What is your greatest weakness?

Worst job interview question ever.

Since this is not a job interview, however, we'll just go with a personal kyrptonite:

Dress-up parties.

We may not be that good of friends, but if it's cocktail dress required, I will see that I'm invited to your party. And of course theme parties with costumes are immediate death. If you want to near-guarantee a visit from me plan, for example, a Mad Men themed party and I'm there in my best Joan Holloway dress (okay, so I'm probably more of a Betty Draper...). The only thing that could keep me away would be if someone else was throwing an Alice in Wonderland tea party the same day (I would go as one of the animals, probably, Alice is too easy. And I'm not blonde). Also, Halloween should be like four times a year.

(Yes, I did think about answering this seriously as some sort of personal growth exercise, but the weather's so nice out and I'm feeling frivolous.)

Ask me anything...you know, that isn't incriminating.

Bloggity Blog

• I know I'm behind on several formspring questions from you all. I was going to do some today, but the site seems to be broken...who knows if I'll still be in the mood when it starts working again, mwhahaha!
  

• So this would be old news if I ever checked Analytics on my blog, but since I rarely do, I'll just now point out something interesting I discovered. This is what my visits to my blog look like since I started keeping track: So apparently there was one week where I got a gazillion visitors (or almost 900) that kind of makes all the rest of the weeks of my life look worthless (around 100/week). Turns out that was the week of President Obama's inauguration and the post that most of those people were looking at was from a month earlier when I was speculating about Michelle Obama's inaugural gown. I'm pretty sure a lot of people out there were talking about that, but apparently I didn't do too bad in the Google battle there. Which isn't really that huge of a victory (my goal here is more to keep in touch with people and share things I find interesting than to have a bazillion people read it), but still, kind of makes me proud of myself in a artificial-validation-that-I'm-important kind of way. Bounce rate was only 56% which isn't too bad...
  

• Yes, I redid the background. Can't be sticking to the same thing all the time. And it's springtime now and I figured color is good for the soul. Keeping the layout, though, because it works and it's too much bother to change.
  

I want to have a reunion this summer with all my children and spouse (I was going to say spouses but that doesn't fit our family yet)? Where and when should we do it?

Hi, mom.

If you're wanting all your children, I'm assuming that means after Nate is back from Chile and whenever Jared is available (when does he come back to UT from NC?). So later summer. Time doesn't matter that much as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure Trevor and I could get work off whenever with proper notice.

As far as place, I've been kind of wanting to go to Ridgecrest again, but I know that's not exciting to you that live there. Trevor is, of course, not a huge fan of travel, so I'm sure he would vote the close the better. And probably he would prefer not camping. I'm not picky myself.

We're financially more free than we have been in the past, so that'll make travel easier.

So yeah, I guess just somewhere not too far away and as comfortable as possible (camping is okay, I suppose if it's a clean/sissy enough campground) is probably our only criteria. Let me know what you're concocting and I'll throw in more input as needed.

Ask me anything...you know, that isn't incriminating.

Wonnacott Wars!

This was apparently put together for a cub scout pack meeting for my little brother, Kevin. Enjoy:


The Great American Art of Star Wars Parody at it's finest.

Award for Worst Actress goes to: Mom. (Love you!)

Two confessions

• When I go clothes shopping, I mentally place pieces I see into the following four categories: Serena, Blair, Vanessa, and Jenny.

• Everything I have eaten today so far falls into two categories: Oreos and Sour Patch Kids.

How many countries have you traveled to?

Très (that's "three" in Spanish; look at how cultured I am!): Canada, Mexico, United States.

And for those people who say I can't count the United States because I'm a native, just let me have it. My list is already fairly pathetic. And technically I have traveled to the United States by traveling to various places in the United States, right?

I've never spent a night in a foreign county. I've spent an afternoon in Tijuana and an afternoon on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and that's all I've got. And I've never been outside North America (well, I guess Hawaii counts as outside North America...but it's still US). The vast majority of the travel I have done has been to places that can be driven to in a Wonnacott family station wagon or van (farther than you think), because that's how we roll.

However, I would love to be a world-traveling sort. I have a well-documented appreciation of foreign places. I suppose lack of money and anyone to travel with has limited me. Trevor's not a huge traveler, though given the right destination (Ireland and Scotland, perhaps, love?), I think he could be persuaded. If we can get him over his fear of flying. Though of course money is the bigger problem, but a trip could be saved up for if planned far enough in advance. Basically what I'm saying is...does anybody want to go on a trip to a foreign country with me? I'm down for basically wherever. When would depend on the where (as when depends on cost, weather, and events). Let's plan something.

Ask me anything...you know, that isn't incriminating.

What's the oldest piece of clothing you still own and wear?

I'm not sure. I know I have a fair amount of clothing that I had in late high school that I still wear...mostly t-shirts, I suppose. I just recently got rid of a dress that I know I had in 9th grade, but I got rid of it because I hadn't worn it for a year, so I guess that doesn't count. Actually the shirt I'm wearing today I'm pretty sure I originally purchased in 10th or 11th grade (from Wal-Mart and it's still in good condition!), though I didn't wear it much until I was in college.

Which brings me to something I really think clothing manufacturers should do (yes, this is straying from the original question; no, I don't feel guilty about that because this is far too important of a cause to stay silent on):

One day, a couple months ago, I was sitting on the toilet and noticed something on the tag of my pants. Along with the brand name (Old Navy), the washing instructions (machine wash warm with like colors, tumble dry low), and country of origin (Indonesia), there was the season and year the pants were produced (Fall 2005). Awesome. Why don't all clothes have that? It would make thrift shopping all the more amazing (How do I know if this is actually from the 80s or if it was created during an 80s revival period? Or if it's actually part of an 80s costume, heaven forbid?). And it would certainly come in handy if you were ever in a situation where you had to answer "What's the oldest piece of clothing you still own and wear?" and needed a 100% correct answer instead of something wishy-washy followed by a semi-related tangent.

Of course, I love chronology more than the average person, so maybe it doesn't matter that much (I'm the kind of person who Mark Twain's Memory Game was made for...not because I'd be good at it, but because I would love to be good at it). But still.

The only people I could see being against this are the super snobby high-end fashion people who would be like "Well, of course, that's from Givenchy's Spring '97 collection, what do you think I am, an idiot?" But since that's a very small portion of the clothing market, whatever. Though maybe having the season/year stitched on the tag is actually something common in the high-end clothing market. I really wouldn't know.

But anyway, that's my cause. Write your congressman (I mean, I technically hate government over-involvement, but...).

Ask me anything

Too Late to be a Trendsetter/Too Lazy to Think for Myself

Way to go, Rachael, you got me jealous. So here goes: http://www.formspring.me/awk4

Basically, the thought is this will help me generate topics for blog posts without me having to, you know, use my brain. Thinking, I believe they call it.

So ask away, my friends.

And the new Supreme Court Justice nominee is....

Paul Blart, Mall Cop.

Awesome.

Prior to today's nomination, everything I really knew about Elena Kagan came from an article I read a few weeks ago about how it shouldn't matter whether she's a lesbian or not. So naturally the second I find out she's the pick, my reaction is to walk the world wide web for conclusive evidence on her sexual orientation. Way to fail that one, Slate.

Okay, okay, now you're making me feel guilty. I'll go read about her abortion stance or something...

Cinqo de Mayo

I generally use this day as an excuse to show off my vast knowledge of Mexican history to at least one poor person who says "Happy Cinqo de Mayo" to me. It's not really that vast, but I did take a Modern Latin American History class once and the internet is never too far away, so I'm a pretty realistic fake expert. Well, and since most people know essentially nothing other than "The Mexicans are going to take all those good American jobs that...well, yeah, we don't want those crap jobs, but...stupid Mexicans...also, I love enchiladas", I'm pretty safe.

I was debating writing out a brief rundown of the wars for Mexican independence here (hint: The Battle of Puebla, the reason for Cinqo de Mayo, is not actually that important), but I've decided that's actually kind of silly, since like every news source will also have something written about it today (and every Cinqo de May for years to come) and anybody who cares already knows.

Nothing like holding onto information that really serves no purpose other than to give me a smug "I know something you don't know" feeling. Of course, thinking I'm smarter than everybody else is a key part of my personality...but let's not talk about that.

Cinqo de Mayo's greatest contribution to my life: Company provides Mexican food for lunch today. Whoohoo!