Eight Facts About Me

Laura tagged me for this fun meme....

First, the rules: For this meme, each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. When I was a teenager I volunteered 3 summers at our local hospital as a candy striper. I wore a red and white striped uniform, which was actually a jumper with a white shirt underneath. I really enjoyed spending my summers there, making new friends and becoming familiar with the nurses and their jobs. They asked us to do all kinds of things. I remember making hospital beds, serving meals to patients, picking up trays, helping in medical records, and just running all sorts of errands for them and for other departments within the hospital.



2. All of my relatives are of the Mennonite religion. My parents left the church when I was in second grade. We visited a small Presbyterian church for a few years during my childhood. After I married my husband, we attended Baptist churches in the various places we lived while moving around with the military.


3. My first car was a 1973 Monte Carlo.

It looked just like this one, but it was a darker green. I loved it.

4. I would have liked it if my mother had homeschooled me. She would have had time to teach me how to keep a garden, to knit and crochet, to sew dresses for myself, and to learn the process of canning the fresh garden produce. Maybe I never would have rebelled as a teenager. What I learned in school was to hate how I looked (too skinny, too white, too many freckles, too dumb, etc. etc. ) I learned to hide inside myself, not to let anyone know what I truly thought, for fear of being made fun of. Even today in group settings, I am likely to be very quiet, just listening to the conversation around me. Still too worried to speak my mind in case people might disagree with me or laugh at me.

5. I attended Central Missouri State University for one year, intending to get a legal secretary degree. I wasn't really interested in that job, though. Looking back, I have absolutely no idea why I ever picked that profession. What I really wanted was to be a wife and mother, and I was able to pursue that ambition when I met my future husband after that first year of college. I met him the weekend after he joined the Marines. I continued to work the first couple years of our marriage and quit to be a stay at home mom about a month before our first son was born. I have never wished to be back at work again. I find that my job at home is so much more fulfilling than any paying job I could have.

6. I love the smell of coffee brewing, the taste of it, the idea of sitting with a cup of it in one hand and a book in the other while I sit outside on my patio in the morning. Or sharing a cup with my Dad before he goes to work when I am home visiting him. Or sharing one with a friend at a coffee shop that has comfy chairs, art on the walls, and books everywhere. Or a cup in my hand while we are driving on long road trips. You know what I mean. When is a cup of coffee ever a bad thing?
(Coffee in Europe is so much better than coffee in the U.S. It is much stronger and is usually always made with an espresso machine, never a coffee pot.)


7. I like to have an organized house. I don't mind so much if there is a little dust on the shelf, or crumbs on the floor, or the bathroom isn't spotless. But I do like to see my desk uncluttered, my kitchen counter clean and free of junk, toys in their place when they aren't being played with, and my bedroom picked up so that it can be a place of refuge when I need it.

8. Sometimes I wish we could go back in time, so that my boys would not have the temptation of computer games, video games, radio, t.v., Gameboys, etc. The influence of all these techno gadgets cannot be good for them. We limit all of it in our house, but it still has a pull on them. Especially since we live in the city now and the great outdoors isn't so accesible. I long to see them outside all day long, climbing trees, riding bikes, throwing rocks in a pond, swimming, playing outdoor games with friends, like they used to do when we lived in Virginia. Cooped up in a townhouse with no yard is no way to raise little boys.


I don't think I'll be tagging eight people to do this meme.... if you want to do it, please do. And let me know about it!