Thursday, October 21, 2010

A meme!

It's time for a meme! I can't remember the last time I did one, so it's definitely time. I saw this one on Academic Ecology this morning, so let me get started:

1. What is your favorite word? Love
2. What is your least favorite word? Hate
3. What turns you on? Humor. Nothing more sexy than a funny guy (hi P1!!)
4. What turns you off? Lies. Ugh, the mere thought of a lie makes me shiver.
5. What is your favorite curse word? Crap.
6. What sound or noise do you love? Happy sounds. F1-3 singing in the bath tub, my husband talking on and on at night while we're lying in bed, it really doesn't matter what he's talking about, as long as I can hear his voice. F1-1 playing basketball in the driveway, F1-2 surfing the web and finding Blue's Clues.
7. What sound or noise do you hate? Gunfire (on tv, I don't get to hear it for real), or any sound of violence.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Astrobiology.
9. What profession would you not like to try? Stay-at-home mom. I have nothing but the highest respect for the moms that do that, but I would go berserk.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? "What the heck are you doing here?"

Update on Makita's life

I haven't been posting much lately. Things have generally been going well, so there isn't much to complain about. Exceptions:

1. Our beloved cat had to be euthanized last week. A big hit for the entire family, she was a fairly young (6 years) kitty and she was a valuable member of our household. We're all devastated.

2. My plans to get the new Leaf feel through when my 12-year old car developed problems that would require large sums of money to fix. Unwilling to invest any more into the old car, I had to get another one, and I just couldn't wait for the Leaf. I did decide to lease the new car, so in 3 years I'll be back on the car market, and by that time the Leaf will be in it's 2nd generation or so.

3. F1-1 who is particularly saddened by the demise of our kitty has taken his apathy to new lows, and is struggling to keep his grades up. No amount of positive or negative incentives have worked so far. We'll keep on dragging on, but it gets tiring.

4. My marriage to P1 is going through a bit of a low spot right now. Nothing serious. We're just over-worked, don't get to spend enough time together, always have kids around, you know the drill. We'll be ok, I'm sure, we go through ups and downs like any other couple, but right now, we're definitely in a down. The reason I think we'll be ok is that we genuinely are crazy about each other, and we see eye-to-eye on the most important things. The reason we struggle sometimes is that we're both incredibly stubborn, and a bit self-righteous, so when we do disagree on something, it poses some problems.

There is also some good news. My temporary (3-year) car isn't exactly horrible. I'm driving a brand-new 2010 Prius, and it's fa.bu.lous. What a pleasure to drive, what clever, modern design, what great gas mileage. I can go on and on, but you get the idea.

In more good news, it looks like my boss managed to secure funding for me for another 2 years, starting in January. Yeah! I love working here, so I've turned down two other job offers with better benefits to stay here. I'm so happy I stuck around. It's not cast in stone yet, but it's looking pretty good right now.

Edit: More good news, I almost forgot! Since about mid-Summer I've been trying to lose some weight. Simply eating a little better, and switching one meal a day to cereal (usually something oat-based) with fruit, I lost a whopping 18 lbs! I still have the same breakfast as always, I eat whatever I would normally eat for either lunch or dinner, and switch the other one to a modest oat-meal based meal. Today I'm wearing a pair of jeans that I couldn't fit in for the past few years. Not bad, eh?

Thursday, October 14, 2010