4 Things Meme

I was reading Sophie in Australia's Blog, Artstiches, and she extended an invitation to anyone reading her 4 things meme to play along themselves. As I'm having a non-sewing blog-catching up, computery kind of day, I decided it might be fun... If you haven't done this meme yet and would like to, please - go for it.

4 jobs I've had

• stay-at-home-mum/part-time childminder: ok, this is the current one. I take care of my own three kiddies (who will all be in full-time school come September - what will I do with all that time?) and I look after the two girls of a friend before and after-school most days. In many ways, this is my favourite job I've ever held - yes, there are days when I wonder what on earth I've got myself into, but frankly, the nice thing about dealing with kids is that even when they argue and get all childish and drive you mad it's ok, because after all, they are kids. I've worked in too many situations where people acted like that when they were plenty old enough to know better...
• webmaster, New Scientist magazine: I started working on the NS website when websites first came into existence (hey, I'm old) - I was never a complete techie - computers are not my background - and these days, I'd be so far behind the technology it's not even funny, but when we started - about 12 years ago I guess - we just wrote everything in HTML. Thinking back, it was all fairly basic :) Anyway, I stayed on the website for years (I had been on the magazine before as PA to the editor), moving into the more admin side when it got more technologically advanced.
• postal assistant/delivery person/general assistant at my university: this was a really fun job, actually - I worked with the maintenance department doing miscellaneous things, including sorting & delivering the mail, making general deliveries and pickups, driving people places, assembling furniture and any kind of random stuff which came up which didn't require specialist knowledge or abilities - much more fun than answering phones in some office, which is what many of the student jobs were
• supermarket checker: not quite my first job (which was McDonald's), but my second. I can still remember the produce code for bananas (2229)

4 films I would watch over and over:

• Bull Durham
• Strictly Ballroom
• Persuasion (with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds)
• Men in Black

4 places I have lived:

• London suburbs (current)
• Washington DC suburbs
• Florida
• Germany (as a baby)

4 favourite TV shows:

• House (what's not to like?)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Top Gear (if you think this programme is about cars, you are just so wrong)
• CSI (I actually like the entire franchise, even Miami, but the original is definitely the best)

4 favourite foods (this is really hard, I love food, so I'm going with food items rather than dishes):

• cheese
• really good crusty bread
• raspberries
• freshly picked corn on the cob

4 websites I visit every day

• blogger (to keep up with my own blogs, i mean)
• bloglines (to keep up with all the other blogs I read)
• my yahoo dyeing list, Dyehard
• http://www.weather.co.uk/ (ok, somewhat pathetic, but weather is an important thin here!)

4 places I love to be

• in my sewing room
• Juniper Top, our favourite picnic place on the South Downs
• anywhere with my DH & kids, when the kids are all getting along and not arguing
• the beach at night and/or off season

4 favourite colours

• brown (if you hang out here regularly, you'll know that!)
• black (for clothes in particular)
• purple
• green (though not to wear, so much)

4 names I love but wouldn't use for my children

• Noah (surname "North" - Noah North, I don't think so)
• Ruth (ditto - try pronouncing it)
• Orla (this is an Irish name, and DH and I aren't sure about using Irish names when you aren't Irish or don't live there, but I still love the name)
• Thomas (my BIL used it first, so we couldn't)

OK, that's it. More than you cared to know, I'm sure. I'm not going to tag people, but please, as I said at the top, if you want to play along, go for it.