10 on Tuesday: 10 Songs That Bring Back Memories

The theme of this week's 10 on Tuesday is "10 songs that bring back memories". It was hard to narrow this down to just ten but here goes in chronological order:

1. "You May be Right, I May be Crazy" by Billy Joel. For some bizarre reason, my dad decided when I was a little girl to make this our father/daughter song. He loved to put on the record when I had friends over and drag me around the room to embarrass me. I was seriously afraid that he would crash my high school prom to do that but fortunately it didn't happen.
   
2. "I Just Can't Wait to be King" from the Lion King soundtrack. This was my high school clique's senior year theme song. It totally captured how anxious we were to get out from under our parents' control and live our own lives.
3. "December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" by the Four Seasons re-mixed by Ben Liebrand. This was the theme song to my senior prom.
   
4. "Brick House" from the Commodores. This was my college sorority chapter's unofficial theme song. Any time we heard it at a party, we would all go out and "shake it down, shake it down now!"
5. "Another Night, Another Dream" by La Bouche. I took a step aerobics class in college & this was the instructor's favorite song so she would always play it. I can still remember some of the choreography whenever I hear it even though that was over a decade ago.
   
6. "Angel Eyes" from the Jeff Healey band. DH and I have very different tastes in music so we never picked an official song while we were dating. When it came time for our wedding reception, we had to decide on one for our first dance. He flatly rejected all my suggestions and finally came up with "Angel Eyes". It's not one I would've picked since it's kind of self-deprecating ("What you're doing with a clown like me/Is surely one of life's little mysteries") but it does have a sweet sentiment.
7. "Genie in a Bottle" by Christina Aguillera. We used to live out in a remote military base in the Mojave Desert which was 40 miles from the nearest town. There were only 3 radio stations we could receive on this drive- a country station (a genre DH hates), the base one (which played a very eclectic mix depending on who was the DJ), and an adult contemporary one that we generally ended up listening to. For whatever reason, this station had "Genie in a Bottle" in heavy rotation so we would always hear it at least once on the drive to town. It is now forever associated with that road in our mind.
   
8. "Good Morning, Beautiful" by Steve Holy. This song was played a lot on the radio when my DD was a newborn. We ended up co-sleeping with her until she started crawling because she absolutely refused to sleep in the bassinet. We got into this ritual where I would sing her the chorus of "Good Morning, Beautiful" every morning. I still do it 5 years later even though she's been in her own room since she was 6 mos.
9. "Danni California" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. When we did our cross-country road trip in conjunction with our move from Boston to San Francisco, we started keeping track of the most over-played songs on the radio. It was close between this and "Walk Away" by Kelly Clarkson but ultimately this won out.
   
10. "Ain't No Other Man" by Christina Aguillera. This song was popular when my DS was a baby and my nickname for him is "Mini-man". So I started singing him the chorus of this song substituting "Mini" for "Other" as his theme song.

10 on Tuesday: 10 Useful Internet Sites

The theme of this week's 10 on Tuesday meme is "10 Useful Internet Sites". This was really hard for me to narrow down as I've got a ton of websites bookmarked but here goes:

1. The Baldwin Online Children's Literature Project. This website makes available classic children's literature that are now in the public domain. It is a wonderful resource for nursery rhymes, fables, folk tales, myths, legends, hero stories, fairy tales, Bible stories, Nature stories, biography, history, and poetry.
   
2. 1000 Good Books for Children from the Classical Christian Education Support Loop. Wondering where to find children's books that have both literary merit and reinforce traditional Biblical values? Sadly one cannot trust many public libraries these days as their shelves are full of books that are at best trite and at worst deliberately undermines those values. This website is a collaboration of 25 Christian homeschooling moms and the titles are grouped into those best for 1st-3rd grade, 4th-6th grade, 7th-9th grade, and 10th-12th grade.
   
3. Classics List for Children and Youth from the appendix of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a New Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-First Century by Oliver Van DeMille. Overwhelmed by the previous list? These titles are some of the "best of the best" for kids and young people.
4. Living Math! Got a child who is a bookworm but resists math? Here's an extensive list of books covering mathematical concepts in entertaining story formats indexed by topic.
5. Reading Your Way Through History Who says history has to be learned from boring, dumbed-down, politically correct textbooks? This website is especially useful for Catholic families who want to see how Biblical and Church history fits in with secular history. Please note that Protestant families will most likely want to skip the titles on the Reformation as they are written from a pro-Catholic viewpoint.
6. Science Book List from Paula's Archives. "Living books" about science & nature.
7. A to Z Home's Cool Homeschooling Ann Zeise has created a Yahoo-like guide to the best homeschooling resources out there.
8. Love2Learn Favorite Resources for Catholic Homeschoolers. Alicia Van Hecke and a group of other Catholic homeschooling moms review both secular and Catholic homeschooling materials.
9. The TAG Project. Support for families with gifted/advanced children including the TAGMAX e-mail list for homeschoolers.
   
10. Catholic Culture. Awesome website for everything Catholic. My favorite part is the "site reviews" section where they rate other websites for fidelity to Church teaching. It can be hard to tell at first glance whether a website calling itself "Catholic" truly is. There are sadly many groups holding unorthodox and/or schismatic beliefs who claim the Catholic label such as the "Catholics" for a Free Choice on the left and the SSPX on the right. I always check the Catholic Culture reviews to see if they rate the site as faithful to the Magisterium.
    

10 on Tuesday: 10 Countries I'd Like to Visit

The theme of this week's 10 on Tuesday is "10 countries I'd like to visit". I got a chance to travel overseas a bit in my teens and hope to be in a position to do some more soon. In alphabetical order, here are some countries I hope to visit someday:

1. Australia
2. Austria
3. Belize
4. China
5. Czech Republic
6. Germany
7. Hungary. Note: I made a bone-head mistake when I first posted this, thinking that Budapest was in Romania. That would be Bucharest, duh!8. Ireland
9. Israel

10. Russia
Where would you like to visit?

10 on Tuesday: A Few of my Favorite Things

The theme of this week's Ten on Tuesday is "10 of my favorite things".

1. My daughter and son2. My husband3. The Red Sox4. Boston5. Autumn in New England6. Cooking7. Reading8. Blogging9. Impressionist paintings
10. God

10 on Tuesday: 10 Things to Do Before You Die

The theme of this week's 10 on Tuesday is "10 Things to Do Before You Die". I found this list to be very tricky as I feel like I haven't experienced enough to come up with 10 interesting suggestions. I finally came up with 5 I've done and 5 I plan to someday!

(1) Watch the sunrise over the Atlantic
(2) Watch the sunset over the Pacific
(3) Spend the 4th of July in Washington D.C.
(4) Visit the Musee d'Orsay in Paris
(5) Visit the Uffizi in Tuscany
(6) Visit the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (haven't done this yet but I want to!)
(7) Visit the Great Wall of China (ditto!)
(8) Attend the Olympics (ditto!)
(9) Attend a Shakespeare play at the Globe Theater (ditto!)
(10) Make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land (ditto!)

10 on Tuesday: Favorite Bands

The theme of this week's "Ten on Tuesday" is 10 favorite bands of all time. There have been so many great bands over the years that it was really hard to narrow the list down to just 10. In no particular order:

1. Eagles
2. U2
3. Beatles
4. Creedence Clearwater Revival/Revisited
5. Police
6. REM
7. Bon Jovi
8. Heart
9. Alabama
10. Duran Duran (guilty pleasure I know!)

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Favorite Movies to Quote

The theme of this week's "Ten on Tuesday" is 10 favorite movies to quote:

1. The Princess Bride "You keep using that word...I do not think it means what you think it means." "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders...The most famous, of course, is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia' but only SLIGHTLY less well known is THIS: 'never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line! Ha, ha, ha, ha...CLUNK [falls over dead]" "Get back, witch!""I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!" I could go on all day but those are my favorites!
2. Casablanca "Round up the usual suspects" "I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling in this establishment!" Again I could go on all day...
3. The Wizard of Oz "I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Toto" "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail "We're the Knights of the Round Table, we dance whenever we're able, we do chorus scenes with footwork impeccable...""What are you doing now?" "Averting our eyes, my God" "Well, don't! It's just like those miserable psalms, always so depressing. Now knock it off!"
5. Star Wars IV: A New Hope "You flew in this heap? You're braver than I thought..." "I don't know who you are or where you've come from, but from now on you'll do as I say, okay?" "Wonderful girl. Either I'm going to kill her or I'm beginning to like her."
6. Lord of the Rings "All that glitters is not gold, nor all who wander lost" "One ring to rule them all, one ring to bind them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them" "It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing" "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."
7. My Fair Lady "She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty." "I ain't dirty! I washed my face and hands before I come, I did." "If the king finds out you are not a lady, you will be taken to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls!" "You see, the great secret, Eliza, is not a question of good manners or bad manners, or any particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls. The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you've ever heard me treat anyone else better."
8. The Sound of Music "Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things" "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window." "You know how Sister Berthe always makes me kiss the floor after we've had a disagreement? Well, lately I've taken to kissing the floor whenever I see her coming, just to save time."
9. Gone with the Wind "I'll think about it tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day!" "Fiddle-dee-dee" "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a d***!"
10. The Gospel According to St. Matthew The movie is a bit on the strange side, but you can't beat the dialogue as it's taken almost word for word from the original Scripture.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Awesome Things About Me

The theme of this week's Ten on Tuesday is "Time to Brag: 10 Awesome Things About You". In no particular order here goes:

1. I make a scrumptious lasagna. I don't do it very often since making the whole thing from scratch takes around 3 hours, but it is dee-lish!
2. I also make a berry cheesecake that is to die for!
   
3. Through cleaning up my diet (including limiting #1 and #2, sniff, sniff) and getting serious about exercise, I now weigh 20 lbs less than I did in January 2002 when I got pregnant with my oldest.
   
4. I discovered that cardio kickboxing is a fun way to help accomplish #3!
5. I opened a Roth IRA and 401(k) account at 22 when I started my first permanent job after college (a big "Thank you!" to my parents for teaching me about the importance of saving for the future).
   
6. I registered to vote when I turned 18 and have voted in every Federal election since. That doesn't sound like much until you realize that only 32% of eligible people my age voted in '96, 36% in '00, and 48% in '04 (important note: I'd moved up to the next age bracket by the last one).
   
7. I read books on a regular basis. This doesn't sound like much until you realize that 42% of college graduates never read another book after graduation.
8. I got the highest grade in my "Biology of Human Sexuality" course in college- and was a virgin at the time! ;-)
   
9. My DD was watching me get all dolled up over the weekend (typically I just wear tinted sunscreen and lip gloss) and told me that I didn't need to put on makeup because I am beautiful already.
   
10. I'm so thankful to God for blessing me with so much! :-)

I couldn't find an auto-linky for this meme, so just leave your URL in the comments. I'll list it below when I get a minute!

1. Eternal Flux's list
2. Charmaine from Mental Meandering's list.
3. Julia from Only in my Dream's post.
4. Gabrielle's list.
5. Patois from Whee All the Way Home's list.