I'm brown!

Of course I'm brown right hehehe, well this verdict comes from a quiz at Tickle.com I'm a sucker for all these quizzes and memes and such. Here's what I scored on the 'What's your true colour?' quiz. This is the link: http://web.tickle.com/color/

Kimberli, your true color is Brown!

You're brown, a credible, stable color that's reminiscent of fine wood, rich leather, and wistful melancholy. Most likely, you're a logical, practical person ruled more by your head than your heart. With your inquisitive mind and insatiable curiosity, you're probably a great problem solver. And you always gather all of the facts before coming to a timely, informed decision. Easily intrigued, you're constantly finding new ways to challenge your mind, whether it's by reading the newspaper, playing a trivia game, or composing a piece of music. Brown is an impartial, neutral color, which means you tend to see the difference between fact and opinion easily and are open to many points of view. Trustworthy and steady, you really are a brown at heart.

• Mood: energetic
• Music: the lovely sounds of cornbeef and cabbage cooking on the stove *YUM*

It's been awhile...

It's been awhile since I've blogged. A lot has gone down but as I sit here all I can think about is food and when my pasta will be ready so I can finish making my tuna casserole. I even have dinner mapped out. Mince in my special slow-cooked sauce with spaghetti; al dente spaghetti... there's no other way to eat the stuff... Okay, took a break to do the tuna, yum.

Well, we raced on Sunday. I placed third in my RWD class and first for ladies, but it's time for a mindset. I want to compete with the big boy's times. Maybe not for the rest of this year. Let's face it Dex 2 in February will be my last until October. But although winning the ladies class is cool, I want to do times that are no more than 10 seconds of the day's leader.

Crazy sideways action at Jamspeed/JMMC Dexterity 1

I've finally gotten MSN working on my laptop again. Not quite sure where the conflict was but it's working now so I'm happy. Who'd ever have thought that we'd become so attached to the internet and these instant messengers :)

• Mood: here, hungry, nap time?
• Music: sounds of traffic

Baby names and other stuff

For some strange reason J and I had already had a boy's name picked out from last fall. At first we'd wanted Thomas, so that we could shorten it to Tommi (you know, World Rally Champion Tommi Makinen) but then someone else in the Jamaican motorsports community had a boy and there the name went. We both agreed that Petter was out of the question, and that the meaning would be lost with Peter. And then we hit upon it, right at the same time actually... Colin. We both adore Colin McRae, I once had to talk J out of buying an Xbox just so he could play Colin McRae Rally 2005, and even though he isn't a WRC driver anymore, we still follow his career with avid interest. (He looks set to go from Paris-Dakar rallying to NASCAR of all things!) So we had Colin, and then Burnsie passed away and the boy's name became Colin Richard, because we loved Richard Burns as well. (You'd have to take a look through the old threads in the Wheels Jamaica International and Local Rallying section to see what I mean).

But what about a girl's name? Even though J had already said to me that he'd love it if we had a baby girl, we were stuck at the name Melissa, which was what he would've been called had he been a girl. Then two nights ago it came to me, literally in a dream... J loved it as soon as he heard it.

Other stuff... I've gotten a couple messages about the part of my MSN nickname that says "I never thought being second best could feel so good" but it's true! Last week I got the awardees list for the 2005 Jamaica Millenium Motoring Club awards and I'm on it! I'm going to get a second place trophy for the Lady Dexterity Championship. I'm SO happy. I mean this was my first year and I only did three events, true, not that many ladies compete, so all I had to do was set good times and not DNF. But as I many people have told me, it is quite possible to DNF all three runs at a dexterity event. On Friday I was being teased that I won't be able to do any dexes this season but I think I can squeeze the first two and last one. I'll drive my 240sx, and since I drive the car everyday that shouldn't be a problem, and I'll run for points and not glory. That should set me up for either second or third place again and then for the 2007 season I can hopefully look at sponsorship and maybe even get some sprints under my belt. We'll see. I'm just really happy that there's a trophy out there with my name on it :-)

• Mood: brain is ready to work but body is tired
  

Quickie Blog

Should be halfway ready to go to work but I'm behind the laptop in my nightclothes but I was helping J with the firewall settings on the computer, so I have an excuse. Anyway, I saw this really interesting quiz on MSN attached to an article I was reading about embarassing grammar mistakes and thought it was a good blog item:

Word Quiz: Evil Twins
http://encarta.msn.com/quiz_144/Word_Quiz_Evil_Twins.html

• Mood: ready to face the day, it's my Friday!
• Music: my Dad muttering over the other laptop (yes, after 3 1/2 mnths he's back :)

PS - I got 8/10 btw, I got numbers 3 and 6 incorrect.

Word of the year

Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year 2005

1. integrity

Pronunciation: in-'te-gr&-tE
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English integrite, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French integrité, from Latin integritat-, integritas, from integr-, integer entire
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY
2 : an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS
synonym see HONESTY

And the runner-up words are:
2. refugee
3. contempt
4. filibuster
5. insipid
6. tsunami
7. pandemic
8. conclave
9. levee
10. inept

I think they base this on the number of times a search was done for the words last year. Very interesting that integrity should come out on top, given all that happened last year by way political scandal and doubt in the US. Tsunami, conclave and levee are all easy gueses to figure out what made those popular key words (2004's asian tsunami, the death of Pope John Paul and Hurricane Katrina hittings New Orleans)... maybe 'inept' was for the ex-FEMA head?

So what was the word for 2004 you might be wondering? That's simple enough, it was: BLOG :-)

Source: http://www.m-w.com/info/05words.htm

• Mood: refreshed after a nap
• Music: traffic sounds from the street
  

Matter over mind

I suppose I had been hoping to keep the morning sickness away with a positive, I-won't-allow-myself-to-be-sick attitude, but somethings are really matter over mind. I feel awful. I'm here at work and I'm just exhausted. I'm here walking around in flipflops (my heels are right here by my desk) because I don't think I could manage to balance in heels right now. It's only 4:00 pm and I've already eaten three meals for the day. About half an hour ago I nearly threw-up, which nearly brought me to tears because I NEVER throw up. I wish my Mom were still alive so that I could appologize to her for putting her through this, because this is uncomfortable to say the least. I'm sure a nice cup of Ginger Mint tea would do a world to improve how I'm feeling write now, but getting that here would be like getting ice cream cones delivered to the middle of the Sahara. I want to lay my head on my keyboard and howl. But at least I managed to get through a lot of what I had to do early, so hopefully I won't be here too late tonight. Last night we were here until 10:30 pm, and I was NOT pleased. And then to top it off, I blaze home in under 15 minutes to fall into the bed and then I'm lying there and my stomach starts rumbling, and it wouldn't stop. I actually had to get back out of bed to go and have crackers and jelly and some water before it would settle down for me to go to sleep. And then nowadays my body temperature, which is ordinarily quite cool, seems to have shot up, but I couldn't turn the fan up any higher because that made me cold, I couldn't ditch the blanket because then I'd be cold, and I was too hot all at the same time. Yes, don't mistake this for anything other than the rant that it is! Some of the people I know here at work are very cool and I've told them that I'm preggers and all, but I don't feel comfy launching into an all out rant with any of them. The ranting mood is waning though. Ahh, blog therapy really works wonders.

Ciao.

• Mood:hungry, naseous, cranky
• Music:the muted sound of conversations on the floor

Jan 2/But the end is near

"The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, told reporters at a recent news conference. In an interview this past week, McCoy said: "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."
- US has end in sight on Iraq rebuilding (Washington Post)

It's only the second day of the new year but for the situation in Iraq, at least, the end has begun. Well, not the whole situation, just the US' financial involvement in it. Apparently the gov't isn't going to ask for any additional reconsctruction funds next budget. Good news? For some, but then look at this quote:

"When the last of the $18.4 billion is spent, U.S. officials in Baghdad have made clear, other foreign donors and the fledgling Iraqi government will have to take up what authorities say is tens of billions of dollars of work yet to be done merely to bring reliable electricity, water and other services to Iraq's 26 million people."

Interesting stuff I think, and it's going to cause a big to do over in Europe that we probably won't hear about on this side of the world. Read the full story here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10667278/?CM=Take3&CE=linkHilites

• Mood: awake and refusing to be 'morning sick'
  
• Music: the muted sounds of street traffic
  

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. Midnight really did catch me in my bed, but I know that heading to bed was definitely the right decision... after all, I'm going to become a Mommy this year. Yes, J and I are pregnant :) We found out on December 23, but we pretty much told family. It's early days yet, and as my Aunt P says, we need to take it easy because the first 3 months are tentative and anything can happen, but I can't help but be really happy.

Of course there are alot of considerations, first of all is the fact that I'm here in Jamaica and J's over there in the States, but we've been making this work so far against the odds, and we're fighters. We've both been through alot and here we are, so we'll make it. But today's ODB really brought something home to me, because I'll admit, this is all kind of scary. I've never been pregnant before, so this is all so new, and yes, I do have his Mom, but this is all so hard without my own mother. Today's devotion was about those giants of the Bible, like Abraham who, "By faith... obeyed when he was called... And he went out, not knowing where he was going." — Hebrews 11:8. I think this is one of those things. Motherhood is one of those big unknowns for me, but God has his plan, and this child definitely isn't unwanted, so I know that with faith God is going to show us the steps to take and be our guide and comfort whenever things get rough.