Monday Listicles: 10 Songs
I’m always ready to make a list of songs (unless you ask me to actually rank them – I’m not good at choosing favorites), so 10 Songs, with no specific restriction is a wonderful Listicles topic if you ask me. I decided to focus my list on songs I like to listen to at a very high volume, with the windows down, in the car. And then I like to sing them as loud as I can. If my girls are in the car to be embarrassed or sing along, depending on the song, that’s just a bonus. These are in no particular order, other than the order I thought of them.
10 Songs to Listen to with the Windows Down
1. Thao, Bag of Hammers – We saw Thao open for Rilo Kiley a few years ago and I’ve never forgotten the incredible performance of this song, which is one of my absolute favorites to sing and can always cheer me up.
2. Liz Phair, Greased Lightning – I was going to choose Mayqueen for my Liz Phair song because it’s probably my favorite for loud-listening, but I already used it on my soundtrack post, so I’m going with Grease Lightning instead. Of course I can’t find a video for it, but that just means it’s extra good. A few of our favorite Liz songs are from a demo album we got years and years ago, so they’re harder to find.
3. Rilo Kiley, A Better Son/Daughter – I just can’t even express how much I love this song, but I do. When we first got into Rilo Kiley, I somehow missed this song, but when I heard them perform it live I found out what I was missing.
4. Blues Traveler, Run-around – I loved this song so much my senior year of high school. I’m certain Lee remembers me wanting to listen to it on all of our road trips the summer after I graduated. Because it’s awesome.
5. Paul Simon, Bernadette – This song is from the Songs from the Capeman soundtrack, which is amazing if you didn’t know. This one’s doo-wop and so much fun to sing!
6. Billy Joel, The Longest Time – This is one of the original what I call “top down songs” because I used to listen to it on car rides in whichever convertible my dad had at any given time. I guess that’s really when I started listening to Paul Simon, too!
7. Jackson 5, The Love You Save – I love Jackson 5 songs. They’re the ultimate pick-me-up. This one’s my favorite.
8. New Kids on the Block, Summertime – Remember when New Kids on the Block had their comeback a few years ago and released this song? We loved it (we being me and my girls). It’s perfect for listening to during the…summertime. Also awesome when we saw them in concert because we’re cool like that.
9. Hot Chelle Rae, Tonight Tonight – And for something a little more recent…this is totally my kind of song. You know it’s good (for me) when we first hear it and Lee immediately refers to it as a Katie song because he recognizes its awesomeness. Plus it’s one the girls like, too.
10. One Direction, What Makes You Beautiful – And even more recent. I’m not a huge One Direction fan, okay? But I do love this song. My favorite most recent memory with this song? Driving Reagan and one of her friends to the first day of school. They were so quiet on the way because they were nervous, so I told them that I knew what would help them relax. I turned this on, turned it up, and we all sang along while they acted like they were embarrassed that I was singing it, too.
So that’s it – a perfect soundtrack for a summer car ride with the windows down. I better enjoy it while I still can because it’s starting to feel like fall in the morning. Please note: while I will happily sing along loudly to any of these songs (or many others) by myself or with my family, or even the girls’ friends, I can’t sing. So I restrict my singing to the relative privacy of my car.
It’s a great week to join in on Monday Listicles if you haven’t yet, so go on over to Stasha’s:
Reagan’s Three Year To-Do List
Reagan walked into the room a few minutes ago and informed me that she’s made a to-do list for the next 3 years of her life:
I’ll write it out for you in case you can’t read it.
1. Get guitar
2. Turn 9
3. Learn to play guitar
4. School ends
5. School starts
6. Get keyboard
7. Turn 10
8. Get my own room
9. Turn 11
10. Win 6 spelling bees
She did inform us that the list doesn’t necessarily have to happen in this order, except for obviously turning ages 9, 10, and 11. So we can get her the keyboard earlier if we want to.
I’m glad she also put convenient check boxes beside each item so she can check them off when they’re accomplished.
She’s going to have a busy few years. So will we.
A Random Saturday List
I didn’t get around to writing a post during the latter part of the week, so I thought I’d take the lazy way out and write a random list post today.
1. I was going to write a Magazine Day post for the first time in a few weeks, but I can’t. Why? Because my US Weekly from this week has gone missing. Before I even finished reading it. Now I’ll never know why Katie left Tom.
2. I broke our baby. He stays on such a good schedule and sleeps so well during the week normally. Suddenly he’s regressed to only being willing to sleep on me. Even during the day. I hope he returns to his regularly scheduled programming on Monday for Lee.
3. Jenny’s starting to get a little obsessed about her upcoming birthday and making very specific plans for it. She has a wishlist on Amazon full of Hunger Games and PLL stuff. (Everyone’s just supposed to know that PLL stands for Pretty Little Liars, according to Jenny).
4. Um, can you believe she’s going to be 11 in 11 days? (Reagan pointed out that little fact this morning.)
5. Apparently both girls are into fun fake internet shopping these days, so I’ve spent time with both of them adding thousands of dollars of clothing from Justice, Children’s Place and Old Navy into fake shopping carts this week. Back to school shopping’s going to be awesome. And they may be disappointed.
6. It’s too hot. It’s not even the hottest day we’ve had so far. It’s only a mild 96 degrees today, but it feels like the hottest day ever. Maybe because my 30 pound baby won’t get off of me.
7. Also, my 8-year-old won’t get off me. No matter how many times I say, “No, it’s too hot. It’s too hot. Get off of me.”
8. We’re trying this chicken for dinner. I hope it’s good. I love you, Pinterest, even if it doesn’t turn out well.
9. Brinky’s making lots of weird noises all the time lately. But none of them are words.
10. There are children all around me right now playing hide and seek. I’m trying hard to ignore them.
Happy Saturday!
Monday Listicles: Our House
This week’s Monday Listicles topic on this fine Memorial Day: 10 words that describe our home.
- Lived-in: That’s almost one word, especially if I hyphenate it. Our house isn’t as messy as it used to be all the time now that one of us stays home and does more to take care of it than when we were both working, but no one would ever say we have one of those perfect looking houses where you can’t even tell people actually live there. You’ll probably find a dish or two out if you just stop by. And some laundry on the floor in the pantry. And toys on the floor, which leads me to number two.
- Kids live here: I know that’s not one word, but I couldn’t think of one. I was going to make up one. Kid-ful? Kiddy? Kid-land? Anyway, the point is, we clearly have kids living here. There’s baby gear, though not as much as we used to have. A highchair out. Baby toys. Baby gates. The girls’ artwork decorating the walls. And all three make messes.
- Family: Maybe that’s the word I should have used for number 2. Ours is definitely a family house.
- History: While we don’t have many pictures hanging in our house (maybe we’ll hang some when our kids don’t live here anymore), we do have a lot of old family mementos. Since both of Lee’s parents are dead, we’ve taken possession of a lot of cool old family mementos, and we like to use them to decorate our house. There are family crests, paintings painted by some old relative, the turkey clock Brinkley used to love to stare at, and so many more. Of course, we have some of our own memories hanging on the walls, too, including one of our wedding invitations, framed, in our front hallway.
- Comic books: You can tell as soon as you walk into our house that Lee collects comic books. We use comic boxes as furniture, or at least as child-proofing to keep Brinky away from certain areas. And there are always a few comic books laying around.
- Casual: This kind of goes along with the first word on the list. We’re definitely a casual household. The family calendar hangs in the kitchen, along with chore checklists the girls ignore. And so does a poster of Dr. Dre. Brinkley’s clothes are kept in the dining room. There’s a mattress on the family room floor because it’s convenient for us and comfortable. There’s no fancy furniture that you don’t think you can sit on and mess up. But there may be pet hair on the furniture…
- Pets: If the dog food and water bowls in the kitchen don’t make it clear that we’re a household with pets, then the dogs rushing over to be patted will. Or maybe the cats on the front porch gave it away. Or the big aquarium in the kitchen.
- Cold: We keep the house at 65 degrees year-round. You may want to bring a sweatshirt if you visit. I know I’m always wearing one.
- Loud: I don’t think there’s any way a house with 3 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats and you know, a few TVs, could possibly not be loud.
- Ours: We’ve done a lot to customize this house and truly make it ours in the 11 years we’ve lived here. I don’t know that anyone else would want it, but that’s okay because it’s ours. And we want to keep it.
Monday Listicles: 10 Things That Make My Life Easier
For this week’s Monday Listicles, we were asked to list 10 items or services that make our lives easier. There are several things, mostly technology related, that really make my life easier (and provide me extra ways to waste time) that I couldn’t do without.
- THE INTERNET – This one is needed for so many others on my list. And really, doesn’t it make our lives easier? Do you remember as a kid having to pull out dictionaries or encyclopedias to look things up? Who does that anymore? Need to know pretty much anything about anything. You know where to look. Shopping? So much easier.
- Kindle – I love my Kindle. I’ve loved it since I got it over two years ago. I love to read, and it’s so much easier with an e-reader to always have a book available to read. And at this point, I love the many ways I can read a book on my Kindle. I can read on my regular Kindle or on my Kindle Fire. And recently, I’ve also loved reading using the Kindle app on my phone if I don’t have one of the other two with me, or if my battery dies. And I love how they all sync up so I can pick up where I left off on any of my devices.
- Amazon, in general – I’m such a fan of Amazon, especially those of us smart enough to pay for Amazon Prime, which is totally worth it. I wanted to stay mad at them for screwing up Amazon Mom a couple months ago, but I haven’t because I love the convenience of Amazon way too much. I use it for everything from books for my Kindle to movies or TV shows to watch on the Roku to a replacement mop head I ordered yesterday to everyone’s gifts at Christmas.
- My phone – I’m not a huge phone person, meaning I don’t care too much if I have the latest and greatest, but I do loving a phone that does so many things for me at this point. I love having my email on my phone and being able to use the internet without all that extra effort of getting to a computer. I love having Facebook and Twitter apps. And my Kindle app. Or really just playing my new obsession Scramble with Friends as often as those stupid tokens will allow me to. One of my favorite things that’s a major convenience in my life is having a decent camera phone though. It’s so much easier than carrying the regular camera around with me all the time. I still bring that camera if we’re going somewhere intending to take pictures, but I like capturing life’s little every day moments with the camera phone handy at all times.
- DVR – How did we ever watch TV before DVRs? Live? That’s crazy. I’ve been a long time DVR user, starting with Tivo back in 2001, and I really don’t understand how people watch TV without it. Not only do we rarely watch anything live, but if we do watch live, we can pause when the children are loud and annoying, or rewind if they caused us to miss something. I don’t have to stress about getting my butt on the couch in time to watch something because I know I have all my season passes set. Then I can watch my shows when I’m up early in the morning with the baby like I’m supposed to.
- My Roku – Another gadget that I love. I won the Roku around Thanksgiving, and we’ve used it every day since. We were already using Netflix on our Wii (there’s another item that should probably make my list. Or two. Netflix and the Wii), but I prefer the interface on the Roku and the fact that we can watch Amazon On Demand TV shows and movies on the Roku too. Plus it has other fun channels like Pandora and Angry Birds. And you want to know something else amazing about this thing? The power of the remote. It fell onto the floor behind our TV at some point in the last few weeks, and it doesn’t matter. The remote still works. Lee actually says the remote works from a different room in the house. He can hear Dora asking what our favorite part was, and he knows it’s time to move to the next episode. Without even entering the room. Super-cool!
- Ergo carrier – Now for some non-technology items that make life easier. I don’t know how I could handle life with a third baby without my Ergo carrier. I’ve used it constantly since I got it when he was 4 months old, and I used a Baby Bjorn before that. I love the Ergo so much. It allows me to carry my 30-something pound baby comfortably. And he still relaxes in it, instead of squirming like a maniac and wanting to get down like he does if I just carry him.
- Hook-on high chair – We have this one and I love having the baby at the table with the rest of the family, which is just harder with a regular high chair. I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to use this because he’s big and I just don’t know if it can take it, but it’s much more convenient.
- Baby gates – Baby gates make my life better in so many ways, mostly because they make it so I can sit down and stop chasing my baby because I can confine him to one room when I’m getting sick of chasing him around. That is, if they’re attached securely. He can certainly knock a gate down if he really wants to and if it’s not installed correctly. The one at the bottom of the stairs that’s just propped up to keep him from even wanting to go up there? Apparently it’s not going to work anymore judging from the fact that he pulled it off and threw it down this morning in his quest to get up the stairs.
- Optional third row seat in my car – I love having the option to pop up the third row seat in my car when it’s needed, like when we have extra friends riding along. But I like keeping it down the rest of the time so that my girls won’t climb over the seat and so that I have more space in the back.
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