Friday, September 18, 2009

Another Quarter of the List Done - Do You Feel Like You Know Me Yet?

This is actually harder than I thought it would be.  Here are the next 25 Things You Never Knew You Wanted to Know About Me:

51. I love reading People and Hello magazines and looking at all of the pictures of the celebrities and reading about their crisis-oriented lives. Usually I can keep straight who’s married to who, and who used to be married to whom.

52. I love, love to write. I wish I could make a living from writing but, alas, I don’t have that much to write about.

53. Fall is my favourite season of the year.  I love the weather, I love the crunchiness of leaves underfoot, I love the colours.

54. I enjoy reading books of fiction (with a historical backdrop) set in India – I’m not sure why, but my interest started years ago with the reading of Rohington Mistry’s A Fine Balance – a book that I highly recommend. I particularly love the cover picture on what I believe was the first (1997) edition of it – a young child balanced precariously at the top of a long pole, encapsulating the theme of the book perfectly.

55. In addition to the books I have shelved and the hundreds I have boxed in the basement, I have stacks of books in various rooms of the house.

56. I make our bed most days…topping it with the three decorative pillows that my husband doesn’t understand the reason for (“they just look pretty” doesn’t seem to resonate with him).

57. I occasionally read (and enjoy) teen novels; I have read at least three youth-oriented series of books in the past year: the 7-volume Harry Potter series; the 4-volume Twilight series; and, most recently, the 4-volume Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. I’m not sure why I occasionally gravitate to these (though I’m aware that my nephew shamed me into reading the Potter series and I’m eternally grateful for that ‘gentle’ nudge because they were wonderful), but they’re usually a delightful, feel-good kinda read.

58. I refuse, on principle, to have a Facebook profile…though I am the friend of dozens and am occasionally known to post there.

59. A moment that I’ll never forget is the July 30’09 meeting of Imagine Adoption's creditors, when the trustee in bankruptcy asked if families would be supportive in principal of the trustee preparing a restructuring plan to pull the agency out of bankruptcy and resume operations. In the midst of my tears I raised my hand to vote, and looked around the room to see 249 other families also crying and raising their hands to the sky in an emotive show of unity that has gone down in my mental history book as a day never to forget.

60. I first learned about sex when a classmate by the name of Herb told me about it during a particularly boring grade 8 English class. That, too, went down as a moment never to forget!

61. After high school graduation, I attended bible college in Abbotsford B.C. for two years. It was a blast - an experience that was enhanced with my introduction to Grower's apple cider!

62. I would love to travel more someday. On my top 5 list are: Ethiopia; Ireland; England; Australia; and Europe - Florence (again), Paris (again), Rome, Provence, Germany (again).

63. I have a cat by the name of Frodo – yes, named after the Frodo in the Lord of the Rings series, but named well before that series became so crazily popular. Frodo is fifteen years old and was predeceased by her sister, Sam – who was named after my favourite, but under-celebrated Lord of the Rings friend of Frodo.

64. My very-part-time profession is that of workplace mediator; this is approximately my third career and, I think, the one that the others have led to.

65. I would way rather play with my son than get my to-do list completed – though the lack of its completion is a cause of considerable stress in my life.

66. I have been a sales consultant for Norwex products for the past approximately three years but, until this post, have only told six people this information – one of them my Canada Post letter carrier, who actually ordered a toothbrush from me (and technically, I didn't even tell her that I sell Norwex - she just asked me about it one day after delivering a Norwex package to me!). This leads directly to my next point.

67. I am a very poor (dismal, really) sales person.

68. I have green eyes. This is significant only in that I say it as a confession. As a younger person, I used to wish for, long for, blue eyes. I think I’d read about some fictional hero professing his attraction to women with blue eyes and, perhaps longing for his attentions in my imaginary world, I internalized the desire for this physical attribute. In fact, for many years I professed (in direct contrast to all evidence) that I had blue eyes. The truth came to a head at age sixteen; standing at the wicket of the drivers’ licensing bureau, the municipal attendant marking down my vital statistics asked me what colour my eyes were. After looking to my mother in sorrow, I said to the woman in front of me (who would have no way of understanding the inner turmoil she’d caused me with her licensing requirements) that my eyes were, in fact, green. They were so noted on my license, forever after. Fortunately, I married someone with intensely blue eyes (might that be why I married him?) and this trait appears dominant in our genetic pooling of DNA because our son also has the blue eyes of his father and paternal grandfather. Small mercies indeed.

69. I love to drive. In another life, I was sure to have been a race car driver because I do so love to drive…and fast (though I’ve calmed this aspect of myself since receiving a humiliating speeding ticket two years ago that threatened a suspension of my license).

70. My favourite child’s song is “This Little Light of Mine,” a song that I learned in Sunday School a lifetime ago. It’s also the song that I sang repeatedly to my infant son when he was at his most inconsolable.

71. I have a tough exterior shell but am really a marshmallow on the inside – easily hurt and highly intuitive to the emotions of those around me.

72. I believe in heaven and hell and in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am a Christian – no longer because it is what I was brought up with but because I believe in the truths of the bible and its application to my life.

73. I enjoy debate. There’s nothing like getting a good ‘fix’ of talking and debating issues back and forth. Little in life gets me as fired up as an intense discussion.

74. I believe that it is possible for parents to have good relationships with their teenage children and this is what I am striving for with my child(ren).

75. Despite my love of literature, I’m not that wild about Shakespeare…even having taken an honours Shakespeare course in my English lit major years ago.

Ok, I'm getting there.  One more day to go - I hope.

No comments:

Post a Comment