ten.

I was catching up on a tiny bit of blog reading (I have over 1000 blogs to read in my Google Reader even though I keep deleting and deleting) and I saw something that inspired me over at the My Mind's Eye blog:
"During the month of January you are going to design your cover and album. The first week of each month, beginning in February, you are going to document your own personal “top ten” for the previous month. It can be anything you’d like:
* top ten adventures
* top ten funny things that were said
* top ten hopes
* top ten foods
* … anything!"
I just think this is a cool idea! I think I'm going to do it with a tall, skinny book. I think I have one. I am confident that I am not exaggerating when I say I have more than 40 blank books. (See #7 below.)

The post at MME also made me realize that getting back on the blogging wagon doesn't have to be so hard...I'll just do some "ten" lists! Here's my first "ten" list:

Ten Things About My Life That I Haven't Been Blogging About:
1. Scramble on Facebook - I am obsessed. On Christmas, I realized that I could play against live people any time of the day or night.
2. Painting the inside of our house - "Cloudless" in the girls' bath. "Natural Wicker" on the main walls. "Ultra White" trim paint. This project will take me all year, I am thinking. I fell off the ladder twice after 2am a couple of weeks ago. Well, not so much fell off as misjudged how far down the ladder I was and stepped off backward from much higher up than I should have. Ow. Twice. Slow learner.
3. Landfill management - I parked the Suburban in the garage during the 4-day cold snap we had after New Year's Day. This was a HUGE accomplishment!! Huge. Huge. But then we had...
4. Nineteen girls - The freshman girls stayed at the house last weekend for a big church youth event. They met at the church with all the rest of the middle school, jr. high, and high school kids, but the 9th grade girls slept and ate at our house. In preparation for this weekend, I took down the Christmas tree(s) moved any and all extraneous "stuff" into the garage so they'd have places to sleep and hang out. And now the garage looks like a landfill again.
5. Losing weight - Really! I have lost almost 30 pounds. I have been eating less and much more healthfully. It feels SO GOOD. I don't think it's all that noticeable (no one ever says anything), but I have gone down a couple of sizes and I am close to going down another. I wish I could exercise more - if it weren't for the ...
6. Plantar faciitis - The pain started on Halloween. I went to the Aggie football game (miles of walking) and then walked a lot that night. I didn't notice much pain until the next day, and it has been downhill from there. I think it's starting to get better now. I still cannot walk barefoot or wear my beloved flip-flops, but with a good Spenco arch support (bought mine at Academy for $24.99), most of my other shoes will work and I'm not in pain. It has kept me from exercise, though. I am thinking I'll sign up for water aerobics again, since it's not a weight-bearing exercise.
7. Suffocation - I have been struggling so much with the stuffed condition of my closets, drawers, garage (see #3 above), and home in general. Sometimes I feel like we are drowning in excess. Suffocating. We. Have. Too. Much. But I am working on it. I have a plan and it is a blog in itself. Probably a series of blogs. So far, I have only touched the surface of this issue in my life, that's for sure.
8. Winter - I love Texas winter. Love it. Love. It. We have been having some beautiful weather and I love that the boys can play outside without being hot or cold.
9. Not scrapbooking - Seriously, I haven't done much actual scrapbooking in the last six months. Just assignments. This. Must. Change. I moved my albums from the top shelf in my scrap room to the lowest one so I can reach them. I think this will help. I think one of my biggest hindrances has been that all my pictures are digital and I don't have any printed out.
10. Decongesting - We have had two major viruses in our home since the week before Christmas. Sore throats, stuffy noses, ear infections, sinus infections, and asthma are some of the issues we've been dealing with as a result! I used neo-synephrine last week for the first time and it was quite a wonderful discovery.

[Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?" He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it." Genesis 18:32]