Take a memo

There was a time in my life when I remembered EVERYTHING. I did not need a calendar to keep appointments. Or to know when someone was celebrating a birthday. Or to remind myself to meet friends at the movies.

My memory skills even made it possible for me to take the most cryptic of notes in my classes. I heard it and I knew it. I wrote it down. I never seemed to forget it.

And then it all changed.

My brain is like a sieve. I have to make lists. But not only do I have to write things down. I have to make sure that list is front and center. Or I will surely forget what I am supposed to do.

I have all kinds of notations on my calendar. Birthdays. But I never remember to send a card. Appointments. Appointments I might even recall in the morning. But I still might get a call at 4pm from the dentist wanting to know why I am not there with my child.

And there are events and conversations. That my husband swears that we have had. That I have no memory of at all. Of movies that we have seen. Comments I have made. Maybe none of it happened. And he is just messing with me. It seems rather unfair. Since he is the one with the brain injury.

And then. There are the things that do work. I have an internal GPS. I know where to turn. The names of the roads. And how to reverse it all to get home.

I can remember the most useless of information. All kinds of trivial fluff. But. I have no idea why I might know these things. And I can't even give you examples. Because I have forgotten.

I can remember the Latin that I learned in high school. I never took a Latin class in college. I didn't major in it. Yet I still remember it all. Remember it well enough to be entering into my fifth year of teaching high school Latin to homeschoolers.

I can remember stories that my friends wish I would forget.

Scary.

So...what about you? How is your memory? Are you a list maker? Are you forgetful? Or is this just me?

Thursday Thirteen

We are leaving on Saturday morning for Tampa. And then on Sunday we will head for the port…to embark on a week long cruise of the Caribbean. I cannot wait. The girls are beside themselves with excitement. Michael is busy trying to figure out how he is going to share less than 200 sq. feet with three women. We received the cruise as a Christmas gift from my mom. Isn’t she wonderful?! What is she going to do while we are gone? She is taking her own vacation from work and is going to spend the week at home. Alone. Basking in the silence. While we bask in the sun.

So…today…instead of doing the millions of things I need to do to get ready, I am blogging. I am the queen of avoidance behavior. But…perhaps I am multi-tasking. After all, it’s the day for the Thursday Thirteen…and I can tell you what I still need to do:

1. I need to dye my hair. The gray is getting a bit much. I don’t need my hair to match the silver threads in my formal outfit. I’ll try to not get anymore on the walls of the bathroom. No promises.

2. I need to get a pedicure. I cannot wear shorts and sandals without pretty toes. But I never get my finger nails done.

3. I need to pack for the kids. I have most of their clothes laying out already. And now I just need to stuff them into ziplocks and get them into the suitcases. I also need to get their backpacks packed with things to do in the car. I have been stockpiling books and games…so it’ll be like Christmas when they open them. And the contents will hopefully entertain them for a while before they demand that I put Season 3 of “Full House” in the dvd player. Save me!

4. Clean out car. Can’t put stuff in without taking stuff out. Isn’t that a law in Physics?

5. I need to pack for me. I have spent this week in a shopping frenzy…but I can’t find anything that fits me well. But maybe when I lay it all out I’ll discover something. That maybe I do have clothes. Or maybe I’ll just get depressed.

6. Get cash. Just a little. You never know when you might need a quarter.
7. Balance the check book. I need to make sure that we have cash. And that the bills that are supposed to be paid, get paid. And check in with my husband about this fine (methinks someone might have a lead foot) from the Rockdale County government for $119.

8. Find Beach Bags. We have not been to the beach since we moved into the house. So, there is no telling where I put my big bags. I hope they are not still in a box somewhere.

9. Did we buy enough sunscreen…or do I need to make a Target run. Do we have disposable camera for Madalyn to use? Do I need to make a Target run? Um…what else could we need? Maybe beach bags…

10. Return books to the library. Because if I am going to spend a hundred dollars at Target (and we know that if I go to Target, surely $100 will be spent), I surely don’t want a 20 cent overdue fine.

11. Find and pack birth certificates. Find cruise documents AND put them with my things that I’ll carry onto the ship.

12. Get directions to hotel. We are staying at a hotel on Saturday evening. I need to find out how to get there. And then how to get from there to the port. Or, we can leave our car there and call a cab and not have to pay for the week’s parking.

13. Remind Michael to not forget socks and belts this time. Last time we took a cruise, Michael did not pack these things. He looked strange in his suit and white athletic socks. I think I made him go without that first night…and then he borrowed a pair from friends of ours that were on the cruise. (But then he had to wear them each night…gross!) We did end up buying a belt.

I know that you all might go through withdrawl if I don’t post for over a week. I am actually contemplating buying internet minutes on the ship and posting a live report. Tune in to see if it happens!

I like quizzes almost as much as I like lists

Firefly mom had this fun quiz posted on her blog:

Go to photobucket and

1. Answer the following questions

2. Type the answer into the search bar on photobucket

3. Post the picture answer from the first page.

Here goes:

1. Age you will be on your next birthday: (do I have to answer? Thirty(mofaegebwef) - excuse me

2. A place you would like to travel: China

3. A place you would like to live: Scotland

4. Your favorite place: my house (as if)

5. Favorite object: books

6. Favorite food: chips

7. Favorite animal: owls

8. Favorite color: green

9. Town in which you were born: Winter Park, FL

10. The town in which you live: Lilburn, GA

11. Name of a pet: Frannie (except mine was a cat)

12. Favorite celebrity: Goran Visjnic

13. Your name or nickname: Kat

14. Favorite song. Mine changes daily. Today it's Galileo by Indigo Girls

15. Your middle name: Lynn

16. A bad habit of yours: procrastination

17. How do you feel about your life? Happy

18. One word to describe you: Spontaneous

19. Favorite TV show: LOST

20. Favorite Movie: Thank You for Smoking (if you haven't seen this gem...go netflix it!! Now.)

Goin' Native

The world of blogging is so much fun – and for someone with a degree in Anthropology, I feel like I have found a whole new culture. There are all these cultural norms – such as the post from yesterday of “Wordless Wednesday.” And now I have heard of bloggers challenge that is going to complete my transformation of going native. It is a challenge that appeals to my two great loves: reading and making lists!

The challenge is called 888. It entails reading 8 books in 8 categories in ’08. You can make any categories you like…and I hear the “official” rules say that 8 books can overlap – so your total reading will be 56-64 books. Now reading this many books is not the challenge for me (I read over 200 last year) – what will be challenging is to read outside of my normal genres…and for me that would be classics.

Confession time: I have never read Jane Austen. For someone who loves romance novels…it’s like sacrilege. (I’ll go ahead and hang my head in shame) I know the stories, I have seen the movies, but I have never read the books. So, a classics category would work – I don’t want an entire Austen category – because, God forbid – what if I don’t like her style?!

So…as a work in progress, here is what I have so far for the challenge:
Book Club
1. Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
2. Isaac’s Storm: a Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson

Young Adult
1. Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
2. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
3. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
4. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
5. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
6. The miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Dicamillo
7. The Wave by Todd Strasser

Popular Fiction
1. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
2. Austenland by Shannon Hale
3. Duma Key by Stephen King

Non-Fiction
1. The know it all by AJ Jacobs
2. Body Drama: Real girls, real bodies, real issues, real answers by Nancy Amanda Redd
3. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
4. Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
5. Sin in the Second city: Madams, ministers, playboys and the battle for America’s soul by Karen Abbott
6. Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost
7. I hope they serve beer in Hell by Tucker Max
8. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain


Romance
1. Secrets of the Highlander by Janet Chapman
2. Lover Enshrined by JR Ward
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Classics
1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
2. Dracula by Bram Stoker
3. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
5. 1984 by George Orwell
6.

Award Winners
1. March by Geraldine Brooks (Pulitzer Prize 2006 in fiction)
2. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch (National Book Critics Circle, 1998)
3. Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre (2003 Man Booker Prize)
4. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1998 Man Booker Prize)
5. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (2000 Pulitzer Prize in fiction)
6. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kenney Toole (1981 Pulitzer Prize in fiction)
7. A Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (1991 Pulitzer Prize in History)
8. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (1978 Newberry Medal for best children’s book)


Books already on my shelf
1. The boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
2. Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
3. An Arsonists Guide to Writers homes in New England by Brock Clark
4. Fight Club by Chuck Palahntik
5. How to teach filthy rich girls by Zoey Dean
6. Your big break by Johanna Edwards
7. Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
8. Material Girl by Julia London

So...are you with me for the challenge? What's on your to be read pile?