Thank you so much to everyone who posted questions on my Ask Me Anything form! It is so fun to read what you want to know, and it is also super fun to have built-in blog content! And please feel free to ask additional questions if you like.
While I plan to turn a few questions into stand-alone posts (because, as you know, I can never give short answers to anything), here is a roundup of some of your fun questions and my answers.
From San of The In Between Is Mine:
I know you’re not sharing pictures of yourself on your blog, but can you give a general description of what you look like so I can have an image in my head? I wonder if am imagining you totally different from what you actually look like. Haha.
Ah yes. I have only ever shared photos of myself once on this blog, and even then my head was missing. Let’s see if I can craft you a self-portrait.
I am Caucasian. I have dark brown hair ( no bangs) that hangs down past my shoulders. It’s wavy/curly, but I straighten it. I have quite a few freckles and pale-ish, burns-easily skin. My eyes are green, although they can be hazel depending on what I’m wearing. (Tangent: I got very affronted once when my mother claimed that my eyes are hazel. They are NOT hazel. They are green. Changeable, yes, but definitely green. Why does this matter so much to me? Maybe because green eyes aren’t particularly common and I am unremarkable in every other way, lol?) While I don’t wear much makeup, I almost never leave the house without mascara on. I am approximately 5’6” with a thick n’ sturdy bottom half. My mouth naturally turns down, so I have pretty severe RBF when I’m not focusing on Looking Pleasant and Approachable. I have a facial scar on my chin/neck that makes me very self-conscious when I meet new people. I like to wear leggings or jeans and loose-fitting but not shapeless tops that cover my rear, and prefer wedges to any other shoe style. I have very sensitive eyes, so I almost always have sunglasses on (and I personally think I look better in sunglasses than without). In one of her Ramona books, Beverly Cleary describes the mother of one of Ramona’s friends as “comfortable looking,” and the instant I read it I thought, yes. That is me: I am comfortable looking. Like a squashy couch.
From Amanda:
Could you make your blog so I can read it entirely in Feedly, not just the snippet?
This is a question I do not entirely know the answer to! My understanding of Feedly is minimal, and I did nothing on my end to enable Feedly to capture my posts. (Maybe a million years ago I clicked something in WordPress that says “enable RSS” or the like? I don’t know.) After a quick Google search, it seems like there IS a way to do this, but it looks like I would need to install a plug-in that is quite expensive. This blog is purely fun for me — I make a few dollars in amazon commissions a year, but beyond that, I don’t make any money from blogging; nor do I spend any money on blogging, aside from the time I put into writing posts and reading comments, so I don’t plan at this time to spend money on plug-ins. That’s a pretty selfish response, I recognize that, and I feel terrible that there are people who aren’t able to read this blog in the way they want to, but I just can’t justify the cost. (Nor do I want to do what it would take to monetize this blog. I feel like that would ruin it for me.) I would suggest signing up for email delivery of my posts, but a) that’s entirely different from going to Feedly and reading the posts you want to read, and b) the emails only include a snippet as well. I’m sorry! If anyone else is aware of a free way to accomplish Amanda’s request, I am all ears.
UPDATE! Kaelyn of Grateful Kae showed me how to fix this! So Feedly should now pick up the full text of my posts.
If you also want to do this, and you also have a WordPress blog, simply go into your dashboard, click on “settings,” and then choose “reading.” Then you scroll down to where it says “For each post in a feed, include” and then toggle the “full post” option.
Thank you so much, Kaelyn!
From Nicole of Girl in a Boy House:
What is your very favourite food?
Oh Nicole. I have so many favorite foods! If I had to choose one, I would go with tacos. But I also adore pizza and red curry and chicken tikka masala and shrimp linguine with lemon-garlic-wine sauce and filet mignon with bordelaise and garlicky mashed potatoes and many, many other things.
What is your favourite cocktail? My favorite is the classic margarita, rocks, with salt rim. But I also enjoy a good gin and tonic, or a dirty martini, or a gin gimlet.
If there is a wedding that you’re attending, what song will get you on the dance floor no matter what? Probably anything from the 90s. Like… “Hit Me Baby One More Time” or “Bye Bye Bye.”
If you were to karaoke, what song would you sing? “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer, even though some of the register is too low for my voice. Or maybe “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey. That’s a belter. But I would never ever do karaoke. I get embarrassed singing along to songs in the car with my husband and daughter!
And do you have a favourite stage of Carla’s? The current stage is always my favorite! When I look back at prior stages, I tend to romanticize them. Like how cute she was when she was a toddler! But then I remember how she had absolutely no concept of personal safety and would just tear down a hallway/store aisle/parking lot if I happened to let go of her hand for a nanosecond, and I think, Nope, this stage is good.
From NGS of The Time for Change:
How do you make your bed cozy? Fancy sheets, luxurious pajamas, special pillow? I am a hot sleeper, so I tend to avoid cozy for most of the year. In fact, my husband went on a quest this year to find me cooling sheets and a cooling duvet cover so that I would be more comfortable. We haven’t pulled the trigger on the sheets yet (sheets are so! expensive! and yes, I know you use them every day, so it’s worthwhile to spend a little more, but yeesh! so! expensive!), but we did get a cooling duvet cover that I adore. In the winter, we do put flannel sheets on our bed. I enjoy climbing into them, all fuzzy and warm, at night. But then I wake up all drenched in sweat and like them less.
What is your favorite time of day? Early morning, when I am the only person awake and I have time to do nothing of consequence for awhile. Since Carla is an early riser, these early mornings alone are few and far between, so I tend to really cherish them.
Do you have a favorite pair of shoes? I love all my shoes equally. Well, except my wedges: I love them slightly more. I have fancy black patent leather wedges; I have faux-horsehair wedges in a leopard print; I have light grey canvas wedges; and brownish-grey faux-leather wedges. Plus a couple of pairs of wedge sandals. Wedges are leg-lengthening and sturdy, they go with anything from leggings to dresses to jeans, and I love them so much. Of course, I can’t really WEAR them anymore, what with the foot pain. But I can dream of a day when I will wear them again, pain free.
What’s your favorite hobby (besides this blog, obviously)? Reading! That counts as a hobby, right? If not, I have zero hobbies besides this blog.
From Colleen Martin of Martin Family Moments:
What are your thoughts on the afterlife/ghosts/Heaven and the like? Wow, I don’t think anyone has ever asked me this before! Because I am not particularly religious, I don’t really feel like I have any sort of belief in the afterlife/heaven. This life is all we have, and it’s a gift, and we should make it count in whatever way is meaningful to us. However… I don’t know. And I am willing to admit that there are forces in the universe that I am unaware of, forces that I cannot fathom or explain, so if there were an afterlife/heaven, I guess I would not be surprised. (Same goes for ghosts. I have never experienced anything supernatural, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.)
It seems as though I am doing NaBloPoMo this month, which is 30 blog posts in 30 days. (Will I make it??? Only time will tell.) Details at San’s blog here.
life of a doctor's wife 