It's that time again!

Yes, once again it is time for ICLW. I took a few months away from ICLW during the holidays, but I'm back. You can read a little more of our story here.

Today I will tell you some new things about myself. (This gets harder after more months of doing it...)

1) I am into audiobooks lately. Weird, because I don't have a commute. I get the CDs from the library, copy them onto my computer, put them on my iPod and listen to them at night. I've been trying to catch up on some old classics that I have never read before. Currently, Don Quixote. So far, I'm finding it to be hilarious, which surprises me. I always thought that since people read it in high school, it would be dry and boring. It's really not.

2) While I was growing up, my mom always watched All My Children. Almost every day, I think. So it's not surprising that I watched it too. I always loved watching with my mom. It was stupid and silly and we laughed at the ridiculousness every day. In 2005, as my mom started to get really sick, she stopped watching. I was working full-time and it changed from something I could do with my mom into something that reminded me every day that I was no longer watching with her. I stopped watching, and I didn't really miss it. Suddenly, around Thanksgiving, after almost 6 years, I started to watch again. I'm relearning all the characters and story lines. And after 6 years, it doesn't have that feeling of missing my mom that I had in 2005. It's now just something I like.

3) I used to be the pickiest eater ever. The first semester of college, I ate Golden Grahams, pizza, PB&J, and English muffins. And dessert. Always dessert. Oh, sometimes turkey sandwiches, but not always. Some of my most hated foods were potatoes, tomato sauce, spaghetti, meat, soup, most vegetables and anything spicy.

Fast forward 15 years, and I'm kind of a foodie. I'd still eat Golden Grahams, pizza, PB&J and all that, but I now include potatoes, tomato sauce, meat, most vegetables and everything spicy. I'm still not crazy about spaghetti. I eat just about every other type of pasta out there, but spaghetti feels weird to me. It's just not my favorite. And beets and broccoli. They're definitely on my "will not eat" list. I do believe I've gotten over my pickiness.

4) Despite the fact that our wait feels interminable, (also despite the fact that the wait has just begun...) I am fighting an internal war between admitting that this adoption actually may happen and trying to protect myself by not acknowledging anything that makes it too real. I have a secret obsession with reading about baby stuff, shopping for baby stuff, and learning all I can before I become responsible for someone's life. I want to be good at it before I even try! So I'm studying and reading and learning and researching online. But then it becomes too real and I don't actually ever buy anything. I want to know all about stuff, but I don't want to have it in my house. If that makes sense. I suppose as long as I know what I want, when it's time, I can go to the store with a list and get it all at once.

5) Things that I love that I don't have nearly often enough - sushi, manicures, baking days, trips to the movie theater, new clothes, and days with temperatures in the 70s. Wow, that makes me sound like a Real Housewife or something. I'm totally not. Though who doesn't love sushi and manicures? And weather in the 70s. Oh man. It snowed again here last night. What wouldn't I give for 70s and flowers?

What are you into these days?

Oh yeah, the banana cupcake with nutella frosting. Just because I like to share. I'm quite pleased.

Fun Updates

Hi!

It's been a while since I posted. I was away all last week at a friend's house, which was great. Any time I go somewhere, even if it's winter, it still feels like a vacation. I always love a vacation! Even if it takes a week for me to recover...

1) We're officially waiting, which I guess we knew. I'm kind of mad about it, because despite the fact that we mailed everything to the agency on December 14, they didn't get everything filed and processed until January 11. So we kind of lost a month that I thought that we were waiting but we apparently were not. Grr. More frustration. I hope the rest goes smoothly. I'm not changing my ticker though, because I've been waiting that long, whether or not the agency thinks we have.

2) My SIL invited me to go to a black tie gala with her in 2 weeks. It's been a while since I've been to a black tie gala, so that should be fun. And by "it's been a while," I mean that it's been like 6 or 7 years. In case anyone thinks that I'm so fancy that I'm at a black tie gala often, well, they'd be wrong.

3) This is not new news. In fact, anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time will know this. I HATE WINTER!!!! I hate it with a passion. We have about 3-4 feet of snow on the ground in Connecticut and it's supposed to snow more this weekend. And I seriously can't take it anymore. I wish I lived in a place like San Diego where it's always sunny and 75. I counted, and it's about 10 weeks until April. That's not too long. I guess I can push through 10 more weeks.

4) I am going to make cupcakes today. I found this recipe online for banana cupcakes. Then another one for nutella frosting. I love nutella and I have some very dark brown bananas. I think it'll be a good combination.

5) Happy ICLW. I'm going to post more this week, just in case some people come by!

Welcome back, ICLW!

I remembered to do ICLW this month, for which I'm quite glad, since I completely forgot in September and was a terrible blogger and commenter, so I hope that more people will come and read and stay for a while!

Here are some interesting things about me that will help you get to know me better.

1) Mister and I are planning to complete a domestic adoption. We are in the waiting phase, otherwise known as the "it's completely out of our control and there's nothing more we can do" phase. We're waiting for our social worker to finish writing our home study, we're waiting for our fingerprint clearances to be returned by the FBI (8-12 weeks, how 'bout that for efficient governance...sigh.) and we're waiting to be ready to wait to be matched.

2) I majored in music in college. I wasn't (and still am not) particularly talented, but I loved playing the piano in high school, so I picked my major in college because I thought it would be fun. I am, as you might say, the complete opposite of driven. I studied music because I loved it. I knew so many people in college who studied economics or science so that they'd get jobs. It's 12 years later, I have no job, and they probably do. But whatever. I had so much fun doing what I loved for those 4 years.

3) I got this new cookbook last week, Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I'm thinking about doing a Julie & Julia style project and baking each one of the 175 cupcakes in the book. I don't know if I'd do it as a blog or not though. I'm sure someone else already has, so it's not like I'm the first person to think of such things. Or even if anyone would be interested in looking at pictures of my cupcakes.

4) I'm slightly obsessed with Christmas music. I have 31 hours of Christmas music on my computer right now. It's October. I'll add more throughout the season. And that says nothing of all the CDs that I have. I have no idea how much Christmas music I actually have. I try not to listen to it before November though. I figure that while early November isn't really when most people turn on their Christmas music, putting it on in October would make me an object of public scorn and ridicule. So I wait until November. Usually.

5) I hate cold. Hate it, hate it, hate it. To the point that I wish that people could hibernate. If I were a bear, I'd be getting ready to go to sleep now and I'd wake up in March or so. It sounds excellent to me. I hate cold, I like to sleep. Clearly, I should have been a bear.

What is something interesting about you?

ICLW Fun Facts - A few days late

For those of you who are coming through ICLW, welcome! (For those of you who come when it's not ICLW, welcome to you too!)

You can read my introduction post or a fun post to get to know me better.

Or just keep reading now, because I'm going to say some more fun things to tell about myself.

1) I love to bake. Love it, love it, love it. I always say if the teaching career doesn't work out (which it clearly isn't, but I'm not really ready to make any career moves at this stage either) then I'd like to open a bakery. I think people will come. After all, I've mastered the art of the chocolate chip cookie, thanks to Grace.

2) My car is 10 years old. All the people that I've known longer than 10 years have gotten new cars (some people even 2 or 3 cars) in the last 10 years. My car is officially the oldest car I know. Well, no, I take that back. My dad's car is 11 years old. My car is officially the 2nd oldest car I know! I'd love to buy a new car, but this one has been paid off for 6 years now. And after 6 years, the mental transition from "no car payment" to "car payment" would not be smooth. So I'll keep my old junker until I don't want it anymore.

3) Mister and I have a season ticket package to the Red Sox. Our seats are not very good, and it's only 10 games a year, but I sure love to go. It's really hard to go nowadays though, since we're 3 hours away. I used to think that we'd go up, go to the game and then drive home all in the same day. Yeah, it turns out I hate doing that. It's been so hard for us to get to mid-week games since we moved to CT that we're thinking of not renewing our package for next year. I will cry to say goodbye to Fenway this October.

4) I'm going to substitute teach this year, and while I feel kind of ambivalent about that, I am looking forward to the freedom and flexibility per diem work allows. Though I'm nervous that I will take advantage of that flexibility and not work at all. It becomes really easy to say, "Well I can't work on Mondays because I grocery shop on Monday, and if we go away for a weekend, well, I won't work on Friday because I'll need to get ready and I'll be too tired when we get back, so I can't work on Monday, but then I won't work on Tuesday because I won't have gotten any food for lunch, so I'll need Tuesday to shop because I was too tired on Monday..." Probably not exactly like that, but you get the idea.

5) Modern life has completely ruined reading for me. I used to love to read books. As a kid, I won our town's library contest every summer for who could read the most books. I read constantly. As a result, I developed a love for language and an advanced vocabulary that earned me the nickname Walking Dictionary. Now, I'm into Netflix, reality television and the internet. I hardly ever go to the library anymore, and I could barely hold my own in a "What are you reading now?" conversation. It's weird. I loved reading so much, and now I don't really miss it. But I recognize that reading is important for shaping a well-rounded person and I ought to get back into it. Like so many other things, I just need to take the plunge and get back into it.

So those are some fun facts about me.