Thursday Thirteen #5

[Sammi Carter]

Thirteen Things From My Life That Begin with "C"

in no particular order

1. Curly hair. It's the bane of my existence. My hair is very thick and curly, and while I know some people would love it, I don't. I have made peace with it finally, but for most of my life I have disliked my thick curly hair. The curls aren't curly enough to fit into any style. My hair's too thick to let me do things like wear hats, wear barrettes, use clips, or put my hair into a ponytail. I also can't style my hair because it just does what it wants. No matter how much product I use, the hair just springs back into the non-style it likes best.

2. Cat. When my ex-husband died in 1999, I somehow inherited his cat. My kids couldn't let Vincent go, and I'm a big softy so even though we had two cats already, I took Vincent in. He quickly realized which of us he needed to make peace with, and in short order he became my cat. Vincent was raised with dogs, so when he came to live with me, he didn't know much about being a cat. He couldn't leap onto windowsills and the sound of his own purring frightened him. Eventually he learned a lot about being a cat, but he never did lose his 'fraidy cat nature. This morning, Vincent is missing. He wasn't waiting for me at the back door when I woke up, and that's not like him. I'm starting to worry that he may have gone to join my ex-husband.

3. Car. I own one. I love driving most of the time. Frankly, I don't think there's anything better than a good road trip. Flying is nice, and it's convenient, but if I had my choice and the time, I'd take a road trip over an airline flight any day.


4. Crochet. I don't knit. I've tried, but unless it's a very simple pattern like a dish cloth, knitting just isn't for me. I do like to crochet, though. I don't do things like sweaters and vests and doilies. I like to make afghans. Just afghans. Lots and lots of afghans :) This is one I made for my oldest daughter.


5. Cousins. I have a lot of them. There are 42 of us, to be exact.


6. Candy. I think about it a lot -- not because I have a personal sweet tooth, which I kind of do, but because I need to research it for the candy shop series I write. Really!

7. Christmas. I know it's pretty boring, but Christmas really is my favorite holiday. If it weren't for the cold and having to get out and drive in the snow, Christmas would be the perfect time of year. I don't even mind driving in the ice and snow as much as I mind walking in it. I am not sure-footed!

8. Calendars. I love them. I don't know why, but I'm just utterly fascinated by them. I love having calendars hanging on my walls, love the different pictures each month -- but my love of calendars isn't restricted to pretty ones. I love desk mat calendars, appointment calendars, computerized calendars, purse-sized calendars, thought or word of the day calendars, my mother's old-fashioned two-ring calendar .... If I could have a hundred calendars, I'd try to find a way to use them all. I know. It's sick.


9. Camping. I love to camp. I'm not sure what it is about camping that I love because I don't like to actually do anything once I get there. I don't fish, don't particularly care for nature hikes, don't mountain climb or dirt bike or hunt, but I love the mountains and I love getting out in nature. I even like cooking on the camp stove. I like stringing up the clothesline between the trees and fresh trout for breakfast and campfires. I don't, however, like outhouses without flush toilets, and I don't like campgrounds without trees. When I camp, I have to be in the mountains in the forest. I have my limits.

10. Crawling. Something Abigail and I do a lot of these days.

11. Creamsicles. I'll confess that I'm a fan of the popsicle in general, but the Creamsicle is frozen confection heaven.

12. Computers. I love computers. I don't like to point and click to make the computer do what somebody else has decided it should, I like to make computers do what I want them to. Back in the olden days, when I worked at my Evil Day Job, I taught myself to write programs in DOS and dBase, and I wrote several complicated programs before I quit to write full time. Now, I like to play around with websites, and I'm teaching myself to write in html. It appeals to my creative side.

13. Counted Cross Stitch. I haven't done much of it lately, but I love it. It occurs to me as I write this that all of my creative projects have something in common. I love creating something from "nothing," whether it's the world the characters in my books inhabit, an afghan from balls of yarn, or a picture from a blank canvas, I love turning empty space into something beautiful. Here's one of the items on my wish list at Rebecca's Discount Needlecrafts.