Seven Quick Takes Friday--Vol. VII

I.

It's been a pretty slow blogging week, but I have been busy reading, packing and going to the gym. The gym is getting better--I actually enjoy going. How weird is that?

II.

My four year anniversary is tomorrow. For links to the other anniversaries, see sidebar. I will, of course, have more on this tomorrow.

III.

At the actual time of my call (around 9:00 pm EST), I may not actually be here (as in, my apartment, near Widget the MacBook). I may still be on my first date with a new guy.

IV.

Do men ever realize how much work the first date entails? Right now I am filling up my bathtub in order to have very clean hair, very clean and smooth skin, and a facial-ed face. I probably will not paint my nails, but I will file and buff them so they at least look presentable, and not the normal wreck they are. And that's just the prelims! Then there's clothes--what the heck do I wear?--, jewelry (if any), and then make-up application, which must be perfect. Then you have the perfume question--perfume? Eau de toilette? Bath and Body Works body splash? It's 90 degrees here. Probably thinking body splash.

V.

We're going to dinner. So then there's the "what do I drink? Will Diet Coke make me look like a kid? Do I order wine? What if he orders wine? Who pays for the meal?"

VI.

Arranged marriages are looking pretty good right now. Not scary arranged marriages, but arranged marriages like in Sleeping Beauty.

VII.

So that's my night. Preparing for a date, the date, and then the post-date.

Have a good weekend, y'all.

More fun stuff

This time from Peggy

1. Color-blue

2. Dessert-chocolate

3. Smell-flowers

4. Flower-roses

5. Animal-bunnies

6. Month-September

7. Beverage-Diet Dr. Pepper

8. Pair of shoes-my Ugg loafers

9. Snack-chips 'n dip

10. Song-currently..."Soak Up The Sun"

11. Book-All Jane

12. Fruit-strawberries

13. Hairstyle-easy!

14. Piece of clothing-my Boston Marathon hoodie

15. Store to clothes shop-J. Crew

16. Season-Autumn

17. Hobby-photography

18. Thing to collect-Willow Tree Angels

19. Movie-The Hours

20. Restaurant- Bon Vie

A meme

Just because...

Favorite room in the house: Bedroom
Guiltiest pleasure: Jeni’s Salty Caramel ice cream
Best Way to Cure Hiccups: Hold your breath
Jump in puddles or step over: Depends on my shoes
Secret talent: I don't think I have one
Desert Island DVD: Pride and Prejudice

Dream job as a child: Actress
Embarrassing crush: Colin Firth
Greatest DIY achievement: learning how to unclog drains and toilets
I have a phobia of: spiders, snakes, creepy crawly things in general
Favorite board game: Cranium
Favorite song to drive to: “Losing My Religion”, REM
Best thing to blow small change on: a book

Best smell of Autumn: burning leaves
I always forget to: take out the trash
Most romantic city: Paris
I’d love to go back to: the beach

Whew

OK so now that the show is like, really over...I am trying to dig out of the mess that is my apartment, since I sort of neglected it over the past, oh, month....
Hopefully I can make some progress!

How to be happy

(Well, in someone's opinion)


In 1820, English writer Sydney Smith wrote a letter to his unhappy friend, Lady Morpeth. He offered his tips for how to be happy – and his suggestions are as sound now as they were practically 200 years ago.

"1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 or 80 degrees.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life - not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely - they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don’t expect too much from human life - a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th. Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit gay and pleasant.
16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires.

Some randoms for your Wednesday

Quick add: vote for me!

Ballet class: Is really going well. My second class was on Monday, and I held my releves longer than two of the other girls in class. Go me! (And they were the thin type, which makes you think--healthy, right? At least my abs are stronger. Ha ha!)

Weather: Monday--61 degrees. All the windows open, my sunroof down for the first time this year! Today? Snow. Grossness. It's about 30 something. Ew.

Books: I just finished Oliver Twist. Descriptions: fantastic. Oliver and his plot: excellent. Fleshing out of secondary characters: good. Subplots: too many. Oliver "disappears for the length of a Bible" in some places. We do not need to hear about the Beadle, Mr. Brownlow and Charlotte, etc., etc. once Oliver is done with them. They took up waaay too much time. And did anyone else think the whole Mr. Monk is Oliver's half-brother thing was sort of--random?

Wow, thanks guys!

Catholic Poster Girl (my other blog) has been nominated in the Catholic Blog Awards.

Voting starts on Monday...so, um, vote for me. :)

Christmas Countdown: T-minus 3

Gifts to give: 3
Gifts to buy: 0
Gifts received: ?
Thank you notes written: 4
Songs to practice: An ungodly number
Floors to clean: 2
Floors to vacuum: 1
Height of Mt. Laundry: Approaching Everest

But at least I got Monday off!

Yummy food!

Tomorrow is St. Lucia's day, and in her honor, I have made St. Lucia buns.
My family loves these. Try them, if you've got a few hours to kill (since they involve two risings).

More shopping...

For those on your list that you don't know who to buy for, pretty soaps are always great. And the Cloister Gift Shoppe, of the Dominican Nuns in NJ, do a great job! I just ordered their Cloister Garden, Natale (Christmas soap) and Oatmeal soaps to give out as gifts.

Christmas meme!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Paper, even though I am a rather amateur wrapper.

2. Real tree or artificial? Fake.

3. When do you put up the tree? Thanksgiving.

4. When do you take the tree down? Epiphany. When the Christmas season is "over".

5. Do you like eggnog? Um....haven't had enough to make a call.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? The Care Bear kitchen set. I was about five and I opened all my gifts, and no kitchen set. We have photos of me looking very bereft. But then,lo and behold, Santa had left in in the basement! Tricky old guy. :) And we still have parts of it, so it was a very durable gift indeed.

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yes. They're "S'mores" figurines--as in, the baby Jesus is a marshmallow in a graham cracker manager with a chocolate blanket. It's super cute, but probably not the most reverent. :)

8. Hardest person to buy for? My mom.

9. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I always receive good stuff. :)

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? REAL CHRISTMAS CARDS, i.e., snail mail. And they go to just about everyone I know.

11. Favorite Christmas Movie? How the Grinch Stole Christmas (both cartoon and live action) and A Christmas Story.

12. When do you start shopping for Christmas? August.

13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Nope

14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Peppermint bark and Mom's Christmas breakfast--sausage and cinnamon rolls. Mmmmmm.

15. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Color!

16. Favorite Christmas song: "O Holy Night", "O Come, All Ye Faithful"

17. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We stay at home for Christmas day proper now; when I was little we used to have CHristmas at home early (it was AWESOME) then spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Pittsburgh with relatives. Fantastic. Now Mom's family all comes down here the 27th and we take over a hotel. :)

18. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer. Dasher, Dancer, PRancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzer, Rudolph. :)

19. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel.

20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning.

21. Most annoying thing about this time of year? People who try to eliminate Christmas carols, creches, etc. from every single place on Earth other than a Church. LET'S GET REAL!

Pet peeve--grammar

OK wonky grammar post ahead:

"Alter"--to change. "I altered the dress to fit my sister."
"Altar"--the "table" in a church. The place where the Eucharist is consecrated. Whatever you want to call it. "The servers approached the priest, who was at the altar."

THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE. THANK YOU.

PS--I would also like to add that one is a verb, the other a noun. So they are REALLY not interchangeable. You cannot get up and "altar", as my seventh grade English teacher would say. You can, however, get up and "alter" something.

Babies!

So many of my friends are having babies in the spring! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. :)

And, to those having girls, Emily is a great name. Really fantastic. :) :)

Christmas prep

Is rapidly reaching conclusion. Only three more presents to buy! :) :)

varia and Todd tomorrow!

--YAY PITT! (OK had to say that again)

--My kitchen is a disaster. In the past 36 hours I have made a Coca-Cola cake for my Choir potluck (last night) and I just finished making cookies for the Parish Counil potluck (tomorrow night) an hour ago. Whew. My sugar stores are severely depleted.

--On the plus side, I did some digging in my cabinets (looking for cream of tartar, which was on the spice rack, where it should be--DUH Emily) and I found three bottles of cooking wine, two containers of bread crumbs, a whole pound of confectioner's sugar and a bunch of unsweetened/bittersweet chocolate. Also two boxes of chicken stock and enough pasta to last me until at least February. So I don't need to go shopping for awhile now.

--Why can't the Steelers just go ahead and win a game? Why must they torture me so?? Why?!

--Happy New Year if you're Catholic--First Sunday of Advent!

--Todd tomorrow--eval to see how the levoquin is working. Gotta tell you, I'm not really feeling it. Oh well. Pains in the right lower lobe, where there were "shadows" on Thursday, when I wasn't feeling pain there. If I'm feeling pain there now, I can't imagine that's a really happy thing. Maggie (the boss) Is aware of the doc appt. so at least I've got work covered. And I'm putting all my Parish Council stuff, including the cookies, in the car tomorrow so that if I get bronched I am prepared. Whew.

--I love my Christmas tree. :) :)

Yes!

You know how I like to complain about washing my hair when the port's accessed? Or I'm in the hospital? Well I can complain no more.
Tonight I found shampoo that you spray on. And you don't have to wash off! It just absorbs oil and you are on your merry way! Now I haven't tried it yet (duh), and I imagine that at some point my hair would require a real wash, but this is great! For those of you who are curious, it's Frederick Fekkai's Summer hair Wash and Wear instant shampoo spray ($20), and it can be found at CO Bigelow, larger Bath and Body Works and larger Victoria's Secrets (Like ones that sell a lot of beauty stuff). Or, I'm sure, online.

GRRR

Back to not sleeping! Since sleep isn't happening I might as well blog...or at least update the side bar (which I have done).
On the plus side, I love these low-cal fudge bars that I eat whenever I can't sleep. It seems like hunger or my head, or both, are conspiring to keep me awake. Sigh.

"Suffering"?

Here's a thought...

I just got an email today from someone who's doing the CF Great Strides fundraising walk this weekend. She said that she was motivated to do it because she knows afamily who has a 2 YO boy who "suffers" from CF.

I never used the word "suffering" or its derivatives to describe my experience. It was normal life for me. Sure, there were times that were not so fun. But "suffering" or "CF suffer" always sounded, well (OK this is punny) "insufferable" to me. It just sounds so needy/beggy/whiny.

Is that just me?

Support groups

Last week a few of the transplant families from Children's got together to have our first "support group" meeting, and I have to say, it was fun, probably because it didn't involve sitting around talking about "our feelings, " which would have been hard to do, given the group make-up.

There were two recipients: me, and then a 15 mo. old heart tx, who was just sooo adorable. He was 3 mo. old when he received his transplant, and he's just so cute. Love him. His mom and two older sisters were there with him. My parents had come with me, and the day had been organized by the mom of a heart-lung recipient, who was also around 3 months (I think) when he was transplanted. She brought her new baby, who was also very adorable. So, as you can guess, I was happy because there were a lot of cute kids.

We met in the library of the Ronald McDonald House (which is awesome...it has a reading room, a play room, a living room, all sorts of things. The kitchen was super-cool and very high-tech. There was, of course, a room totally devoted to the Buckeyes (well, it did say "In Honor of Jim Tressel" on the plaque outside, so you know...). But the library really needs some better adult books. I think I need to take care of that!

Anyway, we talked about how we got to the point of transplant, and some random things, like how the moms get their boys to take the drugs (I have a hard time with some of them--the predinose, for example, just tastes gross, and there are some days where I am sorely tempted just to spit it out.), activity, stuff like that. It was pretty general but a lot of fun. I wish Amber could've been there but 1) she was in Miami (lucky dog) and 2) it would've been a long drive for her since she lives upstate. The rest of us live in the general Central OH area.

But it was fun and I got the contact info. for everyone so hopefully we will be meeting again. Sorry to cut this short, but I'm having my 25th birthday shindig with my friends tonight in...oh....a half hour, and I need to get ready!! Eek! At least the cake is baked....yummy. :)

Oh, and I got my Donate Life plates! They are on my car and look awesome! If you live in Ohio be sure to go tot he BMV and ask for them ! They are $15 extra with $5 going to the Ohio Second Chance Trust Fund to raise awareness of organ and tissue donation throughout the state. Lifeline's website (link in the blogroll) has a link to the BMV, so go!

This is cute...

Not directly transplant related, but what the heck? It's my blog and I can post what I want!! :)

***
New Children's Book Tackles Cystic Fibrosis

November 14, 2006 3:07 p.m. EST

Ayinde O. Chase - All Headline News Staff
Miami, FL (AHN) - Author Leah Orr tells the heartwarming story of a little boy's first school crush on a beautiful girl who has cystic fibrosis in her new book, "Kyle's First Crush."
In the story Kyle falls in love for the first time in Miss Irene's pre-k class.
The girl who makes his heart go "pitter pat" and his palms sweaty is named Ashley Elizabeth. She's a very special girl who makes Kyle feel special.
However, Ashley has cystic fibrosis, and Kyle learns from his teacher how this disease affects her. With the help of his mom, Kyle finally gets the courage to tell Ashley how he feels about her.
Orr's book has been widely praised for its beautiful illustrations by Josephine Lepore and shows in full color the story of a boy's first love.
The story, heartwarming in all aspects, is even more touching since Orr is the mother of Ashley Elizabeth, and Lepore, is Ashley's grandmother. "Kyle's First Crush" is the first in a series of seven books that the author plans to write about her daughter Ashley Elizabeth and cystic fibrosis.
"Children born today [with cystic fibrosis] are expected to live much longer [than in the past], but scientists, researchers and the CF Foundation are looking toward a cure by 2012," says Orr. "So, I will write a book every year until a cure is found."
She plans to donate all of the profits and proceeds from the series to the CF foundation.
**

Don't you just know I am going to be buying some of these???