tag~lusciousness

Canadian graffiti, canon digital rebel xt

I've been tagged by Wendy to list five things that you don't know about me. I am finding this challenging because my one year anniversary of blogging is just around the corner and I feel I have spilled so much of my soul here in the last 11.5 months. I suppose I do pride myself on being mysterious sometimes, so perhaps I can pull out a few unknowns. Let's see...

1. I like fruity with my meaty.

2. I was a youth minister in my early twenties at a cool, hip non-denominational church in the bay area (northern california). During this time my church supported me to go to Romania with YWAM to work in orphanages for the summer. This was my first time in another country. I went all by myself and met up with 10 strangers from all over the states at the training base in Texas to learn the language and culture of Romania. On the way to and from Romania, we all stopped and spent a few days in Vienna, Austria and in Budapest, Hungary. This gave me a teaser taste of how wonderful it is to travel and experience other cultures by actually living in their world.

3. Which leads me to the third unknown. In my heart, I am a gypsy. My close friends and family know this about me. I resonated so closely with the character Vianne in the film Chocolat. It is actually physically difficult for me to stay in one place for more than two years. I get restless. I made many choices throughout my life to move every few years to a place where I didn't know a soul and it forced me to be brave and have an open mind. It has become an integral part of the way I learn more of who I am, grow, build my character, independence and strength. There is so much to see, touch, feel, hear and submerge myself in. It is difficult for me to sit back and watch others do this when I am capable to do this as well. Thank goodness I am married to a man that is well traveled and enjoys it just as much as I do. Some might think that leaving every few years could mean I have issues with commitment. I think it is simply because I have a sense of adventure and a huge imagination I want to give life to.

4. I once studied deaf education and sign language. I wanted to be a speech therapist to help deaf children learn how to speak. Then I had a boyfriend who was deaf and my eyes were opened to the struggle deaf people have with claiming that sign language should and needs to be their first language in order to communicate effectively and that as children, speech should be secondary. I felt confused about my role as a speech therapist because at that time sign language was not as highly respected as it is now, so I decided to explore other avenues. Now that the speech pathology industry recognizes the benefits to signing, I might revisit it in the future because it is still a passion of mine. I find myself signing words in my head all the time and sometimes my husband catches me signing in my lap.

5. A dear friend of mine surprised me on my 21st birthday with a trip to Napa for some wine tasting. She dared me to stand up on a wooden stage in front of all these people that were sitting around on blankets in the grass and recite a Shakespeare sonnet. I actually did it..and got quite passionate towards the end (very Anne of Green Gables~esque). The onlookers clapped. I blushed and bowed. This memory is still seared in my brain as the beginning of a lot of brave choices in my life.

Hmmm...this was quite fun.

Five lovelies I am tagging:

Superhero

Susannah

Jen Lemen

Misty Mawn

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