Agh. Trying to write the Gen. Bio. final. All multiple choice, 100 questions, comprehensive. My mind does not work in multiple-choice mode. I am more of an essay-question person. So I make questions that are either way too simple or are confusing.

Anyway, as a break from all that, I'm going to jump in on a little meme I've seen threading its way through some of the knit blogs:

A List of My Favorite Things:

1. Coming home on an afternoon when I don't have anything I need to do, and finding several magazines or interesting catalogs in the mailbox. Mail is very important to me.

2. Those few lazy days between the spring semester and the summer semester, or between the summer semester and the fall semester.

3. Making bruschetta using tomatoes from my own garden

4. Shopping at the garden center for more plants. Or at the used bookstore. Or in a yarn shop. Or in a quilt shop.

5. Being at home, not having to go out again, and having it be pouring down rain or snow or sleeting outside. And me being safe in my nice house and being able to laugh at the weather because I don't have to go out in it.

6. Seeing a pattern and realizing it would be perfect for some yarn I have in my stash already.

7. Starting a new project. Just being in the groove of working on something.

8. Hanging out with the women in my bookclub at a time when none of them have elected to bring their children to the meeting, so we can really TALK without that maternal half-attention-elsewhere thing going on.

9. Iced spiced chai tea.

10. Just taking a day and getting out, going somewhere. Usually that somewhere is McKinney, because it's "away" and yet not too far. And, I admit it with some degree of embarrassment, I do love to shop.

11. Going out to eat somewhere and being able to tell someone "this is what I want to eat," having it brought to me, and having the dirty dishes taken away when I'm done.

12. Curling up in bed at the end of the day with an interesting book, and just my reading lamp on, a puddle of light in an otherwise dark room. (Currently, I'm using the only IKEA product I have in my house, an "Antifoni" lamp that my brother and sister in law gave me for Christmas a year ago). Starting a new book, or rereading a book I read a long time ago and loved, and remembering how I felt or where I was when I first read that book.

13. Having all my work done, my house clean, and being able to just sit down and work away on some project for several hours with no feeling of guilt at all.

14. Making homemade pizza, or some other somewhat-complicated-but-not-too-many-dirty-pans-generating food. Having time to cook.

15. Coming home and finding a big box of books, or yarn, or fabric that I mailordered has arrived

16. Finding out that there's a "marathon" of some show I really like on the tv on a day when I'm tired, and at home, and just want to veg in front of the television and knit.

17. (This will probably never happen again) Taking a Saturday morning in Ann Arbor, going down to the Treasure Mart right after it opens for the day, shopping around at all the weird/funky/nice stuff people have brought in during the week, maybe buying a thing or two, and then going to the Farmer's Market on my way home and picking up fruits and vegetables for the week, and buying one of the "Fudgy Oat Bars" that one of the sellers used to sell back when I lived there. I miss the whole thing - being able to walk to where I wanted to go (and not being harrassed by rude drivers on the way, or have people who don't understand that anyone would ever want to WALK anywhere ask me where my car has broken down and can they call a tow truck for me). Walking through the quiet residential neighborhoods around Kerrytown, and it being all quiet and nice and fairly clean compared to the campus area. And the bustle of the Treasure Mart on a Saturday morning, and never knowing what I would find for sale there (found some great costume jewelry, and also lots of neat old linens, and sometimes even furniture-type pieces). Then going to the Farmer's Market, and just the feeling of the authenticity and funkiness and realness of it all, and how different it was from the grungy groceries near campus, how it was clean and nice and people cared about the stuff they were selling, and would talk to you...And then walking home in the sunshine, carrying my little string bag of produce and maybe a bigger bag of stuff from the Treasure Mart, and just feeling free and happy and the worries of the weekdays on campus receded for that day...