1. How did you name your blog and do you now wish you had thought about it maybe another five minutes before hitting publish? Would you change your blog title if it were not a huge pain in the derriere?

I used to have it as my email moniker – allstarme – but I chose the Latin for Unknown Writer because, well, I wanted to make it in the novel world and had not.

I don’t know if I’d change it but I a thinking about dropping down to the lower wordpress plan, which would take away that name and make is the basic wordpress address again.

2. What bill do you least like to pay? 

It’s hard to really say – right now, I guess I hate paying for gas! But bill-wise, I’m in charge of phone, car insurance, and food. We treat our credit cards like a debit card insomuch as we don’t overspend. We pay off the entirety of the balance at the end of each month. I send money to my husband for that and some of the mortgage and he pays those. We’re unconventional like that.

3. What is your favorite word? Okay okay, calm down. How about one of your favorite words? 

Hmm, I enjoy Pioneer, Progress, Camembert. I couldn’t pick just one.

4. Is the glass half full or half empty? Elaborate.

I spent most of my younger years as a half-empty sort of person. In the past decade, I feel like I’m more of a half-full type because know it’s simply healthier to look at things from the positive angle.

5. Were you here for that very first Hodgepodge post? If so, were your answers then similar to what they are today? Tell us what was happening in your life in November of 2010? 

No and my answers would have probably changed a lot if I had been! In November 2010, on this day, here is what I blogged:

• What’s that you say? Terrible Twos? Hey, I have news for you. Not every kid has that issue. No, mine is the Terrible Threes and he’s lucky I haven’t packing taped his ass in a gigantic box and calculated shipping to Borneo.
• That’s not to say he’s always a terror; this morning when I dropped him off at school he was all lovable and even gave me an unsolicited “I love you.”
• I have been rediscovering some of the music I listened to in my twenties, some of the punk bands Ash and I liked together when we were first hooking up. Check out The Ataris and Lagwagon.
• You know what else sucks about my debit card being shredded last week? Now that I have my new one, I have to go to all my online purchasing and bill-paying places and update. It was also a pain in the ass to buy stuff during the in-between time. We rely entirely too much on saved forms and one-click buying.
• I went to buy some tubing for my breast pump yesterday and noticed that the store is going out of business. Just as well; I have a feeling I’m almost done here anyway. I am a little tired of carrying around this big ass pump to yield about 2-3 ounces. So not worth it. We made it to 7 months; can’t ask for much more.
• I tend to think that Florida and Cali are on par in terms of weather most of the time. I guarantee that it’s nice and warm in Cali today and here? It’s in the 30s. Brrrr.
• I’m thinking about getting the surgery for carpal tunnel. I first got it when I was pregnant with Elliot and the docs all said it would go away. Yeah, no. It took away one of the only things I ever truly enjoyed: writing. Sure, I could type but I like the actual act of putting pen to paper. And I can barely write a sentence without severe pain. But I don’t like the idea of surgery either.
• I’m sick of the same foods we always eat. My husband is a picky eater. If it’s not noodles or beef, we probably aren’t eating it. Any suggestions for comfort-type foods for winter that are very basic?

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I really thought I finished this post Tuesday and had it set up to go live today, but apparently not! Anyway, I just took about a 20 minute nap and now I’m really in a fog! I had some good classes this morning then met my husband for lunch. While driving to the restaurant, my car’s oil light began flashing red! I figured that couldn’t be good and sure enough, once I’d gotten to the place and eaten, I checked my engine oil and it was essentially empty. Sigh. This indicates there’s a leak somewhere. There was an Auto Zone right nearby so I picked up a couple quarts and put them in before driving back towards the house and leaving it at the service center. I like that place because it’s an easy walk home; it’s basically right outside my neighborhood’s back entrance, a 30 minute walk or so.

We’re going to the fair tonight and I can’t say there’s not this tiny part of me that doesn’t want to, based on my son’s friends. He’s asked two kids to go with, but they both said they don’t want to because “people get shot at the fair.” Granted, it is on that side of town but a lot of people from all over go to it. For one, we’re talking about going at 6 pm on a Wednesday, not midnight on Saturday. But isn’t it sad how things are now? I said to him that I’m sorry his friends didn’t want to go but more sorry that this is our world. You want to know why things get construed as “racist”? Well, you have an event that attracts all kinds of people and some folks do bad things there and people see who those people were and well, what do you expect people to think? I wish the world wasn’t this way and we all know it’s not all people of any sort. I also wish we didn’t all have to fit within nice little categories. I also wish everything could be safe but that’s not realistic is it? Regardless, I haven’t been in a long time and I enjoy it so I hope we can have a nice time.