The tag game, de-mystified...

I am new at the blog thing and wondered how someone can be "it" when it is just a blog. Now I know.

A side note: My posts can be classified long, longer and longest. Just as a warning, this is probably a "longest." I know time is precious so I just thought I should warn.

10 Years Ago
I have repressed a couple of years of my life within the last 10 years, so is that the real 10 or 10 non-repressed years? Assuming it is the real 10...
-April, 1998. Although this is not a repressed year, I am having a hard time remembering...
-Okay, hooray for journals! (I know, I know, that word is so pre-blog). I was in my second area (of three) on my mission in Nagoya, Japan.
-I kept carbon copies (yeah, carbon paper is this stuff that people used to use to make copies) of letters I wrote to family and friends. I wrote so much (some things never change). Okay, this is going to make it long but I just found something that made me laugh. I am quoting one of my letters, "On Monday we had apt. checks~ I didn't clean anything before they came because I didn't want to seem like I was fooling anyone... well, as the President's wife (I had three mission presidents, this was the second set) had me scrubbing the wall she told me it is good practice for me for when I get married because one of the most important things for a woman is a clean kitchen (I might have just found that so funny because I just took off the front of my oven door, which wasn't a simple task, so I could get the drip that had been on the inside of the glass for that last year and a half. I also found a sticker, a chocolate wrapper, a magnet, and a couple other things that fit in the little slots in the front of the door. Hmmm, how did they get there? No matter that the real garbage can was just 4 feet away, right?) I told her I would find a husband that likes to clean (man, I was gutsy not to mention naive). She said there aren't husbands like that- from what she expressed I'm lucky if I find one that will even clean with me (just for the record, Karl did help me get the door off the oven. I know it might have been his desire to not have a broken oven door that he would have to fix, but he did help me in the cleaning process). "
-So, apparently 10 years ago I was planning on finding a husband that cleans.

Things on my to do list Monday -
-I was going to put off doing this but then Monday would pass and then I would have thought up some really fantastic looking "to do's" for next Monday so I just hurried and did it today. Just to keep things real, you know, like in my mission apt. check.
- Clean some more because I didn't end up finding a husband that cleans (Karl, I know you clean but I think 10 years ago I was thinking more along the line of a husband that clean everything. I don't want you to think I am down playing what you clean)- I should vacuum and fold laundry.
-Wash out a strawberry container for Eva to take to pre school for their pretend store day.
-Oh no, I left my planner at my parents house and it had my to do list in it and I seriously can't remember. Well, here is a new one for my list...
-Find planner. Dang it.

What would I do if I suddenly had a billion dollars -
-Buy a new planner in case mine is really really lost. One with a tiny tracking system so I don't have to panic and freeze up everytime I lose mine.
-Buy a house in a neighborhood with sidewalks and other moms that stay at home (we don't have either in my neighborhood and I really wish we did).
-When I bought my new how it would have a big space to store all my stuff. So then I would...
-Buy more stuff- I like kitchen gadgets (like choppers "as seen on TV" that don't really work- but I won't care because I am a billionaire and have room to store it), clothes, shoes, craft stuff.
-Buy a new TV, I hear they came out with these things called flat screens and Tivo. Wow, I would like some of that technology.
-Go on a huge cooking/eating tour of the world and blog the whole thing.
-I would probably want to do something for other people. Really service-y. I would ask Courtney for ideas.
-Buy a new car because mine is dirty.
-For the first years of our marriage we mostly lived on no income or my teacher income. I always thought that once we had "real" income it would feel like so much money. But it doesn't. Should I become a billionaire, would I think, "I used to think that a billion was so much. Now, a kabillion would really be a lot."

-3 of my bad habits - Do I have to tell?
1 - Staying up late and blogging and answering simple questions with really long stories and even quoting my mission letters.
2 - I procrastinate. Some say they work better under pressure. I just work under pressure.
3 - I am indecisive. I had a really hard time deciding on which bad habits to share.

Places I have lived:
SLC, UT
Murray UT
Logan, UT (college)
Moscow, Russia (taught English)
Ghuanzhou, China (taught English again)
Seto, Meito, and Kanazawa, Japan (mission)
Austin, TX (Karl's school)
Berkeley, CA (Karl's internship)
Smithfield, UT (I was roomies with Karl's Grandma Gutke while Karl was in TX for a quarter and I was at USU)
Chicago, IL (more of Karl's school)
Santa Clara, CA (another one of Karl's internships)
and full circle back to SLC!

Jobs I have had:
-A little bit of baby sitting (I sucked, I would never have hired me. I was the youngest of four kids and had no business watching other peoples' kids. Um maybe I should have had someone show me how to change a diaper before the parents left)
-Bussing tables at Italian Village
-Gap kids (Excited about my employee discount, I spent more than I made there)
-Police Cadet
-Running my dad's go-cart track out at Salt Air (but mostly just riding the go-carts around and around and working on my tan- we liked tans back before blogs and SPF).
-Office person at a lame insurance place in TX.
-Bath and Body works and a clothes store in Berkeley (once again, really excited about the employee discount) -Teacher assistant at a Montessori school.
-3 rd grade teacher in Chicago until I was a...
-Mom! (I still am a mom)

5 Things (most)People don't know about me:
1 - Since I feel like I have posted everything about me I am wondering if there is anything left that people don't know about me, hey, I bet you didn't know that.
2 - I like to watch infomercials.
3 - Back before life got hard, I used to think that it was easy.
4 - I love sleep, I love naps, I love dreams, I love watching my kids sleep.
5 - Like Annie, I really like stuff clean and neat, and people probably don't know that about me because I hardly every have my house, car, yard, etc. clean and neat.

So that's all folks. Enough about me - I am tagging you. Michelle F. and Paula.