Category Archives: Favorites

Family, Favorites, Nature, Quad Cities

Possible Activities for While My Family is Visiting From Out of Town

  • Vanderveer Park
  • Swim at the Y
  • Bettendorf Family Museum
  • Putnam/IMAX
  • Channel Cat water taxi
  • Red White & Boom
  • ComedySportz
  • LeClaire (American Pickers, Happy Joes, shops)
  • Steel Plow shakes
  • Blackhawk State Park
  • Game Night
Events, Favorites, Nature, Survivor, Television, Travel

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

  • Thunderstorms
  • Beaches
  • Book stores
  • The Legend of Zelda
  • Warm sunshine
  • Cabins in the mountains
  • Fresh oranges
  • Dinner with family and/or friends
  • Reality TV
  • Office supplies
  • Sharpies
  • Unlimited data on my cell phone
  • Caramel
  • Walking along the river
  • My birthday (in a couple weeks!)
  • Traveling
  • Laughing so hard my stomach hurts

Favorites, Memories, Travel

Places I’ve Traveled and Brought Back Magnets

  • Cancun (Mexico)
  • Casa Bonita (Denver, Colorado)
  • Charleston (South Carolina)
  • Colorado
  • Columbia River Gorge (Oregon)
  • Disneyland
  • Disneyworld
  • Ensenada, Mexico
  • Galveston, Texas
  • Haleakala, (Maui, Hawaii)
  • Hollywood, California
  • Idaho
  • Las Vegas
  • Maroma (Mexico)
  • Montana
  • Mount Rushmore
  • Multnomah Falls (Oregon)
  • New York City
  • Redwoods Forest (California)
  • Saint Louis Arch
  • Silver Dollar City (Branson, Missouri)
  • South Carolina
  • Starved Rock State Park (Oregon, Illinois)
  • Virginia City (Nevada)
  • Washington state
  • Wyoming

Events, Family, Favorites, Memories, Nature, Travel

Places I Visited On My Road Trip of Awesomeness Earlier This Summer

  • Mount Rushmore
  • Wall Drug (Wall, South Dakota)
  • Gillette, Wyoming
  • Missoula, Montana (including dinner with 2 college roommates)
  • Spokane, Washington
  • Idaho (a gas station somewhere along I-90)
  • Columbia River Gorge
  • Horsetail & Multnomah Falls (Hood River, Oregon)
  • Portland, Oregon
  • Crescent City, California
  • Redwoods National Forest
  • A beach somewhere along the California coast
  • Trinidad Bay & Memorial Lighthouse (Trinidad, California)
  • Redding, California
  • Reno, Nevada (visit with the Lewis family)
  • Virginia City, Nevada
  • Lake Tahoe Overlook
  • Bonneville Salt Flats (Utah)
  • Salt Lake City, Utah
  • Casa Bonita (Denver, Colorado, with another college friend)
  • State Capitol Building, Lincoln, Nebraska
  • Huxley, Iowa (Aunt & Uncle’s house)
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Columbia River Gorge
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Multnomah Falls
roadtrip6
State Line

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Wyoming
roadtrip5
Salt Flats

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roadtrip12
Casa Bonita

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Books, Favorites

Books in the Flavia DeLuce mystery series by Alan Bradley (which you should definitely read if you like good mysteries with interesting characters & fully developed environments)

  • The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
  • The Weed That Strings The Hangman’s Bag
  • A Red Herring Without Mustard
  • I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
  • Speaking from Among the Bones
  • The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
  • The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse
  • As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust
  • Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d

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Events, Family, Favorites, Holidays, Inspirational, Memories

Twenty Three Ways My Kid Is Amazing (in honor of his 23rd birthday today)

  1. His sense of humor is unmatched.
  2. He’s smart and conceptual and thinks deeply.
  3. He never gets embarrassed. About anything.
  4. He taught himself to play guitar.
  5. A headbanger from the start, he now headbangs in his own heavy metal band.
  6. He’s hilarious.
  7. He is deeply compassionate and empathetic.
  8. He desires to make the world a better place.
  9. He works ridiculously hard.
  10. He desires experiences more than things.
  11. He sets goals and works to achieve them.
  12. He’s been “adulting” since the age of 19, paying his own rent and bills and way.
  13. He married his high school sweet heart and loves her with his entire being.
  14. He has a global outlook and cares about the world outside of his own.
  15. He laughs with his whole body.
  16. He carries things for me, (which is to say that he helps me any time I need it.)
  17. He programs electronics for his grandparents.
  18. He still loves old school video games.
  19. He has an inborn gift for music.
  20. He hugs his mama and tells me he loves me.
  21. He is never afraid to show affection to people he cares about.
  22. He has been through some things that would cripple lesser men, but the fires have forged him into a resilient and capable man.
  23. He is the best thing I have ever had a part in creating.

wedding jump

Books, Brands, Favorites, Words, Writing

Books About Writing That Are On My Bookshelf

  • On Writing, Stephen King
  • How Not To Write A Novel, Howard Mittelmark & Sandra Newman
  • The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers, Betsy Lerner
  • Writer’s Market
  • Revision & Self-Editing, Bell
  • The Writer’s Digest Guide to Query Letters, Burt-Thomas
  • Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us, Jessica Page Morrell
  • Characters & View Point, Orson Scott Card (Elements of Fiction Writing series)
  • Description, Monica Wood  (Elements of Fiction Writing series)

bookshelf