The Friday Five is Alive with Fives.

1. List five things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the year.
That's like only a month and a half away! These are things I must do, though I'd also really like to do them ... Organize a baby shower, create and mail out invites to a baby shower, finish my art-o-mat project, knit most of a knitting project I have yet to begin, and get an old futon mattress out of my apartment.

2. List five people you've lost contact with that you'd like to hear from again.
Tina Huytera, Maria Finucane (both were high school friends), Dave Vasquez (my first boyfriend), Ivan Ferris (college friend), and me. Heh.

3. List five things you'd like to learn how to do.
Make silver jewelry (via casting and sautering, with a kiln or torch), roast a perfect chicken, stop the loud rattling noise the heating vent is currently making in my office, sew a shirt from scratch and have the collar turn out nice, and change a tire on my car.

4. List five things you'd do if you won the lottery (no limit).
Hmm... I'd probably quit my full-time job, and then spend a healthy amount of time traveling all over the world (New Zealand, Bali, India, Japan, Iceland...), and of course I'd donate a big chunk to a pro-environment organization. I'd also buy houses for myself and my friends and family. And then I'd carve an idyllic hobbit-ish house out of the side of a hill, as a private nature-filled retreat where I'd go to "get away from it all," which would entail standing in front of gauzy windows while looking dramatic.

5. List five things you do that help you relax.
If it's cold out, and I come back to my house and jump into bed (with down comforter) to warm up, I will always end up falling asleep. I play puzzle games on my cell phone when I'm nervous or just bored. Ideally I do yoga, or at least yogic breathing. Also: drinking tea and petting my dog.