When I first began my "valeriesbookofme" blog a few years ago it was in response to a journalizing group I belong to on Facebook. The group leader issues a prompt for us--in the past it was weekly, this year it is monthly--and we write away in whatever format we want. I chose to start a blog. I let the blog go after a few months but resurrected it last year when I had my Irish adventure. Now the adventure is over but the urge to blog is still there. So I was very happy when our Bookofme leader on Facebook posted some new prompts. This week's prompt is: "Who Am I? List 20 things that describe you."
1. I am a grandmother. It is this part of me that drove me to leave Ireland and return to the United States. I missed my grandchildren way too much. If they had been more interested in Skyping or Facetiming I might have continued the Irish Adventure but they weren't. So here I am back in the United States pondering what is next. And hugging my grandchildren, having fairy princess tea parties with my youngest granddaughter, just being able to pop over for a few minutes.
2. I am a Mormon. I practice my faith fairly privately although all my friends and several of my acquaintances know that I am. I don't tend to go into great detail about it though (aka proselytizing) so they don't know a lot about that aspect of my life. But it is a very important part of me. It informs how I treat others, how I view the future (and the past) and how I handle the ups and downs of life. I feel that my faith is private however unless someone asks me about it. Then I am happy to share.
3. I am a dog parent. Mitzi came with us to Ireland last year and she returned with us. Being a dog parent means that I don't have quite the amount of freedom I would have were I an empty nester. It meant, when we were in Ireland, that we had to adjust our traveling to whether we could find/afford a doggie hotel. It meant that we couldn't just travel for several weeks. But it also meant that I had a companion for long walks along the sea cliffs and through the Irish woods. I have a faithful companion who loves me unconditionally (well, as long as she is fed and walked.) It means that I rescued a soul who had spent six weeks in a cell, and who knows how long before that wandering the Arizona desert. The rescue has left her joined at the hip to me in her eyes. Sometimes the responsibility of that is overwhelming. And sometimes, at 4:30 in the morning when I feel a cold nose pressed up against my arm and the whimpering "I really need to GO", I wonder what I did six years ago.
4. I am a Quebecoise Canadian who lives in the United States. That extra adjective "Quebecoise" is very important in Canadian lingo. Maritime, Quebec, Ontario, Western and West Coast are very different cultures in Canada. Even within Quebec there is a Montreal/Quebec culture and then there is rural Quebec. I grew up in a cosmopolitan city hearing different languages on the street and in my schools. Although Quebec is overwhelmingly Catholic, there was a strong Protestant and Jewish presence in Montreal and I grew to be an adult respecting all religions. Growing up in Montreal I experienced wonderful plays, an amazing summer of a World's Fair, just so many things. I live in the United States because my husband is American and because, well, the weather is better, the housing is cheaper. But I miss the openness of Canadian culture, I miss the different foods, the very old buildings, the history. Montreal is as close to a European city in North America as you can get. Southern Arizona could not be more different.
5. I am a wife. I married my husband late in life and so we tend to be two individuals who happen to be married, if that makes sense. We are friends. We have some interests in common, like travel, and we also have our own interests. It works but it also takes work.
6. I am a substitute teacher. I work an average of 2-3 days a week during the school year. I teach because I like to share information, share knowledge. I like children although as I get older I like them in smaller doses. I would love to show them how big the world is, how many things there are to think about, places to go, things to do. However the educational system in Arizona sucks not to put too fine a point on it. I won't go there.
7. I wear hearing aids. Just started, last week. I started losing my hearing several years ago and it had reached a point where I was missing conversations, that I had to turn the TV up past what was comfortable for my husband and friends--and I still missed most of what was said by Princess Margaret in "The Crown" series. So, merry Christmas to me, I got hearing aids last week. I will be paying for them most of this year. But I now hear things I haven't hear for the last several years and I am looking forward to going to school tomorrow and seeing what it will be like to hear the students properly in the classroom. Maybe now I won't have to be standing right in front of them watching their lips move.
8. I like to travel but in a leisurely fashion. Forty years ago I went on a "See 10 Countries in 19 Days" bus tour through Europe. I loved it but I wouldn't want to do it now. My favorite vacation in recent years was a week in Mallorca where we saw about half of what we could have seen but soaked up the island's culture.
9. I love sweet things. If I were given a choice between sweet or salty I would choose sweet. See No. 10.
10. I am 20 pounds overweight. But I am doing something about that. Keep watching this page. Work in progress. See No. 9.
11. I speak French.
12. I have studied Spanish twice but still stumble along with bare tourist phrases. I do understand it if it is spoken slowly though.
13. I have a Bachelor's degree in History. I have always loved History but not the History of battles and dates but of progression of thought.
14. I have a Master's degree in Postsecondary Adult & Continuing Education from Portland State University. I pursued that degree in aid of my career as a Registrar in universities. It opened doors.
15. I completed All-But-Dissertation on an Ed.D. from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver B.C. Why didn't I finish it? Well, that's complicated. One reason was, because of family, I retired from my university career and it didn't seem worth spending another $2,000 for letters after my name. And apropos of that, I also felt that, in the end, the doctorate was a bit of a crock. My fellow students were going after it simply for their job but it didn't make them better educators. It was just another elitist "thing" in the ivory tower. Don't get me started on that either.
16. I wear glasses. Have done so since I was 12 and was diagnosed with lazy eye. My mother had thought I was deliberately crossing my eyes. Ummm, no.
17. My mother died when I was 16. In fact, I lost three relatives in that year, 1968. Annus horribilis doesn't even begin to describe it. Who I am now is a direct result of that year.
18. I am an INFJ on Meyers Briggs personality scale. Some of the good parts are that I am determined and passionate, insightful, creative, inspiring and convincing, altruistic. The weaknesses are sensitive (oh YEAH), perfectionist, need to have a cause, can burn out easily. INFJ's are also supposed to be extremely private but, well, you can probably tell that "weakness" missed me.
19. I am also a 2, The Helper, on the Enneagram. My cousin gave me a long lesson last year on that. Biggest issue with The Helper is that its Basic Fear: Of being unwanted, unworthy of being loved and its Basic Desire: To feel loved can lead to some really unhealthy behavior. I know all about that.
20. And finally, but by no means the smallest part of me, is that I am a genealogist. I specialize in Irish cemeteries. I began transcribing Irish cemeteries for an online group called Ireland Genealogy Projects three years ago and last year I spent hours and hours in cemeteries around Waterford and the rest of Ireland photographing headstones, uploading them to the Project Coordinator and then transcribing them into a text file. If you have Irish relatives, contact me. I can tell you all about the project or, better still, check out http://www.igp-web.com. I also take the information I have compiled on some of the families and enter it into FamilySearch. I wrote a blog about that last year so I won't repeat it.
And that is me for now.
1. I am a grandmother. It is this part of me that drove me to leave Ireland and return to the United States. I missed my grandchildren way too much. If they had been more interested in Skyping or Facetiming I might have continued the Irish Adventure but they weren't. So here I am back in the United States pondering what is next. And hugging my grandchildren, having fairy princess tea parties with my youngest granddaughter, just being able to pop over for a few minutes.
2. I am a Mormon. I practice my faith fairly privately although all my friends and several of my acquaintances know that I am. I don't tend to go into great detail about it though (aka proselytizing) so they don't know a lot about that aspect of my life. But it is a very important part of me. It informs how I treat others, how I view the future (and the past) and how I handle the ups and downs of life. I feel that my faith is private however unless someone asks me about it. Then I am happy to share.
3. I am a dog parent. Mitzi came with us to Ireland last year and she returned with us. Being a dog parent means that I don't have quite the amount of freedom I would have were I an empty nester. It meant, when we were in Ireland, that we had to adjust our traveling to whether we could find/afford a doggie hotel. It meant that we couldn't just travel for several weeks. But it also meant that I had a companion for long walks along the sea cliffs and through the Irish woods. I have a faithful companion who loves me unconditionally (well, as long as she is fed and walked.) It means that I rescued a soul who had spent six weeks in a cell, and who knows how long before that wandering the Arizona desert. The rescue has left her joined at the hip to me in her eyes. Sometimes the responsibility of that is overwhelming. And sometimes, at 4:30 in the morning when I feel a cold nose pressed up against my arm and the whimpering "I really need to GO", I wonder what I did six years ago.
4. I am a Quebecoise Canadian who lives in the United States. That extra adjective "Quebecoise" is very important in Canadian lingo. Maritime, Quebec, Ontario, Western and West Coast are very different cultures in Canada. Even within Quebec there is a Montreal/Quebec culture and then there is rural Quebec. I grew up in a cosmopolitan city hearing different languages on the street and in my schools. Although Quebec is overwhelmingly Catholic, there was a strong Protestant and Jewish presence in Montreal and I grew to be an adult respecting all religions. Growing up in Montreal I experienced wonderful plays, an amazing summer of a World's Fair, just so many things. I live in the United States because my husband is American and because, well, the weather is better, the housing is cheaper. But I miss the openness of Canadian culture, I miss the different foods, the very old buildings, the history. Montreal is as close to a European city in North America as you can get. Southern Arizona could not be more different.
5. I am a wife. I married my husband late in life and so we tend to be two individuals who happen to be married, if that makes sense. We are friends. We have some interests in common, like travel, and we also have our own interests. It works but it also takes work.
6. I am a substitute teacher. I work an average of 2-3 days a week during the school year. I teach because I like to share information, share knowledge. I like children although as I get older I like them in smaller doses. I would love to show them how big the world is, how many things there are to think about, places to go, things to do. However the educational system in Arizona sucks not to put too fine a point on it. I won't go there.
7. I wear hearing aids. Just started, last week. I started losing my hearing several years ago and it had reached a point where I was missing conversations, that I had to turn the TV up past what was comfortable for my husband and friends--and I still missed most of what was said by Princess Margaret in "The Crown" series. So, merry Christmas to me, I got hearing aids last week. I will be paying for them most of this year. But I now hear things I haven't hear for the last several years and I am looking forward to going to school tomorrow and seeing what it will be like to hear the students properly in the classroom. Maybe now I won't have to be standing right in front of them watching their lips move.
8. I like to travel but in a leisurely fashion. Forty years ago I went on a "See 10 Countries in 19 Days" bus tour through Europe. I loved it but I wouldn't want to do it now. My favorite vacation in recent years was a week in Mallorca where we saw about half of what we could have seen but soaked up the island's culture.
9. I love sweet things. If I were given a choice between sweet or salty I would choose sweet. See No. 10.
10. I am 20 pounds overweight. But I am doing something about that. Keep watching this page. Work in progress. See No. 9.
11. I speak French.
12. I have studied Spanish twice but still stumble along with bare tourist phrases. I do understand it if it is spoken slowly though.
13. I have a Bachelor's degree in History. I have always loved History but not the History of battles and dates but of progression of thought.
14. I have a Master's degree in Postsecondary Adult & Continuing Education from Portland State University. I pursued that degree in aid of my career as a Registrar in universities. It opened doors.
15. I completed All-But-Dissertation on an Ed.D. from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver B.C. Why didn't I finish it? Well, that's complicated. One reason was, because of family, I retired from my university career and it didn't seem worth spending another $2,000 for letters after my name. And apropos of that, I also felt that, in the end, the doctorate was a bit of a crock. My fellow students were going after it simply for their job but it didn't make them better educators. It was just another elitist "thing" in the ivory tower. Don't get me started on that either.
16. I wear glasses. Have done so since I was 12 and was diagnosed with lazy eye. My mother had thought I was deliberately crossing my eyes. Ummm, no.
17. My mother died when I was 16. In fact, I lost three relatives in that year, 1968. Annus horribilis doesn't even begin to describe it. Who I am now is a direct result of that year.
18. I am an INFJ on Meyers Briggs personality scale. Some of the good parts are that I am determined and passionate, insightful, creative, inspiring and convincing, altruistic. The weaknesses are sensitive (oh YEAH), perfectionist, need to have a cause, can burn out easily. INFJ's are also supposed to be extremely private but, well, you can probably tell that "weakness" missed me.
19. I am also a 2, The Helper, on the Enneagram. My cousin gave me a long lesson last year on that. Biggest issue with The Helper is that its Basic Fear: Of being unwanted, unworthy of being loved and its Basic Desire: To feel loved can lead to some really unhealthy behavior. I know all about that.
20. And finally, but by no means the smallest part of me, is that I am a genealogist. I specialize in Irish cemeteries. I began transcribing Irish cemeteries for an online group called Ireland Genealogy Projects three years ago and last year I spent hours and hours in cemeteries around Waterford and the rest of Ireland photographing headstones, uploading them to the Project Coordinator and then transcribing them into a text file. If you have Irish relatives, contact me. I can tell you all about the project or, better still, check out http://www.igp-web.com. I also take the information I have compiled on some of the families and enter it into FamilySearch. I wrote a blog about that last year so I won't repeat it.
And that is me for now.
I loved reading about you Valerie. We also have a dog, who we rescured. I know what his life was like before he came to live with us and often wonder how much of that he recalls. As a result of that life he is frightened of the dark and wind, he doesn't like being left - 5 seconds or 5 hours, the welcome home message is the same. He likes cuddles and our bed!
ReplyDeleteHello Valerie, it was very nice to meet you through your "20 Things". I too am a grandmother, a genealogist and a Canadian, although I was born in the US and came to Canada in my 20s. I love this country and can't imagine ever living in the US again. Thank you for sharing so much of your story in this post.
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