Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Tuesday Links

Here are some folks that have taken the plunge and written some great Top 20/Bottom 10 lists. Check 'em out -

Amanda - Mom to three and maker of amazing cakes that you have to see to believe. She wrote a list for her anniversary. I can't believe it's been 11 years!!

Lahdeedah - Eternal job-hunter, and mom to twin toddler boys and a drama queen "tween."

Kris - Scrapbooker extraordinaire and Mom to two energetic boys.

Mommy Daisy - Teacher turned stay at home mom to Zachariah

Monday, April 21, 2008

My Sunday

Better start this blog off with a Top 20/Bottom 10 list, right? It's easy to make a list. It goes in no particular order, you just put down what comes to mind. Today's list is about my day yesterday, which honestly, seemed more bad than good at one point, but you'll see...

TOP 20
1. preschool girls wearing boots with dresses
2. my son's full body smiley, happy, kicking reaction when he sees me
3. husband helping get the kids ready for church
4. my kids all dressed up in church clothes, buckled in to their carseats
5. my Sharing Time lesson at church, which rocked
6. stories of Thomas S. Monson when he was a boy
7. rainy Sunday afternoons
8. really good home-made cheesesteaks
9. re-enacting Cinderella with a 3-year-old princess
10. toast with butter and home-made strawberry jam
11. naps
12. not having to pay to water the garden
13. Rock Band
14. funny new blogs
15. backyard chicken coops
16. the "blow-out" protection of Pampers
17. DVR
18. piles of folded laundry
19. folded laundry in drawers and not on the floor
20. new Desperate Housewives episodes

BOTTOM 10
1. shopping on rainy days
2. packed grocery stores
3. 10 minute run-into-the-store that turns into 1+ hours of shopping
4. the car battery dying in the pick-up lane at the packed grocery store
5. trying to find someone to give you a jump
6. rusted out jumper cables that don't work
7. trying to find someone else to give you a jump
8. blocking traffic in the pick-up lane at a packed grocery store during a downpour
9. fighting with husband about how to jump-start a car (I was right!)
10. hungry kids crying in the backseat

Whose idea was this, anyway?

I can't take credit for the idea of Top 20/Bottom 10 lists. No, that honor goes back almost 20 years to my college days when a whole bunch of repressed kids at a religious school got together and decided to publish an underground student newspaper. I felt like such a rebel working on that paper, where the most controversial writing was either about how we didn't like going to church (gasp) or how unfair the Honor Code was. (Curfews? No drinking? No sex? No fair!!).

The kids that worked on that paper were talented, witty and maybe a bit jaded. Let me put it like this - If Alanis Morrisette had gone to my school when she was recording Jagged Little Pill she would have worked on this paper.

The most popular section of the paper was dedicated to the issue's Top 20 Bottom 10 list. To brainstorm the list we'd just get together and shout out what we thought was good and bad. Stuff like U2, the Honor Code, oil spills, Janet Reno, Janet Reno naked, Beavis and Butthead, Loreena Bobbitt, penises, not getting your penis cut off, Michael Jackson, and other very important and world-shattering things. We had a great time with it, and although I'm poking some fun at the paper, it was actually a much needed outlet.

The paper's gone now, but the T20B10 lives on with me and at least one other - Stacey. Go check out some of her lists, they're great!

And in the meantime, make one of your own. It's fun, insightful, slightly therapeutic and positive (yes, you have to come up with twice the number of "Top" things as "Bottom" things.) Save your list and read it in a month or year or so. You'll be amazed at how it'll trigger memories and emotions of the time when you wrote it.