my happy little world

Still home, sweet home

I realized in the midst of water heater chaos that I should have started a blog titled “adventures of a first-time homeowner.” Because the past year has certainly been an adventure. An adventure twinged with a little bit of chaos and frustration, but mostly fun. It’s so hard to believe it’s been an entire year since this place became officially mine.

As the total mortgage amount owed goes ever-so-slowly down, the list of future home improvement projects and the related cost estimates keep growing. Such is life as a homeowner, as just about everyone told me before I took the plunge. The work never ends once you buy a house, they said. I’m not afraid of a little work, was my usual response. Sure, I have a rapidly growing list of projects I really want to do (expand the garden, remodel the kitchen, spruce up the bathrooms) mixed with the list of projects I really needto do (fix the energy-sucking windows, clean the gutters out back and install gutters in front, conquer the small forest of poison ivy along the back fence).

I accomplished enough to be happy in year one as a homeowner, including digging out a small garden in the side of the house, getting some color on the walls, and adding more furnishings a little at a time. Mostly it was a year of little things… getting settled, decorating, organizing the shed, and just marveling at how much I enjoy my house. Year two will include some bigger projects, like new windows (yay!), gutters, a decently large in-ground vegetable garden next summer, and an expanded front garden that wraps around to the side. Ambitious? Why, of course. After all, I’m not afraid of a little work. 

posted by Linda on 06/26 at 06:00 AM
(0) comments • (0) trackbacks • permalink

Seriously? Why me?

Are there gods of credit and finance? Because if there are, I’ve somehow angered them without realizing it. Seriously, if the water heater debacle and ongoing fight with the subdivision trustees and title companies weren’t enough, I now have stuff on my credit report that isn’t mine. They don’t appear to be fraudulent accounts opened in my name, just pieces of somebody else’s credit history accidentally stuck on my report. Thankfully, since hackers gained access to student employee records at my university last year, I’ve had a credit monitoring service that sends an e-mail alert every time something changes. And it’s not as though the credit amounts are outrageous, but still, it’s credit that doesn’t belong to me. Two of the accounts? Yeah, opened before I was born. The third? When I was seven. Somehow I don’t think I was applying for credit when I was seven, and especially not when I was negative six years old. I already filed the official dispute and don’t expect there to be any problems with getting it resolved, but it’s still a hassle to deal with.

So, back to those gods of credit and finance. If you’re out there, can you please decide you’ve messed with me enough and just be nice tomorrow when I have to call the title agency yet again in an attempt to resolve the other dispute? That would be nice. Really, really nice. 

posted by Linda on 06/23 at 07:12 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Things I learned from Dad

My parents? They’re smart people. Around many corners of childhood, there was a life lesson waiting. I like to think I retained most of those lessons, although sometimes it’s apparent that I’m still working on a few of them. In honor of Father’s Day, here are a few of the lessons I learned from Dad. Some are philosophical, others practical, but all are classics that stick in my mind and make me smile as I think about my competitive nature, try a new recipe, or work on stuff around the house.

: Give 100% every time you step on the field, the court, or anywhere else. Leave personal disagreements aside and give the team your best.

: Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Not to say it has to be perfect every time, but practicing halfway won’t get you there.

: Baking is about taste and feel more than exact measurements. Measurements are good, but it’s more about learning along the way and just knowing when it’s right.

: Keep a sink full of soapy water when you’re baking and wash dishes along the way. (Still working on that one for sure.)

: Measure twice; cut once.

And, since I thought about a similar post back at Mother’s Day but never got it posted, I also present things I learned from Mom.  Again, some philosophical, some practical, but all useful and memorable.

: Put all your cards on the table, and lay them face up. (Translation: be honest and open rather than playing games with people.)

: True service doesn’t seek recognition or acknowledgment.

: A couple teaspoons of vanilla extract into a gallon of paint means fume-free painting projects. (I had forgotten this one until just recently when mom helped me paint my bedroom.)

: You don’t have to be the best, but you should always try your best.

posted by Linda on 06/15 at 06:51 AM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Garden visitor

Yesterday when I planned to have a few friends over for dinner, the ever-better-looking summer fruits inspired my menu, so I began pulling cookbook after cookbook off the shelf in search of various inspiration. Ultimately, I settled on summer fruit sparkling sangria, mixed baby greens salad with honey citrus dressing, grilled caribbean chicken, grilled corn on the cob with lime butter, fresh-baked cheddar chive bread, and grilled peaches with homemade amaretto pecan caramel sauce. It was fantastic, and those grilled peaches may go on the list as one of my signature desserts.

A few weeks ago I planted my herb and vegetable container garden on my back patio, and now I’m anxiously awaiting the day my first tomato or peppers ripen and get served on the dinner table. I can almost smell the freshness of a just-picked tomato, basil, and mozarella salad. Yum.

When I’m working in my kitchen, I like to open the blinds on my kitchen window and gaze out at my container garden. You know, just to be sure it’s all still there and growing at a decent rate. Yesterday as I was baking the cheddar chive bread, I glanced out the window and noticed another creature admiring my container garden. I ran upstairs to grab my camera, and by the time I returned, he had finished his inspection of my garden and journeyed on to the athea bush. I did manage to snap this photo before he was completely hidden in shade though.

I didn’t exactly stand next to him with a ruler and my length/distance estimation skills are somewhat lacking, but I’d still say he’s about four feet long. While most normal people would hate the thought of a four-foot snake hanging out in their yard, I’m pretty happy about it. After all, Mr. Snake is perhaps the most natural repellent available for the evil bunnies. 

posted by Linda on 06/01 at 03:31 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Synonyms for mad…

My real estate agent told me that just about everyone hits a moment of buyer’s remorse at some point after purchasing their first home. Mine just took a complete year to hit. It was last May when I first saw my house and fell in love before I even stepped inside. This year, as May draws to a close, I kinda want to give it back. Make it go away. Return to the seemingly simple life of apartment living.

Ok, so I don’t really want to give my house back, but I would like for a few of the house-related headaches to go away. I have hot water (finally!), but in the midst of replacing the water heater, the plumbing company managed to wreck my downstairs bathroom and fail to return it to its original state. Since the plumbing company works through the home warranty company, I’ll be making a call to the warranty company tomorrow to express my displeasure. Three weeks with no hot water because of the required special order replacement, some miscellaneous fees the warranty company doesn’t cover (of course), and a trashed bathroom with rusty-water splattered walls, a broken shelf, and bent-to-pieces drain pan beneath the water heater add up to an incredibly unhappy customer. The first two on their own I could deal with. I was patient and understanding and willing to just accept it for what it was. But when you add the damage to my downstairs bathroom, the patience rapidly disappeared.

Then there’s the ongoing fight with the subdivision trustees, whose predecessors failed to do their job and collect subdivision dues from two owners ago. Meaning the owners before the guy who owned it before me got foreclosed on. And now they want their money, even though they failed to file a lien on the property prior to the time I bought out, which would have ensured they got their money at closing. Nope, they didn’t do their job then, but oh, they want to do it now. Title insurance, you say? Would have covered it if the lien had been filed and they somehow missed it, but the title insurance document explicitly states that subdivision assessment fees are not part of the coverage. Lovely. So my title company has bailed on the situation and provided me with a few courses of action in the letter they sent, including contacting the company who represented the seller or seeking legal consultation. (Phone call would have been nice, considering I’ve been on the phone with someone from their office nearly every other day for two weeks now. But no, it was a nice formal letter from one of the higher-ups.) Everyone agrees that it’s not my responsibility to pay the overdue fees, but no one else is stepping up to take responsibility either.

So, the combination of the above two things in the past several weeks has left me with at least a small desire to just give back the house and make it all go away. Which I won’t, of course, because I love my house. And considering that businesses with horrendous quality standards and people who tell blatant lies to shirk responsibility are two things that irk me the most, I’m not giving up on either fight. They’re probably used to people who just deal with the poor quality work or give in to the badgering. Clearly they don’t yet realize that I refuse to do either. 

posted by Linda on 05/28 at 04:27 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

What’s hot water again? I seem to have forgotten.

The building where I work changed management companies a while back, and the new company seems rather dedicated to making it look all nice and pretty. Fresh paint on the walls, stripped and shined marble floors, automatic toilets, wood and mirror paneled elevators, and on and on. Earlier this week when they decided to slap a fresh coat of slate grey paint on the bathroom stalls for our floor, my coworkers and I found ourselves heading down two or more flights of stairs each time we needed a bathroom break… for three days. (The floors directly above and below us require swipe cards for entry from the stairwells, hence the two or more flights required.)

On my first journey down to the third floor bathroom, I turned the cold and hot water handles in an attempt to get some nice warm water to wash my hands. And the hot water handle broke off in my hand (thankfully just the attached screw-in handle and not the entire assembly that might have resulted in spewing water). The third-floor employee at the other sink looked at me staring in disbelief at the hot water handle and said “Ha, no hot water for you!” We proceeded to chat briefly about the annoyance of all these little renovations and how nice it will be when they’re all complete. I left the bathroom and headed back up the two flights of stairs with her “Ha, no hot water for you” echoing in my head. So true. So very true.

Seventeen (17!) days after first turning both handles on my kitchen faucet and realizing something was not quite right with the hot water, I still don’t have hot water*. That phone call that was supposed to come from the plumber to say the water heater had arrived and when would I like it installed? Uh-huh. Monday it was a phone call to the home warranty company to ask about the status of the special order. The phone call where I learned that the special order, where they’re more or less custom making me a water heater at the factory, will take five to seven business days to arrive. Five. To. Seven. Business. Days.

Tuesday night, I boiled two large pots of water to wash the slowly growing pile of rinsed and stacked dishes. Then I boiled another pot to mop the floor. And I let go of my hot water standard for sheets and towels and decided I’ll just have to live with a cold-water wash that might not kill all the dustmites or germs for a load or two. Tomorrow I’ll be repeating the boiled water approach for the dishes that resulted from making almond biscotti and garlic and chive potatoes au gratin in the past few days.

And maybe if I’m really lucky, I’ll actually have hot water again by the middle of next week. Maybe.

*Disclaimer: I left on a four-day church retreat the following morning, so it’s really only been 12 days since I first reported the problem to the home warranty company.

posted by Linda on 05/16 at 11:49 AM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Communication overload

My cell phone often goes days without use. No incoming calls or texts and no outgoing calls or texts for days at a time. Most of my communication with my closest friends takes place online, with most phone conversations reserved for weekends. Thursday, however, it got plenty of use. Starting at about 8:30 in the morning and ending after 8:30 at night, that poor cell phone made or received more than 20 calls.

There was the first call from someone at church asking if I would play guitar for another retreat in the fall. Then the call from the warranty company about my sad, broken water heater. Followed by a call to the plumbing company. Then a call to my parents to debate my options of standard water heater versus the more energy efficient tankless/on-demand variety. Call back to warranty company to inquire about cash-out reimbursement options. Calls to several local home improvement stores to ask about installation of tankless water heaters. Call back from one store saying they were wrong, they don’t install them after all. Call to warranty company with additional questions, who called plumbing company, who then called me. Call from work with a question shortly after I had left for the day. Call back to warranty company with approval to move forward. Call to parents to update them on the final result. Couple hours later, another call to parents with a question about a furniture purchase. Call from someone at church about a young adult ministry event that night. On way home from the mall, call to a friend begging for help in getting said furniture out of the car and upstairs in my house. Call back from friend with offer to help. Call from mom to find out what I decided about the furniture. Call from friend to say he was on his way over. There were more calls mixed in, but so many of them took place in a single two-hour period that they’re a bit of a blur.

The one call I’m still waiting for? The one where the plumbing company calls me to actually schedule the installation of my new water heater. Once the warranty company orders the right one, that is, which they failed to do last week. Tomorrow marks one week since I first called the warranty company to report that my water heater wasn’t working. A full week without hot water is not my idea of fun. Not my idea of fun at all. 

posted by Linda on 05/11 at 01:48 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Not-so-shiny silver

My beloved Mac Powerbook, nearly an extra appendage of my body considering the separation anxiety that ensues if I dare travel without it, is fast approaching the end of its existence. Sad, but true. It’s been a good friend. It’s not the departure of its shine that means it’s nearly time to go, but rather the sad state of its internal workings that have sparked a ever-growing dedication to routine backups to an external hard drive.

The Powerbook and I first became acquainted on January 23, 2003, when I first ventured to the place I now refer to as “happy Mac land.” In other words, when I bought my first Mac. Not the first Mac I had encountered, as I learned to type around the age of five on one of those old green-screened Apple computers of yesteryear, but certainly the first Mac that was completely mine. And, oh what a journey it has been.

It has survived a nearly fatal hard drive error, a sparking power cord (you try calling customer service to request a new power cord after it starts sparking and see how many questions they ask you about it), and a broken left hinge that leaves me with the fear that any day now I’ll open the laptop up and the screen will just keep going.

It has walked with me through a grueling final year and a half of college and nearly four years of real-world life with all its ups, downs, and never-ending questions. I shall miss this Mac, whenever that final day comes either by total failure of this machine or a budgetary decision that I can splurge for a new one. Sure, I’m currently being wooed by the bright! shiny! fancy! black MacBook, but this one will forever be my first beloved Mac, even in all its not-so-shiny silver glory. 

posted by Linda on 04/07 at 08:21 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Combinations of color

My fingertips are blue. Well, not my fingertips themselves, but my fingernails have a distinct bluish cast to them today because it is FRIGID in my office. Sure, I’m cold-natured and generally always cold, but when my fingers are the equivalent of ice cubes it begins to interfere with my typing ability.

I should have worn a blue shirt today to match my lovely blue fingernails, but instead I wore a purple shirt. As did several other people in the office, so we keep making jokes about it being purple day. Yesterday was blue day, as Mondays almost are. With weekends being standard laundry days and with the fact that most people look pretty decent in blue, there always seems to be lots of blue on Monday. But Tuesday? This Tuesday it’s purple, which there is plenty of in my closet as it’s one of my favorite colors.

But let’s get back to the point at hand - that cold makes me CRAZY! I keep sitting on my hands in an attempt to warm them up, but it’s difficult to type or do any other work when sitting on my hands. I have a pair of black gloves stashed in my desk that I’m about to drag out. The only thing stopping me is the knowledge of subsequent harrassment by my coworkers. Or I could just go drink more brown beverages, either hot chocolate or coffee with creamer, just so I have a warm mug to wrap my fingers around. I’m generally a black coffee person, but only when it’s decent coffee, and the coffee at work is anything but decent. Some of it is Starbucks brand coffee, so you might consider it decent, except that somehow our coffee machines make it far from decent. Which is quite sad when you consider the potential of the coffee.

And there you have it, faithful readers, I just hit four colors in one post. Yes, yes, I realize that I should just call it my blue post and maybe my purple post but leave black and brown to another day. We’ll see if I’m inspired by another black or brown topic or if I just skip right on to silver. Silver should be fun. 

posted by Linda on 03/11 at 01:19 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Green means go

Do you ever sit and wonder about how it came to be that green is the color that means go? What if red meant go and green meant stop? Or maybe fuscia was the color of caution?

It’s funny to me at times how so much standard knowledge gets instilled in our early years that we never stop to question the possibility of it being different. Somebody out in the big giant world of research did a study on the level of outside-the-box thinking that occurs and showed a drastic decline in that ability as people age. Look at any two-year-old (I’m happy to offer my adorable nephew as an example) and you’ll see the joy of discovery and limitless possibility to how they see the world. Somewhere along the way though, societal expectations and perceived restrictions get involved and everything changes. The world at large says something isn’t possible or can’t be done, so why try? I say try anyway. What would happen if every person picked one day to forget about what instilled expectations and learning say should be possible and just tried something that they never thought possible before?

These rambling thoughts brought to you by the color green and a snow-flurried Wednesday morning. And in your quest to turn your thinking upside down, leave the standard expectations related to law and traffic control intact, please. While fuscia as a color of caution might be fun, it’s not advisable in combination with the countless other drivers who’ve never considered anything but yellow to be the color of caution.

posted by Linda on 02/27 at 08:26 AM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Traffic trivia

Somewhere in a box of family photos in my parents’ house is a picture of me around the age of seven, dressed in a yellow and white striped tank top, yellow shorts, yellow visor and probably yellow socks. (Stylish, I know.) In that picture, I’m sitting on a steam roller that’s rolling asphalt on a job site for a bridge/roadway that my dad designed. For the record, when you’re seven years old, a steam roller is pretty darn big.

Being the daughter of a civil engineer, you pick up on all sorts of wacky traffic trivia to impress your friends. Okay, maybe impress is the wrong word. Scare might be a better word. Or perhaps it’s just ammunition for them to make fun of you in the future. Yeah, that’s it.

Regardless, here’s your traffic trivia for the day, brought to you by the color yellow.

1. That yellow light in between the red and the green? If you learned to drive in St. Louis, you think it means speed up so three more cars can get through before red. Regardless of what it means to you, it’s 12 inches in diameter. Yes, that’s right, 12 inches. One foot. The entire traffic signal housing is somewhere around five feet tall. (I could look it up in my handy Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, but I’m too lazy to walk to the bookshelf right now.)

2. The yellow stripes in the road? They’re four inches wide typically, though sometimes six inches. Their white counterparts are also four or six inches wide, and depending on the speed limit of the road they are on, the length of the dashed white lines can be anywhere from 10 feet to 15 feet long.

I could continue rambling about the height of a New Jersey barrier (the concrete wall that separates traffic on highways or construction zones, three feet tall) or the standards required for legally marking a handicapped parking space (sign minimum of four feet off the ground), but I don’t want to bore you.

If you’re ever at a trivia night with a traffic category, you’ll be prepared. Give your thanks to the color yellow, friends. 

posted by Linda on 02/18 at 05:18 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Colorblog backlog post #2: ORANGE

Many spring and summer days of my childhood were spent on The Orange Bug. The family pontoon boat had orange sides with white stripe accents, orange vinyl padded seats with storage beneath the bench, and orange- and brown-flecked indoor/outdoor carpet. On the gate separating the main boat area from the front deck, there was a large radio station sticker for The Katt, a classic rock station that meant nothing to us during childhood but was a much-loved station for many a high school friend.

I can’t remember exactly when The Orange Bug came to us or when it left; I simply remember many hours spent riding, fishing, and jumping off that boat. On that boat, I fished for striper, sand bass, black bass, crappie, gar, and countless other fish that swam beneath the surface of Lake Texoma and Lake Eufaula. I jumped off the deck to go splashing about in the water with our dog Roxie, but only after we had circled the area several times with the fish finder activated to check for trees lurking beneath the surface and after Dad or Mom had jumped in to check for themselves. I learned to distinguish the pull of the water from the bite of a fish when trolling for sand bass along the shoreline and learned how to tie a fishing lure securely.

Somewhere along the way, when we made less frequent visits to the lake, we sold The Orange Bug and spent our remaining lake days on deck, behind the wheel, or skiing behind my grandfather’s bass boat. While it was certainly more effective at pulling a skier, it never had quite the same charm as The Orange Bug with its flecked carpet that grew darker and darker with every wet kid that came crawling back on deck and the orange vinyl seats that held the heat and burned your legs if you weren’t careful to cover your seat with a towel. 

posted by Linda on 02/08 at 05:01 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Colorblog backlog post #1: RED

Inspired by the growing list of colorblogging friends (Joan, Kristen, Kristi, Tracie, etc.), I have decided to finally join the fun. Let’s just call it the Internet version of crashing the party, but it’s a worthy party that will perhaps lead to more frequent posts but not the post-party lag of NaBloPoMo. I’m three entries behind and actually have no idea when exactly I’m supposed to be posting these color entries, but a quick e-mail should solve that problem. Now onto the entry…

Red is the color of Sonic straws. I can’t even begin to count how many red Sonic straws have touched my lips in my lifetime, because a cherry vanilla diet coke from Sonic can make any bad day instantly better, any good day instantly brighter, and any shopping excursion instantly more fun.

I can’t tell you exactly when the addiction began, but likely sometime in high school. That’s when I first remember regular trips to the Sonic just down the street, back when my brother was dating a girl who worked there. The benefits of your brother dating a girl who worked there? Extra cherries in your cherry vanilla diet coke, provided I parked near the window so she knew it was me.

That tradition continues today, at least when I’m back in Oklahoma at my parents’ house. Five Sonics within three miles. No matter where we’re headed from the house, there’s a Sonic easily on the way. And at that same Sonic I visited regularly in high school, the carhops know my mom’s name. Yes, we really are there that often. Like I said, any bad day instantly better, any good day instantly brighter, and any shopping excursion instantly more fun. And Sonic twice in one day? Even better. The carhop might look at you a little funny when you trade them an empty cup for a full one, but it helps when you can laugh at yourself for being so hooked on a seemingly simple carbonated beverage that comes with a pretty red straw. 

posted by Linda on 02/03 at 06:47 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Monumental majesty

This post, as with many others I’ve posted or not posted recently, should have appeared a month ago. A month ago, the experience was fresh in my mind. A month ago, I could easily close my mind and picture my surroundings. A month ago, I just didn’t make the time, so now you get a post that doesn’t quite capture all that I wanted to say but says something at the very least.

While I have traveled a decent amount in the southwestern and southeastern regions of the country, I had never visited the nation’s capital. In the mere two weeks between booking my flight and leaving for the trip, countless people told me how much I would enjoy DC. I’ve come to realize that DC is one of those places that you either love or hate. My verdict after a four-day trip? Visiting is great, but I have no real desire to live there. Too much noise, too much traffic, too much politics. On the visiting side though, I can’t wait to go back.

On the last day of the year 2007, I was standing in front of the Washington Monument at 7:30 in the morning watching the sun slowly rise behind it. Next stop was the WWII Memorial with the sun glistening off the water and the granite floor covered in a thin layer of ice. As I continued along the south side of the reflecting pool lined with countless geese and one lonely pigeon to visit the Lincoln Memorial, I pondered the process of designing and creating such lasting monuments. It’s something I first pondered after I visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial. To see the symbolism and wonder how a group of individuals decided that a reflecting pool between two bronze towers marked 9:01 and 9:03 could serve as a symbol of tranquility in spite of tragedy. My tour of the Washington DC monuments did much the same.

From the Lincoln Memorial, I went to the Korean War Veterans Memorial then walked along the Potomac briefly then around the Tidal Basin to the Jefferson Memorial. From there, I circled back to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and the small tribute to women in military service near that memorial. When finished, my feet hurt and my toes were slightly numb from cold, but it was three hours well spent enjoying a relatively quiet morning as a DC tourist.

Perhaps it’s the graphic designer in me that marvels at the beauty of the lines and the layers of symbolism contained therein. Perhaps it’s the daughter-of-an-engineer, frequently over-analytical side of me that considers the hours of drawing and redrawing plans and determining materials and quantities and specifications. Perhaps it’s the sentimental, sensitive side of me that reflects on the men and women of history, from presidents to military men called to service from all corners of the country, who gave of themselves for the sake of others. And the ultimate beauty of the monuments is that they mean something different to each person who visits, to each person who comes to them with their own history and encounters a glimpse into the history of others.

posted by Linda on 01/31 at 05:11 PM
(0) trackbacks • permalink

Knowing where you’ve been

I originally intended to write this post while it was still 2007, but oh well, here it is…

The past year can best be described as challenging. There were times I nearly described it as bad, but in the grand scheme of life it was anything but bad. Just challenging. A busy year with lots of change, some of which was beyond my control and, therefore, not something I enjoyed in the moment. At the same time, it was a year of growth, as any year should be, really. Still, I’m somewhat relieved to be done with 2007. Read below for the end-of-year reflection questions that always go ‘round the blogosphere this time of year. I predict that 2008 will be a stellar year that builds on some lessons learned and new experiences of 2007.

What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Bought a house.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn’t make any last year and typically haven’t in the past, but this new year falls at a point where I need some resolutions anyway, so I’ll be making a few.

Did anyone close to you give birth? My friend Jennifer had her beautiful daughter Emily in January 2007.

Did anyone close to you die? Not this year, thankfully.

Which countries did you visit? None. I hardly visited any states. I should travel more.

What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? Fairly content with what I had in 2007, so nothing.

Which date(s) from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory? June 26 and November 18

What was your biggest achievement of the year? Buying a house on my own. 

Did you suffer illness or injury? Lots of repetitive head colds and sinus infections, but nothing major.

What was the best thing you bought? My house. (Are we sensing a theme here?)

Where did most of your money go? My house.

What did you get really, really, really excited about? My house.

Compared to this time last year, are you:
happier or sadder?  Much happier.
thinner or fatter? Definitely need to get back to the gym.
richer or poorer? Hard to say; make more money but spend more, too.

What do you wish you’d done more of? Travel to new places and home improvements.

What do you wish you’d done less of? Stress about things beyond my control.

Who did you spend the most time on the phone with? The Boyfriend.

Did you fall in love in 2007? Fell in love with my house… except for the windows and the kitchen counters.

What was your favorite TV program? Gilmore Girls, until it went away. 

What was the best book you read? Sadly, I’m not sure I have an answer to this question. I know I read some books in 2007, but not nearly as many as I would have liked.

What did you want and get? My house.

What did you want and not get? A new computer, but maybe next year.

What were your favorite films of this year? Me? Films?

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I don’t recall what I did for my actual birthday, but a friend coordinated an impressive surprise party that touched me a great deal. I was 25.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Less stress; working on that for 2008.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? Me? Fashion? Um, whatever’s clean and available in my closet.

What kept you sane? A couple of close friends.

Who did you miss? My family.

Who was the best new person you met? Hmmm… tough question, and I have no idea.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. Do what makes you happy; not what the rest of the world thinks you should do.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I ain’t settlin’ for just getting by
I’ve had enough so-so for the rest of my life
Tired of shooting too low so raise the bar high
“Just enough,” ain’t enough this time
I ain’t settlin’ for anything less than everything
- Sugarland

posted by Linda on 01/05 at 11:36 AM
(0) trackbacks • permalink