25 Random Things

1. After I was born, I pushed my mother away with my little feet when I was stretching and made her cry.

2. I am the eldest of two children.

3. I try to keep my religion a private matter but sometimes my spirituality pours out anyway.

4. When I was young, I wanted to be an astronomer, an archaeologist, and a geologist. I am none of these.

5. I had an invisible friend named James and I was first kissed in the fifth grade by a boy named James. I married a James but it isn't the same person.

6. I enjoy playing the guitar but I don't do it as often as I would like anymore.

7. I like scary things so long as they aren't too gory.

8. I like 68-72 degree weather. I don't like it too cold or too hot and I do not like being in the wind at all.

9. I haven't been in an airplane since 1993, when we flew to Florida to go to Disney for four days.

10. As a small child I liked to go camping when my parents took me but now that I am adult I prefer room service.

11. I am content to be at home by myself but I am happy when my husband is home.

12. My heroes are my husband, my grandmothers, and women who overcome adversity.

13. Chocolate is my favorite food.

14. I used to be a big fan of Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I would probably still be watching if the shows were on.

15. I am loyal to my friends.

16. I take things personally, even when I shouldn't, so I say "I'm sorry" too much.

17. I am a romantic realist. I see things through colored spectacles but I realize that I don't always see the truth of the matter.

18. My biggest regret has been my inability to have children.

19. Just because I love someone, it doesn't necessarily mean I like them, although in most instances I do.

20. When I was 16 years old, I hit a deer with my car. Sometimes I still have nightmares about it.

21. Gardening makes me smile. I like the feel of the soil in my hands.

22. I had surgery to remove a huge mole from my chest when I was 5 years old.

23. I miss friends I haven't seen in years sometimes.

24. I cry over happy movie endings.

25. Retirement is not on my near horizons. I think I will be working until I am 70 or older.

Twenty-one Questions

I pulled this meme from over at Sweetfluttersby's. Help yourself if like me you need something to put on your blog!

1. Do you like bleu cheese? It's okay.

2. Have you ever smoked? When I was a teenager I tried it but it didn't stick.

3. Do you own a gun? If I tell you I will have to kill you.

4. What flavor Kool Aid was your favorite? Lemonade.

5. What do you think of hot dogs? I choked on one in 1999 and had to have it surgically removed. What do you think I think of them after that?

6. Favorite Christmas movie? It's a Wonderful Life

7. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? I have a cup of hot tea every morning.

8. Can you do push ups? I doubt it.

9. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? My wedding band.

10. Favorite hobby? Reading.

11. Do you wear glasses/contacts? Yes. And probably will soon need bifocals. Can you see me now?

12. Middle name? I only give that out on a need-to-know basis.

13. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink. Unsweetened tea and water. I sometimes have hot coco or juice but that isn't regularly.

14. Current worry? My blood pressure, which does not seem to be responding to new medication

15. Current hate right now? The economy which is hurting people I know.

16. Favorite place to be? Right where I am.

17. Do you own slippers? Yes

18. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? I don't think I ever have.

19. Can you whistle? Yes. Once I was whistling in the store and a shop clerk came hurrying around the corner. She spied me and stopped. "I thought you were a man," she said, and whirled on her heel and away from me. I was greatly amused.

20. What songs do you sing in the shower? I sing along to whatever is playing on the radio.

21. Last thing that made you laugh? I must be pathetic since I have to stop and think about this and can't come up with an answer, but I laugh nearly every day over something.

Another Q&A Meme

I swiped this from someone's blog; I've lost the link, though. I found it while I was blog-hopping.

1. What do you do before bedtime?

I read. The TV is usually on but I am not the one watching it.

2. What is your favorite sound?

My husband's voice. There is something about the way he calls for me that makes a lump form in my throat.

My non-human favorite sound is... silence. The absolute stillness of the day, when nothing is moving but you know that if you breathe hard something will happen - thunder will clap, the leaves will shake.

3. What were your childhood fears?

I feared my parents were going to put me in the crazy house and leave me. Unfortunately this was one of my mother's favorite threats; I think it is akin to being told the raggedy man is going to come and get you, a ghost story told around these parts after the Civil War. This was just an updated version.


4. What place have you visited that you can't forget and want to go back?

New York. I am not a city girl but I visited this metropolis when I was teenager and was entranced. I would love to go back as an adult and see it all over again. I visited China Town and have never forgotten the sweet and sour shrimp I ate there; nothing in this area has ever duplicated that taste.

5. What has made you unhappy these days?

I worry about the economy but that is out of my control. I also fear growing old and dying; I think the deaths this year of three of my great aunts has brought mortality home to me in a very strong way.

I also fret about my weight which I know needs to be, well, less.


6. What websites do you visit daily?

Blue Country Magic and Botetourt County News Blog, which are my own blogs, Spatter, Roanoke RnR, Loose Leaf Notes, Peevish Pen, sweetfluttersby - most of the bloggers in my blogging list who write daily or near daily. I recently added my Facebook page to my list of "visit every day" sites; I still can't decide if I like Facebook or not.


7. What’s the last song that got stuck in your head?

The Space Cowboy aka The Joker by Steve Miller Band. Here's an interesting youtube version of it. Here's a video of the whole song.


8. What’s your favorite item of clothing?

I have an aged blue sports jacket that I have worn out to the point that the sleeves are nearly gone from it. I call it "blue thing." My husband recently bought me a gray sports jacket to replace that one; I call it "gray thing." I'm still breaking it in.

Aside from that, I love to sit around in sweats and a t-shirt. Give me comfort over looks any day.

9. What is your dream for the future?

To publish a book. That is probably a silly dream but there you go. One day I want to walk into Barnes & Noble and find myself on the shelf.

I would also like to be healthy and live a nice long life with my husband. When we are really old I want us in the same room at the old folks' home so we can always hold hands.

For the nation, my dream is that we find our common ground again. I know it is there somewhere if we could all only get past our egos long enough to look.


My apologies to whomever I lifted this from. I am not tagging anyone, but if you'd like to give it a try, be my guest.

Four Things

This meme comes from Sweetfluttersbys. She challenged anyone who wanted to follow her in doing this and I was feeling obliging.

So here goes:

Four jobs I’ve had

-sales and purchasing in a machine shop
-legal secretary/receptionist
-small town weekly reporter
-retail clerk in a downtown Roanoke store

Four movies I can watch over and over

- Dirty Dancing
- Steel Magnolias
- Flashdance
- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (all three movies)

Four places I’ve lived

- Salem, VA
- On Lee's Gap Road outside of Fincastle, VA
- On Breckinridge Mill Road outside of Fincastle, VA
- On Blacksburg Road outside of Fincastle, VA.

Obviously I have pretty much lived in one place all of my life.


Four TV shows I love

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Xena: Warrior Princess
- Cagney & Lacey
- Six Feet Under

Four places I’ve vacationed

-Myrtle Beach, SC
-Williamsburg, VA
-Gatlinburg, TN
-Virginia Beach, VA

Four of my favorite foods

-chocolate
-root beer
-strawberries
-yeast rolls

Four sites I visit daily

-Blogger/favorite blogs
-Google.com
-AOL
-wherever my work and research takes me

Four places I would rather be right now

-on vacation at Myrtle Beach, SC
-In a cabin in the woods where no one can find me
-Scotland, Ireland or England
-in bed with my husband ;-)

Okay, anybody else wanna play? Have at it.

Six Words

Colleen at Loose Leaf Notes tagged me for a meme to write a six word memoir.

I had to give this some thought. Any one who has read my work knows I can be wordy at times. I have it down to an art. Six words seemed nigh impossible.

After turning it around in my brain, I likened this exercise to writing my epitaph for my tombstone.

I finally came up with this:

Uses words to better the world.

Explaining it takes away the point, I suppose, but explain I shall do anyway.

When I write for the newspaper I see it as an educational endeavor, mostly. I hope that readers take away *something* from what I write. Maybe it's knowledge about the local government's shenanigans. Maybe folks take away a chuckle or a smile from a column. Maybe someone has an idea so far removed from what I might think about that I would be surprised.

Maybe what I write will be moving and/or informative enough to spur someone to action, if that action is only a letter to the editor. When that happens, I feel honored to have been able to have helped.

Sometimes I am successful. Sometimes there are letters about the things of which I write. Occasionally the letters are critical of me, as if I, the messenger, in someway did something wrong by making note of an event. (Those can be hard.)

In January I learned from a non-profit that an article I wrote had a good benefit. They attributed to my work the sum of $17,000 in donations for their fuel assistance program. I had written an article about their low funds and how many people couldn't afford the higher cost of oil during the winter.

It made my heart swell with joy to learn that I had been so honored - honored to be allowed to write something that touched so many. I actually came home and cried about it.

This is what I always hope to do. I hope to make a difference. And that's what those six words mean.

I tag Becky at Peevish Pen, my friend at Roanoke RnR and Jeff, who hasn't been writing enough lately though I understand why, for this meme, along with anyone else who cares to take it on.

And multiple thanks to Colleen for giving me something to think about today!

Love, Love Me Do

Colleen at Loose Leaf Notes tagged me for this meme. Hers is, as usual, very heartfelt and comforting. Check it out.

So here are some things I love and hate. I tried not to think about them too much.

I love to eat: chocolate. I love the creamy texture of it, the taste of it, and the way it makes me feel. I love it when it melts in my mouth and makes me tingle. A good chocolate bar on a bad day can cure pretty much anything. Chocolate makes me want to dance around the room with every bite.

I hate to eat: my fingers. I have always been a nail biter and it's a habit that I have managed to stop for a year. However, when I read I sometimes chew the skin around my nails. I do this unconsciously and am generally surprised by it.

I hate to go: to the city. Any time I have to drive into Roanoke I grow nervous. There is too much traffic, too much noise and too many people. I also am not a shopping fan, mostly, I think, for the same reasons. It's simply a much faster pace than the pace I live at, even if it is just 30 miles down the road.

I love to go: to the woods. Solitude, quiet, the whisper of the wind, the touch of the breeze, the dash of a deer, the chit of a squirrel. Is there anything at all to compare to sitting on a stump and watching an ant try to cart a leaf back to its hill? Can anything be better than watching ducks on the pond as they squawk and dive beneath water? Hearing a hawk scream as it catches a mouse? Smelling the earthy smell of loam and decay and new growth?

I love it when: my husband comes home from work. The house suddenly swells with the smell and sound of him. I hear his voice and melt all over. He grabs me in a huge hug; there is nowhere safer. He kisses me "hello" and "I missed you" and his eyes say, "I love you" and there we are, nearly 25 years later, still crazy in love.

I hate it when: my computer has hiccups, my car doesn't work, the can opener electric cord melts because it's too close to the toaster oven, the curling iron stays on instead of cutting off automatically, and the batteries die on my camera when I'm in the middle of taking the greatest shot in the world.

I love to see: blog comments in my e-mail and on my blog. It's like having a message on the answering machine - somebody was thinking of me. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy to know that someone was reading my work and cared enough to leave a note. Blogging has given me a whole new set of friends and acquaintances and I'm thankful for every one.

I hate to see: horror shows, movies full of blood and guts, and R (or X) -rated comedy. I am a P&Qs kind of girl - I like good clean fun, wholesome and hearty and at least slightly sanitized.

I love to hear: the telephone ring, a Melissa Etheridge or Sheryl Crow song on the radio, my husband's laughter, the silence of the forest, and my name on the lips of my closest friends.

I hate to hear: a forecast for strong winds. I don't mind cold and I don't mind heat, but I do mind wind. It tugs at your hair and gets in your ears and blows trash can lids across the field. A strong cold wind cuts straight into your bones, completely bypassing your skin, and you feel it all the way through. It also makes my ears hurt!

All done! Please leave a comment about what you love or don't love, if you're so inclined. If you do this meme, let me know and I'll drop by. I don't usually tag anyone, but I hope June, Ms. E., Jeff, or Becky will take a gander at this one if they like.

Mangled Christmas Carols

I have a tendency not to sing the right words to certain songs. Here are few that I have twisted over the years...

Deck the Halls

"Deck the Halls with Melancholy," fa la la la, la la la...

Sleigh Ride

Just hear those sleigh bells ringalinging...

Somewhere later:

.... "when you see an alligator eating ... pumpkin pie."

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Rudolph, the dead-eye cowboy, had a very shiny gun,
and if you ever saw it, then I guess you'd better run.


These are parody, that is, changing the words to the songs to suit yourself even though you know the proper phrasing.

When you sing the wrong thing because you're hearing it incorrectly, it's called a mondegreen. You might want to check out that link because it's rather interesting. There are some great examples.

Snopes has a listing of mondegreens of Christmas carols which you can access here. Fun!

What Christmas carols do you mangle? Come on, 'fess up.

Right or Left Brained?

Becky at Peevish Pen pointed me toward this test that tells you whether you're right or left brained.

I was rather surprised.