101 Things

This is dedicated to Marisa!


1.I like chocolate, not wimpy artificial milk chocolate, but real chocolate. Semisweet dark chocolate.

2.I love rainbows especially the double arcoirises that have inverted shadows. The neatest rainbow I ever saw was a triple rainbow with 2 inverted reflections. Awesome.

3. I like being up high having a bird's eye view of the landscape and seeing far into the distance.

4.I love being on the water. In a boat. Doesn't matter what kind.
I love walking along the beach.

5.I enjoy walking and swimming for exercise. I do not like to run.

6. I love flower gardens. The more color the better. Especially, I love fragrant flowers.

7. I love the scent of roses, especially when the scent gently and unexpectedly hits your senses as you walk along. But even more than roses, I love the scent and sight of lilacs.

8. I love the sound of the wind rustling through the trees, especially when that is the only sound you hear.

9. I like to walk in the rain when the weather is warm. I used to really like walking through a thunder and lightening storm when the earth feels wild and out of control. Sadly, I do not do that anymore.

10. As a child I had a real fear of the dark.

11. I love to read. My favorite light reading are mysteries, international espionage thrillers, medical thrillers and Gothic romances.

12. I enjoy reading out loud, even to myself.

13. I am a committed Christian; not committed to a particular church but committed to God. I marvel at the beauty and intricacy of God's creation and find it incomprehensible why so many people do not believe in a Creator, do not believe in a Being larger than themselves. Of all God's creation I find human beings the least comprehensible and sometimes cannot understand why God would create such perverse entities. I believe this is wrong of me and struggle to believe than mankind is more good than evil.

14. I despair at the lack of wisdom among the leaders of the world. But I believe there are leaders who are struggling to do the "right" thing, whatever that may be.
But I ultimately believe that the "universe is unfolding as it should" and that my comprehension is limited.

15. I have adopted the "Desiderata" poem as my personal how-to-live manual.
I believe that all evil originates from three main areas: lust of the eye, lust of the flesh and pride of life, just as it says in the Bible.

16. I have had two "near death" experiences when time slowed to a crawl and my whole life flashed before me.

17. One near-death experience was while we were driving early in the morning through the mountains of West Virginia on our way home to Virginia from Missouri after spending Christmas with family in Jamesport. I drove over the top of mountain. The cinder truck preceded but quit dropping its load onto the icy road at the crest of the mountain. The mountains side was slicker than snot and cars were out of control slipping and skidding down the mountain. I thought we were all going to die. I managed to come to a stop and wanted nothing more than to get out of the vehicle. It was too slick to stand up. Donnie drove the rest of the way down the mountain and we stopped at a McDonald's with hordes of other people to recover from the scare. I was pregnant with Blake and about 10 minutes after the incident he started kicking and squirming so hard I thought I was going to go into labor. I still feel the terror whenever I think about the incident.

18. The second near-death experience happened white-water rafting in Costa Rica with Marisa and Gail and Tricia Garland. Our raft guide was inexperienced and, I suspect, was showing off. He flipped the raft and it landed on top of most of us instead of throwing us clear. In the 15-30 seconds it took them to flip the raft off us, I thought I was going to drown because I couldn't find the edge of the raft and somebody under me was trying to use me as a stepladder. The lifejacket made it impossible to dive down to swim free of the raft. Nobody was hurt but the fear of that moment has colored my enthusiasm for rafting.

19. I enjoy kayaking.

20. I am INFP personality type. I wish I weren't so introverted.

21. I love the feeling when you hit your stride or stroke when exercising, when the endorphins kick in and you feel that you can walk or swim forever.

22. I love the feeling of being zoned out and having stream of consciousness thinking. It seems like a lot of insights and resolutions to problems happen during #5.

23. I wish I were a braver person. More of a risk-taker.

24. Ambiance is important to me. I like to spend time on extra details and really appreciate it when other people take the time for the little things.
In fact, proper ambiance is necessary for me to enjoy facials, massage, etc. The lack of ambiance and professionalism are deal breakers for me.

25. I truly believe that the devil is in the details.

26. I believe a lot of misunderstandings could be more easily avoided if we took the time to define our terms.

27. I do not like the feeling of being out of control.

28. I do not like myself when I lose my temper.

29. I do not believe that the "grass is greener" either over the septic tank or on the other side of the fence.

30. I am afraid of high speeds. I do not like the feeling that I can't stop quickly whether bicycling downhill or speeding along the highway.

31. I enjoy driving. I like taking road trips. One of my favorite times is when the whole family has been together in the car. The enforced togetherness in a small area makes me feel happy.

32. I like working with my hands. I enjoy needlework.

33. I wish I had gone to medical school.

34. I love to curl up on a stormy night with a cup of tea or hot chocolate in front of a fireplace with a good book.

35. I like playing brain games. I like crossword puzzles and cryptograms and sudoku.

36. I like to play board games with family members and friends.

37. I don't like it when people argue with each other. I don't like loud discussions such as political "debates" on CNN. They create turmoil in my gut.

38. I was a world geography teacher; I really enjoyed teaching ninth grade.

39. I used to love scuba diving. But since I had an impacted and ossified upper wisdom tooth cut out, I cannot clear one of my sinus cavities.

40. One of my dreams is to visit Antarctica.

41. I enjoy speaking Spanish.

42. I love to learn new skills, new knowledge. Right now I'm reading many books on development economics.

43. I enjoy playing tai chi.

44. One of my fondest family vacation memories is the canal boating trip we did in England.

45. A second favorite family vacation was our week camel safari in the Sinai. There is nothing like food cooked over a camel dung fire. Except of course, the reactions of people at a swank hotel when you arrive, unwashed, to check in after that week camel trek!

46. I have done RAGBRAI [bike ride across Iowa]three times. Believe it or not.

47. I have done volunteer work as a recompression chamber attendant in Barbados, as treasurer for my son's Boy Scout troop in Cairo, as a listener for a crisis hotline in Northern Virginia and as a reader for the RFDB NGO in Washington, DC.

48. I have lived in Colombia, Philippines, Kenya, Barbados, El Salvador, Egypt, Dominican Republic and Serbia.

49. I learned to read and write the Arabic alphabet.

50. I learned to read and write the Cyrillic [Serbian] alphabet. This does not mean I know the meanings of the words!

51. I can do origami. I find folding paper fun. See "working with hands!"

52. I am learning to play the mountain dulcimer.

53. I love to sing and wish I were more extroverted because I enjoy being part of a chorus.

54. I enjoy writing and cannot understand why it so hard to motivate myself to sit down and write.

55. I enjoy making stained glass but am not happy with my level of expertise or mastery of the art. Also I have a hard time motivating myself to start a project. Once started, it is hard for me to stop.

56. I hate growing old. Especially as it affects one's vision.

57. I love my children deeply. All of them!

58. I wish I had been a better mother. I know so much more now than I did when I was making all those parenting decisions.

59. I know reiki and reflexology but I don't regularly practice either one. I am not confident enough to market myself.

60. I would like to make a difference in the world but haven't yet figured out what/where my niche is.

61. I like small dogs like miniature dachshunds!

62. I love to watch puppies play.

63. I love to watch babies learn to interact with their environment.

64. I do not like cartoons. I do not like slapstick comedy like the Three Stooges or Abbott and Costello. However, candid videos like American's Funny Home Videos can make me belly laugh like nothing else.

65. I used to sew my own clothes when I was in high school and college.

66. I played the trombone in junior high/middle school and high school and the cello for a couple of years in middle school. I didn't really like either instrument, although I do like cello music now. I wanted to play the clarinet but my parents said it was too squeaky and mistakes would hurt their ears.

67. I like to think and philosophize and discuss world events and the situations. I consider myself something of an intellectual.

68. In El Salvador I had a parent named Lora. I still think about that crazy parrot. It flew away one day while I was in the US.

69. I am an unpublished mystery novelist.

70. I like to get massages, especially shiatsu and acupressure type of massage. The best massage I have ever had was a Chinese foot massage which is not really at all like reflexology.

71. I consider a rocking chair an absolutely essential piece of furniture. Every house also needs a patio swing of some sort!

72. I used to bite my fingernails as a child and young woman. It was a hard habit to break.

73. I have never smoked or done drugs or been sick drunk.

74. I was voted "most likely to succeed" in my high school senior class of about 450 seniors. I don't feel terribly successful, however.

75. I was also voted Miss York College. I was surprised and wasn't sure I thought the college made a very good choice.

76. I like thriller/adventure and romantic comedy types of movies. To my surprise, I also enjoy computer animated films such as "Little Mermaid" and "Finding Nemo."

77. C.S.Lewis is one my all-time favorite authors.

78. My most favorite creatures are seahorses. I could watch them for hours. I have actually scuba-dived with seahorses and have actually held one in my hands.

79. My family and I have snorkeled with dolphins in Elat, Israel. It was awesome and very noisy!

80. I have acted in two plays, both in Barbados. The plays were "Extremities" and "Agnes of God".

82. I have performed in several hula dance programs. I really enjoy hula dancing.

83. I am Bohemian. That explains a lot!

84. I am an easy person on whom to lay a guilt trip. It is too easy for me to assume I am responsible for what goes wrong.

85. I am also a perfectionist although I struggle not to be.

86. In an emergency situation I tend to remain cool and calm and am able to make decisions.

87. My most favorite food of all is a huge, juicy MANGO, fleshy and with no strings. It just doesn't get any better than this. I used to cut them up for my family over the sink and then eat the pulp off the pit and the skin letting the juice drip down my arms into the sink. In the Philippines I once ate so many mangos that I got mango mouth – sores caused by too much acidic food. Yum Yum.

88. When I was about 4 years old my parents brought Gretel, a black and tan short-haired dachshund, home. She died when I was about 13 years old. We all buried her in the backyard by the corner of the garage and then planted a white azalea bush over her grave. Gretel used to chase my brother and I back to bed if we dared to get up after our bedtime. I think she was protecting her turf because it was after we went to bed that the chocolate-covered cherries came out!

89. I was a Peace Corps Volunteers in the Philippines.

90. My favorite colors are green and purple.

91. I would like to go hiking in New Zealand some day.

92. I like Samsara perfume, cologne spray and body lotion.

93. I love to travel on trains.

94. I have a weird sense of humor. I love puns, spoonerisms and doble entendre humor.

95. For some reason, I enjoy reading and writing alliterative prose. I have found that most people consider #94 and #95 "low class." Oh well.

96. I wish I could draw and paint....especially flowers.

97. I am a closet JewelQuest addict. Guess I'm out of the closet now! This is Marisa's fault for showing me a similar game on her PDA.

98. I worked as a volunteer digger on a couple of archeological digs in the Philippines.

99. I am internet junkie!

100. I think it would be very very cool to be a helicopter pilot. If only I were younger.....

101. I have two incredibly adorable and beautiful granddaughters! I have three incredibly intelligent and beautiful daughters and one awesome and handsome son! Oh yes! And a long-suffering husband!

102. I love waterfalls, the higher the better, the more water the better.

103. That's probably why I like fountains and would love to have a garden that has a small waterfall.