Random Fun Facts about Me
- I once saw Elvis Presley live in concert. My parents took me when I was in sixth grade. Elvis was in his “white outfit-big bell bottoms-wide belt buckle phase” by then, but he was still King of Rock n’ Roll.
- Every few years, my birthday lands on Thanksgiving Day.
- I don’t consider myself adventurous, but I’ve somehow managed to skydive from an airplane (with a tandem expert strapped to my back, of course); gone white water rafting without being thrown from the raft in a Class IV rapid; and ridden at 125 miles per hour in a race car on a motor sport track (no, I wasn’t the one behind the wheel).
- College football: now that’s my sport. I scream with the fans from my couch. I can’t help myself.
- My husband and I married six weeks after I graduated from high school. He’d been out of school a good bit longer. Two years later, I became a mother.
- It wasn’t until my late twenties that I started college. I received the Top Graduate award in my major. It was cool that my boys were there to see it.
- The public library I went to as a kid in my hometown of Columbus, Indiana (population 40,000+) was designed by I.M. Pei, the architect who later designed the glass pyramid at the Louvre. The American Institute of Architects ranked Columbus 6th in our country for architectural innovation and design—behind Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
- I don’t drink coffee. I don’t drink sodas. I don’t drink tea. But I’m addicted to chocolate.
- My children still tease me about the time we went to Disney World. I packed a daily itinerary written on color-coded index cards: pink for the Magic Kingdom attractions, blue for Epcot, and green for Pleasure Island as it was known then. Cards even had “planned spontaneity time.” (Okay, I confess to being a planner, but I’ve loosened up a lot since then. I think.)
- Like many authors, I have two complete novels “sitting in a drawer” that never got published. I didn’t give up.
- My favorite quote is from Oprah: “You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.”
- If I had to pick a favorite food, it would surely be potatoes. Twice baked potatoes, au gratin potatoes, hashed brown potatoes, and mashed. I do have Irish blood in me. And German, too.
- I had to wear corrective shoes for flat feet all through elementary school.
- I was forty-eight years old before I ever ran a mile. I’d always walked. In my fifties, I competed in a mini triathlon—a quarter-mile swim in a lake, a 10-mile bike ride, and a 5K run. I came in last. But I finished.
- I’m a closet Bachelor watcher. (Yes, and the Bachelorette show, too.)
- For years before my mom passed away, she lived in Indiana and we texted back and forth through every Bachelor episode. I miss everyday moments with her!
- On our 30th wedding anniversary, my husband and I stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
- My family never had pets when I was growing up. (My dad wasn’t a fan.) When I got married, my husband’s dog—a Doberman pinscher named Rajah—became my first pet.
- The first car I bought with my own money was a used 1969 Camaro, in blue. I was 16.
- I fell in love with history at age five. I vividly recall standing before a Ford Model T at a museum I’d visited with my grandparents. One of my greatest joys in life is taking my own grandchildren to historical places.