OK, Sabine…I’ll bite.

Sabine tagged me on this one. Apparently, I’m supposed to come up with seven random and/or weird facts about myself. (Weird should NOT be a problem. ) To start with, the rules of this tag are:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself (on your blog, we all want to know them).
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

These are seven random facts about me:

1. When I was 5, I fell out of a shopping basket in the grocery store and fractured my skull. My Mom was 9 months pregnant with my little sis at the time and my Dad was attending college. I wasn’t in the “seat” part of the cart, but rather the large part. My Mom stopped in the aisle to pick something up off the shelf. I stood up (probably to try to grab something for myself) and when she went to push the basket, I lost my balance and fell out, landing on my back on the concrete floor. Although the skin wasn’t broken, x-rays showed that the back of my skull was cracked like an egg. Explains a lot of my personality today, doesn’t it?

2. I did not go to kindergarten. My Dad taught me how to read while I was in the hospital for aforementioned skull fracture. By the time I started 1st Grade, I was one of the few kids who was able to read. I have loved reading all my life, and I always did well in Reading and English in school. I’m grateful for this.

3. When I was in high school, I drew individual pencil portraits of the entire JV and Varsity football teams for display at their Sports Banquet. Each athlete was given his portrait as a gift. I think I did about 50 portraits from tiny school photos that I was provided, at a payment of $5 each (my memory is fuzzy here). Drawing was always an outlet and escape for me, but this was hard work!

4. I was blond(ish) as a baby and toddler. My hair got darker as I aged, until it became a deep brown color. Now it’s about half silver, but that’s a different story.

5. Although I was eligible to take Driver’s Ed with the rest of the kids in my Freshman class, my parents didn’t allow me to take it the first year because they said I wasn’t mature enough. (Imagine that. ) I finally got to take it the following year. I didn’t get to drive myself to school until I was a Senior, when I inherited my grandmother’s old ’60-something Plymouth Fury. We affectionately referred to the car as “Old Silver.”

6. When I was a Senior, we earned a “Division I” in marching band in UIL for the first time in my high school’s history. (I was on the flag team in marching season.) We went on to win Sweepstakes (also a first) later that year, with additional Division I ratings in Concert Band, Stage Band, and Sight Reading. I played electric piano in Stage Band and we traveled to several high school Jazz Festivals where we competed with other schools in the state. I won a few “Outstanding Jazz Awards,” for my solo on “Rhapsody in Blue.” My band director would get frustrated with me because I would just “go off” on my own tempo during the solo, which was usually FAST. LOL

7. When I was in Junior High, we lived in a little spot in road called Hawley. (We moved constantly until I was in high school when my parents divorced). My future husband’s Mom and my Mom were best friends…as were my little sister and Randy’s little sister. However, I did not even know Randy. He was an “older man” already in high school, and we were worlds apart. Years later, I talked to him in a record store where he was working. We went out on a date, but neither of us was ready, having both recently gone through major breakups. Several more years went by and we ended up at a cookout with some friends. We went on another date about a week later, everything “clicked,” and we’ve been inseparable since. We’ve now been married 19 years!

OK…I’m tagging Susan, Stephanie, Zissy, Carin, Anina, and Wade. Have fun with it!