Friday, September 6, 2013

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:





12 comments:

Missy Shay said...

Thank you for nominating! Your high school pictures are so pretty - I had the BIG hair in mine! LOL

Sunnybrook Farm said...

That was nice, I liked hearing your story.

Lady Locust said...

You are so sweet - I have to do some thinking now. I love the fox collar.
Smiles,
JoeyLea

Patricia @ 9th and Denver said...

Ha ha ha! this is great. I cook the same way...
I really like recipes that call for a handful of this and pinch of that...easy peasy.
...cute post, Pat

PS: don't tag me! I mean it. ;)

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

Missy- that's because I'm older than you are. I had Big Hair when I had my kids. I loved big hair!

Unknown said...

Loved your seven things! Great post! I'm right there with you on the math thing....I do the same thing if i have to triple a recipe...lol. Have a great weekend!

Leanne said...

Thanks for the award - I'll have to get my thinking cap on. I love it that you are surrounded by family on your land - that is really special.
Love Leanne

Harry Flashman said...

I like what you ladies are calling "big hair." Long hair on women is beautiful. My wife first caught my attention because even though she was in the navy, she had lovely long hair!

You've had an interesting life, and you are still young! You're a good writer, too even if you changed over to insurance underwriting!

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

Thank you, Harry. I've since changed occupations, quitting for awhile when the kids were born until they got to school. It was tight on a construction income in the 80's, well, more than tight, but worth staying home for awhile. I ended up in Credit/Accts Receivable (doing math of all things!) and lately transitioned into Supply Chain. Still working with MATH!!

Candy C. said...

I LOVE these kinds of posts! Great facts and it's fun to learn more about you! :)

Pat said...

Thank you for including my blog in your list! Always fun to read about the person behind the blog

Yahoobuckaroo's Blog said...

I went to church in Maryland Heights for many years, so Creve Coeur Park and that whole area between Olive and the Rock Road is old stomping grounds for me. My old basketball buddy, Kent, and I mostly went for the girls. First at New Covenant Church and then later at Grace Church. I'm proud to say that we pretty much dated those places out! Oh to be young and irresponsible again....