Scared of Bugs

I never wanted my daughter to be scared of bugs. I didn't think she would be scared of bugs. I, myself, have always had a fascination with insects. As a child I examined them carefully under my magnifying glass as they crawled, hopped, and hobbled in various environments ranging from the great outdoors, to homeade ant farms. I stuffed mobs of boxelder bugs into the plastic containers that used to hold vending machine toys purchased for a quarter. I admired butterflies and caterpillars in jars. I swooped and danced about with my homeade butterfly net: cheesecloth attached to a wire clothes hanger.

Bugs, bees, spiders, and the like have never bothered me. I see one, watch it, and don't get worked up about it. Even a mosquito doesn't really bother me unless it's part of a hungry horde. My daughter, however, despite my best efforts to be calm, cool and collected about bugs, is turning into a screeching girl. Every time she sees a bug she runs away shrieking.

It all started when we were at a party for pediatricians. She was on the deck when a hornet flew by and stung her, once on the hand, once on the eyelid, and once on the side of her face. Might I mention that a pediatric party is the ideal place for a two year old to get stung by a hornet. There were twelve people who knew exactly what to do. Yet, even still she was traumatized, and now thinks that all bugs will sting, bite, and are generally out to make her life miserable. An ant crawling on the sandbox is cause for alarm. A fly buzzing in the window sends her half across the room. We are working hard on differentiating between dangerous and safe bug. I explain 25 times daily that "honker bugs" otherwise known as hornets, can bite, but not all bugs bite, and I am hoping this is just a phase.

Rommegrat

On our drive home from camping in Northern Wisconsin this weekend, my family and I stopped in Rice Lake to purchase gas. We noticed a billboard for the Norse Nooke, famous for its desserts. It doesn't take a lot of persuasion to sway me toward trying a new dessert, so we decided to stop. The Norse Nooke is well known for its pies. I had a slice of custard pie, which I greatly enjoyed. Custard pie is a plain tasting pie, luxurious to those of us who enjoy plain flavored food. Gregory had a slice of sour cream raspberry pie, which was completely scrumptious, and had tremendous zip to it. Sarah had a chocolate chip cookie, which tasted like a chocolate chip cookie. She was thrilled.

I was particularly impressed with the pie crust. It was light and flaky. My mother learned to make light and flaky pie crust from her stepgrandfather, and doesn't measure anything. It is the best pie crust in the world, and this pie crust tasted very similar. Maybe it's the Scandanavian way to make pie crust. My mother's stepgrandfather was Norweigan, I think. Maybe not. Regardless, this pie crust tasted like my mothers, not like my husband's Irish pie crust, which is thick and very different. I think admiration for pie crust is all in how you grow up.

I am rambling. The point of this post is not pie. It's rommegrat. I hadn't ever tried rommegrat, and had always wanted to. At the bakery counter of the Norse Nooke, they had small containers of rommegrat available for purchase. I suggested we get some to be adventurous. It was amazing. Rommegrat is a cream pudding that is probably one of the most terrible, unhealthy things you could possibly eat, but it is absolutely scrumptious. It's sweat, creamy, and thick, and flavored with a bit of cinammon and sugar. It's so rich you can only justify one or two spoonfuls at a time, and then you come back to the fridge for more about an hour later. Needless to say, my rommegrat is now gone. But I am a full, satifisfied cultured individual with a great appreciation for Norweigan desserts.

Laundry

I abhore laundry. I'd rather do any housecleaning chore rather than laundry. Laundry irritates me, the way you have to fold, sort, put away, and then it all just gets immediately dirty again. A person really makes no progress doing laundry. Thank goodness I live in the age of washing machines, or I'd really be miserable. I procrastinate the laundry. If I weren't a mild mannered person, I'd curse the laundry. Even so, as it is, sometimes I loose my temper at the laundry.

Forget ironing. My theory is if you wear clothes for a few hours most wrinkles will just disappear. There are a few exceptions; some material just doesn't unwrinkle effectively. In our house these clothes are eventually seen as useless and usually end up recycled at the local thrift store.

The very worst part of doing laundry is folding and sorting clean laundry, and even more terrible, putting it back in drawers only to know that you will snatch it back out in the morning. How frustrating. I have notions of a perfect laundry system where there are a series of bins. Two bins are for dirty clothes. As you pick up all the laundry your family has hastily and obliviously strewn about the floors in every room in the house, you place dark clothes in one bin, light in the other. I realize many people do this already. Here is the important part of the plan. There is also a bin for each member of the family's clean clothes. Instead of folding and hauling clothes back to drawers, you just dump the clean clothes into each person's bin, and they search for the clothes they need. It would only take a few seconds more to search for clothes as needed, and look at all the time I'd save not having to fold clothes! Since wrinkles disappear within a few hours, what is the point of folding? Everyone can get up an hour earlier and get dressed in time for their clothes to unwrinkle before leaving the house. Early risers are more productive anyway.

And all those beautiful dresser drawers can be used to hold other items, like books or giant monkey puppets.

Tumbling Class for Adults

Why don't they hold tumbling class for grown ups? I have always wanted to be a gymnast. When I was little we lived far, far away from gymnastics lessons, but I managed to teach myself to do a fantastic cartwheel, a fair roundoff, and I spend many hours doing no handed summersaults on the school mats at recess, flipping around the bars on the school playground. I longed to be part of the Acro Team you'd see on TV performing at the state basketball tournaments. I propped up a regular old jogging trampoline on cement blocks and catapulted myself upside down through the air doing dive rolls, landing on a mattress my grandmother discarded. I took a 4x4 plank of wood and propped it between two trees, about three feet in the air and attempted to do tumbling acts on the balance beam. I hung upside down from the top of my swingset, pretending it was a high bar. It's a miracle I didn't bash my head in.

Grown ups have aerobics, pilates, yoga, none of which sound remotely interesting to me, although I know they would be useful. I would love to take a tumbling class and really whip around upside down, and get to experience official gymnastic equipment. Obviously, I would not expect my body to be flexible like that of a ten year old, but I can still turn a good cartwheel, and I think if I weren't pregnant I would have a bit of gymnastic potential. I could work into being a bit flexible again, and tumbling develops excellent balance, coordination and muscle tone. It seems to me that more adults should be willing to try tumbling.

Library Card Collection

Some people collect baseball cards, postage stamps, or coins. I am here to advocate a more obscure collection: library cards. A library card collection doesn't take up much space, and like a library, it is just so friendly. I happen to keep my own library collection in a plain little white envelope inside my cedar chest, where it is protected from moths, chemicals, and peanut butter covered fingers. It all started when I was unable to throw my college library card away. Cracked, worn around the edges, it had been through so many literary adventures with me that I just couldn't get rid of it. And I soon discovered that we'd be moving all over the place for the next few years, so I decided to start a collection of used and well loved library cards. So far I have the following library cards in my collection:

1. Jamestown College Raugust Library
2. Alfred Dickey Public Library
3. Valley City Public Library
4. Valley City State University Library (they had a wonderful curriculum library)
5. Grand Forks Public LIbrary
6. UND Chester Fritz Library
7. Northwood Public School Library
8. Mapleton Elementary School Library
9. Bismarck Public Library
10. North Dakota State Library

And, of course, my current library card. I don't house the current library card in the collection. We keep it in our library book bag, which Sarah and I haul to the library about every other day. The best thing about my current library is that there is no limit on the number of books checked out on your library card! Last Friday I checked out a book on interior design, 5 novels, 12 children's picture books and a CD. We make our next trip to the library tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted.

The Little Bad Wolf

The big bad wolf is very popular in our house. Books including big bad wolves are the ones Sarah most frequently choses to have me read aloud, and for the past few days she has been pretending to be a wolf. She is the little bad wolf. I am drafted into the role of the big bad wolf (I assure you that the little bad wolf is actually capable of a lot more destruction than the big bad wolf. Look at my living room at 5:30 p.m. and you will understand). The little bad wolf huffs, and puffs, and watch out: don't stand too close our you'll be splattered with spit. Her huffing and puffing is very, let's say, moist. Away blows the stove, the fridge, the garage. In the morning she flattens the neighbor's house to the south, and after her afternoon nap, say goodbye to the neighbors who live to the north. Our own house is blown down at least 27 times daily. But, being the sweet toddler that she is, my daughter is most happy to rebuild any complicated structure in 15 seconds flat, and everyone is able to go on with their regular lives.

Adoration for my bass clarinet

I should have picked bass clarinet for my primary instrument. There were several reasons why this did not happen, the mainly that bass clarinets are insanely expensive, and I was needed in my high school band to play soprano clarinet. But my heart was always longing to play the bass clarinet. And I know it would have suited me well. I now own a bass clarinet in rather rotten shape, and it just fits my personality. It's big like a cello, and although you don't hug a bass clarinet quite like you do a cello, you could develop a relationship with a bass clarinet. It's just there, big, ready to be loved. I especially adore playing the bass clarinet on chilly nights when I am pregnant. The sound is deep, sonorous, and rich, and matches how huge I am feeling. I like it so much that prior to falling asleep I have wild notions of spending $4,000 and getting a fantastic bass clarinet. Which, of course, the sensible side of my personality puts a kabosh to. And my husband asks me if maybe I shouldn't just play my flute or the regular clarinet so I don't have such crazy ideas late at night.

My husband has been bothering me for about a year to get a bike helmet. Not only does he feel it is necessary to be safe, even on the residential streets you might meet me riding my bike, but he is adamant that we set a good example for our children. And I will concede to the fact that I have been feeling guilty because Sarah keeps asking why I don't have a bike hat of my own every time we go for a bike ride. She asks and asks and asks and asks. It would probably just be easier to get a bike hat and wear it than fend off her persisent questions.

This afternoon my husband burst in the door and promptly held a secretive conference in the kitchen while I was folding the laundry. Within a couple of minutes, my daughter came tottering in carrying a brand new, purple bike helmet. It looks rather suave, almost too cool for me to wear, but I guess if you are going to wear a bike helmet, it might as well be a suave one. She was terribly excited, and my husband had a wonderful time figeting with all the straps and contraptions on the inside of the hat to get it to fit perfectly.

From now on, if you see a slow, pregnant bike rider in a perfectly fitting purple bike hat cruising the streets, beware.

Deflate

When I taught English I would often have students desperate for extra credit in my class, or wracking their brains for a topic to write about in their writer's notebook. One option I would suggest was grabbing a dictionary off the shelf randomly choosing five words, and then picking one to write about. I can't say that I have ever actually done this myself. This evening I was staring at the computer screen, and off to the side was my lovely Oxford English Dictionary. I randomly chose five words: incadescent, preserve, stephanotis (a climbing plant), lucky, and deflate. Here is my dictionary writing:

All balloons deflate evenutally. Hot air balloons have to land on the ground and collapse at some point during their journey. Shiny metallic helium balloons from the flower shop might hold their steam for a week or more, but eventually they lie down for a rest on the floor. I have had the most experience with the deflation of regular latex balloons.

My daughter loves balloons. They make her day. She searches them out when we are shopping. When she was small and in her stroller, a bunch of balloons tied to a display in a department store would transfix her for at least a quarter of an hour. "Balloon" was, in fact, not her first, but one of her earliest words. And she still loves them. A helium balloon is a treasure, bouncing along the ceiling and floating away from room to room as she follows, catching and recatching it. Balloons that come to life with ordinary air will keep her busy for an entire afternoon. She rubs her hands on the exterior, making screeching sounds that prompt parents to put earplugs on their Christmas list. She squeezes the balloons, tosses them, wraps them up in blankets and pretends they are baby kittens.

But eventually the balloon begins to loose its sparkle. The tension of air inside the latex lessons. The balloon looks weak. It gets squishy. It gets smaller. And it begins to gross me out. I love elderly people, but I have no patience for aging latex balloons that land in the corner of my living room, or behind the couch only to shrink. I don't even like picking them up. The latex smells like a bad bathroom and gives me a headache. I begin to calculate the best way to transport the balloon into the garbage and out the door without my daughter noticing. The obvious thing to do would be to take care of the balloon while she is napping, but out of sight, out of mind. When she's napping, I am not thinking about rotten balloons. It seems that I do the most thinking about rotting balloons when they are being flung in my face and the stench is making my stomach queasy.

Eventually, a tantrum ensues. The joy of the balloon is gone. Using a scissors, I cut it up with vengence and drop it into the trash can. Although I feel little remorse for the balloon, my daughter weeps, and so I wrap her up in a quilt and we read a book or two together until she momentarily forgets about her loss, her spirit deflated until the surprise appearance of a shiny new balloon.

Cookies

I made chocolate chip cookies this afternoon, something that I know I shouldn't do. Before the cookies even get in the oven, there I am, devouring the dough. The conglomeration of butter and two varieties of sugar mixed with flour and a bit of oatmeal tantalize my tongue. I savor the texture of cookie dough. I delight in the taste of cookie dough. I wish I could live on cookie dough alone for at least a day.

So by the time I actually start baking the cookies in the oven, their quanitity has been reduced by at least a third, and after thirteen minutes in the oven (thirteen minutes exactly, because I am a strict user of oven timers, and I know that thirteen minutes results in the perfect chocolate chip cookie) they look scrumptious. Using a cheap plastic pancake turner I transfer them over to my extra large cutting board to cool. And after a few minutes I run out of patience, pour a tall, sleek plastic glass of cold skim milk and eat at least one finished cookie. I have to find out if they are edible. I'd hate to poison someone that happened to walk into the kitchen and grab a cookie. I'm only looking out for the welfare of those around me. Sometimes I need to taste test two cookies just to make sure they are OK. And if I'm especially worried, I like to have three just to be on the safe side.

And to make me an even more villainous person in the eyes of pediatric nutrionalists, I even shared one of these amazing chocolate chip cookies with my daughter after she woke up from her nap. She was thrilled, and suggested I have a cookie with her at the table. So I did. Along with another glass of milk. And then we went for a very long walk. This evening I am wrestling with psychological guilt and blisters on the bottom of my feet from my tennis shoes trodding along the sidewalk pushing the stroller.

Cold Mornings

I love it when the sun shines in the day but the temperatures are cool, and at night the air turns almost cold. In the afternoons I sit outside, my feet soaking up the bright sun that reflects off the brick on our patio, as my daughter pushes around buckets of creeping jenny weeds around in her wagon. (I pull the weeds out; she collects them as if they were treasures smushed into her ice cream pails, and totes them around, selling them to invisible flower shops). In the evening I put on my favorite sweater and warm socks because the floor develops a chill.

But the best time of all is early in the morning, when my daughter wakes up and summons me into her room. "The sun is shining, Mama. Time to get up!" I shuffle into the kitchen, pour milk into her sippy cup, and we hop into my bed with a big bag of library books and read, read, read under the warm blankets until it's really time to get out of bed. Today our literature selections included books about cats, skunk puppets, alphabet blocks, and planting sunflower seeds. What a fun way to start the day.

Back to School Season

Back to School season was always my favorite as a student and a teacher. I have a passionate love for school supplies. There are few better things than the snap of a crisp notebook, blank pages waiting to meet my new collection of mechanical pencils. I love browsing Target, analyzing ailes of colored pencils, markers, and dreamy boxes holding great collections of pointy crayons, their fresh, pointy ends undisturbed. These things, and the smell of new floor wax on the hallways at school are what bring out my creative tendencies.

Now that I am no longer teaching in a regular classroom setting, I do not seem to have the need for school shopping sprees. This saddens me each year. This year I am only planning on purchasing a couple measly bags of mechanical pencils and a few packages of ballpoint pens, in blue. I do not neet to buy 250 8 cent folders as I did when I taught English. I do not need any 10 cent college ruled notebooks. I still have a surplus from three years ago. I don't even need shiny new binders, and this makes me want to go back to work.

Except, I love being a private music teacher. So I have decided to channel my back to school energy into improving my private teaching abilities. This week I am updating my lesson policies. I have created a stack of special phone cards to have on hand when people call inquiring about lessons. I get so nervous on the phone that I usually forget to tell people important things they should know, or ask important questions. I think the cards will come in handy. I am sending out emails to teachers in my city telling them I have just moved, what my music education background is and that I am interested in acquiring new students. I went to the music store (measly though it is) and got on the list of local music teachers. I am researching websites for new pedagogical techniques in piano, flute, clarinet and voice. This reminds me of things I know and have forgotten to use in my teaching, and I am learning a few new things also. Yesterday I purchased bright colored buttons for my students to place on piano keys when we do activities at their lessons. I am keeping the buttons in a glass jar. They look smart. And this week I may purchase a cupboard I have been eyeing in a store to house all my teaching materials in the living room so things don't look so cluttered. These activities make me feel happy and productive.

88 Keys and a Sustaining Pedal

Because I am a piano teacher, people who call to inquire about taking lessons often have questions about an appropriate instrument for their children, or in some cases, for themselves. The most common question is whether it is acceptable to learn on a digital piano. While I do, in fact, dislike digital pianos for a multitude of reasons, it is OK for most people to start with an electric instrument. But I encourage them to look for something with all 88 keys that a regular piano has, in addition to some kind of sustaining pedal, as both of these features are used early in piano pedagogy. I consider these two features essential to successful piano education.

Some people disagree, including my husband, who believes that it's OK to start learning on any instrument, even if it is small when the student is not certain about continuing lessons or cannot afford a larger instrument or does not have enough space for one. This makes me feel guilty because I would like to think that piano is for the masses, but I am staunchily defending my position that there are certain qualities of a musical instrument that are necessary. 88 Keys and a sustaining pedal are required for my students. I have had far too many experiences with students who had no orientation of what octave they were playing on a normal piano, and were unable to pedal because they couldn't practice at home. Lessons were miserable. Would you ask a child to learn to read and only teach them half the alphabet?

Therefore, I see piano as a fantastic activity, and advocate exposure for all who are interested, but I also consider it a commitment of both time, and, unfortunately money.

100 Statements Concerning Me

My friend Sara recently offered up a challenge to write 100 things about oneself. While I had been thinking about creating a blog for a few weeks, it was this idea that really intrigued me. How hard would this really be? I had to find out for myself. I have been jotting down a list all day, and have come to the conclusion that this is a medium hard task that I enjoyed because it really made me think and remember important things that have happened to me.

1. My writing utensil of choice is a mechanical pencil.

2. I love Oscar the Grouch . . . what an uninhibited personality.

3. I dislike walking around the house and discovering unexpected puddles, the result of a todder who doesn't seem to be ready to potty train.

4. One of my favorite childhood toys were Little People.

5. I have been converted and love dishwashers now that I have the priveledge of using one.

6. I dislike computerized musical toys.

7. My husband and I recently discovered that paint chip samples are not completely accurate in their shade of color.

8. There is something purple in almost every room in my house.

9. I delight in watching the natural process of emergent writing and literacy in preschoolers.

10. I do not own a television. This makes me happy.

11. I despise numbers and hate having to be in charge of family finances.

12. Currently I am lamenting the fact that last spring my daughter fell off the piano bench backwards and broke the hinge, making opening and closing the lid to the bench very cumbersome.

13. I like hiking to a good waterfall.

14. One of the main factors that keeps me from practicing the clarinet regularly (like a good person would) is the fact that my mouth cramps up and feels like it is going to twist off. Although, I do realize that if I did practice regularly this effect would be minimized. No pain, no gain.

15. There are few things more comfy than down comforters and flannel sheets, I believe.

16. One of my favorite places to hang out is the hammock swing under a large tree in my backyard.

17. I hate excersize machines, although I enjoy walking, biking, swimming, and rollerblading on reletively flat land.

18. I had the smallest head in my graduating class of six people.

19. A good glass of milk is very enjoyable to me.

20. I wish you could buy a roll of postage stamps that were not all printed in the design of American flags or strange waterfowl.

21. I think I might have made an excellent children's librarian.

22. Back to school season makes me want to buy pens, pencils, large reems of paper and makes me miss teaching.

23. I do not, however, miss dealing with parents who scream and yell at you in public venues such as a large gymnasium filled with other parents during parent teacher conferences.

24. Somtimes at night after my daughter goes to bed I build fantastic palaces with her wooden building blocks.

25. I really don't care for cell phones except for emergency puposes.

26. I'm addicted to rubber stamping.

27. Long ago I memorized the recipe for my mother's chocolate chip cookies and have recently been experimenting with the addition of oatmeal. I like the effect.

28. I use my bread machine frequently.

29. I hate getting sunburned.

30. Although I'd like to be a person who wears summer hats, it just hasn't worked out.

31. I don't like living in an air conditioned environment, except for extreme circumstances.

32. Some people have a passion for collecting knick knacks. I have a passion for collecting books and musical instruments.

33. I believe the practice of folding laundry should be abandoned. Dirty clothes should be dumped in a bin labeled dirty. Clean clothes should be dumped in a bin labled clean. You sort through the bin for the clothes you need.

34. My favorite ages so far have been six and twenty.

35. I sleep with feather pillows even though my in-laws insist that they are graveyards for the corpses of millions of dust mites.

36. I believe in a very minimal collection of good shoes.

37. I am a crhonic, hard core garage sale shopper.

38. I detest onions and garlic, both in taste and smell.

39. Someday I hope to own a grand piano and an expensive wooden Buffet bass clarinet

40. I like dressing my children in fleece more than 9 months of the year.

41. I often seem to have an itchy nose.

42. I'd love to have a cat, but I fear I am not clean enough.

43. I'm petrified of snakes.

44. I dread tornadoes.

45. Fires make me panic.

46. I would like to ride in a hot air balloon, preferrably in the fall when the leaves are changing.

47. I have a very big heart for feeder goldfish and try to rescue them from becoming lunch as often as my aquarium space allows. Plus, they are cheap pets.

48. My favorite letter of the alphabet is Z.

49. It makes me angry when others are cruel to large sized individuals.

50. I have a general distaste for popular people.

51. I like to suprise people by wearing crazy socks.

52. Those who speak entire conversations in movie quotes tend to alienate me.

53. I am a fan and supporter of libraries. What a wonderful concept.

54. Someday I'd like to live in a Victorian house. The attic will be my personal space.

55. When I got married my teeth began turning black until I discovered a high quality electric toothbrush.

56. I've nevery really enjoyed mowing the lawn, and am grateful that my husband doesn't mind this chore.

57. Other people's lawnmowers make me feel guilty and unproductive.

58. My favorite flowers are tulips and irises, and I generally dislike geraniums.

59. Sadly, I have never mastered the art of standing on my head.

60. I enjoy large, shady trees.

61. I miss watching thunderstorms approach on the treeless prairie.

62. I think insects are highly interesting, and somewhat neglected little creatures.

63. My favorite science labs involved dissected live earthworms and chicken embryos whose hearts were still beating. I have questions about how ethical this is.

64. One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in the back wall inside a cow's eyeball. (another science lab)

65. I have an eleven year old lucky rotten orange, which I carefully have preserved in several layers of zip loc bags and store in my cedar chest.

66. Only once have I sandbagged, in college. After I was finished, my arms were so weak I could not carry my lunch tray in the cafeteria.

67. It is quite possible that my garage is bigger than my house.

68. I like wind.

69. I once went trick or treating as an adolescent with a bag of candy which I distributed to the homes I visited instead of taking candy from them. This royally confused the little old ladies in the small town which I grew up in.

70. As a toddler, one day in church I removed my little black dress shoe and threw it across the sanctuary, where it hit an old lady in the back of the head and knocked off her wig. My parents were mortified.

71. I am trying not to be disturbed by the creeping jenny weeds which are overtaking my lawn.

72. I believe in early evening bedtimes for all small children.

73. I dislike the month of August, and enjoy June and October.

74. My feet grew two complete sizes during my first pregnancy and haven't returned.

75. I wish I had the patience to sew a quilt.

76. I still own my first pair of pointy scissors distributed to me in kindergarten.

77. I never wanted to get my driver's license.

78. In high school I crashed the car into the garage twice within the time span of one week.

79. I don't speak well on the telephone.

80. I don't like digital pianos.

81. I love thinking of crazy names when I purchase a new goldfish.

82. I once had braces and lost two retainers. One was ground up in a garbage disposal, and another was sat on by a large person. After this I gave up on retainers, and I have slightly crooked bottom teeth which could have been perfectly straight.

83. My dream is to teach Kindermusik and private kindergarten in a custom built classroom located in a treehouse.

84. I used to be a chronically early person until I married my husband, a chronically late person, and now I am barely on time.

85. I dislike vertical blinds.

86. I inherited an expensive set of waterless cookware, but I have not yet been able to understand what the purpose is of cooking vegetables in less water. They seem to taste the same. So I use the amount of water an average person would.

87. Raw carrots and broccoli taste very bitter to me, but I enjoy them steamed.

88. A nice hardwood floor brings a smile to my face.

89. I hope I don't develop skin tags in old age.

90. I learned to have a large, deep alto voice by singing over 9 screeching sopranos in church choir, known as the screaming meanies. There was only one other (quiet) alto.

91. When in Europe for choir tour in college I ate splendid ice cream every day for lunch.

92. In elementary school I was teased for having big lips, but I can't figure out why others thought them to be oversized. They seem normal to me.

93. I'm working on fluency in the very highest notes the flute is capable of playing. It's quite possible the piercing sounds may shatter the living room picture window.

94. I once deveoped a limited secret code language of vegetable and cheese words. Cheese meant hellow, cucumbers meant "see you later have a terrific day" and green bean stood for smelly football players.

95. I avoid football players, even today.

96. I never went to the prom.

97. A good fairy tale is fun to read.

98. I don't wear a watch.

99. The one Christmas present I really, really wanted but never got was a red speak and spell.

100. I have 3 cookie sheets covered in magnetic poetry under my bed.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I was inspired to create a blog by my friend Sara. All summer long I have had great fun and amusement reading her daily blog posts and keeping up with her life, so I decided to try it myself.