100 Things in the World I Love

1. the hour long walk I took with K this morning, during which we saw six beautiful deer (two were very little)
2. the sound of cicadas on a summer evening
3. the smell of Gophie’s belly
4. stacking grocery carts together
5. chai
6. making s’mores with my girls
7. mushrooms
8. swimming in the river
9. Cades Cove
10. being surrounded by mountains
11. looking for shapes in clouds
12. insects and learning new things about them with Fallie
13. making rolls from my grandmother’s recipe that are almost as yummy
14. lemurs, running sifakas in particular
15. Hayao Miyazaki movies
16. Fallie’s collections
17. the way Finn likes to take care of everyone
18. Rosamond Wolff Purcell’s photography
19. the sound of a cat purring
20. playing with Finn’s hair (Fallie won’t let me)
21. synchronized fireflies
22. abandoned buildings
23. bonfires with K
24. camping
25. bottle cap snakes
26. handmade christmas tree ornaments and listening to my girls’ stories about them as we hang them up every year
27. Halloween
28. Ultra Man
29. drinking bourbon out of a Snapple bottle
30. cliff jumping
31. the way it feels after getting my hair trimmed
32. octopi (not octopuses or octopodes)
33. photo booths
34. the exhausted feeling you get after swimming all day long
35. crows
36. large front porches
37. Sweetwater brewery
38. thunder storms
39. listening to rain on a metal roof
40. sleeping naked under quilts
41. looking at photos of Finn and Fallie with them
42. the way Finn thinks some childhood photos of me are really her
43. listening to Fallie talk about the Edge Chronicles
44. running down sand dunes at Lake Michigan
45. tree houses
46. catching and identifying insects with Fallie
47. hanging out with both of my brothers at the same time (this rarely happens)
48. the way mushrooms are starting to show up in the woods and letting Fallie examine every single one during a walk
49. slow quiet mornings when the girls tell me about the dreams they had
50. baking cookies with my daughters and hearing which ones are their current favorites
51. taking cookies to our neighbors
52. Barley, our neighbors’ dog
53. birthday cake
54. gin and tonics
55. collecting tiny things
56. graham central station ice cream from Brusters
57. watching my girls make friends easily
58. watching my girls in school plays and seeing how much fun they have
59. skeletons
60. the way Gopher Guts tucks herself in to me as close as she can every night
61. new shoes
62. making jewelry
63. wrapping paper
64. handmade cards
65. writing letters
66. receiving letters but this is rare
67. snapdragons
68. irises
69. that Wreckless Eric song
70. eating dinner on the deck with my family
71. seeing deer while eating dinner on the deck
72. seeing a mama black bear and her two cubs with the girls and K (we were only about 20 feet above them on a cliff)
73. old, worn out, well loved stuffed animals
74. the way Fallie wraps her kiki (security blanket) around her ear when she is really tired
75. the fact that we have a picnic blanket and that we use it often
76. roasted root vegetables
77. K’s pizza
78. our daughters’ freckles and birthmarks
79. fairy tales
80. overflowing bookshelves
81. the Great Smoky Mountains
82. the niche in a wall of our house that is the perfect size for our stuffed crow and human skull
83. free museum day
84. Joseph Cornell
85. organizing things
86. cemeteries
87. making costumes for my daughters
88. guerrilla art
89. Finn and Fallie’s very first teacher, Ms. Shelby
90. the fact that Finn loves the Beatles (because of Ms. Shelby)
91. the day that the girls quoted The Princess Bride to their drama teacher all through lunch and that the teacher loved it and knew all the words
92. having K at home with the girls all summer long
93. watching Dirty Jobs with K and the girls
94. seeing the girls try to talk to an owl and the look on their faces when that owl hooted back
95. Wacky World
96. K’s rule at the little river that he has to say yes if someone asks him to go to the Y
97. The Brothers K (I did not shorten the name of the book)
98. watching Firefly, Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me and Farscape over again with K
99. watching the following movies over again: In Bruges, Groundhog Day, True Romance, Stranger Than Fiction and Garden State
100. Where The Wild Things Are and the way Finn and Fall gnash their terrible teeth and roll their terrible eyes when we read it together

the recycled list has 25 entries

1. Andy Goldsworthy is currently my favorite artist
2. Rosamond Wolff Purcell is a very close second
3. I am deeply embarrassed to admit it but I love Crocs
4. I didn’t get my drivers license until I was 26 years old
5. My nickname is Floyd (Mimi to my daughters)
6. I don’t believe in human burial or embalming
7. I am not a Christian
8. I believe in ghosts and I am afraid of them
9. I used to drink a lot of bourbon
10. I believe that Good Will Hunting (one of my favorite movies) is a prequel to the Bourne Trilogy
11. I like dead things (we have a stuffed crow in our house, among other things)
12. I hate it when people drive below the speed limit
13. I want to take anatomy classes and dissect a cadaver
14. We go to the High Museum of Art almost every first Saturday of the month
15. I want a smaller house
16. I believe in unschooling but my kids are attending a Montessori school for now
17. I have been using my sewing machine
18. I love American Folk music
19. I love to go camping but I am afraid of black bears (we go to the Smoky Mountains)
20. I have terrible, disturbing dreams when I am happy
21. This Wednesday, January 28, is the 20th anniversary of my first date with K
22. I am trying to learn to enjoy coffee but I always ruin it (with sugar & milk)
23. I prefer cold weather and hate hot weather (Atlanta is not the best place for me)
24. In Bruges is my favorite movie right now, short arse!
25. My favorite kids movies are by Hayao Miyazaki