So, how lame am I? Sara tagged me on...um...November 28. Yes, I'm that lame. So now I get to come up with seven things about me that you guys don't know. The fun part will be tagging 7 of you peeps!

1. I am a massive bookworm. I've been reading since I was 3.5.

2. I am petrified of going to the dentist. I'm working on getting over this one, but really I still need valium for anything more than a cleaning - and I do better with a cleaning if I'm medicated for that, too.

3. I played the clarinet (both B flat and E flat) and the baritone saxophone in high school. I learned to play the flute as well and I still noodle around on both clarinet and flute on occasion.

4. I wanted to play for a professional orchestra. It wasn't a "realistic" goal, according to my family and I didn't have the courage to attend college as a music major, so I lost my chops. Sometimes I still think about it, though.

5. I was born on Easter - and my grandparents' wedding anniversary. My birthday fell on Easter a second time in 1980 and will again in 2042.

6. My children were all born in even years when I was an odd age. The days of the month were (not in order of age) 7, 9, 11 and 13. Holly broke the series and was born at 10:52 pm on the 14th.

7. During most of my childhood, I had 7 living grandparents and 3 living great-grandparents. Nanny (my mom's mother) remarried when I was about 6 or 7, so I briefly had 8 grandparents, but he passed away when I was 12 and I only met him once. Oh! And I had another 2 grandparents when my mom remarried the first time, but I never met them at all, so I don't count them. I got one extra when Mom got married in 1989. She's the only one left and she sends me the nicest rosaries every so often.

Gramps - 1987, cancer
Grandma Rinear - 1989, a blood clot following major surgery
Grandpa Rinear - 1991 (this one was SO hard - he had a heart attack with me standing there helpless to do anything)
Grandpa Pinson - 1992, cancer
Great-grandmother - not sure. They didn't actually tell me until after Papa John died. (I think we were in AK, so 94 or 95)
Papa John - 1996, heart attack
Grandmother - 1997
Grammy - 1999, old age (96)
Nanny - 2001, complications from a stroke
Grandma Pinson - December 23, 2002, a stroke and age (she was near 90)

What made me think of this are the recent losses that Tonya and Marsha (and Jimmi's sister) have suffered. Although it looks really, really bad in print, I was SO lucky! I had them for so many years. I had a lot of friends who never knew their grandparents...and I had an abundance of them. Other than the few I didn't (or barely) knew, I was able to spend so much time with them. I have so many good memories and so many things they all taught me - and the love I was shown. On both sides, I was the first grandchild, and for many years, Nanny's only grandchild.

It was because of them that I wanted to have my children while I was young. I wanted to give them grandparents. I wanted them to have what I did. And while I miss them all terribly, I have pictures. I started scrapbooking in part to keep their memories alive. So I want to thank Sara for tagging me and Tonya, in particular, for reminding me not what I've lost, but what and who I've been fortunate enough to have in my life.

With that said, here are my 7 tagees:
Lisa
Jacqueline
Tonya
Ashley
Lee
Tanis
the other Carole (I had to!)
And if she wants to, my dearest friend Jenny. I won't make it official, since she would be #8.

I guess I've never been very good at following rules.