Come, Mommy

This post has been sitting on my dashboard in draft mode for a while now. I’ve looked at it several times this week and noticed that it is so close to finished that if I just had an hour of quiet, I could not only finish this post, but I could also fix some typos on my sidebar. So I found the time tonight and I’m going to finish this baby up!

Six (or Seven) Things About Me

I’ve been tagged by Amy over at What i Am and by Julie over at Bookworm for the “Six Things” meme. Actually, Amy’s version of it is really “Seven Things”, so if I can think of one more interesting, wacky, or otherwise post-worthy thing about me after I’ve written six of them, I’ll go for the seventh.

1. I am a flutist. I haven’t played with any regularity in years, but I used to be pretty good at the instrument. I went to a fine arts high school on a flute scholarship, and I minored in music in college. I did play a bit in grad school, but that’s going on ten years ago now. I really hope when the boys get older I can find some time to play again.

2. I am also a singer. I didn’t sing in high school or college. At those stages in my life I was convinced I couldn’t carry a tune. But a few years ago my desire to learn something about singing became strong enough to convince me to join a local women’s a capella group (no audition needed). I enjoyed that, so when the women’s group folded, I tried my hand at a larger community SATB chorus. And had a blast. I sang with them when Liam was tiny, but stopped when I was getting to the end of my last pregnancy. I’d love to go back, and as soon as the kids grow up a bit, I think I will. Right now, with the needs of two small boys on my hands, I’d miss too many rehearsals to meet the stringent attendance policy.  But kids grow quickly, I’m having a lot of fun with them now, and choir will wait a few years, I’m sure.

3. I love irises. Actually, I love most of the Spring blooming perennials, but irises are my absolute favorites. My grandfather, who was one of the most loving and strong influences in my life, worked tirelessly in his retirement years cultivating an absolutely breathtaking iris garden. I would love to try my hand at an iris bed, too. I’m eyeing a spot in our front yard, and I may try planting just a few bulbs this Fall to see how it goes. Maybe I’ll plant some yellows and some light purples – as a child I loved the cheery yellows, while Granddaddy preferred the more subdued lavender.

4. I have a long history of owning exotic and just plain strange pets. When I was growing up I had the usual dog, cats, guinea pig, hamsters, and gerbils. But that is not the end of the story. As a result of having a mom who loved animals as much as I do (and who taught at a vet school and so ran into exotic critters fairly regularly), we were graced with, at various times, a Great Horned Owl, a litter of piglets, a red fox, a large tortoise, a group of Red Slider turtles, grasshoppers (we wintered their eggs over in our freezer, so we ended up with several generations of them), and last but now least, Sea Monkeys. All of the stranger animals came to us as orphaned or injured animals. My mom would tend to them until they were ready to go back to the wild, and the ones who couldn’t survive on their own were found permanent homes in safe sanctuaries or zoos. Except the pigs. They moved in with our next-door neighbors and became beloved pets.

5. My professional background is chemistry. I worked as a research chemist for a pharmaceutical house for four years between college and grad school, and then after grad school I taught college general and organic chemistry. Then the kiddos came along. I am a medicinal chemist with a specific interest in antibiotic design and development. But all this is not the odd part. The odd part is that I am a third-generation chemist. Both my grandmother and grandfather were petroleum chemists for the US Government. My grandmother’s elder sister, my Aunt Esther, was also a chemist. She got her PhD in organic chemistry in the 1930′s sometime, and I assume she was one of the first women to earn a chemistry PhD from an American University. And my father was a chemist. He earned his BS in chemistry, worked in industry for a while, and then went to grad school in business. He spent the rest of his career as a business professor with a specific interest in the petroleum and petroleum by-product industries.

6. I love trains. Real trains, toy trains, freight trains, passenger trains, any kind of train. I had a big model railroad layout in our basement when I was in elementary school, and I really hope Liam keeps up his strong interest in trains so that the two of us can build a similar layout when he’s old enough. This interest comes in handy in my current profession of motherhood. I may be the only mom around who knows all the Thomas characters on sight, I don’t mind talking (almost) endlessly about trains, and I’m usually up for playing with trains.

7. And here’s my seventh thing – I love sleep. I don’t get enough of it most nights since I also like to read blogs, read books, and knit. So I made myself a rule – no computer use after 9:00 unless it’s an emergency. Something about screen time gets my brain all worked up, and I can’t fall asleep right away after using a computer. Since I started that rule I’ve been much happier, so I intend to keep it up. All of which means I need to click “publish” in the next few minutes!

1,2,3

Julie also tagged me for the 1,2,3 meme. For this game. my mission is to go to page 123 of the nearest book, find the the fifth sentence, and then quote the next three sentences. At the end of the game I get to tag seven of you lovely readers. Those of you who are tagged get to leave a comment on the blog of the person second from the end on my list and do the memes yourself. Here we go!

Now I must relocate to another room, as all I can find here are children’s picture books. None of them even approaches 123 pages, nor has five sentences on one page. So here we go, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle……

AHA!

I just found my copy of Laundry: The Home Comforts Book of Caring for Clothes and Linens by Cheryl Mendelson.

Non-wool blankets are almost always machine washable and machine-dryable, assuming that your washer and dryer are large enough for them. Blankets should be washed singly, one by one. To be sure a blanket will fit, try it out in both your washer and your dryer before proceeding.

This is a wonderful book that has saved many sweaters, tops, diapers, and items of children’s clothing for me. It is an intellectual’s guide to laundry. It was a fun read the first time around, and now is a valuable reference book. It has a companion book that takes the same approach to the larger realm of housekeeping and is also a terrific read and a great reference.It’s a gigundo homemaking manual, and you can find an answer to just about any household query in its pages. In these days of Google there are not many real paper books that I actually keep handy as everyday references, but these two do reside on an easy-to-get-to shelf in our living room.

TAG!

And there you have it – two memes. As my self-imposed curfew came around an hour ago, I am going to tag some lucky readers and vamoose before I have to ground myself or suspend my allowance for a week.

Hope all of you enjoyed reading these memes, and now – Chichimama, Victoria, Christy, Suzanne, Steph, Lindy, and Kate, you’re it!