52 Lists project begins!

I love listS! As a kid I'd write out lists of TV shows, actors, candy, books, animals, songs, and on and on .... there was something satisfying about it.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I found the blog, Meet Me at Mikes, where she said

"I've wanted to do a 52 project since I realised that I was rubbish at the whole 365 project thing."

So she's going to post a list every week in 2013 and I've decided that I will follow along.

Here are my first 3 lists:

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Share your story in 6 words... ~Family History Tuesday

Tell the story of how you met your spouse.

"Airport. My friend recognized his friend."
     -Eve

"Was it an accident or karma?"
     -Mr. Eve

Tell your engagement story.

"Pearl Jam as he knelt down"
     -Eve
"Fear. We both got over it."
     -Mr. Eve

{found this idea on Ben Bridge Jewler pinterest or facebook}

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What are 10 Things you have to keep in your handbag/pockets? ~Family History Tuesday~

I came across a post on The Socialites Closet blog and thought that I might want to record the 10 things I always have with me in my bag.

1. wallet: essential cash and cards

2. keys: to open doors and such to where I belong

3. hand sanitizing gel: to keep the bugs off me

4. mobile phone charger: for those unexpected recharges

5. mobile phone: I never leave home without it

6. lip balm: my favorites are Dr. Pepper and Cherry Chapstick

7. flash drive: when I have to download/upload on the go

8. gum: a breath freshener and to tide me over 'til I can get a snack

9. notebook: contains my all-important moments and ideas

10. pen: to jot down those all-important moments and ideas

What 10 things do you have to have?

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Describe any special experiences you have had with each of your children or any children ~Family History Tuesday~

My husband and I have been asked to teach a group of 7-year-old children in our Church.  What an experience! I'm still learning how to be a loving, caring teacher.  Sometimes I struggle with that because I want to have order, structure, rules and I forget about the loving, caring and compassionate part of being a Teacher.

The kids always surprise me when they are so helpful, kind, open and loving to us, people they barely know.

There was this time when the kids just wanted to laugh, play and be funny during class. We were exhausted by the time we got home.  I just wanted to lie down in silence. Then a few days later we find a note taped to our front door:

Once after class, my husband and I were talking about a particular child being bossy and wanting things to be their way and not taking the feelings of the other kids into consideration.  We attributed this to the child being the oldest in their family of 3 younger siblings.  Then during that week we come home from work and find this:

And then, just this past Sunday, we got a new group of 7-year-old children.  As we asked each one of them questions to get to know them a little better, one of the girls jumped up and dug around in her purse and pulled out and presented me with this:

Then just as class was ending, the same little girl made my husband promise to stick around for awhile until she returned.  Several minutes later she happily presented my husband with a large, poster-sized paper.  It was rolled up and tied with string and she ran off as we had to shout our thanks after her.  We couldn't wait to unroll the treasure:

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them” 
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“The soul is healed by being with children.” 
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.” 
         -Carl Sandburg

 
*Find me on Facebook.

[Family History Tuesday question can be found at designzbydede}

When did you receive a testimony of the Savior? ~Family History Tuesday~

tripadvisor.com

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” -C.S. Lewis 

 

 

 

{Family History Tuesday question can be found at designzbydede}

Do you have any special memories that you want to make sure are passed on to your children or grandchildren? ~Family History Tuesday~

*Books, reading and one-one-one trips to eat breakfast out with  my Dad.

*Plants, Library, Museum and annual trips to experience the blossoming of the Cherry Trees with my Mom.

*Au Bon Pain, Orangina, Tower Records, Commander Salamander, Vintage clothes while  hanging out with someone I looked up to in my older sister when were both attending College.

*Laughing my guts out, navigating the Singles scene, my travel buddy and having an instant friend in my younger sister.

*A smart guy, up for anything, a friend and  someone I can always count on in my little brother.

*And I cannot forget our annual summer trips to the beach where we could forget all our busyness as we played out on the sand, in the waves with seagulls flying overhead in the warmth of family.





{Family History Tuesday question can be found at designzbydede}

Did you have any favorite uncles, aunts or cousins when you were growing up? ~Family History Tuesay~

My parents immigrated to the U.S.A. and so the great majority of my relatives live outside the country.  My dad did have 3 siblings (out of 9) living in the same state we grew up in. My mom only had 1 sibling (out of many step and half-siblings), a brother, who lived about 30 minutes away from us. 

I never felt particularly close to any of my adult relatives for reasons that I recall had to do with mental challenges, addictions, negativity...

We played with our cousins whenever we had family get-togethers, but we rarely asked to play with them outside of those family meetings.

The only times I met my international relatives was when I was 4 years old and then again when I had just completed my first year at college.  It was a grand time! Lots of food, conversation (well as much as I could with my limited ability in speaking their language), family time, travel, parties and even a catholic wedding were all part of our stay with them.

hakimsonsfilms.com

Possibly the only relative I am at ease with today is my uncle, my mom's brother who has always stayed in touch with us. He regularly visits my mother. He is always invited to travel or attend activities with my parents.  When my Dad can't go, my uncle is always pleased to go and be his happy, laid back, social self wherever he goes.  He is not demanding or prying and maybe that's why I enjoy his company.

I'm happy that he is there for his sister, my mom.


{Family History Tuesday question can be found at designzbydede}

Tell about a great victory or personal success from your school days ~Family History Tuesday~

Oddly enough one of the greatest successes I had in School was in my Physical Education class.

Remember how I told you it was always my worst class. I always performed way below everyone else. There were times that I hid behind a wall as I watched my classmates run laps -- to suddenly reappear when the last lap came around.

I even purposefully missed out on the swimming portion of class.

So, IT IS  strange that my victory was in an event of the Presidential Physical Fitness Test (do they even still do this in schools today?) . I think it was called the bar hang. Boy, could I hang!  I could hang longer than anyone else! It was truly a feat that felt like it didn't take much coordination or strength.

As I think about it now, I believe this success was only possible because I was a very small, thin-boned High School girl at 4 feet 10 inches tall and probably around 80 pounds heavy. A weakling who could definitely hang on for dear life! :)

fitsit360.com

{Family History Tuesday's question can be found at designzbydede}

Is there something in your life that you have always wanted to do, but haven't done so, yet? ~Family History Tuesday~



retirementlifestyleinsights.com



Who wants to write a book?

I do!

and this year I did take one step towards it.  I joined NaNoWriMo. I didn't complete it, but I did write about 2,000 words of a story that's been living in my head for about 10 years now.

Writing a whole novel seems like a daunting task, but I just might churn one out one day.  It may not be published, but it will be MY book!

{Family History Story prompts available at designzbydede}

Is there one person in your teen years who really changed the course of your life by something they said or did? ~Family History Tuesday~

My mom never liked cooking.  She did it because she understood and took that responsibility to feed her family seriously.

I understand now that her dislike for cooking kept her from having any patience with us in the kitchen.  It was easier and faster for her to just do everything herself than to try and teach us.

One afternoon, my mom had invited some guests over to eat with us.  She called me in to the kitchen to cut up a tomato for a salad.  It was a task I had never really completed.  My Mom would usually call us in to help her because the guests were already there and she had fallen behind. It probably didn't help that we had the smallest kitchen ever in our home. Two people felt crowded in there. 

I reluctantly took the knife she handed me and tried to cut the tomato without smushing it with every slice I made.  It wasn't working too well.  My mom caught a glimpse of what I was doing and raised her voice to me asking "Don't you know how to cut a tomato?"

This immediately unnerved me and I stopped cutting just as one of the guests, Milagros, stepped in the kitchen.  I'm sure she saw my exasperated look and caught my mom's tone in the question she had just asked me.

Milagros calmly asked my mom to be more patient and then said that even though I may not be good at this right now, one day I would and that she was sure there were a lot of other things I was good at. Then she stood next to me as she took the time explain to me how to cut the tomato for a salad.

Milagros' comments that day did have a great affect on me. As any teenager I was hyper aware of all my faults. Her words that day helped me realize that even though I may not be good at something right now, some day I would be.  And even if I wasn't good at something, there were other things I was definitely good at.

Thank you Milagros! Today I am a good tomato cutter. No more smushing!

veggiegardener.com

{Family History Tuesday prompt found at designzbydede}

Did you ever pretend to be sick so that you could stay home from school? ~Family History Tuesday~

NO, but there was this one time that I refused to take our High School's Physical Education swimming class.

I am and have always been hyper-modest. I didn't want to be in a bathing suit around my classmates. I didn't tell my parents that, but told them that I didn't want to take the class.  They didn't question why.  I told them that I'd rather wake up in the wee hours of the morning and swim alone in the school's pool (which is what they required from me to pass the class), than appear in a school-issued swimsuit.

My father wrote a note to please excuse me from the class.  His reason was because I was sick.

The school accepted it and for two weeks my poor Dad took me at 5:00am every day to the pool, then brought me home to change and then took me back to school AND then he went to work.

What won't our parents do for us?

blancovintage.blogspot.com

{Family History Tuesday prompt can be found at designzbydede}

What do you recall as an important historical event during your lifetime? ~Family History Tuesday~

Elvis died on August 16, 1977 at Graceland. After being found on the bathroom floor, Elvis was rushed to the hospital where he was officially pronounced dead. (about.com)

This may seem like a strange event to remember, but I include it because I still remember it to this day.  It was the summer before I was to start first grade. I wonder if I knew then that my Mom was an Elvis fan.

We were sitting on the brick wall in the front yard of our neighborhood friends. We usually sat there when we played the game where we would shout "One way!" to the cars driving down our street the wrong way. It was loads of fun for us and we giggled the whole time. All of a sudden the teenage sister, of one of our friends, is frantically running down the street and she starts yelling "The King is dead, the King is dead!".  She looked so distraught, I wondered if this King (which happened to be her last name) was a family member.

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the Shuttle broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members.(wikipedia)

I remembered the seven names of those crew members long after the tragedy. 

I was in my American History class in High School.  Suddenly we hear a commotion outside our class and a student pokes their head in our door. You could see he was upset.  He blurted out "The Challenger just exploded!" and then left.  Everyone knew what he was talking about.  It was big news that a School Teacher had been chosen, trained and prepared for her first flight into Space. Through daily news reports we had come to know Christa McAuliffe and her family. So, the first thing I remember thinking about were her two children, a boy and a girl, I believe. They had just lost their mother.

Erected in 1961, the Berlin wall separated eastern and western Berlin, Germany. After the Soviet Union fell  the Berlin wall fell as well on November 9, 1989, marking the end of the cold war.(blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu)

This was a glorious event! The Wall seemed to have lasted forever since it was all I knew in my lifetime.  At first, televison crews focused on one area, in particular, where a hole was being opened up through the wall.  It was mesmerizing to watch the crowds of overjoyed people helping to tear down the graffiti-covered cement walls. 

It was a time to celebrate the reunification of a country. Maybe more importantly it was the celebration of the reunification of families torn apart when the Wall was built.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes. They crashed the first two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York and a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania when the passengers fought back after hearing about the previous planes. The attacks killed 2,977 people. (911memorial.org)

I had just woken up to get ready for work. My roommates had the TV on and said a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center.  I saw the far away image of the tail of a tiny plane smoking out of the side of the Tower. Not long ago, an aircraft had crashed into a building,  but it had been too small to cause any serious damage.  I left to take a shower. I finished my shower and started my usual routine of getting ready as I listened to the news on TV. I poked my head out just in time to see the second plane crash into the second tower! This was real. This was a passenger plane full of people. Someone meant to cause serious harm! 

My mind was reeling by the time I reached work.  Televisions were pulled out of storage and placed in public areas so our patrons could watch what was going on. I saw both Towers fall. I saw the Pentagon on fire.  I saw the burnt gash in the Pennsylvania field. I saw people running for their lives.  For the first time in my life I felt so unprotected and vulnerable along with everyone else that day.

 

from 911memorial.org

{Family History Tuesday prompts are found at designzbydede}

What one thing seems to make life hard for you? ~Family History Tuesday~

Quiet.

Yep, being a quiet, mild-mannered, behind-the scenes kind of person, I have found, can be uncomfortable for others.

Every so often there will be someone bold enough to tell me this.  I have no explanation for it. It is just the way I am.

There was a time in my life (i.e. High School) where this kind of personality was not to my liking. I wanted to be different.  I wanted to be like the others. My efforts to do so became so distasteful to me that I eventually stopped trying.  I went back to being me.

I have learned that being quiet can be misinterpreted as being stuck up --thinking you are better than others. Mild-mannered can be misconstrued as hiding something (think Superman except there's no hero here) and well, being behind-the-scenes will get you overlooked and unremembered every time.

There's a scene in the movie, PRINCESS DIARIES (the classic Ugly Duckling story), starring Anne Hathaway, between Anne's transformed character and the boy who always admired her from afar: 
(you only need to watch the first 17 seconds of this)

I always wanted to say that to my husband :)

(and that's why I always say it's a miracle I got married, for it truly is)



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{Family History Tuesday prompts are found at designzbydede every Tuesday}

IF you have children -Were your children named after someone? ~Family History Tuesday~

My children were named by my sisters and brother. 

Gratefully, my siblings have let me be a part of their children's lives. They don't call me mom, but I contemplate their futures, worry about how others are treating them, hope they are kind to others, believe that they'll make right choices, pray that they feel and know God is near and I love each one of them so much that my heart hurts whenever I think about them.

While I do not have children of my own, I feel that Heavenly Father has blessed me with eight amazing children in my life.

JW: the one who made me an aunt and sweetest, genuine boy I have ever met
M: amazingly original, smart and am so proud of her
E: a creative, sensitive soul
C: what a character! inquisitive and independent-minded
JR: a great reader who may be a great intellect some day
JH: loves, feels and makes one feel at ease
S: an active, go-forth-without-looking-back kind of guy
G: (even though I haven't met her yet) I can see she is bright-eyed and lovely to be around.

XOXOXOXOXOXO to all my sobrinos!

{Family History Tuesday's question found at designzbydede}

Did you walk to school? Ride a bike? Carpool? Ride the school bus? ~Family History Tuesday~

I walked to school with my sisters and brother during my Elementary School years. 

When I started 7th grade, one of my best friends, Helen, a year younger than me, arranged for me to walk with her older sister on my first day. We couldn't have been more different. The rest of the school year, I walked alone.

During my 8th grade school year, I started walking with a good friend from elementary school. Kim was in the 7th grade and after school we'd hang out at her home since both of her parents worked.  I always left before they came home. 

 At Kim's home, our after-school routine was to put the halves of a bagel, with a slice of American cheese on top, in the toaster oven and snack on that as we watched a TV show called FANTASY. Then Kim would show me the new clothes she had bought or the outfit she had put together or talk about the boy(s) she liked.  After about an hour or so, I walked the 3 blocks back home.

High School was where I started taking the school bus.  My one good friend who did have a car was heavily restricted from using the car for anything but getting to and from school. And so, as a senior I was still taking the bus!

River and Rainbow Phoenix, who I first saw perform on FANTASY

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{Family History Tuesday prompts found at designzbydede}

Did you have a car in High School? If so, what kind and what color? ~Family History Tuesday

I didn't own a car in High School.

I didn't own a car in College.

I still don't own a car.

My husband is the car owner, so I guess that makes me the co-owner?

BUT, if I did own a car, it would look something like this:

or this:

or maybe this!:

{Family History Tuesday questions found at designzbydede}

Do you remember your first date? ~Family History Tuesday~

I didn't realize it was a date.


He called me one afternoon and asked me if I had time that night to watch a movie because he had tickets to see CONTACT. When he showed up at my door that evening, I mentioned something like "Too bad your friend had to cancel at the last moment".  He just looked at me and said nothing.

Sitting in our seats at the theater, I suddenly started becoming uncomfortable. I was realizing that THIS WAS A DATE!! Why didn't he tell me?

Let me explain that my first date was with a former missionary from the lds mission where I served.  Five years after we first met, I ran into him again living in the same neighborhood!  Even more strange was that he had been assigned to be my home teacher. 

The date was fine. I never was the same around him again. Going on a date WAS AWKWARD!. That's probably why I avoided them for such a long time...(read here to find out at what age I went on my first date)



{Family History question found at designzbydede}

What are your feelings about service to your country? ~Family History Tuesday~

ANYONE

who voluntarily chooses

to serve our country

knowing that it is a real possibility

that their earthly life

could end,

in that service,

SHOULD BE

immensely rewarded in heaven.

THANK YOU

to all of you who serve in our country's military.

 

randy santos dcstockimages.com




{Family History Tuesday question is found at designzbydede}

Do you enjoy reading? How many books do you usually read in a year? Do you have a favorite genre and/ or series? ~Family History Tuesday~

You might as well ask me if I love breathing?
It's something that I do.

 It's something that just happens, naturally.

It is essential.

So reading is the same for me. 

My mother, unknowingly (I think), started our love for reading.

My father was a student at the University.

In order for him to have undisturbed studying time,

my mom gathered us 4 kids and

walked us down to the neighborhood Library.

Here we could stay occupied for hours

with kind librarians
and access to neverending books

with

their magnificent illustrations and tales.

Today if you ask any one of the four of us,

"Where is your favorite place?", I think "Library" will be the answer

 (probably after home).

Some of my favorite books are:

and I wrote about one of my all-time favorite books here.

I love to read biographies the most.

I'll browse through the non-fiction

 and always find something I'm interested in.

I'll read fiction here and there,

mainly if someone recommends a good one to me.

Right now I'm reading Girl in Translation.

I though it was a biography at first,

but then realized even though it isn't,

the author lived a life very similar to the main character.

and

I really don't know

how many books

I read in a year.

I pretty much read and read to know stuff

whether it be in a newspaper, magazine,

blog, website, etc. etc.



FYI:  One of us has a Master of Library Science degree; two of us have a career working in Libraries. The other two have worked in Libraries for a number of years.

{Family History Tuesday prompt is found at designzbydede}

Did you have a special object that you slept with? blanket? doll? stuffed animal? Did it have a name? ~Family History Tuesday~

Who remembers Pot Belly Bears?

I got mine probably when I was around 11 years old.  He was a bit different from all the others because his nose wasn't fully stuffed and so it was smashed down.

I remember there came a time where I had to have it every night that I slept.  I only felt safe during the night if I had my bear with me.

As I got older, he would travel with me.  I wouldn't take him out of my suitcase. I was good just so long as I knew he was there. In my early twenties I finally just stopped needing to have him around.

Strange that I went that long with him? But I know he's still around somewhere now, I just haven't bothered to look for him anymore.

The End

of the Pot Belly Bear saga...

{Family History Tuesday questions are at designzbydede}