• 1)I like the books I read and the movies I see to have beginnings, middles, and endings. I like all the loose ends to be tied, the hero to get the girl, and the villain to get his just desserts. I do not like things to be left to the reader's/viewer's imagination. I especially do not like it if everyone dies at the end.
  • 2)I agree with Carolinne about there being especially happy moments, and not having to be happy all the time. Here are a few of my happiest moments:
  • 3)Seeing my babies for the first time
  • 4)Seeing my nephews and nieces for the first time
  • 5)Going on a whale watch and seeing a school of dolphins, including a baby one, playing in the ocean.
  • 6)The first time Gary and I came to SLC for a three week visit - we did so much we went into "experience of a lifetime overload"
  • 7)Looking out of the window and seeing wild animals and birds in the garden. In England it was hedgehogs, rabbits, squirrels, a woodpecker, and once a heron, but he swiped one of the fish in our pond so that wasn't so nice. In Utah it has been deer, a moose, chipmunks, ground squirrels, hummingbirds, stellar jays, a whole family of quails and various finches.
  • 8)Silly conversations with my sister involving lots of double entendre.
  • 9)Going to Disneyland and other theme parks
  • 10)Watching meerkats at the zoo
  • 11)Finding our apartment in Menorca, especially seeing the view from the patio
  • 12)Snorkelling in the sea and seeing real live fish
  • 13)Seeing a sea otter in the wild
  • 14)There must be loads of others, I'll add them when I think Of them
  • 15)Some things I am prepared to accept based on others' experience, but some things I have found out for myself - the hard way...
  • 16)If you put your little finger in a pencil sharpener and turn it, it WILL attempt to sharpen the finger.
  • 17)It is not a good idea to put wax crayons in the tumble dryer
  • 18)If you forget to feed your mice, they will eat each other, and then die. (I know this is really, really horrible, and I still hate myself for it. I am very kind to the mice who live in the garage)
  • 19)Superglue really does bond skin instantly
  • 20)People WILL laugh at you and point if you walk around with toilet paper trailing from your shoe.
  • 21)If you drink your *bux from a take out cup with the seam lined up with the hole in the lid it will leak and drip down your best clean white T-shirt
  • 22)I expect there are more of these too.
  • 23)I find it difficult to grasp abstract concepts, so I don't "get" modern art, modern dance, or calculus. In modern art for example, how do experts know that the artist put, say a red blob there because it represents his innermost feelings for his mother - why couldn't it just have been that he had a bit of red paint out on his palette and thought it would be a shame to waste it?
  • 24)I can never think of names for pets. One cat we had never did have a name. The others have had names before we got them or other people have given them names
  • 25)I am almost phobic about entrusting anything to the Post Office. I am also outraged by the cost of mailing stuff abroad
  • 26)I only have one wisdom tooth. The others are not even on my x-rays
  • 27)For a long time I only ever had one pair of shoes at a time. It never occurred to me that I could have different ones for different outfits. I have several pairs now and wear them all at one time or another
  • 28)I have started wearing jeans again for the first time in ten years
  • 29)I believe in some aspects of Feng Shui eg I don't feel comfortable having my back to a room, or having anything hanging above my bed
  • 30)I am pretty sure I have some form of ADD. I am very easily distracted. I will start getting my breakfast and then remember that I should have put stuff in the dryer, and then on the way to the dryer I will remember that I forgot to feed the fish and go and do that, then I think I should check my email and forget both about getting my breakfast and putting the stuff in the dryer.
  • 31)I once threw a jug (luckily plastic) of cheese sauce at the wall because it boiled over for the third time in the microwave.
  • 32)I once cut all the strings on my guitar because Gary got the last note of Smoke On the Water wrong for the 500th time (da da daaa, da da dedaa, da da daaa, dadaaaa)
  • 33)Those things were a long time ago. I think I am more patient and laid back nowadays, and anyway Gary has given up trying to play guitar
  • 34)A couple or five more happiest moments - everything about staying with my Grandparents in Brighton during the summer holidays when I was little - outings to the beach, rock pools, the train, the trolley bus, the pier, fairground rides, visiting my great aunts and having a perfectly ripe peach for tea, making cakes, crafts, playing with my Dad's old toys, the rockery at Preston Park, looking at the roses, dahlias, fountains, especially at night when they were lit up, competition flower beds, walks in the Wild park, picking blackberries and wild flowers, the local shops, playing mud pies in the garden, playing with the neighbours children, going to see The Sound of Music which seemed to be on every year, playing cribbage and other card games, boating at Barkham Mills, visiting a bird park that I can't remember the name of. My Grandparents never drove, we went everywhere by bus and on foot.
  • 35)- New Year's Eves playing funny games with our friends in England
  • 36)- Our 25th Wedding Anniversary party
  • 37)- Catching someone wearing something I made for them when they weren't expecting to see me
  • 38) - the "aha" breakthrough moments when I was learning something and it all clicked, like 3 point turns when learning to drive
  • 39)I can only swim breast stroke. If I try to kick as for crawl/freestyle I end up going backwards and I can't work out where I am going wrong
  • 40)I like books and TV programs that deal with forensics - Patricia Cornwell, Cold Case Files, Quincy, Bones
  • 41)I was exempt from jury service for 10 years because I worked at the Laboratory of the Government Chemist. I have never been called for jury service in the UK, but have in the US. Of course not being US citizen I couldn't do it here either
  • 42)I don't like party plan selling - Tupperware, Mary Kay etc. On the few occasions when I have hosted such parties I must have sent out negative vibes with the invites because hardly anyone came.
  • 43)I love stationery, and brand new boxes of crayons. Once, when I was about 10, a neightbour gave me some A4 sized typing paper in white, pink, blue and green. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! It lasted me years and I made all sorts of models from it -polyhedra, dolls' house furniture, hexaflexagons all sorts of things - never occurred to me that I could easily buy more quite cheaply myself
  • 44)I am fascinated by medieval castles, we visited lots in Wales.
  • 45)Roman stuff is good too, especially mosaic floors
  • 46)I have finally learned that "being able to get into" something is not the same as it "fitting well"
  • 47)I have all my best ideas whilst showering
  • 48)Once I have got out of the shower, I usually forget most of what I though of
  • 49)I have another recurring dream about bathrooms - not being able to find one, not being able to lock the door, etc, wonder what that means?
  • 50)My favourite flowers are anemones and aquilegia/columbines that grow wild in the mountains
  • 51)Another innappropriate giggling fit occurred in a meeting at work when the project manager kept talking about the "project overall" and I kept imagining us all dressed in these special overalls with the project logo on the front
  • 52)I once worked for a small company where we all gatherd in the meeting room for our coffee breaks. One morning there were chocolate digestives set out and I took one, but it turned out they were for visitors so I sat through the whole break with it melting in my hand on my lap rather than admit I had taken it - I think I got away with it!!
  • 53)I used to collect Brook Bond tea cards and had them all stuck in their albums
  • 54)OK, yes, I used to collect stamps too
  • 55)I hate putting my hand into a rubber glove that's cold and wet inside
  • 56)I don't like the word "syndrome"
  • 57)I love being in a high place where you can see for a long way all around and matching up what I can see with a map of the area
  • 58)I love looking out of the window of the plane as we come into land and literally "zooming in" on the view
  • 59)Most people have gluteus maximus, medias and minimus muscles - mine are all maximus
  • 60)I think it's really funny when people mistype "go and" as "go nad" fffffneerr!!
  • 61)I admire anyone who can say "Shih Tzu" with a straight face
  • 62)I find clowns really irritating
  • 63)I love journals, but can't write in them for fear of spoiling them.
  • 64)Three more hard learned lessons - if you make fun of the name "Wayne" it will turn out to be the name of the boyfirend of one of the people present
  • 65)- if you say something slightly derogatory about someone they will have entered the room behind you just in time to hear it
  • 66)- if you say something slightly derogatory about the person who everybody finds annoying it will turn out that someone present has been dating said annoying person for ages and has no idea that everyone else finds them annoying
  • 67)I have been told that I am "not particularly unnattractive"
  • 68)Once we had to work with a man who was extremely annoying on many levels. After about a year, the day came when he wound me up so much I swore at him and he resigned there and then. If we had known how easy it was to get rid of him we would have done it much sooner!
  • 69)Is there something amusing about this number?
  • 70)I never really found much of Monty Python that funny - is there something wrong with me?
  • 71)I have coined the phrase "Dorothy's Shoes" to describe a situation where you don't know how to solve a problem, and it turns out you have the answer with you all along, but someone else needed to tell you that. Just like in the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy had the shoes that could get her home right from the start, but the Wizard had to tell her about it.
  • 72)I can bend the little finger on my left hand with out bending the ring finger.
  • 73)I like making up new words by combining two words like "snobia" - a fear of snow, and "celesbians" - Ellen Degeneres and Chastity Bono
  • 74)I get PMT, and Post-MT, and Intra- and Inter-MT
  • 75)I enjoy "tubing" - that is sliding down a snowy hill on an inner tube - it's not a euphemism for anything - I'm not telling you what I thought it might be a euphemism for in case you think I am weird!!!
  • 76)I have started doing things just so I can write about them on my blog
  • 77)I like tracking things online - FedEx/UPS parcels, flights with passengers I know aboard, dollar bills at Where's George?
  • 78)I would still collect miniature tea sets if I could find any nice ones.
  • 79)I hate using tea cloths and dishcloths and sponges in the kitchen - I lose track of how long I have been using them - I am sorry about the trees, but I would rather use kitchen towel for all those jobs
  • 80)I am a scorpio and It is fun to read my horoscope occasionally - I believe it if it's good, not if it isn't
  • 81)My Chinese sign is the Monkey, but I don't think I fit the description at all
  • 82)I wish I had time to read more, but at the moment my reading time has been taken over by Su Doku
  • 83)It's sad that good (and bad) people do bad things in the name of business
  • 84)Every morning I fill my coffee carafe up to the 4 cup mark, and pour it into the machine, but it never reaches the 4 cup mark in the reservoir
  • 85)In England I was hooked on Australian soaps, first Sons and Daughters and The Young Doctors and then Neighbours where Jesse Spencer who plays Dr Chase in House started out as Billy Kennedy. I have however managed to avoid American soaps
  • 86)I want a hat like the ones worn by the Beau Baton girls in Harry Potter IV. It is such a clever combination of classic school hat and witch's hat.
  • 87)Hats do not suit me though, so I would probably never wear it, so my children will not run the risk of being embarrassed
  • 88)I love shortbread, and could eat a whole box at once if I'm not careful
  • 89)In the first house we lived in in Salt Lake I redecorated the bathroom, and made mosaic tile "castles-in-the-sky" splash backs around the sink and bath. I used plain white tiles broken up for the castle bricks and whole tiles with rounded off edges for the clouds. The windows were small blue tiles, I used the edge pieces of the tiles at the sides of the towers so they looked more 3D. It was a fun "no mistakes possible" project because I broke the tiles and decided what kind of tower to make based on how the shapes came out
  • 90)My first proper knitting project was when I was 9. I made a pair of mittens for a Brownie badge, but I had only just learned purl and I twisted all the purl stitches - I never got my badge
  • 91)I am kind of jealous that my kids went through the American High School social thing - Homecoming, Prom etc, but I lived it vicariously - Lucy let me accompany her to buy her dresses and I made her prom dress. In Utah (and I'd love to know if this happens in other states as well) you can't just go up to someone and ask them to be your prom date - you have to do it more creatively - like once for a Christmas dance Sam left a miniature Christmas tree with three wrapped "gifts" containing letter tiles that made up his name, and a little poem explaining what it was about and what she had to do to find out who it was from, outside her front door. The girl had to reply similarly - in this case she sent nested parcels and the innermost one had a note saying "yes" Some dances are "Girls' asks" and some are "boys' asks" which is nice as the boys don't have to go through all the stress every time
  • 92)My favourite Disneyland rides are Indiana Jones and Soarin' over California
  • 93)I love water slides, but I am not brave enough to go head first
  • 94)I get annoyed with people who go somewhere they know is foreign/very hot/very cold, and then complain about how foreign/hot/cold it is.
  • 95)It's more fun owning a dog than I ever thought it would be
  • 96)I love having friends and family to stay and showing them all the sights around SLC and the mountains, especially places that regular tourists don't usually get to see
  • 97)I sometimes wonder what the world would be like today if Europeans had not barged in and taken over the other continents those few hundred years ago.
  • 98)The two worst moments in my life were a)the few minutes when Lucy (aged 5) went missing within an hour of arriving on the beach the first time we went to Menorca. Two ladies brought her back to us. b)The few minutes when Edward (aged 2) went missing from the back garden, when someone left the gate open. We found him in the tennis courts, across a road and a good 5 minute walk away. During those moments I imagined them drowned or kidnapped or run over and felt like the worst mother ever as obviously I could not look after my children properly. It's difficult to know where to start looking, and whether to go on foot or in the car. I honestly don't know how families cope when the minutes turn into hours, then days, months, years and they still their child is missing
  • 99)Let's finish with a couple more happy moments - All our holidays in Menorca, right from staying in the hotel at Cala Galdana, the villas we rented in the little village of Toret and then in our apartment in Son Parc. Whenever we have been, either as a family, as an extended family, as a couple, or me and my sister with or without kids, we have always had a fantastic time, visiting our favourite places, finding new ones, lazing on the beach or by the pool. Menorca is an amazing, magical island!
  • 100) - Finally remembering/discovering who it was who released a song that has been running through your head for ages from 30 years ago, downloading it from iTunes, or buying the CD and hearing it for the first time since then. This happened twice recently "Feel the Need" by the Detroit Emeralds from 1974, and "Do What You Wanna Do" by Eddie and the Hot Rods from around 1977