25 Random Things (at 4am)

It's 4am. I'm usually in bed at this time. Most of the time, anyway. But my husband, Neil, is away for a few nights, and I miss him! (I missed him before he left our street) He's currently driving my mother back to Melbourne, (she doesn't fly), which will take about 5 days all up.

I'm really too tired to be very useful, so I thought I would fill in some of the 'profile' info. on this blog. Under 'about me', I had the clever idea of pasting in some '25 Random Facts' about me that I wrote a little while ago at the request of a friend. Unfortunately, they are waaaay too long-winded to fit in the appropriate box (haha)! But I thought that if I copy them here, I can link it to my profile....

Here it is, although I'm warning you that it is exceeding long, and I make absolutely no promises that you'll find it interesting :)!

25 Random Things:

1. My mother joined the church when I was 7, but we became inactive not long after I was baptised at the age of eight. I came back to church when I was 19 and have never looked back. I love knowing the truth about life. I love having the gift of the Holy Ghost in my life.

2. Before we were married I had Neil promise that I could have up to 20 children. I didn't want it to be something we might be in conflict about later. I actually thought I'd like 12, and hoped for 8, but found when I was pregnant with the twins that 7 children was our lot for now.

3. I was never good at sports at school. I was not the first one picked for any ball game. I never won any running or swimming race. I like to think that our family is built more for endurance than speed!

4. I was, however, a champion Marching Girl. (See how I put that in capitals? :) From about the age of ten I was a member, and then the Leader Girl (capitals!), of a marching team. We won a lot of medals. I really enjoyed the discipline and training.

5. One of my ancestors, by the name of Frederick Bedwell, was 1st. Mate on the ship that took Napolean to exile on St. Helena's Island. They became friends and would engage in swordplay on the deck of the ship each day. One day Frederick lifted one of Napolean's coat buttons with his sword, which Napolean then gave him as a momento. This button is still in the possession of our extended family. Frederick also circumnavigated Australia with Captain Philip Parker King, and he named (among other things), many of the Whitsunday Islands, including Whitehaven Beach. There are also more than a dozen rivers, mountains, harbours, etc. named after him. Frederick is also credited with taking the first live kangaroo back to England, as a gift for his patron, Lord... somebody. On a return journey to Australia he stopped again at St. Helena's to pay his respects to Bonaparte, and took a slip from the willow tree that grew by Napolean's grave. That willow tree slip was planted on Australian soil, in Victoria, and is believed to have been the first willow tree in Australia, from which all (or at least many) of the others came!

6. When I get very tired I become ridiculous. I go into fits of laughter over nothing and altogether act as though I am completely drunk. My family take monstrous advantage of me at these times, calling one another to come see, and even taking photographs! It's not a pretty sight.....

7. I am a total chocoholic. I can easily polish off a family size block in ten minutes or less. My husband is my enabler.... Neil can hardly even begin to comprehend the notion of tough love where I am concerned. I do mention the concept to him on occasion, but all I have to do is smile that, "I'd love... (a 10 kilo block of choc.)…" look at him and he crumples like tissue paper and goes to get the car keys. I'm a little put out that I am always the one who has to be strong because he is no help at all with keeping me in line. Sigh!

8. I do have probably the best husband in the world. He is not perfect, but he is absolutely wonderful. If I tell you any more, you're going to think I am bragging, and you will probably just get jealous, but there it is... :)

9. A few years back, our children gave Neil and I our very first 'un-birthday' as a surprise. It started with breakfast in bed, then lots of fabulous presents. The final present we opened was a large money tin, decorated with the words, 'Mum and Dad's America Trip Fund'. The children had clubbed together to fill the tin with over a thousand dollars as a start to our saving for a holiday together in the states. We finally went for a month a couple of years back and had a wonderful time. A year later they put in together again to buy Neil a car for his birthday. We have very generous children! Obviously now quite poor, but generous... :)

10. Neil and I began our America trip by flying into New York, somewhere I have never wanted to go. I thought it would be crowded and awful, and Neil wasn't keen either. At first we planned to escape from there as quickly as possible, but eventually booked to stay for 3 nights. I absolutely loved it! I completely shocked myself! I loved that it was flat and you could walk everywhere. I loved the cosmopolitan feel of it - that so many nationalities were represented; it was interesting and exciting. I loved the busy-ness and sense of purpose. I loved the food! I loved the interest there was in art and culture. I loved the cold! The airports were closed down for days just after we flew in, due to sleet and bad weather. We mostly walked everywhere, in the sleet and gale force winds, but it was exhilarating to be rushing along and not feel hot! Actually, it was freezing.It's possible that the extreme cold was the reason there were no crowds to wade through on the streets. Perhaps in pleasanter weather we wouldn't have enjoyed it so much… so… lucky us! :) It was hilarious too: everything went wrong! The airport lost Neil's bag for 3 days; our pre-paid tours fell through because of the foul weather (no empire state building for us!); the one bus we did get on broke down and we were turned off into the frigid conditions; and the room we had booked turned out to be the size of a small bathroom, (the bathroom was the size of a very small cupboard), the bed was hard, and I was sick with a cold! The best decision we made on the whole trip was to escape from that hotel, (I mean, we ran from there), and book in to the Hilton Garden Inn, overlooking Time Square. Not in the budget at all, but at that stage we might have been willing to sell the house.... Heaven!!)Anyway, my point is - I LOVE NEW YORK!

11. I turned 50 last year, which isn't completely old, but I am already somewhat decrepit! In truth, I've been somewhat decrepit for years now. One of my goals this year is to get fit and fabulous. I've started forcing myself to the gym, and I do believe that I can improve in health significantly if only I am willing to kill myself, working out. My main impetus is that I want to be an active and non-boring grand-ma for what I hope will be a large and soon-to-be-forthcoming posterity. Our first grand-baby was born last year in September: little Jenna, who is absolutely adorable.

12. I have always looked forward to being a grandma. My own grandmother was very special to me, so I know how important grandparents can be. It's my goal to be a really good grandma.

13. I found childbirth to be a very positive experience. I used to wonder about whether I could be a brave person if I needed to be: how I would hold up under torture, for instance! I admire courage a good deal, and really hoped that I would not be a coward if the time came to test that. After I had Tammy (our first), I thought, ‘So that’s pain…’ She was in a posterior position and my tailbone broke as I was pushing her out. During the contractions everything was going black, and I guess that I was just about passing out with the pain. So, I figured that: you either pass out and die, or eventually the pain eases and you live. And I thought, ‘I can do that!’ It might sound a little funny, but for me it was very reassuring. To at least some extent, I know I can do pain.

14. I LOVE to read. It’s been my escape since I first learned to read. I’d read the cereal box, or signs along the road if I had nothing else. I read my way through many of the classics of children’s literature, (favourites were: Little Women and Good Wives, Heidi, any of the Dickens, What Katy Did, etc.), then a lot of adult classics in my teens, (favourites were: The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse; Les Miserables, by Hugo; the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky; anything by the Brontes or Austen; Kipling, etc.) In my 20’s I read a lot of church doctrinal literature, to learn more about the gospel, and still do. In recent years I have enjoyed the Harry Potter’s, the Twilight books ( and her other book, The Host), Dan Brown, Grisham, and lots of other contemporary literature, especially Laurens Van Der Post, but I’m always a bit wary of them because I don't much like bad language etc.  Reading is kind of a guilty pleasure, since I am almost void of self control when a book grabs me. I’ll start something over breakfast and still be in my pj’s after lunch. My husband is again no help with this, I’m sorry to say. He encourages me to let the house go, and do nothing but read away the day! We’re both pretty incorrigible.

15. I don’t remember a single time that Neil has ever come home and said, ‘what have you been doing all day!!?’ The truth is that, if I were him, I probably would have said it many times by now.

16. The Readers’ Digest wrote about me in an article last month. It was called, ‘How to Ruin a Joke’. Somebody must have been stalking me from somewhere because they had me to a tee. I am the world’s worst joke teller. My style is awkward and embarrassed, I always mess up or forget the punch line, and I have terrible timing. I once tried to joke from the stand at church. Neil had been called as a bishop that day and he expressed the feeling that he didn’t know why he had been called. When I was asked to speak, I thought it would be amusing to say that I did know why he had been called – it was because he had such a wonderful wife. I was kidding, of course. But my delivery was so terrible, that the whole congregation just looked at me. They thought I was being serious. Even now I can feel a horrible sinking emptiness inside at just the memory of how awful it was. It was so bad, it was actually hilarious. I never said I couldn’t be funny. Just, not deliberately!

17. When I was in high school I was awarded a commonwealth scholarship. It was supposed to encourage me on to higher education, but I left school at 16 due to my home situation, and studied nursing instead. Growing up, I always wanted to be a psychiatrist. Neil was keen to send me off to uni. to study when the children were grown, but now I would not want to miss being available to our children and grandchildren.

18. Although I am not interested in following it up at all, I can’t help but believe in some kind of ESP. I have often known about things that were going to happen in advance, especially when I was younger. Simple things, like knowing that I was going to bump into a certain person as I walked to work that day, when they would not normally be anywhere close by. It feels natural. When I was young I would sometimes play the Memory game with cards: you shuffle the pack, then place all of the cards face down in rows on the floor, before taking turns to try to turn up a pair. There were many times that I was able to turn up the whole pack in one go. The interesting thing was that I always knew when I was going to be able to do it and when I wasn’t. I could feel it inside me before it actually happened and I just knew it. I still get those feelings occasionally, in little ways.

19. My favourite holiday would be to do something like trekking through China, or hiking across England – something that is physically challenging and a little bit adventurous. If I could just de-decrepitude myself…One day on our holiday in the States, Neil and I hiked 5 miles through the trees along the rougher end of the northern rim of the Grand Canyon, during a snow storm. It was just the two of us all alone out there, with the spectacular canyon drop off right next to us as we walked. The snow made everything even more beautiful, and still. Unfortunately, Neil became hypothermic from being damp with perspiration, and we needed to get back to civilization quickly, or we would have continued on. It was my favourite day on the trip!

20. I love the ocean! Not to swim in, but to be near. I feel close to God there. It has a wonderful spirit about it.I’ve always remembered my grade 7 teacher reciting a poem to our class about it: “Break…Break…Break, On thy cold stones, oh sea! Oh, that thou could utter the thoughts that arise in thee!” It went something like that. It thrilled me.

21. I was one of six students in the first public school class in Australia to learn Mandarin Chinese. I learned it for 3 years, along with German and Latin, because I was identified as having a talent in languages. Although I scored well in the exams, I don’t think I have a good feel for languages at all – I find English enough of a struggle.I do like Latin: ‘Amo; amass; amat: I love; you love; he/she/it loves…’ As for Chinese: Wo bu ji dao zhong wen! (I don’t understand Chinese!) And: Ich verstehn Deustch ein bischen, aber nicht so gut! (ditto!)

22. I was also one of two of three students selected as likely to be talented in playing the violin, and consequently, given free lessons at school. As it happened, I much more enjoyed hearing my teacher play, than learning to play myself. As he was entirely in sync with me on that – he also much preferred to hear his own playing over my screeching - I never learned a thing!However, my true talent was uncovered then: I do make an absolutely fabulous and very appreciative audience :)

23. I really love vegies. Pumpkin, brussel sprouts, cabbage, beans, cauliflower.... I love to eat healthily. If you tell me it's good for me, I'll eat it and enjoy it. Unfortunately though, I might love chocolate even more!

24. The way I remember it, I was not the most popular student at school, at all! I was teased as the ‘teacher’s pet’, etc. My parents divorced when I was five - about the time I learned to read - so I suppose I became a bookworm to escape from all that, and then never really put my head up again until I was in grade 7. I read through lunch and recess times, while walking to school, through school (book hidden under the desk), in the shower, even riding my bike! The funny thing was that after I left school, when I would bump into old school mates, (the ones that teased), they would always act as though I was their long-lost best friend. They also always remembered my whole name. They were never that friendly at school!

25. I used to love walking everywhere. I still would if I was in much better shape physically. On my days off from nursing I used to go on all-day hikes, for up to 12 hours of walking. I used to walk to and from work everyday – over an hour each way. I once did a 50 k walk with a few friends, from near Samford village, up Mt. Nebo, then up and down all the mountains until we got to Mt. Cootha. It wasn’t the distance that was unusual for me – it was going up and down the mountains! (Coming from Adelaide, I was used to the flats.)I have also loved dancing. I used to think that my life would be nothing if I could not dance! For a while I danced professionally on-stage, in discos and as backing for bands. Contrary to what some of our children are wont to spread about, I used to just wear jeans, or whatever I chose on stage – no costumes, and certainly, (Abby!) - no leopard skin bikinis!