Thursday 13

  • Thursday 13

    I saw this Thursday 13 last week at A Gentleman’s Domain, and he got it from his friend, Di.  Looks like a cute TT, so I decided to give it a shot. Thirteen Firsts First Job – I’ve told you about my first real job, at Mr. Steak.  But I had a couple of odd jobs before that.  The first was probably when my friend Jennifer and I would go to Pizza Hut and offer to fold boxes for take out, and in exchange, we would get pizza and soda to take home for dinner.  Awesome.  Another barter type job I had was cleaning out the horse stalls at a…

  • Happiness

    Finding happiness in difficult times can be a challenge. I suspect that to be happy when the world is going to hell around you, you either have to be the type of person who is generally happy anyway, or insane. I hope I fall in the former category, and not the latter. Because yes, I am generally happy. Things are bad right now, with my mom not recovering as well as I wish she would, and all that that may imply; with Ted losing his job and the uncertainty of where that will leave us. With a winter and spring that pretty much kicked our asses. Despite it all, and…

  • 13 Things I Wish I Could Change

    (graphic found here) For the most part, these aren’t biggies. For that, I am thankful. I married the right man. I have a healthy child. We bought our house at the right time. These are more like ‘pet peeves’, things that I mostly ignore, but sometimes flare up and bug me, and I wish I had done things differently. I thought I would come up with 13 things, for a Thursday 13, but I guess most of my beefs are a bit bigger than this list lately. Anyway, here’s a few pet peeves, things I think, Gosh, wish I had done this differently… 1. I wish we had bought a…

  • 13 Ways to Beat Stress

    You will all be relieved to know that I’m doing much better lately. There is, of course, still worry, but I feel like I’m doing a bit better as far as the stress level goes. I had my first therapy session on Tuesday, and the therapist told me that she thinks I’m doing pretty well, and gave me a few tips to help me to cope. As a favor to any of my readers out there who might be stressed as well, I’ll make a Thursday 13 out of a combination of tips she had for me, and things I’m already doing, which she agreed would be helpful. Keep a…

  • X Marks the Spot…

    (image found here) Almost finished with my April NaBloPoMo letter theme…we’re nearing the end of the month, and the end of the alphabet. I was thinking about what I could write about with the letter X. Hmmm. There are possibilities, of course. There’s the X-Files, X Rays, X Games, Xylophones, Xenophobia, and the band, X. There’s the X Box, Generation X, and X-Mas. The possibilities are, well, not endless, but there are a few. But none that really float my boat, you know what I’m saying? So, instead of writing about a tv show or a concept or a disease or medication or instrument that starts with the letter X,…

  • J likes…

    In keeping with my NaBloPoMo vow to travel sequentially through the alphabet, stopping at each letter at least once for a post, I’ve decided to make a Thursday Thirteen today, of things I like. None of these are going to be deep and profound, I’m afraid. You all already know that I love my family and friends, and kindness and justice and gratitude and honesty and butterflies and NPR, right? OK, so we’re going a bit more shallow here. This is just things that make me happy if I happen to have them around, things I notice that I like. And I apologize in advance, because this post is going…

  • 13 Things about Anchorage

    I’d never been to Anchorage before my recent 2 week stay. I wish I had been there under circumstances that would have allowed me to get to know it a little better. I thought I might be able to come up with a Thursday 13 about Anchorage, at least about my trip there, and not have any of it be sad hospital things. Let’s see how I do. I have a relative in Anchorage, who I don’t think I’ve met before! How wild is that? My mom’s father was divorced before he married my Grandma, and he had two children from his first marriage. So my mom’s sister, Lori, has…

  • My Fairbanks Life

    I recently found a new bloggy friend, Theresa from My Fairbanks Life. I found her through Michelle at Scribbit. They’re both Alaskan bloggers. Michelle lives in Anchorage, and Theresa lives in Fairbanks, which is where I spent 5 years as a child. Hearing about the cold snap they’re having right now (I just checked yahoo weather, and they’re saying it’s -43 F right now) put me in mind of some of my own memories of Fairbanks, and the time that I spent there. I had intended to do this as a Thursday 13, but didn’t get to it until late. So it’s a Friday 13 I guess. Anyway, without further…

  • Children’s Book Week

    I found out over at Scribbit that this is Children’s Book Week. The post on Scribbit had some wonderful suggestions on how to encourage reading in children, if you’re interested. Then she came up with part two… We don’t have that problem around here, as Maya is just as much of a reader as her parents are. (This doesn’t always follow…I know several couples who both love to read, read to their children, model reading in front of their children, maybe even have one or two children who love to read…and one or two who just don’t enjoy it at all. Some is nature, and you just have to accept…

  • Thursday 13 ~ Thank God for Showers

    The other day when I was climbing into my nice steamy hot shower, I was reminded of Maya donating money to Unicef to bring clean water to children elsewhere. Then I thought of the book I had just finished, March, and how they didn’t have hot steamy showers, either. Pretty much, for the length of human history, no hot steamy showers. Want to take a bath? If you’re lucky enough to have access to a well, you can heat up water on your stove and use that. Otherwise, it’s the creek or river. No fun. And yet, that’s how it’s been for hundreds of thousands of years, and how it…

  • J Needs…

    Here’s a twist on a meme I saw on Scarlett’s page, and thought might be fun. Here’s what you do: 1. Go to Google.com 2. Type your name and the word ‘needs’ in quotes in the search engine and hit the button. Give us 13 that make sense, if you can. (Scarlett used 10, but I went for 13, so I could make it a ‘Thursday 13’. 😉 ) Let’s see what “J needs”… J Needs Your Help! (This is true…sometimes, I do need your help.) J needs to work on her parenting (Sadly, this is often true. Actually, I think all parents need to work on their parenting, though.…

  • Thirteen Movie Previews I Have Recently Seen

    Maya and I went to see the new Shrek movie last Friday. My review? Yawn. I would have preferred to be at home watching a DVD of 90210 or something. Which just goes to show that everyone has their own source of stupid. Really, I’m tired of kids films. I’m glad Maya is 11, and is outgrowing most of this genre. For the most part, they’re simplistic and cloying, or sassy and full of gross-out humor. I’m tired of it, and kinda prefer films with actual dialoge and a plot. Call me crazy. While waiting for the film to start we saw 8, count them, 8 movie previews. Wow. There…

  • Thirteen Things I Love About Py

    1. He’s AWESOME to travel with. He loves traveling, and it doesn’t stress him out. He’s fine going budget if we need to, but if we can afford it, he likes to surprise me and upgrade us to the best we can get. All without putting anything on credit, of course, because that’s not his thing, either. 2. He’s an amazing father. I was hoping to get one of those for my kid(s) way back when I was dating, and boy, I struck the jackpot with Py. 3. He’s a great cook. We both like cooking, so it’s nice to have the variety, and neither of us get tired of…

  • Thirteen Reasons my Daughter is Cute…

      I keep a little journal for Maya, and in it, I’ve been writing off and on since she was little…memories of times we have together, updates, cute things, etc.  I looked at it the other night and I realized it’s been a LONG time since I wrote in it.  Like maybe a couple of years, except without the maybe.  I was looking back, and I found some very cute things that Maya said or did when she was very small…she still says and does very cute things, but since she’s older now, she might not appreciate me sharing them now. 🙂 So, 13 cute things Maya said or did when she…

  • Thirteen Memes…

    I was recently tagged for two memes that I’ve already done, and I don’t think I could go through with doing them again, as much as I do love me a good meme. So, I thought, why not milk this for a Thursday Thirteen, another type of meme….I mean, really, why not. So, here you go, Thirteen Memes I’ve completed. Wendy and Curiosity Killer, the first two are the ones you tagged me for: Five Things You May Not Know About Me – Okay, Wendy, yours was 6 things, so here’s one more: I confess so much to you people, that there is nothing left to put here. That’s something…