The view from my backyard office as I type.

I borrowed this from the blog of Superfantastic Lori, and had to share with you. This is the place where I confess those weird things that I’m not necessarily proud of, but aren’t so crazy that they’ll land me in jail. And unlike most of Lori’s readers, none of mine involve Kraft Mac & Cheese.

1. I have no willpower. I blame this on my mother, who was very restrictive about my diet. Her theory was that if I never developed a taste for sweet stuff, I wouldn’t eat it. Instead — still, to this day — I will gorge on whatever sweet stuff is in the house, because in the deep, dark recesses of my brain I’m convinced that someone will find out and take it away. I’ve raised the Tiny Kitchen Assistant in exactly the opposite way, and he has this amazing superpower in which he can eat a bite or two of a piece of candy and then wrap the rest up to save for later. I can’t even process this.
2. Listening to the Tiny Kitchen Assistant read aloud makes me downright giddy. I love that he’s unlocking the code to all of the information in the world.
3. I graduated college with an English major and never studied Shakespeare.
4. I was expected to major in science, math or engineering. I ended up foregoing the sciences and pursuing literature because writing was so much more of a challenge for me than science. If only someone had told me that I could study the sciences and still be a writer (and with better pay, at that).
5. In spite of having no other job prospects on the horizon, I turned down my first offer out of college: a chance to be a contract negotiator for a defense contractor in Orlando, Florida. I couldn’t imagine spending my life living in central Florida and reading legalese day in, day out.
6. I once worked at Tiffany’s. I’ve tried on an emerald ring worth $175,000 and a strand of Tahitian pearls worth $250,000. Neither was my style.
7. I still refer to trips to Philadelphia as “going home,” in spite of the fact that it hasn’t been home for 14 years and I have no intention of returning. (I’m typing this from my California backyard, in the middle of winter. It’s sunny and 72 degrees. Why would I go back?)
8. I still love Tastykakes.
9. As a kid, I used to worry that they would print books faster than I could read them. Little did I know that there was no chance that anyone could possibly read every book in the world.
10. I owned a Pilates and yoga studio for three years.
11. I never ran at all until after the Tiny Kitchen Assistant was born.
12. I was 10 years old when I first saw my grandmother’s massive mastectomy/lymphectomy scar from her surgery in the mid-1960s. In my young mind there was no question: any size scar was worth it to get rid of the cancer. Betty lived nearly 40 years post-mastectomy without a recurrence. From that day, I’ve known that if I were diagnosed, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the surgery. Someday, a doctor will think that I’m making a hasty decision, but it’s a decision that I’ve thought about for nearly three decades. There’s nothing hasty about it.
13. If money were no object, I’d grab our passports, pack three backpacks and travel the world until further notice. And I’m pretty sure that the Tiny Kitchen Assistant would love it.

What do you want to confess? Come on, share with the group.

Tags: breast cancer, Florida, Health, Kids, lists, mastectomy, pilates, running, surgery, tiffany, travel, work, yoga

« Previous Entry Next Entry »