8 Things Meme

Kelly from Big a little a tagged me for the 8 Things Meme. Here are the rules:

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. Although I love reading children's books and fairly dark mysteries, my favorite all-time authors write "comfort books": D. E. Stevenson, Georgette Heyer, and Jane Austen. These are the books I can read over and over again, even if I already know how the stories will turn out.
2. I also love the Maida books, by Inez Haynes Irwin, which are very obscure, but which I re-read every few years. I learned to appreciate this children's series because my grandmother also loved them (as an adult).
3. I'm allergic to nickel, and can pretty much only wear platinum jewelry (or beads, but gold and silver usually have nickel in them). I'm also allergic to sulfites (or at least they make me sneeze), but that doesn't keep me from drinking red wine.
4. I try to walk every morning, while listening to a book on MP3, though I'm not usually able to keep it up when I'm traveling.
5. I'm utterly and completely ruled by my Outlook task list. I even use it to remember birthdays.
6. I studied civil (undergrad) and industrial (grad) engineering in college, though I always read children's books in my spare time.
7. My favorite foods are chocolate and cheese. I once had to give up chocolate for a month for a special low-iodine diet, and it never got easier to be without it. I'm also partial to pizza, but only very certain types (it's a legacy of having grown up in Boston).
8. My idea of a great vacation is one in which there's time to sit in some quiet and beautiful place to read for at least a day. I've stored up memories of such places from throughout my life, and I close my eyes to recall them when times are stressful.

Trying not to tag people who have already been tagged by Kelly or Christine (who tagged Kelly) I tag:

1. Nancy from Journey Woman
2. Kris from Paradise Found
3. Wildwood Cottage
4. Miss Erin
5. Colleen from Chasing Ray
6. Robin Brande
7. TadMack and a.fortis at Finding Wonderland
8. Mitali Perkins

© 2009 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Elaine Magliaro]

Jen,

I love chocolate and cheese, too-- and my husband's homemade pizza and eggplant lasagna.

[Nancy]

Thanks for the tag Jen!

[Kelly]

I haven't read the Maida books. I think I'll have to!

[TadMack]

I refuse to add to my list that I'm on a perpetual diet... man, chocolate and cheese sound good right now! Preferably together... Who knew that chocolate was high in iodine? I eliminated it once to see if I slept better... the answer was a resounding "No!"

[Jen Robinson]

Oh, Elaine, eggplant lasagna sounds so good right now!

Nancy and Kris, you're very welcome!

Kelly, I can't honestly say whether the Maida books hold up if you first read them now - certainly the gender roles are a bit defined, and there's an alarming class-ism by which the wealthy father basically takes the poor children from their parents to live with him, so that all the kids can be together. But I love them anyway. They're a part of my childhood.

And, TadMack, I don't think that chocolate has a lot of iodine in it, but there is a little bit of salt. Low iodine means no salt, which is a pretty bleak story. I should eat less chocolate and cheese than I do. But life is too short for that!

[Erin]

Thanks for tagging me, Jen! I'll do it asap. :)

[Camille]

I had not thought about Georgette Heyer in a long time. Then the middle child took up English Country Dancing this year and suddenly I was (and am) awash in Regency memories as I sew a dress for her.

[Becky Levine]

Jen, I'm allergic to nickel, too--did you ever have the actual test? They put a drop of liquid nickel on your skin, cover it up for two days, then take it off and see if you react. Whoa--the itching! A dentist almost put a nickel crown in my mouth once, too, before I caught it!

You may already know this, surgical steel (not stainless) shouldn't make you react, and you can buy wires (for dangly earrings) out of it at most good jewelry stores. I do this and switch, whenever I buy a pair of earrings I can't trust. Posts are, obviously, out! The other thing is that for watches with metal backs--fingernail polish keeps the nickel from skin contact and means I can wear any cheap watch I want! :)

[Jen Robinson]

Thanks for the feedback, Becky! What a funny thing to have in common. I do have a watch that I got from a company called Simply Whispers which has, apparently, a surgical steel back, and which I can wear. I never had much luck with the nail polish thing, and I haven't re-pierced my ears since I had a horrific reaction to gold studs as a teenager. Once you get out of the habit of wearing jewelry, it's not something that you miss much.

I never had the test that you described. So technically my allergy isn't diagnosed. But I've talked to enough people to be sure that this is what it is.

Fun sharing with you. And Camille, if you do check out the Georgette Heyer books again, I'll be interested to know how they hold up for you.

[jules]

That's my idea of a great vacation, too. Right on!

[Vivian]

Eggplant lasagna sounds like heaven to me!

I'm allergic to sulfites too. And I love your idea of a good vacation. An absolute must.

[Jen Robinson]

All I have to work on now, Vivian and Jules, is figuring out how to actually schedule a vacation like that. But I'm working on it.