Who I Am

Again, stolen from Carmen. I've been thinking about this ever since she posted it over a week ago. I hope my copy does hers justice.

I am the wife of 1, mom of 3. I was a much different parent when it was only my daughter, before the boys came along. I think I walk a very fine line between being the 'mean mom' and being the lenient mom. I suppose how you view it depends on which side of the fence you're on. Manners are a big thing to me. I prefer to be called "Mrs. [last name here]" by children. No, you are not my peer so you may not use my first name. That goes for store clerks too. My children may not call adults by their first name unless instructed to do so by that adult. I respect their preferences but the default greeting is Mr./Mrs.

I am very conservative, and Christian. Which I find amusing since I was the polar opposite when I was young. It infuriates me that Congress can't pass and stick to a budget when we, as citizens, get hammered when we don't. I find the loose social culture in our country disgusting. I firmly believe that as a country we started to kick God and Jesus out decades ago and we are now reaping every bit of what we have sown. Interestingly enough, I hate to argue about politics or social policy so I rarely, if ever, write about these things, nor will I engage in debate about it, on this blog, or elsewhere. (Unfortunately for you, yes you that is thinking of commenting about this, if you are inflammatory I will delete you. You may kindly disagree with me without fear of being deleted but I will not engage with you. My blog, my policy.) I think political debate may be what puts me on high blood pressure medication.

I think I am a good, if conservative, cook. I don't like to try off the wall foods. While Carmen hates beets, I love them. We grow them. My children love them. I do love most vegetables though, and am recently having a renewed love affair with baby lima beans, much to my family's chagrin. My husband is a meat/green/starch/bread at meals guy. I'm more of a casserole/soup person. It's not so easy to please everyone around here. I make the best apple pie ever, yet don't love to bake, and if I do, it's usually a box cake. I think it's because of the mess involved. I love honey crisp apples. Or granny smith apples with peanut butter. That is the only thing that I like that involves peanut butter. The smell of hot water washing something that has had peanut butter in it makes me gag. So does the pet food aisle at the store.

I've always been a borderline hoarder. I wash Ziploc bags. I keep coupons for places that I rarely go to "just in case". I still have every paper that I took notes on while I was planning my wedding. Why? I have no idea except that I want to organize all of that stuff into an album someday but the task is too daunting. So I have a large box of all of it instead that continues to collect dust after 15 years. This is par for the course of my life. I used to keep every memento, trinket, and unused something or other whether or not I would ever use it. I'm better now but not completely reformed. Example #2: I was a chapter consultant for my college sorority and I still have my "Ox Box". It was a huge briefcase that we carried all of our manuals and paperwork in. It's still full of my files. OK, ok, it's been in the garage collecting dust, but it's still here. To Do on Tuesday? Toss the files, put the case in the garage sale stack.

I am a work in progress.

I love clean sheets but hate to make the bed. I love doing laundry but hate putting it away. I love a clean house but hate to clean. I love working in the flower garden in our yard but hate the obsession Headless Dad has with the grass. I hate Southern California as a general rule but I'm getting acclimated to the mild winter weather. I'm not, however, getting acclimated to the heat of the summer. I hate hot weather. Anything over 85 pisses me off. I love the results of exercise but the exercise itself? Not so much. One of this year's goals is to find some kind of exercise that I like to do and can consistently do without hating every minute. Zumba is the first thing on my list to try since I do like to dance and I seem to like exercise classes better than solo exercise.

I love working on my house (read: painting, remodeling, redecorating, etc.,) but get easily bored with a project unless it A) goes very quickly, B) someone else is here to motivate me to finish. Witness: my master bathroom that is still not done. It's almost been a year since the flooding up there. I KNOW.

Some people think that I'm intimidating, but usually I think it's because A) I'm shy around people that I don't know, B) I tend to follow the rule "If you don't have something nice to say then don't say anything at all." See also: I hate arguing or getting in disagreements with people.

*whew* That's a lot. Did you learn something? I could probably do 8 more paragraphs, but I'll spare you. So. What do we have in common?