This is not what I planned to post next … but I’ve been entrapped in a particularly intense swirl of real life (ballet costumes, tax preparation, taking some special field trips with my kids as part of a local tourism promotion), and this is the most ready-to-hand piece I have.
It also happens to be pretty much the most frivolous. Sigh.
Rebecca tagged me a week or two ago, so here goes:
Four jobs I’ve had
Waitress at a truck stop. Yeah, really. For six weeks, and the one and only job I got fired from … also the one that gave me nightmares.
Certified nurse’s aide in a nursing home. Hardest job I ever had physically and emotionally, before motherhood.
Processor and book repairer in the technical services department of a library. I kept getting in trouble for spending too much time browsing the books …
My first job, “walking beans” at the tender age of ten … that’s a common farm-teen job in the Midwest, along with detassling corn (which I never did) … this one involves walking the rows of a soybean field and removing weeds—by hand or by hoe. If you were lucky, the farmer used herbicide so it wasn’t backbreaking, just hot and tedious. If you were really lucky, you had someone you liked as your work mates.
Four places I’ve been on vacation
Missouri Ozarks—beautiful rolling hills and deciduous forest. Nice lakes. Quaint little towns. Lesser known, nifty caves—two of which Troy and I explored on our honeymoon.
Shawnee National Forest, in southern Illinois—camping and horseback riding for two weeks about every other summer while growing up … readers of my stories will see the influence, I’m sure. 😉
Central Florida … the real Florida, not Mouse-World. A small farm tucked in the middle of a citrus grove. Lovely and peaceful.
Maine … among other things, I walked ‘round a wildlife refuge right on the coast … loved the calendar-photo view of a lighthouse across the small bay, marveled over the layered-rock and pebble beach.
Four places I’ve lived
A farm in central Illinois … part corn/bean field, mostly timber. Again, I’m sure my readers see the influence.
North-central Missouri … gently rolling hills, partly timber and partly cleared for farm and pasture land.
Lynchburg, Virginia, edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Near Charleston, South Carolina. Need I say more??
Four favorite foods
Dark chocolate. The darker, the better. Rapunzel organic bittersweet is my current favorite; a close second is the orange-and-toffee Ghiradelli stuff …
Barbequed chicken.
Hot, buttered popcorn.
Hot, buttered corn on the cob. (I detect a pattern here …)
Hot, buttered homemade bread … oh, wait, I was supposed to keep it to four …
Four favorite TV shows … these are going to be “of all time” for me because I haven’t watched network, serial TV in years …
Firefly. This has the distinction of being the ONLY series I’ve bought on DVD … for writing research, of course. 😉 And they’re just improved by re-watching.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Because of all the discussions my husband and I had about the philosophical nature of “linear existence.” (You’d have to have seen the pilot to get that.) Besides, it had some great characters.
Remington Steele. Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan. Sparks, but no soap opera. ‘Nuff said, right?
The original Dukes of Hazzard. I might as well admit it. Corny humor, cool car, catchy theme song—everything that should make me NOT like it, I know—and oh yeah, who could forget “the boys.” That new guy in the movie is not and never will be Bo Duke. (And yes, I also think the pretty boy playing Clark in Smallville can’t hold a candle to the guy who plays his dad. *grin*)
Four movies I could watch over & over
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice (any version, pick one)
The Black Stallion, for sheer visual beauty
The Princess Bride, for dialogue (“You keep saying that word … I think it does not mean what you think it means …”)
Four books I could read over & over
Anything by C.S. Lewis … okay, that covers it. LOL My brain’s too fried to think of anything else …
Four places online I visit every day
weather.com
Any number of friends’ blogs (see side links)
And, I used to visit every day, but haven’t had time lately … Homeschooling a Houseful, a private online homeschooling community, of which I’ve been a member for going on 10 years now. No, we don’t all homeschool these days, and no, we don’t all have a “houseful” (a large family), but there are several who do actually have more children than I … and it’s a wonderful place to discuss the joys and difficulties of parenting without being afraid that someone’s going to come back with, “Well, if you only had fewer children, you’d be more sane/organized/successful/whathaveyou …”
Four places I’d rather be
The British Isles … pick one, I’m not choosy. All would be nice, too … okay, make that my four. Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales …
Four people I’m tagging
Have fun!! 😉
Oh my goodness – who knew?! I was so in love with Pierce Brosnan as a girl, and I love that orange chocolate, and I’ve always always always wanted to visit Maine, and I know pretty much all of Princess Bride by heart, and I’ve never detassled corn either, but I know someone who has! Oh, and I’ve been fired from several jobs, but that is a different story 😉 (one of them was waitressing – think “Ingrid” and you’ll get the picture).
Can’t wait to read what your Tag-eeees have to say!