A Meme Replay
Rachel tagged me for a meme that I’ve actually done a couple of times before. So I thought I’d repost the results from way back in June 2007.
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Oh my gosh! It seems I am an international woman of mystery. inquiring minds want to know. I was tagged three times for this meme, (here, here, and here) so I guess I’d better get on with it then!
I’m supposed to tell you 8 facts about myself that you didn’t already know… Hmmm… Where to begin??
1. I don’t love feet. Feet squick me out reallllly badly. Except baby feet for some inexplicable reason. I’m getting better, I don’t actually gag at the site of them anymore. (I just KNOW I’m going to get foot pictures now.)
2. Mucus really, really grosses me out. I can clean muddy babies, I can catch vomit in my bare hands all to save the new comforter, but I can’t handle… well… snot. Blehk!
3. I used to be a dancer. Really, truly. I was supposed to have gone to New York the summer I turned 16, but I had a horror of being locked up in a studio day after day, growing paler and paler… I did, as an adult, take Irish step dancing classes from a man who rejoiced in the name of Colm O’Maoileidigh (pronounced O’Milady). He loved me because I could not stop counting at seven. Year of classical dance training had taught me to count eight. Made for some pretty comical dancing I can tell you. We decided I needed a t-shirt that had an “8″ circled and lined out.
4. I wanted very badly to be a nun. I really thought I might have a calling to religious life as a young woman (after I quit dancing - can you imagine??). It was not to be. God found a vocation much better suited to me. Would have been pretty difficult to mother 6 children as a nun. And now we are studying for my husband’s ordination to the diaconate, I can have the very best of both.
Half way there…
5. I’m terrified of heights, but I love to fly. It’s the heights where *I* am responsible for getting myself up that bother me - stairs, ladders. I once copped out of a view from the top of a lighthouse (on my honeymoon) because I was terrified. My husband is determined to make me grow out of it and has taken me to the top of Gateway Arch in St. Louis and up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower (God is good - the top level was closed that day!). But I’d love to earn my pilot’s license.
6. I graduated a year early from high school. I had a lot of extra credits from my 2 terms at a Catholic high school, which made me eligible. However, I failed my senior English class, despite getting the highest grade on my senior exam (even higher than our class valedictorian!) all because I didn’t study my vocab! That, and Mr. Pavini marked off for everything - but I’m not bitter.
7. I never went to college. Well, I tried taking a couple of classes once at the community college. It was the first time I ever experienced ‘test anxiety’. I had never heard of it and thought that I was having some kind of stroke or something. I mean, the material that I studied so hard and knew inside out and backwards just VANISHED as soon as I saw the exam paper. I walked out and never went back.
Last one…
8. I was born Nissa Fay (never liked my middle name as a child). My parents divorced when I was about 7 or 8. My mother remarried and I was adopted at age 12. My name was changed (at my request, but who in their right mind allows a kid to do that?) to Sydney Marlene. It never really stuck. Family always continued to call me Nissa. Friends at school called me “Syd”. So when I was 18 years old, I petitioned the court to change my name back to my birth name. So if you hear me answer to someone calling me “Syd” you’ll know why. I don’t love it, but I’ll answer to it.
So there it is. Or there they are… Eight facts you probably didn’t know about me. There are more, but let’s save those for another day. After all, we’re going to be friends for a long time and we need to leave a little mystery in our relationship.
If you are reading this, then consider yourself tagged. Just leave a comment with a link to your “8 Things”. Please, I don’t want to feel weird all by myself.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:47 am
My “Eight Things”…
#1, Nissa and I are best friends and kindred spirits, only she doesn’t know it yet. I thank God that I stumbled upon her Catholic Free Press article while clearing the kitchen table today. I’ve been meaning to check out this website, but have been busy. (yeah, yeah, busy, you say… read on and you’ll see why.)
#2, I was named Marcia Jeanne, after my aunt and grandmother, who were both Margaret Jeanne, and I never tried to change my name, although there were times growing up that I wished for a different family. I was the second of seven children, and my parents loved us, but my father was an alcoholic, and my mother did her best to be both parents for us, but there were MANY difficulties. I was very much a child-parent to my siblings at a very young age. I am the only one of my siblings to NOT become addicted to alcohol or drugs at some point. I strongly believe that is because I had Christian and Catholic friends, and also that I accepted and forgave my parents for who they weren’t, and couldn’t be, as a preteen.
#3, I always wanted to be a teacher. My second grade teacher made a huge impression on me, from her I learned to love children and animals and books. We still keep in touch. (Yes, I’m a teacher today. I have 11 of the best students in the whole world.)
#4, A bright but unmotivated student, I barely graduated from high school, because I “just didn’t feel like” writing my senior film study paper. I was in the gifted and talented program, and I just couldn’t see why they couldn’t give me the credits for my work-study (teaching English to 6th graders) instead. At graduation, my diploma actually had a paper inside that said “diploma withheld”, and I had to take a community college freshman English course to make up that film study credit, all because I was stubborn.
#5, I joined the US Navy in 1980 as a data processing tech (which couldn’t be further from my career interests), hoping for adventure (and romance). It WAS an adventure, and romantic… at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC, I met Michael, the sailor of my dreams. We were married in June 1982. Every moment hasn’t been “smooth sailing”, but that’s because this life is just our journey to the perfect port.
#6, I am a convert to Catholicism. I was a Methodist turned born-again Christian, but started attending Mass as a teen with friends, and my husband was a seminary high school student who had fallen far from the church by the time we met, and we started our “journey home” with the baptism of our first daughter. I could write a short book on this subject alone.
#6, 26 years and 12 children (plus a little bun in the oven) later, we’re still sailing! What an adventure God had planned for me! I have incredibly healthy pregnancies and births. Oh by the way, TEN of them are girls!… Amanda,25, Heather,24, Erin,22, Colleen,20, Kelsie,18, Michaela,16, Natalie,13, Christina,11, Teresa,4, and Monica,2 are the best sisters ever to our “little prince”, Jonathan,8. We have a little saint in heaven, JoseMaria, who was here just for 10 weeks gestation. And out little “bun”, who is now 16 weeks.
#7, I mentioned that I am a teacher. Never made it past a semester of college, but we have been homeschooling since 1996, and I’ve pretty much seen it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. But that’s a long story, and this is getting long enough.
#8, oh my gosh, can I have some more numbers? what can I choose as my last thing? This is too hard of a decision! This might be obvious by now, but I LOVE babies. Am positively addicted to them. Can’t go by a stroller or a snugli-pack without having a peek at the precious cargo inside. Nothing better than living life with a smiling 4-month old attached to your hip. Really. Its what this life is all about.
There’s more, like I always dream that I can fly (the dream dictionary says that that is a sign that you believe you can overcome obstacles in your life), that I have had a business decorating cakes, and that currently I have a business renting wedding linens and other supplies to brides doing-it-themselves (after surviving our first daughter’s wedding last year), and that I AM GOING TO BE A GRANDMOTHER!!!!!
ok, now I cheated, and that’s actually eleven things. Hope you enjoyed my little intro. Now, to read from all these interesting categories on my right>>>>>>>>>!!!
Peace in Christ,
Marcia Grimes
Holden, MA