Thursday Thirteen: Today In History

13 Valentine’s Day Occurrences

Happy Valentine’s Day! No sappy trivia today (see yesterday’s post for that)! Below are just a few of things that occurred on Valentine’s Day in history. There were a lot of others I thought were cool, but had to zap to pare it down to thirteen.

1 ) 278 AD Saint Valentine is beheaded, contributing in part to the origins of the Valentine’s Day holiday.

2 ) 1076 Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV

3 ) 1689 English parliament places Mary Stuart/Prince Willem III on the throne

4 ) 1766 Thomas Robert Malthus, British economist born.

5 ) 1778 The Stars and Stripes of the United States is seen abroad for the first time, flying on a U.S. vessel in a French port.

6 ) 1848 James K. Polk became 1st President photographed in office by Matthew Brady

7 ) 1889 1st train load of fruit (oranges) leaves Los Angeles for east

8 ) 1918 U.S.S.R. adopts New Style (Gregorian) calendar (originally Feb 1)

9 ) 1929 Disguised as Chicago police officers and detectives, Al Capone’s mobsters take out six of George “Bugs” Moran’s gang in a warehouse. The infamous event will become known as the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre.

10) 1967 Aretha Franklin records “Respect”

11) 1971 Richard Nixon installs secret taping system in White House

12) 1978 1st “micro on a chip” patented by Texas Instruments

13) 1990 Space probe Voyager 1 takes photograph of entire solar system

1 Susan Helene Gottfried	2 Lazy Daisy	3 Winter
4 Nicholas	5 Alice Audrey	6 Di
7 Jennifer McKenzie	8 Lynne	9 Gwen Mitchell
10 OneLuvGurl	11 Brenda	12 Paige Tyler

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Love is in the air…

So… Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day. I often wonder how someone like me who used to rejoice when the annual Black Hearts Ball rolled around on Feb 14th came to want to write romance?

Back in high school, I got dumped on Valentine’s Day. Yeah, a real kick in the teeth. I didn’t realize it at the time or for quite a while after, but he actually did me a favor. I would still be stuck in the middle of nowhere living a dead-end life doing a dead-end job to make ends meet and babysitting grandchildren already.

Instead, I went farther away from home to college. I had a bad attitude about the male half of the population and didn’t give any of them much credit. I harbored my share of fruitless crushes and enjoyed the vicarious love and relationships between the pages of every romance novel I got my hands on. Men? I liked ’em, but hadn’t met any yet.

Then, beginning of my senior year, sitting in my History of American Music class with my friend Qui doing our usual scoping to amuse ourselves instead of paying attention, when I spotted this new guy wearing thick nerdy plastic glasses, a ratty rust-colored corduroy jacket, shaggy hair and a raggy t-shirt sitting there taking serious notes (although now I suspect he was doodling). I forget what had me so down that day, but I remember thinking, “Ya know, with my luck, I’ll end up marrying someone like him.”

These days, I wonder at my good fortune! I think we still may owe the guy he ended up rooming with the next year a debt for making us sit down on a week before Valentine’s Day (no pressure there!) and come to a decision on why we weren’t a couple like everyone else already assumed.

The fall of my senior year was one of my worst. I was extremely depressed on many fronts and I had little patience for dealing with people. Finally, I realized this guy “wasn’t people”. I kept spending time in his company when I didn’t want to face anyone else. I would never finished my senior thesis without him either. The ethic of “if I have to work, so do you!” has lasted which is one reason I focus better during chat challenges knowing someone else is working as well.

Eighteen years later, we’re happy, comfortable and have lived in both interesting and hellish places. Our two kids may drive us crazy at times, but I don’t think we’d really try to return them at this point.

I admit I’m not good at celebrating people, but I believe there are people in our lives we are destined to meet and connect with. I’m just lucky I found mine and didn’t end up with a toad. I still enjoy reading romances because of the escape from everyday situations and glimpses at a slower lifestyle. As for writing romance, I want to discover what my characters can teach me about showing and sharing love more consciously.

Thursday Thirteen: Holiday Stress Anyone?

We did get a tree and our lights up on the house. The tree is still au naturale and we keep forgetting to unplug the lights at night. Who decided that adding more obligations to my schedule was a good thing? If there’s only 5 days until Christmas, that means I only have 12 days to finish up this rough draft. I WILL DO IT!

13 Reasons Today Is Chaotic at My House

1. DS’s Book report speech was due today. Had to scramble to get everything together since he’s supposed to dress up as the character. He lost his mouse nose we bought the other day, so at last minute I had to draw a nose and whiskers on with an old eyebrow/eyeliner pencil that was last used to do DD’s nose when she was a teddy bear in her kindergarten holiday show. She’s now in 5th grade.

2. DS’s Christmas party at school. 12:00 Sounds like it’s going to be fun. Socks filled with flour for a snowball fight, even!

3. DD’s Christmas party at shool. 1:30 — Much tamer room mom organizing the party. Gingerbread houses.

4. DS’s 4th grade holiday chorus performance. 6:30 pm. We have to have him there by 6:15 which means 6pm if we want to park.

5. I’m supposed to cook a healthy dinner in there too? Ugh. I’m sick of eating out.

6. It’s supposed to rain again today. People here don’t know how to drive in the rain. It’s scary!

7. The kids really want to decorate the tree tonight. They were ready last night with homework and everything done (ok except the speech stuff) by 7pm like DH had demanded, but HE ended up working until after 8pm. BahHumbug.

8. I went to the grocery store yesterday and have a fridge full of things that need repackaged to toss in the freezer. There’s some that SHOULD be done today.

9. It’s Thursday! Thursday Thirteen always adds to the chaos. =) But it’s fun.

10. I’m starting to panic over last minute gift ideas, or really any ideas at all, for a few people on our list. DH is worried about variety for the kids, but they’re gonna make out like bandits as usual.

11. I have a brakelight out on my van and should really get that fixed. At the very least I need to call and see when they can fix that and change my oil and all.

12. There’s only 5 days left!

13. There’s probably 14 kazillion other things I’ve forgotten or conflated.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Alice Audrey	2 Jennifer McKenzie	3 Susan Helene Gottfried	4 Carrie Lofty
5 Unusual Historicals	6 Paige Tyler	7 On a Limb with Claudia	8 Helene
9 pussreboots	10 Heather	11 Debbie Mumford	12 Kelly McCrady

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others' comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Back from the Void

A depiction of a void.

The online game that I played had a thing where if you didn’t send in any commands for a long enough period, it would idle you out. Your character was sent to a special room named “The Void”. Before you hit a second time-out point, your next command would put you back into playing mode and send the message that “You have returned from the void.” That’s how I feel right now.

The past week has been rough. It was bad enough to have DS home sick all last week, but to have the Romance Divas forums and chat room also inaccessible was pure hell. You really don’t realize how much you come to rely on certain routines until they’re not there. Thank goodness they switched providers and have let the addicts back in. How am I supposed to de-stress when there’s no de-stress outlet?

Have you ever noticed that once you’re used to a certain amount of procrastination in certain ways, that when it’s removed you can’t function because your routine has been upset? That’s how I’ve felt since it’s been down. I did get some work done, but not a lot. Although one of the other gals offered her forum’s chat space, it had a time-out restriction and that wasn’t very helpful for challenges. It’s hard to stay motivated when you’re always having to pull yourself back in from the void.

What?! I could have caught up on all that RL stuff, you say?! The boy put a serious crimp in my style by staying home. I did get one important set of errands done in the 2 hours he made it to school on Friday. I’m now fighting to convince the girl that she needs to go to school all this week because she doesn’t have a fever or nausea and congestion is just an inconvenience. We still need to decorate the tree now that we have it. Tonight: scouts Weds: martial arts Thurs: DS’s 4th grade Holiday Chorus Fri: martial arts again… Yeah… maybe Santa will do it for us…

I’m still about 6 or 7 pages from the end of the rewrite on Revealed. It’s still sitting at 39, 595 words. I may have to break down and read it before I finish it, just to make sure it’s part of a whole instead of a little dangly bit tacked on at the end.

Anyway, sorry for going so long without an update, there hasn’t been much to update on. I have been doing my daily entries, but nothing too exciting in them. Which reminds me… I still need to write one for today!

Thursday Thirteen: Holiday Prep

I feel like such a Scrooge this year. Our house is the only one on the cul-de-sac that doesn’t have any lights up yet. With temperatures in the 70s and 80s here it STILL doesn’t feel like Christmas is less than three weeks away. My mom got 5″ of snow yesterday. I’m jealous. The kids are starting to ask more pointed questions about Santa this year, filled with comments about what other parents have told their friends. Ahh, the price of growing up.

Anyway, needed to think about these things and do this, so here’s the first 13 things I could think of that will help get our family in the Christmas Spirit.

13 Things To Get Ready For the Holidays

1. Finish coordinating gift lists with DH. Who have we forgotten? Can we avoid duplicates?

2. Hang the lights outside. This is always “fun”. Those “We Install Christmas Lights!” signs are looking pretty tempting!

3. Hang the wreath on the door. DD said she wanted to yesterday, but didn’t.

4. Remove any and all non-essential clutter from the living room so we can…

5. …buy a tree so we can…

6. …decorate it.

7. See if we need any new ornaments. Our Cinnamon Ornaments may need replaced, a bunch had broken last year.

8. Mix up some cookie dough and freeze it so I can bake a dozen when we want ’em.

9. Decide if we’re having Thanksgiving dinner again for Christmas. We usually do.

10. Go Caroling next Saturday with the Cub Scout pack, hopefully it won’t rain this year.

11. Mrs. Santa needs to find some jammies to leave on the kids’ beds.

12. Update my wishlist on Amazon and make DH and the kids update theirs too!

13. Spruce up the dining room table with some more festive decorations.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Susan Helene Gottfried	2 Gina	3 Patti Ann Colt	4 Jennifer McKenzie
5 Kelly McCrady	6 Alice Audrey	7 Gina Ardito	8 Debbie Mumford
9 Dayle	10	11	12

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Thursday Thirteen: Happy Thanksgiving

13 Things I’m Thankful for Today

1. My Husband — He puts up with me and all my baggage. He believes in me even when I don’t. *tonk*

2. My Monsters — Thing 1 and Thing 2 — They may drive me insane, but I love them dearly. They have their precious moments too. Every time I sniffle now, the boy asks if I want my nasal spray so I can breathe again. So sweet.

3. Extended Family — We often drift away from our families, taking them for granted, but I’m thankful they’re a part of our lives even when we live so far away from everyone else.

4. Friends — These people help keep me going. I don’t appreciate them enough on a regular basis, but I try to make their lives easier when I can as well.

5. A Comfortable Cave — We’re a bit too comfortable in it at times, but I’m very thankful that we still have a roof over our heads and we were merely inconvenienced last month with the wildfires. Luckily very few people we know were directly affected by the fires as well.

6. A Comfortable Life — I’m very thankful for the fact that I don’t have to worry about whether there’s enough money in the couch os we can go get something to eat for dinner or having to count every penny at the grocery store. I like walking in and picking up what looks good and in the brands I know taste good. Yes, I’m spoiled now. See #1.

7. Our Health — I’m thankful that for the few problems we have, there are effective treatments. It could always be so much worse and I feel blessed that we have options.

8. Creativity — I’d have gone insane a long time ago without the need to be creative. You can’t escape the creative forces in our house between the music, the art, the craft supplies which are often used in very creative ways, to the kitchen where recipes are only starting points.

9. Romance Divas — Especially the FlanTastics, Cup o’ Noodles and everyone else that hangs out in the Live Chat room looking to challenge and commiserate.

10-13. Modern Conveniences — I so could not have survived 100 years ago without computers, the internet, microwaves and indoor plumbing. I mean, I could have, but I wouldn’t have wanted to. Now, 200 years ago, as long as there were servants to do most of the things we take for granted like the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc tha seem like chores today… we don’t know how easy we have it because of all the other obligations heaped on us.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Savannah Chase	2 Heather	3 Jennifer McKenzie	4 Haven Rich
5 Alice Audrey	6	7	8

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Thursday Thirteen: Candy Loot!

At our house, Halloween Candy lasts until Valentine’s Day. I may have actually forgotten to throw out last year’s loot. While it’s bundled into Ziploc bags with the kids’ names on them, I can resist the temptation. It’s that whole out of sight, out of mind thing too. We only had two bunches of trick-or-treaters come by the house last night. This was in addition to the 4 we sent out to beg for sugar. DD’s figured out that our neighborhood gets better hauls than her friends who live in apartment complexes with lots of kids so she’s usually inviting someone else along for the fun. DH said they saw like five other groups last night. Ahh, the joys of living in a community with mostly retired folks.

Ok, so _why_ does candy last that long at our house? DD is a type I diabetic, so we dole it out in small quantities over time. The next couple of week’s she’ll think of it constantly and beg and cajole for pieces at every possible chance. Eventually, the out of sight, out of mind thing will kick in for her as well and it’ll sit lonely and ignored in the cupboard until I think to grab something to toss in their lunch box.

I decided I’d make a cheat sheet this year as I’m tired of looking everything up all the time, so I picked the 13 most popular candies at our house and figured out the carb counts for a single piece. This way I can refer back and easily add up the totals so she can take the correct insulin dose easily even when mixing and matching. BTW, the Daily Plate was helpful for figuring out the unlabled ones — they also have calories and other nutritional info.

1. Nestle’s Crunch Fun Size	8.67g
2. KitKat Snack Size	9g
3. Pay Day Snack Size	10g
4. Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Snack Size	8.33g
5. Milky Way Fun Size	12g
6. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (1 piece)	12g
7. Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups	5g
8. Twix Fun Size	10g
9. Butterfinger Fun Size	15g
10. Almond Joy Fun Size	10g
11. Plain M&Ms Fun Size	12.5g
12. Skittles Fun Size	17.5g
13. Starburst (2 squares)	8.25g