Tag! You're it! The Meme

Rules:

1. You must post these rules.
2. Each person must post 11 things about themselves on their blog.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
4. You have to choose 11 people to tag and link them on the post. (I've only six friends with blogs that I know of and who haven't already been tagged.)
5. Go to their page and tell them you have linked him or her.
6. No tag backs.
7. No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’ You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

Shawna,  Blair,  Beverly, Alexandra, Juelie, Tiffany

 11 things about me:

1.  When I put my feet together, my big toes don't touch. It was probably from taking Pointe too early.  Now my mama calls me "V-toe."
2.  One of my favorite times of day is when I just awake, am still lying in the bed, listening to my family's early morning stirrings.
3. Nothing dampens my spirits more than a colorless sky.
4.  I simply cannot follow a routine.  I think that's one of the main reasons I became a college instructor instead of a high school teacher.  I couldn't stand the thought of having the same hours, same students, same classes every day, five days in a row.  Even having three boys, one with autistic tendencies, and the most disciplined husband in the world has only slightly changed this tendency of mine to avoid routine.
5.  I have finally learned how to boil an egg.  When my grandmother was alive, I used to call her every time to ask her how.
6.  The follow-up to that would be that I enjoy cooking gourmet foods for friends and family.  Half the fun for me is finding a good recipe and pairing it with just the right sides; the other half is in serving the food.  My children do not enjoy my concoctions, but I have accepted their challenge to feed them healthy foods unawares or a snippet at a time.
7.  I am afraid of cats.
8.  I often don't have a sense of smell--thanks to my allergy medicine.  I like to think it's God's way of making changing a 15-yr-old's messy pants easier for me.
9.  I do not Pinterest.
10.  I once ejected a friend who was traveling with me, in the rain, on the interstate, because he said I needed to stretch myself.  (I did turn around at the next exit to pick him back up.)  But I like to challenge myself, any more stretching and I'd be spread too thin.   Every week or so, it seems, I attempt something I've never done before (from a new recipe to writing a music grant for my son's elementary school) and usually either fall flat on my face in failure or surprise myself with success.
11.  I have watched every episode of Lie to Me on Netflix in about a month and a half.  Watching TV helps me fold clothes.  The idea of deception experts fascinates me; I think I've always wanted to be a behavioral scientist. . .


   
Dayle's questions:

1. What is the best concert you’ve ever been to? Lilith Fair with Sheryl Crow and Sarah McLachlin in Atlanta (great music and thanks to the rain, fun sliding around in the mud) or Alison Krauss with her amazing talent at Wolf Trap Amphitheater
2. What political/social cause are you most passionate about?  I've always been a sucker for the underdog, always. And, of course, I am passionate about anything that has to do with making the lives of those who have disabilities (and their families' lives) better.  And it simply blows my mind, especially with all of the technology and medical advances we have now, that anyone could think that a fetus is not a human being who has been endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights and that among those are life. . .
3. What pets do you have? None.  I would love a dog when we are ready for another.  And I would like a cat, but I am terrified of them and don't think it is wise to get a pet for my boys if I wouldn't be able to muster the courage to pick the thing up.
4. If you had to leave the US and live in another country for a year, where would you go? France. . . Ireland. . .or England. . .or Italy.  I lived in Paris for 9 months after college and traveled to the other countries, except England. Why France? The food for starters, the fashion, the architecture, the museums, the art of "le flanerie"; in Ireland, it was the friendliness of the people I encountered and the emerald countryside--the postcards don't idealize it at all. . . it really looks like that. England, I've never visited.  And Italy, the art and cuisine.  Answers you'd expect, but there is a reason that stereotypes are stereotypical. 
5. Do you judge the events in your life by whether they are Facebook status/Twitter update worthy? Ha!  Unfortunately, yes.  But I've had to stop doing that so much when my middle child said, "Are you gonna put that on Facebook?"  after I had laughed at something he said.
6. Could you truly live “the simple life”?  I ain't lying.  No.
7. Pro-Twilight, anti-Twilight, or you don’t give a s***?  I read the first in the series just to know what the hype was about.  It was like a serious addiction.  Child says, "Mommy, I am hungry."  Mommy thinks "Child you are annoying; I am talking to Bella, I mean, trying to read my book."  When that happened, I realized that even if I wanted to, I couldn't read any of the other books.  Plus, I am a little uncomfortable celebrating the life of the damned.
8. Do you consider yourself cynical? Sometimes I can be.  But then other times, I am so hopelessly optimistic that I think I don't have good sense.  Why or why not?  Overall, no.  Hope always seems to win out.
9. Which character from Gilligan’s Island would you be and why?  I would like to say Ginger because she was pretty and sexy and all girlie girl.  But I would actually be somewhere between Mary Ann with her kind practicality and The Professor with his outlandishly impractical inventiveness.
10. What is your favorite song lyric? Impossible choice.  1.  The one that makes me tear up EVERY single time is the one from the passage in Job--"You give and take away, you give and take away, you give and take away, still my heart will choose to say, "'Blessed be your name.'"  Why?  It celebrates God's sovereignty, my inability to understand his Providence, and the decision to rejoice in spite of it all.  The repetition builds tension and the breaks between still. . .my . . heart. . .will" almost steel your resolve for the next line.  And of course, when my eldest was diagnosed with a degenerative neuromuscular disease, it developed another entirely more emotionally-charged layer of meaning.  2.  The one that makes me feel rebelliously carefree is Me and Bobby McGee "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."  And it's always fun to start a song with, "Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin' for a train.  I was feeling near as faded as my jeans."  3.  All Along the Watchtower, Tangled up in Blue, and Tombstone Blues by Dylan, one of the great lyricists.
11. What’s your favorite pizza topping? banana peppers--no that's my favorite Subway topping.  Spinach
 

My Questions (only 6 since I only tagged six folks): 

1.  If you could have someone do one job/chore for you everyday what would it be?

2.  What has been your favorite vacation destination and why?

3.  A book you've read recently that you'd highly recommend. . .

4.  If you could change your name, what would it be and why?

5.  What seems impossible to you right now?

6.  What is your favorite flower?