Five Question Friday, take two

So I actually happened to see the sneak preview of tomorrow's questions as I was browsing the internet tonight.  Here we go:

1. What is your favorite thing about summertime?
The shoes.  I love to wear flip flops and cute sandals.  This year I picked up an adorable pair of espadrilles at Target and I want to wear them until they fall apart.  I hate it when my feet and ankles are cold, so as soon as the temperature drops I'm in knee high socks and usually my Danskos, but once it's warm enough I can't wait to let my feet be free!

2. What is your ideal retirement location (if money didn't matter)?
I'd probably love to live by the beach.  Part of me wants to say somewhere right in Malibu, but the ocean is a little cold for swimming in out there.  So, maybe a home in Malibu with a pool?  LOL.  Still close enough to drive to see family and close enough to a real city.  I think Ben would love to live near Chicago.  We will see how that works out in another 8 years when he's done with the military and we have more freedom to pick where we live.

3. Do you live in the same town you grew up in?

Which one?  Doesn't matter, the answer is no.  Ha ha.  I consider Cathedral City, CA to be my hometown even though I hardly lived there.  Before that was Rancho Mirage, Mukilteo, Palm Springs, Escondido, Oceanside... a whole lot of places I don't remember.  But I went to Cathedral City High School and it's where my dad lives now, so it's pretty much home.  I moved away when I married Ben and now 10 years later I've lived 7 different places and each of them has been new to me.  

4. What nervous habit did you have as a child that you kicked to the curb before becoming an adult?

I don't know?  I never sucked my thumb or kept a blankie or any of that, so if I have a weird habit, I probably still do it.  

5. What is the most embarrassing thing that happened to you while on the job?
This one is really embarrassing, actually.  I was wearing a suit with a skirt and heels and standing talking to some co-workers.  I was standing with my feet crossed at the ankles and kind of leaning against a counter.  I went to turn and walk away, stepping to the right with my right foot (which had been crossed over my left foot), but as I turned, my heel got stuck and I totally fell to the ground, all the way onto my back with my legs up in the air.  It was more embarrassing than I could explain, but all I could do at the time was laugh.  Before that, I actually had been having a pretty bad day, but that kind of turned things around and got me out of my funk, and let's face it, my day could only go up from there.





**************************************************


I finished reading Tori Spelling's Uncharted Territori yesterday in one sitting.  I find her really funny and I enjoyed the book.  Now I'm reading through Country Living's "Simple Country Wisdom: 501 old-fashioned ideas to simplify your life".  I'm hoping the library books that I have requests out for will be ready soon.  I've been devouring books lately which makes me happy.


Tomorrow morning Jon is headed into town so he and Ben can go crabbing.  Ben's planning a big catch since it will be the first day of the season.  I'm planning on ordering a pizza.  LOL.  That sounds like I don't have faith in him, but that's not it!  I do, I just don't really enjoy crab.


I made an appointment for Lauren to visit the dentist next week.  It will be her first time going.  I think she will do fine, she brushes and even flosses every day.  I finally scheduled my own teeth cleaning, too.  Natalie's latest trip to the Neurosurgeon went well, he will see her again in a year.  She had a thorough hearing test on Monday and that went well, also.

Gardening, Reading, Driving

Our garden has been doing amazingly well.  I went to Lowe's yesterday and bought some chicken wire and wooden stakes and set up a trellis for the peas.  I also bought a cilantro plant and put it in since I hate buying a big bundle of it at the grocery store only to end up using a few tablespoons of chopped leaves at a time.  This way I can use it as I need it and not waste quite so much.  For our back yard, I bought a jasmine plant and put it in the ground by the patio.  I'm hoping I'll be able to get it to climb up the column on the back porch.  What a great scent to be greeted by every time I open the door!

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and now I'm on to Dead in the Family, the latest in the Sookie Stackhouse series.  Harry Potter was better than I thought it would be, and I probably will read more in the series, but I'm not in any rush.  If anything, it made me want to watch the movies.  Happy to report, though, that Jen liked Twilight and has already finished New Moon and moved on to Eclipse, as well.  Stephanie Meyer needs to add onto that series already.

This morning I got up before 6 and Natalie and I headed up to Seattle for her checkup with Neurosurgery.  She had an MRI and her doctor said everything looked great and he'd see her again in a year.  That's great news and we'll take it!  It was awful traffic heading up there, but the drive back was easy enough and we were home by one.  I'm feeling exhausted from the day though and I think I'm going to head up to bed and call it a night.

I need reminders!

I've been looking for a perpetual calendar/birthday reminder book for a while now.  I just couldn't find one that I wanted.  I wanted something sturdy and classic looking with room to add plenty of new information as time went by, but that was also small enough to sit on a shelf by my desk and not be intrusive.  Last summer there was a 365 page journal at Anthropologie that I now regret not buying.  It had twelve sections, each in a different color, but the pages were all blank.  That would have been perfect!  Oh well.  Today I went and bought a plain black hard bound journal, counted out the pages (224) and divided it into sections myself.  I have some extra pages in there, but each month has a "cover page" and then each page in the month is for two dates.  It ends up that every day of the year has at least 15 lines where I can keep birthdays and anniversaries and other important things to remember year after year.  I did a quick fill in of the dates I know by heart and the ones I had written in the front of my address book, but now I need to send out emails and make pestering phone calls to the people I'm trying to remember.

I have had the idea for the perpetual calendar for a while.  Actually, JCrew had one for sale a while back that I should have bought, but missed.  This week I started reading The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin.  One of the chapters highlights the importance of creating and fostering personal relationships, and one of the simplest ways of keeping in touch is with birthday cards.  I decided I needed to put off finding the "perfect" birthday calendar and just make my own.  It was pretty simple to do, and it didn't cost much, the journal I found was around $5.  I'm thinking I may send a journal and a pack of colored pencils off to Jen for her next craft for Team Awesome.

The book has really made me think, and I'm flying through it at the same time.  Which is good, because the first Harry Potter book is waiting for me at the library now and I need to get started on it.  I wish I could say I was really looking forward to reading it, but I just am not.  I'm more eager to finish it and move on to something else.  I hope it can change my mind once I start reading it.

Tomorrow morning Ben is going to take Lauren fishing.  He told her before he left for Louisiana that he would take her once he got back and today they bought her a Disney Princess fishing pole.  I can't wait to hear what she thinks about it.  She had a little bit of a fever yesterday and just laid on the couch watching tv and napping for most of the day.  This morning started off a little rough, but by the afternoon she was feeling better.  Natalie has been adjusting really well to an 8 pm bedtime and I have to say, I really love having a few hours to myself in the evening to read, watch tv or movies or play on the internet.