Picking Up Where You Left Off

I took a "personality quiz" last night (I was bored). It, like every one of those silly things that I take, told me that I am a "people person", needing interaction with others to be happy. Well, duh. I've said before that my friends are one of the most important things in my life.

Sometimes, bad things can come out of being reliant on others. I am sometimes easily hurt by a rejection from someone I thought cared, I often don't let go of relationships that should be ended. But when friendships are healthy and sane, they are the best things in the world. Take last weekend, for example.

Years ago, I worked at a summer camp for gifted students. The instructors and TA's and RA's at that camp tended to come back year after year, not because the camp was so awesome but because the people we worked with were. To paraphrase of one of the instructors I worked with, there was the highest concentration of people worth knowing at that camp. It's now more than 10 years since I started working at that summer camp, and some of the people I worked with are still among my best friends.

Now that we're all grown-ups (more or less) and scattered from North Carolina to California, a group of us get together every summer and take a vacation together. We got together in the mountains of North Carolina this year. We saw Asheville and Dollywood and beautiful views in the Smokey Mountains. But more importantly, we saw each other. I can't imagine being around better people, who know so much about me, who care about me anyway. I hope everyone out there has a group of people like this - who can pick up where they left off the last time they saw you, who are funny and intelligent and just plain nice.

Meme redux

I had a series of books when I was a child called "Stories From Grandma's Attic", "More Stories From Grandma's Attic", "Still More Stories...", well, you get the point. At some point they finally ran out of ways to say moremoremoremoremore and came up with actual names for the remaining books. I feel like that will happen with me and memes. Meme redux, meme again...whatever will I call it next time?

Anyway, I'm following Shawnee's lead here (as I always did, of course. Especially when it came to breaking laws. Wait. No. We never broke anything, ever. Ahem.).

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Um - I'd just finished grad school and was teaching at a summer camp in Davidson, NC. I was dating Jim, and was in reality slightly homeless...I ended up staying with a couple of different people after the camp ended since there was about a month's lag time between the end of camp and the beginning of my new lease with Karen. Oh - and I'd just bought the first car I ever bought. Woo-hoo.

What were you doing one year ago?
Packing feverishly for the move into this house. I hate moving. And I think Andy was here about this time. I don't hate Andy.

Five snacks you enjoy.
1. Popcorn. Lots of butter (or butter flavored grease...doesn't matter).
2. Pretzels. I like them plain, but they're even better dipped in cream cheese. Fat makes everything taste better.
3. Chocolate Chip cookies. Soft and warm ones.
4. Guacamole
5. Brie and baguette with tomato.

Five songs you know all the lyrics to.
1. Mercedez Benz, Janis Joplin (I just sang this song on the beach, to a bunch of people who didn't know it. I NEVER sing in public. But I think the fact that it was Janis, who really didn't have much of a voice either made me feel better about it!)
2. Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen (Yeah, yeah...I knew it BEFORE Wayne's World came out.)
3. Closer to Fine, The Indigo Girls (You ever have a song just slap you across the face the first time you heard it? This one did to me. I still remember exactly where I was.)
4. The Weakness in Me, Melissa Etheridge (A lesser known one by her, but her most beautiful.)
5. Looking for Space, John Denver (Actually, I could list any of his songs...this is just one of my favorites.)

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire.
I'm with Shawnee here: Let's assume this means multi-millionaire / billionaire, m'kay? Lots more fun to ponder.
1. Retire. To Hawaii. With all the friends I could pay for/convince to retire with me.
2. Buy my mother a house. Buy my father, well, something he wanted.
3. Travel. To Australia and Africa and Greece and...well, all over.
4. Convince John Cusack that I'm the woman of his dreams. Money can do that, right?
5. You don't even want to know how many shoes I'd have. Imelda Marcos? An amateur.

Five bad habits.
1. Biting my nails
2. Eating late at night
3. Procrastination. About everything.
4. Is *not* exercising a habit?
5. Spending too much money on shoes.

Five things you like doing.
1. Shopping
2. Reading
3. Laying on a beach. Any beach.
4. Throwing parties
5. Cooking

Five things you would never wear again.
1. Anything neon. Especially neon yellow.
2. Shoulder pads
3. Acid wash jeans with pleats (my skin is crawling just typing the words...)
4. A tube top
5. My prom dress (first of all, I don't think it would fit around my THIGH. Beyond that...why?)

Five Favorite Toys.
1. Digital Camera
2. Food Processor
3. My new car!
4. I don't think I have any other toys...not that I can talk about in public, at least.
5. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge

There you have it. Now you know more about me.

Shopping Successes

Several shopping successes have occurred in the last 24 hours. I found a sofa cover that I like and that was affordable. I did NOT purchase the extremely cute but extremely impractical black-polka-dot-with-red-heels shoes that I soooooo wanted. (As seen here.)

But most importantly, I bought a car! It's a Kia Optima (sorry, Scott, no Jeep. I wish!). Black, 2005, low mileage, and this chick even bargained the finance rate down more than half a percent. I feel so...grown-up.

Now I just need nominations for her name. Check it out:

Cars. Again.

Do cars SMELL money? I mean seriously.

I was in an accident a year and a half ago. On my dearest friend's wedding day. (Hi, Shawnee!) I FINALLY got the settlement check last week. Deposited it Monday. Yesterday (Tuesday if you're keeping track) my car died. How do they know???

The good news is that I'm going car shopping this afternoon. Any advice?