beautiful blogger award

I was given the Beautiful Blogger award by Mama's Ramblings. Thank you! The rules of this award are:

• Thank the person who nominated you for this award
• Copy the award and place it in your blog
• Link the person who nominated you for this award
• Tell us 7 interesting things about you
• Nominate 7 bloggers and link to their blogs

1.  I started taking piano lessons when I was four. As I grew older, I participated in competitions and even won a few. I got to play at Civic Arts Centers and other places not only in my county, but in Los Angeles and San Francisco. I hated it. I got a music scholarship to a music school. I hated it. I wasn't one of "those" people. I had a lot of embarrassing and clumsy moments like, dropping all my sheet music in the middle of a concert, or practicing the organ too loudly in the basement of a performance hall during a state symphonic orchestra performance and everyone heard my music coming through the floor. I was like the Phantom of the Opera. I was much happier when I changed my major and left music school. Now I play the organ for our church. I still hate performing. Sometimes I vomit. I definitely get sweaty and shaky and get the diarrhea. It's awful. I'm thankful for the ability and for the experiences I have had, but I prefer playing in the quiet of my own home for my my own enjoyment and my family's. I am not a "showy" person.

2.  I get my words mixed up a lot. When I was a freshman in college, a roommate and I would always say, "Botulism!" whenever we saw couples going at it while we were out and about or at a party. Some of these occassions, HF was with us, and finally one day he said confused, "Do you mean debauchery?" My roommate and I looked at each other with humiliated eyes. While not making eye contact with HF, I said cooly, "Yeah, that's totally what we meant. We were just being funny." I quickly jotted down in my mental notebook that botulism was an illness you can get through contaminated food and that debauchery was "scandalous activity". Anyone else have this problem of mixing up words?

3.  I used to work at Williams Sonoma in Thousand Oaks, California and got to see a few celebrities while working there. Pamela Andersen and Tommy Lee (when they were together). I helped him buy a Delonghi toaster oven. He was trying to be inconspicuous, but he can't really pull that off. Pat Benatar came in before Christmas and loaded up on Peppermint Bark.

4.  I participated in a radio dating show where guys would call in and try and win a date with the bachelorette (me). I think it was around the time the first Bachelor episode appeared. My roommates called in and "made" me do it. I was stupid enough to do it and I actually went on the date with the guy that won and it was pretty much the worst date ever. Now looking back, he could've been the next Ted Bundy! What was I thinking?

5.  I am a neat freak. Especially about my bookshelves. The books have to remain in a certain order, and they cannot be pushed in. They all have to be uniform right at the edge of the shelf. The bottom shelf is for the baby's books and I let him make a mess of it. But the rest of the shelves? Perfection. I know if a book is out of order, missing, uneven, etc. Neurotic.

6.  I went snowmobiling through Yellowstone once. I was at the end of the trail because I was an "experienced" (i had done it once before) snowmobiler and our group came to a stop right where a bison family wanted to cross the road. I was trapped, nowhere to go, and a giant buffalo was inches away from me staring me down. I was pretty nervous. I didn't want to make eye contact, and was afraid it was going to charge me, but it was so amazing to see so close. I had never been in snow until I went to college, and while I don't like living where there are 4 seasons, I did come to love winter sports such as cross country skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, snowmobiling not so much, but I've done it all, and it really helped pass the long winters. It also helped to make friends with locals that were doing this stuff. They were the ones with all the equipment.

7.  When I met HF it was love at first sight for both of us. I was 17 and he was just turning 19. I was visiting friends that had moved from California to Virginia. His sister was grounded for staying out all night with her boyfriend, and she was mad at HF for busting her chops. My friend and his sister were bad mouthing HF and she mentioned that she couldn't wait until he went back to school (He had just completed his first year of Art school and was home for the summer). I remember thinking how nice it was that she had a brother that watched out for her and tried to prevent her from doing stupid stuff. It seemed extraordinary for a 19 year old guy to be so protective of his sister and so good! He came home and they called to him to come into the kitchen where we were. They were saying, "You have to meet HF. Then you'll know what we're talking about." Well he came into the kitchen and we looked at each other and Barry White's "Can't Get Enough of Your Love" started to play it was over! We were in love! The gals that introduced us just looked back and forth at us in shock. That was not the outcome they were expecting. I was pretty shy so I was probably blushing and saying "hi" all breathlessly. I was only there for a week, but we wrote and called each other and visited each other over the course of the next 4-5 years. He asked me to marry him probbly a dozen times before I said yes. I was only 21 when we got engaged and I was pretty playful. I knew I wanted to marry him, but I also wanted to play a lot. It drove him crazy. Sometimes I look at him and think, "Wow! I can't believe I'm married to that guy! I was hoping I would marry him someday."

Phew! *wiping the sweat off my brow* It is hard for me to do these. And now I am going to pass it on to just one person. Hopefully the Blog Award committee won't strip me of my medals for not choosing 7. It's a newly discovered PW blog. April at The Life and Times of Our Little Family. She is nice and cheery and blogs about a multitude of things.