Fifty Fascinating Things About EarthSignMama

Some of the family bloggers have written "100 Fascinating Things..." but I'm such a blabber-mouth that I doubt there are 100 things I could write that you don't already know. At least things I'm willing to reveal, anyway. So, here goes:

1. I loved to eat sour cream herring when I was pregnant--but only then.

2. My ring size is 9 1/4; I didn't need to put tape on it when a boy gave me his class ring in high school.

3. I've always been afraid of the dark.

4. I took piano lessons from second grade until I was a sophomore in high school. I'm really good at hymns and that's about it.

5. One of my goals until about 10 years ago was to climb the Matterhorn in France.

6. I don't like anchovies.

7. I'm deathly afraid of snakes.

8. My horse (when I was a teenager) never, ever tried to buck me off. He did buck off everyone else who got on him. At least once.

9. The only broken bone I've had was in a finger that I smashed trying to unhook two shopping carts. I didn't know it had broken until months later when a doctor x-rayed my hand for something else and pointed out a healed fracture.

10. Um...does the knuckle I disintegrated with a 22 caliber bullet count as a "broken bone"?

11. The first time I swam in the ocean I was knocked flat by a strong wave that shoved me all the way up the beach and pulled my suit half-way off.

12. In third grade, I pooped my pants on the playground.

13. I've had a letter to the editor published in the paper in every city we've lived.

14. One summer, I was interviewed for a t.v. news report, a radio show, and something I wrote was printed in the newspaper--in just two months.

15. I learned to bake cookies when I was eight years old.

16. I interviewed for a job as a "receptionist" at a company that turned out to be a call-girl place. I didn't take the job.

17. I got to meet Pres. Harold B. Lee at the restaurant where I worked in the summer during college. He was really, really nice.

18. Even though it was against the dress code, I often wore jeans to class at BYU in 1971.

19. Never ever bring an insect or pet rat to me and thrust it into my face saying "Look at this!" Warn me first, please.

20. I always chewed off the erasers and then chewed the wood until the paint came off of my pencils in elementary school.

21. I've never habitually chewed my nails.

22. I sucked my thumb until I was almost 12.

23. I love to rub cold ear lobes between my fingers.

24. I wore orthodpedic shoes 6th--8th grades trying to help my hopelessly pronated, flat feet. They had no effect on my feet, but completely destroyed my ego.

25. The only foreign country I've been to is Mexico, just over the border a few miles.

26. I have been to 31 states, however.

27. I have a current teaching certificate for Maryland, California, and Nevada.

28. I've never been arrested, but once a cop threatened to do so if I wouldn't rat out my neighbor. I still didn't cooperate with him. He was bluffing.

29. I picked up brocolli off the side of the road once when several just-picked bunches fell off a big truck I was following.

30. My least favorite housekeeping jobs are cleaning the fridge and scrubbing the floor.

31. I'm very skilled at candling eggs.

32. I have made tofu from scratch. I don't recommend it. I had to throw away the pan.

33. I won the "Best Actress" award in my high school in 1970.

34. In my senior year of high school I was the FFA queen. (That's Future Farmers of America for those of you who have never watched Napoleon Dynamite---all 2 of you.)

35. I was also chosen the "Betty Crocker Homemaker" of SVHS in 1971. I just missed getting the scholarship money for the state of Wyoming because I came in 4th over all and they only awarded the money to the top three winners. (You took a test.)

36. I did win the money on Password Plus in 1979. I was champion for a week. It was a blast.

37. I also appeared on two other t.v. game shows. As the loser.

38. When we played grown-ups as little kids, my name was always "Judy Hill" and I was always a secretary. Then I started wanting to be a scientist.

39. For two summers, my cousin and I pretended to be nuns on a mission to the Indians. We sewed habits, had rosaries we made, and called each other by our "sister" names except at Primary. We had a cool playhouse with a fireplace we build fires in and roasted corncakes we made from corn we poached out of the cow's grain and then ground on a rock into meal.

40. One of my jobs as a pre-teen was to sweep out my dad's schoolbus every night after he finished his route.

41. I always ate lunch in our school cafeteria instead of going across the street to the hamburger store where many people ate, because I too afraid of looking dumb at not knowing how to order there, or what it would cost. Plus the guy who ran it scared me.

42. The only lab I did poorly on in college biology was the human reproductive system. I confused the female hormone cycle. Which probably is related to my giving birth five times in eight years...there's never a "safe" night.

43. I've been on the "Powdered Wig Tour." In which you visit the historic homes of T. Jefferson, G. Washington, J. Madison, and J. Monroe which are all within about 40 miles of one another in Northern Virginia. I didn't go on one day. But you could.

44. I can start a fire in a wood stove with one match.

45. I have a tiny cup of sand topped with a seashell that is scooped from the hoofprint of a wild pony from Assateague Island, VA.

46. I also have an autographed copy of "Misty, of Chincoteague" and have read the book (not necessarily that copy) at least 15 times.

47. One summer my sister and I started to count the haybales we hauled, but were so appalled when we got to 18,000 and weren't finished, that we quit keeping track.

48. I've seen the thermometer at -42 degrees, and still had to go outside and milk the cows.

49. I've never had to change any of the flat tires I've had.

50. I once replaced the air conditioner compressor in a 1967 Chrysler New Yorker-I only had access to Cool Guy on the phone-he walked me through it.