I have been tagged by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
edithspage
Here are the rules:
A) People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs & replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.
B) Tag 8 people to do this quiz.
1. What music is on your iPod?
Tegan & Sara, Belle & Sebastian, Weezer, The Old 97's, Radiohead, Aesop Rock, Stars, Girl Talk, Cage, David Bowie, Dusty Springfield, DJ Shadow, Goldfrapp, Jeff Buckley, KRS-One, Okkervil River, Pacific, The Pixies, Playradioplay!, Rage Against the Machine, etc.
2. What do you do before bedtime?
Watch Netflix DVDs. Currently watching Friday Night Lights.
3.What magazines do you have subscriptions to?
Gourmet (my mom gave me it), Allure, Shape
4. What is your favorite scent?
Habit Rouge cologne. Everytime I smell it I remember being in Paris in 1997.
5. If you had a million dollars that you could only spend on yourself, what would you do with it?
Travel around the world, first class. And then buy prime real estate in NYC.
6. What is your theme song?
Right now... "Knife Going In" by Tegan & Sara. It's a great song to write to for my current book.
7. Do you trust easily?
Mostly, yes.
8. Do you generally think before you act, or act before you think?
I think before I act.
9.Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
The 400 emails I had when I returned to work from vacationing.
10. Do you have a good body-image?
Depends on the day.
11. Is being tagged fun?
Yes. Very.
12. What websites do you visit daily?
Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo, Myspace, Livejournal, Nonsociety.com, Kayak.com
13. What have you been seriously addicted to lately?
Carrot Juice. I can't explain it, but it's the most refreshing thing in the world.
14. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Beautiful, uber talented, and fun fun fun!
15. What’s the last song that got stuck in your head?
The Jonas Brother's cover of Hello Goodbye. It was on the news this morning and I can't escape it!!
16.What’s your favorite item of clothing?
My new dress from Seattle from Diva Dollz retro 20's style boutique.
17. Do you think Rice Crispies are yummy?
Not really.
18. What would you do if you saw $100 lying on the ground?
I'd pick it up. If I knew whose it was, I'd give it back.
19. What items could you not go without during the day?
Coffee, ipod, pens, money, laptop
20. What should you be doing right now?
Tip sheets at work.
edithspage Here are the rules:
A) People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs & replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.
B) Tag 8 people to do this quiz.
1. What music is on your iPod?
Tegan & Sara, Belle & Sebastian, Weezer, The Old 97's, Radiohead, Aesop Rock, Stars, Girl Talk, Cage, David Bowie, Dusty Springfield, DJ Shadow, Goldfrapp, Jeff Buckley, KRS-One, Okkervil River, Pacific, The Pixies, Playradioplay!, Rage Against the Machine, etc.
2. What do you do before bedtime?
Watch Netflix DVDs. Currently watching Friday Night Lights.
3.What magazines do you have subscriptions to?
Gourmet (my mom gave me it), Allure, Shape
4. What is your favorite scent?
Habit Rouge cologne. Everytime I smell it I remember being in Paris in 1997.
5. If you had a million dollars that you could only spend on yourself, what would you do with it?
Travel around the world, first class. And then buy prime real estate in NYC.
6. What is your theme song?
Right now... "Knife Going In" by Tegan & Sara. It's a great song to write to for my current book.
7. Do you trust easily?
Mostly, yes.
8. Do you generally think before you act, or act before you think?
I think before I act.
9.Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
The 400 emails I had when I returned to work from vacationing.
10. Do you have a good body-image?
Depends on the day.
11. Is being tagged fun?
Yes. Very.
12. What websites do you visit daily?
Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo, Myspace, Livejournal, Nonsociety.com, Kayak.com
13. What have you been seriously addicted to lately?
Carrot Juice. I can't explain it, but it's the most refreshing thing in the world.
14. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Beautiful, uber talented, and fun fun fun!
15. What’s the last song that got stuck in your head?
The Jonas Brother's cover of Hello Goodbye. It was on the news this morning and I can't escape it!!
16.What’s your favorite item of clothing?
My new dress from Seattle from Diva Dollz retro 20's style boutique.
17. Do you think Rice Crispies are yummy?
Not really.
18. What would you do if you saw $100 lying on the ground?
I'd pick it up. If I knew whose it was, I'd give it back.
19. What items could you not go without during the day?
Coffee, ipod, pens, money, laptop
20. What should you be doing right now?
Tip sheets at work.
Would I do it again? Maybe. The price was high ($65 a day! Yikes!!) so if I do it won't be for a looooong time. But the price also helped me from cheating, knowing that I had shelled over a bunch of money.
Blueprint made things easy. The juices were great. They gave you bags to cart them around in with freeze packs. It was effortless. And I was never hungry once.
But tomorrow I cannot wait to eat (well, pineapple). But by Saturday I can go back to normal food.
Have a good night...
- Mood:
pleased
I am more aware of food though. The smells, people eating everywhere, commercials, etc. But I'm feeling so good it's not even an option to cheat. (But I AM making my boyfriend eat dinner in the other room. He is having dumplings after all.)
No noticeable skin/hair improvements as other people have had... but we'll wait to see what tomorrow brings.
But, last night I slept sooooo well! I'm actually really looking forward to going to bed tonight after a nice cup of Kava tea (to take the edge off).
Day 3 here I come...
- Mood: refreshed
That all said, I received my delivery yesterday (yes, they deliver!) Three bags packed with 6 juices each (I'm doing a 3-day cleanse):
Anyway - I am almost through Day 1. I've had 5 of the 6 juices so far. It's been going relatively well. Drinks 1 and 3 were green drinks, which if you're not used to them, can be a little weird. Drink 2 was a delicious pineapple mint drink. And drink 4 was a lemonade with cayenne pepper and agave syrup. Drink 5 was beet, carrot, and lemon or something. And drink 6 which I still have to drink is some sort of cashew milk with cinnamon thing.
I am not hungry. I am actually quite full. I did freak out for a second this morning when I realized I couldn't have ANY coffee, but I can have as much green tea, so I've had about 8 cups of green tea so far today.
And now I'm just a little... grrrr... physically I feel fine, but I'm starting to get a little irritable. Right now I'm at my local cafe, and the barrista is playing the music too loud and it's irking me. But no headache or any terrible cleanse symptoms. Blueprint is making it quite easy actually.
Oh well - I'm going to keep going and write about it here. When I was deciding whether to do this or not, I really appreciated people's blogs about their cleanses, so I want to put my experience out there also.
Anyway, the music in here just got louder and more annoying than ever, so I'm going to go. Day 2 update tomorrow...
THREE HOURS LATER UPDATE: After a much needed bubble bath and a double-dose of Yogi bedtime tea I feel stress free.
- Mood: mellow
- Mood:
busy
- Mood: impressed
- Mood: happy
Today (Saturday the 16th, I think) I already wrote 1,500 words. Not too bad, considering I spent the first two writing hours re-reading and re-writing, and then the 1,500 new words came after. So, yay! I'm officially creatively drained (11:00 AM - 7:00 PM; minus running out to get lunch is a LOOOONG time).
Tomorrow (Sunday the 17th) I will try to write 2,000 more words. Will not get too swept up in re-reading and re-writing. And will not play Animal Crossing on the DS until said 2,000 words are finished!
And then Monday - Friday: 1,000 words each day, after work.
God bless my neighborhood cafe! They let me sit here as long as I want even if I only order 1 or 2 coffees. They also make wicked ice tea. And they have a Chocolate Sandwich on their menu (That I've yet to try. But I will. Maybe.)
- Mood:
creative
These days I feel like I'm shelling out all of my money out to the airlines. And on the US Airways flight to DC last weekend, they announced that they stopped their complimentary beverage service. They wanted $2 for a bottle of water or a can of soda! Part of me wonders what the beverage industry feels about this. Not one person on the plane bought a drink. Not one. So if there's no demand then no need to continue to supply, right?
I came back home and was reading juliaallison.com (Guilty pleasure. She knows my brother.) and she posted this article about some posh airline that's reinventing the way people travel by going back to the days when all passengers wore suits and furs aboard. You know, when flying was an indulgance. Pleasurable. For $14,000 you can re-live the golden era of flight.
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/08/emira
Me? I'll continue to scour Kayak.com for the cheapest fair on the worst airlines. Does anyone else think that Kayak tracks your searches, and then ups all of the prices the next time you look for a flight?
Hmph!
- Mood:
frustrated
My cousin Nate just got married a week and a half ago up in Niagara Falls (which was GORGEOUS). My entire family met up there, and spent the day after the wedding driving to Canada to visit this ice wine winery called Inniskillin. Ice wine is made from frozen grapes and is really sweet, but not in a disgusting way at all. It's like drinking liquid sunshine with a touch of honey.
I was just so excited to be in Canada, since I am obsessed with their pop culture and have been wanting to go for ages.
Here are some pics of us together at Inniskillin (which, by the way, according to the French are the makers of the best ice wine in the world).
The grapes.
The cellar.
The wine.
The family.
It was a gorgeous day, filled with wine tasting, olives, cheese, prosciutto, and apricots. And a bunch of people who pronounce "About" Aboot". Loved it.
- Mood:
giggly
- Mood: amused
You are allowed to place three items from your lifetime into a box that will be opened in fifty years. What do you put in, and why? Submitted By |
2. My signed copies of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Yes, you heard me right. When I was a senior in college (in 2000) J.K. was signing at Books of Wonder here in NY. It was to celebrate the publication of Book 3, and way before the world-wide hype and the movies were around, so needless to say, the line was no where near as long as it would be today. My only regret? Not having bought a copy of Prisoner of Azkaban for her to sign. I was a poor college student, and needed that $18.99 to pay my phone bill.
3. A bag of letters saved from when I was in Junior High and High School. I went home to my parents this summer and found it in my closet. There has got to be a couple hundred total, and some of them are freaking hilarious. Collectively they tell the story of a young girl in the 80's - 90's who struggles with a big family move, meeting new friends, going to camp, crushing on boys, trying to overcome her shyness, etc. And most of them are in pig latin.
What would you take with you?
- Mood:
nostalgic
My boyfriend Sam left me to go up to Canada for work two weeks ago. I've missed him, yes. But I've missed his DS just as much!!!
But now I have my own. Isn't it pretty? I think I'm going to decorate it with stickers.
And for those who want to know, below are perhaps the 2 reasons why I had to have my very own DS. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is probably the BEST video game I have ever played (except for Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago, King's Quest old school stuff like that).
It's a puzzle game (I have come to realize that I only like puzzle and rhythm games), and the animation is this old French style artwork.
And of course, the new Guitar Hero for the DS. It's surprisingly awesome. Not quite as good as the original, but well put together. The songs are great, even though there a few repeats from the console versions.
This is all so funny to me, as I never had a Nintendo, game boy, atari, etc. growing up. We had a computer and that was it. My parents never really thought video games would be a good use of my time, and thank god they didn't, because as a result I read books instead.
But for some reason I've been bitten by the video game bug and am starting to get really into them. Does that officially make me a Gamer Girl?
Speaking of which, this YA novel looks like fun:
- Mood:
nerdy
The sky's the limit for this teenage pilot (BookPage - August 08 issue)
By Angela Leeper
It's 1944 and everyone is doing their part for the war effort. While her mother and sister roll bandages for the Red Cross, 18-year-old Bernadette "Byrd" Thompson sneaks out of their poor, small-town Iowa home and hops a train to Sweetwater, Texas. In Skies Over Sweetwater, an absorbing coming-of-age novel by Julia Moberg, the insecure teen joins the elite Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) training program at Avenger Field.
By donning oversized men's overalls (aka "zoot suits"), suffering through morning calisthenics, studying meteorology and Morse code, and learning to fly trainers, utility planes, bombers and other aircraft, the WASPs free up men for combat overseas. Byrd is eager to share these exhilarating experiences with Sadie, a spunky, college-educated Oklahoman; Opal, a Chinatown native who elicits many stares; and even "Miss Peach" Cornelia, the smug socialite from Atlanta. But she's not ready to divulge what happened eight years ago: her father's accidental death while performing an aerial dive and her own narrow escape from the broken plane.
Byrd's passion never wavers, but still harboring guilt and fear over her father's tragedy, she questions her ability to fly among the nation's best, especially during the required training dives. When another disastrous event turns into a heroic, life-saving act, the young woman is finally able to prove to her commander, her selfish training partner, the men who scoff at women pilots—and most importantly, to herself—that she can succeed. And when not flying or catching the local rattlesnakes, Byrd just might capture the heart of Lt. Andrews, an instructor with a secret of his own.
From Victory Gardens to butter rations to lines drawn on the back of women's legs to look like nylon stockings, Moberg includes many details that allow readers to understand Byrd's time in history. The teen's struggles and achievements form an inspiring portrayal of America's first military- trained female pilots, bringing this often forgotten part of history to light and showing that men were not the only ones risking their lives during World War II.
Angela Leeper prefers life on the ground in Wake Forest, North Carolina.
- Mood: ecstatic
The next couple months are sure to be one big whirlwind of energy and events and did I mention public speaking!!!??? I'm nervous about that, but I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm planning on going to as many book readings and signings as possible up until MY OWN first reading (March 28th! Yikes. Less than two weeks away.) No, in all honestly, it'll be fine.
Please come out and support me if you can. It's at the B&N at the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, NY on March 28th at 7:00 PM. The Palisades Mall is the 2nd biggest mall in America, so I'm hoping that will translate into a good turn-out.
Anyway, more to come! I'm going to Italy. And then Texas. And DC and Nashville and maybe (hopefully) LA and Seattle to promote it later on this year.
As my publisher always reminds me, THE SKIES THE LIMIT!!!
Julia Moberg
- Mood: jubilant
But first I want to share one of the greatest experiences of last year with you all, which was my trip down to Costa Rica last October. I went with my boyfriend Sam and his mom and some of her friends to a wedding in Jaco. And the week beforehand we spent 10 days romping around the rain forest, at the beach, and discovering great Costa Rican culinary treasures.
Here is just a snap shot of what we did:
I held a toucan!
We stayed in cute little bungalows in Arenal, and this was our view. An active volcano. You could hear it erupting throughout the day. It sounded like popcorn popping.
We climbed a non-active volcano, in the pouring rain. Took us about 4 hours to hike up, and 3 hours to hike down. It was grueling and extremely tough and we were sore for days afterward, but it still remains one of the coolest things I have ever done. It was raining so hard, I didn't get a chance to take too many pictures, but here is an idea of what the "path" was like.
The plants were so unusual and unique, bright-colored beauties.
And the grass and hills and trees looked as though they had been dipped in lime-green paint.
Towards the second half of the trip we went to the southern coast, and spent our days relaxing at the beach. Here was the view from our hotel in Manuel Antonio.
The ocean was gorgeous, all blue with white frothy waves.
And the clouds floated upon the ocean at the horizon.
But the most beautiful, serene moments were spent watching the sunsets.
We left the country sun-burned and happily full of rice and beans and sea bass and cerviche and Imperial beer.
On this cold New York Saturday, as I type, I find myself longing for a great cup of Costa Rican coffee, the adrenaline rush from zip-lining through the rain forest, monkey watching, sunsets, and some of the nicest people on earth.
Adios!
Julia
- Mood: nostalgic
I'm going to mostly be using this space to write about being an author and how my middle-grade novel SKIES OVER SWEETWATER will be coming out shortly. It hits stores and amazon March 1st, 2008 (just in time for Women's History Month!)
My publisher, Keene Publishing, has posted a pre-order page on their website. If you order directly through them, books will ship out to you mid-November (Just in time for the holidays! It makes a great gift. *hint hint*)
To preorder my book, go to: http://www.keenebooks.com/Skies/SkiesPa
Here's the copy from my book cover:
Bernadette Thompson (Byrd to her friends) is 18, the year is 1944, and she is about to fulfill her life-long dream: to become an Air Force pilot. Leaving her poverty-stricken Iowa home, Byrd boards a train in route to Sweetwater, Texas--home of Avenger Field--where the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) training camp teaches women how to fly bombers, pursuits, trainers, and utility planes. At camp, Byrd meets Cornelia the rich girl, Sadie the college girl, and Opal the city girl. Together they struggle to master not only handling a plane, but some of life's most important challenges.
Websites launching soon: www.juliamoberg.com and www.skiesoversweetwater.com
I also just returned from the trip of a lifetime. I was down in Costa Rica for 10 days earlier this month. I'm working on getting all of my photos uploaded on my computer and will post some of them here and recount my experience as well. The craziest thing about the trip was that my publisher was getting ready to go to press and awaiting my approval on the cover and copywrite page. So I was constantly trying to find internet cafes throughout the rain forest to do just that. But my publisher was patient and worked hard to make sure everything got out in time! I'm so lucky to have Keene publishing my book. They're fabulous!
Well, for now this is it. I will post more Costa Rica information shortly.
Stay tuned...
Julia
