Eight Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

This is actually a FB meme (shared by my friend, Cheryle), but... well, Facebook... What can I say about it?  I need more space for this meme -- actually, for most things! --  than Facebook can give me.  I need room to crack my knuckles and stretch out my elbows -- which I can do here at home on my blog.  Where I'm comfortable -- and where I can sit in my purple bathrobe and fuzzy socks and lean back against the soft cushion of 1,673 posts visits with friends.

The challenge, though, after six years of blogging (and a chronic case of TMI), is coming up with eight things no one knows.  But, I'm getting a break from packing and moving tonight, and I'm using this as an excuse to fortify my creative muse with a bowl of mocha ice cream... so here goes:

Eight Things You May Not Know

1) I have an overdeveloped sense of justice, and have always been very agitated by unfairness, even as a

Don't be fooled by the
look of innocence; I
was a terrorist.

child. There's a certain noodle throwing incident in defense of my little brother that my siblings might remember as one proof, and the "fingernail incident" on the school bus when I was twelve, wherein I taught my older brother to take me seriously...  I was a shy and humble child generally, but given sufficient cause, I became a terrorist.  Several decades later I'm sometimes still a moral activist, but I'm happy to report that I have matured in my methods.

Nowadays my attempts to correct injustice at home, on the highway, and in such places as the comment boxes of Pintrest and Facebook are less physical --  but (alas!) also less effective.  As an adult, I try to pick my battles carefully, pray hard for heavenly counsel, and word my objections as charitably as I can, but I seldom feel like it makes any difference.  It's all very frustrating. I don't want to scratch anybody's eyes out any more, I truly don't.  I hate fighting!

 But sometimes I really wish I could throw noodles.

2)  I make my bed every morning.  Every morning, that is, except one.  On Sundays, I offer it up as a sacrifice and leave the bed messy.  It kills me.

3)  To balance out the impression that I suffer from OCD or am some kind of sickening Martha Stewart wannabe, I hasten to add that pretty much every drawer and closet in my house is an incredible mess (or was until we just cleaned them all out and packed them), and I never clean out my fridge if I can help it.  By the time I get to that dreaded job, certain members of my household are threatening to call the Board of Health. To which I respond, "And you can't clean it yourself?  It's the least you can do for your poor mother/wife/friend..."

And seeing as we're moving the last load on Saturday and neither fridge has been cleaned yet, I am looking for volunteers...

4.  I have three mothers:

 (1) My heavenly mother, who is here for me always: perfect, loving, and understanding of all my needs, my intercessor in Heaven, my guide through my life.  I speak to her often through the day and she answers, but not in so many words; we won't get to have a two-sided conversation until we meet someday in Heaven,God willing and I don't blow it.

(2) My biological mother, whom I love dearly, the Scrabble Queen of the universe, the counsel of my childhood, the tenderest heart that ever lived, the Grandchildren Doter.  I get to talk to my Mom on the phone two or three times a month (not often enough!) and love catching up with her. I wish we lived closer to one another; I'm such a terrible phone caller!

June, reading on the porch with Dominic.
(Big computer with better pics is packed...)

(3) And then there's June.  June has been living with us as a sort of live-in, house grandmother for about a year now and we love her like our own.  She is a fellow Catholic, my friend, my confidante, my co-whiner when things need whining about, my reminder of how Good God is and how grateful we must be every day and every minute for our Catholic Faith. Our temperaments are very similar; we understand one another perfectly. We talk together often throughout the day every day, but only need look at one another to know what the other's thinking.   June is 84 years young, and we don't know what we'd do without her.  Right now she's in California visiting her daughter until we're all moved in to our new house.  We figured since she's already moved 39 times in her long life, she deserved a pass out of this move, but we miss her and can't wait until she joins us in our new home!

5.  I only figured out about eye liner about a year ago, and wear more make-up now, at 49, than I did in my twenties.  In my defense: I didn't need it as much then. But now I need it in more ways than one.  Besides the fact that it covers the rings under my eyes and invents eyelashes that would otherwise not exist, applying makeup in the morning makes me feel ready for the world; it's like donning my shield and buckler. Look out  world!   And Dan is fine with it -- if he notices it at all, so, yeah... it makes me happy.  But, honestly, friends and family who see me occasionally, if I start looking like Mae West in her declining years, please tell me, OK?  But be gentle about it.  Just say, "Mae West, Lisa.  Mae West."  I'll get it.

6.  I hate breakfast cereal.  Haven't had a bowl of cereal in years. (The worst most disgusting cereal ever manufactured, incidentally, is Coco Puffs.  Uck. Blechhh. Gag. Nightmare cereal from my childhood.)

7.  I am a total sucker for down-turned brown eyes. His particular version of puppy dog eyes are a key reason I fell for my husband. I just love Dan's brown eyes...  So, yeah.  On that subject: the kids haven't bought it yet -- they think it's a stupid reason to choose a breed of dog -- but I'm trying to talk the family into letting me get a basset hound.  I would call him GK Chesterton. Or maybe Wodehouse.  Or Sherlock. And I would look on the internet for tweed hats that fit him...  And I really would not compare him to Dan. I wouldn't even think it.

8.  I talk too much when I'm nervous, and laughter is my fallback response to just about anything

(sometimes inappropriately), but I am really a closet introvert.  No, really.  I'd rather hike a quiet mountain trail or read a book than go to a party or have to mix in a crowd of people outside my immediate family. I'd rather discuss religion or politics than Miley Cyrus or preferred super powers. I fret *a lot* about social interactions.  In real life, I'm quiet and somewhat retiring.  Honest I am.

 But on my blog, hidden behind the screen, so to speak, here in my fuzzy socks and purple bathrobe, I 'm free to wax as stupid as I want.  Here in my own little world I'm free to be as silly and trivial and LOUD as I feel the need to be. We're together here, you and I, visiting in my cozy little nook. Best friends, you and I.  And you don't mind if I'm being a little goofy, do you?    (See?  I knew it!)