We all have favorites, whether we admit to them or not. I can’t begin to explain the science behind why we have the preferences that we do, but a quick Google search tells me that identifying and naming favorites has numerous benefits. Children name favorites as a way of helping them form a personal identity and make sense of a complex world. As adults, the act of choosing favorites may be less psychologically necessary, but open favoritism does aid in decision-making (“I always get the chocolate cake for dessert”), allows us to express our personal brand (“she’s the girl who wears purple”), and helps us foster connections with others (“we are a Longhorn family”).
Personally, choosing favorites is one of my favorite things—right up there with making cheesy puns. 😉 And since today is my birthday, I decided to indulge myself with this quirky post of my personal favorites—42 of them (though we all know 28 is my favorite number) since I am 42 today!
As you’ll see, while I LOVE naming favorites, I’m not always great at narrowing those favorites to a single top choice. Some might call it indecision; I prefer to see it as a sign a sign of an enthusiasm and positivity.
JUST-FOR-FUN FAVORITES
1. FAVORITE COLOR: pink, yellow, turquoise
2. FAVORITE FLOWER and/or PLANT: tulips, jacaranda trees
3. FAVORITE GEMSTONE: opal
4. FAVORITE SCENT: vanilla, plumeria, cinnamon
5. FAVORITE ANIMAL: koala, giraffe
6. FAVORITE HOBBY: reading, writing, exploring personality types, making lists
7. FAVORITE CITY: Florence, Italy
FOODIE FAVORITES
8. FAVORITE FOOD: yogurt
9. FAVORITE BEVERAGE: Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar, dessert-flavored hot tea
10. FAVORITE FRUIT: nectarines, cherries, mango
11. FAVORITE VEGETABLE: cauliflower, asparagus, mushrooms, hearts of palm
12. FAVORITE CANDY: Rolo, peanut butter M&Ms, candy corn
13. FAVORITE MEAL: seared salmon salad with a side of roasted vegetables or sweet potato fries
ENTERTAINMENT FAVORITES
14. FAVORITE TV SHOW: I Love Lucy
15. FAVORITE MOVIE: Les Misérables (both the 1998 version with Liam Neeson and the 20212 musical with Hugh Jackman), The Count of Monte Cristo, Beauty and the Beast (both the 1991 animated version and the 2017 musical), Ever After <—— Coincidentally these are all set in France!
16. FAVORITE MUSIC GENRE: show tunes, contemporary singer/songwriter folk, any and all Christmas music, traditional hymns
17. FAVORITE ANIMATED CHARACTER: Eeyore
18. FAVORITE DISNEY PRINCESS: Cinderella
19. FAVORITE GAME: Scattegories, Rummy, Upwords
20. FAVORITE SPECTATOR SPORT: gymnastics
FAITH-ADJACENT FAVORITES
21. FAVORITE SCRIPTURE: Proverbs 3:5-6 (“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.“) and Philippians 4:4-8 (“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”)
22. FAVORITE BOOK OF THE BIBLE: Genesis, Romans (but really all the epistles), Psalms
23. FAVORITE BIBLICAL FIGURE (BESIDES JESUS): Joseph (the favorite of Jacob’s sons)
24. FAVORITE SPIRITUAL HERO: Corrie ten Boom
25. FAVORITE HYMN: “It Is Well With My Soul”
BOOKISH FAVORITES
26. FAVORITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL: Literature when I was a student; History now as a teacher to my kids
27. FAVORITE TOPIC TO STUDY: apologetics, sociology, psychology
28. FAVORITE CHILDREN’S PICTURE BOOK: I’ll Love You Forever
29. FAVORITE BOOK SERIES: Harry Potter
30. FAVORITE AUTHOR: Fredrik Backman, Lian Moriarty, Amor Towles
31. FAVORITE BOOK GENRE: contemporary fiction that leans literary
32. FAVORITE BOOK STRUCTURE: epistolary
33. FAVORITE CLASSIC THAT I READ IN SCHOOL: To Kill a Mockingbird, And Then There Were None
34. FAVORITE BOOK FROM MY YOUTH: Sweet Valley Twins: The Magic Christmas
(Note that I haven’t tried to name an all-time favorite book, that’s way too hard. But you can see a collection of my MANY lifetime favorites on Goodreads.)
SEASONAL FAVORITES
35. FAVORITE SEASON: autumn
36. FAVORITE MONTH: October
37. FAVORITE HOLIDAY: Thanksgiving through New Year (the whole Christmas season)
38. FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE: It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
FAMILY FAVORITES
39. FAVORITE FAMILY POSSESSIONS: our Christmas ornament collection
40. FAVORITE THING ABOUT OUR FAMILY: that Luke works from home and we learn from home and can all be together all the time
41. FAVORITE FAMILY TRADITION: nightly prayer time and blessing
42. FAVORITE FAMILY MEMORY: with my family of origin—nightly rounds of Skip-Bo (with ice cream!); with my family today—introducing Kali, Sully, and Charlie to Nico and seeing our family complete for the first time
I hope you enjoyed learning a little more about me with this list. And I hope that it inspires you to compile a list of your own favorites! (If you do, I’d be honored if you’d share it as a special birthday gift to me!)
If I went by age, I’d have to do a list of 68!! Yikes. But you know how I can’t resist a list! I notice that making lists was one of YOUR favorite hobbies!
1.Favorite color: red
2. FAvorite ice cream: vanilla with caramel sauce
3. favorite pizza: Pepperoni
4. favorite flavor: vanilla, or “smoked”, as in BACON! or Mesquite
5 favorite dessert: donuts or cake with lots of frosting
6 favorite grade in primary: 5th
7 favorite grade in high school: 10th
8 favorite subject in school: math
9 favorite book read in school: There isn’t one!
10. favorite teacher—the male secular teacher the Catholic school hired when I was in 5th grade (see #6)
11.favorite state i lived in growing up: Pennsylvania
12: favorite athletic sport—summer—riding horses Winter—skating.
13. favorite genre for books: Literary fiction
14. favorite authors right now: Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, Liane Moriarty, Amor Towles, Monica Wood, Anna Quindlen….and many more!
15. favorite genre as a child: mystery.
16 favorite genre as a teen: Hist-fic, horses, and classics.
17. favorite tV show as a kid: Lost in Space
18. Favorite tv show in the 70s: MASH
18B. Favorite TV show in the 80s and 90s—Star Trek, CSI and ER.
19. favorite TV shows in the 21st century: The West Wing, and Downton Abbey
20. Favorite classics author: Jane Austen
21. favorite hobbies, then and now: reading, listing, inventing stories about horses and bloodlines, journaling, riding scrapbooking, making cards with my photos.
22. Favorite things to collect in my life (not all at the same time)—stationery, Star Trek books and memorabilia, sheets and pillow cases (mix and match), clocks, interesting picture frames, scrapbook papers and stickers….Oh, and books!
23 favorite month: June (if it isn’t raining) or October.
24. favorite broadway show: Les Miz
25. Favorite movies of all time: The Hunt for Red October, Shall We Dance, The Fugitive, The Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy, Lady Jane
26 favorite cartoon characters: The Grinch, or the Road Runner
27 favorite time of day: late afternoon
28 favorite type of hiking: FLAT, around a lake or pond.
29 favorite car I ever owned: A Buick Park Ave.
30 favorite cat: Siamese
31. favorite animal (besides cats) -horses, chickens, birds
32. Favorite country to visit: France
33. FAvorite Bible verses: LIke you, Phil 4:6.7, and Ps 37:9-11, and Isa 33:24 and Jer 29:11….so many.
34. favorite flower: peony
35. favorite tree: sugar maple
36. favorite heat source: wood fire (in stove)
37. favorite family possession: our Photo Albums
38. favorite gemstone: Tanzanite (kind of periwinkle colored) or Pink Tourmaline
39. favorite spectator sport: Horse racing, or ice dancing
40. favorite drink: Diet Coke or water.
That’s as far as I’m going!
Ooh, you had some good categories. Love everything about this! I don’t think I have seen ANY of your favorite movies OR shows, but Les Mis is also my favorite musical (along with Wicked). How great that you had a male teacher in 5th grade, more men need to teach! Thanks so much for participating!
Oh my goodness, I know you are at least a generation down from me, but these shows and movies are CLASSICS, and so good!! Red October (Sean Connery, a very young Alec Baldwin), The Fugitive (Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones), Shawshank (Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins), Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and Dan Akroyd) are excellent and often replayed on television. If you are in the mood for “old” movies, with less, or no swearing, and seriously good plots, I urge you to watch those! Shall We Dance? has Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere, and is surprisingly good, both dramatic and funny. Lady Jane is a Tudor movie, about the “9 Days Queen”, who became so when Henry VIII’s son Edward died. It’s very good. I mean it!! And your hubby would like Red October and The Fugitive and Shawshank, even if you didn’t. (lots of action. But GOOD feel-good movies. You want to cheer at the end.)
And you’re telling me you have never seen Downton Abbey? Downton Abbey is a REVOLUTION in television, they made 3 movies of it after it finished. I think my mother and I have watched the entire series (6 seasons) at least 3 times, and we’re on our 4th. EVERYONE knows Downton Abbey! The costumes, the castles, the storylines, the soap-opera-ishness of it, even with high society and down below stairs—-I mean, it’s unmissable!!! It aired on PBS, and you can find it streaming on Prime Video and others. And M*A*S*H, oh my goodness. Such a classic. It aired in the early 70s during Vietnam, and was making fun of, and making points about war….VERY FUNNY, but serious.
Well, anyway, I’ve put in my plug for these shows!
Oh yes, I have seen and love Downton Abbey! And several of those movies are on my list, old movies are so much better than most of what is coming out now!
Happiest birthday, Kendra! 🥳🎉🎈🌻
Thanks so much!