D, deciduous

My latest contributions to the ABC-Along 2008. "D" was also for "deadline" and I squeaked just under this time. (Quick review: I am taking photographs in nature -- two for each letter of the alphabet; one that suggests the letter form itself and one of something that begins with the letter.)

So Helen tagged me and there were quite a few rules along with this one so I better go get them and present them here:

Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you. (OK, so that was Helen, above!)
Post THE RULES on your blog ( this be them! )
Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog
Tag 7 people and link to them
Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

Now the challenge is whether I can think of 7 things I haven't said before. I see that I need to do a much better job of indexing my posts since I know I've done a list like this once if not twice before but I can't find those now and can't remember for sure what I've already revealed. So, pardon me if any of this is old news.

1. I am nearly incapable of choosing a single "best" or "favorite" of anything -- it requires more context for me since I love so many things for so many different reasons. I'm much better if I can be given the latitude to at least name my top 5 or 10 of something.

2. I can make balloon animals. I decided (and this is SO like me) that it was an important parenting skill to have (!?). It is also so like Dean that he's never permitted me to perform at any of his parties.

3. If I had it all to do over again, I wish I'd have known how much I love food, cooking, and writing (well, I always knew I loved writing) so that I could have pursued a food-related career. I would have liked to have been a pastry chef when I was younger (so that I could better handle the physical demands of the job) and then to have been a prolific cookbook author after having achieved acclaim in the kitchen(s).

4. I rarely, if ever, use an umbrella anymore in the rain; as long as there's no lightning, I enjoy being out (for a bit, anyway) in the rain and don't mind getting wet. On rainy days at school I am the only person (besides Dean, usually) who doesn't RUN from the car to the front door. I'm not sure how this transformation happened, since I used to always carry an umbrella with me just. in. case.

5. My dad used to say that people have, ingrained, one of two reactions when something drops/falls -- they either instantly pull back or reach out to grab/catch the thing; I'm a reach out and grab type and rarely miss, even if someone else did the dropping.

6. My parents seriously considered naming me "Montana." My mom wanted to name me "Guinevere" but didn't want me to be called "Gwen" so they settled on "Jennifer" because they were just fine with "Jenny," for short, which I hate. I wish I had been named either Montana or Guinevere. It is an interesting aside to me to note that these days, parents have (wield) full control over what their children are called -- parents who name a child "James," for example, who want him always to be called "James" simply do not allow people to say "Jim." Parents didn't used to think they could control nicknames like that.

7. I wanted to be taller. I am 5' 8", which in my younger days made me tall for a girl, but I really wanted to be 6'.

That took me longer than you might imagine. So now I tag these people, with the understanding that if they don't want to play along then that is their prerogative:

Raesha
Susanna
Alice
Alison
Mary
Dawn
Sam