Tagged!

Aimee tagged me over the weekend, but I didn't have time to respond until now - so here goes!

RULES - Post rules before giving the facts - Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves - People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules - At the end of your post you need to tag six people and list their names - Leave them a comment on their blog, telling them they have been tagged and not to forget to read yours.

Eight Random Facts about Me

1. Until I was about 7, we lived in a small cabin without indoor plumbing. "Toilet" was at the top of my birthday and christmas gift list for several years. I love indoor plumbing.

2. I went to a one room school for the first and second grade. The school (Winton)was about 15 minutes from our house in Plain, and had students up to the 10th grade, with about 25 students in all. My first grade class had 6 or 7 kids in it, making it by far the largest class. When my brother started school my mom decided to move me to Osborne Elementary for third grade, since Winton didn't have a kindergarden and she wanted us to be at the same school to keep things simpler for her. Osbourne was the "big" school in Levenworth, with two 3rd grade classes of about 25 students each. It was a very traumatic move for me - I have never really forgiven Jon for it. :P

3. My first pet of my very own was a cat named Bootsie that we got from an animal rescue place. She was one of 3 surviving kittens that had been put in a sack along with their mom and dumped alongside the highway near Wenatchee. She was always a little weird about strange people and loud motor noises, but she was a great cat. She lived to a ripe old age, even surviving several strokes in her later years which left her unable to walk in a straight line but otherwise healthy and happy to curl up on a warm lap and demand pets.

4. I didn't learn to tell time on a round-faced clock until I was 17. I'm really not stupid, and normally I learn things very quickly, but I just didn't get it when we had that lesson at school. And once you're over about 9 years old, everyone assumes you already know how to read a clock, so I was too embarassed to ask anyone to explain it again. I hid my ignorance by wearing a digital watch or by asking other people what time it was.

5. I bite my nails, especially when I am stressed. When I was younger, I used to also bite my toenails. That's pretty much the only bad habit I've ever kicked (the toenail biting) but it's mostly due to reduced flexibility, not willpower. Thank god I never started smoking!

6. I love to travel. I have been to Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Brazil (sorta - popped across the border from Leticia, Columbia & got un helado), Ecuador, Chile, and England. Someday I really want to go to Iceland, Venezuela, and New Zealand, and I'd love to visit some african and asian countries as well. However, the truth is that now that I have a house and land we're probably going to be sticking closer to home and doing more budget travel - backpacking, road trips and the like. Which is just fine, because I haven't really explored the US and there are a lot of great sites to see.

7. When I was a kid, I loved to play fort. My brother and I and the two neighbor boys had a fort complex consisting of 5 or 6 different buildings nestled in the trees by the creek that ran through our property. We would play out there all summer long (including lots of sleep-outs), and on weekends during the spring and fall. The buildings were made out of scavenged materials; logs, sticks, old apple bins, scraps of tarps, old boards, chicken wire and old tin roofing. The main building was the Kitchen, which had a gabled roof made from the protective bracing that an upright fiberglass shower insert is shipped in. The walls and roof were made from scraps of plywood and a truly ancient canvas tarp, nailed down to a framework of scrap lumber and sticks. It also had an attached dining room made from an old apple bin turned on its side, and a palisade fence enclosing a little courtyard outside. I planted tulip bulbs and johny-jump-ups in a flower bed next to the door, and spent hours out there "cooking" whatever I could out of the ingredients Mom let me abscond with. I'm sure to the untrained eye the fort looked like a homeless encampment, but we saw it as a beautiful little village and we took pride in building and maintaining it.

8. I can belch really really loud. I learned how from my friend Sara Lacross when I was in 4th grade. She was a true master. With her expert teaching and many hours of practice I acheived a level of proficiency that has served me well for years. It's good to have skills!

Ok, so now to tag some other folks.
I guess Keeley, Dan and Ted are it! I think they are all on summer vacation though, so it may be a while before there's any responses.