Seven Things

 I received the
One Lovely Blog Award

from Lisa at My Ordinary Country Life

(You need to pop over to her place and check it out!)

As a recipient, I am supposed to tell you

Seven Things You Don't Know About Me.

Hmmm, what have I NOT mentioned? LOL

I guess I'll just go over my life before blogging.

1. I am an only child raised in Creve Coeur, MO

or sort of between Creve Coeur and Chesterfield, MO.

This is part of St Louis County which is not part of the city,

but rather its own entity.  

We moved there when I was in 2nd grade

and I lived there until I was married in 1982.

This is a fairly current photo, it was a bit different then.

My room has the two front windows on the right

near the pine trees.

The two on the left were the dining room,

foyer in the middle flanked by bathrooms (1 full & 1/2)

The house was great, a big circle and in the 

middle was the formal living room

and it was sunken!

So was the master bedroom.

2.  I was oh, so very elegant!

And sort of laid back too!

3 .  I  grew up and graduated from Parkway North Sr. High 

 in Creve Coeur, MO 

 where I was the editor of our high school newspaper.

I attended William Woods College (now University) in Fulton, MO

where I was the editor of the college paper as well.

I interned and then worked for The Kingdom Daily News in Fulton

(where I struggled with the Ag report- I didn't know a barrow from a gilt!

I was much better editing the business page or writing features)

 In the end, I ended up as a Personal Lines insurance underwriter

after I discovered how much time it would take to

be a journalist and how little it paid!

4.  After marrying Tom, my high school boy friend, 

we lived in an apartment in Maryland Heights, MO

(still St Louis County) for about 6 months until we

purchased a house in Eureka, MO.   This is near

Six Flags, in fact about 3 miles from it.  

My family thought they needed to get shots and 

 apply for a passport to come visit.  I'm surprised

that they did not pack a lunch!  

Eureka, back then, was a town full of pickups and

  metal fishing boats not the high end community it is today.

 I got out of a ticket in (real) St Louis when I made an

illegal left turn.  I explained that I was new to the big city.

We didn't have all this traffic and any of those 

fancy-dancy stop lights back home!

It didn't hurt that my friend's little girl came up behind me and 

completely uncharacteristically hugged my legs, 

giving the city officer that cute little girl look!

 5.  After living in Eureka for about 20 years we moved even further away,

out to unincorporated Franklin County, MO between Catawissa and Robertsville.

My friends said one of two things:

Catawhatta?

or

Oh, I have an aunt that lives in Catawissa !

Our place is five acres on a ridge top sandwiched between my

father/mother in law's five acres and my brother/sister in law's property.

It's very rocky, not at all flat and full of wonderful woodland things:

animals of all sorts, reptiles, trees, bugs but most importantly

it's peaceful.

 I started collecting stray cats!

And learning to drive things that were not cars!

 6.  It was out here that I realized I didn't really know how to do anything!

I made a list of important things to know

Sewing, cooking,  canning, survival skills, first aid, etc.

When I started doing these things my family thought I had been captured by aliens, experimented on and returned to Earth.

 In my younger days, I used to have my friend, Robyn, come over

 to tell me when my canned ravioli was heated through.

I wasn't much of a cook.

Don't let my brother in law tell you about my 

first dinner for him after he returned from the Navy.

It wasn't pretty.

I had to force them to stop trying to choke it down.

We ended up having take out!

Due to this, we are still alive today.

7.  That brings us to big number Seven.

 What's left that you all don't know?

Oh, how about this- I struggle with MATH! 

I can't do math in my head, I have to write it down

or use Excel, like I do at work.

I'm good working in the millions at work

but don't ask me to add up the price

of three or four products as we walk up a store aisle.

Unless we're at the dollar store!

( and assuming we are not buying more than 20 items)

Because of this I struggle with recipes so,

if I have to triple a recipe I put the ingredients in three times

or I might make a mistake and ruin it

and that HAS happened!

So, now you know stuff you may not have known before.

So it's my turn to nominate some blogs.

I hope they haven't already been nominated:

 The Way Grandmama Does It

Cottage Tails 

Missy's Homemaking Adventures

Sparing Change

The Locust Blossom

Me

 Thoughts from Taylors Outback

 Measuring cup link