I follow another mom’s blog. Her daughter went through the same cranio surgery as sawyer a month and a half later. She found my blog through the magic of the Internet and knowing Sawyer’s story helped just one other mom, makes me heart leap. I like knowing there is a friendship out there based on something no mother should have to endure. Always a silver lining. Well she recently did a post of “7 things” you may not know. And she linked me in it. {Hooray, maybe just a few more followers.} I thought the idea was super cute and here is my version!
1. I have not always been a Camera-holic.
Tis true. You can ask my mother. We first got a family digital camera on my grade nine grad. {First let’s take a second to acknowledge, that we grew up on real film! O the love of going to get photo’s developed and hoping they turned out, and sometimes being blown away or disappointed. How crazy that it was such a short time ago!} Back to when I was the awkward teenager. I would get so annoyed if my mom took one or heaven forbid more than one picture! How sad because I look back now and wish there were more from those days. Don’t take them for granted. So I more than make up for it now. Because you can never get them back and I dont want to regret missing any moment dear to my heart. And it just so happens every single day of my life includes those special moments.
2. Im a Saver not a Spender.
You would have been able to tell at a young age I would be this way. My sister was the opposite. Any time we were given candy as a treat, I would save mine to enjoy later, she would inhale hers. {and then bug me about sharing mine later!} {some things never change 😉 } I did the same with lucky charms, and still do. Eat all the blah cereal and then save all the marshmallows till the end, and eat them last. So I do the same now with money. I recently got a couple birthday cards of money, and though I’ve been here for three weeks, Ive held onto almost all of it. Saving. For what, you never know. But I am always afraid I’ll spend it and then not have it when something better comes along. {But, there was some retail therapy going strong tonight. I’ll have to share that in another post this week! There is always exceptions to the rules!}
3. Speaking of rules, Im a rule follower.
Here’s another where I am opposite of my sister. It can be a simple rule or a massive rule. I wont generally break it. I don’t know why but it would cause massive anxiety. Just today we were waiting to turn left into an intersection, that was blocked and no one but me could go. But I did not have the right of way. Kimmy told me she would just go. But I refused. Just cant.
4. I have broken one big rule.
I lost my license when I was 20. For speeding. For speeding a lot. In Canada they have the graduated license program. I got 4 speeding tickets between 18-20. That is not allowed. I used to have a lead foot. Driving country roads and highways can do that to you. I was even in a full on cheerleading uniform crying during my first ticket. I still could not get out of it. {Ok I was going 40 over the speed limit, whoops.} But that poor rookie cop who gave me my last ticket. I knew it was the one that was going to take my license away. I think he thought I was going to kill myself. Did you know cops cannot pull away and leave until you do? It was 2 am and I just sat in my car crying for a good 3o minutes. He even came to ask me if everything was ok, and I cried, “No everything is not ok!!” And he just slowly back up and went back to wait it out in my car. So I lost my license for 30 days. And I learned my lesson. I do not speed at all anymore. Its pretty drilled into my head. I do not want to relive that humiliation again.
5. I miss cheerleading daily still.
It was my entire life for 5 and a half years. 3 years in high school, one year in All Star and 2 years coaching. I couldn’t tell you which I miss most. They are all so different and yet the same. They were my family. I still talk to most of the teams I coached, and lots of the people I competed with. It was hard to walk away from but I am no where near a level to be involved with in the US. {Plus there is some baby weight that’s still in the way!} But every month there is a couple dreams where I stunt and stunt and stunt. And I always wake up wanting more. I keep track of the teams I used to be on, their practices and competitions. I saw one of my old team mates compete in Las Vegas last year. I miss coaching. A lot. I miss being in charge of 20 high school girls. Call me crazy. I miss the choreographing, and practices and prepping. I miss the pride I felt when my team hit the mat and the cheering started. I love knowing the team changed because I chose to stay and coach when most had passed through and on after graduating. That because of that, others girls decided to do the same. Now we have banners in that gym with cheerleading on it. I miss All Star. The friendships that came along with it. The uniforms, the stunts and the travel to competitions. I miss the adrenaline of it all. One day maybe it will be a part of my life again.
6. I’m fascinated with Dreaming.
I love to dream. I was always the one with the report cards that said “She day dreams too much.” Can you dream too much? I don’t think so. It all started with reading, and I would wonder, “what came after the ending?” I started looking up dream meanings, and keeping dream journals. I’ve always had very vivid and intense dreams. They are not all happy, but they are not all awful either. Dreaming can allow you to live impossible things. I can hope I won’t experience some of the horror ones, I’ve got a very concrete memory of cold steel on my neck and warm blood running down my neck and back. From being shot in my dream. But there is also the wonderful parts too. Then came the day where I started to have lucid dreams. I didn’t think it was any different. For some reason I thought everyone could experience lucid dreaming. Google it if you have no idea what I’m talking about. But basically you are somewhat aware you are dreaming and become somewhat in control of your dream. I generally use this experience to fly. I love to fly in my dreams. Love it. I’ve also experienced sleep paralysis. That’s not a fun one. But like I said. I’ve always been a dreamer. So I will always be fascinated with anything dream related. Small little tidbit. My friends mom is deaf and they recently learned, much to my surprise, she does not hear anything in dreams. Nothing. She was surprised to learn that we all do! How weird is that. And not all people dream in color either?! I definitely do, but maybe you will now think a little deeper on your dreams too. Did I mention I only saw sawyer in my dreams as a red headed little boy, much as I wanted to imagine a little girl, I only saw a “sawyer.”
7. We didn’t have cable when I was growing up.
Maybe that explains the dreamer in me. My dad believed that at our age we didn’t need tv. So when we moved to the country we didn’t get satellite. We thought it was horrible punishment. But we played a lot more outside. There was a fair amount of made up trampoline games. Baseball in the front yard. Boomerangs down the street. {I never got one to come back.} Home movies scripted, costumed and filmed. And many many barbies played with. See looking back it doesn’t seem like a form of child abuse. Don’t get me wrong, we had a tv. And we were allowed to watch movies. But we never got into stuff like American idol or survivor because we couldn’t. Though we did try. We snuck into our RV because it had a satellite attached and brought the teeny little tv out there to hook up and we watched the season 3 finale to survivor through a major static storm. Now I think, good for my parents. letting us be kids. Too many times in our lives we let technology take control. I think we need to let imagination free sometimes, instead of putting it in the back seat. Brandon already has an idea of raising Sawyer on older video came consoles, so he can “appreciate” the simplicity of them. And I love the idea. Things like that, that set your childhood apart from everyone else. Like not growing up with Tv. Thanks Dad.
Well that was relatively easy. I thought this was going to be a much harder experiment. I could go on and on about things you don’t know about me! I would probably be putting you to sleep after 7 though! Did you notice each category got a bigger and bigger explanation. By 1o I might be writing a novel. I hope you enjoyed getting to know me more. I’ll have to make this an annual thing. And in no time you’ll know me better than I know myself!
