1. I do not like this holiday overlap so prevalent today, yet my tree is up and ready. Inconsistency, thy name is Jane.

2. I host Thanksgiving for my family, and I look forward to it with an avidity that is actually frightening, and would probably scare ‘em all off if they knew how much I love having them here in my house.

3. When I do not feel useful, I do not feel as if I existed.

4. I carry grudges against people who have hurt someone I love for a long time.

5. I used to be our local school system’s Number One Advocate and Fan, but now that I know a little more about their priorities and methods, I genuinely believe they are Satan’s minions. No exaggeration.

6. I have been listening to Christmas music since Halloween.

7. If I never hear another modernized, rap-style version of “Santa Baby” again, it will be too soon.

8. Sometimes, someone’s rendition of “We Three Kings” will make me cry. The good kind.

9. I hope no ladybug beetles fall onto someone’s plate during dinner on Thursday.

10. My nephew loves to mow, so I’m kind of hoping he’ll bring his mower and let her rip on my grass when he comes. The weather has been so warm, the grass keeps growing.

11. I’ve gone down eight sizes since this time last year.

I was never good at math; it’s the only thing Barbie and I have in common.

1.  Ugly Betty is starting to get on my nerves.  Why can’t these people just tell the truth to each other?

2.  Scrubs is over.  It had a good ending, but I’m still sad.

3.  Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. . . . the phone rang all day with annoying robots and wrong numbers, and now that I’m expecting a real call, the phone is silent.

4.  My students are not afraid to bare their emotions on paper and in discussions.  This is a good and wonderful thing.  I might love them even more now.

5.  This blog is not allowing my IE friends to comment, and sometimes, not even to read.  If anyone knows what is causing this, please email me, because this issue is killing me.

6.  How can a person this tired still not be able to sleep?

7.  It’s cold here now.  I do not approve of this.

8.  My textbook is full of errors.  This is absolutely and 100% unacceptable.  Where are the editors?  WHO are the editors?  I could look, but that’s work.

9.  Eric Mabius is cute.

10.  So is Tony Plana.

1.  My two cats follow me all over the house, and lie down to nap only when I sit.  They fight over who gets to nap on the table by my left arm.  The loser naps on my feet.

2.  My BlogHer tiara is beside my laptop.  I might wear it on occasion.

3.  Everyone neat and pretty?  NEAT AND PRETTY!  Today is Tuesday!  You know what that means!  (Every Tuesday I lie in wait for my husband to say “Today is Tuesday” just so I can finish the quote!)  Yes, I was so obsessed with the original Mickey Mouse Club as a child that I would pull my little chair as close to the tv screen as possible and positively quiver with anticipation.  I wore my Mickey Mouse ears, propped my Mouseketeer doll against my feet, and held my Mouseguitar in my lap.  To this day I can still hum the Mouseketeer song backwards, because, being me, that’s how I liked to turn the little handle on the guitar and play the song.

4.  I did the same thing with my Jack-in-the-box – turned the handle backwards and memorized the tune both ways. The “Jack” only annoyed me; he interrupted the melody!

5.  We have a few fragile Christmas ornaments that play music when you turn the tiny handle.  It takes a lot of will power for me NOT to do the backwards melody thing with them.  I have a feeling it would break them, and that’s the only thing that holds me back.  If I thought I could blame the cats, I might do it anyway.

6.  Blog Indiana is in a few days.  I’m really looking foward to it!  There are still a few tickets available; why don’t YOU go, too?  I’ll share my SweeTarts with you!  (What’s a seminar without SweeTarts?)

7.  Does anybody know what happened to Opie’s mother?

8.  I am an unbelievable nitpicker when it comes to continuity in plotlines.   Continuity is important, even in a tv show.  For example, if someone has a sister in one show, that character should not be portrayed as an only child in other segments.  If someone’s wife is named Mildred in several episodes, that same wife should not be referred to as Lorraine later on.  If a man’s  son is a dentist whose wife has a baby girl in one episode,  that same man should not be portrayed as having only a daughter in a later show.  Bonus points if you know which show.

9.    Betty Suarez’s nerdy boyfriend Henry?  That guy who always said “It’s just something I know”?  I thought he was one adorable sexy dude until he got his OTHER girlfriend pregnant.  Then I just thought he was an idiot.

10.  I do love a good book-on-tape in the car!   My husband made fun of my mega-beloved unabridged Jane Eyre book-on-cd until his brain became accustomed to the language and he got hooked on the plotline.  But I’ll never tell.

It’s after 4 a.m. , so G’night, all.

1. By the time most of you read this, I’ll be in Colorado at Science in the Rockies, having a fantastic time, learning incredible things, meeting amazing people,  and collecting unbelievable swag.  There are a lot of people in Colorado whom I love dearly;  CALL ME!

2.  My feet are killing me.

3.  It’s hard to find a little travel laptop mouse any more.  Thank you, Big Lots.

4.  My house is a mess.  I didn’t straighten it up before I left.  This fact does not bother me overmuch.

5.  I did run all the dirty dishes through the dishwasher, though.  I can’t abide a sink of dirty dishes.

6.  My husband will be subbing for me at the college.  We’re leaving in a half hour, so I really should get some lesson plans ready for him.  Ouch.

7.  This has been a lovely, happy summer so far.

8.  I have a potty mouth.  It’s a good one, too.  I was an English major.  This fact shames me, but not as much as it makes me giggle.

9.  I always worry that I’ll say something dreadful and make a roomful of people gasp and draw back.  See #8.  I do not want this to happen.  Ever.  Eventually, it will.

10.  I am very, very, very, very, very shy.  $%^&*()&%^&*())(*&^%^&*)(#$ shy.

2.

1.  It didn’t rain today, and all the plants, animals, and people are in shock.  I mean to say, we don’t know what to do with ourselves.  We’re peeking out of the ark and seeing sunlight.  I guess one of us should send a dove out to scope for land.

2.  All the plants in the WalMart nursery are marked down to quarters and fitty-cent pieces, so I bought a few Gerbera daisies, black-eyed Susans,  and coleus to fill in the dead spots where what I planted before was washed away or dissolved like the Wicked Witch of the West.

3.  4-gig flash drives are on sale at Big Lots for ten bucks.  I thought that was a pretty good deal.  I’m a sucker for a good electronics bargain.

4.  I wish I could get my hair cut before BlogHer.  I also wish I could lose a hundred pounds before BlogHer, but neither one is going to happen.  Not unless I figure out how to win the lottery and conquer the space/time continuum in the next few days.  Don’t hold your breath.

5.  I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow at 2:30, and I have a creepy feeling that he’s going to take one look at my bloodwork and say the words “daily injection,” whereupon I will not freak out, exactly, but I might have to go to the gym and run on the treadmill until it makes like a cartoon treadmill and falls apart, revealing all kinds of gears and sproingy springs and whirly things underneath, all run by a frantically sprinting hamster in one of those little Ferris wheel-like cage-wheels.  I guess some might call that freaking out, but I don’t.  When I freak out, you’ll know it.

6.  I’m sure I don’t know why I haven’t lost any more weight lately.  My recent late-night ham sandwich swimming in Miracle Whip obsession can’t have anything to do with it.

7.  I have a lovely stone planter full of blooming rosebushes, but nobody can see it because while I mowed around it just the other day, nobody here has trimmed around it yet this summer and the grass  is over two feet tall, totally obliterating both the roses and anybody’s chance of seeing them until something is done.  Again, don’t hold your breath.  It’s a kind of test I’m giving.

8.  We had Grecco’s pizza for supper.  It had been a while, and it was really good.  Porking down in the restaurant did not, however, prevent me from my current ham sandwich swimming in Miracle Whip fetish a few minutes ago.

9.  Just can’t seem to lose any more weight.  It’s a mystery.  I must have hit a plateau; I’ve read about them and my situation matches.

10.  Fat chicks are really, really good at rationalizing their own stupid behaviors.

1.  Today was the first day of summer session.  So far, so good; my students seem very nice.

2.  I might be falling in love with “my” treadmill at the gym.

3.  The tractor is fixed, and the grass has been cut.

However,

4.  I looked out the window and couldn’t see the roses.  Might be time to break out the weed-eater.

5.  The people next door have tiny kittens.  I watched them frolicking in their front yard today – I could feel the uncontrollable “awwwwwwws” swelling up so fast, I almost choked.

6.  Schwan’s has some caramel pecan praline ice cream that’s pretty good.  You just watch: now that I’ve said that publically, they’ll discontinue it.  Story of my life.  (still mourning Bruester’s chocolate pecan, and still haven’t been back since whatever blundering idiot decided to mark it off the menu.)

7.  Still haven’t unpacked my suitcase.  I’m not sick or anything, just lazy.

8.  I learned so much at WordCamp!  It was simply amazingly great.  One thing I learned:  on Ten Things Tuesday, I don’t really HAVE to have ten things.

9.  I am so hungry, even the raisins are starting to look good.  And, I loathe raisins.  They look like dead bugs; they feel like those big Halloween wax buck teeth we used to chew up after they’d served their purpose, and they taste like spongy ear wax.

1.  I’m in Pocatello, Idaho this week.

2.  It’s not raining here!

3.  My brother’s kids are cool.

4.  My brother and sister-in-law are cool.

5.  Having a laptop so I can do my writing wherever I might be is cool.

6.  Our country really is massively large, and the flora, fauna, and stores are different when you travel a long way from home.

7.  Did you think it was odd that I included “stores” in #6?  Did you really?  Well, the stores ARE different when you travel.

8.  Many stores are the same, but who wants to travel two thousand miles to shop at the same stores I could go to at home?  Ditto for restaurants.

9.  The mountains are  beautiful.

10.  Airplanes are equal parts science and magic.  Dispute it if you will.

1. I’m on vacation! between semesters right now, so I’ve actually SLEPT! It was awesome; I’d almost forgotten how!

2. My house is still tidy from having company last week.  I hope it lasts.

3.  When I say “tidy,” I mean, naturally, every room except the master bedroom.  That’s where we threw everything to make the rest of the house tidy.

4.  I like my house better when it’s full of people.  I don’t do “peace and quiet” very well.  I don’t like it.  No, sir, I don’t.  In fact, I hate it.

5.  Cats are good company, but they don’t need me to cook for them.

6.  I do love to cook for large groups.

7.  There are large tree-shaped shadows all over the grounds, and there’s a big blazing ball of sunlight in the blue sky.  I haven’t seen any of these things in so long, I’d almost forgotten.  Being a character in “All Summer in a Day” was no fun.

8.  I’m going to visit my brother and his family in Idaho next week.

9.  I hate clutter.  Why do I have some?

10.  It’s more fun putting leaves in the table than it is taking them out.

1.  I’m tired.

2.  I have forty essays to grade before I can go to bed.

3.  It’s almost 3 a.m.

4.  They are not good essays.

5.  They are, in fact, terrible essays.

6.  Spell-check is not your friend.  Spell-check is not anybody’s friend.   Spell-check will stab you in the back and exit, laughing.

7.  Repeat after me:  “Anyways” is not a real word.

8.  Commit this to memory:  “Done” is not a helping verb.  People who say things like  “I done went” make baby angels cry.

9.  Thank you, certain members of my Monday morning class, for those VERY kind e-mails.

10.  People who have a bone to pick with someone, but who proceed to pick that bone with everyone EXCEPT the person involved, are cowards.    Thass what I said.

11.  Idioms are funky and fun.

Eleven is a cool number.  Christopher Guest’s amp goes to eleven.  Wizard kids go to Hogwarts when they’re eleven.  I’ll just stop at eleven.

Except, of course, that I didn’t.  Not really.

1.  You’re never too old for a popsicle.

2.  8-gig SD cards for nine dollars?   I’ll take two, please.  Thank you, Amazon.

3.  Stinky ladybug beetles are starting to drop down on my furniture.  Where did they live all winter?  Wait, don’t tell me.  I bet I don’t want to know.

4.  Educating Rita, starring a young Mrs. Molly Weasley the fabulous Julie Walters, is one of my favorite movies.

5.  Speaking of popsicles, I wish I could buy a box of grape, and not have to bother with cherry and orange.  Orange popsicles aren’t all that bad, but the cherry popsicles taste like medicine, and that’s a fact.

6.  Speaking of Julie Walters, I loved her in Calendar Girls, too.

7.  I’ve been a fan of Jim Dale ever since Pete’s Dragon, and he always made the Tony Awards shine brighter, too.  Now I’m listening to his ABSOLUTELY AWESOME voice as he reads all of the Harry Potter audiobooks aloud to me as I drive back and forth to the main campus, and I’ve fallen in lust love with him all over again.  That voice.  That. . . voice. . . . . I know he’s old now.  I don’t care.

8.  Speaking of Harry Potter, I really don’t think it’s fair that they’re fiction, and that I’m far too old to be a Hogwarts student.  I guess sitting with Minerva McGonagall would be better than nothing, and probably a lot of fun; I bet she’d be a hoot to hang out with, actually.  I could live in the castle quite happily.  When I’m under the spell of Jim Dale’s voice, I have to remind myself:  FICTION!!!!!!!  And it’s such a letdown.  Sigh.  Oh, I know, I know.  I’m unreasonably immature.

9.  I do tend to insert myself into books and movies that I love.  Not as the author or screenwriter’s character, though: as myself.    See #8 above.

10.  Who ate all my popsicles?  Oh wait, that was me.