Top Five Things I Equally Love and Hate

Deadlines
Bad writing
Birth control pills
Wasting time
Diplomacy

Top Five Traits I'd Turn Up if I Found a Personality Trait Volume Control

Patience
Spirituality
Courage
Tact
Perceptiveness

Top Five Traits I'd Turn Down if I Found a Personality Trait Volume Control

Negativity
Pride
Mouth
Judgment
Self-consciousness (which may actually stem from self-centeredness)

Top Five Videos I Think You Should Watch

Top Five Guilty Indulgences

Celebrity gossip
Writing myself as a character into books
Putting too much mix in my hot cocoa
Stalking online photo sites and Facebook for old pictures of my husband
Searching for my name under Google books to see if I'm in the acknowledgments

Top Five Ways to Spend a Sunday Afternoon

Watching football
At a baseball game
Napping
With the youth group
Lunch with friends and family (potluck or other)

Top Five Ways to Spend a Saturday

Wine tour
Visiting a museum or historical site
At a park
At a festival
At a beach

Top Five

Since theme months are so much fun and spawn the most comments, September *drum roll* will be a theme month. I’m stealing my theme from Rob Gordon in High Fidelity (or Rob Fleming if you prefer the book character's name) and making top five lists for whatever category I feel like making a top five list for for that day. I promise not to cop out on my answers to the "If you could do/be" lists by answering anything like "Exactly where I am." I hate when people do that. It's boring. It’s OBVIOUSLY a hypothetical exercise, so play the frick along! This may make my list of top five pet peeves . . .

The beauty of top-whatever number lists is that they reflect who you are at a moment in time. Five years ago my lists would have been different, and who knows if the next day I will want to change the previous day’s list. I also promise not to lie on these lists. It’s so embarrassingly clear when someone is lying about his or her favorite things. In other words, I won't be attempting to make you think I'm cool. You should know better by now. These will be my lists of favorites (or equivalent when speaking of the negative), not a lists of best/worst evers based on artistry or expert opinion. I will not be objective.

So, to start it off:

TOP FIVE FOODS I'LL EAT EVEN IF I'M FULL

Pizza
Cheese and crackers
Deviled eggs
Butterscotch chip cookies
Bacon

Get it? Sweet.

Return from the road trip

Some highlights from our road trip:

* My car getting 42 miles per gallon

* Passing the Shamokin/Pottsville sign on I-81

* West Virginia's policy of construction zone speed applying only when lights are flashing

* Witnessing a man karate kick the diesel pump

* My "Peace is Patriotic" magnet remaining on my car below the Mason-Dixon and back

* Drinking Guiness outside . . . legally

* Bodo's Bagels being a short walk from our cheap (but nice) hotel

* Getting to Monticello early enough to see the fog on the mountains

* Love lies bleeding being still fully in bloom

* Ignoring the GPS's directions

* The larger-than-life size Jesus cutout behind a trailor in Fishersville, VA (exit 91 off I-64)

* Five hours of talk radio

* Getting home in time to watch some of the Scrubs marathon on TV Land--which we get.

* My husand getting why I like Monticello