Bethanie's Brain

After yesterday's unexpected news that my sister-in-law is going to have twins, I sent her a little list of good things about having twins that she could focus on to try and diffuse some of the shell shock. Then I decided it would make a great Thursday Thirteen - if I could come up 13 things... I figured I'd probably have to resort to google to get all 13, but I managed to come up with all of these myself. Yay, me! :D So here they are: 13 wonderful things about twins. And if you can think of others, by all means, please add to the list in the comments and I'll pass them on to my sister-in-law! Thirteen Wonderful Things about Twins 1. These days, you find out WELL ahead of time, not on their birthday! 2. Two kids, one pregnancy. (And if your pregnancies are anything like mine (miserable), you know that's a wonderful thing.) 3. Two kids, one labor ! Yahoo! 4. You get to open twice as many baby presents! Wheeee! 5. I couldn't find anything on their website,...

The subject of this TT comes to you courtesy of my 20th high school reunion, which I found out about yesterday, because an old friend found me on Facebook and sent me the info. It was kinda neat cruising the reunion website and seeing where people ended up, which naturally induced a bout of homesickness. Consequently, I give you... Thirteen Things I Miss About My Hometown That Have Ended Up In My Fiction 1. Moe’s Italian Sandwiches. It’s the bread, I think. And the absense of lettuce. And the particular meat they use. Or all of the above. I dunno, but you haven’t lived until you’ve had a Moe’s. Fiction: One gets shared in Dragons - in Prescott Park, as a matter of fact (see #7 below). 2. The Brioche. A café, which isn’t actually called that anymore, but I can’t remember the current name… Anyway, it’s the café on the square where I spent half of high school, every morning of my college career before I caught the bus, and as much time as I can manage on visits home. Fiction: Bits...

OK, I feel kinda weird about this, but I'm gonna post my TT early... on Wednesday, in fact. But only 'cuz a bunch of other people did too and I have time to go a-commenting NOW and probably won't tomorrow... Heh. Anyways. Thirteen Random Confessions 1. When my kids aren't in the car with me, I drive way too fast . 2. But it's OK, 'cuz I'm really driving a Rally car in the WRC . (Any guesses as to what team I drive for?) 3. I sometimes forget that I only have 6 gears... 5 . 5 gears . I sometimes forget that I only have 5 gears . (I'm not being cute, I actually typed it just like that...sheesh.) 4. I inhaled. 5. But I didn't like it. 6. I hate shopping unless it's for books, fabric, yarn or shoes. 7. I hate wearing shoes. 8. Especially while driving. 9. I can back into a pull-in parking spot, but I can't parallel park. 10. I eat chocolate. Every. Single. Day. 11. I am a Certifiable Bitch if I don't. 12. I sing, but only when I'm ...

Days like today, I rue my decision to major in a social science and a language, rather than a hard science... and let's just not mention my loathing of Latin because I thought it was "dead" and nobody spoke it anymore... Thirteen Terms I Had To Look Up in Wikipedia Today (yes, just today) Or That I Had To Google Because Wikipedia Failed Me 1. angiopoietin 2. Tie 2 receptor 3. genetic rescue 4. retinopathy 5. leiomyoma 6. tyrosine kinase 7. Ang 1 8. luciferase 9. adenoviral vectors 10. transfect 11. bicistronic 12. angiogenesis/lymphangiogenesis - which, being so similar, count as one, besides which, if I didn't count them as one, I wouldn't be able to include my favorite of all time: 13. syngeneic Balb/c mice (and actually, "syngeneic" was misspelled...) Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participat...

You see the picture up there? The one you click on to go to my profile? Yeah, yeah, that one. It’s there, in part, because I don’t actively hate it. (And there aren’t many pictures of me that meet that criteria.) It’s also there because it was taken Way Out West where part of my soul still lives. But mainly, it’s there because it reminds me that - once upon a time - I had abs. And you could see ‘em. However, that was 10 years, 1 wedding, 2 dogs, 2 cats and - perhaps most tellingly - 2 pregnancies ago. Hence, my Thirteen for this week… Thirteen Reasons I Need to Lose Weight 1. My arms don’t sit right on my body. Instead of going down, they go out first. Then down. I’ve never had that before. I don’t like it. 2. My fat clothes don’t fit. Last time my fat clothes didn’t fit, it was because I had lost so much weight they were too loose to stay up. Sadly, that ain’t the case this time. 3. Three years ago when I was back down to my high school weight, I bought all these great clothe...

OK, I decided this Thursday Thirteen thing looked fun. No guarantees I'll actually manage it every week, but ya never know... Thirteen Things on My Beloved Subaru that Need Fixin' 1. The doors lock and unlock themselves. At random. For no particular reason. (And I thought electronic locks were so cool when we got My Beloved Subaru (MBS)…) 2. The headlights go out constantly. It's not the bulbs, though. The bulbs are fine. It's the wires that supply them with power. They keep melting. Yeah, I know, melting . 3. If the RPMs drop too low in 2nd gear, the transmission violently ejects the gear shift back into neutral. The transmission does this, I am told, because the “synchos are going”. Whatever that means, the results are rather alarming. According to The Husband, it is not actually harmful, although it is a very certain indication that the transmission is well on its way to being utterly useless. 4. Subaru Legacy wagons have half doors – just the lower half, wher...