An Introduction

I've seen a list on other blogs called "100 Things". It's supposed to serve as an introduction to the blogger, a sort of synopsis of who they are and what they are like. I wrote one, once, and it turned out pretty well, even though it is now too outdated to be of use. I think that in the interest of brevity I'll make another one for you, just so we can get acquainted.

100 Things:

1) My name is Sarah.
2) I stay at home with my kids all day.
3) I'm getting better at this the longer I do it.
4) I have one husband. For the sake of his privacy, I'll call him "P".
5) I have two children. My son is three and a half. When he was a baby we called him the "Man-Cub". For the sake of his privacy and something like efficiency, I'll call him "T". My daughter is a year and a half old. She has no nicknames and I'll call her "A".
6) I like efficiency, even though I am often far from it.
7) I like to knit. A lot. I like yarn and making things. I like how clever I feel when I've knitted something well. I like that when I knit something, I get to decide how perfect I want a project. I can redo something again and again until I get it right, or gracefully live with the flaws or scrap the whole thing altogether.
8) I like to make people laugh.
9) I've decided that I dislike sarcasm. It tends to be mean-spirited. I don't like how it tends to tear people down.
10) I have a cat. I don't dote on her like I used to before I had kids.
11) I take a lot of pictures. A LOT of pictures. Right now, we have approx. 4,000 digital photos that we've taken since our son was born.
12) I love my coffee pot. Love. It has a thermal carafe, which essentially means I can have hot coffee all day without ever having to reheat it.
13) I love drinking tea, but seldom have time to drink it. Coffee seems quicker to me.
14) We tried for three years before we were able to get pregnant with our son.
15) Our daughter was a surprise. One we were hoping for.
16) Sometimes, when I think about my kids growing up, I miss them already.
17) I like to cook.
18) This feeling is more pronounced when I don't have children hanging off of me.
19) It helps that my husband cleans up after dinner. Every night.
20) I have a degree in English.
21) I have no idea what you're supposed to do with it.
22) One of my favorite things about having children is that I get to read all those great children's stories.
23) But I don't read to my kids enough.
24) This weighs on me when I see how much they love it.
25) I love hanging my laundry on the clothes line.
26) I took piano lessons for 14 years.
27) I still can't play the piano worth a lick.
28) I wanted dance lessons instead but my mom said that I would be able to play piano when I'm old. Tap dancing, not so much.
29) Now, I'm more interested in spinning my own yarn when I'm old.
30) I still have little interest in the piano.
31) Maybe I'll learn how to play the violin instead.
32) Or the cello. The cello might make me look thin.
33) My parents are really interesting people.
34) I grew up on a hobby farm in Minnesota.
35) I helped my family raise our own chickens, cows, and vegetables.
36) I still miss having laying hens.
37) I have one brother who is younger than me.
38) I wish I knew him better.
39) We used to go "exploring" when we were growing up. We would pack a lunch, a canteen, and pocket knives and go hiking around the fields and hills around our house.
40) We would find really cool, really big rocks on our hikes. He would carry them back in his backpack.
41) I've been to London twice.
42) I've never seen the ocean up close.
43) I love to read.
44) I hardly have time for reading anymore.
45) We don't have TV.
46) We watch movies on our computer, though.
47) I get hooked on a TV series DVD and watch it over and over until I can't stand it anymore. First it was Law and Order, then West Wing, now it's the Andy Griffith Show.
48) My family doesn't eat much meat.
49) I wish I could say we are vegetarians, but I like the flexibility of eating what is available when we are guests at someone's home or when we're at restaurants. I made chicken tonight. I can't remember when I last handled raw meat.
50) I used to help my family butcher our own chickens, but I still get grossed out handling raw meat.
51) I am hoping this blog will serve partly as a baby book of sorts. There are a hundred silly things that my kids do that I want to remember and share, but seem to momentary to actually write out in a paper baby book.
52) I'm finding it harder to make this list than I thought it would be.
53) I used to figure skate in college. Not competitively, but just for fun.
54) I love old movies.
55) I love British mystery movies.
56) I dislike being hot.
57) Minnesota isn't cold enough for me.
58) I'd move to Canada if my extended family didn't live here.
59) I once made up a funny anthem for Canada.
60) Getting the mail is sometimes the high point of my day.
61) I love sleep. Can't get enough. Giving up sleep has been one of the big sacrifices of having children for me.
62) Sometimes I think I'd like to write a book, but don't know if I could handle the solitude that writing one requires.
63) I'm trying to give up all unnecessary spending.
64) I'm finding the space between Need and Want is a vast, grey colored land filled with shadowy ambiguity.
65) I wish my friends lived closer to me.
66) They only live about half an hour away, but it's still too far for how often I would like to see them.
67) I give my opinion too freely.
68) I try not to be too pushy with my advice.
69) I fail often.
70) Mostly with my sister in law.
71) She is younger than my and I am often overcome with the urge to tell her exactly what I think.
72) I think her ability to tolerate this is one of the reasons I feel so close to her.
73) I cloth diaper my kids.
74) I think they lie when they say this makes them potty train sooner. Liars. All of Them.
75) I know six other women, just off the top of my head, who also cloth diaper their kids.
76) I had two kids in cloth diapers for over a year.
77) I did a lot of laundry.
78) I didn't mind. It was better than taking out a lot of trash.
79) I'll miss cloth diapering when my last baby is potty trained. I think.
80) I want one more baby.
81) I wonder if I will always want just one more baby.
82) I think that people who see the world in terms of black/white, right/wrong are often frustrated.
83) My favorite writer is Madeleine L'Engle. And Anne Lamott. Jane Austen. And Wilke Collins. And E. Nesbit. And. . .
84) Sometimes I don't know what I want for my future.
85) I can't decide where I want to live--alone in the country, in a small town, or in a city. I never imagine that I want to live in the suburbs, but here I am.
86) I'm not sure what to do about that.
87) I've never owned a new car.
88) I'm not sure I want to.
89) But it would be nice to have a car that was younger than 10 years old.
90) My son was born eight weeks premature. My daughter was born via emergency cesarean.
91) I seem to have bad luck birthin' the babies.
92) I'm glad to have lucked out with good kids.
93) I'm not the kind of mother I wish they had, though. But I'm the one I want them to have.
94) I wish I were a more patient and clever person.
95) I would like to have more adventures.
96) My husband and I went to high school together, but didn't meet until college.
97) We dated, got engaged, and got married in a year.
98) We knew what we wanted.
99) I think we made a good choice.
100) We are blessed.