Sunday Stealing: The Seven Deadly Sins Meme

"Sunday Stealing", which I get from Bud Weiser at WTIT, has become something of a guilty pleasure for me. I don't always participate, but I love to read them. I just couldn't say no to this one ;-)

If you feel compelled to do this yourself, leave a link in the comments so I can check it out :-)

1 - Pride. Seven great things about yourself.
* I have raised two remarkable daughters that are kind, smart, funny, and beautiful.
* I am a good teacher (you either connect with kids or you don't ... I do, possibly because my sense of humor never graduated from middle school)
* I have a very strong work ethic. I started babysitting when I was 11 or 12, got my first real job (at a local water park) when I was 15, and haven't stopped since.
* I am a talented writer. Maybe not good enough (and please feel free to weigh in here), but pretty good.
* I clean up well ;) (I honestly care very little about how I look on a given day ... as long as I'm clean and my clothes don't clash, it's all good. However, when I decide to put my all into dressing up and doing my hair and stuff, people are usually pretty surprised ... it's probably the contrast more than that I actually look especially good ;))
* My dogs love me. This might sound small, but dogs know whether people are good or not. They seriously do.
* "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul."

2 - Envy. Seven things you lack and covet.
* Publication for my novel. Can you tell I'm hung up on that this weekend ;)?
* A home of my own. Although my mother has been incredibly kind about letting the girls and I crash in on her (for going on three years now, gulp ...), it would be nice to have a place of my own.
* A fully functioning liver and pancreas.
* Somebody to plow my driveway. It's snowing again (this winter is seriously getting ridiculous), and Addie's at a show, so it looks like it's all me and the snow shovel. If it was my own home, I would totally suck it up and pay for someone to plow. Because it is my mom's home and she is weird about spending money on things you can do yourself (I believe they call it "Yankee frugality"), I am the shoveling queen.
* A car dock for my iPod. Mine broke. While it's kind of entertaining to rock the ghetto "driving with earbuds" look, I'm just too old, you know?
* Adventure. Sometimes my life gets a little bit dull. I need to work on this ...
* Time to write built into every day. I know this is something I need to do for myself, but life happens.

3 - Wrath. Seven things that piss you off.
* People who think they are right all the time and want to argue about it even when you're like, "Okay, you're right, just let it go" (despite the fact that they are definitely wrong).
* "Toppers". This is my word for people who have to top everything you say. As in,
"I had a hard time sleeping last night; I was up until two in the morning."
"I was up until three in the morning."
or
"There was a dead mouse in my garage this morning."
"There were FIVE dead mice in my garage this morning. My cat killed them all."
* People who choose to work with kids when they clearly don't enjoy it, aren't good at it, and don't care (or are oblivious to) the detrimental impact this has on children.
* Mind games.
* Liars.
* Intolerance.
* My mom's computer needs (she's always getting random viruses because she clicks on EVERYTHING then expects me to know how to fix it, she shuts her computer completely down then gets annoyed when the wireless isn't immediately up and ready and thinks I am crazy when I tell her to just hibernate her computer so it doesn't have to go through the entire start-up process every twenty minutes, and so on)

4 - Sloth. Seven things you neglect to do.
* Go through clothes with the end goal of a Goodwill run. It's a very daunting task ...
* Clean my car out.
* Organize my desk (and filing cabinets and closet and pretty much everything else) at school
* Stay on top of paperwork. I'm very bad about this ...
* Sort Belle's socks. That kid has a serious sock issue ... I swear, they disappear. I've tried buying packs of the "same" socks, getting really tacky and unique socks, and everything in between, but no matter what, there are huge piles of "singletons" everywhere that a really good sorting would probably take care of.
* Everyday stuff ... I'll get caught up in a good book and forget about the dishes or put off vacuuming because I'm grading papers and so on.
* Update my calendar. I was doing really well for awhile since I have a calendar on my Droid, but I've gotten sloppy about it.

5 - Greed. Seven worldly material desires.
* Note--I am really and truly not into material stuff. I have a Droid and a laptop and a car with heated seats, and that's about all I'd want. This is all "wouldn't it be nice ..." stuff*
* A new wardrobe, since most of my clothes are left over from high school and/or Goodwill finds (when you're a single mother with two daughters, one of them kind of a "material girl", you miss out on new clothes)
* A weekly pedicure.
* A Mercedes convertible
* Trust funds for my kids
* Lobster for every meal
* Books. All books.
* A trip to Ireland

6 - Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
* Cheeseburgers.
* Bacardi 151
* Good books
* Milky Way candy bars
* Dunkin' Donuts coffee
* Hot showers that last for hours
* Good shoes.

7 - Lust. Seven love secrets.
* Note--I'm a teacher ... these are vague intentionally*
* Humor is key
* Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill"
* Go with the flow ... if swimming in the Atlantic in February or walking the streets of a city in the middle of a snowstorm or eating sushi for the first time or whatever comes up, go with it. Give it a shot. "Life is too short for cheap wine."
* "Yes, I actually LIKE to do ... that."
* Be a good person. The rest will come.
* "The number" needs to remain secret. On both sides.
* Be enthusiastic in all that you do. Enthusiasm is, of course, catching ...