Five by Five*

Proof positive that someone is a relatively new blogger: They get excited when they are tagged for a meme! Thanks to Stegbeetle, I offer you the following:

10 years ago
We were in California. Impera was 2, Trixie was 1 week old, the Consort was preparing to defend his dissertation, I was feeling the baby blues and knowing there was no way I’d be able to pack up our home for our move back East at the end of the month. Later this month, Trixie attended her father’s dissertation at the ripe old age of 3 weeks, we hired packer/movers to get us out of Cali, and we embarked on 2 years in New Jersey where the Consort was busy 6.5 days a week and we lived in the most horrid “family ‘housing’” ever.

5 years ago
We’d been living in Iowa for 1 year. Trixie was about to start kindergarten (both kids in school all day, I was thrilled!). I was editing a terribly boring book on electricity for agriculture. (I remember because I was finishing it up in the first part of September…)

1 year ago
We were spending a week in the North Woods of Minnesota. I was working on one of my ongoing projects, blissfully unaware that on Labor Day I’d be getting a letter that the project was being offshored. Impera was about to start Middle School (moving from a fifth grade class of 25 to a sixth grade class of 200); I was nervous, but I hid it (successfully, I believe).

5 songs I know all the words to

Take the Money and Run, Steve Miller Band

Get Your Sh*t Together, Beth Hart

Bawitaba, Kid Rock

The Girl from Ipanema, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Norman Gimbel

Je suis un soir d’été, Jacques Brel

5 snacks

homemade yogurt with fresh fruit and wheat germ

rice pudding

cold pizza

Leonidas manon café Belgian chocolates

fruit pie made by the Consort

5 things I’d do with £100 million ($200 million)

Give $1 million to each parent and sibling

Put aside enough to allow Impera & Trixie to each go to the college of their choice, debt-free

Buy some land & build a green house, off the grid, in New England

Take the rest and split it:

• 50% to environmental groups (e.g., Earth First!, Nature Conservancy)
  
• 50% to women’s rights / micro-loan groups

(Because, as the Consort tells me, money makes you unhappy [the gist of his research], so we might as well get rid of it)

5 places I'd run away to

Canada

The Greek Islands (the smaller, the better)

Charles de Lint’s Newford

Madagascar

Oregon

5 things I'd never wear

pointy-toed shoes

short tops with low-rise pants

thongs

fur coat

any of those stupid-ass designer creations they make the models wear

5 favorite TV shows (we don’t watch TV, so I should really call this “5 favorite DVD shows”)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Battlestar Gallactica (new Canadian version)

Star Trek: Next Generation

Star Trek: Voyager

Firefly

(...do you see a theme developing, here?)

5 greatest joys

The Consort, Impera, and Trixie

Spending time with friends

Big weather

My vision

My hearing

5 favorite toys

my library card

my iPod

my laptop

my knitting needles

my blog

5 people I'm tagging (some of these folks have been tagged already, I think)
Someone I made a promise to keep anonymous (you know who you are!)
KathyR
e
KW
My Secret Pal (I won’t be able to see the link until the end of August, but still)

Anyone else wants to join in, please do! (But I know I waited with bated breath until someone finally asked me personally to do one of these!)

*We're at the point int the Buffy series where Faith comes back and steals Buffy's body. Oooohh...