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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Seven sevens

I must be feeling a little bit better; I can at least do a meme now. This is a sort of hybrid of a few of these "Seven" things I've seen going around.

Seven things I'm good at:

1. Cooking. I'm not brilliant at it, but I manage to keep myself in size twelves. And my husband in size 36s.
   
2. Sewing, and a very few assorted other craft-ish things.
   
3. I usually say 'mothering', but I have not felt like a good mother lately. I have felt like Joan Crawford might feel if she were less obsessive and more lazy. And also far less physically attractive. OK, not THAT bad. But I've been a bit grouchy, maybe. I'm sorry, children.
   
4. Typing
   
5. Spelling
   
6. OK, I will say it, I think I'm good at taking pictures. That sounds so -- so full of myself. I will qualify it: I'm good at taking pictures that I like to look at afterward. Whether anyone else wants to look at them is perhaps a separate issue.
   
7. Physical labor. I can mix concrete and haul it around in five-gallon buckets. I can clear brush and haul wood. I can paint a room all by myself. I can string the Christmas lights on the eaves. I may not be very ornamental, but at least I'm useful. :)
   

seven things I'm terrible at

1. Keeping my house clean
   
2. Inspiring my kids to keep their parts of the house clean without losing my cool
   
3. Making quick decisions. Give me time and I can make a good plan for most anything, find the holes in it, and fix them. Give me five seconds to decide whether to go to Burger King or Applebee's and I may just cause a traffic accident.
   
4. Shopping
   
5. Writing fiction
   
6. keeping my temper under stress
   
7. Budgeting
   

seven things I'd like to be very good at

1. taking photographs
   
2. debating
   
3. mothering
   
4. loving
   
5. keeping my house clean
   
6. playing the piano (again)
   
7. keeping my temper under stress
   

Seven A partial list of novels/series I've read more than twice and will probably read several more times, at least, over the course of my life (I had to stop or this would have taken all night):

1. Jane Eyre (almost time to pull this one out again) by Charlotte Brontë
   
2. Pride and Prejudice (and everything else) by Jane Austen
   
3. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
   
4. Into the Wilderness and those following by Sara Donati
   
5. A Christmas Carol and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
   
6. The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis
   
7. Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman
   
8. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
   
9. Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
   
10. The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
    
11. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Richard C. O'Brien
    
12. Watership Down by Richard Adams
    

Seven favorite movies:

1. Pride and Prejudice (1995)
   
2. Return to Me
   
3. The Black Stallion (for pure eye-candy reasons, if nothing else)
   
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
   
5. Persuasion (with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds)
   
6. While You Were Sleeping
   
7. Amadeus
   

Seven things I'd like to do before I die:

1. See my children grow into Christ-loving adults who lead happy lives and bring up Godly children
   
2. Spend a long, comfortable, relaxed retirement with my husband
   
3. Live in a place we own and love
   
4. Watch the Nutcracker at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House
   
5. Spend more time with my friends who live far away
   
6. Further my education, possibly earning a degree and taking on a career, post-children
   
7. Travel outside the United States
   

seven role models

1. My mother, who is the one who taught me how to be a mom
   
2. My husband, who has so much faith in God, and love for Him, and willingness to serve Him and others -- and is just generally the perfect man for God to have sent into my life to help me grow closer to Him (and have a really blissful life in the meantime)
   
3. My children, each in his or her own way
   
4. My dad, who is always in pain and yet always has a cheerful attitude and is so generous with his time, labor, love, and resources
   
5. Jesus (no, really?)
   
6. My maternal grandmother, who raised seven children on a shoestring, has worked hard her whole life, and never complains about anything as far as I know
   
7. My paternal (step-)grandmother, dead now, whose voice I hear telling me to stand up straight and tuck in my tummy every time I slouch, and who loved us with a tenacity that I never understood or believed until after she was gone
   

Comments

Posted by: jenn at December 8, 2005 05:03 PM

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