Tagged!

I’ve been tagged by ashleysthoughts and I’m up for the challenge. By the way, go check out her blog.  She a talented young writer trying to bring credibility to New Jersey!

The rules are:

• you must post the rules
• answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post
• create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged
• tag eleven people with a link to your post
• let them know you tagged them

The questions I must answer are:

1. How often does your phone ring? Not a text alert, I mean how often does it ring with another person on the other end who wants to talk to you?

I’m over fifty so I have technically challenged friends.  If a text has more than twenty words, it’s just too much trouble.  Consequently I talk on the phone about half a dozen times a day.  I talk to my mom everyday, my husband multiple times on some days and none on others, a couple of friends most days and my sister, when we can.  Oh, and my kids when they have time for me which is never as often as I would like.   Boy, do I miss those days when I was the most important thing in their lives!

2. Have you come across anything so far in life that is actually all it’s cracked up to be?

Much of the art and literature that I have had the pleasure of viewing and reading.

3. What decade do you wish you could visit?

I’ve always been drawn to the twenties.  Maybe it’s the decadence or maybe the really cool flapper clothes.

4. When was the last time you cried? Why?

Too many days lately.  Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday can usually get me going. Sometimes happy tears and sometimes sorrowful tears. 

The last time I cried until I thought my insides would detach from the rest of my body was when my father died.  It was unexpected and I was slayed by the news.  I miss him.

5. Do you consider yourself open-minded? Are you really, or do you say yes because you feel like you’re supposed to?

I think I’m open-minded but I don’t know.  If my daughter called and said she was a stripper at the local pub, I might change my mind.  I know I’m not saying it because I feel like I should.  I try to keep my judgement of others at bay.  I’d be less inclined to be close-minded if the stripper came from a dysfunctional background and was putting herself through college and was not my daughter.  Does any of this make sense?

Tough questions, Ms. Ashley.

6. How often do you find yourself telling a “little white lie” or a “bold-faced lie?” Are you a liar? Is everyone?

I tell white lies and I shouldn’t but I can’t tell someone I hate their new dress or haircut or most anything.  I was a liar so when I had kids I made it clear this was the worst of sins.  I always said that I could handle anything but lies.  Of course there were lies but also a lot of hard, cold truth.  I lied once to one of my children and later went back and told him the truth.  I couldn’t lie and ask him not to lie to me.

Oh and yes, I lied about the usuals – Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy.

I don’t know if everyone lies but almost everybody.

Pretty honest answer, huh?

7. What makes you most excited?

Travel with my family. 

8. What are your TV guilty pleasures?

Dr. Who and, embarrassingly, anything where they chase a ghost.  Maybe because my father passed, I really want to believe in ghost and I want him to come a calling. 

9. Would you rather live on top of the clouds or at the bottom of the ocean?

Another toughy.  I love the ocean and I’m fascinated by what’s down there but I’m also claustrophobic so I thing I would want to live on top of the clouds, breath freely and take in the beauty of the earth and, who knows, maybe some other ‘earths’.

10. If you died tomorrow, what would be your legacy?

I think people would say she was a good mother and that she was kind.  Someday, I hope  people might say she did her best to make the world a better place.  Oh and a good writer wouldn’t hurt.

11. What comes to mind when you think of New Jersey?

This Texan spent a week in New Jersey when she was 17 and fell for a cute boy.  We were living in Pennsylvania then.  I only have fond memories of Ocean City, NJ.  We moved back to Texas about a week after this trip and I lost contact with the boy but I still have the memories.

And my eleven questions are:

1. What happened on the best day of your life?
2. What is your greatest talent?
3. What have you done in your life that makes you the most proud?
4. What do you believe in that others might doubt the reality of?
5. If you could travel in time, where would you go?
6. What’s your favorite holiday and why?
7. Anytime in your life that you would like to have a ‘do-over’? Explain in you can.
8. What’s your favorite movie and why?
9. If you could spend one day doing anything you wanted, what would it be?
10. What are your views on social media?
11. Have you ever broken the law and what did you do?  You needn’t answer if it will get you thrown in the pokey.

Time to tag the others.

• grand-player
• Kana Tyler
• worrywarts-guide-to-weight-sex-and-marriage
• Transitioning Mom
• Raw Recovery
• tadams4u
• timruane24
• Libby Lu
• orples
• sarahpotterwrites
• rose

These are all people with interesting ideas and I can’t wait to hear what they have to say.  Check them out.

I also want to say thanks to Jane Thorne for the Liebster Award.  She has a lovely blog that you should check out.  I’ve gotten to know her through ‘Something for the Weekend’ and it’s been a joy.

I received the Versatile Award once again from butenuffaboutme.  She is a fan of Erma Bombeck and has her own funny bone.  Take a moment and check her out.