Posts tagged Memes
A New Year’s Questionnaire
Dec 30th
I saw this end of the year questionnaire on Du Wax Loolu, and thought it looked fun and thought-provoking. So I totally copied it (although she did too, so I don’t feel bad about it).
1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
I got married and was a maid of honor in someone else’s wedding. This was definitely the year of weddings for us. I also got down to a weight I haven’t been since I was starting college, which was awesome.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t know that I had any specific resolutions. I wanted to lose weight and be in shape for the wedding, and I was close to where I wanted to be. I wanted to network more and meet new people. I haven’t technically met any new people that I’m now friends with, but we’ve gotten to know some people better, and I am really happy about that.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No. But 2008 is looking to be a good year for that!
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit?
Canada. I even drove through Quebec, which is quite the adventure if you’ve never taken any French.
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Motivation. That’s pretty much it. Motivation to eat healthier, work out, get stuff done…
7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
June 7th (our wedding day), and November 4th. It’s been a great year.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting our thank you notes out in a timely manner!
9. What was your biggest failure?
Gaining back all of the weight I had lost before the wedding. I could blame moving to a place where it takes me 1/2 an hour to get to the gym we had a membership at, but that wasn’t the real problem. I just got lazy about eating and working out.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nope.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Like Jess, we got a lot of really fabulous gifts for our wedding, and those are my favorite things we acquired (Kitchenaid mixer, Wii, etc). I guess the best thing that we bought ourselves is probably the camping gear we got, although we did use wedding money for some of it. We have a new backpacking tent that I really like.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I’m going to quote Jess and “say that the American voters’ behavior on November 4 merited celebration.”
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I think one group is obvious – whoever was responsible for the racist crap and the spread of misinformation during the campaigning process. But also I am appalled at this whole Caylee Anthony case and the fact that her mother has been such a jerk about the whole thing.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent and car payments. But it’s totally worth it! I love my car. Also, I don’t know why I can’t make this section not bold. Gah! I figured it out in HTML because I rock. Or something.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Our wedding, my road trip out to New York for Gwen’s wedding, the election.
16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
Cannon in D, and “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
b) thinner or fatter?
c) richer or poorer?
Happier, fatter and richer. Happier because this time last year I was worried about my friends Nicole & Matt a lot, and was stressed about wedding stuff. Now they are pregnant again (congratulations, guys!) and I’m happily married. And we aren’t so much “richer” as we are better at managing our money. At least most days. The fatter thing I’m hoping to start working on next week when I go sign up for a gym membership near our place.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Going to the gym. And as much traveling and visiting as we do, I wish we could do more of it.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Sitting around on the couch. After the wedding, when I suddenly had lots of free time, I loved to be able to just sit and relax. But that has turned into extra weight that I really don’t want or need.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
At my parents’ house in Badger with my siblings and their kids. But we are doing Christmas with Ryan’s family this coming weekend, and I’m looking forward to that too.
21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
I fell even more in love with Ryan. Does that count?
22. What was your favorite TV program?
The Office. Hands down. Although I do love House, Bones, Battlestar Galactica and Jeopardy.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Not hate, no. Dislike strongly, yes. Unfortunately.
24. What was the best book you read?
I read a lot of fabulous books this year. I think my favorite is probably one of the Allison Weir books I read about Henry VIII’sdaughter, Elizabeth. But I also really liked some new books I was introduced to by some friends of ours that I never would have picked up on my own. The Secret History was especially interesting. I also read The Host, by Stephanie Meyer, before the Twilight books became so popular, and that was a really good one too.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
We got a mixed cd with a wedding invitation this year, and it was full of really awesome music. I must have listened to it 4 or 5 times on my trip to New York.
26. What did you want and get?
Married, and pretty much everything else I wanted that was within reason. I was totally spoiled this year.
27. What did you want and not get?
A house, a million dollars, a pet. Some of those things will come with time, though.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Probably Get Smart. But I didn’t see many movies this year. I did like the Dark Knight, which I finally just saw a week or two ago.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
We celebrated by going out to Old Chicago with some friends for dinner, and then Serina and I stopped for a martini (the fruity kind) and then at the liquor store and then we went home and had ice cream cake and drank 40s of beer because we are KLASSY. On my actual birthday (the next day) we went backpacking in the rain on the Superior Hiking Trail.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Nothing that I can think of. Unless we had won the lottery or something. But seriously, this was a great year for Ryan and I. I guess I would have enjoyed it a bit more if everyone else wasn’t so down about the economy and stuff, but I can’t blame them.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Some people have a “personal fashion concept”? That’s a novel idea. I guess mine is to always go with my sisters, because they have immensely better taste than I do and are better at picking out clothes that might actually fit me. Why that is, I have no idea.
32. What kept you sane?
Ryan mostly, and having good friends in town. Some of them even live next door, which is AWESOME.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don’t really get celebrity crushes. Jim from The Office, I guess?
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
All of the ones connected to the election. I’m copying Jess here again.
35. Who did you miss?
My family and friends who don’t live around here. I don’t know why Maryland, Delaware and New York have to be so far away.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
I met a few new people this year – mostly friends of friends. It would be hard to say who is the best, because I don’t really see any of them on a regular basis.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
I learned that sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to because you know that in the end it’s the best decision for you. And that can suck, but it’s important to do it anyway.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I don’t know any song lyrics. Just kidding. I just can’t think of one – especially that sums up my year. The only song lyric I can think of at the moment is “If I had a million dollars, I’d be rich!” I love that song.
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you enjoy it with friends, family, and a good drink!
I’m a thief!
Aug 4th
I totally stole this from SheLikesPurple, which isn’t very nice of me, but I’ve been looking for a really long list of “recommended reading” books and this totally fulfills that need. Plus I like these kinds of things. So, here it goes:
Below is a list of books printed by The Big Read, an organization that—according to their Web site—hopes to “restore reading to the center of American culture.” They say, though, that the average American has only read six of the following hundred.
Key
1) Bold the books you have already read
2) Italicize the books you intend to read
3) Personally added: Notes in parentheses next to note-worthy titles.
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1) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2) The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
3) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (I’ve read half of it, and keep meaning to get to the rest. I promise!)
4) Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
5) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Read it in high school…I might have to reread it at some point – so many people found it so fascinating…I wasn’t a huge fan.)
6) The Bible (I’ve read parts of it…but never the whole thing)
7) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
8) Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
9) His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
10) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (I can’t really remember if I read this or not, but I don’t think so.)
11) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
12) Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
13) Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
14) Complete Works of Shakespeare
15) Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (How can I NOT want to read this? It’s named after me! ;-))
16) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
17) Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
18) Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
19) The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
20) Middlemarch by George Eliot
21) Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (We read this in high school and then watched the movie, and all I can remember is how horribly cheesy it all was.)
23) Bleak House by Charles Dickens (This title sounds like a book I would enjoy.)
24) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (I’ll leave this italicized, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get to actually reading it.)
25) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (LOVED THIS SERIES)
26) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
27) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28) Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (I think I read this in high school…if not, I WANT to read it)
29) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
30) The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
31) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
32) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
33) Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
34) Emma by Jane Austen
35) Persuasion by Jane Austen
36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
37) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
38) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
39) Memories of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (I saw the movie…does that count?)
40) Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
41) Animal Farm by George Orwell
42) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (His book Angels & Demons was WAY better…but neither of them had really fabulous writing…I just like the subject matter)
43) One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving
45) The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
46) Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
47) Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
48) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
49) Lord of the Flies by William Golding
50) Atonement by Ian McEwan
51) Life of Pi by Yann Martel (I’ve heard it’s awesome, but I have no idea what it’s about.)
52) Dune by Frank Herbert (Ryan keeps wanting me to read this…I think it’s Ryan…someone does, I think…maybe it’s just me??)
53) Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
54) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
55) A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
56) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57) A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (I think I tried to read this once…and failed, miserably.
58) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
60) Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
62) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
63) The Secret History by Donna Tartt
64) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
65) Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
66) On The Road by Jack Kerouac (I read this in my Popular Culture in the 1960s class in college. That class was AWESOME.)
67) Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
68) Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
69) Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
70) Moby Dick by Herman Melville
71) Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
72) Dracula by Bram Stoker
73) The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
74) Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson
75) Ulysses by James Joyce
76) The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77) Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
78) Germinal by Emile Zola
79) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
80) Possession by AS Byatt
81) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
82) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
83) The Color Purple by Alice Walker
84) The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
85) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
86) A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
87) Charlotte’s Web by EB White
88) The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I don’t think I’ve read this, but I’m not sure…)
90) The Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton
91) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
92) The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93) The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
94) Watership Down by Richard Adams (I hated this book. I thought it was dumb. You can hate me if you want, but that’s what I thought.)
95) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
96) A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
97) The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98) Hamlet by William Shakespeare
99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
100) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
********************
Total: 30 – I only counted the ones I had entirely read. Now to get started on the ones I haven’t (along with the books I have on reserve at the library already and the ones previously recommended to me by my fabulous aunts).
Your turn. Feel free to leave comments regarding books on the list (or not) if you don’t have a blog.
Oh, and speaking of books – I finished Love and Other Near Death Experiences and am in the middle of The Death Collectors. The first one was funny and a quick read…good British humor. The second is a murder-mystery type. I like it so far, although *note to self* don’t get the “large print” version (it was an accident). It makes you feel like you are reading Ramona Quimby Age 8 or something.
