Ten (only semi-) Interesting Things

Patti passed this on to me, and since Patti's been hanging around this blog for YEARS, I figured I owed it to her to not let it die on my watch.

(I will say, because I always have to add some sort of parenthetical comment, that the misspelling, even as purposed as it presumably is, bothers me. Putting a grammatically incorrect badge on my blog?? Oh the horror!)

Okay - on the the requirements. I'm suppose to list ten interesting things about myself. Seriously?? Ten?? Who came up with this idea? And if you are so Kreativ, you should have chosen a more Kreativ number, like say 11. Or seven. A prime number. Something not as cliche and even as ten. That is SO not Kreativ.

Okay, here we go.

1. All the canned goods in my pantry are facing perfectly evenly face out, labels aligned. My boxes also are all faced a certain way. It feels very "Sleeping with the Enemy" but if I don't keep them that way, I feel all itchy. I also straighten the towels so they are even.

2. I like the smell of skunks.

3. I am stupidly awkward about talking about my writing. If people ask about my published book, I blush, I mumble, I manage to say something wishy-washy about it and then switch the subject. I suspect I will never be good at marketing myself.

4. I am obsessive. About most things. Except cleaning the house. For instance, when I began reading Raymond Carver's short story collection, I had to find out everything I could about him. I spent two entire days online reading his biographies, his interviews, his poetry, people's blogs about him, his famous quotes, his tombstone.

5. If I read historical fiction, I end up reading more research about the time period than there are pages in the actual book. Possibly this goes along with #4.

6. When I write an update on Facebook, I sometimes think, "If I die, this will be the last thing I post here, and for years it will hang around as a reminder to people that this is what I was doing or thinking, and this is what they will remember about me." Sometimes I change what I wrote because of that.

7. One of my very most favorite things to do is to watch my son play percussion in band. When I was a kid, I got the feeling that all of the adults were just there because they had to be there. But I really want to be there. I would not rather be anywhere else. And I am totally and utterly amazed at him.

8. I can run 8 miles in an hour on an elliptical but can't run one mile on a treadmill without stopping and gasping for breath. This baffles me.

9. I dance in my kitchen while I am cooking or doing dishes. I dance with my kids before they go to bed. I cannot, for the life of me, dance outside my home. It's like I completely freeze, I have no rhythm, and am totally self-conscious. In the words of Dudley from Wild Hogs, "The music moves me, but it moves me ugly."

10. I think about putting a surveillance camera over our kitchen table to tape our dinners. We eat as a family every night, and we do much more laughing than eating. The stories, the jokes, the songs.... I wish I could capture that, to play over and over when the kids are grown and gone. It is one of my favorite times of day. (and it helps that all of my kids love vegetables!)

So there you have it.

I'm supposed to pass this on, so here's a few of the many bloggers that I love.

Heidi the Hick
Holly Bowne
Laurel Garver
Cindy Wilson
Jessie Oliveros