Ten

Last week, Laurie of The Art Of Tying Holes Together surprised me with a Beautiful Blogger Award. Thanks, Laurie, you are most generous.

Part of the deal here is to tell readers ten things about myself that you don't already know. Who the heck would ever be interested in this, I don't know. It might take me hours to think of things I haven't already told you, because one of the things readers DO know about me, is that I don't hold much back, but here goes.

1. I was raised on a tobacco farm in the deep south. Southern Ontario that is. In the southern USA it would have been called a plantation. In southern Ontario, we called them farms. We're Canadian don't you know.

2. Being a farm kid meant hard hard work. It has shaped my life.

3. I have 2 sisters. One 2 years younger than me. The other one - 17 years younger than me. One spring, Mom was driving my sister and I to the city to buy our prom dresses and said " I have something to tell you girls". Indeed she did.

4. My family is long-lived. When a relative passes on at 98 or so, we wail and wail about them dying so young.

5. I married a city boy. Called a mixed marriage in my farm family.

6. My parents were married 10 days before my Dad went overseas in WW2 for 4 years.

7. Stories of WW2 and my Dad's 4 years absence have shaped my life.

8. I have upper arm muscles to scare Michelle Obama back to the gym. I got them from carrying irrigation pipes, still full of water, over my head through tobacco plants, while the face- high wet leaves slapped my cheeks, to the next field. I don't think they do that anymore.

9. I appreciate efficiency.

10. If I sneeze once, I sneeze a bunch. My boys call me a 'serial sneezer'.

If you're still awake, thanks for reading.