December Photo-A-Day Challenge: Day Four

DECEMBER 4

I'D LOVE TO VISIT ________________!

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ALASKA!!!

Summer Blog Challenge: Day 69

Today's Challenge: Post a bucket list with at least 10 items on it. 

I actually do not have a bucket list, or at least nothing by that name. There are, of course, things I would like to get to do before I die. I guess that means I am writing my first bucket list today.

These items are not necessarily in order of importance. They are in the order my fingers typed them, which has absolutely no significance. Here goes:

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1. Go to Alaska. I would rather move there, but I would certainly settle for a nice vacation.
2. Buy a farm. A small one will do. 
3. Write a novel. And finish it. Getting it published would be a bonus, but I really just want to write a complete novel.
4. Tour the British Isles. Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales. Preferably with a literary itinerary.
5. Have a relationship that lasts longer than a mouse lives (Admission: I borrowed this one from a friend's list...but it's good and it's applicable!)
6. Go hunting. Preferably in Alaska. 
7. Go kayaking. Also preferably in Alaska.
8. Brush up on my French and give myself a reason to use it. Like a trip to France. (Gee, I guess I want to travel, huh?)
9. Be the boss. Whether that means owning a business or running someone else's or not working at all. 
10. Have the most awesome blog ever. The #1 blog in the world. With so many pageviews that the internet has trouble keeping up!

You know that was hard! It took a long time to write that list! I think I will have to start a separate savings account now, though, so that I can afford to do those things one day!

Summer Blog Challenge: Day 67

Today's Challenge: Talk about your favorite author. 

I love to read and what I read depends on my mood and my schedule. For example, at the end of a busy day I will grab a magazine instead of a novel. Some days I may choose Rachael Ray, some days I choose National Geographic, and some days I grab Time. On a leisurely day, I might read an entire novel. Again, which novel would just depend on my mood. I could grab an easy to read Dean Koontz mystery but I might sit down with my copy of Paradise Lost instead. Or maybe I will choose to read in the Bible.

So you see, the point of telling you all that, is to help you understand why it is so very hard for me to answer this question. Who is my favorite author? Oh, today's favorite or yesterday's? Or tomorrow's?

The first author that popped into my head when I read today's challenge was John Milton. I love that Milton is challenging to read because I know that it's only because he was absolutely crazy brilliant. From the beautiful and heartfelt "Lycidas" to the complicated Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, I find Milton never ceases to amaze me with his words. There are very few things I have read more than once, but I have referred back to these works many times and I always see something new or remember something I had forgotten.

Then I thought, "wait a minute." Because what about Shakespeare? Who doesn't love Shakespeare? Romeo and Juliet is the most famous play ever, after all. And if you like a good love story, you have to love his sonnets. Shakespeare must have been a man of many emotions, because he wrote so many wonderful comedies, but then the same man wrote Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra.

But then I thought about how much I enjoy reading all of James Michener's novels. Now that man is a great storyteller. I can only imagine how much research must go into each of his novels to make them so historically accurate and so detailed. Of the modern authors I have read, I think Michener would have to be my favorite. I loved Caribbean and I fell in love with it's colorful characters. Reading Alaska only reaffirmed my desire to go there one day. And Centennial was so engrossing and so tragic. I read it twice, ten years apart. Really all of his novels are sad tales of how we humans destroy the places that were once so wild and magical and beautiful, but the characters are still so touching, so realistic, so real.

What do you love to read? Who is your favorite author? Is it easy for you to decide or are you in love with so many of them like me?

Summer Blog Challenge: Day 3

Today's challenge: List fifteen interesting facts about yourself. 

I definitely had to enlist my family on this one. I couldn't even come up with one! Every thing you see below was written as a result of a big family brainstorming session. Sorry it's so long, but the challenge was 15 after all. And you know I can't say anything without an explanation!

1. I can spell nearly any word. And give you a definition to boot. I find words interesting and always have, at least for as long as I can remember. When I was 3 and 4 I asked a million questions until I finally taught myself to read and write. On my 5th birthday, my mom took me to the bookstore and told me to pick any book I wanted. I chose a very large and very expensive dictionary. She tried to talk me out of it, but to no avail. I still have it and still use it. 
2. There is very little I like about women's lib. Don't get me wrong. I believe in strong women! I am one! And women's lib has it's plusses. But strong women existed all over the world before the women's liberation movement, too. Now that we are "equal" to men (knowing of course that we may never really achieve true equality...this is a whole different topic) we didn't just gain the right to go to college, join the workforce, and support our families financially. We also gained an expectation of that behaviour. I want to be a homemaker. I want to cook and clean and garden and sew and homeschool my kids. And if I quit my job, we will be poor(er) and I will be irresponsible in the eyes of today's society ... for doing what was expected of women only 50 years ago. 
3. I want to live on a homestead in Alaska. I don't know nearly everything I would need to know in order to make this move. But I want it nonetheless. I have dreamed of Alaska for most of my adult life. Not some suburban neighborhood, either. I want to live off the land, pee in an outhouse...you get the point.
4. I love animals. I would love running a pet rescue and if I were financially able to do so, I would probably have one already. For now, we have 2 dogs and 2 cats. They seem to know how much I love them all because they follow me everywhere. My husband always gets a good laugh if I lie down on the couch because in a matter of minutes I am surrounded and/or buried by the four pets. My daughter really loves little kids and they seem to be drawn to her. I guess I am the same way with cats and dogs!
5. I am 9 years older than my husband. Hey, love knows no bounds, okay? He's funny and caring and Christian and gentle and we love each other very much. We've been through a lot together and we plan to go through a lot more. 
6. I graduated with honors from College of Charleston and planned on going to law school.  I don't know how interesting this is. But most people don't know this about me. I don't go to any alumni activities. I only keep in touch with one person from my college days. And I work in a grocery store. But I have the student loan debt to prove it! I gave up on law school because I wanted to be able to spend more time with my son, who was at that time my only child and 6 years old. I had missed too much time with him trying to work my way through college and didn't want to miss any more. 
7. I love all things history. I stink at memorizing anything, so I never did well in history classes, but I still found them extremely interesting. I even took some extra history classes as electives in college, knowing they wouldn't exactly help my GPA. Today I love all things antique or vintage, especially old books (see #1 haha), and I still like brushing up on my history. 
8. I was a cheerleader in high school. It's funny how that happened. I didn't have any desire to be a cheerleader. Never crossed my mind. But my best friend wanted to cheer and begged me to go through tryouts with her so we could practice together and maybe even get to cheer together. I made the squad and she didn't. I felt awful instead of happy. I soon realized that cheering was actually lots of fun and quite challenging athletically. Not to mention, I looked really cute in that uniform.
9. I am addicted to puzzles. I especially love word puzzles (imagine that). But I also really enjoy sudoku, logic puzzles, and brain teasers. It is a rare night that I go to sleep without first working on a  puzzle in bed. Car trip? I take the puzzle books. Vacation? I take the puzzle books. Laying out on the beach? You guessed it...puzzle books. 
10. I'm afraid of the dark and of spending the night in the house alone.  I did outgrow my fear of the monster under the bed (except after watching a scary movie), but I never completely outgrew my fear of the dark. I don't lie there worrying about imaginary monsters; instead I lie there worrying about real-life monsters like burglars. If they do come in, I want to be able to see!
11. I have a very loud and almost unique laugh. Almost unique because my mom and I share this one. And we both laugh often. My stepfather once said, and this was before cell phones, that he never worried about losing my mom and I in a store. All he had to do was stop and listen for a minute. Years later, I heard my husband tell someone the exact same thing. 
12. I have an unnatural love affair with hummus. I will mix almost anything in my hummus to keep things interesting. I will eat it on bread, crackers, chips, or veggies. I like it warm, cold, or room temperature. Sometimes I make a meal out of hummus and whatever I'm dipping into it. When I get to the bottom of a bowl of hummus, I swirl my finger around the sides and then lick my fingers...don't want to miss any. My husband thinks it smells bad and won't kiss me after I eat it, but I eat it anyway; I'll get kisses later!
13. I subscribe to so many magazines that I couldn't give you a count right off hand. I can never seem to get enough reading material and magazines are perfect when I'm too busy to invest time in a novel. I don't spend a lot of money on them because I only subscribe when I see a great deal. For example, my current subscription to Women's Day only cost $3 for a year. I feel guilty about all of the paper, but my Nook is first edition so no color makes reading mags on it awful. I do recycle all of them after I've finished with them. National Geographic is my favorite and it is the exception to all of the above. I pay regular price to renew every year and I don't recycle them. I pass them along to my eldest son instead because it's his favorite magazine, too. Then we stack them on the bookcase to look at again later (and we actually do look at them again later).
14. I wish I could inherit an old farm, complete with old farmhouse, somewhere nearby. At least until I move to Alaska.
15. I'm southern and I don't like sweet tea. I know. Crazy. What can I say? I really don't like sugar in my tea. It leaves a sticky feeling in my mouth. Makes me feel like I've been drinking syrup. But iced tea is still high on my list of favorite things to drink. Unsweetened iced tea.