I’m working on Parts 4, 5 and 6 of my Marines story, and they should all come pretty rapidly compared to the dead zone that is Binary Trash lately.  So thanks to Crisitunity for her mini-interview.  I was very happy to get some free blog material.  She came up with some questions that took me a good 90 minutes to come up with decent answers to.   I rambled on and on, especially on the first one, then I went back and chopped these answers down by at least half.   I am a rambler. 

1. What quality about yourself that you think is important, if any, do you feel doesn’t come through in your blog?

I am a high strung, high energy person.  I am very competitive but rarely show it, though I would never step on another to “win” (except when playing Monopoly…I am a big, fat cheater when it comes to Monopoly).  I don’t sleep well.  I am very busy, all the time, balancing a full time job, two kids, a husband who misses the way I was when we were dating, writing manuscripts, and oh by the way did I mention I’m heading up a CSA this year?  I have been stressed out my entire life, so I only know how to operate under stress.  Therefore if I do not have stress, I tend to create it, so Ican thrive in my comfort zone. 

I am working on this. 

2. Do you think your job says anything about you at all, or is it just a paycheck and an expression of your past job experience?

If my job says anything about me, it is that I can adapt.  I am a right-brained person succeeding in a left-brained world.  It’s a paycheck to be sure, but I do not live for it and I do not feel as if my job is my identity.  I do enjoy my job a lot.  I like the people I work with a lot.  I give 110% to whatever job I do, and I know that if I was waiting on tables I would be just as good as waiting on tables as I am working on ‘puters. 

Please though, if you all know what is good for you, don’t let me near the launch button.  I’d press it, because I strongly believe that buttons are meant to be pushed.
3. What piece of advice about family (your parents/brother or your husband/children) would you go back and give yourself, and at what age would you give it?

I would go back to my three year old self and give me a lot of hugs, and say: “One day, a long time from now, you will feel fearless.”

I would go back to my thirteen year old self and say:   ”There are reasons that they act this way, and one day you will understand what those reasons are.  Until then, forgive them and try not to hate them.”
4. What place have you visited that you thought you’d like to move to, even if it meant all kinds of lifestyle changes that were impossible?

Paris.  Just for a year or two. And I don’t know that the lifestyle changes would be impossible, but they sure would be difficult.  Especially the part about having to wear a damn beret all the time. 

I love moving.  Having children and moving…not so easy.  Some do it, but I want to give my kiddos some stability.  There are many places that I haven’tbeen that I would like to move to for a year, just to say I did (Sitka, AK; Whitehorse, YT; Ushuaia; Moscow.  I nearly did something crazy like that when I started the process of signing up for the VSO , but then I ended up moving to Colorado instead.  And one day, should I live long enough, I want to join the VSO after all.  Hopefully my husband wants to come along for the ride.  Or maybe he can just do photography for a year or two.  Either way the plan depends on raising my children so that they are independent and functional in society by the time they are eighteen.  I will be damned if I’m running a hotel any longer than that.
5. What common pet would you refuse to have (bird, turtle, hamster, ferret, nothing exotic like a deskunked skunk or a boa constrictor), no matter how much your kids wanted one?

Cat, dog, bird, fish; all of these are okay with me.  Two pet rules I live by: 

1.  The pet must have legs. 

2.  The pet may have no more than four legs. 

I would never be able to do hamsters or mice or guinea pigs…I’m not one to love rodents, and I would get much more pleasure out of them by feeding them to a larger animal than by having them as pets.  When I was a kid I was at my cousin’s house (five boys, two of them twins) and they had a guinea pig.  We took it out to play with it, and it escaped into a vent.  It crawled around the house vents for a long time and then one day it just stopped…crawling.  *shudder*

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Thanks again for taking the time to write these for me, C!  Also I am happy to return these favors, so if you need blog material due to tiredness, laziness, or blog-block I would be happy to send you five personalized questions.  Just let me know in the comments section.

Nighty-night!