These aren't necessarily all things that make me happy but are all things that belong to me, if you see what I'm saying...
1.) Loud noises definitely do not make me happy. Particularly sudden loud noises. My children will never have balloons around the house to jump on or stab or whap themselves in the head with or whatever kids like to do with balloons. This is a long time phobia which sadly, has not decreased with age or wisdom. At one of the 2 birthday parties I was allowed to attend as a kid, we were having a relay race and I was supposed to blow up a balloon, sit on it, and pop it. It was a terrible situation which ended in tears and humiliation and a whole lotta fear. Many years later my family was at a science museum. These are great places for sudden loud noises. We ended up in a room with a criminally insane museum worker who gleefully told us we were about to hear the "loudest noise ever!" There were several of us in near-fetal position by the time we got out of there. And if you think you're going to be cutesy and help me overcome my fear by blasting me with deafening noise, I might rip out your throat. Don't take it personally. I'm considering creating a shirt that says "I'm sorry for what I did while under the influence of loud noises" or "while anticipating a loud noise". You get the idea. My fix-it husband tried to help once upon a time at a birthday party by assuring me that the balloons drifting around on the poky grass would not be loud once they popped. They were very loud when they popped and it was a terrible birthday party. He's learned though. When someone starting setting off fireworks before I could beat a hasty retreat, he chewed them out for me. What a guy!
Whew. And now that I've got that off my chest, we can move on to more pleasant subjects.
2.) I have never and will never like pop. As a kid this seemed like a huge burden. I remember going on a field trip in grade school and feeling terribly sad that I couldn't drink the pop in these cute colored cans. Had bottled water not been a thing back then? Honestly, I remember being thirsty. A lot.
3.) This might surprise no one but I've come up with all the kids' names. Jeremy agreed to them. :)
4.) I am a professionally trained Le Cordon Bleu pastry chef.
5.) One of the fringe benefits of being in the culinary world is meeting all the weird people in it. At one point in time one of my sisters told me that I attracted "weird people". I was afraid to get married. Now I feel compelled to comment randomly to Jeremy that he's so normal. Who knew? But I digress.
In San Diego, I worked with a French chef until he was fired and then with his of Vietnamese-descent successor. The guy that owned the pastry store had an English dad and a Swedish mom.
Back here, I worked nights with a colorful woman who told me that she was a nun at one point, dated women at one point, and from the sound of things, also dated a gazillion men. I couldn't keep track. She was an eye opener.
After that job, I worked at a bakery where I was almost always the only American. My boss was Serbian, the secretary was Russian, my coworkers were from Iraq and Canada, the cleaning lady was Mexican and then there was a parade of other Serbian or Romanians that worked with the bread.
I remember my rotund little Iraqi coworker asking me what nationality I was once. When I told him my ancestors were mostly German, he remarked that he thought Germans were tall. I was always under the impression that they were short. And then a German started working at the bakery that was seriously like 7 feet tall.
I also worked at the turkey farm then and my bosses were Jewish. That was an experience.
Did I mention that Jeremy is normal? He speaks English and stuff...
6.) Speaking of my foreign coworkers: I worked with a Serbian named Lily for a while. She was a trained as a nurse but couldn't speak much English so she was stuck rolling out Danishes and croissants at the bakery. I was pregnant with River when I worked with her and was dreaming about a little girl. One day my boss came in to the kitchen and told me that Lily could tell I was pregnant (I was about 5 months into it) and that I was having a son. Up to that point, it never occurred to me that I might have a boy. What would I do with a boy? But after that, I just knew that's what I was having. And frankly, this has worked out well for me. I love my first born boy.
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| You can't pay him to look normal for a picture |
7.) I had to get stitches in my foot when I was 9 because I jumped on an auger in a grain bin.
8.) I have never met another Shara. I always liked having a name that was "mine". Therefore, I want to give my children names that are "their's".
9.) Target. That is all.
10.) I do not like being short. I didn't want to burden my kids with shortness. I also never wanted to marry someone a lot older than me. Jeremy is 15 inches taller and 2 years younger. I know whereof I speak. :)
11.) I found Finn's name in a special baby issue of Martha Stewart in 2003. 11 years later I got my Finn. He is awesome.
12.) And about Martha Stewart... I love her magazine and her stuff. Before you even think it - I know she was in jail. I also don't care about Martha Stewart personally. In fact, I've heard from unverified sources that she's an old broad. But she and her associates make awesome craft supplies and an amazing magazine... I rarely get around to actually making much of anything in the mag but it's enough just to be inspired by it.
13.) I've had several people ask me where I came up with Madeira's name. I worked in the radiology department of St. Joe's in high school. One day I filled out a film chart for a little girl named Madeira and decided I wanted a little girl with that name some day. The vision I had of my daughter was a girl that was both artistic and feminine yet strong and confident. Dream fulfilled. My girl is awesome.
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| Quintessential Madeira |
14.) I was scarred for a looong time for being forced to volunteer at the nursing home as a kid. I still vividly recall sitting in music class hating my life because we had to work at the home after school. Our job consisted of emptying and refilling water jugs in the residents' rooms. Not so bad. But there was the issue of walking in on a lady doing her business in the bathroom in the dark with the door open...and the lady that moaned for help and grabbed at you... And then we were responsible for wheeling the residents to the dining room for supper. We were little uncoordinated girls. The residents were hard to push and hard to understand and this resulted in lots of wheeling them to the wrong spot and banged knees and hands and the occasional swearing (that was the residents, cross my heart). Mom called it volunteering, I called it torture. I've sufficiently recovered enough that nursing homes don't freak me out entirely but good for all you people that love geriatrics. I'll take ankle biters any day.
15.) I like saying Firth of Forth, fiduciary, and reciprocity for no other reason than that they sound awesome.
16.) I was probably in 4th grade. My sister and one or two other kids were in the dry cow pasture and heading home through, I guess, just the pasture. Whilst we were passing time away in the dry cow pasture (unless we missed him on the way there), a bull was let free in the pasture. All of us managed to get under the fence before he mauled us but I can still see him stalking us along the fence, snorting and furious. All that was between us and a certain painful death was a double row of electrified barbed wire...to date, it is the most terrifying experience of my life.
17.) I am rather a fan of staying home. I am a creature of comfort, I suppose, and home is comfortable. It's not like I never want to leave but the idea of nursing a hot cup of coffee or tea or whatever in some lounging clothes with a book or knitting in front of my ersatz fireplace is just fantastic. Jane Austen nailed it: "There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort."
18.) Grapefruit. I wish my house could smell like grapefruit at all times. Or orange blossoms.
19.) Me + chapstick = serious love affair. I should have the softest lips of any person in the history of time with all the chapstick I have rolled on them in my life. I had quite the collection built up as a teenager and then my sister and cousin pretty much ate it all. I fell off the chapstick wagon for a few years - I guess I had more boring things to spend money on - but not to fear. I have rebuilt my stock. It's a lot more basic these days (no lipsmackers!). But the love is still just as strong.
20.) Several or many years I read a sanctimonious mantra in a book, and I still stand behind it 100%. "Only the boring are bored." My children will regret ever telling me they're bored, I will make sure of this. After I opted to be a stay-at-home mom, people acted like I might die with only one kid to take care of. But I can do stuff or not do stuff and be perfectly happy either way. I am the mistress of my own castle here and if I want to knock myself out doing some Dutch cleaning or sitting on the couch doing nothing but "knitting disparate thoughts" together, I am content either way. I will probably not live long enough to read all the books I want to read, visit all the places I want to visit, eat all the food I want to try, see all the things I want to see, make all the things I want to make. This world is an amazing place, full of amazing, exciting things to do and see and if you are ever bored, my friend, it is because you are a dull creature.
21.) I don't remember how many summers I picked and/or sold sweet corn, but I'm going to have to come up with something of similar caliber for my children. There's no better character builder than dragging 5 gallon buckets of corn through a wet corn patch or sitting in the hot sun for hours selling corn. Also there's no better family together time than having a sibling or parent holler "Bucket!" faster than you can drag said buckets through said nasty corn patch in the light of 5:30 am.
22.) I adore Irish music. Ask my children. Many is the time we have jammed out to Celtic Thunder or Celtic Quest. They love it as much as I do.
23.) I love food. I love making food, I love eating food, I love thinking about food, I love writing about food. I read my cookbooks like novels. I would consider myself a foodie but, as I read once, I can't call myself that because we aren't real classy about food here all the time. My guilty foods are cheetohs and nacho cheese dip. Am I redeemed by never meeting a vegetable I didn't like?
24.) Leather. Couches, boots, bags...
25.) I heart organizing. I hate cleaning. I do both because they are connected but talk about the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug. My vision of my house is of everything in its place, neatly labeled and in a cute organizer. Have you ever been to the container store? Umm, yes.
26.) Orla Kiely designs. I have her luggage, overnight bags, pillows, canisters. I bought some Orla Kiely designed storage bins at Target once - talk about a trifecta of perfection for this ol' gal. (Also she's Irish. I'm sure this is significant somehow.)
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| My coffee corner with my Orla Kiely canisters. Sigh. |
28.) In my mind, I have a library in my house. A room dedicated to nothing other than housing books. It has comfy leather chairs, a fireplace, a ladder to reach the topmost shelves of books, and it smells like vanilla and tobacco. (You know they make candles that smell like that, right?) Also tartan plaid throws over the leather seats. And a hot cuppa on the side tables. Did I mention that I like to stay home?
29.) Me likey the coffee. Piping hot or iced cold. In desperation, I have also drunk it somewhere in between.
30.) I cut my reading teeth on Louis L'Amour. And I had a tough dad. So my expectation of men is that they be like the Sacketts/my dad. You know, you-fix-your-own-gunshot-wound kind of people. To be fair, this is also my expectation of women. The "only the boring are bored" is going to be paired with "deal with it." I want my offspring to be gutsy. Life is more than likely going to require that you be a person of strength. You might as well learn the lesson early.
31.) On a lighter note: I had the ugliest haircut as a preschooler. My mom tries to justify this nastiness by telling me it was cut by a beautician but the fact remains, it was just heinous beyond words. I would have looked better shaven and shorn. Half of my head was bangs and the other half was long and stringy.
I'm going to have to take my own advice and deal with it. There is nothing I can do to change this.
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| Any one else see River with a bad wig on? |
Enjoy your day, feeling enriched (or burdened) by knowing me and my glorious opinions just a little better.
