Stef very kindly tagged me for The 10 Random Facts Meme!
As if I haven't revealed enough about myself over these past seven months of blogging (LOL!), here are some fascinating things you may or may not have known about me. Thanks, Stef for the tag!
1. I loove magazines.
I really, really love them. So much so, in fact, that earlier today I actually took a picture of my reading basket:
As you can see there's quite a few in there. What's in the basket you ask? Why, I'd be happy to list them for you: Country Living (British and American), Better Homes and Gardens, Everyday Food, Country Living Holiday, Country Home (sense a theme?), Family Fun, Everyday with Rachel Ray, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, Birdwatcher's Digest, Magnificat and Time!
See I wasn't kidding, I read a lot of magazines. This is where my pin money goes. But I find the ideas they provide and the relaxation they promote are worth their weight in gold. :)
2. I was my husband's little sister.
O.K., let me explain that. The summer before I entered my freshman year of college, I received an interesting letter in the mail. It told me that I, along with all other incoming freshmen, would be assigned a junior student to befriend. Strangely enough (this being a Catholic college and all) boys were assigned girls and vice versa. ;) There on my letter - unbeknownst to me then - was my future husband's name and address. Yes, Bill - a stranger to me at the time - was my assigned Big Brother.
(And you can bet, I still have that letter!)
Now as the story goes - my dear husband, being a big important junior (and a soccer player to boot) was too busy (or something like that) the day of the big meet-up of brothers and sisters, an afternoon cookout held behind the boys' dorm. Yes, I stood around at the cookout, watching all my new dorm-mates find their partners, feeling not just a little dejected and very, very freshman. I think, if I remember, my roommate's big brother, out of the goodness his own heart, adopted me along with my friend.
It was not until my sophomore year that Bill and I finally met. (Oh, I knew who he was by then. Ours was a small college and everyone knew basically everyone else by second year.) My ever-loyal roommate cornered him at a party and laid him out in lavender for "the pain and humiliation" he caused her dear friend (me). Oddly enough, within a few months we were dating and the rest, of course, is history. :)
Every once in a while I remember to tease Bill about that funny reminiscense. Honey, consider yourself teased!
3. I love all things British.
I think that makes me an Anglophile? I especially love British humor (Fawlty Towers), British accents (Jim Dale), British literature (anything Austen), British actors (Robbie Coltrane), British television (Miss Marpel), British film (Time Bandits) and I loooove my monthly subscription to British Country Living magazine (see random fact #1). I've even fantasized about moving to the UK sometime in the future. Fortunately my husband has the same fantasy!
4. I would open a children's bookshop if I could.
Continuing the fantasy theme, I'd love to own a small children's bookshop like the one Meg Ryan owns in You've Got Mail. I would have so much fun being the Story Lady. :) Only I'd serve a special children's tea right after storytime. Come to think of it, there would be a small bakery next door that would cater to families where you would always be able to buy homemade pizza, cookies, cupcakes and special little treats for the holidays. As well as tea and milk and apple juice, of course. I'd plan little parties with names like Autumn Afternoon Tea and Nutcracker Story & Sweets and I'd pipe in soft lilting music and there'd be cozy nooks everywhere for curling up and reading good books. We'd hold nature story puppet shows and craft workshops. There would be a small courtyard garden out back where we could have lovely outdoor parties. I'd send out a monthly newsletter with news from the shop ... Can you tell I've thought about this a bit? ;)
5. I love stormy weather.
And I should preface that by saying I mean the kind of stormy weather that does not endanger human life. Up here in the northeast we get lots of snowstorms every winter. The kind of storms that generate buzz days in advance. I think weather watching is a genetic thing in my family; days before a storm actually hits, my dad and I are keeping each other abreast of the changing forecast.
I love when you run to the store to pick up an extra gallon of milk or a few loaves of bread and all anyone can talk about is the snow on its way:
Do you have enough firewood? Did you start the snowblower? Did you hear they sent the schoolkids home early?
And then everything seems to hush and the first little flakes start to fall ...
6. Once upon a time I wrote for a newspaper.
For a very brief period in time. I think most of you reading this post know the story, but just in case, I blogged about it here.
7. I can sing the alphabet backwards.
Very, very fast. I learned how in first grade and I simply never forgot!
8. I'm fairly shy and I am very much a homebody.
No, no, I'm not kidding. I will tell you a quick story that illustrates both points perfectly.
When I was working for the paper, writing mostly food articles and stuff for the parents and kids section, I was offered a chance to go to New York City and interview Michael J. Fox (Family Ties, Teen Wolf, etc.). I was offered this opportunity by the editor-in-chief himself, and do you know what I said (heart thumping, face reddening, palms sweating)?
"No thank you sir, you can send Betsy." (Betsy being the writer who sat to my left.)
To be honest, though, I have never once regretted it. My friends simply could not understand me, but I better understood myself. I knew the whole shebang was going to be way more trouble to me than it was worth. Plus, I was never a very big Michael J. Fox fan, anyway. ;)
9. And this leads me to my next random fact: I've never been to New York City.
Of course, I feel like I know the city having seen so much of it on tv and in the movies. And oh how I love the Today show! What I would really love to do is to stand there at Rockefeller center with a cup of coffee in one hand and a sign in the other, and get to wave at the Today show cameras. (With what hand, I'm not sure.)
I would love to be there on a day when Martha was visiting and talking about Christmas trees on the plaza. Or maybe Ina Garten was there talking about her new book. Or maybe the cast of Lost was on the set (not likely seeing as how they're on a different network, but still. It could happen.) I would love to be there, to soak in all that New York City-ness.
Of course, as a true blue citizen of Red Sox Nation I would not be caught anywhere near Yankee Stadium. ;)
10. I have an irrational fear of bears.
Irrational in that I don't ever really enter a situation where I might actually encounter a bear. We don't hike - not in the woods, anway. We don't camp - not outside our backyard anyway. We live in suburbia for goodness sakes! And as I keep reminding my Crackerjack, the woods behind our home are woods and not a forest and you have to have a forest to have a bear. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
So there are my 10 random facts! Now to tag a few others ...
1. Jennifer
2. Jennifer
3. Rebecca
4. Sherry
5. Suzanne
Have fun!
- since 1995. I was a newspaper writer/assistant editor before becoming a full-time mom. I'm very thankful we've been able to do this; living on one income is not always easy.
Recent Comments