25 Random Things About Me

25 Random Things About Me (as seen on Facebook)

1. I AM Random. So this is perfect for me.
2. Size 11......not my dress.........my shoes!
3. You won't catch me willingly riding on a chartered bus. Ever noticed how many of those things crash or go down an embankment?
4. I was a carded apprentice electrician for a couple years.
5. I cannot close cabinets or drawers the first time.....I always turn around and find I left them partially open.
6. Hip Hop and rap music are what I listen too mostly, but my favorite live concerts were Elton John and Reba McEntire.
7. My friend Tammi and I applied to be on the Amazing Race. Since you haven't seen me on TV you can guess what happened!
8. Spent 10 days in Japan visiting our former exchange student. Got to see Emporer's Palace, Tokyo Disneyland, Osaka, etc.
9. Got bit in the butt by a dog when I was 6. OUCH!
10. Mark and I got engaged after dating for less than 2 months.
11. I cannot do hair. I have 4 daughters with long hair but pony tails are about as good as it gets!
12. Being in a large body of water (other than a swimming pool) freaks me out.
13. I would parachute out of a plane before I would bungee jump.
14. My right ankle has three screws in it. Apparently I forgot how to slide into third that day!15. If I could be anything in this world I would be a professional musician or singer. I don't crave being famous at all, but I LOVE music and could play, sing, or listen 24/7.
16. I cannot sing at all Can't hit or hold a note to save my life. I do have a drum set in the garage, but number 15 will have to be in my next life!
17. Three of my four grandparents are still alive and living at home by themselves with no outside assitance. 91, 91 & 88 years old and I love them dearly!!
18. I could spend all my time watching or playing sports. Even played rugby for a year for WSU.
19. I hate scary movies.
20. Pepperoni pizza makes my mouth feel like you lit it up with a blowtorch. No Bang Bang Shrimp for me at happy hour.
21. I love family events and gatherings....my family really is cool and a lot of fun to hang with.
22. 38 Christmases.....all spent with my parents (except one was with dad only because mom was in Australia).
23. I am a poor public speaker and tend to ramble on and on in regular conversations. But I can write my way through and around anything.
24. I made the first ever official 3-point shot in a basketball game in Grandview High School.
25. My mom had to make me get my ears pierced when I was 13. She is still working at bringing out the "girl" in me!!

Is it really 2009 already?

Every year moves at higher speed than the last. Does that happen for everyone? I just got used to writing 2008. I am finally remembering gloves in the car, but spring is almost hear. And somebody stole my little girl Courtney. She now looks and acts eerily like a budding teenager. Her shoe size is 8.5. That is just not right. It can't be happening. Not yet.......But it is and there is nothing I can do but enjoy every moment as it whirls past. Not long ago I had two daughters in diapers and two other elementary aged girls. I thought my dog days of diaper changing would NEVER end and I would be old before my girls grew up and I had some "freedom." But now I don't crave that freedom I longed for. I want the clock to slow down. I want my girls to be little and sweet forever.

Rest in peace Matthew J.

When you lose someone close to you it is always difficult. But losing my 20-year-old cousin has been the most mentally and emotionally challenging time of my life. On September 18, 2007 Cpl. Matthew J. Emerson died in Iraq in a rollover Humvee accident that threw him out of the vehicle. The Army was his life-long dream and he got to live it. He joined the Army during his senior year in high school and shipped out to boot camp just a month after graduation in July 2005.

My dad always said, "Matt has been here before." That sounds a little weird, but it seemed so true if you knew him. He was a quiet, scrawny little boy who never had a lot to say. But when he spoke, it was often with a wry sarcasm hardly normal in a young child. He seemed not to have much interest in the nonsense most kids enjoy and spoke with wisdom beyond his years. Matt was not really a good student. Not that he wasn't smart - he just wasn't interested and didn't want to bother with things that weren't interesting to him. He didn't want to go to college, he wanted to join the Army. So whatever it took to get there was all that mattered in his education.

I remember many conversations with my husband and my parents about Matt's "obsession" with the Army. He was always dressing in camouflage to play war games or paintball. He had books and could tell you more than you probably ever wanted to know about the Army. But we all thought it was just a childhood fantasy and that he didn't really understand what he was getting in to. Many of us encouraged him to go to college first and then decide. But Matt was not to be deterred from his dream. He understood - way better than any of us - what he was getting in to. Mind you, after he enlisted there were many times he may have missed all of us and wondered what he got himself into, but he always knew what he wanted.

Matt was the baby of the family and wasn't supposed to die. There are so many other things he had yet to experience. His death seems so harshly unfair. From the moment my Mom told me he was dead and I began screaming, "No, no, no," until the current hour I sit blogging...I just can't wrap my tiny little brain around it all. My heart continually aches and this overwhelming sadness randomly overcomes me. And what do I do when this happens? Especially while I am at the grocery store or eating lunch with my 2 and 3 year-olds. They don't know what is going on in my heart and mind and I am certainly not just going to bring it up. I have to keep trudging along and deal with my grief within the confines of daily life.