7 Interesting Tidbits about myself: A Meme.

I have been tagged once again, this time by my dear cousin Abby who got it from her friend Stacey whose blog I have just discovered. Here’s a go at it:

1. I am a book geek. I find it almost impossible to throw away books, unless they are so worn and beaten that they are missing a majority of the pages or we actually have two of the same books (and by same I mean exactly the same editions, or one is vastly superior and one is a particularly lackluster abridgement). The corollary to this is that I read anything and everything. If there is a book, magazine, catalog, flyer or cereal box, I will read it. I will likely read it to completion, even if I don’t really like the book. In fact, it requires great restraint and a powerful internal talking to for me to return to the library a book which I can no longer renew and have not yet finished because I don’t like it. I also read magazines cover to cover, this includes all the letters to the editor and the masthead where it tells you who does what at the magazine and where to mail submissions and change of address requests.

2. I am also a knowledge geek. I love to learn things, because then I know them. This has a particular weakness in gossip. Not because I want to tell anyone anything salacious, I just like to know. But, this means that I learned the following about the title of this tagging: Meme.

3. I am a packrat. This is directly related to both #1 and #2 above because I have difficulty throwing away anything I might want to read or know later, which means my house is a repository of far too many pieces of paper and books. My children are responsible for the hording of toys, but my packrat tendencies make it difficult to throw away their toys unless they are broken beyond recognition and/ or missing most of the indispensable pieces.

4. I love nicknames. I guess I come by this naturally. My dad always nicknamed us all and everyone around us, although not as frequently as his brother, Abby’s dad. (Which if you read her blog and see that she tagged me as “Angelina”, you will begin to see the legacy to which I aspire). My children all have nicknames; I have never understood those people who won’t allow their children to be called by anything but their full names. There are people whose real names I can no longer even remember. My favorite nickname story is that of my great uncle Mike, whose name is Rulon, but I didn’t know that until I was nearly an adult. Why Mike, I have no idea, only my grandmother, his older sister has ever called him that in my presence. My second favorite nickname story is that of an old family relative on my mother’s side. My great grandmother’s cousin was trying to describe a family to whom we were related: she listed several brothers by name and then “Sister”. We asked, what was Sister’s name and Josie stopped, “you know, I have no idea, everyone just called her Sister.”

5. I often sing scat to my kids, particularly my babies. No idea why. I just do it without even thinking. A corollary to this is I often make up songs that I sing to my kids, to get them to complete tasks, get in the car, laugh, to irritate them, there are always songs. But my favorite made up song isn’t mine. It belongs to one of my aunts or uncles–I’m not sure which of the 3 created it about Young Ward (outside Logan, Utah) and is sung to the tune of The Sound of Music (the actual title song from the musical). It is called The Hills are Alive with the Smell of Sunshine–with smells they have smelled for a thousand years. I no longer remember any more words. The importance of this song is that “sunshine” in my aunts’ vernacular is a euphemism for manure and my grandmother’s home is amongst many farms, including her brother’s dairy farm, so the smell of sunshine abounds.

6. Yes, I am a word geek too. But you probably knew, or at least guessed, this already.

7. Due to the last 9+ years of carrying children, I have developed the motherly skill of being able to open and close doors with almost every part of my body (elbows, hips, fingers, nose, etc). This skill also applies almost as well to opening and shutting the garage door.

So, this was fun. I hereby tag: Tennille, BT, Monica, Carey, Larae & Lesli