100 things about me

1. I like words.
2. I like to write.
3. I write to understand myself.
4. Writing soothes me, if that's the right word.
5. Putting my life into words helps me make sense of why I'm here.
6. I love being with people.
7. I prefer one-to-one talks with people.
8. I like to ponder ideas. (Click HERE for an example.)
9. I like to share my ideas with others. (Click HERE for an example.)
10. I like for others to tell me when they agree with my ideas and when they don't.
11. I think outside the box a lot.
12. I know thinking outside the box is considered innovative to thinking people but scary to people who dislike change.

13. I was delighted when Kenzie sent me this picture on March 20th and said, "Made me think of you. Love ya!" On May 3rd she filled out a questionnaire that asked, What's one thing you've learned this year? She wrote, "How to be more concerned with what God thinks than what others think." Did I make a difference? I hope so!

14. I do care what people think, but (she's right) I try not to care.
15. I don't care if people disagree with me, at least on something I am sure of.
16. I'm willing to be convinced I'm wrong.

17. I love Kiki, my tabby-point Siamese cat, and cannot imagine leaving her if I had been in the New Orleans floods after Hurricane Katrina.
18. I wonder if I would have refused to go in a lifeboat without Kiki -- I think I would have, but I've never been in that situation.

19. I feel an awesome responsibility, rather like having children, when I look at our cats (my cat Kiki and Donna's cat Sammy) and realize how their lives are both enriched by our love and yet totally dependent on our willingness to feed them, protect them, clean their litter boxes, and be kind to them.

20. I'm so glad I have children.
21. And I am blessed to have seven grandchildren!
22. Having a wonderful best friend is another of my blessings.
23. I love my hometown (Chattanooga, Tennessee), which I have pictured at the bottom of most of my blogs.
24. When I lived in other towns (Atlanta, Knoxville, Morristown), I would rejoice when I topped Missionary Ridge and could see Chattanooga lying in a bowl of mountains.
25. Part of the reason I retired early was that I didn't want to move away from Chattanooga (again) and away from my children and grandchildren who live here.
26. I try to do too many things, too often getting sidetracked from what I need to be doing.
27. My love of fried okra helps define who I am.
28. My mother's fried okra was the best ever, in my opinion.
29. The best fried okra in town, now that mother is gone, is the extra-crispy okra at Shuford's BBQ on Signal Mountain Road; this has become my favorite restaurant.
30. My second-favorite restaurant is The Acropolis near Hamilton Place; I love their Greek salads.
31. My third-favorite restaurant is Golden Corral on Hixson Pike at Hamill Road, where I can eat large portions of favorite foods or sample tiny tastes of lots of different things, without wasting food.
31. I don't like to waste food.
32. I don't like to waste anything, maybe because I know what it's like not to have money for everything I want or need.
33. I am a pack rat who is learning to get rid of things.
34. I want to be down to a modest handful of things by the time I die.





Did I mention that I love fried okra?

Yes, thrice, see #27, #28, and #29.



35. I love to learn.
36. I have been learning Dutch.
37. I have recently learned how to do lots of things on the computer, as I was learning how to blog.
38. I love blogging.
39. I have more than one blog, mainly so I won't inflict all my interests on any one group of people.

40. I like having a thingy that tells me where my blog visitors are when they post: mostly in North America, western Europe, and eastern Asia, but also in Malaysia, Australia, South America, the Middle East, India, and central Asia.

41. I love anaylzing books to review them. (Click HERE for an example.)
42. I read for ideas, knowledge, and getting to know how other people think.
43. I love trees and have had a favorite tree in every place I have lived.
44. I crave music and feel less alive without it.
45. I love to make music myself; my ex-husband knew this and came home from the hardware store (!!!) with a $15 guitar for me, before he bought a piano in 1968 "for the children."
46. I still have the piano, but not the guitar.
47. I used to hate television, but now I like certain kinds of programs like "Hallmark Hall of Fame" and the ones on these channels: Discovery, A&E, History, BookTV, CNN, Lifetime.

48. My favorite book is Agape Love: A Tradition Found in Eight World Religions by John Templeton.
49. I love to teach.
50. I especially like teaching Religions of the World at Chattanooga State.
51. I consider preaching one form of teaching.
52. I am always delighted by life's coincidences, especially because I don't believe they are coincidences.
53. I'm a tea drinker, especially iced tea, though I also like flavored teas, such as jasmine or peach.
54. I've never been very interested in alcoholic drinks, which is good considering my dad was an alcoholic.
55. I prefer vanilla ice cream over chocolate, though my two favorite ice creams are banana and black cherry.
56. I was pretty good at making clothes for the children, but ...
57. I never enjoyed sewing.
58. My favorite color is green; when I wear it, my eyes look green.

59. My dark green Saturn was the exact color I always wanted (and want) in a car.
60. The color Donna and I chose for Book Buddies was dark green.
61. I have a green thumb (except for African violets) and have kept alive shoots from an ivy my dad planted decades ago (he died in 1964).

62. My favorite flowers are hyacinths; daisies used to be my favorites.

63. I like having a rolling pin that belonged to my maternal grandmother (she had a green thumb and grew hyacinths) and an office chair that belonged to my paternal grandfather (he had his own store).

64. I like browsing in office supply stores.
65. I love the many shades of green in the spring, but hate the allergy-inducing pollens.
66. I like fractals.
67. I have always been fascinated with maps.
68. I hate hot weather that makes me sweaty, yes, like today; it's now 85F.
69. Cigarette smoke makes my eyes red and itchy.
70. To recharge my batteries, I need alone time.
71. I like to play with words. (Click HERE for one example.)
72. I'm a night owl who would prefer to sleep from around 2 a.m. until 10 a.m.
73. I was 5'8" by junior high school, but in my mid-30s I was suddenly 5'8-3/4" tall. Don't ask me why, unless the divorce meant getting the weight of the world off my shoulders (at almost 33 years old).
74. The driver's license place insisted that makes me 5'9" tall.
75. I like the sound of a bagpipe.
76. I loved playing bassoon in the school orchestra and concert band.
77. I played glockenspeil in the marching band.
78. I played bassoon in the Chattanooga Symphony's Youth Orchestra.
79. I was able to start piano lessons at age 5 because my mother's friend Dorothy taught piano.
80. I got an award at my first piano recital, beating out the older kids.
81. I won the DAR Award for History for a paper I wrote in the 8th grade.

82. When we were in elementary school, I took down Billy in a neighborhood football game by clamping my hands on his shoulders and flipping him to the right; he rolled across the yard and ended up on his back with his feet up a clothesline pole, still holding the football.
83. I love it that my now-6'4" brother remembers that game to this day and still laughs about it.
84. When Jimmy took up bassoon, I felt like an admired older sister because he went into music and even chose MY instrument. Bill had gone into athletics, and Ann took dancing.

85. I graduated from college Magna cum Laude, with a 3.61-something GPA; Sandra will be pleased to tell you her GPA was something like .01 points higher than mine. (Go, Sandra!)
86. I went for the highest GPA possible so I would get scholarships or fellowships for graduate school, knowing I couldn't afford it otherwise.

87. I got a BA (Bachelor of Arts) in English and in Philosophy & Religion (double major) from UT-Chattanooga.


88. I got an MDiv (Master of Divinity) in Theology from Emory's Candler School of Theology in Atlanta.


89. I did all the work for a DMin (Doctor of Ministry) from Drew Theology School in Madison, New Jersey; then I needed time to take care of Mother because of her Alzheimer's disease and couldn't pay for the unused semesters to catch up. So I quit, not really wanting this degree, anyway. I had accomplished what I wanted to do with Signal Mountain UMC while doing the degree, so it was enough.


90. But I still want a doctorate. I'd have to start over now, if I went back to Drew, and probably no other school would take me because I "dropped out" of Drew's program.

91. After I retired from ministry, I taught a class at Holston Annual Conference (June 2003) which quickly expanded from a group of about a dozen chairs that had been set out, to fill the entire open area at the Terrace Hotel with its balcony above and people standing along all four walls. My Drew advisor showed up there to encourage me to finish my dissertation, as he knows I basically have it all done. But I can't pay the dollars it would cost for those extra semesters I couldn't attend! Very frustrating situation.

92. I currently live in an apartment, the middle one in this photo, which is #32:


93. I'm on the committee to choose books and arrange to bring in authors for "A Tale for One City" here in Chattanooga.
94. I love the smell of new books.
95. I love the smell of newspapers, too.
96. I have published (mostly nonfiction) locally, nationally, and internationally.
97. The closest I've come to having a book published is a booklet I wrote and illustrated on the history of East Lake United Methodist Church.
98. But the good news is that I am about halfway ready to send a book to an agent.
99. If ... no, WHEN ... I get this book published, I want to travel around the world. Uh, can I afford that? Well, no, but it's what I want to do.
100. I am overweight ... umm, fat? ... obese, actually; however, I choose to agree with Garfield and say it this way:



Bonus: I'm quirky like that