Where the Wild Thing Is

The Husband bought me a new journal called Listography: Your Life in Lists to help jumpstart my writing-block cure. I can think of few things I love more than lists. Of course if it's an alphabetized list in an Excel spreadsheet I'm over the moon, but spontaneous hand-written lists rank right up there, too. The first two were "List Places You've Lived" and "List People You've Lived With". And they only gave me one page for each. Really? I have lived at 30 different addresses with 27 different roommates since leaving home when I was 18 years old. Like I've said before, I get bored. And no, I'm not running from the law. Yet.
Residence #1 - Childhood Home: Of course this was the dream home I never realized was a dream home until I got out into the real world. 3ish acres, lakefront, 5br/3ba, fireplace, within spitting distance of The Mouse.....no big deal, right? I'll just pick one of those up at Target this afternoon.

During the summers we spent every day in the lake - swimming, boating, skiing, fishing. (And no, I had never even heard of SPF anything, which is why I'm currently keeping the Botox people in business.) Every afternoon, we would engage in "The Orange Wars" while racing our horses through the orange groves. Sometimes we would even ride on the golf courses, which appalls me now that I'm an adult who plays golf. We had a treehouse that we camped out in sometimes, even though I was terrified of the roaches that would lie in wait and pounce in the middle of the night. We ran rampant through the woods next door and continued to re-build the same fort over and over and over again. As we got older, we discovered that these secret locales made for great partying and parking spots. Just kidding, Mom and Dad. If you're reading this, I'm totally just kidding. Really. I am.

Residences #2-5 - College (10 roommates total): My first dorm in college was UN-AIRCONDITIONED, on the 4th floor (no elevator) of an all girls building. Visualize, if you will, the misery of Sorority Rush (i.e. makeup, hot curlers, pantyhose) in August in Florida while living in this sweatbox. My second dorm room was on the 11th floor (elevator, thank goodness) of a co-ed high-rise building. One minor drawback was when someone would pull the fire alarm and we'd have to walk down 11 flights of stairs and then back up. This happened on a regular basis and I had beautiful legs. My third dorm room was juuuussst right. It was the place to be because we were right next to "Broward Beach" - the pool and lawn where everyone went to see and be seen. I mean, to study.
Then, when my dorm stint was over, I moved into the "Red-Velvet-Couch Apartment". The RVC Apartment is a story for another time, but let's just say.....well, never mind. We went to class/work/church, studied hard, and that's all we did. Really, Mom and Dad, that's what we did.
Residence #9 (1 roommate): An apartment right across the street from the beach over a drive-thru-brew in Daytona Beach. You know what they say...location, location, location.
Residences #11-15 (1 husband): You'd think since I'd "settled down" and married that I would stay in once place, right? Not even close. 4 apartments and 1 house in less than 6 years. My most icky memory at #13 was getting peeped. Scared me to death and then the cop implied that it was my fault for walking around MY OWN HOME half-naked at 5am. Um, yeah, I was asking for it. We moved the next week.
Residence #18 (parents): Sanibel Island - ahhhh. Just for a summer, though.
Residence #22 (2 roommates): A house right behind a shopping mall - another excellent location. My favorite memory was stopping by the "Hot Donuts Now" Krispy Kreme on the way home on Fridays, and then eating doughnuts and drinking Miller Lite while watching Boy Meets World. Rockin' the Friday night, huh? Although we did occasionally rock the Friday night and I have a distinct memory that involves black vomit and white carpet, but I probably don't need to give you the play-by-play on that one.
Residence #24 (1 boyfriend): A house with the man who stole my last 4 childbearing years. Not that I'm bitter.
Residence #26: Hurricane House. Seriously, the day after the movers came, Hurricane Charley showed up. Then Frances and Jeanne followed. I learned that electricity should never be taken for granted.
Residences #27-28 (1 roommate): Like, I was totally, like, ya know, like, a Valley Girl. Oh, and btw, that "it's a dry heat" line doesn't help when it's 110 degrees during the summer. NOT that I'm complaining because I loved every red-hot minute of it. However, I do understand when people say they don't step foot into the Valley from June through September.
Residences #29-30 (1 husband): Done. I know I've said this before, but this time I realllllllyyy mean it.....I'm never moving again. Even though we have a treasure-trove of moving boxes stashed in the garage, just in case.

Honey, Let's Shrink the Waist!

2010 New Year's Resolutions...same lies, different year. 'Nuf said.

However, in keeping with my "new and improved" inspirations, I do have a new project that I'd like to announce for those of you who actually keep resolutions. How about a SHRINK-a-thon? As in shrinking the waistline? You know those walk-a-thon things we used to do as kids? (Remember the March of Dimes 21 mile Walk-a-thon in Orlando about 30ish years ago? Do they still do that?) You get someone to sponsor you, say, $1/mile and then if you finish the whole thing they owe your charity $21. Or, they could even sponsor you 10 cents/mile (we were in Jr. High, after all) and then owe $2.10 at the end. You get the idea.

So here's the deal.....AFSP is sponsoring a shrink-a-thon starting JANUARY 10th for the next 12 weeks. 12 weeks - that's it. Think about it - if you sponsored someone like me $1/lb, you'd probably only end up spending $12 at the most, because I'm such a slacker. Of course if you sponsored someone motivated, like most of my friends, you'd end up owing more. But here's the bonus - all the money raised goes to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

How does it work, you ask? First of all, you need to register on the official AFSP shrink-a-thon page. This gives you access to our virtual "meetings", as well as recipes, tips, advice, etc. Even if you register and change your mind, that's okay. (Trust me, I'm a flip-flopper, so I know about commitment angst.) But seriously, it's only for 12 weeks. 12 weeks! Even I can stick with that! You can dooooooo it!

Click to enlarge.