The Letter of the Day is “C”

1. Curious George – was one of my favorite kid’s PBS shows before MM even garnered an interest in the cute curious monkey that is now one of his two (2) favorite “celebrities” (Elmo being the other obvious favorite). I wonder sometimes if I forced this favorite upon him, but I’m going with the whole “the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree” theory instead. I have since bought him a C.G. storybook and now every night he asks me to read him “George” which really just means read him a bedtime story in general, but he calls them all George…

2. Chocolate – Is my undoing – any diet sounds well and fine until you mention me cutting back on chocolate – seriously? Isn’t pretty much any meal improved with the introduction of chocolate in some form? Except maybe corn on the cob, but seriously other than that, why torture me?

3. Corolla – my main mode of transportation is my trusty green Toyota (my husband drives a marginally trustworthy red Toyota Camry that is pretty much on it’s last leg so to speak) Corolla – it got me through the second half of college and has continued with us since – it doesn’t look as pretty now that three slobs practically live in it (that includes me, but I’m not as bad as MM or DH) – I like my car a lot, but it’s getting a bit cramped already – when Baby #2 is born it might need to hit the road jack…

4. CR-V – by Honda is ironically one of my next choices (if not, then a Toyota Matrix, but that doesn’t begin with a C so it’s not really relevant) – we’re not sure which we’ll go with for out next vehicle – depends on cost of gas, size of family, etc. but we are digging on the CR-V in many many ways.

5. cheesecake – Not being much of a cake person, I frequently have cheesecake on my birthday instead – my wedding cake was a baklava cheesecake – delicious and so me. I’m kind of picky about my cheesecake but that doesn’t necessarily mean I want a high end cheesecake – and I don’t have a problem with things being cheesecake flavored, etc. – it just has to taste good – maybe that doesn’t mean picky, maybe it just means I don’t like crap… hmmm…

6. Crossword puzzles – I love word puzzles, like crossword, but I’m not always great at them – in fact, I’m usually the opposite of great and I have a tendency of cheating and looking up words I’m struggling with, justifying that I’m still enhancing my vocabulary which is kind of the whole point, right? Right??

7. Church – I was baptized a Protestant and even went to a Sunday school preschool – but that’s mostly because it was a good form of “daycare” – my family is not overly religious – it’s not something we’ve ever stressed. But growing up I saw how important religion was to others and constantly felt a need to have a part of that – to find my religion, whatever it was. I tried on Catholicism for awhile, toyed with the idea of Baptists, and then came to a strange truth – I don’t believe in organized religion – I don’t see any way of having complete certainty one way or another and I think ostracizing others for not following your beliefs is silly and wrong. I think spirituality should always be a personal thing, because in a lot of ways we’re just fantasizing – we all have our own unique way of seeing things and that’s great – why start killing and fighting over the differences when the differences are what make us human? I don’t know what waits for me in the afterlife, but I’m pretty sure this is the only life I’m getting and that I should appreciate it and live it in every way I’m capable of. Be good to others, all that jazz.

8. Christmas – I always seem to do Christmas wrong – I either wait too late and feel stressed, or start too early and burn myself out before I get there. I have a love hate relationship with Christmas music and the commercialism of the holiday and I’m not sure what I want out of Christmas ultimately – where I want to go, how much or how little I want to do. I love Christmas, adored it as a child despite being born on Christmas Eve and having every right to loathe it – but I’m still getting to know it, inside of my new family. Part of me still wants to believe in Santa, despite several proven points to the contrary.

9. Cookies – I am a cookie baking master. It’s like that one thing I excel at – I am baffled by how poorly other people make cookies. I’ll admit, I don’t necessarily cook it from scratch and I don’t make many varieties as I tend to only bake cookies I like to eat, but when I make them, they’re good. I have an excellent track record. So I may not be a world class chef, but I do have my certain areas I kick ass in.

10. Creative Writing – I call myself a writer, some days, when I feel the need to define who I am and how I exist outside of motherhood, although the truth is I am far more a mother than a writer. I don’t write much these days, outside of this blog, but I do love to write. Poetry is probably my favorite, but I write sad love poetry the best and being married, don’t have much ammunition. I would love to write fiction but have a problem with follow through – I have more half started stories than I care to think about, and may not ever finish any of them. But I still love to write almost as much as I love to read.

11. Classical Music – has never been my thing, but not because I’m not cultured or whatever – for one, I really like words – I’m a writer, guys, a lack of words is like a lack of the whole point for me. My husband is the exact opposite – if the music isn’t really good, it doesn’t matter how good the lyrics are, he probably wasn’t listening to them anyway. This baffles me – I have no musical background and outside of personal preference wouldn’t recognize good music if it fluted me up the – my point is, it’s all about the lyrics for me – I love clever little details in a song – unique ways of saying something, even if it’s only unique vocally, I dig it. I get excited about music and musicians. But I don’t think I’ve ever gotten excited about classical music.

12. Cutting my bread at Subway – Okay, I’m stretching here, but gosh sometimes 13 is a big number – so if any of you are old school Subway veterans I think you know what I’m getting at here – a few years back they started cutting their bread straight down the middle, rather than carving out a top and bottom – does that make sense? Well for all you cold cut sandwich people this might not have seemed like a big deal – but my favorite sub is the meatball – which is now crazy messy and ridiculous to eat thanks to their lazy cutting methods of late. For awhile I could get by, asking them to cut it “the old way” and the guys behind the counter would nod and smile and confide they prefer the old way also. We had a camaraderie, it was good. But these new subway employees have no brains – they were born yesterday and clearly never ate at Subway before gaining employment there – or I’m really that old and nobody remembers the old way anymore, but ugh. Even the service went downhill from here – and I’m a stickler for good customer service – I dated a Subway employee once because he had such great work ethic, new my orders by heart, cut my bread the old way, and okay so he probably had a crush on me and did all this on purpose, but REALLY – have I mentioned it was my husband’s work ethic that also first attracted me to him? Seriously?

13. Customer Service – and because I can’t change the subject when I’ve beat it into the ground in a bloody pulp – seriously? What is with poor customer service? Don’t stand there looking bored and complaining about oh woe is you – this is your job people – it’s how you earn your living – take some pride in it! I don’t care if you flip burgers – at least make an attempt to flip the best damned burgers in the place – that is how you rise above, people, it’s how you get a raise, a promotion – it’s how you go from Christmas help to Children’s Manager at the local bookstore. I should know. I’ve worked in retail on and off for nine (9) years and I’m serious – customer service is the bread and butter and I have no respect for people with a sloppy work ethic – if you don’t like your job, get another one – stop wasting my time – stop pouting and grow up.

So – who’s still planning to read my blog in the future? haha Sorry if I went off the deep end on what was supposed to be a light hearted, care free T13 meme of the Thursday. I promise to be nicer tomorrow. 🙂

To join in on the T13 fun, create an entry on your own blog, then head over to the Thursday Thirteen blog and add a link to your adobe. And if you have the time, be sure to check out other T13 contestants – cause making new bloggy friends is pretty much the whole point of these little bloggy blogfest memes.