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What has been your favorite mistake?
Submitted by Runnergirl

Perhaps somehow putting the phone number for McGee's Pest Control in Kansas on our wedding info cards instead of the number for the Amway Grand Hotel, where we had room blocks for our guests.  Oops.  How the hell did I screw that up?  haha  No, seriously.  Where did I get that number???

What were you afraid of when you were younger that seems silly to you now?
Submitted by wandie

Dogs!  I was bitten in the face by a neighbor's dog when I was young, and had to go to the hospital and everything.  Combined with the running I'd do out in the country where dogs would regularly charge at me, and I feared and disliked dogs really until college. 

Then I didn't run like that anymore, my family got a dog, and I just had a lot more contact with them.  Now I don't fear dogs at all --I love them!  They're so funny!  We saw the silliest bulldog this weekend at our yard sale.  He looked kinda like this and moved SO SLOWLY. 

Back in May, I created a list of 20 things I wanted to do this summer.  I was fresh out of the spring semester, a good 6 weeks away from teaching my summer course, with months of summer stretching ahead of me.  Now, school begins again in one week, the wedding is in roughly two, and summer is fading fast.  So I thought I'd check in with my list and see about my progress.  Original in this font, responses in bold italics:

1. Continue to shop for fruits and veggies at Morse Market as much as humanly possible.  Between bikes and not minding the mile and a half walk each way, it shouldn't be too difficult.  The challenge is to resist the overpriced and fine yet less-awesome produce a stone's throw away at the Big Chain store.   Done.  Actually I should credit Bee, who's always happy to run up there while I'm prepping or working on something else.  But we're Morse Market junkies by now, and I'd expect we'll stay that way year-round.
2. Similarly, I'd like to make biking to the Green City Market a regular staple.  Bee is actually the trendsetter for numbers one and two here, but now that I've seen the good things that come from both of these places, how can I not place them high on the summer to-do list?  Bee has been there, I haven't.  I'd still like to go, but honestly the chances are looking slim.  We're gone most Saturdays, and when we're here I'm usually up working out or otherwise occupied.  Same has been true for Wednesdays.  This coming Wednesday I have plans --next best hope for me to get there would be Wednesday September 10.  
3. Speaking of food, and acknowledging that this blows the budget requirement out the window, I want to go to Green Zebra once this summer.  We've only been twice, both times in winter, and I really want to try their summer or spring menu!  Will be done.  We're going there one week from tonight, partly to accomplish the goal of checking out the late summer menu, partly as a little private celebration before we leave the next day for our wedding.
   
4. One more food goal: Grill and eat in the park or on the beach regularly!  We've been talking about it all winter and can't wait to get this going.  Not done.  So much harder than it sounds.  Never once has this been practical.  I wish we had a porch or a yard --we'd be chowing out there all the time.  But choosing the right food and getting the timing and weather and other circumstances right for a haul to the park --hasn't happened and probably won't.
   
5. OK, on to fitness.  I want to stay in shape!  My cardio goal is always 250 minutes per week, but I think I need to add weights, etc.  And not get injured.  This should be easy, given my schedule.  But so far it's been a little hard to balance, because mornings are so my time to shine that I want to work out AND get work done in the morning, so it's sometimes been hard to decide what to do when.  Done.  Working out keeps me healthy and sane.  I didn't hit the 250 minutes every week, but most weeks I did, and when I didn't, I came very close.
   
6. Speaking of research: So far I've done 13 interviews for my dissertation.  Many were done in about a month's time.  While that currently has me scrambling to catch up on transcription (which is hellishly awful and boring), it does tell me that I can get a lot done rather quickly if need be.  So, I'll be happy if I have 40 done by the end of the summer.  (The goal had been 50 total, but I'm considering upping it to 75.  Wanna be done with data collection at the end of '08.  Blah blah blah.) I'm calling it done.  Mostly because I'd remembered setting this goal at 35, and that's what I've done.  Given how much time I still have to collect data, even as I begin to write, I feel very good about my progress here, and that's the point.
   
7. Send out a publication.  Pffffff  Not done, won't be done.
   
8. Outline and/or draft the first two chapters of my dissertation.  Create a skeleton for the rest of it.  Might get done this week.  Really might.  And if it doesn't, it will be done within a month.  I'm OK with that.
   
9. Now back to more "fun" stuff:  Take at least one full day off each week.  Guilt free.  Pffff.  No way.  I haven't had a day off in months.  Even on days where I don't work on teaching or the dissertation, the wedding stuff takes over.  I'll take a break on the honeymoon.  And then we'll see what my fall schedule looks like.
   
10. Perhaps this is cheating since it's already planned, but Bee and I have always wanted to do more regional traveling, so finally getting to Milwaukee and Madison is a big to-do!  Done.  We had a blast.  I really liked Milwaukee. 
    
11. Museum free days.  Nope.  Can't imagine it.  But I would still like to see the Jeff Koons exhibit at the MCA before it closes.
    
12. Catch a little league game in the park.  Nope.  Still sounds nice, but not gonna happen.
    
13. See about getting this book club thing going with friends.  Nope.  Yet another summer where we're all interested... and then it's August.
    
14. Lots of swimming and laying in the sun.  I'm going to call this done.  I could have gone more.  (And in fact I plan to go for a bit today as the weather forecast is mid-80s and sunny.)  But I'm satisfied.
    
15. Finish Project 365 on July 1.  (CAN'T WAIT TO BE DONE!)  DONE!
    
16. Play lots of catch with Bee.  Not once.  Maybe this fall.
    
17. Have an Apples to Apples party again!  Not done.  Maybe that's a winter thing.
    
18. Make it to Medium on Guitar Hero  Nah.  And that's OK.  Last few times I played that game made me swimmy and I wasn't feeling it as much.  Perhaps we'll take it up again when the weather cools.
    
19. Continue Team ATWM's showings at Ole St. Andrew's Trivia Night  Nah.  Became exponentially unfun toward the end of the spring.  Wasn't worth it on lots and lots of levels.  I feel liberated from OSA trivia night.  And in fact with good summer options (Moody's, etc) nearby we haven't even been there.  Maybe a fall or winter return is in order, but I think I'm done with trivia there.  Bleh.
    
20. Oh yeah, and get ready to get married!  More than ready!  Let's do this.  The planning is so much more overwhelming than I'd ever expected, even with all of the amazing help we're getting from family.  Our wedding is going to be wonderful, but I am not going to miss the planning. 
    

All in all the summer has been what I wanted it to be.  I wish I'd had more free time, but when isn't that the case?  The past month or so has been particularly stressful and tiring.  I'm ready for fall.  

Reason #465 (and, uh, at times #1) why I love Bee.

That's right.  It's homemade pizza weekend.

(Image from Bee's photo stream.)  I am so marrying the right man.

So I was poking around the drop-down BBC headlines in Firefox like I usually do today, when I saw an article on Madonna's 50th birthday.

I opened it and had to laugh. 

Wow, someone took the time to chart out her life --literally!  I'd love to know what the units are, and how whomever made this decided precisely where each "point" would land.  The fading red and green arrows are only mildly instructive.

Other musings:

• I like how tags like "sex" and "keeping busy"  are not immediately apparent as titles.

• I love that someone had to determine that she started out in the middle and only climbed back there after chart success.  What does that say for the rest of us?

• Where's her current marriage?  And Alex Rodriguez, for that matter?
• Some unexplained low points in very specific locations.

I have to wonder what my Life Graph would look like.  I almost want to make one just for the ridiculousness of it.

(And as an aside, I have about 80 Madonna songs in my head right now.  And I can't believe Beautiful Stranger was out 9 years ago.....)

Do you have any crazy superstitions?

There's a certain pair of underwear I no longer wear to Cubs games.  So far, so good.

I knew this guy had some appeal to me.  But I was puzzled because I don't care for athletic swimming and, well, he's goony.

But then I saw it in the last paragraph of this piece from Gapers Block's Drive Through:

Free Salads if Phelps Wins 8

America is obsessed with Michael Phelps, the swimmer from Baltimore who's racking up gold medals in Beijing. From ruminations on his large feet and paddlelike hands to shock and awe at the amount of calories and carbs he ingests each day, the buzz on Phelps is building faster than a speeding swimmer.

Here in Chicago, local salad spot Dream Salad is planning to offer free salads from 11 am to 2 pm on Friday, August 22, if Phelps wins eight gold medals (which will top Mark Spitz's record of seven)--and if customers show up with a business card. Dream Salad owner Rich Levy is a former high-school swimmer, and he's excited that Phelps has reenergized the sport. (Dream Salad is part of the Salad Spinners chain, but the offer is only valid at 200 E. Randolph Street.)

Free pizzas would be more in line with Phelps's 12,000-calorie a day diet. The guy eats at least a pound of pizza a day, but not a lot of salad. Any pizza purveyors out there willing to sweeten the pot?

...now this is a man I can respect.

Share a song that gets you psyched to exercise.  

Just when I try to wax dramatic, reality kicks me in the pants.  I know this is a good thing, but that swift kick can be painful.

The most recent episode happened last winter.  Tellingly, when I blogged about it, it was titled Stupid.

Six months later, and very physically and mentally bogged down from teaching, researching, writing a dissertation, conferencing, traveling, applying to academic jobs, and holding together all the strings for a very rapidly approaching wedding, I found myself today wishing there were more hours in the day.

So what happens?  It's midnight and I'm wide awake.  Mentally and physically.  Ready to spring into action.  Roll my sleeves up.  Get to work.

And all I really want is to get to bed.  I've worked plenty today. 

Next time: I'll wish for BALANCE, not BOUNTY.

John-Patrick and I have both begun a 10-day Crest Whitestrips Premium PLUS program.

I recently read that the tooth-whitening market has been given a huge boost in recent years by the billions-dollar wedding industry. Like, they're at all the bridal wedding expos now, making the tooth-whitening thing as almost-standard as the dress.  Does this mean we've crossed over to the dark side of wedding hysteria?  I've always hated my teeth, but I do find it curious that the time I've (and we've) chosen is now to try to do something....