100 Things I Love

It’s not an original idea of mine. I’m riding coattails! Marvi Marti posted the first ten things on her list today. She initially got the prompt from Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online. The list is done in tens, Marti did her first ten today, so now I am too.


Okay, let’s get this love-fest started!

10 Activities I Love

1.  Baseball Games - I love baseball and I don’t really think there was a time I didn’t.. I’ve told the story about Mom dancing with me when the Tigers won the 1968 World Series and how much I loved following the Tigers and Reds as a kid. I saw a game in the 1984 World Series and watched the final game in an all ages club on the big screen with my parents. I was allowed to TRY to watch the Reds World Series games in the 70s, but my single-digit aged self couldn’t make it.

Last year, David and I tied my season high of 21 games seen, finishing it with a Division Series Tigers game. Would have broken the record if the Tigers had made it to the World Series. We had tickets.

My current dream is to be in Cincinnati on Opening Day


2. Train Chasing - It’s funny. When I finished trade school, I had firmly decided I was moving to Atlanta. My first interview was with Green Frog Productions, a railroad video company in Marietta, Georgia. I loved trains and the entire thought of chasing trains and videotaping them was just an incredible idea to me. Alas, I didn’t get the job and while my Mom went with me to museums and on tourist trains, she wasn’t going to go chase freight trains so I could photograph them and there wasn’t anyone else who would even go to the museums with me.

14 years later I replied to an email inviting me to a presentation at a Mensa event. I had no idea who the man was that was inviting me, but the presentation was trains he’d photographed, his hobby. This man did that I had wanted to do so many years ago. When I emailed back and said, “Trains, I’ll definitely be there,” it led to a few emails exchanged, an invitation to a baseball game for a first date and, well, we’ve been married 3 years now. We still love to chase trains together!


3. Scrapbooking – My scrapbooking is both the pictorial record of my life and an art, my self-expression. It’s evolved from photo albums from high school, most of the photos with no names or places, to photos with captions, hand-written, raped on paper strips. Then it became pages with ephemeris and typed and cut out captions and title on magnetic pages, followed by actual paper scrap pages and after a short while of printing the photos from my first digital camera, I started digital scrapping. That was 2007 and I was scrapping 2005. It was a couple years of “can’t afford to print the photos,” that put me behind. I’m catching up now.


4. Baking – I love kitchen stuff in general, I come from a long line of great cooks and I grew up with the kitchen gadgets in several drawers and a utensil pot next to the stove. That’s why the obsession with my future kitchen. I designed it in my mind and my storage is full of boxes of peach and greed gadgets, dishes and calicos. I have a green calico kitchen cat and a kitchen pig wand. The pig want removes the calories when you wave it over the food. :)

I’ve made my own recipes for many things from scratch or by doctoring up ready-made things, but I love baking the most of all the kitchen-crafts. Baking allows my culinary gifts to really shine and while a good meal makes people feel satisfied and they enjoy it, something baked and sweet always make everyone smile!



5. Board Games – I love games night with friends, I love just playing Yahtzee or Qwirkle at home with David. Games give your brain some good exercise and they aren’t like concerts or other activities you do outside someone’s home because it’s quieter. It allows for conversation and quality time with the other people of your choice.


6. Having Coffee – Coffee is not just a drink. To me “Having Coffee” is being with a friend of two for conversation. The act of having coffee with someone is much more intimate than just a beverage. I used to have coffee with my great grandmother every Tuesday once I started driving, I had coffee with Grandma on the phone on Mondays and I make a point of having coffee with friends in Michigan at least once or twice a month.



7. Aunting – Kids just get cooler and cooler as they get older! I truly enjoyed the time spent with Tori and Rina when they were little, helping them learn and learning from them too. As they got older and could learn at a higher level, it was fun watching them figure things out and then form their own opinions about things. Now they drive when they are over and we share many things we have in common and can debate, in a civilized way, they things we see differently. I mean, last mouth I had a political discussion with the baby I comforted when she had a tummy ache. How cool is that?


8. Reading – Since getting my Kindle, the old one with the grey background and black writing, I’m enjoying reading with a new vigor. You see that darker background has solved whatever conditions cause my dyslexia and I read much more comfortably and faster. I LOVE my murder mysteries!


9. Coin Collecting – this is something I started doing with Grandma, who did it with her uncle. My biggest passion in coins is pennies. I collect both American and Canadian pennies. My oldest Canadians are 1920 something and the oldest American ones are Indian heads!


10. Cleaning and Organizing – I think I would have to say I love this in the same way any addict loves getting their fix. Once I got started cleaning and organizing in the annex, I found myself in that addict spot. I can not pick up something when I’m near it. It’s a healthy obsession!



Whew! Okay, I see why it needs to be broken up into segments! Net ten will be…soon!

Links

Marvi Marti

Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online.