personality

25 Random Things About Me

/ handmadebyjo / 3 Comments

Sunrise

Anyone who has ever been on Facebook has probably been tagged in one of these schemes or another.  A fairly new thing that pops up on my Facebook page is called On This Day.  What came up was the 25 Random Things About Me that I wrote in 2009.  Upon reading it I was struck by how relevent it is today so I thought I’d share.

25 Random Things About Me

1. I live in two worlds – urban and rural. I’m sooo in love with the rural and try to make my urban residence feel as rural as I can. I’m one of the fortunate few in Enfield to actually have more than a postage stamp yard so I have large perennial gardens. We used to sit in Adirondack chairs every night and pretend it was quiet and peaceful (with the traffic going by and the jets making their landing approach to Bradley). Now we have inconsiderate neighbors who let their dogs out into their postage stamp yard abutting ours and they just sit and bark at us (the owners stay in the house). Sometimes people are jerks.

2. I’m currently unemployed but I have a long list of jobs I’ve had beginning with picking blueberries for Jack Cable in Heath. When I think about it now – that job would kill me. I’ve worked as a bookkeeper for Lamson & Goodnow, a photographer for at least 4 different studios over the years as well as owning my own for about 5. I worked as a Nuclear Engineering Clerk, a waitress – which is one of my favorite jobs, sad as that is. I’ve been an Activities Assistant in long-term care, worked in hospice and with people with dementia. I’ve set up offices, been in Administrative Support and was an Executive Assistant to the CEO of a large corporation (if you’ve ever seen “The Devil Wears Prada”, that was totally my job). My favorite job has been mom to my two girls and a fine job I did (with Bill’s help of course).

3. I love dogs, all kinds of dogs. I could have 20 of them but my family keeps me in check. Someday you will read about the lonely old lady who’s house was condemned and they took away 30 dogs.
4. Gardening is a passion. I think I got it from my mother. Flowers mostly and I photograph them all the time.

5. I prefer to drive a standard shift car. One with power.

6. I’m a pile person. I keep my papers in piles. I have a very good memory and know where everything is unless someone touches something.

7. I can multitask like you can’t believe – kinda scary sometimes.

8. I’ve been working on the genealogy of the Alix and Semanie families for over 8 years. I love social history but my kids get scared looks in their eyes when I tell them I can make history come alive for them.

9. I photographed over 4,000 historic quilts for the state of Connecticut’s Quilt Search Project (and made many friends along the way).

10. I collect vintage cabinet cards (old photographs made between 1880 and 1900 or so but only with children and dogs on them. It’s a little surprising how many other people collect them as well.

11. I make hand bound books with photographs and stories for my family.

12. I’m a very good cook. We entertain every Saturday night in Rowe. I love it because it gives me an opportunity to plan a great meal, serve great wine and have a fabulous dessert and I have the whole day (usually) to work on it. It’s actually very relaxing for me – and then we have people over that make us laugh until we’re sick (isn’t that supposed to be therapeutic?).

13. I’m a little obsessed with having my own chickens and making cheese these days. A little concerned about where my foods coming from. I’ve been cooking from scratch for a very long time but now I think about growing my own ingredients. My family thinks I’m a little weird.

14. My favorite flowers are lilies.

15. Lake Winnepesaukee is just about my favorite place on earth I think. We usually go there once a year and stay on Bear Island. We never see our truck for the entire time we’re there and do everything by boat. We have a view of Mt. Washington on a clear day and the water is spectacularly clear.

16. I like the idea of community – this may be because I live in an urban area. When we’re in Rowe we are really surrounded by family and friends. Work gets done as a group. Cutting a spitting wood, putting up a building, painting, demolishing and redoing a room, there are always people there to help us or we’re helping them. This is the way life should be I think.

17. I had a rather odd childhood because my Dad is a bit of an eccentric. Someone was laughing the other day when I told them how many times we had our pictures taken on the backs of trains, trolleys or anything that had anything to do with tracks. Train wrecks – oh the excitement of visiting train wrecks.

18. I have about 3 books in me right now but I can’t get them down on paper. I’ll bet everyone else does too they just won’t admit it.

19. I am the laundry queen – no one goes there.

20. I forced my kids to sit and let me photograph them more times that any of us can count. Now I’m glad I did – except they are all in boxes and not sorted out.

21. Wow, 25 things is a lot. Let’s see, my kids are begging me to write down my story (like every kid begs their parents), I just didn’t think I was that old.

22. I had a total knee replacement in December – I’m doing okay, a little freaked out about having a prosthetic and a metal card. Another reason I felt old – everyone that was on the ortho floor with me was over 80.

23. I love walking in the back forty in Rowe.

24. I have big plans for Middletown Hill Rd. A lot happened this year with minor set backs. I think Bill’s a little scared sometimes at the scale of the whole project.

25. I love winter when it is sooo cold the snow crunches under your feet when you take the dogs out for their nightly constitutional and the stars are so bright you can’t believe your eyes.
There, that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about one of your bloggers.  Practice this yourself, write down 25 things, be honest.  Put it away for a few years (like a time capsule).  When you bring it out into the light again, if you were honest, things are probably very much the same.  I’ve learned that life – the big picture – really works in slow motion.  We want things, we work towards things but everything takes its time.  The problem we have is wishing our time away when all we really have to do is work towards what goals we have or be our authentic selves and things slowly unfold the way they should.  Maybe that’s the key, stepping away and taking a look at how everything is unfolding.  It’s not a race, we have to enjoy the ride.

Nature vs. Nurture

/ handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

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Joseph’s Coat

I have been thinking about my family (my mother, father and siblings) for the last few days.  How we interact with each other, our senses of humor, our interests.  I have always thought that people are who they are because of the lifelong bond they have with each other.  The shared experiences.  My sister, brother and I can relate to so many things because of the memories we have of situations that closely relate to what is happening now.  Or how we saw our parents and grandparents react in different situations. We use our past experiences to make decisions on events or to figure out the social protocol within our social sphere. We also have the same sense of humor. It’s really more than that though, our minds all work alike.

My two daughters grew up spending most of their time with my husband’s side of the family.  They have a lot of cousins their own age and we all spent most weekends together.  They grew up with cousins as best friends.  That’s not a bad thing.  My sister has two daughters around the same age as mine.  They did not spend a lot of time together because of the distance between us or later because of time constraints.  It’s not like they didn’t know their cousins, they just didn’t have the same intimate knowledge of one another as they did with their father’s side of the family.  They didn’t really know their aunt and uncle on my side well at all – only because every holiday we all spent with our respective in-laws.

A couple of years ago one of my nieces was home for the holidays. We hardly see her now – she’s lives on the other side of the country.  My sister’s family came to spend the day with ours.  They brought their dogs.  We spent the entire day laughing.  Once everyone had left my younger daughter said, “I’ve always felt as though I didn’t fit in, now I realize I was just hanging out with the wrong family!”  She had found her place.  The place where you really understand your roots, or why you are the way you are.

This was the beginning of realizing that who we are may be more genetic than environmental.  For years I tried to fit into my husband’s family but they are not who I am.  What we have in common is our children.

Since my son and I have reconnected this realization comes home so often that it is fact to me now.  He has never known his biological family until this past spring and we did not know him.  The first things noticed were the physical attributes but the subtle, personality traits showed up almost immediately.  The day he met my daughters was really a whirlwind but after he left everyone was in agreement – he is one of us.  It all fit.  For us this has been easy, a delightful revelation each time we get together.  We gather him in and never seem to get quite enough, the visits end too quickly, there is so much of us to share.  At the same time I wonder how overwhelming we might be.  How much do you really want to know about a past that never existed until last March?

Since those first few meetings I’ve learned many things about him, about me.  Some things can be looked at as bizarre coincidences but the reality is that we are who we are born to be, not who we spend our lives with.  Our interests, how we communicate with others, our spiritual selves, those seeds were planted at our conception and we in turn pass them along to our children.  My children just happen to be the ones that have made this so abundantly clear to me.