January 15, 2009
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100 Things
After reading so many lists, this is a very difficult list to put together. But fun in a way, to examine what, in my life I have done that may be of interest to others. So here goes and have fun reading this.
1. I have lived in the same area for all of my soon to be, on Saturday, 47 years.
2. I spent a very brief time on stage with Billy Joel, before being ejected from the concert hall by security.
3. I spent a whole number on stage with John Denver.
4. I have toured the Saranac Brewery when it was the Utica Club Brewery, FX Matt Brewery and the Saranac Brewery.
5. I can shoot skeet with my .20 guage, from the hip and hit the target.
6. I can turn a ceramic insulator to powder with a .22 rifle from 40 ft. without missing the target once.
7. I have raised pigs, cows, chickens, rabbits all for food for my family.
8. I have cooked deer, wild turkey, and squirrels that have been killed on our farm for my family to eat.
9. I have been on TV.
10. I stowed away with Pure Prairie League on their bus before being discovered in Binghamton NY and brought back to my college campus.
11. I have been thrown from a horse.
12. I have lost a bet with my son and had to ride a horse which I am deathly afraid of.
13. I have been on a nuclear submarine.
14. I have given birth by C-section seven times.
15. I have had abdominal surgery 11 times.
16. I have had orthopedic surgery 5 times.
17. I once lost 1/2 my body weight.
18. I once weighed over 320 pounds. (see 17)
19. I once canned a whole cow in one day.
20. I am teaching myself to read music and play the piano after providing piano and violin lessons for all of my children.
21. I have six brothers and one sister and I am the shortest member of my family.
22. I have five sons and two daughters.
23. I have one daughter who is a saint in heaven
24. I have fostered 40 children, among them two sets of twins.
25. I have homeschooled all six of my living children. Five of them all the way to graduation.
26. I have three sons in the army and one in the navy
27. I have broken every finger on both hands at least once.
28. I have climbed Bald Mountain in the Adirondaks every year of my married life, even pregnant with my children.
29. I bake bread that is famous in two counties.
30. I can knit, crochet, embroider, quilt, and do all kinds of crafts.
31. I can make my own clothes and just about anyone else’s
32. I have pieced and sold hundreds of quilts of various sizes
33. I have made most of my daughters clothing since she was born
34. I have taught dozens of children how to sew.
35. I can make a fire without an eccelerant.
36. I can bank the stove so that there are enough coals to start the fire with in the morning.
37. I have cooked on wood stoves, electric stoves, gas stoves, fires, and propane stoves.
38. I have slept under the stars and in the back of several different cars.
39. I have nearly lost my life by eating a strawberry.
40. I have won an award for my spaghetti sauce.
41. I met and interviewed Isaac Asimov
42. I once owned 22 working sewing machines
43. I’ve seen the aurora borealis
44. I was a student nurse in the OR when Son of Sam had an emergency appendectomy
45. I did six weeks in a locked psychiatric ward and lived to tell about it.
46. I quit college 3 weeks before graduations and don’t regret it one bit.
47. I have my LPN nursing license and haven’t used it in over 20 years.
48. I have worked in food service, retail, on a farm, child care, and education.
49. I can run a backhoe as well as anyone on this farm can.
50. The first time I ever drove a tractor I managed to bury, literally, the disc that was on the back of it.
51. I can do drywall
52. I can hang wallpaper like a professional.
53. I can unload hay fast enough to keep my husband busy in the hay mow.
54. I have been shoulder deep in the hind of a pig more times than I care to count.
55. I have delivered more piglets than our local vet has and have been told by same vet that I know more about pigs than she does.
56. I have assisted at two cow C-sections
57. I have helped sew closed two cows who have cast their whithers (neither of them lived to tell about it.)
58. I have assisted at the gelding of one horse (not something that I ever want to do again) I don’t like horses!!!
59. I have milked a goat by hand more times than I care to admit to
60. I have given shots to more ornery sows than I ever want to again
61. I have ridden a pig once (involuntarily) after having given her a shot
62. I have been bitten by a sow (see above) she ended up in the freezer
63. I have been pulled over by the police for not looking old enough to have a drivers license
64. I have been pulled over for swerving when there was a bee in the car. The trooper helped me eject the bee and warned me not to do that again.
65. I have been pulled over after my daughter stood in her carseat and waved to the police officer following me (no ticket was issued only a warning)
66. I have driven a ford escort with six children, two of whom were in carseats and myself in it, gone through a road block and not been ticketed because four of the six were screaming because they needed naps. The cop just wanted me out of there.
67. I have been to the top of the Sears Tower, the observation tower in the Thousand Islands, the Empire State Building, and Radio City Music Hall even though I am afraid of heights.
68. I have driven across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, and both bridges in Thousand Islands New York, even though I don’t like bridges and am terribly afraid of bridges too.
69. I have ridden a train to Kentucky to see my oldest son graduate from basic training.
70. I have ridden a train to Great Lakes to see my sailor graduate from basic training
71. I drove with two of my children (with no other driver to help) to Kentucky to see my son Jason graduate from basic training. This is significant because I have a bad back and cannot sit for great lenghths of time.
72. I have been to Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusets, Rhode Island, Conneticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, W. Virginia, N. Carolina, S. Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Canada.
73. I know the lyrics to all the songs that Billy Joel has ever written
74. I have a photographic memory for numbers. Every account number and phone number that I have ever written or dialed I can remember and repeat.
75. I also have a photographic memory for songs. If I hear them once the tune and lyrics are in my head forever.
76. I have taught children besides my own science, english, reading, composition, religion, history, and english literature.
77. I have been in Union Station in Chicago, New York City, Utica New York, Washington DC, and Poughkeepsie New York.
78. I have had a beer in every state that I have listed in #72
79. I can split and stack wood and keep up with my husband and sons. But I won’t use a chainsaw.
80. I have fed wild bears in the Adirondaks
81. I have attended the same little country church since 1970.
82. I have absolutely no decorating sense but I am a genius when it comes to fabrics and trims. Go figure?
83. I have been married to the same man for over 25 years and he fathered all of my seven children.
84. I have witnessed my children’s first steps, words, reading their first pages, graduations, and receiving their first sacraments.
85. I make my own wine and cordials
86. One day I would like to not have to got to the store for anything that is eatable, I would like to produce all of our food right here on this farm. I already have a good start.
87. My biggest dream is to open a shop where I can sell fabrics and trims and teach sewing and quilting and give lessons in these types of arts to young girls.
88. My favorite kind of car is a Dodge. I drive a Dodge Durango
89. I have eaten brunch at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America)
90. I have toured Hyde Park
91. I have been to a concert at the Met but it didn’t hold a candle to the solo that my son sang with the OACC
92. I have been to Washington and heard Ronald Reagan speak to the marchers at the National March for Life
93. I can recite all the states in the union in alphabetical order
94. I know the Gettysburg Address by heart and the Preamble to the Constitution
95. I still remember the first three rows of the periodic table by heart
96. I cannot do more math than add, subtract, multiply, and divide. My husband who has a bachelors in Physics taught higher math to our kids.
97. I can drive a standard on the floor as well as on the column
98. I can hotwire an engine (pre-computerized that is)
99. I have done brakes, transmission, clutch, carburator, and I have helped rebuild a whole engine once
100. I hate getting roses for a gift. I’d much rather get chrysanthemums, they last longer.
Comments (17)
Awsome
I love your list. You’ve inspired me to compose one of my own!
Oh, and I love 96 — I’ve always said, if you don’t have the math, marry the math. It’s working out quite well for me now that my older two daughters are about to start algebra, and are already beyond my ability to teach them anything!
Will you come live with me for about a year? I could learn so much!
@saintvi - I am flattered. After reading your list I was a bit intimidated. Then I remembered that we are all different people with different talents. My husband is proud of me and that is all that matters to me. You are welcome to come I’d be happy to teach you anything that you want to learn.
@nettieheidmann - Math is something that I cannot figure out. I can list all the bones and muscles of the body but once you get away from memorization I am lost. Fortunately my kids aren’t as hopeless as I am in that department.
# 65 and 66 are hilarious, though I’m sure at the time, it wasn’t funny. It’s sad that nowadays #83 is something that is unique, but it’s still quite an accomplishment. I don’t know if I could think of a list of 100 things about myself that are worthwhile; maybe I haven’t lived long enough.
@whteroses - The bee being in the car was an issue because I am allergic to bee stings. My daughter was an escape artist when it came to her carseat. Fortunately the police officer was a friend of the family, (I went to school with his son). He though it was funny. The list was a little tough since I didn’t think any of those things are very interesting but it’s fun to try. I haven’t lived that long, have I? By experiences I really haven’t lived that long but you never know.
You seem like an amazingly adept, talented person! I wish I could half the things you know how to do. And a photographic memory with numbers would be an extremely helpful thing to have. Great list!
@ideaguy - Could never work in a bank or a store where I had to actually look at a clients account number. Thank God I am an honest person.
I’m in awe.
Wow. I have a talented Mom.
@P_Obrien - Now you know where you got it from.
I didn’t know you had all your kids C-section. One of my daughters had 4 by C-section and I thought that was a lot. You are a very capable young woman! BTW, Happy Birthday on Sat.
You have done some AWESOME stuff! I’m totally jealous. I always want to help with butchering meat – ever since I read Laura Ingalls Wilder, hehehe. ~ L
You really should write a journal or something for posterity, or at least for your grandkids. My mom asked my great-grandmother to do it and she, sadly, only got three pages written in it before she died. She grew up much like you, but in a rural part of Chicago after she immigrated to the US from Italy as a child.
Wow! You are so accomplished and have had some unique brushes with notoriety! John Denver and Billy Joel –Ahhh A life well and fully lived (and you’re still so young). Blessings
@ugotafriend - The security guys at the John Denver concert were nicer than the ones at the Billy Joel concert. Like I’m going to do some kind of damage to either of them. Oh, and did I mention that John Denver gave me a kiss before I left the stage?
@P_Obrien - Wow, this is your mom? She rocks! I am so jealous of this list!