Self-tagged meme

I read this meme over at Chicken Knits and decided to join in!

Here's the deal:

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Uhm...working at the same job I am now? heh. ;) Let's see...I was also living in this same house, but at the time as the daughter, not as the wife/homeowner! (By way of explanation...my husband and I bought the house from my dad)

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
Well, my To Do list today was (it's after 10pm) to clean the house, go to the grocery store (exciting stuff, I know...just stop me now), go to the fabric/craft store to get notions for my bag, and stay cool. It's freakin' hot here right now...we're having an early June heat wave. And #5 is to finish and post this entry and reply to all my comments before I go to bed.

3. Snacks I enjoy:
Let's see...I like gummy bears, pretzels, Cheddar Chex Mix, grapes, mangoes...

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Okay, this is total fluff, but...pay off the house, perhaps get an apartment near a ski area and/or beach house for vacationing, hire someone to clean my house (heh heh!), hire a personal trainer to help me get in shape...buy my husband his dream car(s)...

5. Places I have lived:
Pennsylvania; Tokyo, Japan; Istanbul, Turkey; Leysin, Switzerland

6. Jobs I've had:
Friendly's Ice Cream waitress (where I was a multi-purpose waitress/hostess/bus-person/salad-maker/ice cream scooper/dishwasher-loader...they had you do everything there), currently a proofreader...

7. Peeps I want to know more about:
I'm not going to tag anyone either...I self-tagged, and feel free to do the same! :o)

6 Things Meme

I was tagged by Gypsyknits for a meme! (Sorry it's taken me so long to do this...!)

Here are the rules for this one:

Post the rules on your blog.
Link to the person who tagged you.
List six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
Tag six random people at the end of our blog by linking to their blogs.
Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Okay, here goes:

1. I don't think I will ever dye my hair when I start to go gray. Luckily for me, I only have one gray hair at the moment (that I can find...)

2. I make a very detailed "trip list" for every single trip I go on. It is an Excel spreadsheet, and each time I'm going somewhere overnight, I copy the previous list and updated it as necessary. I include everything on it right down to little details like dental floss! I have specific lists for when we go camping or to the shore or skiing. My husband makes fun of my lists, but hey, who's the one who doesn't forget her pajamas?! ;)

3. When I put on my shoes, if I've been walking around in my socks, I have to wipe my feet on my leg before I can put my shoe on, in case there's something stuck to the bottom of my foot. If I see someone else putting their shoes on without doing this, it bugs me!

4. I have to carry my purse on my right shoulder. It feels very awkward if I carry it on my left.

5. I am a "purse-aholic." I love bags, and purses, and have a closetful of them. This is a good thing though when I'm in need of a knitting bag!

6. I used to have a big white cat named Pamuk. His name was the Turkish word for "cotton." He was my first cat and was my buddy, and I loved him so much. He passed away suddenly a year and a half ago while we were away on vacation, and I was beside myself, so upset. I still miss him.

He was my welcoming committee every day when I came home from work and always snuggled with me on the edge of the bed every morning while I woke up.



He was a huge fluffy white kitty, weighing in around 22 lbs! Here you can kind of tell how big he is...he's sitting next to Maddie (this was a rarity), whom I consider to be a fairly "normal sized" cat at around 12 lbs. He wasn't fat, just big! He had big paws and and a big wide head (better for petting) and was long too.



I love this picture...he was big enough that he'd make the chair recline by itself. (Kindly disregard the icky old brown chair...we finally replaced it.)



These photos are at our old apartment, where the kitties would like to sit by the window.



And please excuse the photo of a bathroom, but this has a funny story to go with it...see, at Christmastime we had to move our papasan chair in order to make room for the Christmas tree. So we stashed it in the guest bathroom tub behind the curtain. Well, this was Pamuk's favorite chair, and one day when we couldn't find him, something made me look here:



He was in there, behind the curtain, in his beloved chair. hee! To me he kind of had a look on his face as if to say, "I can't believe you put my chair in here!"

There you go. I know that wasn't really a "non-important things/habits/quirks" about me, but I wanted to share him with you. I guess you could call the fact that I was crazy about him one of my quirks. :)

So now I'm supposed to tag people...I think I was one of the last to do this meme, so I'm just going to cop out and "tag" anyone who wants to do it! But thanks to Gypsyknits for tagging me. :)

Oh, and I swear this blog will have knitting content again soon!

Christmas Questions

Since I don't have any real knitting updates to post about, nor any photos to share, I thought I'd post this. Here is a little Christmas question & answer list that I found over on Karrie's blog, Too Little Time. I decided to jump on that bandwagon and answer it too! (I'm also borrowing her idea of making it colorful and Christmasy!) :o)

Rules are to copy and paste to your own blog, replacing the answers with your own. If you do answer it on your blog, leave me a comment and I'll come by to see!

Enjoy!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? -Wrapping paper, and I like to make the gift tags myself. I've also been known to use "fur" yarn for ribbon!

2. Real tree or artificial? -Growing up, we always had a real one, but now my husband and I are contemplating getting an artificial one.

3. When do you put up the tree? -About three weeks before Christmas

4. When do you take the tree down? -Around New Year's

5. Do you like eggnog? -Yup! (and now that I'm a grownup, I like it with a little rum!)

6. Favorite gift received as a child? -A Gund "Snuff" stuffed bear, which became my all-time favorite

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? -Yes

8. Hardest person to buy for? -My nieces and nephews because unfortunately I don't see them very often

9. Easiest person to buy for? -My husband and my best friend, because I know them so well!

10. Worst Christmas Gift you ever received? -I really can't think of one.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? -Mail, and I like to make those too.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? -Don't really have a favorite movie, but gotta watch the original Grinch TV show each year!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? -November or so

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? -Not exactly, but there used to be a "joke" gift (it was a hideous thing of plastic "flowers" made from plastic shells--no offense to anyone who likes plastic flowers or shells, but trust me, this was hideous) that we would circulate in the family as a recurring joke gift that kept reappearing quietly and suddenly, which was fun. It stemmed from an older version of a similar joke gift from my dad's generation.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? -Favorite family recipes of Christmas cookies!

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? -Colorful...growing up, we used the "twinkle" lights that would blink randomly...now we use the tiny colorful lights.

17. Favorite Christmas song? -God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen...I love to sing along in the alto part!

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? -Both...DH's family live 5 hours away.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? -Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen...& Rudolph!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? -Growing up it was an angel, now we have a star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? -Christmas morning

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? -The crazy shoppers and crowded malls! And the feeling of frustration trying to find gifts just to find gifts. Which is why we're doing some donations this year.

23. What is the "corniest" family tradition you do, or miss doing? -This isn't really corny, but my parents and I used to lie on the floor by the tree and watch the twinkle lights make pretty patterns on the ceiling, listening to Christmas music

24. What is the worst thing you've seen related to Christmas? -There are some jokes passed around the internet that are a little tasteless sometimes.

25. Which looks best theme trees or homey trees? -I think I'm partial to homey trees, full of ornaments with memories, but we've been known to do color-themed trees before (red and green, blue and silver...)

26. Gingerbread or sugar cookies? -um, neither? I like these butter cookies my family makes.

27. Do you like Fruitcake? -No thank you!

Happy holiday season to all!

Birthday Meme

I got tagged by Nell for the Birthday Meme. The rules are that you're supposed to go into Wikipedia and type in your birth day (month and day, not year) and see what comes up. Then post 3 events, 2 births and 1 holiday that occur(red) on your birthday. Then you tag 5 friends.

So here goes! My birthday is August 22.

3 events:

1. 1770 - James Cook's expedition lands on the east coast of Australia. (Last summer I started reading Blue Latitudes, which is about his travels. Interesting book, but I need to finish it.)
2. 1864 - Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention. The Red Cross is formed.
3. 1989 - The first ring of Neptune is discovered.

2 births:

1. 1862 - Claude Debussy, French composer (d. 1918)
2. 1967 - Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, British actor (I liked this guy on Lost but unfortunately he's not on the show anymore.)

1 holiday: (not many choices here!)

1. 2006 - Islamic celebration of the night flight of Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Quran 17:1)

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So, now I tag the following people...but ONLY if you want to! No pressure here. :)

Laura, Camilla, Lynn, Heather and Tammy

I got tagged!

I got tagged for my first meme! Nell over at Chicken Knits tagged me. Thanks Nell! :)

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Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write in their blogs the 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and to read your blog.

Here are my facts:

1. As a kid I lived overseas for nine years with my parents in Japan, Turkey and Switzerland. I have been fortunate enough to have visited 25 different foreign countries and 25 U.S. states, but I have only ever lived in one state, Pennsylvania.

2. I once got to sit in the cockpit of a commercial airliner for the landing, but almost didn’t take them up on their offer because I was too shy. It was an amazing experience! This was in the late 1980’s, and it was on a Scandinavian Airlines flight from Copenhagen, Denmark to Istanbul, Turkey.

3. I am painfully shy and can be very uncomfortable in social situations like parties where I don’t know anyone.

4. My husband and I bought the house I grew up in from my dad.

5. I am very afraid of thunderstorms, especially when I am home alone. Sometimes if there are storms expected, I’ll wimp out and go to the mall just so I don’t have to be by myself.

6. I didn’t start liking PB&J (peanut butter and jelly) sandwiches until my senior year of college. This was most likely because my mom hated the smell of peanut butter and never had it around the house.

7. My “guilty pleasure” is that I watch a soap opera (The Young and the Restless) which I’ve watched ever since one of my college roommates got me hooked on it. My excuse now is that it provides great knitting time!

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I am tagging the following people*:

Laura ~ Sahm I Am
Lynn ~ Knots in a Row
Dee ~ The Daily Stitch
Andi ~ Cotton Pickin’
Jen ~ Piddleloop
Tammy ~ Knits-N-Purrs
Heather ~ No Harm In Yarn

*if you've already been tagged, sorry! I'm not caught up on my reading list, and also, I don't "know" many bloggers who "know" me too! :)