list.

this will be my 61st post on spontaneous blah.
add to that the 14 from pitter pats.
and a few that never made it to the wires.
i believe i have composed well over 100 blogs - be it here or there.
thanks to diaper bag diary, pocketfuls of sunshine and life with three
i have concluded that i would like to partake in an exercise.
apparently i may learn something about myself.

i preface this exercise with this:
this venue has served as a place for me to provide one and all with ‘updates’, pictures and stories from our little clan.
anyone who stumbles upon my quaint site is up to date with the current events of our lives
as well as the spontaneous blah that spills forth onto the keyboard.
but rarely do i talk about me – past broken legs, past babies, past new houses, past the daily mundane.

so let’s see what we can learn...

1. i am proud to be the daughter of an english teacher and a would-be farmer.
2. i love to get dirty and watch things grow.
3. i love the feeling that lingers on your skin after being in the sun all day and stepping out of a cool shower.
4. some of the best things about my childhood were making clover necklaces, catching fireflies and roasting pudgie pies over a campfire.
5. i love love love to camp. really camp – none of this air conditioned cabin shit. the real thing – dirt, sleeping bags, fishing, hiking, lack of personal hygiene – the whole kit and caboodle.
6. i am terrified of swimming in open water.
7. i love to water ski.
8. i will contradict myself more than once in this list.
9. i love morning.
10. i hate waking up.
11. i have had many vices in my life, but the constant has always been coffee.
12. i was turned onto coffee as a junior camp counselor at church camp. the cooks wouldn’t give it to me because i was too young and i had to bribe fellow counselors to get it from the galley window for me.
13. i have not had a cigarette in twelve months.
14. i am very proud of that.
15. i still have cravings. just not the desire.
16. i am incredibly liberal in my beliefs and views. if you want to get into it, just ask.
17. i have three tattoos.
18. i need several more.
19. the one on my back is taken from beat poet jack micheline’s poem, ‘beauty is everywhere’

Beauty is everywhere
Baudelaire
Even the worm is beautiful
The thread of a beggar's dress
The red eye of a drunkard
On a rainy night
Chasing the red haired girl
Baudelaire
Across the sky
Your raggy pants
Laughing at the rain
Beauty is everywhere
Baudelaire

20. i saw jack kerouac’s original ‘on the road’ manuscript (‘the scroll’) and cried.
21. i have yet to find a living author that measures up to kerouac, salinger or hemingway.
22. i have recently discovered that if i am going to read current literature, i do much better with memoirs and non-fiction.
23. i am a firm believer in literature and reading to your children.
24. i took charlie to the library when she was two months old an checked out five books...for her.
25. i read every single one to her at least a dozen times.
26. i have the book, ‘goodnight moon’ memorized.
27. someday i want to be a college professor at a big university.
28. someday i want to write something outside of the glowing box for all the world to see.
29. i wrote my first book when i was in fifth grade. it had a hard cover and real binding. i think it was about a mermaid.
30. i won a contest when i was in elementary school for arbor day for something i had written.
31. they planted a tree in my honor at my elementary school.
32. i had a lot of potential...once.
33. i adore autumn.
34. i love watching the soybeans turn gold in mid-september and trees take on their ruby and dusk palettes with grace.
35. i love the sound of a cornfield in august.
36. i love how the air feels in october.
37. i am infatuated with yoga – what it does for me mind, body and soul.
38. i never stopped doing yoga after the accident. it was simply a modified version in dad’s la-z-boy.
39. i have become obsessed with the food i eat. i ate organically before the road to motherhood laid itself out at my feet. now, i am far more obsessed with it and can proudly say that i eat approximately 80-90% organic food.
40. i still steal chocolate out of mom’s desk drawer though.
41. i don’t count it because it’s not technically ‘mine’.
42. i am also meticulous about the products we use in our home and how much we recycle.
43. two years ago bill and i biked down to ‘mt. trashmore’ outside of cedar rapids. the stench mid-summer is enough to make anyone want to do more for their environment.
44. i love to ride my bike.
45. i love to ride on the back of bill’s bike.
46. it has been over a year since i rode on the motorcycle.
47. i am a periodical junkie – numerous issues of body + soul, natural health and yoga journal are scattered throughout the house.
48. i highlight articles and dogear pages for future reference.
49. i hate talking on the telephone.
50. i am brilliant at the art of procrastination.
51. this is the fourth day i have worked on this post and have yet to post it.
52. i don’t get along with people very well.
53. i have always prided myself on being a good listener.
54. the trouble comes when i try to ‘fix’ them or think i can do it better.
55. i am finally coming to terms with the fact that fixing me is much more important.
56. i love being barefoot.
57. i hate the way my feet feel when they’re dirty.
58. i hate crowds.
59. i love being a middle school teacher.
60. i hate having to work.
61. i always thought i would be a stay at home mom like my mom was. i am jealous of all those women (and men) that get to stay home with their kids and watch them grow each day. they will only be this small today.
62. i once thought i would go to the boston conservatory of music and become a famous pianst.
63. i took piano lessons for twelve years.
64. i still love to play and now play with charlie on my lap.
65. i still have ‘moonlight sonata’ memorized. i worked on it for a year in high school.
66. i love my husband more today than i did yesterday.
67. i will love him even more tomorrow.
68. i still get excited when he walks into a room.
69. my dream car is a vintage vw bug.
70. it has now been two weeks since i began this.
71. i take at least five pills a day (including vitamins); prenatal vitamin, calcium, flax, vitamin c, at least one percocet, usually three IBprofen (at a time), and an occasional claritin.
72. i often wonder how long it takes for pain killers to have adverse effects on the body.
73. i hate the way i feel in the morning physically and have to take my coffee outside to remind myself how lucky i am.
74. i am terrified that if i feel this way at 27, 57 is going to be a bitch.
75. i produce higher quality work when there is more on my plate yet complain about how much i have to do.
76. my planner travels with me everywhere i go and i live by its pages. the small numbered boxes dictate my life just as the glowing green numbers on the microwave dictate my mornings and afternoons.
77. for someone who loves spontaneity, i thrive on ritual.
78. i am the luckiest girl to have been chosen to have the family i do.
79. country music makes me feel at home. folk music makes me feel like me. dave puts a smile on my face and tim brings a tear to my eye.
80. i believe in god. i believe in christ. i whole-heartedly believe that my name was etched on his heart as he hung on that hill.
81. i believe in karma. i believe that what you put into the world comes back to you ten-fold.
82. i don’t think anything comes of throwing up ‘why?’ to the heavens. instead, i focus on throwing up ‘how?’.
83. the only ‘pink’ that i am able to enjoy is the pink you find painted across the sky in the early morning and late evening.
84. i never go to bed when i should.
85. i live for 7:45 at night when i can feed charlie, hold her close and watch her sleep.
86. i love it when my other ‘babies’ lay on my feet at the end of a long day.
87. after the first 86 it gets hard.
88. my favorite color(s) are green (the color of leaves) brown (the color of dirt) and white (the color of clean).
89. i have many favorite foods, a few of which include chocolate cherry cake with mom’s birthday frosting, macaroni salad, homemade vegetable soup and peanut butter m&ms.
90. i’m a sucker for a garage sale, butterflies, original pottery and handmade jewelry.
91. i tend to allow myself to get sucked into other people’s worlds without even realizing that i’m doing it.
92. i have to learn how to take a step back, breathe, listen and walk away.
93. i have never been to new york city, washington d.c. or seattle. i am becoming increasingly okay with that.
94. i have read ‘catcher in the rye’ five times and ‘on the road’ three.
95. i have finally experienced love in its truest and purest form.
96. i cannot live without a good book, good music, charlie’s hugs, bill’s kisses and words.
97. i will run again.
98. i WILL run again.
99. i am terrified that i will never be able to provide charlie with all i have dreamed of providing her.
100. is harder than it looks.

did you learn something?
i did.
who would have thought punching out letters to make sentences about things you know to be true would reveal to you parts of your soul you had forgotten, lost, didn't recognize.

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates.

go well.