My installment in the ever-expanding QUIRKS game...

Okay, I've been tagged to play this [meme?] game: Seven quirky things about myself, then seven people to do the same. Here goes...

1) I have worked at all kinds of jobs, from journalism to gymnastics, from deli cleanup to diaper cleanup (daycare), from selling fruit to selling burgers. Never long-term. The only career I've truly stuck with is the one I truly love: domestic engineering! (Otherwise known as wifehood, motherhood, homemaking, and now grandmotherhood.) And it's probably the only one I'll ever really show true tenacity toward, though you never know what else might be out there for a hobby...

2) Sometimes I wake up at night in my own bed in my own house, and can't figure out where I am for a few seconds. Sometimes I even get a little scared momentarily, wondering who's in bed with me... Then the inner lights turn on and I'm fine. Weird, that's all there is to that one.

3) One of my joys in life is that my children are all graduating from college. Beyond my thrill for their personal accomplishments is this: neither of my parents even tried, and though I had big plans to go four years, maybe eight, I never finished. And now I don't know if I want to - or if I even could! It's turned into a fear, I think...

4) I find it nearly impossible to have favorites - in anything. I like so many colors, foods, types of music, books, people, etc. - but I can't seem to develop favorites.

5) Before Gifted and Talented programs existed, I was considered a star in that realm. My scores in the various tests were off the charts, in third grade I tutored second graders and went to reading with 4th, 5th and 6th graders, where I was hilariously beyond the rest. In fourth grade they moved me to fifth grade, and kids in that grade didn't like me much because - I don't know, maybe I was a threat? I got through 6th grade with my nose in a plethora of books; in seventh grade, I got the nickname "The computer who wore a mini skirt" ( a play on a Disney movie of the time, with "Tennis shoes" in place of mini skirt). But it was all a fluke, since I became a math dropout in high school, was nowhere near 4.0 status, didn't finish college (because marriage and children came along- and I think I was too lazy anyway), and my youngest daughter thinks I'm - well, unimpressive... The precocious child became an average Moe. Who knew?

6) I'm a little bit obsessive- compulsive: messed up or crooked rugs bother me, I hate it when people bend the edges of rugs up with their feet, if there is a bug on the wall or floor it drives me crazy until I get it or it disappears from sight, I adjust crooked chairs, and believe it or not (you wouldn't know by my house), I'm a little freaked out when I walk into a messy room. But I don't think I need treatment: I live with and make messes with the best of them.

7) I'm an editing freak. I notice mistakes in most written documents (excepting many of my own), and I mentally edit people's speeches and conversations. Sheesh. But I LOVE dialects, accents, languages, and words. Hence the 7 years of college that I never did... My aim was linguistics. If I overcame my fear, that just might hold my attention well enough to get me out of the house, but only when Mel and Suze are gone, and only if I could work it around time with family. Priorities are priorities.

Okay, now for who I would like to see do this (and who possibly hasn't been tagged already): Shan, Alycia Nelson, Chrysallis, Cami Dewitt, Emmi, Emily and Emilie (though it will be a while for Emily, since their computer is fritzed out).

Sorry I'm inclined to make a paragraph out of a sentence! (That may be too subtle; like mountain out of a molehill, y'know? Is the word verbosity, perhaps? If I were speaking, it would be long-winded; someone with a better vocabulary is welcome to supply me with the right word!)

My love to all who bother to read this - Yomama/Karla