dress -- black with white eyelet embroidery -- that actually looks quite nice on me, which is saying something because I usually look very frumpy in dresses, but this one actually makes me look like I have a nice shape! Possibly verging on svelte! Woohoo!

4. Went to the chiropractor who performed magic on my aching back and hip. Love me my chiropractor!

5. Went to the coffee house fund-raiser tonight and saw all my photos hanging all official and gallery-like (or at least as official and gallery-like as artwork can appear in our church's fellowship room)...


6. Spent time talking to friends I hadn't seen in a while, which was very cool.

7. Did my part in the fund raiser aspect of the night with a husband-approved purchase of a beautiful quilted wall-hanging in all of my favorite colors...will likely go in our bedroom when I repaint it this year.

8. Got some very yummy sock yarn in the mail from The Loopy Ewe...from left to right: Spindle City Yarns, color "Barking up the Wrong Tree"; Zen String, color "Vitamin C"; Bellamoden, color "Black Beauty Complex Painted"...


9. Also in this order, isn't this the cutest little key chain ever? Came with a pattern to knit a tiny little sock to go on it! Fun!


10. Got a call this evening from the oldest son who is still away at SOI training. He got an early promotion this week, so he's now officially a PFC! Oorah! :)

11. Drank lots of coffee today...lots of yummy, good coffee...may not bode well for sleep tonight, but it made me happy whilst I was enjoying it. :}

That was my day...hope your's was as good! And just for the record, it does not escape me that six of my eleven "good things" involved buying stuff (seven, if you include a Starbucks mocha frap, which counts as one of the good coffees I enjoyed today...well, eight if you include the chiropractor's visit, but our insurance technically pays for that, though we pay for the insurance, or part of it, I guess...hmm...anyway.). I'm really not that materialistic of a person...honest! Most days I happily stay home and don't spend money at all. Well, unless I go grocery shopping, or if I'm at work and make a yarn purchase. Just happened that today was a good buying day. Doing my part for the economy and all... :}

Five Minute Friday: Movies

Here we are, Friday again. I swear I've been wanting to post something all week, but I just haven't gotten here. I'm definitely in a bloggy slump. But it is Friday, and since I invented FMF a while back (and haven't always remembered to do it!), I have a built-in blog topic at least once a week, right?

This week's topic will be movies. Rather than simply list movies I'm fond of, I thought I'd partake in a movie meme I saw on Wendy Knits' blog this week. Here are the rules:

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them on your blog for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. Looking them up is cheating, please don’t.

I'm only doing eight, because two of the movies I picked don't have quotes listed on IMDb and I don't want to assume I'm recalling them verbatim. So, eight. :} So, here we go...my 8 movie quotes. If you'd like to guess where they came from, leave a comment! :)

Edited 4/7/08: Since it's been a few weeks and the rest of these have gone unguessed, I thought I'd provide the answers, just because the lack of closure on this exercise is bugging me. LOL

1. "It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. " Tomzgrrl guessed this one correctly: The Blues Brothers. :)

2. "Ah, good morning. Can I interest you in some nipples of Venus?" Question posed by Vianne in Chocolat. I thought for sure there'd be a Johnny Depp fan out there who might recognize this line, even if Johnny's character didn't say it. ;)

3. "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." Amy guessed this one correctly (I'd have been disappointed in her if she didn't! LOL) : The Princess Bride.

4. "Certainty of death, small chance of success...what are we waiting for?" Oh, come on people! Gimli, from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King?? How could no one guess this. I'm shocked!

5. "With enough courage, you can do without a reputation." Spoken by Rhett Butler, Gone with the Wind. (Sorry, but "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" would have been way too much of a gimme.)

6. "Don't worry. Nobody dies in this story. They just get really big boo-boos." Ok...I can't fault anyone for not getting this, but it does make me laugh - the line and the movie! Spoken by the narrator in George of the Jungle. You have to admit, Brendan Frazier looks rather hot in that flick.

7. "My Morse is so rusty, I could be sending him dimensions on playmate of the month." Kim guessed this one correctly, as I thought she might, it being one of her favorite movies: Hunt for Red October.

8. "That is the sound of a thousand terrible things headed this way." Kim also identified this one correctly, even down to the correct episode! Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

Five Minute Friday: Why I am Looking Forward to Spring

Despite the fact that the calendar says that yesterday was officially the first day of spring, it hasn't exactly been springy here this week. But there are hints...a little green popping up in my front flower beds from the remnants of the bulbs that I basically massacred a few years ago (they are tenacious little buggers)...the morning sunlight casting shadows just differently enough to know that the seasons are changing...and robins -- of course! On March 1, I saw my first robin...an entire flock of them, actually. If that doesn't speak to the imminence of spring, I don't know what does.

So, today, for the next five minutes, I will list my reasons why I cannot wait for spring to actually get here and stay!

1. Winters here in Pittsburgh are long and gray and cold, even if they've been light on the snow as has been the case this year.

2. Anticipation of seeing the fresh green leaves as they start to cover the trees...love watching the hillsides go from barren to full day by day.

3. Being able to leave the coats at home.

4. Longer days.

5. More walks.

6. Knowing we're nearing the end of our school year.

7. Getting the urge to spring clean, and then enjoying the product of those efforts.

8. Hubby and the kids cleaning off the back porch so I can begin to enjoy my happy place on warmer spring mornings.

9. No more dirt-creating woodstove!

10. Lower electric bills from the furnace running less.

11. Visions of gardening...even though they often remain visions for me, I also harbor hope that this will be the year I actually get my little salad/herb garden planted and have it grow successfully. Maybe it will happen this year!

12. Warmer evenings/nights for going outside to star-gaze.

13. This year, taking a late spring trip (hopefully in May) to my mom's in Florida...all by myself. No kids! Just me and the beach and my mom. :) (Trying not to feel guilty about wanting to do this.)

14. Seeing the goldfinches return to my bird feeders.

15. The scent of thawing earth. Mmmmm. :)

16. A general feeling of hope and optimism. Maybe it's the increased sunlight each day, or the warmer temperatures, or the new growth, or the tradition of hope borne of Easter as we celebrate Jesus' resurrection, but spring makes me feel hopeful, like anything is possible. Like I can change the things about myself that I don't like and I can be a new person. Kind of the way animals shed their heavy winter fur and leave it behind to enjoy a shiny new self. :)

What does spring do for you?

Five Minute Friday: Reasons I'm Glad to Be Home

I nearly missed the fact that today is Friday...my days are all screwed up since returning and being sick. But it is Friday, and I've remembered, thus I'm going to do a 5MF about why I'm glad to be home, despite it being really tempting to have just stayed in Florida a day or two longer, enjoying the sunshine.

1. It would have sucked to have gotten sick away from home, even if we were at my mom's.
2. My own bed always feels so good after being gone.
3. Was missing the hubby.
4. Would have missed this awesome snowstorm today (or would have been driving in it--ick!).
5. Am enjoying time with my new Marine and his family.
6. Love being able to kick back in my jammies as long as I want.
7. Can do what I want without having to check plans with 8 - 12 other people.
8. No matter how messy it may be, I love being home.
9. Am enjoying the surprise furry, four-legged guest who is now staying with us.
10. Once again being able to cuddle with the hubby at night (which was hard to do sleeping in separate beds as we ended up having to do most of the trip).
11. Have downloaded all of my 200-ish pictures from the trip onto the computer so I can remember everything that seemed to go by so quickly.
12. Can check e-mail, Facebook, Ravelry, etc. as often as I like without getting dirty looks from my mom.
13. Making myself peppermint tea when I start to feel icky.
14. Have I mentioned I just love to be home?

Five Minute Friday: I Wouldn't Mind if...

After managing to miss my FMF list last week (not even sure why), I'm resuming it this week. It's a gray, snowy day today...perfect day for a little bit of wishful thinking. Thus, today's FMF list idea is one I'm borrowing from a recent post on Mennogirl's blog.

I wouldn't mind if...

...we got snowed in for a few days.
...the bummer bit of news I got yesterday would suddenly change.
...every day was a good school day.
...magic elves would come in and clean my house for me.
...I woke up and found myself weighing what I did 15 years ago.
...I finally felt caught up with everything I have to do.
...my husband and I never argued.
...I never had to deal with financial stuff again.
...I could spend time with my friends as much as I'd like to.
...our cat was better mannered so he could be inside and curl up and keep me company.
...the sun shone more often during the winter in the 'burgh.
...travel wasn't as expensive as it is.
...people quit being judgmental.
...if the federal government was downsized.

Five Minute Friday: Things that Stress Me Out

Ok, so this isn't a particularly uplifting or edifying topic this week, but you know what? It is Friday at the end of a loooong week. It is COLD. I am PMSing big time. So, here goes....

Things that stress me out:

1. Technology that refuses to work correctly.
2. Not being able to find things that I KNOW are around here somewhere.
3. Being so disorganized.
4. My house perpetually looking like a cyclone just wandered through.
(Seeing a pattern here? What is UP with this?)
5. Not having enough "me" time to recharge my l'il ol' introvert batteries.
6. When I don't prepare the kids' school lessons in advance and having to wing it.
7. Knitting snafus.
8. When Kevin and I don't get to spend time with each other to reconnect.
9. Indecisive people.
10. A too long to-do list.
11. When I realize I've done something incredibly stupid.
12. Anything having to do with finances.
13. My church.
14. Or my response to my church.
(Either way, not a healthy thing.)
14. Setting unreasonable expectations for myself.
15. The unfortunate results of my own procrastination.
16. Finding new cobwebs on my ceiling every time I turn around. (Seriously...WHERE are the spiders that are making these things??)
17. Ignoring what my body is telling me.

Ok...wow...that's enough.

Honestly, I really try not to stress out about many things. Most things aren't really worth stressing over. It's not a productive reaction. And all of these things are not constant issues for me...they just creep up occasionally. But seriously, some times? Stress just happens. And during weeks like this one has been, when I've experienced several of the above-mentioned items, added to the hormonal-ness going on inside of me...well, yikes. Makes those Pomtinis sound really, really good. ;)

And don't think that I don't realize that many of these stressors are completely within my control to decrease or eliminate. I know that. And I'm working on them. I'm just...trying not to stress out over them. :::sigh:::

Five Minute Friday: Things I Love

Lots of bloggers take part in a lot of different weekly blog events -- there's Ten on Tuesday, Studio Friday (which I used to do), Thursday Thirteen, and I'm sure there are plenty for all of the other days of the week as well.

Not feeling inclined to jump on another's band wagon at the moment, yet still enjoying the opportunity to make a list and share it with the blogosphere, I'm hereby instituting my own weekly list meme of sorts, aptly named: Five Minute Friday (I like that alliteration thing, don't you?).

Anyway, for the foreseeable future (or whenever I remember), I'm going to post some sort of list here on Fridays...a list on whatever topic I choose for the week, and I'll list all of the items I can think of for it within a five minute time period. I know you're just giddy with anticipation over this, aren't you? Uh huh. :}

So, this week, I think my list will be: Things I Love. In no particular order:

1. Mythbusters
2. Chai tea lattes
3. Naruto
4. Knitting
5. The nighttime sky
6. A good Long Island Iced Tea
7. My family
8. Ireland
9. Sleeping in
10. Mandarin oranges
11. Tattoos
12. Making lists
13. Winter sunshine
14. Tank tops
15. My job
16. Cats
17. My hair (for the first time in my life!)
18. Being 40-something
19. Books
20. Trivia
21. Moleskine notebooks
22. Body + Soul Magazine
23. Hampton Inns

Time's up! So...go make your own list, if you're so inclined. Or don't. But it's fun, so maybe yes...go make a list! :)