Day 30: Whatever tickles your fancy

This past Wednesday I went up to the Legion of Honor in SF to check out the Cartier exhibit with my friend, Dyan. The pieces were absolutely stunning!

There were a wide variety of jewels, from diamond tiaras to necklaces shaped like snakes (one was even linked internally, so that the segments MOVED like a snake), as well as many gorgeous brooches and mystery clocks, where the hands are suspended. Even Livia was oohing and aahing in between licks of her lollipop (I ended up having to give her two in order to make it through the entire exhibit in peace. I know, bad! But it was so worth it). The jewels were intricate and exquisite, and the exhibit was overall very fascinating.

But then that evening I visited a friend of mine who just had a baby. And as I held that 4-day-old little girl in my arms I was reminded what true beauty looks like. Enchanting as those diamonds were, I found that perfect, pure little face infinitely more captivating. There is something about babies, particularly newborns, that makes the whole world seem to pause, and suddenly nothing else matters quite as much as that wonderful, new little life.

I think I need that reminder every once in awhile, to help me remember that what I'm doing, at home with my daughter every day, IS significant. That no matter what's going on in the world, or what possessions I may or may not have, raising and loving a child is the most important contribution and the most significant privilege of my life.

Day 29: Hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days

By this time next year, Livia will be three years old. I hope, very much, that by that time she is fully potty trained. I hope she has learned greater obedience. I hope she has learned so much more about this fascinating world in which we live.

I hope that Chase will be done with the GMAT, and we can move on with our lives. (This includes the hope that he will do awesomely well on that blasted test)

I hope that Chase and I will have gone on a fun vacation, just the two of us. Preferably to Europe...but I think that falls more under the "dreaming" category.

I hope that we will have a second vehicle. I swear, once I have a car to use everyday I'm going to feel like a 16-year-old getting his first set of wheels. Ahh, freedom!

I would LOVE to own a piano within the next year. But again, dreaming...

I think I can plan on being in California for the next year, but after that I really have no idea where we'll end up.

I hope Chase will get a promotion. I hope we'll save more money. I hope everyone in my family will be in good health. I hope I'll continue to improve myself. And I hope that you, all of you reading this blog, will have a fabulous year!

Day 28: This year, in great detail

Let us be frank. You do not really want to hear about my entire year in great detail, nor do I want to spend the time to share it. If you've read my blog for any length of time, you already know pretty much everything of interest that I've done this year.

Since my life is essentially centered around this dear little girl, I thought that I would instead show her progression over the past year.

April 2009--1 year oldMay 2009June 2009July 2009August 2009September 2009

October 2009

November 2009
December 2009

January 2010

February 2010

March 2010

April 2010--2 years old

Has she grown up, or what?!

Day 27: This month, in great detail

I'm afraid I'm not feeling up to the "great detail" thing today. How does one write about an entire month in great detail in a blog post? Tomorrow I'm supposed to write about this past year...seriously??

In any case, April has been a good month! Here's a list of things we've been up to:

• General Conference. We're still trying to catch up on talks that were either drowned out by a certain boisterous toddler or accidentally slept through.
• Livia's birthday! She still asks to blow out candles at least once a week.
• 4 other family members birthdays. Lots of reason for celebration!
• Chase got in some good biking.
• I spent a lot of time blogging everyday.
• Volunteering at the elementary school.
• Playing with friends.
• Welcoming the arrival of Livia's soon-to-be friend, Ava Mayfield. Congrats, guys!
• Skeet shooting and hanging out at Happy Hollow.
• Lots of reading, playing, and baking with Livia.
• Errands, cleaning, and laundry. Woo-hoo.
• Tonight we're going to the temple, tomorrow I'm going to the Cartier exhibit in SF.
• LOTS of working and little sleep for Chase.
• Lifting weights while watching Biggest Loser (seriously motivating).
• Planning and giving Sunbeam lessons.
• Overhauling our budget.

And that is our month in a nutshell.

Day 26: Your week, in great detail

Let's see...on Monday we mostly hung out at home. After FHE Chase and I had our first GMAT study session together. Since I'm being so kind as to help him out, I insisted we start with sentence correction and study on the couch. I like to be comfortable while I study, though Chase prefers a desk and hard chair.

On Tuesday Livia and I went over to our friend's house, where she played with baby Matthew and I got to chat with Mary. I did laundry, was visited by my lovely visiting teachers, and we had night 2 of GMAT studying.

On Wednesday I watched two adorable little girls in the morning, and worked on a sewing project while Livia went over to their house in the afternoon. I had my last day of volunteering in an elementary school, helping ESL kids get ready for state testing. It was really nice to volunteer again, and a big thanks goes to Kristin for watching Livia every week so that I could! One of the girls, when I told her it was my last day, asked if I would be her 3rd mother (she has a step-mother). Flattering, but kind of weird, too...

Oh, and of course more GMAT. That night we started number properties. It starts out basic, with reviews of working with negatives, sets of integers, primes, etc., but oh my goodness, as soon as I started seeing variables my brain just about shut down! I literally have not done math since high school, and I never liked it then. Not that I can't do it...once we got into it I was able to figure out the problems, and did just as well as Chase, but I couldn't help feeling tortured by every passing minute.

On Thursday Livia and I hung out at home again, and then I went to my ballet class in the evening. We're getting ready for our mini-recital, and I'm enjoying learning all the choreography, since usually we just do a series of exercises. We were supposed to study again that night, but Chase fell asleep on the couch at 9:20 pm. I tried to wake him up, but he just grumbled at me, and ended up not coming to bed until 5:00 am.

On Friday I watched my niece, Ella, most of the day as her family moved across town. Livia enjoyed playing with her little cousin, and then we all went out to eat that evening. We were supposed to study again, but Chase fell asleep on the couch...again...and this time didn't come to bed until 6:00 am.

On Saturday Chase went skeet shooting with some co-workers, and Livia and I ran errands. That night we actually studied for the GMAT! Our goal was 4 days a week, so we made it. Phew!It was math again. I may or may not have complained. A lot. But we ended on some sentence correction problems, to see if we could remember what we'd learned, and I'm happy to report that I got 100%! I haven't done any sort of schoolwork since I graduated college, so it felt really refreshing to study, learn, test myself, and do well. Next week I think I'll continue studying the verbal portions with Chase, and read a book or something while he does the math. We ended the night by pigging out on junk food while watching an old Hitchcock episode on Hulu. Good times.

Day 25: Your day, in great detail

If my dad saw the title of this post he would laugh and warn you all to run to the hills.

Back when I was in middle school we had a family tradition every night at dinner to go around the table telling everyone about our day.

Perry would say "It was fine," and that was all.

Laura would describe a few things that happened.

And then it was my turn. "Well," I'd begin, "on the bus this morning..." and then "In 1st period we...." and so on through ALL 8 periods of the day. My dad used to cut me off after 15 minutes or so, and I would get so mad! Apparently I'm rather long winded.

SO, to spare you all, I will not go through EVERY detail of my day (aren't you relieved?), I'll just pick and choose a few things. (See Dad? I've learned. Maybe.)

It being the Sabbath today, we went to church. For once we were close to leaving on time. And then Livia asked to sit on the potty chair. Now, I knew very well that she wasn't actually going to go potty, but how can you say no to something like that?? So she sat on the potty. And didn't go.
We had a few more brief power struggles before we left, on such topics as which diaper to wear (because apparently she doesn't realize they're all exactly the same), and whether or not she could bring her maraca to church (definitely not). Finally we were on our way, and ended up being just a few minutes late. But at least this time it wasn't because of me!

Three of our sunbeams were not happy about being left by their parents today. One took a few minutes to calm down, another took all of singing time to stop crying and asking for his dad, and the last never made it and left with his mother, presumably to go take a nap.

Livia took a nearly 3 hour nap this afternoon, an extremely rare occurence for her, and Chase and I took the opportunity to take wonderful two-hour naps of our own. There's something about a Sunday afternoon that just requires a nap.

We went on a walk this evening after dinner, since the weather was far too gorgeous to pass up and we'd all slept away the afternoon. Livia insisted on wearing her rain boots. When we finally got outside she decided she absolutely had to have her umbrella. Halfway down the walkway she realized she didn't have her sunglasses so we had to go back again. All of this paired with her church dress made quite the outfit! And I know it's ridiculous, but I pick my battles, people! And with this girl, I have to.

Livia learned how to spell her name today. Only she doesn't realize that's what she's doing. She has a new toy that sings songs and talks to her, and you program it online to say the child's name. One of the little songs spells her name, and today she sang it to me! L-I-V-I-A! But sometimes she does get confused and says L-I-V-W-X-A. At least she's got that part of the alphabet song down, right? Now if only I can get her to recite this when I ask her to spell her name...then people will think she's a genius! Bwa-ha-ha!

My new plan to get Livia to eat food...any food...is to limit her to 16 oz. of milk a day. That's half of what she usually drinks, and while I've had to deal with lots of milk tantrums over the past few days, it's totally working! She has been eating noticeably more, and when she finally realizes she's not going to get any milk, she'll ask for yogurt or crackers instead. This is big. She even ate zucchini at dinner tonight. 5 whole pieces of it! Sweet, sweet success.

It was a good day. Not terribly eventful, but nice. Don't you just love the Sabbath?

Day 24: Whatever tickles your fancy

Have you ever noticed how a piece of equipment/machinery can evoke rather strong emotions from within you? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has been sorely tempted to throw their computer out the window when it froze in the midst of writing an extensive paper (and of course you hadn't saved it and this was before automatic saving by the word processor). Ever had photos get lost/corrupted? Ever had your GPS steer you wrong and you got totally lost when OF COURSE you had to be somewhere very important?

Now granted, the real anger/sadness/frustration comes from the loss of time or other valuables, not the machine itself. But you still find yourself glaring at that machine with utter loathing...for at least a few minutes.

I have an almost obscene dislike of one such machine, and that would be my brother's truck.

All of my brothers love this old truck, and will defend it til the day it makes its way to the great garage in the sky. But I rather despise it.

Let me give a few little experiences I've had with this truck to shed some light on the matter:

• The truck once stalled TWICE in the middle of an unprotected left turn. Pretty sure I saw my life flash before my eyes.



• The gas gauge didn't work, thus resulting in one LOOONG, cold night spent on the side of the road in middle-of-nowhere Utah before either my brother or I had cell phones. We ran out of gas around 2:00 in the morning, and it wasn't until sunrise that I could flag someone down to help us. Mis.er.ab.le.



• On a trip home to California, the clutch overheated multiple times, each time resulting in a long, hot wait in the car until it decided to work again. And, of course, most of the road between Provo and my family's home in the high desert is, in fact, desert. Hot, blistering desert.

My brothers insist that such occurrences ONLY happen when I'm in the car. That their dear, beloved car can somehow sense my dislike and acts up on purpose. Maybe they should name it Herbie???

My younger brother came home from college this week, and what's the first thing he did? Take a picture with said truck. He seriously missed it??! It boggles my mind. But in any case, I've vowed never to ride in it again. If they insist on loving this blasted machine, then I suppose that's their business!

Day 23: A youtube video

I don't really know of many good youtube videos. But my family did make a music video for family night once, and put it on youtube. Hopefully they won't mind if I post a link to it!

Day 22: A website

Chase and I always fight over the radio when we're in the car. I want music, he wants news--particularly NPR. Over the course of the past three years of compromise, I've discovered that NPR has has really excellent programs, especially on Saturday mornings. My favorite is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. It's ALWAYS good for a laugh.

But since I'm not usually in a position to listen to an hour long radio program at 11:00 on a Saturday morning, I use the website.
They have extensive archives of the show, and they're so great to listen to while folding laundry!

Day 21: A recipe

In lieu of trying to pick one recipe to share, I'm posting a link to one of my favorite cooking blogs.

I've only made a handful of these recipes so far, but each one has been both delicious and relatively simple, and I can't wait to try more!

Thanks Laura, for introducing me to it!

Day 20: A hobby of yours

I have what I affectionately like to call "Hobby ADD." I cannot, for the life of me, find a hobby and stick to it! I'm always seeing something else I'd like to try or learn.

Case in point: In the span of a few years, I took ballet, tap, jazz, modern, swing, folk, irish dance...you get the picture...and yet I still don't feel like I can say "I dance" because I didn't stick with any one genre long enough to learn it well!

So this post is going to be about my most recent hobby. I don't know how long this one will last, though I do rather enjoy it, so I'm hoping I'll be able to keep it up for a little while. My new hobby is embroidery.

A couple of weeks ago I was at Wal-mart and saw this toddler skirt for $1. That's right, one dollar. How can you pass that up? So I picked up a couple, and decided to make them a little more interesting. So far I've only done one, but here's how it started out:

And here's the finished product:

I know I only added a small detail to it, but for making up the pattern, I think it turned out pretty well!

I also embroidered a wall hanging for Livia for her birthday:

I'm still learning how to do this. I just started trying to teach myself a couple of months ago, and I've only done a few projects, so none of them are exactly perfect, but taking all that into account, I'm rather pleased with the results!

I've decided that I'm a fan of embroidery because you can see results pretty quickly, it's rather inexpensive, it's easy to fix mistakes, it's detail oriented, AND you can work on it while you watch t.v. or talk! That is my kind of hobby!

Day 19: A talent of yours

Well now, this is kind of tricky. Talents are an interesting thing, are they not? Some people seem to be talented at every single thing they try. Others have one or two amazingly developed talents. Still others may not have a natural talent for something, but work so hard that you'd never know it wasn't in-born. Others may see in us talents that we don't realize we possess, OR we may think we're great at something, but others do not agree (tryouts for American Idol, anyone?)

It's almost easier to list off talents of family members and friends, than it is to discuss one of my own!

But if I must, then I would say I have a talent for peacemaking. I feel like I can create a peaceful home, have peaceful relationships, and am at peace with myself. I'm certainly not perfect at it, but in general I do feel like it's a talent that I have and that hopefully I've been able to share with others. This is one of the reasons I always wanted to be a marriage and family counselor--to be able to help impart peace to other relationships. That and the fact that I can listen. Again, not perfect at it, but there are lots of occasions where people probably think I'm more shy than I really am...but really I'm just listening.

So there you have it! I thought about just talking about my highly developed facial muscles, but I don't think that would be terribly interesting to anyone besides Chase, who can't even flare his nostrils, and therefore finds the fact that I can wiggle my ears and wriggle my eyebrows in all sorts of ways strangely impressive. Ü

Day 18: Whatever tickles your fancy

Randoms:

• I have almost single-handedly finished off our last bag of Cadbury mini eggs. And I'm only slightly ashamed. Til next year, dear friends!
• Chase's new plan to conquer the GMAT is for me to study with him every night. What the?! Study for a test I don't have to take??! But I do want him to take it, so I told him I'd give it a week trial. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up enjoying it. (I'm least looking forward to having to dredge up all my math knowledge from the place in my brain where all bad-things-that-I'd-rather-forget go. I have never liked math.)
• Our dvd player started smoking. Bad sign.
• Chase suggested we watch Pride and Prejudice this weekend. That's right, it was Chase's idea! This would be my happy face. Ü
• There's a chance Chase will be working less than 18 hour days this week. Hope. hope. hope.
• If at one time you used to go to our ward choir practice, and you're not coming anymore...come back! I was the only soprano AND alto there yesterday!

And that is all.

2 years old

I've been remiss in posting about Livia's birthday!
We had a fun party at the park with friends...

Her buddy Drake came down for the occasion, and we were both so happy to see him and his mom again!

Livia was particularly excited about getting to blow candles out and have people sing the happy birthday song to her. (It's her favorite song ever)

On her actual birthday Chase came home from work before she went to bed, which was amazing!

Opening presents. I may have gone a little overboard...I love watching Livvy open presents because she gets so excited about each gift and wants to play with it immediately! (or wear it, as the case may be)She got a set of table and chairs from her grandparents, which worked perfectly with the new set of dishes she got from her great-grandparents! We opened presents just before bed (hence the pjs and wet hair) and it was so difficult to get her to go to sleep that night!I promised her that we could play some more in the morning. So right after breakfast we set up a little tea party. I think she had a very happy birthday. Thank you to everyone who was so generous and helped make it a special day!

And for those of you who are interested, her weight is 25 lbs. and her height is 33 inches.

She talks a lot now. Some of my favorite things that she says are "oopies" for oopsies, "book-a-read" for book, and hearing her count to 10 or trying to recite the alphabet.

She loves to play with friends, read, and go to the park. I'd say she's sweet and good about 85% of the time, but when she's in a willful or bad mood, oh man! I forsee many battles of will in our future.

Day 17: An art piece

If you've ever been to my house you've seen one of my favorite works of art.

It's called Mother and Child, by J. Kirk Richards.

He came to my humanities class in college one day, as a guest lecturer, and the more I looked at his artwork, the more I fell in love with it. One day he was back on campus autographing his work, and poor college student notwithstanding, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to purchase this!

Love it.

Day 16: A song that makes you cry (or nearly)

Whoops! I'm a day behind.

I'm pretty easily moved by music, movies, and dance, so I just decided to go with the first song that popped into my head.

Skin, by Rascal Flatts.

Day 15: A fanfic

I don't even know what this is.


PASS

PS. Livia had her 2 year checkup and is in the 30th percentile for height and weight. I was pleasantly surprised that she was that big! And despite her aversion to all meat, her iron count was at the upper end of the spectrum. Thank you, dry cereal!

Day 14: A non-fictional book

Well, it took me seven months, but today I finished! I read Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage in its entirety--footnotes and all.

It was a good, informative read. But I must confess I was happy to see the last page this afternoon!

Day 13: A fictional book

A fictional book, eh? Um, have I mentioned how much I like to read? Especially fiction??

It makes things tricky, because I have no idea where to go here.

Let's see...I just read a good historical fiction book: The Undaunted, by Gerald Lund.
I think I particularly enjoyed it because I didn't know the historical part of the story at all, so it was all new and interesting to me. Also, I may or may not have read this 800 page book in just a few days. Chase has been working a lot lately.

One of my favorites growing up was The Giver. I always chose to take an optimistic look at the ending, even though deep down I think the tragic ending was probably the more accurate one. But hey, it was left vague on purpose right? So I'm going to pretend it ended happily.

I finally read the Lord of the Rings trilogy this year. I'd read The Hobbit twice, and loved it. But had attempted the 1st Lord of the Rings book THREE times, and got stuck every time as they wandered in the forest. So this time I was determined to finish, and finish I did! I enjoyed them, though some parts were a little slow and overly detailed for me. What impressed me the most was the thoroughness of Tolkien's writing. He created an entire world, with languages, history, legend, songs, geography, etc. etc. And that, in of itself, makes the trilogy worth reading.

Chase and I are both reading The Hornblower series by C. S. Forester right now. We're up to book 3, but for some reason Chase won't let me read it until he does. I don't really get it. But I agreed to read read one nonfiction book (which will take me awhile. Nonfiction just doesn't grip me in the same way and demand that I finish in a timely manner), and then if he still hasn't read it, I'm just going to go for it. It's a pretty engaging series. I'm really enjoying them so far, and the naval theme is a refreshing change from my ongoing love affair with mystery novels.

And that's all I feel like writing. Goodnight everybody!

Day 12: Whatever tickles your fancy

Well, this works out pretty well, because today what's tickling my fancy is that Livia is TWO! Happy Birthday Miss Livvy! We love you so much!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Day 11: A picture of you taken recently

This picture was taken yesterday at Happy Hollow. That's pretty recent, right?? Pretty sure it was one of the best days of Livia's life. She had a ball!

There were so many fun things to do there that we didn't even see half of it. So we will definitely be back!

Livvy got a huge kick out of this swing. It's funny how sometimes it's the simplest things that make kids so excited.

Day 10: A picture of you taken over 10 years ago

^5 years old

^ 9 years old...growing out the bangs. Ahhh, memories!

Day 9: A picture you took

I took this at Chase's brother's wedding. It just makes me laugh. Ü

Day 8: A picture that makes you angry/sad

This is my grandma, Mary. Isn't she lovely? This picture makes me sad because I miss her.

I was named after her, but the two of us weren't very much alike. I know that perfectly well, because she lived with us for the 6 years before her death in 2005.

Having my grandmother in our home caused a lot of changes in our family, as well as a lot of growth. We tried to make our house in Lakewood work...my dad built a wheelchair ramp leading up the front steps, and my brother Jon gave up his bedroom and slept on the couch. My mom had just been considering going back to work since all her kids were now in school, but with my grandmother in the state she was in, that was no longer possible. There was a lot of sacrifice all around, but that's what you do for family, isn't it? And then my mom found out she was pregnant again, and we all knew our little 3-bedroom house wasn't going to cut it. So we moved, way out to the desert where houses were still cheap. I'll admit it, I cried. I was 13 years old, and had some of the best friends you could hope for. But I made new, wonderful friends and had other important experiences that shaped my life.

When my grandmother first came to live with us she was so weak she had to be spoon-fed and could not so much as lift her foot off the ground. She had been in a rest home, recuperating after a hospital stay, and it had not been good for her. After much patience and a lot of work, she eventually got to the point where she could walk with the assistance of a walker! It was wonderful to see her get so much stronger, and gain a little more independence. But it still wasn't easy. My dear mother spent so much time helping her. It was hard for her to have her mother-in-law constantly there, especially since I don't think you could find two more different personalities! But she dealt with it well--much better than I did.

I confess I didn't always have a happy attitude about it. Sometimes I resented having to change her diapers and sponge bathe her, clean up after her when she had accidents, or clean her dentures. What 15 year old does want to do that?! And she and I would get in arguments on occasion. It seems strange now, that I should argue with my grandmother, but we sure did! It's another reason thinking about my grandma makes me sad. I wish she could have seen me when I was an adult and more mature, and I could have apologized for being like that!

Through the course of all this though, something remarkable happened. I learned to love my grandma like I never thought possible. She and I would have conversations sometimes, as I got her ready for bed at night, and she looked so innocent and cute without her teeth in and with no glasses, that I couldn't help but smile. She would tell me about her life, and some parts of it made me so sad that I cried right then and there. A lot of her stories helped me understand her better, and I was proud of all she had done, and the mother that she had been for my father. I have an amazing dad, and I can see her influence in his life, particularly in his caring heart.

As my grandmother slowly declined again, we all knew that this time she was ready to go. Her husband had died of a heart attack on father's day (sad, huh?) and she was determined to hold out for mother's day. I'm not kidding. Every day she would ask if it was mother's day yet, and when it finally was, she let go. She died the next day, with my sister Laura, my dad, and I present. "I Need Thee Every Hour" was playing on her little stereo, and just as the phrase, "I come unto thee" rang out, my dad, who had been listening for her heartbeat, looked up at us and shook his head.

It was one of the most poignant and spiritual moments of my life.

We all cried. A lot. We knew she was ready to pass on, but that couldn't change the fact that we would miss her terribly. It hadn't always been easy to have her live with us, but I would not trade that experience for anything in the world.

I feel honored to be named after this woman. I love her so dearly.

Day 7: A picture that makes you happy

London, good friends, the Beatles...happiness.

Seriously, going on that study abroad was one of the best decisions I ever made!

Day 6: Whatever tickles your fancy

Oh, motherhood.

Last night Livia and I were in her bedroom, cleaning up her toys before she went to bed. I started picking up her books and asked her to clean up her play food. Soon, that plastic food was the only thing left on the floor, and she had yet to even touch it. "Livia," I said, getting stern, "you need to clean up your food. You can do this, you've done it before."

After 5-10 minutes of fruitless persuading, I very literally made her start cleaning up. I held her in my arms and carried her back and forth from the pile of plastic food to the bin in which they belonged. This was working, and the job was halfway done, but it was tiring and well, rather ridiculous. So I told her to finish up.

It was a full half hour from the time we began that 3/4 of the food was put away. I was quickly losing my patience, but trying not to show it. At this point it had become a battle of wills, and there was no way that I, as a parent, was backing down. Suddenly Livia looked at me, a glimmer of defiance in her eye, and then promptly kicked over the mostly-full bucket. And THEN, when the food didn't actually spill out, she picked it up and dumped out every single piece! Oh, the cheek of it all!

There are no treats or tv shows in the Baldwin household today.

As I bathed her, just after this event, I couldn't help but think that were my parents able to see it, they would have burst out laughing and told me I had it coming. Because, you see, I was exactly that kind of toddler. And the parent curse--you know, the one where "i hope you have children just like you"--well, it works.

It would be kind of nice if motherhood was all about keeping your children happy, wouldn't it? But it's not. You have to teach them, too. And some lessons are just hard to learn.

Day 5: Favorite Quote

To be honest, I don't really have a favorite quote. So I got online and found one. It's by Abraham Lincoln, and he simply said, "Whatever you are, be a good one."

I like that.

Day 4: Favorite book

To quote dear Danielle (from another great movie), I could no sooner pick a favorite book than "choose a favorite star in the heavens."

Like many of you, I love to read. It was my favorite past time as a child. I remember being 7 years old and going to the library with my mom. I'd pick out a whole stack of chapter books and the librarian would always kind of eye it and ask my mom, "Is she going to be able to read all those?" My mom would immediately reply, "She'll be done with them by the end of the week."
And I was. I LOVED to read. I would get in trouble for reading too much. My allowance almost always went to a new book from the bookstore. And one of the few things I remember lying to my parents about as a child was that a book I was reading was "for homework." A bit nerdy? Um, yeah. But if I had to have an obsession as a child, I'm glad it was books.

So having read a lot of books in my time, it's really quite hard to pick a favorite. I like a lot of the classics: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, etc. I also love a good mystery, Agatha Christie probably being my favorite because she still manages to suprise me with the endings. Some books are significant for the message they convey, others are simply delightfully entertaining. I've gone through sci-fi kicks, fantasy kicks, historical fiction and non-fiction kicks, but if I absolutely had to pick a favorite, I would probably have to say....Jane Eyre.

The first time I read it my older sister was reading it for a school assignment and, being the bookworm that I've now confessed to be, I read it too. I read a lot of books that way. I loved Jane Eyre. I found the plot rather fascinating and enjoyed Charlotte Bronte's writing style. A few years later I was then in the class where I was required to read it, and was pleasantly surprised to note that even knowing the ending, I enjoyed the book as thoroughly the second time. That's not always the case with books, you know? It was--is--simply a great work of literature.

So if you by chance haven't read it--well then, I think you should.

Day 3: Favorite Television program

Over the past three years my favorite show has been Monk. I got so attached to all the characters, and was so sad when the series ended last year. Luckily, the show that USA network replaced it with is White Collar, which is probably my new favorite. AND, even more luckily for me, it's on Tuesday nights!

You see, Chase and I decided that watching t.v. had become a huge time-sucker for us. We would sit and channel surf, and it wasn't too hard to find something to watch, though we always kept a special eye out for Iron Chef America. So we decided that we were tired of wasting time, and came up with the idea of TV Tuesdays. So after Livia goes to bed we're free to watch t.v. as much as we want that night. That means Biggest Loser (and American Idol during commercials) and then White Collar (once the new season starts back up again). And then sometimes Psych, too. I get the most out of my night of television. Ü

And then that's it! Sometimes we cheat if there's a special sporting event on (ahem, march madness), or on the weekneds, but overall we stick to it, and it's been great! I was never much of a tv watcher through high school or college, and I really wanted to get back to that again. It's freed up our time for reading, projects, and playing games together. Speaking of which, I think I'll propose a rousing game of Ticket to Ride tonight...

Day 2: Favorite movie

I like a lot of movies, but I didn't even have to think twice about which is my favorite. The A&E Pride and Prejudice is hands down, no contest, my very favorite movie. I've seen it countless times, and yet every time I hear the opening music I find myself feeling a little giddy.

I like movies where dialogue matters. You can't talk during Pride and Prejudice. The wittiness and character development in P&P make the 5 hours both vital and wholly enjoyable.

I love that Mr. Collins is revolting. I love that Mary makes me feel horribly awkward. I love that Mr. Darcy first makes my blood boil and then makes me swoon. I love that Elizabeth is a wonderful but imperfect character. I love that Jane's happiness makes me feel incredibly happy myself. And I love that one conversation between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine, when Elizabeth refuses to back down and Lady Catherine doesn't get her way (for probably the first time in her life).

I. Love. This. Movie.

And I don't even care if it's cliche.

Count me in

A few of my friends are writing a blog a day for the month of April on the following topics:

I hesitated at first, because some days just get crazy and I may not actually get around to blogging. But hey, at least I'll get some of them in. Ü

So today's topic is all about you favorite song. Hello, hard! Not only do I love music and listen to it all the time, but favorite songs change a whole lot more than say, a favorite book or favorite movie, because you do listen to them repeatedly, and sometimes you get sick of even the best songs. However, there is one song that I have yet to tire of, even though I first heard it 8 years ago. And that would be These Days by Rascal Flatts (It's kind of a cheesy music video, so feel free to shrink it and just listen to the music). LOVE Rascal Flatts. They were the first country I ever listened to and liked, and since I afterwards became quite the country fan, they will always have a special place in my music heart.

This would be easier if a genre was specified. I worked in a music and dance library for 4 years, and since I often worked at a computer where I could wear headphones, and was in a place that carried over 16,000 cds, I listened to a wide variety of music. One of the most musically interesting bands I like is Sigur Ros--Olsen Olsen is probably my favorite song--they're an Icelandic group, and really ethereal, but the music is beautiful and I love the way it just washes over you.

Another classic favorite? Garth Brooks' Wrapped Up in You.

Okay, I'm cheating. I'll stop now.