One of my cyber siblings, Mr. Fabulous, did this meme a little while ago on his site. Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I am all about that, I decided to do it, too. Actually, I just liked it and I haven’t done a random meme in a long time. (No one tags me anymore!:cry: Just kidding. I don’t want to be tagged to death now.) Anyway, here are 62 things that you were just dying to know about me. NOT!

1. How old do you wish you were? I am pretty comfortable right where I am. I have learned a lot about myself and it would probably mean losing that knowledge if I went back, so I will stay right here.

2. Where were you when 9/11 happened? At home. With my daycare kids. Watching it unfold in front of me on the TV screen.

3. What do you do when vending machines steal your money? Fall on the floor and cry like a baby. Just kidding. Nothing. What else is there to do?

4. Do you consider yourself kind? Yes. Do you consider me kind?

5. If you had to get a tattoo, where and what would it be? I have plans for more tattoos. One on my lower back, one on my shoulder, perhaps, and one in a private place that only my husband will see.

6. If you could be fluent in any other language what would it be? French. It is beautiful and I live near Canada, so it would be helpful to speak their language. Oh, they speak mostly English? Oh well, that’s my answer and I’m stickin’ to it.

7. Do you know your neighbors? Yes. The ones to the north we hate. They steal, they party, they are loud and obnoxious and they have had the cops there more times than we can count. The three houses across the street and to the south of us we are more close with. The people next to us on the south we only know from saying “hi” and such.

8. What do you consider a vacation? Being at a hotel/resort or cabin.

9. Do you follow your horoscope? No. On occasion I look at it, but only for amusement. Not to plan my life.

10. Would you move for the person you loved? Yes, absolutely.

11. Are you touchy feely? Yes. I like hugs and kisses. I like to be affectionate and I like reciprocation.

12. Do you believe that opposites attract? Yes and no. I think that they will sometimes attract, but if they don’t find things in common and/or develope things in common, then I don’t think that it will last.

13. Dream job? Novelist.

14. Favorite channels? NBC (I know they suck of late), ABC, CourtTV, A&E, Biography. I like documentries, especially crime medical related ones.

15. Favorite place to go on a weekend? Movies, out to dinner, stay at home.

16. Showers or Bath? I used to like baths better, because I didn’t like water on my face (especially when I was pregnant–weird, I know), but I like showers better now.

17. Do you paint your nails? Yes, fingers and toes.

18. Do you trust people easily? Yes, too easily for my own good sometimes.

19. What are your phobias? June bugs. Birds, I mean, I like them if they are in a cage. In fact, we can actually communicate with one another, but if they are out of the cage or, for instance, seagulls that fly at you trying to get food, they scare me nearly to death. I guess anything that flies at my head. It freaks me out.

20. Do you want kids? I have 3 children and a grandchild that lives with me. Do I need anymore?

21. Do you keep a handwritten journal? Sometimes. I wish I were better at it. I should be keeping food journal, but I am not very good at that. Mostly because I eat like crap. Ask Megan and Fab. It isn’t that I eat only junk. I am better about not doing that than I used to be, but I do not eat very regularly and I probably eat less than I should. There. I said it, you two! Are you happy?!

22. Where would you rather be right now? I like where I am right now. I am in bed with my husband sleeping next to me.

23. What makes you feel warm and safe? Snuggled into my husbands arms.

24. Heavy or light sleep? I am a light sleeper. I don’t sleep well at all. Probably one of the causes of my headaches.

25. Are you paranoid? Why? Who wants to know? Did you hear someone talking about me? In a word, yes.

26. Are you impatient? Yes. Is this quiz almost over yet?

27. Who can you relate to? People with which I have things in common. I really am not sure exactly what this question is asking.

28. How do you feel about interracial couples? Love is love. If they love each other and are good to one another than God bless them.

29. Have you been burned by love? Um, yes. Next question, please.

30. What’s your life motto? “It will all work out.” It will be on my tombstone, I think. I think that if I hadn’t have kept saying this to myself all these years, I may have either gone crazy or killed myself or both. I have had a challenging life. Not terrible, just challenging.

31. What’s your main ringtone on your mobile? Well, there are really only 2 people who call me on my cell with any regularity and they each have their own ringtone. One of them wanted me to put “One Hot Mama” by Trace Adkins as my ringtone for when he calls. The other person is someone I lean on a lot and he is always there for me, so his ringtone is “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers.

32. What were you doing at midnight last night? Writing. It is almost always what I am doing at midnight every night.

33. Who was your last text message from? Fab.

34. Whose bed did you sleep in last night? Um…what the hell kind of question is that? My own, thank you very much.

35. What color shirt are you wearing? Turquoise. Not green. Not blue.

36. Most recent movie you watched? O’ Brother, Where Art Thou.

37. Name five things you have on you at all times? Shirt, pants/shorts, underwear, shoes and cell phone. I don’t always have my purse with me, but I am fairly certain that if I leave the house, I will always have those 5 things.

38. What color are your bed sheets? Brown. Chocolate brown. They are luxurious.

39. How much cash do you have on you right now? None. I am in bed.

40. What is your favorite part of chicken? White meat. Breast, probably.

41. What’s your favorite town/city? Duluth, Minnesota. It is so beautiful. I love it there.

42. I can’t wait till…I am a published author.

43. Who got you to join MySpace? My cousin, Debbie. I signed up so that I could comment on her site, but I don’t ever post to mine. I also need an account so that I can monitor my kids’ MySpace accounts because for safety reasons they are set to private and you have to be approved and have an account to have access.

44. What did you have for dinner last night? Hamburgers and hotdogs. General picnic fare because it was the Fourth of July and we were at a family picnic/birthday celebration.

45. How tall are you barefoot? What I tell people is 5′2″, but I am probably closer to 5′1″.

46. Have you ever smoked crack? No! Never intend to. I have a family history of drug and alcohol addiction, hence that sort of thing scares the shit out of me.

47. Do you own a gun? I personally do not, but my husband is a cop, so we have them in the house at any given time.

48. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Coffee with vanilla toffee carmel flavored creamer by International Delights. More accurately, it is the flavored creamer with coffee in it. (See what I mean? Crap.)

49. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex? Boy. I am not sure. I am a huge flirt. That’s all I can say, really.

50. Do you have A.D.D.? I did well in school and I liked my teachers. I had one that was really good, she taught me a lot. She was my social studies teacher in 12th grade. I liked 12th grade, but I was sad when I had to graduate at the end even though I graduated with highest honors. Oh yes, I was a goody two shoes. Shoes? Where are my shoes? I have so many pairs of shoes. Not as many as Imelda Marcos though. What was the question?

51. What time did you wake up today? 4am, but I went back to sleep at around 7 and slept for another 3 hours. See, I don’t sleep very well.

52. Current worry? I would rather not say and that is because my middle child, Emily, reads this sometimes and I don’t want to worry her that I am worried about something. Does that make sense?

53. Current hate? The two things that have had the most negative impact on my life are cancer and crystal meth. I hate them both with a passion that few can imagine.

54. Favorite place to be? Right where I am. In my bed with my husband.

55. Where would you like to travel? Everywhere. I have recently developed a sense of wanderlust. I never travelled outside of the 5 state area (Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Iowa) until I was 35 years old and now, I would like to travel all the time. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible financially.

56. Where do you think you’ll be in 10 yrs? On Oprah, talking about my latest novel.

57. Last thing you ate? A Skinny Cow Mint Ice Cream Sandwich.

58. What songs do you sing in the shower? If I sing, it is whatever pops into my head. Often it is The Star Spangled Banner. I know–weird.

59. Last person that made you laugh? Isabelle. She says the cutest, funniest things sometimes.

60. Worst injury you’ve ever had? Probably when I broke my arm in 2 places.

61. Does someone have a crush on you? Hmmm….not that I know of. Anyone?

62. What is your favorite candy? Any kind of chocolate that doesn’t have nuts in it.

Can I see a show of hands please? How many of you out there are writers waiting to be published? Quite a few, I see. If there is one thing that I have learned since I started blogging a little over a year ago it is that there are a lot of writers out there waiting or wanting to be published. I think that this both encourages and depresses me. It encourages me because it means that I “know” a lot of people who have a lot of talent and it is always good to know people who are talented and have possibilities. It also means that I am not alone in my quest to be a published author. It discourages me because it means I know a lot of people who have a lot of talent and they aren’t published yet for one reason or another so what makes me think I would have any chance of being published. That is the sort of self-defeating attitude that is one thing that keeps me from writing the great American novel. Or any novel.

When I was a little girl (stop me if I am repeating myself, because I have probably said it before on this blog and, you know, I am getting old and forgetful now), my Dad, after reading an essay that I wrote, said to me, “Shelli, you write so well. Someday, you will be a writer.” He always thought that I would grow up and be a journalist. Maybe I would have, but life happened instead.

When my Dad was sick and dying, I kept a website. I guess you could say it was my first blog but I don’t think that there really was such a thing as “blogs” back then. I kept the site to let family members keep up to date on what was going on. There was a guestbook and people would leave us encouraging messages and we would print them out and bring them up to Dad at the hospital and read them to him. As the cancer ate away his liver and it began to fail, he had increasing dementia because the toxins in his blood weren’t being filtered and they were being deposited on his brain. He would have moments of lucidity. In one of those moments, he said to me, “Shell, there is something about a website? Some sort of thing you put together? You are writing on it?” These questions were asked with difficulty and a lot of pauses in between. After I answered “yes” to all of them, he grabbed my hand and said, “That’s really nice. Good. Thank you.” It was all he knew of me ever being “an author”.

It was after he died that I was actually published. In a newspaper. Unfortunately he had to die in order for it to happen because it was his obituary that I wrote that was published. I was published again about 1 1/2 years after his death. It was for our area’s Relay for Life. They publish a literary magazine each year to sell at the relay and at businesses in the area to raise money for cancer research, education and support. The book is called Touched By Cancer and is a collection of short stories, poems and art work submitted by people and to inspire people whose lives have been in some way affected by cancer. You can read my published essay here.

I don’t want to let my Dad, or my Mom, for that matter, down. I don’t want those two things to be the only things that I have published. I know that my Dad would be proud of me anyway, but I think he would have wanted more from me. He would have at least wanted me to try. To try to get something substantial written. To try to get that work of substance published. How will I know if I can succeed if I don’t at least try? I am not getting younger. I need to get off my ass and get it done. Time’s a wasting!

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It is the time of year for the Relay For Life events to be taking place. If you want to contribute or you want to walk go to the Relay For Life website and you can search for your local branch there. Or if you want, you can click on the link in my sidebar for Laurianne’s Hope.