I've Been Tagged

Sharon has Tagged me, so it is my turn to reveal seven random things about myself, then pass it on to seven other bloggers. I’m game, but here’s the thing. I don’t know how to add links to other bloggers. Further more, I’m too lazy to figure it out! Or at least I already have plans to work out, read and paint today. Plus all the blogs I regularly read have already been tagged (I think). I know, excuses, excuses. Anyway, thanks to Sharon for thinking of me. If anyone wants to email me and tell me how to add links, I would be grateful.

Here goes:

1. I grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm, where my family kept a menagerie of pets. Besides the usual multiple dogs and cats, at various times we had a mean Welsh pony, a mean parakeet, turtles, tropical fish, a crow, a raccoon, and foxes.

2. I recently retired after thirty-two years of teaching middle school and high school English and Speech. I also coached forensics, not the kind on CSI, rather competitive public speaking. I enjoyed teaching, but am also enjoying this new phase of my life. That was then; this is now.

3. I am married to a lovely man whom I met in a college class, History of the English Language. The first time I spoke to him I called him by the wrong name, but he neglected to correct me for several dates. We’ve been together since 1975. He retired the same day I did, and it worked out fine. No children, one cat.

4. Starting in 1961 I had an English pen pal. I sent 25 cents in to a magazine for a name and address, and started writing to a young man in London. We wrote a few times, then he lost interest, and his mother picked up the correspondence. I visited them in London many times, until her death in 2004, only two days after my own mother’s death. I miss both of my moms.

5. I still have a baby tooth.

6. I am beginning to think that taking art classes is an excuse not to paint on my own. I hate it when my painting suddenly looks like somebody else’s style. The trouble is, I’m not sure what my style is, except that it involves a love of color.

7. I want to find a way to combine my various enthusiasms, reading, painting, travel, collecting old dolls, and researching family history. Right now my blog is the only way I seem to be able to do that, but the search continues.