"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, yet if faced with courage, need not be lived again." Maya Angelou
(Someone on their blog recently mentioned what a powerful voice Maya Angelou has; I can share that that power emanates from her very core - she is one solid and deeply spiritual woman. I had the bounty of meeting her at a small political fundraiser in Winston-Salem, NC (her hometown) back in 1992. We were all sitting in a circle of chairs to hear her speak, and she happened to stand next to me while talking. The power in the room while she speaks is unbelievable, but then she placed her hand on my shoulder, and I could literally feel the power of her voice course through my body. She is one amazing woman. Deeply kind and thoughtful and unapologetically honest.)
plus this(saute in a little olive oil: one large onion chopped, 3 stalks celery chopped, 4 sausages (sweet or hot Italian) with meat squeezed out if the casing)
equals - YUM-A-LICIOUS!(of course, if you have a vegetarian-of-sorts in your house, you may want to set aside a small pot of the bean soup and add the sauteed onion and celery mixture BEFORE you add the sausage to be cooked - and of course, you MUST use a separate spoon to stir the veggie soup, because if the spoon that has touched soup that has sausage in it is used to stir the "veggie" soup, that soup becomes contaminated and inedible)
unfortunately, Elle wasn't able to finish her 4th bowl.
O.K. motherbumber, here you go... this is 41 ALL DAY: I don't even put on warpaint for the ladies.
Though in my head, I'm still this person (who also never wore makeup):Gosh darn-it! Who invented mirrors anyway?!!
p.s. in the spirit of complete "truthiness" and full disclosure, (and after actually READING the original dare), I don't usually look that together - my daily mom uniform is not so stylish (I haven't even discovered loga yants yet) and I don't usually wear earrings. Here is my actual first thing in the mornin' shot, well, not first thing, I did wait a few minutes until my eyes were willing to open under the lights: Who invented lights anyway?!
Wow… when I actually sat down to do this, I realized I was a lot quirkier than I originally thought.
1.Back in 1986, I was the only tree-hugging, peace-loving, punk-rock-listening, atheist in the College Republicans – they weren’t quite sure what to do with me.This is what they recruited for:
and this is what they got:
They tolerated me though, because I was one heck of a debater (“Logic” was one of my favorite classes in high school), and I had a slew of witty, stereotypical, knee-jerk one-liners to take down any reasonable, good-intentioned position that ran counter to “just let everybody pull themselves up by their bootstraps because that’s what I did heard someone did once”.
2.I am obsessed with cleaning my ears – always have been.Back in college, my freshman roommate was constantly brushing her teeth, about 5 times a day, and I was right alongside her at the sink, cleaning my ears.I’ve weened myself back to “Q-tipping” just twice a day, but sometimes, if I’m bored (i.e. am pretending I forgot about the list of 37 things I NEED to get done today) and walk by the bathroom sink, I have to stop for a quick re-check.
3.I am a dishwasher-loading snob.There is only ONE right way to load a dishwasher:
and I am one of, apparently, only a handful of people qualified to perform this delicate task.You would think that with ALL the dishes that are continually piled up in my kitchen:
(hello family of five who’s mom-figure is highly organized, but far, far from neat and tidy – you’ve seen my “office”), that I would be less particular about at least getting something clean to eat off of for the night.But when anyone offers to “help” me with the dishes, I just about go into convulsions because my dishwasher is likely to end up looking like this:
and while I can have this:
I can’t have that.
4.I absolutely LOVE having my hair played with – it relaxes me like nothing else.In fourth grade, I had long hair, and my best friend, Beth, had very short hair (read: hair envy).Our classes would get together to watch films, and no matter whose classroom we were in, I would sit on the floor and Beth would sit in the desk chair and brush/style my hair the whole time.Needless to say, I don’t remember seeing a single film in 4th grade.My addiction hasn’t abated over time either, and I will tolerate all manner of strange things being done to my head, just to get a little free brushing out of the deal.
5.No matter what my mood, I always cry at some point when watching Sesame Street.Maybe it’s the warm fuzzy memories of innocent times gone by (childhood) or the sweet, tender messages of kindness and tolerance – whatever it is, this show ALWAYS gets at least one insides-tightening, cathartic, “man, the world is so beautiful” tear out of me.
Now that all three girls are in school, I haven’t seen it in a while, and boy do I miss it.And of course, don’t even get me started on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood – just typing that made me blurry-eyed.
6.I have a real knack for silly sweet nicknames (move over Hallie).Here are some samples for each of the girls:
Once you had a good solid core nickname, you can make derivatives of it in all kinds of ways: Schmee-bee, Schmizzle-schmazzle, McSchmozle-ator, … be creative and enjoy!
7.I hate needles.Now I know nobody out there actually enjoys getting a shot, but for me it induces a fit of mild hysteria.During my first pregnancy, I had to have blood drawn for tests.Knowing how terrified I get (and uncooperative), I brought my husband along for comfort.We go in to the lab, I’m breathing slowly and steadily to remain calm, and my darling husband tries to cut the tension a little with some humor.As I’m relaxed and “ready”, he loudly exclaims, “Man!Look at the SIZE of that needle!”, thinking the sarcasm would give everyone a good chuckle.I immediately curl up into a little ball, sobbing and shaking profusely.Needless to say, that was his first AND last prenatal visit with all three of our pregnancies.The all time worst needles – those at the dentist – needles have NO business in a person’s mouth.I’ve actually had cavities drilled without Novocain, because I’ll take pain over needles any day (and I’m a pain “wuss”). Which leads me to the point of this point: because I dread the dentist with a passion, I let a simple cavity devolve into a cavern (chunk of tooth fell off) that exposed the nerve and caused a few months of constant pain (avoiding the dentist the whole time).It finally became unbearable, so I went in, reluctantly, a couple weeks ago...
prognosis: root canal my response: no way result: gaping hole in my mouth
As I regularly flip through my boxes and boxes of old photos (and there's a whole closet full of them - my last scrapbook entry: Faith (the 12 y.o.) at 6 mos. old) to supplement blog postings, embarrass old friends on my facebook page, and avoid cleaning, I come across some really great photos. So my "newest feature" here on my blog [read: an easy post to get me up from one a week!] is to share these photos with you, every Friday. Here's my first one:These are some of the girls from our Girl Scout troop during our Troop Campout last October. We're going camping next weekend, and I can't wait - I love camping and these girls are so much fun to hang out with. p.s. Thandi, we miss you and your family
"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life." Helen Keller, 1903
