Monday, April 20, 2015

Self Defining Statements - an email fad to which I succumbed

Okay, I got 17. I'll try to make them brief, but you are now going to learn way more about me than you ever wanted to know. IF you actually read this novel of a post!

1. The only kind of exercise I like is dancing. And yoga, but only after I've danced. I walk my dogs every day, sometimes with friends, and that has its charms, but if I go too far or too long my knees ache. Am I getting old??? I can still Zumba with the best of them, but...
2. I'm not a car person, or much of a house person (though I like a nice, clean, pretty house). If we ever win a million dollars, Gary and I will TRAVEL!
3. I don't like salmon, donuts, or even chocolate very much. Crazy, you say? Well, yes, I agree, but at least it saves me some calories. I'm more of a caramel/fruit girl.
4. I LOVE being married to someone who makes me feel funny. We laugh a lot together and I can't wait for his PhD to be done (a few months more!!!) so I can see my hub more often! Nobody else gets my jokes...
5. I love that my husband loves his job (Prof of dance at BYUI) and that he changes lives with it every day. We do the same thing with our dance studio, particularly our Festival team that travels the world. Overall, I think we have abnormally high job satisfaction.
6. On the flip side, being a stay-at-home mom is so hard for me. I'm a chronically overachieving pleaser who likes validation... and moms don't always get it. School and work were so much more immediately gratifying. But I've learned to find joy and fulfillment in different ways, and I'm 100% committed to the fact that there is nothing more important for me to do as a person on this earth than to be a full-time mom to my kids. If only they came with manuals so I knew if what I was doing was right... but I sure do love them with all my heart!
7. I'm a small-town kind of girl. I like open space, no traffic, easy access. 7 minutes to our temple, and we can walk to church. Going to Salt Lake now sometimes makes me feel claustrophobic... though I do miss the good restaurants.
8. I am a person of faith. It has always been easy for me to believe, but I've also invested considerable time and effort to test and strengthen my faith. I believe it makes me a better person who tries hard to help people and do what is right. And isn't that the important thing, in the end?
9. My favorite thing to do is getting a massage.
10.  My second favorite thing to do is "reating" - reading and eating while the house is quiet and I have a minute to myself! Jane Austen is my fav, of course - I envy living at a time where good was good and bad was bad. And they all have a happy ending! I don't envy the chamber pots and the mud; I just like the manners, romance and the witty banter. Elizabeth Gaskell is right up there too, though I'm rather bitter about the fact that she died before finishing the last chapter of Wives and Daughters.  And Charlotte Bronte was inspired in writing Jane Eyre. It always makes me want to be a better person - nobody sticks to her principles like Jane.
11. I am totally Team Peeta. But I think the movies make him look weak, which drives me crazy.
11. I have a Lord of the Rings streak too, of course. I love the themes of loyalty, struggle, mercy, perseverance and victory of the small but good over the strong and evil. I prefer character development over action sequences, but it has a good balance of both. Sam is my favorite character.
13. My favorite places in the world are Maui (Ka'anapali) and France (Paris, the Loire Valley, and the Aveyron region especially). And I cherish the four months that we lived in Castletroy, Ireland.
14. I like living where we get all the seasons. And I'd rather be cold than hot so Rexburg is a good fit for me.
15. I love my black lab Bella. Like, ADORE her. She has brought so much joy and love into my life, and into the lives of my kids. She's the perfect dog, even if she does like to lick pants for some reason.
16. I still have anxiety dreams about forgetting my high school locker combination, or being in college and having to take a final for a class I didn't know I was registered for.
17. if I don't have an orange every morning my day is completely thrown off. Ta da! Finished. If you want a number then I'll give you one. That's how I got suckered in to this lovely little flight of self definition. It was kind of fun, actually, so let me know if you want to join the party!