Saturday, December 06, 2008

Ten Points - Honest To God

Mary Christine over at One Sober Alcoholic gave me an honesty award. Being honest as far as I won't tell a bold faced lie comes easily to me, always has. Being honest, as in being upfront about how I feel, doesn't. Okay, now that I typed that out maybe I'm not as honest as I thought I was. (Waves hand up in air to get Mary Christine's attention and promptly confesses. Mary Christine turns Hope around in the direction of the confessional and says, 'there you go.'

There are rules.
List 10 honest things about yourself.
Pass around some linky love, seven to be honest.

1. When my kids were little I wouldn't let them pick up rocks from the road and take them home. I told them those rocks belong to the government. (Hold the laughter.)

2. If I had grandchildren I'd let them fill their pockets with rocks now and not feel bad at all. (Sorry adult kids.)

3. I am scared of spiders and mice. When my kids were little I pretended to love them and bravely let spiders crawl on my hands so that my kids wouldn't have phobias. Their hamsters could do no wrong. (except the day I thought one hamster had eaten another hamster and then I shook the cage with anger. The other hamster turned up running around the house several days later. Ever since we've referred to jumping to conclusions as 'eating a hamster'.) One day I decided I no longer had to pretend to have a love affair with either - don't think only daughter has forgiven me yet. She has no phobias about critters or bugs or such stuff. In fact, she skinned and gutted a mouse that her cat lovingly brought her and stretched the little hide, too. She then considered being a surgeon. She chose acting instead. There's some irony in there somehwere. (I do think I deserve an award for not becoming a screaming ninny when a Daddy Long Legs walked right over my hand and I took it in my stride and remarked about how wonderfully made it was even though I was a total screaming ninny inside.)

4. At heart I am a purse.aholic even though I only own one. I secretly covet those pretty purple, red and green purses that are in stores right now. The practical side of me frowns at the wanna be purse.aholic side of me.

5. When I'm in a public bathroom I cannot bring myself to use the toilet paper that someone else touched. To get around that I tear off the piece that they touched and if there's no garbage I simply let it fall to the floor. I always feel guilty about doing that but I just can't bring myself to use it. Now my kids will become screaming ninnies because I am the queen of telling them not to litter. I can just hear them telling me what If Everybody Did that?. Go check out that link. I really read them that book and often reminded them that if everyone did whatever crime it was they were doing, the world would collapse into chaos.

6. I love shovelling snow. And shit. When we worked on a dairy farm I cheerfully shovelled out the holding pen every day. This was before I sobered up. It should be noted that there were no bulls in the holding pen. Just me and the cows. (You did know a bull is not a cow, right?)

7. I like to put a puzzle together all by myself. I get ridiculously possessive of every puzzle piece as if I gave birth to all one thousand of them. At our Christmas family gathering with dearest one's family (40+ people) I sometimes avoid the puzzle table for exactly that reason. It's irrational, I know. Last year I made myself sit there and put puzzle pieces together but I really wished I had the puzzle all to myself.

8. I hate watching movies by myself. Once a year I watch the movie Braveheart. Now that only daughter lives far away I watch it by myself. When William Wallace yells out "freeedommmm" at the end of that movie I always get shivers. I pray for the courage to live with such integrity.

9. I cannot count the number of times I've sat in the car, ready to take off or even gotten part way down the driveway and then freaked out that I left my curling iron plugged in. One would've thought the world was coming to an end....Our house would then burn down. (Seriously a girl I knew in grade school set her house on fire by forgetting to unplug her curling iron. Another friend was at a United Nations meeting and left her curling iron plugged in and heard over the loudspeakers in every known language that would the person who left their curling iron plugged in please go take care of it.) So do you blame me for such irrational behaviour now? Dearest one has turned around more than once so I can double check. Every single time it's been unplugged. Sigh.

10. I love seeing elderly women with faces lined so deeply with wrinkles. I think they look beautiful. Yesterday, I looked in the mirror and saw crow's feet wrinkles bunched up around my eyes and then I frowned in the mirror to see what kind of wrinkles I'd have by doing that excessively. When I relaxed my face again and saw no permanent frown lines (a miracle I tell you) I decided that I'll take crow's feet over frown lines. However, if there was a cream that would make my wrinkles disappear I would buy stock in the company.

I suddenly have an urge to do a sixth step on nearly all these points of honesty.

I tag:

Patty
Stumbling Barefoot
bobbie
Chris
m2
UTO
wilsonian

7 comments:

mile191 said...

i like your honesty. very good to read. thanks for sharing and spreading smiles my way. ♥

Jim said...

What if I told you that, while I wouldn't demand anyone back away and leave the table, I, too, would much prefer solving jigsaw puzzles by myself?.........

Hope said...

That would make me smile Jim.
Mile 191 - glad to put a little smile in your day.

steveroni said...

Well, I like all ten points of honesty...but especially that urge to do a Step six on most of them--now THAT'S honesty!!!

Anonymous said...

" I told them those rocks belong to the government."
Dang. I wish I'd thought of using that one....

Interestingly, I would definitely be more than happy to let either you or Jim (above) do that puzzle all by your lonesomes. Actually, that's a lie. No doubt I'd eventually stick my nose in there.

Definitely with ya on the Braveheart thing. And I usually start fretting that I've forgotten to lock the door when I'm about 2 blocks away from my destination. Then I wonder if I've remembered to turn off all kinds of heating things.

Mich

Anonymous said...

I love your list! What about the coffe pot? Did you turn off the coffee pot? I love the one about the rocks, being an avid rock collector, myself. I have rocks from every place I have been, I hope the government does not find out. LOL! Thanks for the award (assignment), too.

Pru said...

We have a lot of 'secret' honesties in common! I also am a lover of purses and bags; rip off the toilet paper others have touched and (eek) drop it; and love shoveling out barns (although snow isn't so great). Who knew...we must be related.