Thursday Thirteen - About writing

Thirteen Things Jessica is thinking about the topic of writing! 1. I've been thinking about the topic of writing a lot lately. Probably because I haven't actually been writing. When I don't write, writing is on my mind all the time. 2. I still have lots of anxiety issues about writing. I thought they'd go away - or at least diminish - when I had my short story published. But, to my surprise, I think it's gotten worse. 3. One of the things I have problems with is my internal editor. He just won't shut up. Ever. I know I've blogged about this before (I'm just too lazy to find the link). Whenever I sit down to write - or even think about writing something - he steps in and tells me how stupid the idea is or how I'm just wasting my time. 4. For Christmas I got The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Whenever I'm browsing for books about writing or creativity in general, I come across references to this book. It's been around for ten years and it's supposed to be very helpful for removing blocks to creativity. I'm going to make a concerted effort to follow the program and see what happens. One of the activities the book recommends is "morning pages" where every morning you try to write - long hand - three pages of whatever. It's not a journal, it's not writing. It's more like a stream of consciousness mind dump. This morning I started doing it and my internal editor went crazy because he hates stream of consciousness. 5. When I started this Thursday Thirteen, I thought I'd have no problem coming up with thirteen things to say about writing. I was wrong. 6. My mom is creative - she's an artist. Among other things, she draws, paints, sews, does decoupage and needlepoint. Lately she's been into photography and creating her own cards from photos she's taken. All my life I've compared myself to her in the realm of creativity and I always felt like I fell short. I could never draw like she does. I hate sewing. Needlepoint is too tedious for me. I wasn't any good at the things she was good at. That doesn't mean I wasn't creative - just in different ways. Maybe because my creative outlets were different from my mom's, I didn't value them as much as I should have. 7. I know this sounds cliche but I always worried that a creative career wasn't "practical" enough. I started working at a talent agency after college because I could be close to the arts but still get paid a (not really) decent salary. That's something that Julia Cameron talks about in The Artist's Way - people who dream of being artists but are afraid to take the risks often go into careers associated with the arts. Eventually, I became dissatisfied with what I was doing. I thought it was because there wasn't enough of an intellectual challenge which is why I ended up a law school. Looking back I think I was wrong. I was probably dissatisfied because of the lack of creative challenge. 8. Not that I didn't like law school. It was an intellectual challenge and - in a different way - a creative challenge as well. It involves lots of writing, some of it creative. I wrote some kick ass papers. One of my favorites was a paper about why the enforcement of animal protection laws could violate the separation between church and state because some religions use animal sacrifice as part of their ritual. What made it most interesting is that, at the time, I was a vegetarian. I started writing the paper thinking I would come out on the side of animal protection and ended up on the side of religious freedom - even when it involved something I found personally abhorrent. 9. That's the great thing about writing - for me at least. The act and the process of writing helps me learn things about myself that aren't otherwise accessible to my conscious mind. 10. I started working on a book awhile back and was making some progress (well, for ME a couple short chapters is progress) but I stopped working on it. The idea of writing a book is overwhelming and my internal editor tells me I'll never do it and I'm not sure where the plot is going and I'm not sure I want to go where the characters appear to be taking me and I worry that even if I do write something it'll be so bad that everyone who reads it will laugh at me and I'll feel like I did back in junior high. Awkward and unlovable. Have I mentioned that I didn't really like junior high very much? 11. Here are my writing-related new year's resolutions: 1) do The Artist's Way program, 2) continue to work on the book, 3) write some more short stories and submit them for publication, 4) go over the class notes from the writing class I took and try to incorporate more of those lessons in my current writing, 5) blog more regularly. 12. I've never been very good at keeping new year's resolutions. That's why I tend to keep them to myself so no one will know that I broke my resolution just days after the new year. So now I'm making my resolutions public (at least the writing-related ones). Hopefully that'll shame me into keeping them! 13. I hope everyone has a happy, healthy new year! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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I'm not dead . . . and some unique things about the girls

First of all, let me clear something up. I'm not dead or hibernating (although a good winter hibernation seems like a fabulous idea right about now). I'd like to say that I haven't been writing much because my social life is jam packed with holiday parties. In reality, my calendar is jam packed with getting ready to go to California for the holiday and that pesky little thing I like to call my "job." That's right, the people who give me that nice paycheck every two weeks actually expect me to perform certain tasks they call "work." So, I'm taking my lunch "hour" (more like 15 minutes during which I shove some "food" in my mouth) to respond to Landismom who tagged me the other day to list five ways in which my kids are weird.

To be honest, the word "weird" bothers me. My girls are too young to read this blog but if and when they do read it, I don't want to hurt their feelings by making them feel that I think badly of them. This isn't to say that Landismom or any of the other parents doing this meme are mean-spirited. Maybe I'm just oversensitive about this issue but I don't want to do anything that might embarrass them. Also, unlike other blogs, this blog is not really anonymous and that makes a big difference in how I feel about issues like this. To me, the word "weird" has negative connotations while "unique" is more a celebration of differences.

So - to get to the point (and there is a point), here are six ways in which A Girl and M Girl are unique:

1. A Girl did not like to go to sleep when she was a baby - not for naps, not at night, not ever. (In some ways, it's fairly amazing that we actually got up the courage to have another child after the hell that was A Girl's first year). Pretty much the only way she would take a nap (until she was TWO YEARS OLD) was in her stroller. We would put her in the stroller, take a walk and she'd fall asleep. Then we'd leave her there for the duration of her nap. In the winter, we'd take the stroller down to the swimming pool area and walk around the swimming pool until she fell asleep. Finally, our nanny was able to get her to take naps in her bed but it would only happen if someone actually sat next to her bed until she fell asleep. (And, for the record, I wouldn't say we coddled her, we tried different techniques to get her to sleep. See #2).

2. Night time sleeping for A Girl was another story - we tried the cry-it out method, we tried Ferberizing, (don't even get me started on those things) and nothing worked. She was CONVINCED that she was missing something good and she was not going to sleep by herself. If she had to be sleeping then BY GOD someone else better be there with her OR ELSE THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY IN! THIS! HOUSE! When we were at our wits end, we tried letting her cry it out for a longer period of time (an hour or more). After what seemed like forever, she'd finally be quiet and we'd sneak in her room to check on her. She would be in her crib with her arms stuck through in the slats to hold herself up. She'd start falling asleep and her head would bob but since she was sitting up, she'd never really get into a deep sleep. It would take a very delicate operation to get her arms out and get her laying down without actually waking her up into a full scream again.

3. When M Girl was a baby still in diapers, she would entertain an audience by doing seat drops. She'd jump up, throw her legs out in front of her and drop to the ground in a sitting position. Then she'd laugh really hard and do it again. She pretty much stopped once she didn't have a diaper to cushion her landing.

4. Both girls mix cereals. I know a lot of people do this so maybe it isn't really unique. I, myself, like to mix Grape Nuts and Smart Start. That - in my humble opinion - is a normal mixture. But our girls like to mix pretty much every cereal we have in the house like Froot Loops, Chocolate Rice Krispies, Cap'n Crunch and Lucky Charms - IN THE SAME BOWL. I don't know about you but I think that's gross.

5. A Girl has been wearing an eye mask to bed ever since she was in Hong Kong. Big D gave her one to sleep on the plane and she's been hooked ever since. But lately, she doesn't actually put it over her eyes so she sleeps with it on her forehead.

6. M Girl has her own sense about "boy" stuff and "girl" stuff. There are certain things that she has refused to do on the grounds that they are "boy" things - taking karate for one and wearing baseball hats for another. And yet, she and I take Tae Kwon Do together (to be fair, she thinks of karate as a boy thing because they teach it at her school and she thinks only boys take it whereas I take Tae Kwon Do so it can't be a boy thing.) At a birthday party recently, they gave the kids White Sox hats as a party favor. They had adorable lavender ones with butterflies for the girls. Not only has M Girl been wearing it but she will only wear it backwards.

We should all celebrate our childrens' unique qualities but here are a few bloggers I'd like to see give us a few ways in which their children are unique:

MIM,cmhl, Africableu at pith, marrow and coffee spoons and Sheryl at Paper Napkin.

Thursday Thirteen - Mood swing edition

Thirteen Things about PMS Girl (oops, I mean Jessica) 1. I'm totally PMSing today but I am not going to let me stop the Thursday Thirteen from being posted. You lucky people! You get to see what my poor husband and children have to live with all the time (and remember, it's much worse to experience it in person). 2. I had a very crabby cab driver yesterday. He swore at other drivers and then got mad at me apparently because I was giving him less than a dollar tip. I usually give somewhere in the vicinity of 10% tip. So if it's about a $5.00 ride, it'll be around 50 cents. Apparently that's not enough for crabby cab driver - I gave him a $10 for a ride that was $4.45 and asked him for $5.00 back. That's MORE than 10% people - I think that's fair and regular practice. Does he expect that I should give him MORE than $1.00 for a three minute ride that he's getting paid for anyway? He angrily shoves my change (coins and all) in my hand. When I said "No, I only asked for $5.00 back." He said "Forget it. I have to get going." Sheesh. 3. On a lighter note, M Girl totally got me yesterday morning. A Girl was finishing her homework at the kitchen table. As I finished making her eggs, I asked her to clear her homework off the table because, I said "It's not good to have your homework there while you're eating." As she was clearing the stuff off the table, I put the plate of eggs down and some of her papers almost hit the plate. I said "See, that's why we don't want to have your homework on the table at meal time." So M Girl says "But Mom, you could've just put the eggs on the counter while she was clearing the table." Duh. I hate it (and love it) that my 5 year old is so much smarter than I am. 4. Back to crabbiness . . . there's someone I work with who is driving me crazy. This person only hears what he/she wants to hear and asks the same question over and over again (especially when this person doesn't like the answers). We're working on a big project that has lots of issues associated with it and this person keeps downplaying the open issues. Worst of all, she/he downplays the open issues to higher ups and then when I (and the other lawyers and sane people involved - not that lawyers aren't sane but . . . ok, maybe some of us aren't). Anyway, when we bring up the reality of the situation - that we're a long way from having important issues figured out - it looks like we're trying to stop the "momentum" of the project. I guess, in a way, we are trying to stop the momentum because we're trying to prevent the public from knowing that - at this point - we don't really know what we're doing. This person is in charge of the project so we can't avoid this person. Because I knew I couldn't be polite, I avoided speaking directly to this person as much as I could and communicated through the assistant (without being obvious about it) and I'm sure we all felt much better for it. 4. Have I mentioned how much I love Tae Kwon Do? Well, I do and I have class tonight and I'm really excited. I've learned my poomsae which is a routine consisting, for my level, of hand/arm movements and turns. At higher levels the routine includes kicks and more difficult arm movements. As the levels progress, the poomsae gets more difficult. Now I have to work on improving my technique. Because I used to be a dancer, I do the movements too smoothly and without sufficient strength and differentiation. I also have some problems getting the arm and leg movements coordinated in the right way. So that's what I'm working on. I've been taking classes for almost two months and there's a two month minimum before you can test for the next belt. I hope he'll let me test at the next opportunity. 5. I have nothing else to grump about except that I'm hungry. I only ate cream of wheat for breakfast. When will I learn that I need to have some protein with breakfast? 6. I made a promise to myself and my family this winter that I wouldn't complain about the cold. I can't change it and complaining only makes me and everyone else more unhappy. So far, even with PMS, I've managed to keep that promise! I don't even complain to myself - well, sometimes I start complaining but I stop myself and accept the fact that we live in a cold climate and this is just the way it is in the winter. Then I feel better and, strangely, less cold! 7. I made a resolution the other day that I would BE more organized. I've realized that this resolution will probably be easier to achieve with respect to home than it will be with respect to my work. This is partly because I don't really love my job. I know I've said this before - I really like parts of it and I adore most of the people I work with (but see #4 above!) but it isn't really what I'd like to be doing with my time. If I had known more about myself (and listened to myself) when I was younger, I probably wouldn't be here now. That's ok, though, because I most likely wouldn't have met Big D, the love of my life, and we wouldn't have our beautiful children. I don't regret my life in the least. But I do wish - sometimes more fervently than others - that I could spend more time on writing and other creative endeavors. And maybe even make a living like that instead of coming to this office every day. So back to my original point, because I love my family and our home, I am more motivated to make changes there than I am to make changes here. But I need to keep in mind that making changes here will help me be more efficient with my time so that I can spend more guilt-free time with my family. I think this is the time when I have to find some mental toughness and just get to it. 8. We have a lovely Christmas tree. Big D put some wrapped presents under it the other day to make it even lovelier. M Girl came to me yesterday and said "Mom! Can we open some of the presents under the tree?!" I of course said "Of course not!" She said "Aww, we have to wait until Christmas?" "Yes, you do. That's what Christmas presents are for." Still trying to get me to change my mind, she says "But Santa might DO something with them." I reassured her "Honey, Santa leaves presents. He doesn't take them." She sighed, defeated. 9. This morning I removed my blog from the TTLB Ecosystem. What started out as a fun thing to include on my blog became a thing of daily concern. Each morning I'd wonder whether I'd moved up or down on the evolutionary chain. It started out silly and just became sillier. I'm obsessed enough with my hit counter and the number of comments (or lack thereof) that I get on any given post. I don't need anything else to obsess over. Plus it was a huge blow to my ego when they changed the way they rank blogs and I plunged from the lofty heights of Crawly Amphibian to lowly Multicellular Microorganism. It was too much to bear for something so non-important. So I eased my pain by not having to know how the folks at TTLB view my blog. If I want to be a Flappy Bird or an Adorable Rodent or even *gasp* a Higher Being, I can be one in my own mind, without someone "official" telling me that I'm not, thank you very much. 10. My husband's cousin who lives on the East Coast has a degree in Deaf Education. Awhile back she started her own business as a translator for the deaf. It's the coolest job. She goes to court, doctor's appointments and important meetings with her clients. She even gets to go to the theater where she, and usually one or two other translators, act out the show in sign language. She gets to do what she likes and is good at, make a living and help people in a very important way. And she's one of the nicest people I know on top of it all. She didn't even get upset with us when we made her significant other seasick! 11. If you're still with me, say "I'm still here!" If you're not, I totally understand. I don't really want to be with me today either. 12. Aside from trying to be more organized, I need to learn to say "no" more often. Big D and I talked about this last weekend. Our kids get invited to so many birthday parties - especially the little one because she still at the age where people invite the whole class to the party rather than just a few good friends. As much as the girls love these parties, when there's two or three in one day, it's just too much for the whole family. Between that and all the things that have to be done on the weekend, there's just not enough time to just relax together as a family. I have the most trouble saying "no" because I feel guilty about it as if we're somehow bad parents and bad community members if our kids don't attend all the parties and bring gifts. I know on a rational level that it's not true. But my irrational level takes over and beats my rational level into submission. 13. Next Thursday we have the girls' school concerts! M Girl's grade still has theirs during the day at school while the older kids have theirs at night. I'll have to miss my company party (again) because they always seem to be scheduled on the same night. But that's ok, I wouldn't trade my company party for a kids' Christmas concert for anything! However, A Girl keeps reminding me that we have to go out and buy her clothes to wear because they're requiring the kids to wear either black or white or both. That's fine except that A Girl doesn't own anything in those (non)colors. I however own everything in black. I got that trick when I lived in NYC - black goes with everything and requires very little thought in the morning before you've had coffee or even any food. Ok, done with the rambling. Next week will be far more stable. Promise! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! If you're a Thursday Thirteen regular, go to Leanne's to get put yourself on the blogroll. If you're not a regular or don't want to be on the blogroll, leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here! See my sidebar fo the blogroll of the regulars!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Praise

I like praise. I'll be honest - I like when people tell me I'm doing a good job, particularly when I'm working hard at something. After kickboxing tonight, my teacher said "You're getting a lot better." I nearly fainted. Partly because my heart rate was dangerously above my target range. But mostly because during most of the class I felt like a totally uncoordinated moron. I have been working my ass off in that class (although the results are, unfortunately, only figurative).

I was one of only three students tonight and the other two students have been boxing and kickboxing for years. So our teacher made the class harder than usual - more turning kicks and more fakes (which are much harder to do than it might seem). I could keep up but barely. I missed the bag on half my kicks, I nearly fell over several times after trying to do some of the spinning kicks. I just plain screwed up the fakes most of the time. I felt good, I was working hard, but I was wishing I was better at it. So the teacher's words of encouragement really meant a lot to me.

On another note, I have the coolest new shoes for kickboxing! Big D and my teacher suggested that I get wrestling shoes instead of the cross-trainers that I was using. The cross-trainers have too much traction for the spinning and sliding you need to do in kickboxing and I was deathly afraid that I'd blow out a knee or something. Of course, most stores don't carry wrestling or boxing shoes for women. Big D had me try on some totally cool men's wrestling shoes which made me instantly feel like bobbing and weaving. And punching something. It was awesome! They were perfect for class - lighter weight than my other shoes and just slippy slidy enough that I'm not afraid of hurting myself because of my shoes. (I am, however, afraid of hurting myself because of my utter lack of coordination but not even the coolest shoes are going to help that).

The big cleanup

Yesterday we spent the day cleaning out the kids' rooms and re-organizing everything. As much as I tend to dislike that kind of work (which is one of the big reasons why it needed to be done in the first place!), it felt great to do it and get it pretty much done. Big D suggested that we all dedicate ourselves to the task for the day and we did. Although I did sneak off a few times to sip my coffee. And M Girl petered out after awhile and got to watch tv. But she's five, so that's to be expected. But it was good to see what we can accomplish when we really tackle a task full on.

Let me say that all the good organizational decisions were made by Big D - he has a good sense of organization that I just don't have. I am also far too sentimental about stuff and want to keep doo dads and tchotskes that really need to be tossed. Can I pat myself on the back for just one second and say that I spelled tchotskes right on the first try? And also, according to one website, I used the Russian spelling of the word. What's up with that? Anyway . . . moving right along. I did actually assist in the throwing away/giving away of quite a few tchotskes. Without crying. At all.

There are times I wish I was more organized and I do think I'm missing some sort of Organization Gene that my mother failed to pass to me. But if I'm being honest, I'll admit that the reason I'm not more organized is that I'm lazy. Now, because the only people that read this seem to be very nice people that say such nice things, I know you'll all chime in and say all kinds of sweet things to me (and I won't stop you) but it's true - I am lazy when it comes to making (or not making) the effort necessary to be more organized. Either I don't really WANT to be organized badly enough or I have the wrong attitude about it. I'm sure both are true.

My husband, bless him, reminds me (gently) that in order to change, you have to take every opportunity to engage in different behavior. So, if I want to be organized "someday," I need to take advantage of opportunities to organize things and I have to put forth the effort. Instead of blogging right now, I could spend fifteen minutes making some files and clearing off my desk. When I get memos or reports, instead of piling them on my desk until "later," I could actually file them or, if they don't need to be kept, throw them away or scan them and save them electronically. Instead, I want to wake up one day and BE organized without all the messy WORK involved in it. I want to read a self-help book about organization or buy the right software to attach to Microsoft Outlook and find THE ANSWER to all my organizational problems.

In the end, I know that my husband is right. No book or software program can make up for the lack of effort on my part. I know I'm capable of being more organized and I think I really want to be more organized but I don't know what's holding me back. What would be so bad about being organized that keeps me from doing it? Would it make me less creative (not that I'm so creative to begin with but you know what I mean)? Being more organized would mean I'd be able to stop wasting time searching for important things that get lost in all the crap. If I was more organized I might even have MORE time to spend doing creative things.

I've recently learned (from this great book) that often it's our irrational fears and anxiety that hold us back from doing things that the more sane and rational parts of our mind want us to do. So what am I afraid of? Why does the mere thought of being organized make me want to crawl in to bed and sleep for three days? Is it because being disorganized gives me more then enough excuses for not getting things done well or on time and if I was organized, everyone would find out that I'm really not very competent and THAT'S why I don't live up to my potential? Maybe it's because I have the perfect set up - I'm a working mom, everyone KNOWS how crazy my life is. But is it really that crazy? The shameful "secret" I carry is that I'm not as busy as I allow people to think I am. And, if I worked as hard as everyone around me (and half as hard as people THINK I work), and if I was half as competent as people think I am, I could accomplish so much. And yet . . . here I sit, at 5:00pm, in my disorganized office, with work left to do, and a wonderful family to go home to. And I'm blogging about not being organized. Now you see the problem.

So, I'm going to make a New Year's resolution. Yes, you heard me right. Although I have made many such resolutions in the past which have failed before the twelfth bell has rung, I am going to make a resolution to BE more organized going forward. And, since I've already told you all my secret, I'll let you know how it's going. Since there's no reason to wait until January 1st, I'll start now. And although I'm sure I'll be referring to all the stuff I've read and heard before, I'll try to listen to my very smart husband and simply take advantage of opportunities to BE what I say I want to be.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things about Jessica 1. You all should check out this site. It's the new site for a wonderful author and fabulous person, Lela Nargi. She wrote a book called Knitting Lessons a few years ago. It's a book about women who knit and what knitting means to them. I was one of the women in the book! How cool is that? 2. Her latest book is about food, women and relationships. She's also a travel writer. What's not to love - she writes about travel, knitting and food. My three favorite things after Big D, A Girl and M Girl! 3. I can tell already that I'm going to have trouble getting to thirteen things today. Here's the irony - normally, you can't shut me up. Now that I have a forum to "talk" all I want, I can't think of anything to say. 4. A Girl is back to work already. She had an audition and a voice over job this week and has another audition today. Busy, busy. She's happy because her piano/voice teacher is coming over today to start lessons again. M Girl even wants to take piano from this teacher (even though last year she said she didn't want to - probably because last year she wanted to take guitar). It makes scheduling so easy - the teacher comes over for 1 1/2 hours and teaches both girls piano and A Girl voice. It works well for all of us - especially because there's no driving involved! 5. I'm taking steps to ease my addiction to caffeine! I started drinking half-decaf coffee in the morning. I thought I'd be able to feel the difference but, in all honesty, I don't. I doubt I'll ever give up coffee completely (I really, really like coffee) but this will help me cut down. Unfortunately for our budget, I really, really like Starbucks coffee. Maybe this will help me save a little money too! 6. I haven't been writing lately. My desire to write goes in spurts. Part of the reason I haven't been writing is that I want to spend time with both girls and with my hubby now that we're all together. It's difficult for me to find the time to write. Before, I would stay up late to write but I know that's not healthy. What I should do (and what Big D is trying to help me do) is go to bed earlier but wake up earlier. He's been doing that lately and he gets a lot done before the morning frenzy starts. Just a 1/2 hour might enable me to get something done. 7. I thought about taking another online writing course because it really helped me be more disciplined about my writing. But with the holidays coming up and with everything else going on in our lives, I decided not to do it right now. Besides, I think it would be good for me to practice the things I learned in the last class before I go into another class. I saved all of the lectures and exercises so (if I'm disciplined about it!) I could just do it on my own. Then once I go into another class, I'll have more experience and can maybe stretch myself a bit more. 8. Speaking of discipline, I'm going to Tae Kwon Do tonight. This will be the first week that I take two classes. I'm really looking forward to it in a way that I've never looked forward to exercising. Maybe it's the fact that I really, really want that yellow belt. I almost feel embarrassed to admit that the other thing I like about the class is the discussions about responsibility and discipline. I need a good dose of those things. I'm not irresponsible, I'm just not as responsible as I think I should be. I never really learned those things as a kid - I think my parents just expected us to pick it up by osmosis or something. Big D is great about finding opportunities to teach these things to our kids, though. And he doesn't just give them a new responsibility and expect them to do it - he helps them by giving them ways to think about the task at hand and how to accomplish it. Just one of the many reasons I love that man! My parents (especially my dad) would give us responsibility and then vacate the premises. 9. Gee, it's lunch time. I'm getting hungry. I'll never get to thirteen if I don't get some food! 10. That's better. I had a big plate of carbohydrates (yummy gnocchi) with tomato sauce and I feel much better. Actually, I didn't eat all of it because the serving was enough to feed a family of four (ok, I'm exaggerating, a little). It really is a shame that restaurants give such big portions. I would gladly pay half for a serving half the size and I would get plenty of food. But like a lot of people, if there's food on the plate, I eat it. Even if the portion size is too big to be healthy. Some places do offer 1/2 orders - I just wish more places did. It's hard for me to leave the food on the plate because I feel like I'm wasting food. I could save it for later but some things just aren't good as leftovers. 11. I don't think I've mentioned lately how much I love my iPod. Well, I do. I've realized that I like having a soundtrack for my life! It is rather unsociable, however. It never fails that there's a great song on and I get into the elevator (either at work or home) with someone I know and I have to take it off because it's rude not to have a conversation. I wish I could listen and have a conversation at the same time but that's rude too. And impossible. 12. I think I'd probably be embarrassed if someone filmed me while I walk down the street listening to my iPod. I have a tendency to bop to the beat, sing along (hopefully not out loud, though), bounce my head and other odd tics. In the car I do sing out loud. Very loud at times. Especially to Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer. I know. I'm weird. And old and unhip. But that's ok. 13. Hurray! I'm done. I hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving and that you all have a wonderful holiday season. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. As always, go see Leanne, the founder of Thursday Thirteens for another installment. You can get great Thursday Thirteen codes there. I'm partial to the purple! 2. (leave your link in comments, IÂ’ll add you here when I can!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. ItÂ’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants