#28. Memorize the US Presidents

I did it! I can totally say all of the US Presidents (last names only - let's not get crazy) in order from (1) Washington to (43) Bush. I had been working on them for a while and pretty much had them all up until the McKinley at the beginning of the 20th centry. Then I could also do the end from Kennedy up until the current Bush. For some reason I had a mental block on those middle guys. They all kind of look the same to me. There's nothing that really distinguishes each of them from one another for me. I'm sure that for those presidential historians out there, that's probably blasphemous, but I'm no presidential historian (thank goodness!)

The last time I memorized the presidents, I was in middle school and there were only 40 presidents. I'm getting old!

So, here they are (I'm not looking at anything, I swear! In fact, the next time you see me, challenge me and I'll spew them all out from memory right in front of you. I dare you!):

1. Washington

2. Adams

3. Jefferson

4. Madison

5. Monroe

6. John Quincy Adams

7. Jackson

8. Van Buren

9. Harrison

10. Tyler

11. Polk

12. Taylor

13. Fillmore

14. Pierce

15. Buchanan

16. Lincoln

17. Johnson

18. Grant

19. Hayes

20. Garfield

21. Arthur

22. Cleveland

23. Harrison

24. Cleveland

25. McKinley

26. Roosevelt

27. Taft

28. Wilson

29. Harding

30. Coolidge

31. Hoover

32. Roosevelt

33. Truman

34. Eisenhower

35. Kennedy

36. Johnson

37. Nixon

38. Ford

39. Carter

40. Reagan

41. Bush

42. Clinton

43. Bush

Everything old is...."New Kids on the Block"....again?

So, this morning, while I was at the gym riding the stationary bike, listening to some chick music on my MP3 Player, I look up at one of the TV screens tuned to VH1 and who do I see? New Kids on the Block! All grown up. At first I recognized Jordan Knight and thought maybe it was just him doing some solo stuff, but when Joe McIntyre and Donnie Walberg, I knew it could be no one other than NKOTB!

As a teen in the late 80s and early 90s, I was a HUGE fan. I know they're cheesy, but in my defense, they were a boy band and I was in full blown puberty! I swooned for Joey McIntyre. My friend and I would argue about who loved them more. It was that bad.

So, with them as a piece of my long-gone adolescent angst, I'm not sure how I feel about them reappearing on the scene...literally. I haven't had a chance to listen to any of the music, but from the video I saw on VH1 full of scantily-clad women all pawing them and their nearing-middle-aged physiques, I'm not sure things bode well. My hope is that age might have brought more growth and maturity to them and their music. I'll give it a listen, but at this point, I'm skeptical.

On the other hand, if it gives all of us 30-something girls a chance to come out of the NKOTB closet, then I'm all for it!

Check them out for yourself if you want: http://www.nkotb.com/about/

Book #10 Completed

Book # 10 was "Cane River" by Lalita Tademy. I actually read this book about 10 years ago, but any time I'm asked for a book suggestion for a book club, this one seems to come up. I remember finishing it very quickly and feeling like I couldn't put it down. When the book club at church decided to take it up as our reading selection, I was afraid that my memory would have failed me and that it wouldn't be as good as I remember. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I loved it just as much this time as I did 10 years ago. I could barely put it down again. I NEEDED to find out what happened to these people! I cheered for their triumphs and cried at their misfortunes.

It's a little over 400 pages, and COMPLETELY worth the time if you have a chance to read it.

A 101 quandary

I am in a 101 quandary. I'm at a loss. I need your help.

What's the point of my 101 list? Is it simply something to keep me busy? Is it a way to stretch myself beyond my current boundaries? Is it a way to feel like I've accomplished something in a society that tells me that without fulfilling the roles of wife and mother I don't really count? Is it a way to suck the marrow out of life? It's probably a mixture of all of these at some level.

But here's where my quandary comes in. I have just 355 days left of my original 1001 and, without the intervention of a miracle from God or a rich uncle to wipe away my credit card debts, fill my 401(k) and buy me a new car, there are just certain things on my list that I am NOT going to be able to finish by July 15, 2009. Then there's the problem that I've created by creating my NEXT 101 list, which is to start July 16, 2009 (no rest for the wicked, you know). There are things on that list that I would like to do now. For instance, I would like to (#79 on the new list) buy an odometer for my bicycle so that I could know how far I bike in a week, etc. Troy suggested that I swap something from my current list to the new list, but that sort of feels like cheating. On the other hand, if these lists are sort of a way to live life to the fullest and to do those things that will challenge me, make me happy, give me a sense of fulfillment, should I really put it off simply because it's not the official starting date?

So, this is where you come in. I've added a poll to the blog and I would love to know what you think. Perhaps I'll even let majority rule! Let me know what you think, folks!

Book # 9 Complete

I've finished book # 9 of 50: "Eat, Pray, Love". Amazing. I completely love this book and could relate to it in so many ways. I don't often reread a book, but this is one I think I may need to revisit about once a year.

I HIGHLY recommend it!

The voice of God is but a whisper

Recently I received an email letter (chain letter sort of thing) from a friend of mine. It talked about found pennies. You know those ones that you sometimes find lying on the ground as you stroll down the sidewalk. This email said that perhaps they are actually pennies from Heaven - sort of messages from God or the angels that watch over us. I thought this was a very cute sentiment.

As a recovering Lutheran (13 years of parochial school can have an affect on you - good and bad), I very often struggle with thinking of God on a personal level. To me, He is most often someone who must be appeased and from whom I beg forgiveness when I have done something wrong. It's hard to think of Him as a friend - someone who is on my side. I often find Him hard to hear on a daily basis in my life.

Perhaps I'm listening more or perhaps He's realized I'm not that bright and need some more help hearing, but lately I have thought about the penny thing and have found a LOT of pennies just laying around on the street, sidewalk, etc. I don't usually see that much change on the streets, so it's been interesting to see so much lately and to think that God is trying to say, "Howdy. Just thinking about you. Just letting you know I care."

Another whisper from God came this morning as I was leaving to come to work. I've been thinking about the old man that lives across the street. I sometimes refer to him as the grumpiest old man in the world because, despite having lived in my house for 7 years, he has never once said hi to me. And I've said it to him quite a few times. He just seems to sit on his porch and simply watch the neighborhood go about its business. He's definitely an "early to bed, early to rise" kind of guy. (I've seen him out getting his paper when I leave for the gym at 4:45 AM). He also rarely has any lights on in his house in the evening. So, the other night (around 10:30), I noticed that his lights were on in his front room. This struck me as quite odd since it was so out of the ordinary. I also hadn't seen him sitting on his porch the past few days when I got home. I was pretty sure he didn't have much family and never saw anyone visit him, so, despite him never speaking to me, I was concerned about his well-being. Yesterday when I got home I nearly went over and knocked on his door to make sure he was all right. Unfortunately, I couldn't get up the nerve to do it.

With it still bothering me as I left this morning, I considered calling someone to have them check on him. I didn't want him to think I was just a nosey neighbor, you know. On my way to my garage, I saw my next-door neighbor, Jake, outside. We talked for a brief moment about how much I owed him for mowing my lawn, ended the conversation and I headed towards my garage. For no apparent reason, Jake stopped me and said, "Hey, you know that old man that lives across the street from you?" I was sure he was gonna tell me that he had died. That's just the way my mind works. Instead, he told me that his niece and nephew had come and moved him into a nursing home since his hips were failing him and he was forgetting things recently. I was relieved to hear that someone was looking after him.

Now, many of you may wonder what this has to do with God speaking to me. On the face of it, it just looks like two neighbors gossiping about the neighborhood. For me it was much more than that. The subject of the old man across the street is something that Jake and I have never talked about. There was no reason for him to share that information with me. For me, it was a whisper from God. He knew it was something that had been bothering me and he wanted to comfort my spirit.

Howdy. Just thinking about you. Just letting you know I care.

A few thoughts from "Eat, Pray, Love"

Today while I was reading "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert over my lunch, I came across a couple of passages that really touched me/made me think. The writer, at the time, was 34, as I am, and no longer married, which I have never been. The things she says seemed extraordinarily relevant to me and my life and I thought I would take this opportunity to share them with you. First one:

"
...To create a family with a spouse is one of the most fundamental ways a person can find a continuity and meaning in American (or any) society. I rediscover this truth every time I go to the big reunion of my mother's family in Minnesota and I see how everyone is held so reassuringly in their positions over the years. First you are a child, then you are a teenager, then you are a young married person, then you are a parent, then you are retired, then you are a grandparent - at every stage you know who you are, you know what your duty is and you know where to sit at the reunion. You sit with the other children, or teenagers, or young parents or retirees. Until at last you are sitting with the ninety-year-olds in the shade, watching over your progeny with satisfaction. Who are you? No problem - you're the person that created all this. The satisfaction of this knowledge is immediate, and moreover, it's universally recognized. How many people have I heard claim their children as the greatest accomplishment and comfort of their lives? It's the thing they can always lean on during a metaphysical crisis, or a moment of doubt about their relevancy - If I have done nothing else in this life, then at least I have raised my children well.

But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me?

Virginia Woolf wrote, 'Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword.' On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where 'all is correct.' But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, 'all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course.' Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous."

In the second, she talks about how she has battled depression (melancholy) in her own life and how the melancholy of Venice affects her:

" Yet I don't get depressed here. I can cope with, and even somehow enjoy, the sinking melancholy of Venice, just for a few days. Somewhere in me I am able to recognize that this is not my melancholy; this is the city's own indigenous melancholy, and I am healthy enough these days to be able to feel the difference between me and it. This is a sign, I cannot help but think, of healing, of the coagulation of my self. There were a few years there, lost in borderless despair, when I used to experience all the world's sadness as my own. Everything sad leaked through me and left damp traces behind."