My 100th Post

This was certainly an interesting list to compile, especially for someone who digresses from topic to topic as easily as I do. It's just too bad you can't tell how I jumped ship and got from one thing to another when the list seems to change course so suddenly. You know, sometimes Hubby will look at me when we're talking and I can tell by this look of fascination that he's wondering how I got from one subject to the next. It's usually something like, "I heard that song, which made me think of the 80's, which made me wonder if so-and-so is the same age as us, which made me think of how you have more gray hair than me, which made me think that the boys need a haircut, which made me think of appointments, which made me remember that I had one at the doctor tomorrow and since I'm living in this apartment and don't have my nice big calendar on my fridge I might not have remembered about it if I hadn't heard that song." You get the picture.

100 Things About Me

1. I was born in Arkansas.
   
   
2. I moved to Gretna, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, right around when I turned three, and I lived there when Hurricane Camille hit.
   
   
3. Other than about a year and a half in Louisiana, I lived the first 18 years of my life in Arkansas in the same town where I was born and graduated from high school.
   
   
4. Hubby and I were in the same first grade class.
   
   
5. We started dating in the 9th grade.
   
   
6. I became a Christian in the 2nd grade.
   
   
7. My grandfather made sure I understood and prayed with me.
   
   
8. I had knee surgery when I was 13 years old.
   
   
9. I chipped the bone playing basketball.
   
   
10. It took the doctor about a month to figure out what was wrong, because the bone would flip in and out of place. Of course during x-rays it was always in place.
    
    
11. And of course during surgery the bone chip was in place too. That meant they couldn't do the brand new arthroscopic surgery.
    
    
12. I had special stitches so that I wouldn't have any scarring.
    
    
13. I now have two 2-inch scars on each side of my left knee.
    
    
14. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 18 years old.
    
    
15. I didn't care about driving because I'd been in a fender bender in the church parking lot when I wasn't supposed to be behind the wheel of the car.
    
    
16. I didn't even have a permit.
    
    
17. The car I happened to hit was my uncle's.
    
    
18. I went to college at Ouachita Baptist University for three years.
    
    
19. I graduated "across the ravine" at Henderson State University after attending my senior year there, preferring their accounting program.
    
    
20. I graduated summa cum laude from HSU.
    
    
21. I had a 4.0 gpa.
    
    
22. I didn't just like getting A's, I always wanted to get the highest A.
    
    
23. Did I mention I have a Type A personality?
    
    
24. Pun intended.
    
    
25. I took the CPA exam the same week I finished my finals.
    
    
26. I passed the CPA exam the first time I took it.
    
    
27. I got the third highest score in the state.
    
    
28. Hubby and I got married between our freshman and sophomore years of college.
    
    
29. Our first apartment had two rooms, not counting the bathroom or closet.
    
    
30. Hubby and I were both number 22 in basketball before we started dating.
    
    
31. It became our number.
    
    
32. We got married on the 22nd of June. It fell on a Saturday that year. How convenient.
    
    
33. We were pronounced man and wife at 2:22 p.m. My aunt checked her watch.
    
    
34. We have homeschooled all our children since kindergarten.
    
    
35. This is our 10th year of homeschooling.
    
    
36. Yes, we plan to homeschool until they graduate from high school.
    
    
37. I had my tonsils out when I was 25 years old.
    
    
38. I made Hubby learn the sign language alphabet the night before so I could still talk to him.
    
    
39. You shouldn't drink Sprite, or any other carbonated beverage, after you've had your tonsils out.
    
    
40. If you do, be sure you're standing in front of your kitchen sink so when it hits the back of your throat and you think you just drank acid, the spray flying out of your mouth has somewhere to go.
    
    
41. I had hamsters when I was growing up.
    
    
42. My favorite hamster was Blackie because he was, well, blackish, and different.
    
    
43. I had a hamster named Jaclyn after Jaclyn Smith from Charlie's Angels.
    
    
44. When I was growing up I read every Nancy Drew book.
    
    
45. I wanted to be Nancy Drew when I grew up.
    
    
46. I still want to be Nancy Drew when I grow up.
    
    
47. Or Jessie from the Boxcar Children.
    
    
48. I love peanut butter.
    
    
49. There's nothing better than the first scoop of peanut butter on a spoon out of a new jar.
    
    
50. I love peanut butter cookies.
    
    
51. My grandma used to send me peanut butter cookies my freshman year in college.
    
    
52. I don't like my foods to touch.
    
    
53. If my foods touch, I will leave the parts that touch and not eat them.
    
    
54. I eat one thing at a time.
    
    
55. I usually start with the bread, then the veggies, then the meat. If there is salad, it's first and doesn't qualify as the veggie.
    
    
56. I have a tendency to leave one bite on my plate, or leave one bite of a burger or sandwich.
    
    
57. I have absolutely no idea what that says about me.
    
    
58. I love coffee.
    
    
59. I use creamer.
    
    
60. The real stuff.
    
    
61. No sugar.
    
    
62. I used to love drinking coffee at my grandpa and grandma's house when I was growing up.
    
    
63. I love Starbuck's White Chocolate Mocha.
    
    
64. I like raisins in Raisin Bran.
    
    
65. I don't like raisins in anything else.
    
    
66. That would qualify as food in my food.
    
    
67. I don't like nuts in my cookies or brownies.
    
    
68. That would qualify as food in my food.
    
    
69. I make really good chocolate chip cookies.
    
    
70. Without nuts, of course.
    
    
71. I used to have enough clothes to fill three standard closets.
    
    
72. Now I couldn't even fill one.
    
    
73. Hubby has more clothes than I do.
    
    
74. We used to have two Persian cats before we had children — Cherokee and Theodore.
    
    
75. We have one now whose name is Peka.
    
    
76. I've had three miscarriages.
    
    
77. I've had two c-sections.
    
    
78. My mom is a breast cancer survivor.
    
    
79. My great-grandmother died the day the Challenger crashed. It was during my sophomore year of college and I'd been married just over seven months.
    
    
80. I am related to Santa.
    
    
81. I have waterskiied.
    
    
82. I have never snowskiied.
    
    
83. Blue is my favorite color.
    
    
84. I had a powder blue and white bedroom when I was a teenager.
    
    
85. I love chocolate.
    
    
86. Milk chocolate is my favorite.
    
    
87. I enjoy scrapbooking.
    
    
88. I am completing books for all the children.
    
    
89. Plus family albums.
    
    
90. Without dragging things out of boxes to count, I've completed roughly 30 or so 12x12 albums.
    
    
91. I have all my kids' books from birth through 2002.
    
    
92. My family book is finished through Mother's Day of 2002.
    
    
93. I'm way behind.
    
    
94. I love to cross-stitch.
    
    
95. If I use aida or another even weave, I don't use a hoop. I just hold the fabric in my hand, no matter how big it is.
    
    
96. If I work on linen I have a wooden rack that sits over my lap. It has two bars to stretch the fabric taut.
    
    
97. I don't like hoops at all.
    
    
98. I sat at the talking table in kindergarten.
    
    
99. I love Matlock.
    
    
100. I love to read.

I know some people have trouble with these, but my mind just went from here to there and all over the place and I could have kept going. Silly, isn't it? That's why I need to have the tv on when I go to sleep — otherwise my mind thinks too much and I can't. It drives Hubby crazy. Good thing he loves me.

Hope you enjoyed learning a little more about the craziness that makes me tick...thanks for reading it!

Book Reviews...The Cat Who Played Post Office & Murder, She Wrote: A Palette for Murder

I'm going to squeeze a couple of reviews into one post since they are both parts of series and are going to be simple reviews for me.

I enjoy "The Cat Who..." series immensely. Lilian Jackson Braun does a good job with the plot and usually keeps me guessing whodunit. Qwilleran is a veteran newspaper reporter and his cat can sniff out the clues to the mystery at hand. If you haven't read any of the series, this is not the book to start with. I say that only because it might ruin reading previous books in the series since where Qwilleran ends up in this book inevitably tells a little of what happened in the previous book.

Murder, She Wrote: A Palette for Murder is about the seventh book in this series. I read series in order by nature of my OCD issues. I don't think you really need to with this series, it's just my personal preference and habit. I couldn't sit down and read this entire series without a break, but I do enjoy reading one of these cozy mysteries every so often. This one was based on the art world, and it wasn't difficult to follow like the first book in "The Cat Who..." series. I felt like I almost needed an art degree at times to follow that book. Even if I figure out whodunit in these books, usually I don't fully know why. There is usually a little bit or piece of information that the reader doesn't know. But it doesn't bother me not to be able to figure it out.

These are both good series for the group who likes light murder mysteries, which I affectionately refer to as "Nancy Drew for grown-ups."

Jesse James Ain't Got Nuthin' On Me

I'm pretty sure you all remember the childhood song Pop Goes the Weasel. Well, we use it as the tune for a song about prepositions. There are about 50 of them in the song, and it helps the kids remember them. I think the original song was on the girls' Abeka video from the fourth grade, and it's been a very useful tool in our homeschooling. The boys have had to learn it when they became third graders, and Caboose has hit that milestone now.

We were working on the song yesterday, and if you can imagine the tune to the first part of the lyrics along with me: All around the Mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel... We sing, "Aboard, about, above, across, after, against, along." Caboose just couldn't get that last one, but I'm not sure why. Here's what he sang, "Aboard, about, above, across, after, against the law."

I really promise I'm not doing anything bad to subliminally influence the opinions of my youngest child.

It's Funny The Things You Find Out From Your Kids When You Stub Your Toe

Well, from the title I guess you can figure out I stubbed my toe. I rammed the step stool into the big toe on the right foot, obviously using the step stool being a super shorty, and I stubbed it bad enough that all the kids came running. Granted, I was in front of the kitchen sink and they were at the dining room table, which in our corporate apartment makes us about five feet from each other, but they still came running.

So after I shooed all the kids back to the table to finish eating, I hear Caboose telling the others that he named his toes a while back. Always the curious one, I asked him what he named them. His answer, "Bob, Tom, Caboose, Caboose, Jr., and Caboose, Sr." Obviously it wasn't really Caboose, but if I'd put his real name down three times it might have been a dead giveaway.

By the way, he only named the toes on one foot. Don't ask me why.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Hubby!

You know, 43 is a really strange number. It's an odd number to start with, as opposed to even, and I've said before how much I don't really care for most odd numbers. But that aside, it's a prime number, too. That makes it a more unusual odd number. (For those of you who aren't math geeks [and my mother] a prime number is one whose only factors are one and itself.)

So can you guess how old Hubby is today? Yep, 43 whopping years old. That makes him older than me for roughly two and a half months. Yippee!

I have a few pictures of Hubby that I have in our family scrapbook. I got them from his maternal grandfather right after his grandmother passed away in 1997. I could tell he was very hesitant to let me borrow them to get some copies made. They were his only connection to the past at that point. I didn't get to make very many copies because of the cost involved. How I wish they had those Kodak Picturemakers where it's only about a quarter for a 4x6 copy now.



You know I also love that mosaic maker. They have a feature where you can put four pictures in a narrow vertical mosaic. I used Hubby's first eight years of school pictures and did just that. They turned out so cute! No wonder I married him.

I think it's very funny when you get to the eight grade pictures and older how all of a sudden the guys stop smiling. It's like they have to look tough. I thought it was just the sports pictures, but quick looks back at yearbooks and many times it can be the school pictures too. At least until the senior pictures roll around and you end up with some smiles there.

This was Hubby's 9th grade basketball picture and 10th grade football picture. You'd think that since Hubby and I dated from 9th grade on that I would have all those years of school pictures, but I can't seem to locate 9th or 11th grade. I couldn't when I did the scrapbook either. They may have been mangled in my wallet back then.

Hubby turned 13 on Friday the 13th. Not that we are superstitious people, but that year he broke his arm twice (the same one) and almost broke his ankle.

Enough reminiscing for now. Hope you have a great birthday, Hubby. I love you!

Just Thought I'd Mention...

...even though we can't watch our SEC football up here in Big 10 land, ESPN was flashing "upset alert" at the bottom of the screen. It's about time the Hawgs did something good, like a big win over the Auburn Tigers.

Arkansas 25 — Auburn 22

Book Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart is a book that was written for grades 5-9 according to the School Library Journal. It's been all the rave on "What's On Your Nightstand" by moms who have been reading along either with their kids or because their kids have raved about the book.

It's difficult to find a book that my girls (who are 14 and in 9th grade) find exciting enough to keep their interest but is yet "clean" enough to meet our standards. They are not interested in reading teenage romance, and we are not interested in them reading it.

That said, we decided that we would try The Mysterious Benedict Society and it's sequel The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey. I would have preferred to read at least the first book prior to them reading it, but that just wasn't possible. We usually do that with new authors just to make sure it's an acceptable book, but if I'd been very concerned about it, I would not have let them read it until I made sure I had time.

My girls devoured these two books and had them completed in less than one week. I had the first book completed within a couple of days. It was an easy read and an engaging story. The plot is fairly simple but not elementary. The children have to learn to work together even though they are all extremely different in both personality and areas of intelligence. The antagonist is clearly defined without seeming so evil that he's scary. The plot twists are unexpected in most cases but yet simple to follow.

The one thing I disliked about the book is that the children cheat at one point and they lie to keep themselves out of trouble, going so far as to implicate someone else that was innocent. The children are very troubled with these things because it goes so strongly against their moral grain of right and wrong. The author then handles this second act of implicating an innocent person by not having the person punished but instead rewarded, which is somewhat confusing to the children, but completely understandable in the mind of the antagonist.

These things definitely open up areas of discussion with our children, and it really boils down to difficult decisions that must be faced in daily life. These were fictional accounts that were a little farfetched, but don't we all have to decide whether to accept responsibility at some point in our lives for doing something that we'd rather not? I know I have. It's not always pleasant, but that's where we have to hope we have instilled that sense of right and wrong in our children and hope they make the right decisions when we aren't around.

The Mysterious Benedict Society was an excellent book that was well-written, never boring, and clean, with a tiny little surprise at the very end. I am going to read the sequel, too. Right after I finish reading all those other books on my very long list!