Who, Meme?

I was catching up with blog comments recently when I discovered that I’ve been tagged with this Award/Meme thingy by ZenYenta!  I’m always honored when someone thinks of me when they think of favorite blogs. Seriously, little ole me! Aw, shucks, I’m blushing over here.  Thanks for thinking of me, ZenYenta!

I don’t have much time to bask in the afterglow and rest on my laurels, though, because this award requires a lot of work comes with certain, um, rights and privileges duties and responsibilities.  If I tag you, and you want to participate (don’t feel obligated), here’s what you should do. Eventually. You know, when you have completed all your chores and laundry and have time for such silliness:

1.You must brag about the award. I didn’t exactly brag – I’m always flabbergasted, frankly, when someone awards me anything, but I guess saying “I got an award!” on my own blog is bragging.

2.You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger. You saw the link to ZenYenta above? Good. Go read her. She was one of my first readers and for that I owe her a special nod.

3.You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.  WELL. That’s easier said than done, because there are far more talented bloggers out there than I can make time to read regularly. You know I’m always gushing about Suz and Marcy and Laurie and Chesapeake Bay Woman… so here are some other blogs that I’m really liking these days.

 

Charlcie.  She’s a spunky thyroid cancer survivor who used to work with Soup Husband Curt.  They’ve both since moved on to other employers but we’re happy to still be in touch with her.

In Three Words. My latest blog addiction… she throws out a topic and your response must be contained in three well-chosen words.  I dare you not to bookmark it after your first visit.

Bartender Face.  The aforementioned Laurie started this blog to solicit the stories you so want to share, but can’t come clean except through the veil of anonymity.  I see she hasn’t posted in a little while… maybe this link will prompt her to share something new? It’s juicy reading for sure. Maybe you have your own deep dark secret you’d like to share.

Breed ‘em and weep. Jenn is a recently-single mom of two lovely daughters. She’s got her hands full and writes about it in prose so eloquent, it’ll take your breath away. 

My Party of 6.  In addition to her own blog that features clever and thrifty home decorations and more laundry than you ever thought possible, Sue also contributes at DC Metro Moms.

Violence Unsilenced. Maggie of Okay, Fine, Dammit was one of my first readers and provided me with encouragement as I was just getting started. She recently embarked on a new project – she’s posting other writers’ accounts of their experiences with domestic violence.  It makes for riveting reading, and gives some pretty brave souls a place to speak out about their experiences with abuse.

 
4.Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were tagged with the Honest Weblog Award.   Links posted above.  Comments on everyone’s sites may or may not happen, but consider yourself tagged if you see this before I leave you a comment. Whatever that means.
5.List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Oh lordy, didn’t we all do this on Facebook over the past couple of months?  Here’s my 25 things post; and I’ll throw in a bonus five new ones, just for grins:

• I hate centipedes even more than I hate snakes, and I hate them both when they’re inside my house.
• I am quite certain that three boys is enough of that business for me, but today I saw an impossibly cute 7 month old baby boy in the office and OH MY, how he made my ovaries ache!  Then I pinched him really hard and made him cry and – shazam! – I was over it. KIDDING. I did not pinch him. But I had to imagine it in order to break the trance.
• You know those pressurized tubes of crescent rolls and biscuits? I fear those tubes. I really don’t like it when they pop open.  Sometimes you just peel the paper like it tells you, and they don’t just pop open, and then you have to figure out how to break in, and that is what I really, really hate. In fact, I asked Bubta to open some tonight so that I could make make a dinner recipe involving crescent rolls.
• I used to sing the National Anthem before varsity high school basketball games with my friend. We would sing it in two-part harmony, a capella.  (I was the alto.) I have fantasies of singing it again, as a solo, maybe at a Caps game or a minor league baseball game. I might just go audition one of these days.
• If I could figure out a way to make money blogging, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Meg’s 25 Things

This meme is going around Facebook and I have been thrice tagged. I spent a considerable amount of time thinking about which 25 things to include, and as any blogger would do, decided it would be a waste of perfectly good words to leave it on Facebook alone. Hence, what follows is probably more than you ever wanted to know about me. Feel free to respond and/or parse.

25 THINGS ABOUT MEG

1. I’ve been married to the same wonderful man for 15 years, but I’m shooting for something more like 50 – no, wait – 60 years.

2.  have three sons, ages 12, 10 and 4. No, we weren’t trying for a girl with that third one. Yes, he was planned.

3. My maiden name is Beaver, and I didn’t know it was funny until I left home to go to college, because there were many of us in my town, and had been for generations.

4. It isn’t funny, though, smartass, because I am a distant relation to James A. Beaver, a General in the Union Army during the Civil War, Governor of Pennsylvania from 1887-1891,and 24-year president of the trustees of Penn State (he has a football stadium and an avenue named after him). He was also a finalist to be James Garfield’s vice president, but he declined, and Garfield was assassinated, so Beaver would have been president of the United States, too. Except that he wasn’t. (I bet if I were descended from a U.S. President, I could’ve scored some sweet tickets to the inauguaral festivities last week!)

5. I grew up on a farm in south-central Pennsylvania. No, I don’t know how to milk a cow, so don’t even ask. (I’ve never been cow-tipping, either.)

6. If I had college to do over again, I would have taken more music classes and might even have majored in it.

7. I played the oboe through college, the piano through high school, and have dabbled in playing the tenor and alto sax. But my favorite thing in marching band? Twirling a silk flag, because I got to wear those cute white marching boots with the taps on the soles and the giant yarn pom poms so typical of the 1980s.

8. I also sing – I’m an alto – and one day want to sing in a women’s barbershop / Sweet Adelines group. Till then, I find my outlet in my church choir.

9. In high school musicals, I played the roles of Zaneeta Shin, Ado Annie, and Rose Alvarez… but I was not a drama queen.

10. On year in P.E., I got a “B” on my pathetic attempt at a cartwheel in gym class, issued from our rotund gym teacher. The B was probably a gift, though the irony was not lost on me. “I’d like to see HER cartwheel!” I stammered.

11. My dad died from melanoma when I was 14. (Wear your sunscreen.) People don’t know what to say to a kid whose dad has just died.

12. I am one of the three in 100,000 parents whose child has experienced a stroke.

13. I believe things must happen for a reason. If I didn’t, there’s no way I could explain or accept certain events that have happened in my life. (See previous two items.)

14. I have one biological sister, who also happens to be my sorority sister.

15. If I didn’t have kids and a big fat dog, I would so be living in the heart of DC right now.

16. I liked Harry Connick, Jr. before everyone else did. In 1990, I wrote him a fan letter and he wrote back.

17. I suck at playing team sports. But I really like watching them.

18. I know how to score a baseball game.

19. I have learned that guys really dig a girl who can talk sports.

20. I am a wicked-fast typist. In 11^th grade typing, I used to type my stuff, then type the exercise for the guy next to me. In college, I typed papers for students for a buck a page on an electric typewriter. (Yes, I am that old.)

21. About many things, I know just enough to be dangerous.

22. I love being from Pennsylvania. I’m also much happier living near DC. It turns out, you can’t always go home again.

23. I am blessed with an abundance of great friends and burdened with a complete inability to decline an invitation to a good party.

24. Of all the bosses I’ve had, I have probably learned the most from the assholes.

25. I have always liked the drummers best of all.

More than you ever wanted to know about me: The Christmas Edition

My pal Suz Redfearn sent me this meme, and I promptly thanked her for serving up my next blog post on a silver platter.  I don’t usually forward these and hardly ever answer them, but – heck! – it’s Christmastime, and I don’t want anyone accusing me of being Scrooge.  Feel free to copy this and send it on, or post it on your own blog, or even leave me some of your own replies in today’s comments.

And now, here is more than you ever wanted to know about me, with a Christmas twist:

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?  Depends on when you ask me. Right now? Wrapping paper. On December 24 at 10pm? Gift bags, please, and hurry up about it.

2. Real tree or Artificial?  Real tree. There’s simply no substitute.

3. When do you put up the tree?   We usually bring our tree home from PA after Thanksgiving, so it goes up by the weekend after, but this year we didn’t do that. In no case as has our tree ever gone up with less than a week to go until Christmas.

4. Do you like eggnog?  Not really. I’m more of a peppermint schnapps in hot chocolate kind of gal.

5. Favorite gift received as a child?  My white roller skates with the green and white pom-poms stand out; also got a stereo one year. I have fond memories of a racetrack, too. Was our Atari a Christmas present? If so that would have to be up there on the list as well. 

6. Hardest person to buy for?  Soup Husband. He’s truly impossible.

7. Easiest person to buy for?  My mom and my sister, because we donate to charity in lieu of a gift.

8. Do you have a nativity scene?  Yep. Remember the reason for the season. As kids, we had one that my cousin made with a ham tin painted gold for the creche.

9. Mail or email Christmas cards? Last year, neither. Sorry, y’all! This year? probably a combination. We do an awesome newsletter when we put our minds to it. 

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?  Nothing comes to mind.

11. Favorite Christmas Movie?  Dead tie between National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Charlie Brown Christmas, which only very slightly edge out It’s A Wonderful Life.

12. When do you start shopping?  I should be cyber-shopping right now instead of writing this.

13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?  Nope, but that doesn’t mean I’m above doing so should the opportunity present itself.

14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?  Grandma Sara’s Butter Brickle and my mom’s sand tart cookies. Watch for these recipes over at My Grandmas’ Recipes. (Shameless plug.)

15. Lights on the tree?  White only, with some twinkling and some not. The kids get the colored lights on the outside of the house, but I get the tree.

16. Favorite Christmas song?  The classics: We Three Kings, Lo How A Rose E’re Blooming, Once In Royal David’s City, Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard On High - somebody, please stop me… oh, and also, Harry Connick Jr.’s entire “When My Heart Finds Christmas” CD. I know Every. Single. Word.

17. Travel at Christmas or stay home?  Travel at Thanksgiving, stay home at Christmas. We do travel the weekend before, just a daytrip.

18. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?  Of course! Can you, smart-ass?

19. Angel on the tree top or a star?  Currently, star, but I’d do either.

20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?  Is this a real question? Christmas Morning, of course!

21. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?  All the useless crap that blocks the aisles in department stores, on which desperate people will waste money buying and recipients will fake a smile and say thanks, um, you shouldn’t have. Also, stories like the one about the Walmart worker who got trampled to death so people could save ten bucks. Seriously, folks – chill.

22. Favorite ornament theme or color?  I use ornaments collected throughout the years, ranging from when I was a kid to recent family vacations, each one with its own story. But, if I  were to do a theme tree, I’d probably do gold and red, or maybe a theme involving musical notes. For non-tree decorations, we are heavy on the “Santa” theme.

23. What do you want for Christmas this year?  To feel moved by the spirit of the season. Also, a big stack of books and time to read them.