8 things meme from Hula.

8 THINGS I'M PASSIONATE ABOUT
1. My family
2. Sailing
3. Travel
4. Raising my kids to be open-minded and open-hearted
5. Living at a sane pace
6. Good food
7. Good friends
8. Kindness.

*whew* that was easier than I thought it would be...wait, there's more....

8 THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE

1. Walk the Camino de Santiago de compostela
2. Live on the boat again
3. Paint more
4. Raise my kids
5. (keep on) Hang(ing) out with the man
6. Live like a semi-hermit in the country with the man for a year
7. Spend a year north of the Arctic circle
8. (Keep on) Leap(ing) at opportunities.

8 THINGS I SAY OFTEN

Ignoring the Catalan phrases that are creeping into my vocab...

1. ALRIGHT...actually said to myself, but a signal to the kids that heads are about to roll. It is very effective, even though initially unconscious.
2. Do the best you can with what you've got.
3. Love you.
4. Hurry up!!! Usually delivered at something of a screech. I am a mom, give me a break here.
5. A variety of swear words.
6. All manner of embarrassing frankness about boys and sex and all that stuff...Eldest has to suffer.
7. (I wish anyone was up so I could ask them) Oh, We're you born in a barn? No you weren't. I should know, I was there.
8. Stop complaining. (sad but true)

I have excluded the guttural groan I produce when mediating stupid meaningless argument number 7843 between the girls. And when for the 7844th time I ask if they are being kind, and if they could just stop being unkind, they would probably see their way through the problem.


8 BOOKS I'VE READ LATELY:

This is trickier as I am rather orphaned for books here...let me think.
I am going to include what I am reading now...

1. Influencer, which is frankly kind of disappointing. Way to self help-y, not what I thought it would be at all, though still interesting and probably useful.
2. Spinsters Abroad by I know not who as it is under my pillow and the man has gone to bed. She is telling us WAY to much, and showing us WAY to little, despite that it is meh, OK.
3. The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker.
4. Sota el cel de Tushita in Catalan
5 The letters of Vincent Van Gogh, abridged, again, in with the man so author unknown
6 The Yellow House by ???? I lent it to a student.
7 Oh ohoh...what book is that? YES.... Mother Tongue: the English Language, by Bill Bryson. That took WAY too long, I lent it to a student too and had to look it up on Amazon UK...if you're reading this guys, I don't like the new design, it should be WAY easier to find my own wish list...
8. Gosh...hmm, I should make something up... Do the books I am reading to the kids count? OH, here's one, Traditional Painting in Oils, sent to me by Nomad...sorry no link, it's late and she's on the sidebar.


8 MOVIES I'VE WATCHED EIGHT OR MORE TIMES

There is not a movie in the world that I have knowingly watched eight or more times. None.

How about

8 CRAZY THINGS I HAVE DONE

1. I broke into Russia from Poland when Gorbachev was still in power; climbing over the immigration door with machine guns aimed at me. It's true, I wouldn't make this up.
2. Sat in the living room of a PLO member in Jordan admiring her display of weaponry in the glass fronted corner cabinet.
3. Nearly got killed or badly maimed in Denver making naive assumptions about late night safety.
4. Learned from sheep dogs.
5. Worked (sort of) for a week on a freighter up the coast of Australia from Cairns to the Thursday Islands
6. Moved to Spain sight unseen with nothing but an e-mailed job offer, a credit card, a return ticket and two kids. Oh, and the husband.
7. Not a single crazy thing while we were on the boat, we had to be far too careful for that. It's why we're still here having fun. Well, there was that day with the dingy in the inlet for Atlantic City, but it wouldn't rank if the coast guard hadn't come out and I could have bailed some more.
8. Got out of the car to scream and swear at a poor hapless American tourist couple driving insanely dangerously extremely badly and almost causing a huge accident when I had my newborn baby in the car. Small hormonal anger management problem that day. They probably still think Toronto is more dangerous than Detroit and they were lucky to get out of the city alive.


And now for the hard part, tagging 8 other people for this. I’m not good at tagging, so I’ll throw out some names and if you want to play along, okay. If not, I’ll understand. Feel free to adapt this as you chose...

Okay, I’m closing my eyes, turning around and picking……

1. Beth
2. Beth
3. elPadawan
4. Trish
5. I would tag Nomad, but she'll never read it
6. Dawn
7. Lynda
8. Carla

Have fun with it if you want to.