Dorothy at Romany You Did What tagged me! I wasn’t going to participate because I didn’t think I could come up with enough things. Maybe I can tonight. You know… because of all the caffeine I’ve had this weekend… see entries below!

So, here goes:

1. Coffee. I’ve always liked the smell of it, but I’ve never really liked the taste of it. Back in my “working” days I decided to give it a try one day. It was a slow work day and I was the only one in the office. I tried at least a dozen of the combinations I had seen my fellow co-workers concoct morning after morning. Black. *YUCK*. Added some cream. A little better, but not much. Added some sugar with the cream which made it sweet and bitter. Flavors. They had all kinds. I tried carmel and chocolate. I tried the flavored creamers they had and didn’t like a single combination. I never tried another coffee again until YEARS later when the little coffee kiosks started popping up all over the place. I didn’t go to them very often, but occasionally I would get an Eggnog Creamer (is that what it’s called…. the kind with just the froth and no coffee?). One day I ordered that and they added a shot of espresso! I sort of liked the taste and it has grown on me since then. I still don’t drink a coffee very often, but occasionally the girls will bring one to me on Sunday morning, for Mother’s Day, etc. I rather enjoy them now – especially the FROZEN ones on a hot day. The problem is when I have a coffee, I’m really up for a very long time! I had one at Cafe Dumonde (spelling?) one time and drove almost all night before needing to have someone take over driving! They all got a good night’s sleep (was good as it gets in a car anyway) while I drove. Now, I’m afraid if we’re ever on a long trip like that again they’ll be slipping me coffee all the time!

2. Speaking of my “working days.” I worked for 10 years at a Physical Therapy clinic. I LOVED the job. I might still be working there if they hadn’t downsized and eliminated my position. Evidently, it was cheaper for them to outsource the administrative things I did. It might have been cheaper, but in doing so you lose the personal touch. The business was sold a few years after I left. Anyway. I really enjoyed the job. I started out as a receptionist/transcriptionist and worked my way up to the Assistant Administrator position which I had for roughly 1/2 of the time I was there. I managed offices in 3 towns. I knew when I was hired that I would be there for 10 years. Have you ever just “known” something like that? I did. Can you believe that I was laid off 9 years and 11 months after I was hired.

3. I have not “worked” for the last 12 years (LOL)! Actually, that’s not entirely true. For a few years after being downsized I did consulting and HR things for two of the P.T.’s that I used to work with at the business mentioned in #2. I did their payroll, helped set up their computer systems, switched them over to computerized scheduling, helped them wade through the new HIPPA regs when they came out, interviewed and trained an office manager for them, worked on their P&P manual and mission statement, switched them over to online medical billing, etc. I did that for a few years… 4-5 maybe? I think I quit doing that shortly after we had Josh. So, maybe I’ve only not “worked” for the last 9-1o years? I’m not really sure where the last 12 years have gone, but I can tell you they’ve gone TOO FAST!

3. I’ve worn braces 2 times. First when I was in junior high. Back then they didn’t do bottom teeth so I only had the top ones done. I lost my retainer several years later – a few years after we were married. Eventually, my bottom teeth moved enough to affect my top teeth. My jaw started popping and clicking. I had a lot of headaches. I was always biting the side of my cheek, etc. So, I had braces for a second time just a few years ago. It took nearly 3 years to move my teeth this time. Fortunately, I was able to wear the invisalign so most people didn’t even know I had braces until the last year of treatment when they had to finish with the traditional style brackets. I’ve had them off for just about 2 years now and no more clicking/popping in my jaw and I rarely get headaches anymore.

4. I have so many things I want to do in my lifetime that I’ll need to live to be at least 150 or 200 years old in order to even get to 3/4 of them. I don’t remember which blog I read this on, but on one of them they have a list of 1000 things to do instead of the normal list of 100. I’m working on my list of 1000 now. When I have it ready, I’ll post it (LOL)!

5. PROJECTS. Every year it seems that I have one major project. For the sake of time and realizing you don’t want to read an entire BOOK I’ll just list two of my previous “projects” here.

*One year it was running a produce co-op. Our first order we had about 12 shares. By the time we finally had to call it quits we were up to 200+ shares every other week. I’ll spare you all of the details of the shares and how it was all calculated, but this is funny. The manager at the wholesale food place where we placed the orders was an older gentleman who wasn’t so quick with computers and spreadsheets. I always came with our order all ready to go. Spreadsheet in hand (color coded, of course). I would get so ansy waiting for him to type in our order that finally one day I think he sensed my frustration and said that I could probably do it faster (LOL). He let me have the computer and I typed it all in while he watched. By the time we ended our co-op, I would just walk in, take my place at his desk, and place my order. All of the employees knew I was there to calculate the co-op order. I would leave him our bill and a check (LOL). It was SO FUNNY! When our co-op got so big that the produce wouldn’t fit in the back of our truck I decided that was enough. A few months after we quit our co-op that business went out of business…. egads… I hope I’m not seeing a trend here! We had quite the system down. There were 12-18 of us that helped with the co-op. We each had our job… loading/unloading, breaking down boxes, sorting, collecting $$ from the people, tagging the laundry baskets, etc. Can you believe that I never took a single picture of this whole process? Obviously, that was before the blogging days.

*One year my “project” was to be the state-side assistant for a missionary family being sent to Russia. That was in the days of very slow internet. In fact, this was the reason we got internet here at home in the first place. We had to have it to stay in touch with the missionary family. We attended a very small church back then and one day the pastor mentioned during the announcements that this missionary family needed a state side assistant and he thought I should do it. I sort of just nodded my head thinking nothing would come of it and the next thing I knew I was their person. While they were in Russia their little toddler ended up in the hospital. The whole story is quite long and some day I may tell it in more detail, but for now I’ll give the short version. It became quite clear to me that the toddler HAD to get out of Russia if he had any hope of surviving. He had a hole in his heart which they didn’t know about before leaving the States. I was in touch with the organiziation they were with and after many conversations back and forth, the president of that organization gave me his unlimited credit card # with written permission to use it as I saw fit… keeping him informed of course. I secured an air ambulance out of Finland with a team of doctors and nurses who agreed to go in and rescue (evacuate) the baby out of the Russian hospital. This was a week or more in the progress. I had to have interpreters for all of the letters and correspondence which we found through a contact in Finland. I didn’t notify the parents of anything in the works until only a few hours before the evacuation because I didn’t want them to get their hopes up in case there wasn’t any way to help from this end. When it was finally a go, I called them (middle of the night their time) and the dad met the doctors at the hospital and flew out with the baby. I made arrangements for the mom and the rest of the kids to fly out a few days later. It was quite humbling to part of such an amazing work of God. One could not deny His hand in all of this considering I had no knowledge of these types of things prior to all of this and I certainly had no experience at all with being a state side assistant to a missionary. The story does have a sad ending in that the baby ended up passing away in Finland. Then, I had the very unpleasant task of making arrangements with the funeral home to bring his body home (again… I had no idea how difficult it is to bring a body back home from another country) and I did the majority of the funeral planning for the parents while they were enroute from Finland to home.

6. Co-op. So, a few of my “real life” friends here have asked me what my project is for this year. I’m not sure if I should say I don’t have one or if I should say that the co-op that we started last year is now a 2 year project? I see it as an ongoing project. I hope to see it continue until my youngest one is ready to graduate! For now, I think it looks like my “project a year” days are over unless there is one around the corner that I don’t know about yet. I’m going to say that co-op is my indefinite project! And, I LOVE IT! You’ll see plenty more posts about our co-op this fall. I didn’t blog about it much last year, but many SHS people have asked me about it so I plan to describe it more as we go throughout this upcoming school year.

7. I’m told that I’m quite gullible although I wouldn’t call it that. That’s just what other people say about me. I’m so literal that I tend to believe whatever someone tells me – unless it’s a sales person or I’m researching something. I’m talking about FRIENDS telling me something! WHY would a friend tell me something other than the truth, right? For example. When we were driving down to Mississippi two years ago we stopped in this little town that had a refinery. (see now I don’t even remember if it was a refinery or a factory.. must have been a refinery because one might expect to find chocolate in a factory.. oh well.. on with the story). Anyway. Our friend was driving and I was sitting in the front passenger seat. He pointed out this refinery and said he had been there on a field trip. Well.. my ears perked up RIGHT AWAY because I’m SO INTO field trips and this was close enough that we could take our co-op kids on a field trip to it if it was really a good one. So, I replied. “Really?”… after a few minutes our friend stated that in fact his mother had taken him on a field trip there when he was younger and that they also made chocolate! Ok… I didn’t reply right away because I was really pondering if that could be true, but I had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be true. So, I made some remark about needing to get more info or something and everyone else in the van started howling and then I knew I’d fallen for a story (LOL). Now… a few years later this is still brought up on occasion and it still brings me to tears laughing every time I think about it! Now… that you’ve all heard my side, you wouldn’t REALLY call me gullible would you?

8. I tend to complicate things. I can make the simplest thing complicated because of the details. Contrary to what my dh thinks I do NOT intentionally try to complicate things. In fact, I have a little sticky note above my computer that I look at dozens of times a week. It says:

Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify… simplify… simplify… – Henry David Thoreau

So, everyday I try to simplify things. I’m really not a micromanger, but I do like to have enough information to make informed decisions, unfortunately, I usually crave MORE information than I really need to know to make said decison. For example. We went shopping for new mattresses this weekend. I can now tell you the difference between all of the Sealy Posturepedic mattresses. Some top mattresses are made to not need springs in the bottom mattress. Some are made to need those springs because of the way the mattress on the top does (or doesn’t) distribute the weight. I now know the difference between Plush and Ultraplush (and no plush – lol). I know why the pillowtop is needed on the Ultraplush ones and not the Plush ones… it’s to soften the support incase you were wondering. Anyway. Finally I could tell that everyone thought I was asking way too many questions so I thanked the sales person and was getting ready to leave. My mom asked a question and before the sales lady could respond I replied with a complete dissertation on the differences of the dozen mattresses we had looked at (LOL). At the end of my spiel, the sales lady said. Yep. YOU GOT IT! (LOL). We all laughed and that was the end of that. Now armed with all of that information I will spend the next year comparing that brand to other brands and then I’ll spend a year looking for the best prices and by then I’ll have to start over again because things will have changed so much. I know this is supposed to be a list of 8, but I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t complicate the matter or if I followed the exact rules… so I’ll end with #9.

9. I sometimes tend to procrastinate because I have to be in the right mood to do certain things… like write this list of 8 facts about me (make that 9 now)! ooops… I guess that was techically 2 things (LOL).

Dorothy, thanks for tagging me. Sorry it took me so long to get around to it. The rules for this tag are:

The rules are simple:Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog. (I may not get around to that part.)

oops.. I see I broke a few of the rules. I was supposed to list the rules at the top, but now I’m too tired to go back and make that simple change and I’m supposed to list 8 more people.. egads.. it would take me a year to decide which 8 to tag. I thought I read on one blog that if you READ this you’re tagged so I’m going with that rule even though I don’t know where I read it (LOL).

Finally. I’m sure that’s WAY MORE information than any of you ever cared to know about me, but I hope you enjoyed the list!