25 Things About Anna

Friendly readers,

This was a challenge given to me by about 18 Facebooker friends. Since I don't know how to post it on Facebook because I don't know how to do anything on Facebook because a friend set it up for me, and all I know is my password, and pretty much that Facebook account is for all my "friends" to contact each other, I'm posting it here. Some day when I have time, I'll have to figure out Facebook. Actually, I probably won't because I'd rather do almost anything else.

Anyway, the challenge was to come up with 25 facts about self that may or may not be common knowledge. Most is common knowledge because I talk too much. If you get to the end of this lengthy list I think you should let me know so I can send you a medal.

1. Growing up our favorite part of the day was when Dad would come home from work. It was a wild dash to the door to hug and kiss him, then we’d tear into his brief case to pull out all the scratch paper he’d brought home for us and almost always find a little treat. It was either a hot chocolate packet or a Lipton soup packet and sometimes a hard candy from the law firm’s break room. It made life worth living!

2. I’ve never talked baby talk to my babies—it’s degrading. Just because they’re little doesn’t mean they’re morons.

3. I love old things. I love old houses especially. I’m afraid I vexed my poor husband when we were looking for a house to buy. It became the running joke that a house didn’t pass my inspection because “it didn’t ‘speak’ to me.”

4. I have been told I have a strange sense of humor. I don’t think so. I think I’m funny. But I have discovered that it’s not universally appreciated. For instance, I was at the grocery store recently. Mayonnaise was on the list. I went to the aisle and stood next to an old woman who was deliberating about which one to purchase, “Mayonnaise just seems to have gotten so expensive all of a sudden!” I answered, “Well, there’s oil prices for you.” I thought it was funny, but she looked at me and said gently, “Oh my dear, I’m sure it’s not the same kind of oil.” What? The primary ingredient in mayonnaise isn't unrefined crude oil? Oh well.

5. I was just accepted into BYU’s BGS program. Back to school for me—yay! I am a little nervous about the time commitment though, and I had a dream the night I got my letter that I was at the computer writing papers and trying to study, 12 months pregnant, fighting children hanging off lights and jumping on beds, burning food in the oven, Michael calling to say he’ll be home from work in 72 hours. I think I developed a minor ulcer just from the dream.

6. I impaled my face with some unknown pokey thing after landing a jump wrong, while on a skiing date. Thank goodness for the qualified nurse at Timberline. Apparently the wound involved a major facial nerve, and I could have had dead face for the rest of my life. Thanks, Nurse.

7. I will have given birth to 6 kids in less than 10 years. No, we are not trying to “catch up” to our mothers’ records (10 each), nor are we trying “beat” anyone. These little people are just too fascinating, and we’ve enjoyed each one of them immensely.

8. As a child I had an inordinate interest in having all food portions evenly distributed to the bean. This may have something to do with growing up with so many siblings. Who knows?

9. I drove an awful ancient baby blue Ford truck in high school, which idled particularly loudly. I delighted in putting it in neutral at stoplights and revving up—thus challenging other drivers to a race off the green. More often than not it died when I put it into gear and tried to accelerate. Sometimes not, but I never won.

10. Out of 10 kids I am told that I'm the most like my mom in looks and the most like my dad in temperament, thus the most aggravating to my mom.

11. Kellianne Evans and I are bound together forever after surviving a near-death experience with her on my lap. We flew off a 25’ cliff on an inner tube and landed in a frozen creek bed. I had short-term memory loss for some time afterwards, which proved to be endless fun for my siblings. My left eye has been slightly more dilated than my right ever since.

12. I am addicted to Dreyer’s Strawberry Fruit ‘n Juice bars. They are the perfect solution to almost any problem.

13. My figure doesn’t fit into any particular category—not really pear shaped, not an apple. I’m more like a cucumber wearing jodhpurs (except when I’m pregnant. Then I’m a gingerroot).

14. Some of the worst jokes I played were with my younger sister, Bethany. They include: putting a piece of stuffed animal ear on Miriam’s pillow after messing with it to make it look like a rotten lamb’s tail, which had fallen off one of our 4-H lambs; planting garlic saturated dish clothes at the back of Miriam’s closet to make her cloths stink; filling the lid of Miriam’s hairspray with caterpillars, which quickly died and liquefied. I could go on, but will spare you. Most of our tricks were on poor Miriam.

15. My first true love was Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson) on The Man From Snowy River. Do those feelings ever really go away? (Happy to see that this sentiment is shared by the majority of my female family.)

16. I was mistaken for a boy the first 13 years of my life—partly due to my unforgiveable haircuts, partly due to the fact that I mostly wore boy hand-me-downs, partly because I had/have a relatively boyish figure (refer to #12), and partly because half the people I came in contact with were morons (ie. man who called me "sir" when I was wearing all pink). Actually, they probably weren't--I just looked like a boy.

17. I remember Bethany babysitting like mad one winter and spring. It wasn’t her favorite way of making money, but it was lucrative and demand was high. I wondered about the sudden ambition, but never asked. When my 12th birthday rolled around in the spring I found out why when she presented me with two bikes she had purchased with her own money, one for me, one for her. We rode all over the countryside that year, and I rode it to school and back every day the year Dad had cancer so I could participate in sports. Those bikes took us a lot of miles before they died.

18. I remember frequently riding Aplomado into town with Bethany and tying him to a parking meter while we went into the Canby Ice Creamery to get a cone and some jo-jos. Then we’d ride to Dad’s law office to visit for a minute, then eat our treats as we rode home. When that horse died, it was like burying a member of the family.

19. My favorite book is The Great Divorce, by C. S. Lewis.

20. I detest the smell of spit, especially when rubbed between two warm dirty hands. However, spitting contests (seeds, pits, etc.) I fully condone. That's just good fun, and I happen to be a champion at it.

21. My greatest fear is public speaking. Give me the rack, but don’t make me speak in church. (I have a talk tomorrow…)

22. I once tried to run away from home when I was 9. I put some fruit and crackers in a bag and hid in our neighbor’s tree house in the back woods until dusk came and things got creepy. So I snuck home, jumped on the trampoline for a while, then crawled in my bedroom window and went to bed. No one missed me.

23. Crazy people make me nervous—all except the guy outside a train station in Paris, who followed us, or rather Miriam, my older sister with beautiful icey blue eyes, making meowing noises at her. Finally, we turned around and he said to her passionately in broken English, “You…you have eyes like cat! Meow!” I liked that crazy guy.

24. My first kiss…well my first kiss was an embarrassed peck from my “boyfriend” (meaning we were required to eat lunch together, and I avoided him at great length the rest of the time) just before getting on the bus on the last day of eighth grade. Totally mortifying because Miriam’s best friend was standing right there, and immediately reported the incident to her. My first real kiss—meaning a 2 second peck—was when I was 15 from a French boy named Samuel (spoken wistfully). It was in Southern France on a tree-lined trail leading from a sunny lake to a secret place in the woods where my three sisters and I were hiding out for a few days (fun story). He was the best looking boy there with his glossy black hair and eyes and sunbrowned skin, and he was the only one NOT wearing speedos. Beat that!

25. I love the smells of blooming daphne, my grandma's house, apple blossoms, lasagna, moth balls, vanilla hazelnut herbal tea with milk, horses and tack, fresh cut hay fields, clean babies, my jasmine perfume, damp pine forests, ginger, fresh paint (the smell of productivity!). These are some of the smells I love.